Buffy stalks down the stairs, seeking the sound of that infernal dripping that's been interrupting her meditations for the last couple of days. Each incessant drip reminding her of traversing the Grineer tunnels on Neptune, or Earth. Finally, she finds the accursed thing, and stares at it while she tries to remember if she's ever worked with plumbing before.
While she's doing that, Dawn comes down the stairs, and calls out, "Do you want to call a plumber?"
Buffy spins around at the sudden noise and brings her left arm up, before slipping over in a puddle of water, "Dawn! Don't do that, I almost killed you."
Dawn looks confused, "What did I do?"
"You snuck up on me. Now, what did you want?"
"Um, I wanted to know if you wanted to call a plumber?"
Buffy looks down at her hands, as they start to shake, "Um, what's a plumber?"
"They're people who know all about plumbing, and come in to fix problems that people are having with their plumbing?"
"Come in, you mean, into the house?"
Dawn nods, "Uh huh."
Buffy shakes her head violently, "No, no way. How many times have I almost killed Xander because I wasn't expecting him?"
Dawn smiles at Buffy, "Oh, only three times." Before adding, "This week." Under her breath.
"Exactly, I can't, I just can't. I need an amp." As Buffy starts to hyperventilate, Dawn hurries upstairs.
A couple of minutes later, Tara comes down, and carefully walks towards Buffy from the front, before crouching down and slowly pulling her into a hug, "It's ok, Willow's phoning Xander, and he'll call the plumber. You can take Dawn to the park and get some ice cream while the plumbers here."
Buffy shakes her head, "No, no, I can do this."
"Are you sure?"
Buffy nods, "I'll-I'll wait in the kitchen while Xander shows him the basement."
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Buffy watches the door to the basement pensively, Xander's been down there a long time, and there's been a lot of banging, "Hey, um, Willow?"
Willow looks up, "Yes Buffy?"
"Do you think Xander's ok? I mean, they've been down there a long time, and he's just a civilian."
"Oh, Buffy, he's fine. They're probably just taking a long time so they know what the problem is."
"Oh, ok."
Ten minutes later, Buffy stands up from the counter, "Right that's it, I'm going to check on them. And if that plumber has hurt a hair on Xander's head, I'll…"
Willow quickly takes hold of her left arm, "No, Buffy, they're fine. Listen, they're coming up the stairs now."
As Willow says that, Buffy can hear Xander's voice on the stairs to the basement. A moment later, he comes through the door, followed by a middle-aged man with a serious expression.
Xander smiles, "It's ok, the leaks fixed."
The plumber grunts and shakes his head, "It's only a temporary fix Miss. I've turned your stop cock down, so you might have pressure issues upstairs. But the pipes are rotting. You're going to need a full copper refit, otherwise, next time it will be more than just a drip."
Buffy nods, "How much coprun will I need to get that done?"
The plumber looks surprised, so Dawn pipes up, "She means how much will it cost."
The plumber nods, "It'll be $60 today, and the young man there has an estimate for the rest of the work."
Buffy's eyes brighten, "Oh, I've got that. Um, wait right there."
Buffy carefully walks out of the kitchen, without losing sight of the plumber, and then flees upstairs to get her purse. It then takes her a couple of minutes to double check that she's got three 20's, as she's still confusing English numbers with those of the Origin system. Then she's back, and places the money on the table, before moving towards Dawn, while keeping the table between her and the plumber.
"There you go, $60, I counted it."
The plumber picks up the money with a nod, "It's a good thing you didn't try to fix it yourself, as that drip was caused by the pressure in the rest of the system. You'd have probably burst the other pipes."
Once Xander's shown the plumber out, Buffy looks at the estimate with Xander, "2,000 credits, that's not too bad. We should get that done before it will cost more. I remember that mum left us some wealth so that we could survive until I… I… I did something."
Hesitantly, Willow says, "Um, Buffy, you can't actually afford to do that."
Buffy looks up sharply, "What do you mean we can't afford that?"
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Buffy looks up from the note pad that she's been using to keep track of all the bills that have accrued since she died. The picture they paint is a bleak one.
"So, Willow, this is everything right?"
Willow doesn't seem to notice Buffy's tone of voice, "Uh, huh, yeah, you see, what with all the hospital bills, and everything. The, erm, money that your mother left you, is kinda running out."
"Willow, this was Dawn's house while I was dead, don't you care about that? What if the money ran out and the taxmen came? What would Dawn have done then? How would she live without an arm or a leg."
"What?"
"Reclamation Willow. If you can't pay your debts, they come and take it out of your body. Hell, I met a sweet kid, and they reclaimed his whole body for debts his parents owned when they died. I can't remember his original name, but once I cleared his debt Eudico managed to scrounge up some parts, but they couldn't get any arms, so after that he was called Legz. You live here, why couldn't you have, I don't know, done some spells for people, or used your computer skills for different jobs?"
Willow looks taken aback, "But, that's barbaric. They're not allowed to do that here."
Buffy wipes her face with her hands, "You're right, this is a different world. I'll-I'll see how much money we have left, then maybe I'll see if there are any assassination bounties."
Anya looks up from the desk, where she's doing her own sums, "Oh, good plan."
Xander raises his hands, "No, no, bad idea. They'd arrest you and then you'd be put in jail and you'd never see Dawn again."
Buffy adds, "Espionage? Sabotage?"
When Xander shakes his head at each option, Buffy sags, before her eyes brighten again. Quickly, she gets up and grabs a world atlas from the shelf. Stabbing her finger down on a place in the middle east she says, "I know, we could take a shuttle here, and find a couple of Auron seams. That would solve the problem."
Anya shakes her head, "Great idea, but you can't afford the plane ticket."
Buffy slams her hand on the table, which makes an ominous cracking sound, "Void damn it."
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After Buffy's picked Dawn up from school, the two of them make their way to the bank. While she's waiting in line, Buffy mutters, "They're all civilians, they're all civilians. They're not going to attack you. Stay calm."
All of her muttering comes to naught, as, while the cashier is checking the account balance, there's a scream from behind them, and a tinkle of glass. Spinning around, the two of them see a grey skinned demon that looks a bit like a humanoid shark, with gill like markings on his cheeks. As she watches, it throws off two security guards, before tossing a customer through the glass of a cubical office. Buffy puts on a smile and confidently walks over to the demon.
"Hey, I know it's frustrating in here, but you just need to be patient."
As it turns towards her, it growls, so she puts on her best smile, "Hey, if you're a civilian, then deposits are that queue, withdrawals are that queue. Otherwise, Slaying is this queue."
When it sends her flying through a window with an uppercut, she smiles as she rolls to her feet and activates Guardian Shield, covering both herself and Dawn, "Oh, good, you're not a civilian. That means I get to kick your arse."
Launching back into the fight, she exchanges blows with the demon, while trying to manoeuvre into a position that she can safely shoot it. While her shield protects her, from being hit, she can't say the same about having bodies thrown at her. As she dodges out of the way of another customer, she hears Dawn shriek. Quickly looking over at her, she's relieved to see that the debris hit the shield and not Dawn. That moments inattention is enough for the demon to get in, under her guard, and lift her up around her hips.
As Buffy's trying to get some leverage to break the Demons hold, one of the security guards fires a gun at the demon, which seems to have no effect.
"Put the lady down."
Buffy goes flying as the Demon throws her at the security guard, taking them both to the floor. Picking up the gun, Buffy quickly evaluates it before throwing it to one side, "These things never help, try a shotgun or a rifle next time."
Scrambling to her feet, she races after the demon, who's heading for the entrance. As she does, she gets a face full of customer. Once she gets past the civilian, the Demon has disappeared, and she sighs, before making her way over to Dawn to ensure she's unharmed.
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After the Magic Box has closed, Tara gently takes a book on demons from Dawn while Anya and Xander are discussing something about their engagement, "No Dawn, leave the books alone."
Dawn pouts, "But I want to help."
"Dawn, you're not old enough."
"I am so old enough to help with research. Don't you think I'm mature enough?"
Tara shakes her head as she takes the books back to the table, "Dawn, I think you're very mature for your age, but you're still only 15."
Dawn puts her hands on her hips, "Yes, teen, as in teenager. You know, if you don't let me look at the pictures, I'm gonna learn everything I know about demons on the street."
Knowing a losing argument when she hears one, Tara just nods and hands Dawn a book, "Knock yourself out."
Dawn takes the book, "Thank you."
Opening the book to a random page, Dawn looks at the picture for a moment, "Um, that's a weird place for a horn…" As her brain catches up with her eyes, she closes the book, "That's not a horn."
Tara's about to say something when Xander interrupts, "Look, I still don't get it. I mean, what kind of a demon would rob a bank?"
While he's speaking, Dawn opens the book randomly again, only to stop and stare at a picture of the demon that attacked the bank.
Anya shakes her head, "The kind that wants money."
"What do you even call that?"
Dawn blinks as she processes Xander's question, lifting the book, she turns it around, "What, you mean this? It's got an apostrophe. I think it's M'Fashnik."
As the four of them are discussing the pronunciation of the name, Buffy and Willow walk in from the back door. When she notices them, Dawn holds up the book and smiles as she says, "This your guy?"
Buffy smiles, "You do research now? Great job."
Tara frowns, "Don't-Don't you think she's a little young?"
Buffy looks surprised, "Why? She's 15. She's older than I was the first time I had to kill someone." Then mumbles, "Both times."
Willow comes to Tara's defence, "That doesn't mean that Dawn should be doing this."
Buffy looks at Willow with a 'did you really just say that' expression, "Willow, do you remember who used to help Giles with the research in the Library?"
Willow sags, "Oh, yeah."
Buffy smiles brightly, "Great job Dawn, you should keep it up. As until I get you trained up, knowing what you can fight, and what you should run away from is vitally… important…" She trails off as the front door of the shop opens, and Giles walks in.
The two of them stare at each other for a long moment, Buffy at one of the few people she'd trust with her back in this life. Giles at someone he never believed he'd ever see again. At some unseen signal, they both start walking towards each other, until they meet half way in a hug.
As his walking, Giles softly says, "Dear God. You're alive. You're here." As Buffy hugs him tight, he shakily adds, "And you're still remarkably strong!"
Buffy looks up at Giles and blinks for a second, before letting Giles go, "Uh, sorry."
Giles looks down at the girl he spent so long mentoring, and even protecting on occasion, "Willow told me, but I didn't really let myself believe it."
Buffy chuckles, "Try it from this side, one minute I'm being stabbed in the back, the next I'm here."
Giles chuckles in response, "It's a…"
Buffy smiles, "A miracle?"
"Yes."
Buffy shrugs, "Something like that, yes."
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After a brief, and uninformative, conversation with Buffy in the training room. Giles returns to the shop front, only to be greeted by an enthusiastic Anya, "Giles, I'm so glad you're back."
Smiling down at the Ex-vengeance demon, he replies, "Yes, well, it's certainly unexpected."
"You can't have the shop back."
"Yes, I know."
"You signed papers."
"I did."
Satisfied for now, Anya lets Giles go, and he looks over at the table, "And do we have information on this new demon, that I suddenly find so desperately interesting?"
Dawn smiles proudly, "I found him, look."
Giles takes the proffered book, and glances at the page, "M'Fashnik."
Dawn looks at the others with a triumphant expression, "Like, M'Cookies."
Missing the context, Giles absently responds, "No, quite different actually."
Tara looks surprised, "You know it?"
Giles continues scanning the entry, "Hmm, by reputation. They come from a long line of mercenary demons. Causing murder and mayhem for the highest bidder. Course, now the question is, who's powerful enough to control one of those things?"
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It's nearly 11pm when Giles manages to get Willow alone by chance as he's going into the kitchen for some water.
Willow smiles as she sees Giles, "Hey Giles, did you have a good talk with Buffy?"
Giles resolutely makes his way to the sink, and in a level voice replies, "Yes, now she's back."
Willow cheerfully replies, "Yeah, isn't it awesome?"
"Quite." Giles glances back at Willow, "Tell me about the spell you performed."
Willow sounds a little surprised as she replies, "Oh. Ok, first of all it was so scary. I had things crawling under my skin, and then a snake came out of my mouth. But I managed to keep it together, even when a group of demons interrupted the spell. So, what do you think?"
Giles turns back to face her, "What do I think? What do I think? I think you're an irresponsible little girl that's playing with things she can't understand."
Offended, Willow responds defensively, "What, so I'm the bad guy now? I brought her back when nobody else could."
"Really? Did you ever think if you should have brought her back? Do you even know where she was? I was the one that did it, and you'd have done it too if you were there."
Controlling his anger, Giles bites back, "No, I wouldn't. I'd have stopped you if I was here. You're lucky to be alive now. Hell, we all are. You have no idea what you could have done, you could have opened a portal to hell, you could have annihilated the planet, you could have got yourself and your friends killed. And for what?"
Willow pushes to her feet, "But I didn't, I controlled it, I guided the magic, and I made it work."
Giles shakes his head, "No, you got lucky. When I left, I thought you were the responsible one. Instead, I find that you're still just a child, playing with things she doesn't understand and believing it makes her better than anyone else. Well, here's some news for you, there are other people out there that could do what you did. But you wouldn't want to meet them."
"That's because they're bad guys, and we stop bad guys. I'm not a bad guy."
"Oh, you poor deluded fool, thinking that it's that easy."
"Well, maybe it is that easy."
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Outside, the back door, Buffy stands, watching the moon with a wistful expression on her face. Her thoughts are running over the conversation she's just had with Giles about how her mother handled all of the stuff she's now responsible for with no special powers. Absently, she squashes a cigarette butt that lands on the decking by her foot.
"Hey Spike."
"Slayer. Are you ok?"
"Yeah, just looking at the moon."
"Did you hear all that?"
Buffy looks down at Spike, "I did, and it's nothing I hadn't guessed already."
"They must seem like children to you."
Buffy sighs and sits down on a step, "Innocents. Innocents, not children. We-We could never grow old, never mature. It wasn't so bad, as we didn't know any different."
"How did you handle it?"
"Same way as everyone else, one day at a time. Take your fun where you can, and try to leave the universe a better place than you found it."
Spike sits down beside her, "What about your friends?"
Buffy chuckles, "They all think I'm broken."
"Aren't you?"
"Not at all, I come from a different culture, a different society. There were colonies, did you know that. Dotted all over the place. From a few hundred people to tens of thousands. And they all existed in the gap between the rock and the hard place. If the Grineer won, they'd have been exterminated. If the Corpus won, they'd have been exploited until they were little more than slaves. We-We were the protectors of that gap." Buffy waves behind her, "They've never seen anything like that. They couldn't comprehend just how important that space could be, and how careful you have to be with the power you wield. One false step, one push too far, and the whole thing starts to fall down around you. Then you're left rushing from one crisis to another until things stabilise again. Except, during that time, you've lost something precious and irreplaceable. Maybe, if you're lucky, in time, something equally precious will take its place."
"You must have seen so much of that."
Buffy nods, "And caused more than my fair share too. It's why I'm pushing Dawn so hard. I don't want her to be helpless if I make a mistake, and she becomes a target again."
"You know they'd all crawl over glass to help you, don't you."
Buffy laughs, "That's the problem, they wouldn't stop to think about if they should crawl over the glass. Apart from Giles, I don't think any of them understand the price of power."
"Too bloody right."
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It's nearly 5am when Dawn softly walks down the stairs. As her foot lands on the squeaky step, Giles looks up from the sofa.
"Couldn't sleep?" he says softly.
Dawn looks over in surprise, "No, I just woke up and noticed the time."
Giles snorts in amusement, "So, what has you downstairs so early?"
"I figured I'd get a head start today, rather than letting Buffy dribble cold water over me to get me out of bed."
"And what's she doing getting you up so early?"
"She's training me. Wherever she was, it was really bad, and she wants me to be prepared."
Just as Giles is about to respond, someone violently rattles the door handle. Concerned, Giles looks at Dawn, "Um, that door is locked, isn't it?"
Dawn steps backwards cautiously, "Uh huh."
"Good, because I'd…" Giles is cut off as the demon from the bank breaks the door by kicking the door open.
As it does, it knocks Dawn over backwards, and the Demon backhands Giles across the face. Knocking him sprawling into the living room, where he lands on the floor and doesn't rise again. Stepping around he door, the Demon looks down at Dawn, "You're not the slayer, but you'll do to start with."
As it leans down, Dawn screams, only to peter off as a ball of light explodes above it, pulling it into the air by a vortex of energy. Coming down the stairs in her exercise clothes, Buffy smiles at Dawn.
"Great idea, terrible execution. Hiding behind something is a great way to catch an opponent off guard, however you had no idea what you were going to face." Buffy ducks under the struggling demon, and helps Dawn to her feet, "Now, come on, lets head out to the street where there's plenty of space for a proper fight, and I'll show you how some of those motions in Vazarin work in reality."
Struggling above her, just out of reach, the Demon growls, "I'm going to kill you."
Buffy ignores him as she ducks down underneath his reach, and out into the street, tugging Dawn with her. Leading Dawn across the street, Buffy returns to the centre of the road just as the vortex ends, and the demon lands heavily on the floor. What follows is an increasingly frantic hand to hand fight, as the demons strength and toughness is more than a match for anything that Buffy can deal out barehanded. The fight is interspersed by periods of instruction while the demon is caught in a void snare. Something that seems to just make the demon even more irate.
Eventually, the demon comes to the conclusion that he should be attacking Dawn rather than Buffy. At that point, the fight finishes with a beam of crackling white light that takes nearly half a second to burn through the demon and appear out the other side. As the light of Buffy's void beam dies away, Dawn finds herself shivering from more than just the cold. Buffy walks over to Dawn and pauses, momentarily, as Dawn flinches. Shaking her head minutely, she carries on, and pulls Dawn into a hug.
"I'm sorry I put you through that Dawn. But you needed to see just why I'm training you, and how what you're learning is used in an actual fight."
Dawn looks up at her, tears in her eyes, "But, you were toying with it."
Buffy tucks a strand of hair behind Dawns ear before kissing her on the forehead, "I know honey, that's because I've had so much practice. If I'd had my training and experience before, it would have been just the same then. It was also cruel of me to draw out the fight that much, and I'd normally just end it immediately, and move on to the next threat, or the objective. But, I hope you also saw how this school wouldn't have allowed me to actually beat this demon without a weapon. Nothing I was doing was having any effect on it. It also wouldn't help you to defeat something like that. What it will do is help you to survive, either to run away, or until help arrives. Do you understand?" Dawn nods mutely, "Come on, let's get you inside and you can show me how to make hot chocolate again. Then we can do some meditation after you've finished your hot chocolate."
Dawn buries her head in Buffy's chest, "I'd like that."
As Buffy leads dawn back to the house, she pauses at the beginning of the footpath as the whole household seems to have crowded onto the porch, and Spike returned at some point in the fight.
Carefully dabbing his head with a hanky, Giles asks, "Buffy, what was that?"
Buffy looks back at the Demon that's slowly evaporating into hell stuff, "What? That? That was me Demonstrating how the Vazarin school is used in real combat."
Willow looks affronted, "How could you, that was cruel."
Buffy looks askance at Willow, "What, like pulling me back to this life was cruel?"
Willow opens her mouth to reply, but Spike speaks up first, "No, I think he meant that attack at the end."
Giles nods, "Quite right, that was no magic that I've ever seen."
Buffy laughs, "That wasn't magic, that was raw, unfocused, void energy. Now, I'm taking Dawn inside to make hot chocolate, we'll be in the kitchen if you need us."
Putting action to words, Buffy pulls Dawn into the void, and jumps through the wall of the house to the kitchen.
On the porch, Giles removes his glasses and starts cleaning them, "Well, that was mildly unexpected."
Spike laughs as he heads back into the house.
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The next day, after Dawn's gone to school, Buffy is sat looking at the money that's left in her bank account compared to their running expenses. Giles is sat on the sofa chatting to her, when the phone goes.
Buffy looks around the room curiously, "What's that noise?"
Giles sighs, "It's the telephone Buffy."
"Oh, right, I knew that. Silly me. I'll be right back."
A minute later Buffy comes back listening to the handset, "Hey, Giles."
Giles looks up, "Yes Buffy?"
"Do you know anyone called Angel? As he says he knows me."
Giles sighs, "He's a vampire, and he used to be your lover."
"Oh, right. Hi, Angel. Sorry, my memories a bit patchy… No, not at all. It's more like trying to remember that restaurant that your parents took you to when you were six… No, I appreciate that your parents didn't take you to restaurants when you were six, but I think mine did… Yes I know what LA is, it's a nearby city… No, I'm not going to just come and see you… You do remember that Sunnydale is on a hellmouth don't you?... Yes, and that's also why I'm not going to come and meet you half way… No, this isn't a negotiation, if I start disappearing, who knows what will start popping up and trying to take over the world, or this corner of it… Fine, Mindy's at 11 on Saturday."
An uncomfortable Giles looks at Buffy as she takes three tries to hang up, "Buffy."
"Sorry about that Giles, Angel wants to meet up to make sure I'm ok."
"Maybe we should talk about where you were, before you came back."
Buffy wave airily, "Oh, that's simple, I was there for a very long time, and the last thing I remember before being pulled back here, was being stabbed through the back, and floating through a void portal. It might have killed me. Might not have done too. Probably both if I'm honest. But I ended up in a coffin before I could find out."
"Yes, well, I'd like to know if it was a hell dimension so that we can look out for demons following you."
Buffy laughs, "You don't need to worry about that. It wasn't hell, wasn't heaven either. It was just, elsewhere."
After she's put the phone back, Buffy returns to continue trying to work out her sums.