Primal Hiding
by Salix
Finding Her
[reviews]
"I think she's there. The dot isn't moving anymore," Willow said from the front passenger seat of the little Honda Civic. She didn't know exactly where her slayer was, only that she was somewhere in San Francisco. They were only two hours away. They've been driving for four and a half hours almost none stop. They stopped twice, once to fill the car up with fuel, the second because Cordelia's bladder was the size of a dime, or at least it seemed like it. The only thing Willow had seen the brunette digest was a mouthful of water and twenty minutes later she had pee.
"We'll need to get a local map and do the spell again if we're going to find her," Cordelia said from the backseat. She had complained the first two hours of the trip about hating sitting in the backseat and that Willow could look at a map just as easily from the back as she could the front. That's when Giles had turned the radio up loud enough to drown out her ongoing complaints. He couldn't wait to get home and put this whole nightmare behind him. He would actually be happy to see Anya for a change.
They drove for another ten minutes and then they pulled into a gas station. They decided to put some more gas in the car, and get some snacks, and also a knew map. Willow had brought the extra herb mix with her in case they would need to do the spell again. She and Cordelia went to the farthest corner of the store where they would go unseen and they unfolded the map of San Francisco and put it on the ground. Willow concentrated and on her count they scattered the dust.
There were so many white dots that they thought the map was going to catch fire. They waited a few minutes and then the green dot appeared. Willow squinted her eyes and leaned in really close and saw that it wasn't moving, which could be good or bad, but she wasn't going to try and decide which right now. She stood up, helping Cordelia to her feet, and then folded the map up and went outside where Giles was waiting for them in front of the store.
"She's on a street called Prescott. It's not too far from here. As long as traffic stays light we should be there in about fifteen minutes," she said and then Giles frowned at her. She was too used to Sunnydale, even Los Angeles. Traveling in San Francisco was a lot trickier then moving around the other two.
"You forget, San Francisco is know for it's many hills. It might take us longer then that. And in this town there's no such thing as light traffic," he and then walked back over to the car and got into the front passenger seat. His eyes needed a break from driving. Willow took the driving position, after arguing with Cordelia for ten minutes and finally putting the brunette in a headlock until she agreed to sit in the back, and they were off, yet again, to try and find their slayer.
An hour and a half later they were slowly driving down Prescott street. The green dot getting brighter and brighter as they neared the location of the slayer. Suddenly the map caught fire and Cordelia screamed and threw it out the window. Willow slammed on the breaks and Cordelia jumped out of the car and stomped the fire out. Willow pulled the car over to the side of the road and she and Giles got out and stood by Cordelia on the sidewalk.
"Ok, so which house is she in?" Cordelia asked and looked around. The map had caught fire the instant they were in between two of the houses, a two story pink one with stain glass windows, and a two story white one with large old fashioned looking windows. Willow looked in front of her at the dark pink one across the street and then behind her at the white one. She shrugged her shoulders and then put the map back in the car.
"You guys take that one..." she pointed to the white one behind them. "And I'll take that one. If she's not in either of them then I'll do my tinker bell spell and it'll lead us right to her." She didn't wait for them to respond before she ran across the street and started up the many steps that led to the old Victorian house.
"Willow knows Tinker Bell?" Cordelia asked as she and Giles walked towards the white house. "Guess that mean Neverland is real too." Giles shook his head, not believing his ears, but too tired to call her on it as they walked onto the porch and knocked on the door and waited for somebody to answer. "Because that would be neat. I'd really like to take a vacation there sometime." She kept going on and on and Giles almost started to cry he wanted her to shut up so badly. He wished it were Anya here with him instead and that thought scared him more then any demon ever could.
"Hello, can I help you?" the woman with the long brown hair asked. She was a little shorter then Willow, but not by much. The redhead saw that there was a taller girl standing behind her, shorter brown hair, also tanner skin. The fact that these two women are beautiful did not escape her attention but she set those thoughts aside...for now.
"Hi, yeah, I was wondering if you've seen a woman. She's about your height, long blonde hair, hazel eyes (at least Willow hoped they were back to hazel) skinny enough to look like she hasn't eaten for a month?" Willow said and watched as the taller brunette smiled. Willow saw her whisper something into the shorter one's ear but she didn't hear what it was.
"And you are?" the shorter one asked. Willow knew what that look was, the one that was being sent her way by the shorter woman. She was all too familiar with it. Not that she gets it a lot, but she sends it out a lot. It's a look of mistrust, a look that is searching for a reason to trust you but until you prove your worthy of it you won't get it. Willow cleared her throat and tried really hard not to babble.
"Um, my name's Willow I-" she was about to start babbling on and on about how she and Buffy were best friends and that would have opened the gateway to going on and explaining the whole 'being in love with each other but both were afraid to admit it', but then that would have led to her saying something about Buffy running away from her and then coming here. But she never got the chance because as soon as she said her name the taller brunette stepped forward.
"Come on in. My name's Phoebe, and this is my sister Piper. We have another sister, Prue. But we won't introduce you just yet, she's upstairs, uh, cleaning," she said and pulled Piper back to make room for Willow to walk in. She did and then she stopped and turned around. She saw Cordelia and Giles walked towards. She noticed that Cordelia was talking, again, and Giles looked like he was fighting the urge to strangle her, again.
"Those are my friends. We've been looking for her. That's Giles and Cordelia," she said and then when they two walked up to the porch Willow introduced her two friends to the two sisters and then explained that Buffy was here. They were led to a conservatory, the three friends sat down on the wicker couch, while the sisters occupied the two chairs.
"We found her this morning. She passed out on our porch so we brought her in and cleaned her up. She was pretty beat up, do you know why someone would want to hurt her?" Piper and Willow tried not to make a sarcastic remark about every demon and vampire wanting to kill the slayer for simply being the slayer. But instead she said.
"No we don't. She's been going through a very...emotional time right now, and we just need to get her home. She's isn't herself right now, she needs help," Willow said and couldn't stop the little tear from escaping. She looked over at Phoebe and caught the brunette staring at her. She watched as the girl blushed and looked away, and Willow ignored it. All she cared about right now was getting Buffy home. She noticed that Cordelia opened her mouth to say something when they heard an ear-shattering scream.
"Willow! Willow! Willow where are you?!" Everyone in the room stood up and started to run towards the screams. The redhead had to fight the temptation to knock the two sisters out of her way and get to the room first. When they made it to the second story of the house and down the hall Willow saw that another girl was already in the room and she just assumed that it was the third sister, who's name she couldn't remember. She saw that the blacked haired woman was trying to calm Buffy down. She also saw that Buffy was standing in the corner of the room, backing away like a frightened animal. The fear coming off of her was powerful and it almost knocked Willow off of her feet.
"It's ok, I'm not going to hurt you. Please, just calm down," Willow heard the girl say. She stepped forward and she locked eyes with Buffy. They two ran towards each other, the black haired woman getting knocked to the floor in the process. They embraced in a very tight hug and neither could stop the tears from flowing out of their eyes and onto each other's shoulders.
"They sisters?" Phoebe asked Cordelia quietly, not wanting to break up this tender moment. Cordelia smiled and shook her head no. She watched the sight before her with happy eyes, glad that the two were finally back together again. For a second she wondered what would become of them after this is all over and they went back to Sunnydale.
"Soul mates," she responded and saw Phoebe's megawatt smile. Giles was so relieved to see his considered-daughter again that he forgot all about British mannerisms and he walked forward and wrapped his arms around the two crying girls. They were like that for ten minutes before Giles let go and stood over by Cordelia again. The two woman refused to let go of each other, however and Prue was the one who spoke first.
"Excuse me, but who are you people?" Piper and Phoebe rolled their eyes and shook their heads. But there would be no stopping Prue now that she had her mind set on finding out who the strangers are. She had woken the blonde up, telling her sisters that she would be in the attic to try and find out which demon had attacked her, and she had started to question her.
The blonde had remained calm through the entire thing, claiming she had no idea what Prue was talking about. So Prue decided to show the blonde a little magic to convince her. When she telekineticly (I'm aware that it's not a real word) floated a candle towards Buffy, some type of blue powder came out of Prue's hands and into the blonde's body. Prue had no idea what it was because that's never happened before. After all of the powder had gone into the blonde's body, being absorbed by her skin, she went hysterical. She jumped far away from Prue, to the corner of the room where she started to whimper with fear, and then the screaming started. She had tried her best to calm the girl but nothing had worked and then everybody came into the room and, well, here they are now.
They were assembled in the conservatory, again. Giles, Willow and Buffy were sitting on the wicker couch, Cordelia in one of the chair, Phoebe in the other, Piper and Prue chose to stand. The eldest of the Halliwells still hadn't explained about the powder thing. The blonde had denied knowing anything about magic, so she figured her friends wouldn't know anything either. She had thought this until the man spoke up.
"Well, I guess we'll start with the explanations then. We're from Sunnydale, here in Southern California-"
"Excuse me, you three are from Sunnydale, I'm from L.A.," Cordelia said, thinking that information was somehow useful, but Giles had a feeling she just wanted to be annoying. He cleared his throat and then continued.
"Anyway, Buffy here is a slayer, and I'm her watcher. Willow is a witch, and Cordelia...well, I'm not to sure what she is other then a pest," he said and Willow and Buffy could not contain their laughter. Cordelia then started up again with the ranting, giving everybody in the room a headache and then Phoebe silenced her.
"Wait, the slayer? She's the slayer? Wow," she said awe and a little bit of fear in her voice. Her two older sisters looked over at her as if she's gone crazy. How the hell does Phoebe know about slayers? The youngest Halliwell was looking at Buffy with fascination, and Buffy was starting to feel a little uneasy. She still didn't have any of her slayer strength left, not only that she had no idea where she was, or what had happened in the last couple of days. The last thing she remembered was walking with Willow to their psychology class to take a quiz that they had studied for most of the night.
"This is the hard part to explain. You see a Watcher is appointed to the slayer by-"
"The Watcher's Council, which is located over in England. I've read all about it in our book. All about slayers too. Can you really run fifty miles an hour?" she asked, and shook her head in disbelief when Buffy hesitantly nodded her head yes. She still had no idea what was going on, who these people were and why they were here. She hated not knowing, but she wasn't about to voice her concerns in front of total strangers. She could at least bluff if they tried to hurt them, and from the looks of it the littlest sister knew that trying would be a bad idea.
"Um, yes, that is correct. But you see, we not only keep an eye on the slayer, we also check up on powerful magical forces. For the last two and half years the Council as been checking in on you three from time to time, watching you grow as witches," he paused and let them digest that piece of information. The reactions ranged from shocked (Piper), to really, really pissed off (Prue) to what looked like pride (Phoebe).
"So you guys have been spying on us?" Piper yelled. Prue took a step towards them and Buffy mistook it for a threat and she jumped up, getting right in the woman's face, standing directly in front of Willow. Willow may not know how Buffy feels about her (the blue powder made her forget about the last three days or so) but she was still going to protect Willow with all of her might, even if it is just the might of a normal skinny blonde girl.
"Um, Prue, be careful. Slayer's are very...protective of their friends and family," Phoebe said and Prue reluctantly backed off. She stood by her sisters, standing out in front of them in the same protective stance that Buffy had. Giles couldn't help but wonder if Prue had ever been a potential slayer. She definitely had the nerves of steel that was required for the job. He would have to talk to his informant at the Council about that.
"We've not been spying on you, the Council has. Buffy and I resined a while ago, actually," he said and Buffy sat back down, staying tense and keeping her eyes on the oldest Halliwell sister. She could feel the slayer power slowly starting to come back. Seems like her slayer half is starting to wake up. That's good, Buffy was getting tired of feeling weak, feeling normal.
"I'm glad we got to meet today. About a week ago my informant at the Council sent me an ancient text and it contains a prophecy dealing with you three. It seems that there's some sort of power struggle going on in the underworld and they're after the Nexus you're protecting. Whichever demon gains access to it will become powerful enough to overrule the Source, and take over as the new leader of the underworld. I'll have the book sent to you once we return to Sunnydale. Do any of you know Latin?" he asked and Prue nodded her head yes.