A/N I found a statement credited to Joss where he says he wanted to tell the entire Buffy story from the point of view of the kids, with no parents. It's why Xander's parents were written as abusive and Willow's as absent, it made it so easy for the kids to be out late at night with no one questioning them. But that doesn't actually work when your main character is a 16 year old. She needed a mother, she needed to be seen as part of a family. But there was an inconsistency with Joyce's character, one episode she was a real mother, setting boundaries, making rules and occasionally overreacting. And being hated by fans who felt she was too hard on Buffy. Problem with that is she was being kept in the dark and had very little idea what Buffy was going through. The next episode though, it's like she's not a mother at all, but a follower of The Slayer, just there to give Buffy an occasional thumbs up. The longer the show went on, the more pushed out Joyce was in favor of a father/daughter type relationship with Giles. Only Giles was not a 'good' father figure, Giles was the 'cool' uncle who let you smoke weed and get drunk in his basement and have sex with whoever and said, 'it's all good', when good sense should tell you it's not good. Even after Joyce was finally let in on the secret life of Buffy, she was still largely kept in the dark about Buffy's life as the Slayer. I wanted to see more of the Joyce who seemed like a real mother, reaming Giles out for having a secret relationship with a 16 year old, regretting her poor split second reaction to having it all dumped on her the way it was. And what real mother would put up with Angel being Buffy's boyfriend? That really was unrealistically handled. Unless Magic and/or thrall was used on her too. 😲!

Which is leading up to Joyce is going to be taking a much more involved role in all of the kids lives from now on, but especially Buffy's in what I hope comes across as a realistic way.

######

"What did you need to talk with me about, Xander?" Ms. Calendar asked after class the next day.

"What I saw with the Eye when I scanned Dawn."

Jenny frowned. "If it was something bad you would have said something that night, so I'm guessing it's not bad."

"Well, the Eye basically told me it wasn't hurting Dawn or anyone else, but what I saw was definitely unusual. There's a weird, green energy in her that the Eye couldn't identify. It's not all knowing and it does have limitations, but its primary purpose is to reveal truth and the truth says whatever it is, it's not hurting anyone."

"But it might not stay that way." Jenny said worriedly.

"Yeah, which is why I intend to monitor her. I hope to have a heads up if that changes. In the meantime I'm studying the books in the Sanctum's Library to see if there's anything similar listed in there."

"I can help with that, I want to study your Library anyway, it will help with teaching you. There's only so far I can take you with what I know and those books can help us both learn."

"Just don't try to take any of the books out of the Sanctum, I really have no idea what might happen to them away from it. They could disappear and if they don't, there's a chance they could end up in the wrong hands. Giles really should move his own collection out of the High School Library, just because the kids here think the Library is creepy, doesn't mean they won't need to check out any books at some point and who knows how they'll react to Giles' demon and Magic books."

"He has those in the Library?! Something else for me to yell at him about. It's entirely possible it was a sensitivity to the energies of the Hellmouth that kept people out and with it drained, they'll be more willing to go in." Jenny shook her head, dismayed, where was the intelligent guy she thought she was getting involved with?

"Anyway, that was all I needed to talk to you about." Xander did not want to get in the middle of whatever problem Ms. Calendar was having with Giles. He was fairly sure she was unhappy with his choices, but he also knew they were seeing each other and that, he was smart enough to know, complicated things. "I'll see you later." He headed out to find Cordelia and passed Harmony and Johnathan in the hall, kissing. He blinked and kept going, not sure if he should be cheering 'Way to go, Jonno!' that Johnathan had a girlfriend or wondering what he saw in the mean girl. Or maybe Harmony, like Cordelia, wore a mask too and was nicer underneath it. For Jonno's sake, he hoped so.

Buffy arrived home after classes finished for the day to find her mother sitting at the table, waiting for her.

"Mom? Something wrong?"

"No, honey, nothing's wrong. I just think it's time we talked." Joyce got up and headed for the kitchen, Buffy following her and saw ingredients for hot chocolate set out.

"Talk about what?"

"About specifics about the battles you've been fighting in this war. If I'm going to help you, support you, I need to understand what you've been though, so I can figure out how best to help you."

"Oh." Buffy took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. "Where do I start?"

"With the man who told you you'd been Chosen."