Chapter 21 – In New York City

Monday morning, Fury awoke with a rather fuzzy head, although he hadn't had any drinks or anything of the kind. He just hadn't had enough sleep or rest. The sex with Valentina had been great – even the bits he was ashamed of – but he had already gone to sleep late, then he had been awakened in the middle of the night – so to call it! - and then he had stayed awake even after his partner had fallen into peaceful sleep.

And there she was, still asleep and looking relaxed, in spite of the shackles that still held her wrists. After their bout of bondage sex, she had gone to sleep as he watched, and she was still sleeping now. It looked like peace, and he would not wake her up. He quietly padded away from the bed and made himself his usual morning coffee.

He had something to decide. Today was a working day, and he had to go to the office and take Valentina with him. After last night, his decision to reinstate her as a full agent was looking even more rash than it had seemed at the time. But an agent she was, and he had no intention to go back on that only one week-end after he he had done it. So it really looked as if he would have to take her to work and face all his subordinates, her colleagues.

Well, she had always been popular. Long-time agents and employees would probably be happy to see her again. He just hoped there were no further... problems.

…...

As a matter of fact, the welcome she got exceeded his hopes. Word had gone around that she, Gabe and Dum Dum had been found alive, and when she was spotted in the SHIELD building atrium, there was a rapturous rush of old colleagues eager to see her with their own eyes and shake her hand. Acceptance was not going to be a problem, that was clear. But that only made the thought of any further surprise more worrying. He would have to talk with Dr. von Cajetanis.

…...

Two days later, Sam and Buffy were taking a plane to Washington DC.

Neither of them liked air travel that much. They were both physical, and very energetic, and sitting still in narrow little seats for hours suited neither of them. And Sam, the trained pilot, found being at the mercy of someone else's piloting skills quite frustrating. They had plenty of time to talk, and of course Sam wanted to know about Buffy's imprisonment.

Sam wasn't sure when she began to feel that something was off. Perhaps it had been from the start of the flight; but it took a while for her to become aware. The talk was flowing, smooth, convincing, all in her sister's Valley Girl dialect. And suddenly she was sure that Buffy was lying to her. She had no idea what the lie was, and what about; but that she was lying, she was certain.

Holy Hannah! How was that possible? And why would Buffy lie to her? Nobody else, perhaps, could have been so sure; but this was her sister. She had watched her be born. She knew her better than she knew anyone else. And Buffy had never lied to Sam before. She had sometimes been told more than she wanted to know, but never less. It was a disquieting, unpleasant feeling. Why was her little sister lying to her? And then a dreadful thought – was it possible that there actually was something to the notion of Buffy having had a breakdown? Because, if she hadn't, why on Earth was she lying to her?

Buffy, on her part, just cringed at the thought of telling Sammy anything like the truth. It was not so much the fear of not being believed. Nor the memory of being misrepresented, lied about, and confined, for however brief a time – though that was an unhealed wound in her memory, that would go on hurting for a very long time. Nor even Merrick's insistence that the Slayer must work alone; because if her own soul had not somehow recognized, consented to, agreed with, that proposition, then Buffy would not have followed it – not with her mother, and certainly not with her sister.

It was something deeper: a sense that Sammy, and Joyce too, were just too good for that sort of thing. Yes, the Slayer had to work alone; but it was not just that she alone could protect people from the monsters, but that she kept them from having to meet the monsters. To see them in the face. She was revolted at the thought of Sammy becoming involved with vampires and demons, not out of fear for her – it was her firm belief that Sammy could deal with anything – but out of disgust. Yes, Sammy was a military woman, and she might have to fight and kill. But to Buffy, this was still on another level as compared with going down into those festering depths. She hoped not to have to do it again, or at least not soon, herself. She hoped that her coming move to peaceful Sunnydale would reduce the danger. But she knew she was somehow bound to meet the foul things again, and she just did not want her Sammy involved. She was too good for the filth and the cruelty and the decay and the smarmy brutality and bitchery of the vampire world.

The discussion shifted to Jennifer Hailey. Samantha was happy to talk about the girl's gifts (though she more than once went into technical detail that Buffy neither understood nor enjoyed), and was quite willing to discuss her attitude problems; especially since, if they were going to spend two or three weeks together, Buffy needed to be warned. But she had a problem about what she could say about her background; both because it would at any rate be a confidential matter, and because Buffy was only fifteen. Samantha was an adult, and she had had a different, more sheltered childhood, not in the Los Angeles school system, but in air bases around the country and in the house of General Carter. As a matter of fact, Buffy would, at least on the surface, have understood about Jen's prostituted youth, and treated it without much concern. As it was, she was under the impression that the girl came from a family of professional criminals.

…...

When they reached Washington DC, Buffy was surprised to get a hug from her father. This was the first of a number of signs that told her that something about Jacob Carter had changed; and while she was happy enough to meet this more open version of her father, she wondered what had happened to change him. However, Jacob had asked Samantha not to tell Buffy about his cancer. Not that it did much good. A couple of days earlier, finding herself temporarily alone in the house, Jennifer had struck up a conversation with Juana, General Carter's maid, a solid Mexican woman in her late fifties, with a chatty disposition, and Juana had spilled the beans. "He's been getting softer, the General. Don't mean that in a bad way, Miss Jen. But he used to be a real hard case. Proud of it, too. But I guess cancer makes people think." And a few days later, Jennifer told Buffy.

Most of their week in Alexandria was spent visiting the capital, with Samantha, who knew DC well enough from all her time with her father and various visits to the Pentagon and to Andrews Air Base, playing tourist guide. Buffy made snarky comments about many things, but nobody said much in the presence of the Lincoln Memorial. And Jennifer said that she wanted to go back to the Smithsonian when she had time, and visit it seriously. On Thursday, General Hammond and his family, old friends of Jacob and Samantha's, came to visit. Samantha talked mostly with General Hammond and his wife, who knew her from childhood and considered her a friend; Buffy flirted merrily with both the Hammond boys; but Jennifer, left to face Hammond's sophisticated and somewhat vain daughter, had an unfortunate relapse into "mini-bitch" behaviour and nearly ruined the day for everyone. When she realized what she was doing – after a pained look from Samantha – she made a horrified apology and practically fled the room. And Jacob, Samantha and even Buffy had to spend some time explaining Jennifer Hailey to the Hammonds. The Hammonds – even the daughter – were decent people, who soon understood why Jacob and Samantha were willing to overlook her behaviour. But on Friday afternoon, before the girls left for Baltimore, General Carter took Jennifer aside, sat her down, and talked to her as he had talked to Samantha years before, describing in detail the horrors of being a smack in the Zoo, and making it clear to her that if she went into her "I'm better than you are" routine there, she might expect lots and lots and lots of trouble. Jennifer, who knew that her mouth tended to get her in troubled, listened and did not answer back.

(At one point, Samantha had also felt the need to take Jennifer aside and explain something. "Jen, don't be surprised at the way Buffy eats. We've known for a while that she has a weird metabolism. She eats about twice as much as the rest of us."

"And she keeps ithat/i figure? I don't know whether to be jealous or scared.")

As a result, Jennifer spent several days being practically silent, just looking and listening and trying to see what was permissible and what was not. They spent the week-end in Baltimore, with Dora Costessinou, a college friend of Joyce's. Dora Costessinou was as unlike Buffy's mother as possible – short, sturdy, rather plump, with black hair and brown eyes and olive skin. But she had a cheerful demeanour and a warm personality that did remind both Buffy and Sam of her. She waited for them at the Greyhound stop, and took them home in amidst a riot of talk, slightly overwhelming, but not without charm. "And of course I was the ugly duckling in the whole class, and Debra and Joyce were the superstars. But they were tough-minded, both of them, and they both blew the jocks and the players off, and I admired that."

"What was Debra like?" asked Buffy.

"She was shorter than Joyce, and very very lively. You look just like Debra, Buffy. Sam is a lot more like Joyce. But in character, you are more like Joyce, and Sam like Debra. Debra was the serious sister, Joyce was the flirt. Mind you, neither of them were party queens – they worked hard and"

Jennifer Hailey just sat back and listened, trying not to draw attention to herself. She was afraid that her own notorious manners would surface and ruin the evening, and she really wanted to know more about Lieutenant Sam and her family. A dream was beginning to form, in which she might be a part of a real family rather than the fatherless spawn of prostitutes. At the moment, she did not want to think about her mother and sister at all.

It was just everyone's bad luck that Dora had her own ideas of good manners and correct behaviour, and she deliberately made an effort to include her silent third guest into the conversation. By asking about her family.

"I don't have much of a family, ma'am..." The words were spoken with such a nervous and unhappy expression that Mrs. Costessinou immediately realized that she had dropped a brick. She apologized, and changed the subject.

…...

Philadelphia was much better for Jen. -Jones, who had corresponded with Sam for years, was quite capable of understanding Jen's native brilliance, and ended up talking with her almost to the exclusion of Sam and Buffy, who talked with each other, mainly about cheerleading and sports. They had a great time going around the historic places, and, one pleasant Friday, going outside to picnic on the shore of Nockatrixon Lake, in the high hills west of the city.

After Philadelphia, they changed their plan, not going directly to Asbury Park. It was Jen who asked first, rather timidly: she had never seen the ocean, and, yes, when they got to New York and Boston they would get to see it, but couldn't they just take one day out to spend on a beach without all the other stuff to do in cities? She said that one thing she had said to herself a lot of times in her unhappy teens was, one day I'll see the ocean.

Buffy was enthusiastic about the idea. As a true South Cali girl, she loved beaches and could have spent her whole life there. Sam found beach holidays a bore, but faced with the united front of two small blondes, there was nothing much she could do. "All right," she said with a grin, "I'll look over my notes and get some work done, while the little kids play on the sand." She was surprised at the speed and precision of Buffy's thrown pillow.

…...

Still, it might have been better for Jen if she had not insisted on the day on the beach. Nobody had told her about sunburn.

…...

And so the day came. For many different reasons, this was going to be the climax of the holiday east. Buffy and Samantha were both aching to see Uncle Peter and Aunt Catherine, whom they had not met for years. Samantha, a Bruce Springsteen fan, wanted to see the places mentioned in the Boss' albums. And all of them, whether or not they admitted it, could not believe that they were going to see New York!