The Two
by acs
Getting Comfortable
[reviews]
TITLE: The Two (3/24)
AUTHOR: -Andy- (see2go4me@yahoo.com)
RATING: R (For future violence and Adult situations) - (though Parts 1 thru 12 just barely make it to a PG-13)
DISCLAIMER: This is a derivative work. All characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Fox Television, and others. I don't own any of this, just the words and plot.
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
[1] Feedback is always welcome, preferably the kind that improves my writing.
[2] [Revised:11-Dec-2005]
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Chapter III: "Getting Comfortable"
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It had been a productive but long and lonely day for the displaced slayer. Thanks to Xander, she'd at least gotten a good start at blending into the scenery. He'd recently begun insisting they all carry small amounts of gold on trips out of the country, unobtrusively concealed somewhere in their clothing. She'd been able to exchange a portion of hers, several ounces of gold thread hidden in the linings of her boots and jacket, for local currency at a jeweler. This had enabled her to get some very basic transportation, an old motorcycle that brought back memories of her life before Sunnydale. While riding it down to LA had done little to dispell her feelings of being disconnected from reality, it had given her plenty of time to think.
Once there she'd turned over a large portion of her remaining gold thread to a documents specialist in exchange for the several forms of local identification she needed so she wouldn't attract unnecessary attention - a driver's license, passport, and social security number that would fool almost anyone, including the local authorities. She'd kept her own name for simplicity. She didn't think trying to remember a fake name would make things easier.
Something else she would have to thank Willow for if she ever made it home. If not for her insistence that she sit in on the urban survival classes they'd been holding for the new slayers, she wouldn't have known who to approach and how to talk with them in order to get this taken care of so quickly.
On the return trip to Sunnydale, Buffy reviewed her plans for the next few days. Once she bought clothes and the other necessities of modern life to replace the ones her still unknown mode of multi-dimensional travel had left her without, Buffy hoped she would have enough left over to pay for a month's rent on a small apartment, hopefully not too dingy, somewhere in Sunnydale and the basics to make it livable. A sleeping bag, some bean-bags and large pillows would have to do for furniture until she could get a job. Other things, like a television and decorations, could wait. There was no point in spending money on anything she didn't really need.
So tomorrow she would hopefully find an apartment that fit in her meager budget. A phone, post office box, and anything else she needed would follow, and then she could go job hunting. Her remaining gold wouldn't last the month if she didn't find something quickly. For now she needed a few hours sleep before she could go looking for the slayer and a hotel room would have to do.
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While the hotel she'd found wasn't in the best part of town, it was still better than the small ratty motel rooms she remembered Faith living in when she'd first come to Sunnydale. But she wasn't Faith. Even if she wasn't in this town or even universe for more than a couple months, she couldn't live that way. Besides being cheaper, for a few hours each day she needed to feel safe, to have a sense of security while she slept, something a motel room couldn't give her.
Exhausted, and unable to resist the pull of the bed in the center of the room, Buffy just barely managed to remove her clothes before lying down and quickly falling asleep.
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Since becoming a slayer Dawn had been finding it extremely hard to get up in the morning. She'd never really been a morning person but now that her patrolling schedule had her out late more often than not, she was rarely able to get more than four hours of sleep a night during the week. She was lucky to get up most days before her sister left for work. Her Guide said she would get used to it and to not worry about it but she had learned to take such advice with a grain of salt.
Even after months of this schedule, she definitely hadn't adapted to the schedule yet and she was beginning to have doubts that it would ever happen as her Guide claimed. After all, it wasn't her Guide who was out so late every night keeping the forces of evil at bay. Most weeks she was on the edge of total exhaustion by Wednesday, barely making it through all of her classes the rest of the week without falling asleep.
The weekends were when she attempted to catch up on both her sleep and her schoolwork. And spending some time with her few friends was one of the few things that made her days bearable. But her constant exhaustion from the odd hours had strained her friendships almost to the breaking point and every weekend she spent a lot of time trying to repair the weekday damage she'd inflicted on her relationships with inattention.
Her sister was oddly sympathetic. Dealing with teenagers on a daily basis as a high school guidance counselor she'd apparently noticed when Dawn had started having problems getting up in the morning and had taken the time to discuss it with her instead of getting upset. Her sister had explained it away as just a normal part of growing up. As long as Dawn made it to school in time for her first class of the day her sister left her alone in the mornings. On the days she missed her mother more than normal, on birthdays and family holidays, she liked to imagine that she would have reacted the same way as her sister.
Even though Dawn, in true teenager fashion, found it embarrassing for her sister to be on a first name basis with all of her teachers this was one of those times when she was very grateful for the support her sister gave her. She suffered only occasionally twinges of guilt from not being able to be completely truthful with her about the reasons behind her problems getting up in the morning.
Dawn's Guide with the local coven, Ms. Rosenberg, was the computer teacher at her high school and one of her sister's oldest school friends. Dawn normally met with her for a few minutes in the afternoon after school. The local coven house was their preferred location to discuss Dawn's previous evenings patrol of the local cemeteries and known demon hangouts. She would then spend an hour or two training before heading home for a late dinner with her sister. Fortunately, her sister thought she was taking a self defense class that her friend was teaching and encouraged Dawn's participation as long as her grades didn't suffer.
But after last night's events, today was anything but normal and she felt a need to see her Guide before the end of the day.
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Dawn caught up with Ms. Rosenberg just outside her classroom, right before 3rd period. "I need to talk with you!" she breathlessly exclaimed. "Something strange happened last night that I think you need to know about."
Motioning her into the deserted room, Ms. Rosenberg checked her schedule for the day. "I'm not free until lunch. Can it wait another hour?"
"I don't know. I guess it can. But the sooner we can talk the better." an anxious Dawn answered.
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Third period seemed to take even longer than the normal forever. Dawn managed to escape from her friends at lunch, a not infrequent occurrence. She often wondered how long they would remain her friends. Maintaining friendships was hard to do when she couldn't really include them in the strange twists and turns her life had taken since she became a slayer. She could already sense them drifting away but, even with all of the effort she went to to spend time with them on weekends, she felt powerless to stop it.
Ms. Rosenberg's office was in the back of her classroom, in an enclosed space she'd insisted be soundproofed against the noise of twenty computers and assorted other bits of noisy, chattering equipment. It gave them a private space to discuss things over lunch, their conversation also masked by the noisy classroom.
"So what happened?" the concerned Ms. Rosenberg asked. "Did your patrol last night go as planned?"
"The patrol went fine. Not a big deal. Only the one vampire you'd warned me about. I was able to get him before he could get all the way out of his grave. The strangeness didn't start until I got home." She paused briefly to take a bite of tuna sandwich and gather her thoughts.
"Okay, so... how did the strangeness start?" Ms. Rosenberg encouraged her.
"There was a strange woman sitting on the back porch waiting for me. From a distance she looked kind of like my sister but when I got closer she looked much too old to be her. But it still could have almost been her. Like a skinnier version of Beth with an extra dose of that end-of-the-world look she had for months after Mom died." Dawn thought for a moment. "Oh, and she was dressed all in black and dark green and I think most of her clothes were leather. Very un-Beth-like."
"Well... actually... Beth does leather quite well. Very butch." Ms. Rosenberg murmured under her breath with a slight grin before taking a vague swipe at her usual lunch salad with her fork.
"Okay, that little fact of my sister's personal life I really did not need to know. Especially from one of her former girlfriends." Dawn said with a grimace.
"Sorry... pretend I didn't say that. Just recalling some fond memories." she said with a small grin still visible on her face.
"Whatever..." Dawn grumbled. "She is my sister, and I love her but I just can't see the two of you as more than friends. Gives me the wiggins."
"Yes, you've told me. More than once. And we found out years ago that we do better as friends so there won't be a repeat." She shook her head at some unvoiced thought. "Did this woman say what she wanted?"
"No... she insulted my clothes and asked about something or someone called a watcher. Does that sound familiar to you?" Dawn asked curiously.
"No, I'll have to look it up tonight in the Coven library." she said and Dawn recognized that gleam in her eyes that researching something new could cause. "Did anything else unusual happen?"
"Oh, Yeah." Dawn added guiltily. "Five vampires showed up at the house looking for 'the slayer' while we were talking and when they wouldn't go away she killed them! I've never seen anyone move so fast! Not even the other past slayers you have taped could move that quickly. It was almost too fast to follow."
"Five! Are you sure?" Ms. Rosenberg asked in surprise.
"Well, actually, I got one of them. But that was because she let me have him. I think she was trying to figure how well I can fight. I don't think she was too impressed." Dawn grumbled.
"What about the way she fought? You are usually fairly good at analyzing other people's fighting styles."
"Well, besides moving fast, she didn't seem to have a single recognizable fighting style. It was almost like she made it up as she went along. There were parts of moves that seemed kind of familiar. I know I've seen them before but I don't remember where." She thought for a moment. "And not used together like that."
"Do you think she is a danger to you, to the coven, or to future slayers? Should we consider her a threat?" she wondered. "Should we deal with her like any evil that comes to town or leave her alone?" Ms. Rosenberg wondered aloud.
"No. I don't think she's evil or dangerous to us. But I think she's fatal to vampires. Those vampires last night would have killed me if she hadn't been there." Dawn shuddered. "There is no way I could have handled that many vampires at one time but she cut through them like Justin Timberlake through a crowd of groupies. Awe inspiring but I didn't want to get too close."
"What else? That can't be everything..."
"There was definitely something different about her. I felt something strange when I was near her. A sort of tingling on the back of my neck. And that aura trick you showed me a couple weeks ago didn't work at all on her. All I got was an impression of a vast emptiness."
"Hmmm... every living creature has an aura of some sort. It must take an awful lot of power and skill to hide it. It's possible it was just too faint for someone with your limited training to detect."
"Okay. Is there any chance you could find someone else to check her out? If I meet her again I want to know if I should fight or run away," Dawn told her before adding in jest, "or welcome her to the family."
"I'll see what I can do. If you see her tonight while patrolling give her my phone number and let her know I want to see her." Ms. Rosenberg said. "And try to find out whatever you can when you do talk with her. The more we know the better chance we have if we need to defend ourselves against her. Tonight at the house you can show me what you remember seeing her do last night. Knowing how she was able to dust so many vampires so quickly could be useful if they are starting to flood the area."
And with a murmured "Okay" and a last bite of sandwich, Dawn headed off to her next class.
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The rest of her day went by quickly. As soon as the bell had rung to signal the end of another school day, Dawn headed towards the Sunnydale Coven House, a large, rambling, Victorian mansion on the outskirts of town. It was set back from the road and surrounded by a large, overgrown looking yard and a wrought iron fence. Wandering into the large kitchen on the ground floor, Dawn grabbed a bottle of water before heading back to the extensive occult and demonology library, also on the same floor, next to the private training room she used almost daily. With her enhanced slayer senses she could hear voices rising and falling in several meetings going on in the meeting rooms set up on the first floor.
As the local slayer's Guide, Ms. Rosenberg lived in one of several studio apartments on the second floor. The private entrance at the back of the house set it apart from the other two that were kept for visitors and the occasional guest of the coven, allowing for the illusion of privacy for Dawn and her Guide.
Dawn was glad the coven believed in participating in the community and had practiced what they preached since coming to Sunnydale over twenty years previously. They did not attempt to hide who they were and served as a focal point for an active wiccan community in the area surrounding Sunnydale. Self defense classes were offered on a regular basis in the training room. It allowed her to spend time there without anyone taking too much notice.
Seminars useful to ordinary people and the magically inclined alike were also given, often on subjects Dawn was given the freedom and encouragement of her Guide to attend. Meeting rooms were also made available to community groups on occasion. But the true purpose of the Coven's presence was known only to a select few besides Dawn, the original coven members who had come to Sunnydale in search of the future slayer, and the Slayer's Guide, who was always chosen from the local community.
After reviewing with her Guide what she remembered of the mystery woman's moves as she fought the vampires the previous night, and then spending an hour going through her normal training routine, Dawn went home to her sister, who insisted that Dawn eat dinner at home most days no matter how busy she might be. They spent the rest of the evening together before Dawn went to her room to do her homework and then go to bed for a few hours sleep before patrolling. It was a fairly typical ending to her day.
As soon as her sister had gone to bed and clearly fallen asleep, Dawn got up, threw on her favorite slaying outfit, grabbed a couple stakes, and snuck out into the night.
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Continued in "Conversations with Slayers"
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