The Prophet
by Rainne
Part Five
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Then Darla's voice became Mercedes', begging me to wake up, and Darla's hands on my shoulders became Mercedes', shaking me hard in an effort to rouse me. I blinked at her for a few seconds before her fine little features came into focus, trying to remember where I was. Then I realized it was just room 112 at the Sunnydale HoJo, and I sighed. "Sorry, sweetie. Did I wake you?" I asked as she tumbled into the double bed beside me.
She shook her head. "Not really." I glanced over her at her own bed and saw that it was strewn with schoolbooks. "I couldn't really sleep," she explained, "so I figured I'd catch up a little bit. They're ahead of me on the science and the math by about two weeks." She snuggled closer to me. "What were you dreaming about?"
"When they made me a vampire," I told her, thinking it safe to tell her that part of it.
"Oh," she replied and then was silent for a moment. "Did it hurt?" she eventually asked, reaching up to turn off the light.
"Nah, not really," I said after some consideration. "It wasn't, you know, pleasant or anything, but after the actual bite itself, you don't really feel anything. Mostly you just get weaker and... well, I do remember being very cold."
"Your skin is cold," she murmured, laying a hand on my arm.
"I know," I told her. "Does it bother you?"
She shook her head. "Not really. It's just different. Tell me about it. When they made you. What happened?"
And I told it to her. Not really a suitable bedtime story for a seventh-grader, but I told her anyway. If she was going to be my sister, she had a right to know. I began with leaving Willow's house, and then told her how Darla had come out of Mrs. Bentz's azaleas at me, grabbing me before I really realized what she was doing and pulling me behind the bushes, where another vamp held me down while she drained me.
I explained the Turning process to her, how the vampire drains you nearly dry, then replenishes you with his or her own blood. I told her that in most people, with the introduction of the demon into their body, that the soul is released and what is left is a demonically possessed shell, personality intact but the person themselves ordinarily gone.
"But not you, huh?" she remarked. "I wonder why."
"Yeah. Me, too."
She yawned. "You like Willow."
"Well, yeah, she was my best friend, and - "
"No," she interrupted me. "I mean you like her."
"Oh." I paused. Honesty, eh? "Well, yeah," I finally admitted. "Yeah. I do like her."
She nodded. "Good. I do, too. She doesn't care that you're a vampire, and I don't either. So go for it."
I grinned. "Perhaps I will, at that," I told her, but she didn't hear me. She was asleep.
---*---
Giles and Buffy were sitting at the island in the Summers kitchen, seriously discussing their new vampire in town. "I just don't know how stable she is," Buffy was commenting.
"I'd say she's not very stable," Giles remarked. "She had me positively terrified during her little... ah... dissertation this afternoon."
"Yeah," Buffy agreed. "I definitely get the feeling that she's not playing with a full deck. The big question is, how short, exactly, is she? One or two cards and she could be okay. If she's missing the entire suit of clubs, though, it could be cause for alarm."
"Yes," Giles said. "Certainly the fact that she has a soul and won't be gadding about indiscriminately draining innocents is a help, as we won't have to watch her too closely. But what exactly are her criteria?"
"Yeah, I was wondering that, too," Buffy remarked. "I mean, sure, the guy she talked about today had it coming and a lot more besides. But how does she know these guys really do these things? I can't imagine he was bragging about it all around and she just happened to overhear. So what makes a bad guy, in the Dakota Dictionary?"
"The other concern I have about her is Willow."
"Yeah. Me too. She's got this girl's back, no matter what."
Giles nodded. "Xander's theory of friendship certainly makes sense. After all, look at how he responded when his friend Jesse was made a vampire. He gave Jesse many opportunities to prove that he hadn't become evil. I am simply concerned as to how big of a blind spot Willow may have. Will she recognize the fact if Dakota should go over the edge? Or will she staunchly defend her friend to the death?"
Buffy grimaced. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that, shall we?"
---*---
Willow, upstairs, was trying to fall asleep and didn't know that Giles and Buffy were a floor below her, concerned with her loyalty. She had been through a long evening after Dakota's story, wondering just how much she was going to be able to relate to her friend with this new facet to her personality. Certainly she'd seemed the same old Dakota when they had been talking that afternoon, but this new vampire part of Dakota was someone Willow didn't know.
Willow thought back to the last time she'd seen her friend — no, say it Willow, lover — before Dakota had disappeared. And how badly she'd hurt when Dakota went missing and nobody could find her anywhere. How heartbroken she'd been that she didn't even get a phone call to tell her, "Hey, Will, it's been fun but I've gotta split now." It had been hard to heal.
Xander had been awesome, and Willow thought perhaps his caring, considerate reactions to her during that time had possibly been what drew her to fall in love with him when she had. But she knew now, through much trial and error, that she could never be completely happy with a guy. Xander, Oz, guys just weren't for her. And she'd just been about to prove it with the young girl from her Wicca group, Tara, when suddenly the first love of her life returned. Fortunately, she hadn't actually gone anywhere with the Tara angle yet, so if she decided not to, there wouldn't be any painful removal of herself from that relationship. She could simply stay on a friendship level with the other Wicca and nobody would be the wiser.
She sighed. And then there was Buffy. There were too many choices in life. And she fell asleep to dream of making love to Dakota for the first time.