The Two
by acs
Who Are You?
[reviews]
TITLE: The Two (10/24)
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 welcome/desired. Especially the kind that helps me write better.
[2] [Revised: 11-Dec-2005][Minor revision: 25-Jan-2005 (Not sure why Ikoly keeps putting this fic on the latest page...)]
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Chapter X: "Who Are You?"
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[Day 24 - Wednesday]
Willow shielded her eyes against the bright April sun pouring into her bedroom. She felt like she hadn't slept at all. She glared blearily over at the alarm clock on her night-stand. It was insisting with a loud blaring noise that she needed to get up, now! Leaning over, she fumbled for the alarm's off switch before falling back against her pillow.
She was unable to remember when she'd fallen asleep, her thoughts occupied with the maddening puzzle that was Buffy Summers. She'd tossed and turned for hours, her head still buzzing from the evening's events. The trip to LA hadn't provided her with the insight into Buffy's character that she had been looking for. Instead, it had only added to her confused impression of the other woman.
Dwelling on the continuing mystery to the exclusion of all else, even her normal thoughts about Buffy, she stumbled out of her bedroom. Her surroundings barely registered as she removed her pajamas and climbed half awake into the shower. The stinging spray of hot water on her face and shoulders and the scent of her favorite shampoo did little to clear the fog from her mind. Not even switching to freezing cold water and ducking her head under the cold spray for a few, brief, agonizing seconds just before getting out of the shower seemed to help.
Pondering the previous evening's activities, Willow couldn't quite get a grip on what she'd seen. During the two fights she'd witnessed, Buffy had seemed to be two different people. While she'd been almost frighteningly efficient in both fights, during the first she'd been eerily calm, letting the demons set the tone for the encounter. Observing her, Willow had thought that it was almost as if she'd sensed that it was a deadly test of her fighting skills and not just a fight to the death. There had been a recognizable method to everything she did. If that had been the extent of their trip Willow would have gladly welcomed her as a sparing partner for her slayer.
But a completely different side of Buffy's personality had emerged when she'd fought the vampires later in the cemetery. As she dried herself off in her usual methodical fashion, Willow kept coming back to the image in her head of Buffy as someone who seemed to take some delight in the violently physical encounters. She couldn't ignore what she'd seen. There had been an extra viciousness present in the battle with the vampires that hadn't been there during the earlier fight with the demons. She hadn't really been fighting them. She'd dismantled them and torn them apart. It seemed almost as if they'd seriously offended her merely by existing.
In more ways than one, that last fight had left Willow feeling like she was watching someone hunting. For the brief moments that the vampire encounter had lasted it had been as if Buffy were playing with them. Like a large wild cat playing with a mouse. She had the distinct impression that if she hadn't been there the fight would have lasted a lot longer. And that attitude was not something she really wanted Dawn to emulate. It went against everything the Covens emphasized in Slayer and Guide training.
But earlier that evening at the karaoke bar, between the different battles, she'd been the witty, knowledgeable person Willow had come to know over the past few weeks. That Buffy was someone she could definitely see herself spending time with. Someone whose presence she really enjoyed. And someone she could trust with her slayer. She didn't know where to begin in reconciling these different images into one she could understand.
Looking in her mirror after she'd finished dressing, she frowned, realizing that she'd subconsciously dressed in what her friends called her people armor, clothes that let her blend in with the crowd and hide her real feelings. Clothes her mother would have dressed her in when she was a lot younger. She groaned but after checking her watch, decided she didn't have the time to find something else to change into, instead heading into her kitchen.
Sitting at her kitchen table, deep in thought as she idly sipped her coffee, she really wasn't sure what to do about the situation. She'd carefully watched Buffy over the past few weeks as she made use of the Coven's facilities. She'd also seen how Buffy interacted with the people around her. She seemed to be very careful about what she said or did. Almost as if she were trying to avoid being noticed. And from that and the previous night Willow wasn't sure if she really knew enough about either Buffy's training or character to make the right decision.
Willow sighed and rubbed the back of her neck in frustration. She was going to have to look much deeper before making a decision about Buffy's participation in Dawn's training. She needed to know more about her past, where she'd been, and who the world thought she was before she could decide how to proceed. That was much more important than her personal life. Her interest in getting to know Buffy on a more personal level would have to wait for now. Once her slayer was taken care of, then she could decide if she even wanted to be more than friends with the very complex person she was discovering.
As she washed her cup and straightened her kitchen before heading to school, Willow decided to start her investigation with the things she'd learned the previous night. There were a number of things she couldn't ask Buffy directly without arousing her suspicions and would have to check into herself. Beginning with the demon at the karaoke bar. It had seemed to know both of them. Willow was certain she'd never met him before and from Buffy's reaction she'd obviously never met him before either.
But the information she'd gleaned from the friendly green demon's comments seemed a good place to start. And from there... everyone left some sort of trail when they interacted with the world. A trail she could follow. Unfortunately, Wednesday was her busiest class day so she wouldn't be able to pursue her expanded investigation into Buffy Summers until her evening session with Dawn was finished.
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Following a quick dinner after sending a protesting Dawn home early, Willow put the first part of her plan into action. Fortunately, searching for information to explain what the demon in the LA club had called Buffy Summers wasn't the onerous task it could have been. A few years ago, as part of a college project she'd managed to create a computerized index of all of the Coven's books, turning a seemingly impossible task into the merely tedious.
After spending several hours on the task, she came to the conclusion that there was nothing in the Coven's library or in her own personal collection to explain the title 'Chosen' the way the demon had used it. While it did appear in a number of the older texts, none of the references seemed to fit Buffy or the current situation. She would have had to be a slayer for them to apply and that was impossible. Not only was she very different from any slayer she'd ever met or heard about but the Coven kept good track of all the slayers, even the ones who worked independently, and she wasn't one of them.
She did find it interesting that Buffy hadn't seemed surprised at the title the demon had given her or the reference to herself as her witch. It was as if she'd heard it all before. She'd seemed to fold in on herself though, Willow thought, as if it brought back painful memories. If being called 'Chosen' caused such a reaction in her it was obviously an important clue. More important than any of the other things she'd seen or heard while with Buffy the previous night. She just had to figure out what it meant.
When a search of the other resources she had access to through the Coven came up empty, Willow decided to take another tack. She was obviously going to have to try a different approach to solve the Buffy mystery. She'd been relying on Tara's psychic examination of Buffy and hadn't gone the extra step of looking for physical traces of her or her travels, electronic or otherwise. It was possible the answers she was looking for were in the places she should have checked first, in the government records and private databases she'd avoided searching until now.
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Hours later, just before sunrise, Willow stared at what she'd uncovered. Whomever had created her identity had been very good but not good enough. Just over a month ago there had been no such person as Buffy Summers. It was as if she had suddenly appeared out of thin air. There was no record of her past prior to the day of her encounter with Dawn. Nothing to indicate where she'd learned everything she seemed to know. Which was seemingly impossible. Unless she'd fooled Tara there should have been some trace of her somewhere in a database, something older than what she was able to find.
Not quite believing this, Willow could only assume that there was some flaw in the programs she'd written years ago. It had been so long since she'd needed to exercise her hacking skills that she must have done something wrong. Something that prevented them from sifting through the vast quantities of information they could access around the world and finding what she was looking for. Not even the fingerprints she'd managed to copy had yielded anything. But figuring out what was wrong would have to wait until she had the time.
For now she would have to go back to the tools she was more comfortable with. With a little help from Tara she could use magic instead of technology to track Buffy's origins. Rubbing her back and looking at her watch, Willow checked the time to make sure it wasn't too early to call Tara.
"Tara? I need help with a spell. The one you use to trace someone." She listened attentively for a minute. "Yeah. That one. Who? Buffy Summers. No, she isn't lost. Something has come up and I just need to know where she's been the last two months." She put down the phone after receiving Tara's answer. Now she just had to make it through a day of teaching until Tara arrived. Sleep would have to wait.
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Letting Tara into her apartment late Thursday evening, Willow hugged her before directing her to her study. The ingredients Tara had requested for the spell were already laid out on her work table, waiting to be used.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Tara asked her, looking at the table for a moment before turning back to Willow with some concern.
"Yes. I really need to know who she is." Willow said. "I've checked everything and everywhere I can think of. And found nothing useful. As far as I can tell a month ago she didn't exist."
"She wasn't lying about her name." Tara reminded her as she laid out the things she'd brought with her. "Or her feelings."
"I know. But that doesn't make any sense." Willow grumbled. "I even tried to check her fingerprints." Willow blushed at Tara's raised eyebrow. "Someone went to some effort to put her in all the right places but if you look closely it's all fake."
"Willow? Why are you so upset?" Tara asked quietly. "We've already checked her out. No matter what the computers say she is real." She looked closer at her friend. "Don't we know enough about her?"
"How can I trust her around Dawn or the Coven if we don't really know who she is or where she comes from?" Willow asked.
"Are you sure that's the only reason?" Tara asked her with a small smile.
Willow blushed before shaking her head and answering her question. "Tara, I really like her!" she told her nervously. "I really do. I can't explain it. When I'm standing next to her the world feels brighter, more real somehow." She dropped down with a sigh onto the window seat next to the table.
"But?" Tara asked with a small frown.
"What if what I feel isn't real?" Willow looked down at her hands. "What if that's all an illusion? There was something different about her when we were in LA Tuesday night. Something older, more focused. It was kind of scary. I felt insignificant next to her."
Tara looked at her, sitting there like a small, lost child. Willow had obviously not slept well for several days and the situation was preying on her insecurities. "Let's do the spell before we worry about something like that." she told her gently, gesturing to the table.
Willow watched Tara carefully as she worked through the spell. The Slayer covens preferred to use simple spells. Except for the occasional ceremony, they rarely used flashy looking magic, instead going for the simple and direct approach. Willow's magical training and skills were geared towards helping her slayer, to protect her and deal with magical threats as quickly as possible. The kind of spell she needed here operated at a completely different level. It invoked forces that Willow rarely worked with and that required a more subtle approach.
Tara was the coven's local expert with this other style of magic, her movements sure and controlled as she blended the necessary ingredients together, occasionally murmuring an invocation to one of the coven's patron deities. Watching her almost hypnotic movements served to calm Willow.
"Okay." she told Willow, after steadily working on the spell for almost an hour "Where did you want to start?"
Willow placed several maps on the table. "I think we should start at least a month ago." she told her. "Several days before Dawn first met her. If we could find out where she was before she came here..."
"Okay. We'll need the map of the world." Tara told her. "She could have come here from anywhere."
Willow pulled out the map Tara had requested and placed it where she indicated. She watched avidly as Tara sprinkled a portion of her concoction above the map, murmuring several words under her breath as she did so, too low for Willow to make them out. There was a flash and the potion seemed to be absorbed into the map without leaving a trace.
"That's odd." Tara told her in surprise. She sprinkled more of the potion on the map, varying her incantation slightly. The results where the same.
"Did she change her name?" Willow asked curiously.
"That wouldn't affect this spell. It works with her aura and since that is unique her name doesn't matter." Tara thought for a moment. "We know what day Dawn met her. Let's start there and work our way back."
Several hours later, they were no closer to an answer than they'd been before. The results had them baffled. They'd ended up with a reasonably clear idea of Buffy's travels since she'd met Dawn. Nothing too surprising. But everything before that was just a blank.
"Willow, I think you are just going to have to ask her what you want to know." the blonde Wiccan told her, stretching and rubbing the back of her neck. "Something is preventing me from seeing what she was doing before she met Dawn."
"Okay..." Willow said reluctantly, sighing. "I'll ask her tomorrow night."
"Don't worry about it. We know she isn't a danger to us." Tara reminded her. "You're just going to have to do this the hard way, by trusting her to tell you the truth." She started packing up her tools. "I need to get home. Why don't you give me a call this weekend after you talk with her? Okay?"
"Okay." Willow agreed before following her to the door and escorting her to her car.
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It had been a quiet Friday afternoon in the bookshop. In one of her rare afternoon visits Madeline had kept Buffy busy cataloging the books in the shop, starting with the ones out front. Sitting at the counter and idly looking through the Sunnydale Chronicle during a much needed break, Buffy could hear Madeline puttering around in the back, busily unpacking a large box that had arrived that morning.
She stared out of the window facing Main Street. The people passing by on the sidewalk and going about their daily business seemed oblivious to the storm her enhanced senses were warning her about. Giles would have called it a metaphor for her life. She had just started to feel comfortable with her current situation and the people she was coming to know in this place. She wasn't looking forward to the chaos it could bring but Buffy knew she had to head back to LA soon. She needed to find out what the green demon had meant when it had spoken to her and to see if it knew anything that could help her get home.
She hadn't seen Willow since their trip to LA two days earlier and while she knew there was no reason to expect her to show up every day, she'd still felt cheated by her absence from Tony's the past few evenings. Sighing, she tried to steer her thoughts away from the redhead, with little success. She knew she'd reacted badly to what the demon had said but she hadn't been able to help it. From Willow's continued absence she assumed she hadn't hidden it as well as she'd hoped.
The soft, solid sound of two books being dropped onto the counter brought her attention back to where she was sitting. Startled, Buffy looked up to find Madeline gazing intently at her over the top of her reading glasses. "What's this?" she asked curiously.
"Things you'll need." Madeline told her simply as if that was all the explanation she needed to give her.
Buffy cautiously picked up the top book and flipped through it. It was a slim volume, written in an almost familiar language. But not familiar enough to enable her to read it. "Why do I need something I can't read?"
Madeline smiled at her cryptically before pointing at the other book. "This should help." She then turned to leave using the front door, pausing just inside the door to remark cryptically - "Have you ever wondered who the first guardians of the Chosen were?" before disappearing into the evening pedestrian traffic before Buffy could respond.
Buffy sat there for a few minutes, just staring at the door until she was able to overcome the surprise she'd felt at Madeline's comment. This wasn't the first indication she'd gotten that Madeline knew more about what was going on in Sunnydale than anyone else she'd met there so far. But she was also very good at avoiding providing any opportunity for Buffy to learn more than she was willing to share.
Shaking her head, Buffy went back to her inventory. Madeline trusted her enough to let her finish it on her own and she had no plans to disappoint her. The books she'd given her could wait.
By the time she was done it was dinner time and all she wanted to do was spend the evening soaking in her tub. She'd been unable to resist purchasing her favorite soaps and bath oils when she'd seen the over-sized tub in her rented loft. It was one of the few luxuries she'd allowed herself in her loft.
Tonight she planned on skipping her normal evening visit to Tony's and soak in her tub. She didn't think anyone would miss her, especially the absent Willow. And if Tony was interested in her company he would get plenty of it when she helped him out at the festival the following afternoon. There was plenty of time to relax and soak out the day's dust before shadowing Dawn on her normal patrol.
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The rain had been sudden, catching her umbrellaless on the way to Tony's. Once more shaking her damp hair, Willow looked around the bar, unable to hide her disappointment. She'd been sitting at the bar for several minutes and had yet to see Buffy anywhere. They hadn't talked since the LA trip but Willow had expected to find her at Tony's like always. She'd planned on confronting her with what she and Tara had discovered. Accidentally running into her at the bar had seemed like the best way to confront her with her questions. It was one of the few neutral places where they could talk. But she hadn't counted on her not being there.
"Tony? Have you seen Buffy Summers?" she asked, smiling hopefully at him when he came to take her order.
"She's not here tonight." He gave her a sharp look. "You might want to try her at home."
"Thanks." She said, her small bubble of courage suddenly deflating. From his expression she could tell he wasn't happy with her for some reason, but she just couldn't find the energy to care. It had taken a lot out of her to screw together enough courage tonight to come looking for Buffy. She had nothing left to deal with anyone else.
Without saying anything further, she turned around and made her way out of the bar, back into the rain, intent on heading home. She knew it was silly but she didn't feel comfortable with the idea of going to Buffy's apartment uninvited. It was a long damp walk back to her apartment, the rain drenched town perfectly matching her mood.
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Standing in the park in the early Saturday morning mist, Buffy stared in disbelief over the lid of her cup of coffee at the booth Tony was assembling. "Why did I agree to this?" she asked him.
Pausing for a minute and pretending to think, he answered her with an amused "Because you love me?"
"Not enough to do this..." she told him with a wink before taking another sip from her steaming cup.
He waved at the stack of cups on the booth's counter and the beer and wine kegs lining the back. "All the beer you can drink?"
"You know I don't drink beer unless I'm desperate. Not even the stuff you serve." She reminded him with a small smile, peering curiously over the side of the booth.
"Guilt?" He tried again, grinning back at her.
"Guilt for what?" She asked with a raised eyebrow as she watched him put up posters for his regular bands along the back of the booth.
"At all of the money I'm not making because you won't come work for me." At her frown he tried again - "Because I offered to pay you? And I said it would be fun?"
"Ah..." she perked up. "That would be it. You promised me fun and money and food. But you didn't say anything about the cute guys." She pouted at him, waving her free hand at the other booths going up around them.
Tony gave her a look. "I didn't think you would be interested in the scenery."
"Huh? Why not?" Buffy frowned at him again but he just shrugged and winked at her before putting the finishing touches on his booth. Buffy looked around at the other local businesses setting up their booths for the Sunnydale Chamber of Commerce's annual Spring Fest. Most of them seemed to be restaurants or bars. Madeline had been amused when she'd suggested a booth for the bookshop but hadn't objected when she'd asked for Saturday off to help out Tony.
"So what do you want me to do...?" she asked, finishing up her coffee and tossing it into a nearby trash can.
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Following the crowds, Dawn dragged a reluctant Willow into the park. "Come on!" she said excitedly.
"Tell me again why we're not at the beach with your sister?" Willow grumbled to her slayer as she looked around in amazement at the park in the early afternoon. It was full of people gathered around booths for every imaginable business in Sunnydale. She hadn't realized it had become such a big event. It was only the second year the Chamber of Commerce had managed to put it together. She'd missed the Festival the first year. She'd spent that weekend with Dawn in a retreat in a small resort north of Sunnydale, introducing her to visiting Coven elders who'd wanted to meet their newest slayer.
"Why are we here?" she asked again.
"You have to check this out!" Dawn insisted. "I think the Coven needs a booth next year."
"Dawn, we don't need to advertise like this." Willow said quietly. "Everyone who needs us knows how to find us."
"Could you at least mention the idea the next time you meet with the Elders?" Dawn pleaded.
"Okay. Now what did you want to show me?" Willow looked around, nothing really standing out and still not sure why Dawn had wanted to come.
"All of the restaurants in town have booths here." Dawn told her eagerly. "And they are all supposed to have free samples."
Willow groaned. "Why am I not surprised." She looked at her slayer's happy grin. "Didn't you already eat lunch?"
"That's not the point. Look over there..." Dawn pointed off to one side. "Even the local bars are here. Do you think they'll serve me?" she asked with a knowing grin as she dragged Willow in that direction.
"No. Definitely not!" Willow firmly told her. "They know better."
"Ms. Rosenberg!" Dawn pouted. "I've been good. Not even a small cup?"
"We'll see." Willow mumbled. She wasn't going to pretend that Dawn wasn't a normal teenager but she would only bend so far, even for her slayer.
By this point, even with Willow's token resistance, they'd reached the section of the festival reserved for the local bars. Willow, not interested in drinking in public on a Saturday afternoon, attempted to steer Dawn quickly through to the adjacent section of booths to a tent set up for anyone sampling the available food. Her journey was interrupted when Dawn yanked on her arm and pulled her in the direction of one of the busier booths.
"Is that who I think it is?" she asked.
Willow stared through the crowd. Serving drinks and chattering away to Tony Denova in his booth was Buffy Summers. Stomping down on her feelings to keep them under control, Willow attempted to stay detached as she watched Buffy apparently enjoying herself and the attention of her audience of young men.
"You didn't tell me she was going to be here!" Dawn scolded her. "Let's go say hello."
"I didn't know" Willow admitted morosely, staring at the blonde with a sad expression on her face. "You go ahead. I'll see you back at the house later for training." Her attempt at flight was stopped only briefly.
"Aww... come on." Dawn gave her an encouraging smile. "I bet she'll be glad to see you."
"No, I have other things to do this afternoon." Willow protested, finally pulling her hand free. "I'll see you later." And she slipped into the crowd, intent on heading home and avoiding any questions from the frowning slayer she was leaving behind.
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"Any chance for a sample?"
Feeling a slight tingle and hearing a familiar voice, Buffy turned around to see Dawn patiently standing next to her side of the booth. Raising an eyebrow at the young woman she pointed at the legal age sign at the back of the booth and told her - "Sure, if you don't mind something non-alcoholic."
"Aww..." Dawn gave her a pleading, puppy dog look.
"Sorry, not gonna work." Buffy told her firmly, handing her a cup of soda. "And what would your sister and Ms. Rosenberg think?"
"My sister is at the beach." Dawn told her with a shrug. "And Ms. Rosenberg ran away as soon as she saw you, otherwise we could ask her."
"She did what?" Buffy frowned at her, feeling herself blush.
"Ran away." Dawn said, looking at Buffy with a strange expression on her face. "Said she had something better to do than come over here."
"Oh." From the look Dawn gave her, Buffy was sure her disappointment was plainly visible. In an attempt to distract her, she put on her best perky cheerleader face and gestured at the busy festival. "What do you think?" she asked.
"Not bad. Are you going to drop by the house afterward?" she asked eagerly.
"No, the Festival runs until dark. And then it'll take an hour to pack everything up." She shrugged. "I'll probably just head home afterward."
"Oh. Well, I'm going to check out everything else. Do you want me to let Ms. Rosenberg know where you'll be?" Dawn asked with what Buffy guessed was an optimistic smile.
"It doesn't matter." Buffy watched her shake her head in response before leaving. Struggling to regain her positive attitude, Buffy returned to serving the crowd around the booth.
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Dawn's early Sunday patrols, when she typically tried to cover the entire town in a single sweep, were usually long and boring. She hadn't seen anything and wondered if someone else was killing her vampires. It certainly gave her plenty of time to think. She still didn't know if she would be able to spend any time sparring with Buffy Summers.
The last time she'd asked her Ms. Rosenberg had mumbled something to her that sounded like she was still thinking about the idea, but Dawn knew something was going on. Her Guide had been buried in musty old books and scrolls for the past few days, stopping only for her classes at the high school and when she'd managed to drag her to the park the previous day. She'd never seen her so obsessed with whatever was bothering her.
Lost in thought as she wandered through several cemeteries, Dawn was no longer confident in her earlier feeling that something was going to happen between the two women, if it hadn't already. She'd felt sure enough about it a week earlier to confront both of them but since then she'd started having doubts. The few times she'd seen them together since then she hadn't noticed any recognizable signs of attraction between them.
Having seen how Ms. Rosenberg normally acted around other women she'd been interested in, her current behavior was very puzzling. She hadn't even wanted to go back to the festival when they'd finished training for the day. Not even when Dawn had mentioned that Ms. Summers would still be there. They'd both acted strangely at the festival and she wasn't quite sure what to think.
Dawn occasionally caught a slight tingle at the far reaches of her enhanced senses. Since it never got closer she assumed it was Ms. Summers keeping up her daily bit of slayer stalking. A demon or vampire would have attacked her instead of just watching from a distance.
Just as she reached her backyard, the sudden crash of thunder and smell of ozone caused Dawn to reflexively jump backwards. That had been almost too close, she thought with a shiver. And suddenly, with no warning, she was blinded by a quick series of flashes. It seemed as if she was in the middle of a severe thunderstorm or a fight between two powerful magic users. And with no way to escape.
--- --- ---
Buffy tensed. The air in Sunnydale had felt charged with electricity all evening, though at a just barely noticeable level. While it hadn't increased much as she shadowed Dawn during much of her early morning patrol, the feeling that something was going to happen seemed to suddenly increase as Dawn reached her street. Buffy was starting to feel like she'd stepped into a large bubble of static electricity. She was sure that at any moment her hair would start to stand on end, if it wasn't already. She was surprised she wasn't glowing from the amount of energy that seemed to be in the air.
At the moment Dawn entered her backyard Buffy heard a large crashing noise, almost like thunder. Rushing forward, she was knocked off her feet by a wave of energy just as she reached the edge of the yard. Staggering quickly to her feet in the now static free air, Buffy could see Dawn lying in a crumpled heap in the yard, not far from where she'd last seen her.
There was a brief pause, a momentary quiet in the suddenly still air. Rushing to the fallen slayer, and picking her up, Buffy headed towards the only available shelter she could see. In an attempt to reach safety before anything else happened she carried the injured girl onto her back porch. As she pounded on the door, Buffy could feel the air around them starting to charge again. She was about to put Dawn down and apply force to the situation when the inner door opened.
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Continued in "Sister Mary Sunshine"
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