"All Gaul is divided into three parts..." Faith sat in her cell, quietly began re-reading Julius Caesar's history of the Gallic conquest. In Latin, which was the interesting part. Not that her Latin was that bad now, but the first time she had not really read it, the struggle to translate it had prevented that. Damn Angel and his eighteenth century Irish aristocrat education ideas.
"He was right though, Julie baby was at least as evil and ruthless as the mayor, and a whole empire followed him." Millions of people were killed, millions more raped and sold on the slave markets, a whole nation destroyed, all so he could have a big victory to help his political career. "And he was declared a god and worshiped for it, because people couldn't stop and really see it any more than I did with the Mayor."
The simple fact that she was doing this would have floored anyone who had only known her before jail. The dark slayer was still just 'psycho slut high school dropout evil bitch' to them, as far as she knew. At least that had been her opinion of herself. But Angel had insisted a 'proper education' would help her get a perspective on herself and the world, and that she was smart enough, and he had been right.
When the imprisoned slayer felt her cell mate pull down her trousers and panties, she spread her legs and relaxed into position. Cathy liked it this way, enjoyed making her protector cum while she was focused on something else. Faith had learned to enjoy it, had learned to enjoy sex with women. The red head insisted on being hers, and on selecting her bedmates for her, took some kind of 'payment' from them, presumably. She had no end of offers, as the only real protection from the gangs many prisoners had. Cathy was entitled to something for arranging things with the protector, surely?
For a slayer who had fought groups of vampires the slower, weaker, more breakable human gang members were barely a good workout. On her first day she had hospitalized the three who tried to rape her in the showers. Their friends had attacked her in the prison yard, with weapons made in the machine shop. That put five in hospital, with one in a coma for a while. The fact that she was clearly neither breathing heavily nor sweating after had impressed the hell out of everyone who had seen it.
Finally she had been jumped by ten women in the yard again, and she had worked up a sweat this time. No-one had died, but none of her attackers walked away from the fight. All had been sent to hospital, none without at least broken ribs, most a limb or two as well. If the security cameras had not clearly shown her as the intended victim it would have cost her more than the repeated stays in solitary she received.
Cathys' tongue flickered around Faith's clitoris, and the slayer was in paradise. As her brain shut down for the next while, she thought about the rewards of power. Of the rewards of power, and Caesar slaughtering hordes for it. Was she any different, the Gaul women would even have looked like her cell mate? Then she just slid back and focused on how good it felt, and how amazingly long the red head could keep her on the edge of orgasm before her mind blowing climax.
"Faith, how have you been?" It was Xander this time, for wonder. He had never come before, or written to her. What was he doing here now? "I had to see you, to find out what had happened to you in here."
"Since when did you care?"
"Since I saw how much everyone else had changed, and started believing Angel when he said you had." Faith could see he had changed, clearly a man rather than a boy, a more solid build and serious look. "If Willow can join the dark side of the force and come back, why not you?"
Red had gone bad, when did this happen, and was that why the man in front of her was bandaged the way he was? Angel clearly had been editing the news he gave her, he had not talked about this.
"I've learned to enjoy reading Plato in Greek while having my pussy eaten by women I don't know." Xander went bugeyed and nearly choked, it was a good thing he had not been drinking anything at the time. "Sometimes its Caesar in Latin, and my cell mate though, for variety. If I'd had any sense it be you and me in Sunnydale,and if you want me to get on my hands and knees and ask forgiveness for nearly choking you instead I will."
"You mean that, don't you." The former zeppo's voice was full of mixed emotion.
"Yes, about both. You tried to be a friend after I used you and threw you out, and so I tried to kill you." Faith had thought about it a lot, how she had been thrown a lifeline by a decent guy, and how she had responded by nearly killing him. What might have happened if she had listened to him, no Mayor, reconciliation with the Scoobies? Why not a white wedding in a chapel and Buffy to help babysit while she was fantasizing. "About the babes, Angel calls it 'the classic reward of the hero'. I'm doing some good in here toyboy, but he says I could be doing more out there if I'd settled down with you instead."
"Deadboy said you should have..."
"Fang says I need we would balance out each other, that some of your 'white knight complex' would do me the world of good." The shock on Xander's face was amazing to see, clearly the idea of the souled vampire having a good word to say about him had stunned him. She thought of something and kept her smile hidden as she added "You wouldn't mind a threesome occasionally would you, can't see myself quitting girls though, rug munching is powerful addictive isn't it? I wish I'd listened to you Xander, I wish I'd gone to you instead of the Mayor I really do."
"Now that's a solution to the Anyanka problem I hadn't thought of." The demon said.
"Aren't we supposed to bring vengeance rather than true love?" Halfrek responded. Getting Anyanka back to their side was becoming a major project, the former and again vengeance demon would not leave her former fiance and his friends. "They could wind up really happy, where's the justice bringing in that?"
"I won't make an issue out of it if you don't, AND YOU WON'T WILL YOU!!" D'Hoffryn responded. "Consider it a personal favour, to me."
"Wish granted."
"Faith, you're nearly out of diapers." Giles voice carried over the sound of the dark haired slayer working out. "I called Buffy on her mobile and she will purchase some before returning with our office supplies."
The Slayer was focused on what she was doing, and his voice was background noise to her. Also her subconscious trusted him implicitly with Tracey. A man more devoted to his grandchild was hard to imagine. She continued for another half hour, before a voice interrupted.
"Honey, I am dead on my feet." Buffy wadled over to Faith and kissed her, deep and passionately. This involved some maneuvering with her eight month bulge, but they managed. Pregnant slayers are less ungainly than normal women, but that is not saying a lot. "Can I have a foot rub, please, please, pretty please?"
"One of us is supposed to be helping Giles at all times remember?" In truth the Watcher was very generous with their break times, but the shop had to be run as a business to pay for two its two part-time employees/defeaters of evil. "Besides Xander will get here soon, to take delivery of his new lathe. His footrubs got me through this with Tracey, after all."
Construction work was the main source of their husbands income, but his carpentry hobby was becoming a business in its own right. His hand made furniture was developing a niche market, a very high paying niche market. With two slayers to trade slaying and babysitting, it was tight at times, but things could be a lot worse.
Four-year-old Faith cuddled up to her teddy, Mr Snuggle Bear. He was huge, larger than she was in fact, and the last present given to her by her father. When Dave and mommy shouted and threw things she ran to her room and hugged Mr Snuggle Bear till it stopped. Sometimes that meant until morning, but she never let go of the huge comforting presence.
As she held on for all her worth, her subconscious noticed some disturbing things. Mr Snuggle Bear had lost most of his fur, and was skinnier than she remembered. She gripped his chest fur, thin as it was, and felt the furless contact over the rest of her body. What had happened, had someone attacked Mr Snuggle Bear, had they shaved his fur off?
SOMEONE ATTACKED MR SNUGGLE BEAR!!!
Faith sat up so fast her slayer reflexes took her out of the bed entirely and onto the floor of her motel room. She was breathing hard, tense and eyeing the room for enemies, the evil monster that had attacked her bear. She realised slowly that it had been a dream, that, she was in her motel room, and that she was holding some of Xander Harris's chest hair. Not a lot, fortunately for him.
"Faith, are you alright?" The zeppo was wide-awake now; being woken up by having hair ripped out will do that. Actually he was more awake than the dark slayer, who was still half in the dream world, at least half. She was having such a hard time waking up because she had, this night, had something she had not had since Mr Snuggle Bear was sold for gambling money.
A good nights sleep.
"Mr Snuggle Bear?" Faith said as she threw herself back onto the bed and grabbed Xander. She was looking at him in a frightened, puzzled way, crying and hugging him so tight he was having trouble breathing. "I thought I lost you, your back, I thought I lost you."
"Faith, and I realise you're distraught right now but I would like an answer, who is Mr Snuggle Bear?" The aching Xman asked. Between the vigorous post 'I want to help' lovemaking, the slayer hugging him tightly all-night with her superhuman strength, the chest hair thing and now more hugging he was bruised over a large part of his body. Not that he minded, clearly the Boston Slayer needed him badly. "I can't help if I don't know what's going on."
Faith pulled back a bit and looked at the boy in her bed in the moonlight, as it filtered through the Venetian blinds. She now clearly remembered prison, his visit, her wishing she had taken him up on his offer to help instead of strangling him, and a voice somewhere saying 'wish granted'. Then she leaped into her own body seconds before the attempted murder, and now she was here.
"You're Mr Snuggle Bear now Xanman." She had only drifted back to her childhood because his sleeping presence had provided the comfort she had not had in 14 years. Enough men had slept in her bed for her to know it was not simply having a big, warm body to cuddle up to. She had lost track of the guys who had utterly failed to have this affect on her. He was special, her sub conscious knew it, and it had let her totally relax into deep slumber. "You are my teddy bear, and you can never leave me. Please Xander, I need you, please don't leave me."
With that she lay back down, holding a confused young man while drifting into a deep, uninterrupted sleep. They woke up in time for the student of the two to get to school, where he would face a very interesting day after what Angel had told Giles and the group of what the pair had been doing when he arrived to see Faith the previous night.
"I'm telling you Giles it's like she's someone else." The vampire had entered the school through the sewer entrance, and was trying to convey the amazing difference in Faith he had found. "Giles, she apologised, she cried about the killing, she asked me for my copy of Caesar's Conquest of Gaul."
"She apologised and is taking an interest in history, both rather unexpected of her." Giles commented.
"You don't get it, she asked for the copy in Latin."
"She WANTED the copy in Latin, why?"
"For the same reason she said she'd come to you for Aristotle in Greek I assume." Finally the Librarian got the message. The flabbergasted look on his face surprised Buffy, who had entered the room in time to catch the end of the conversation.
"What's the big deal about Faith learning Latin, its an old language it can't be that hard"" The blonde commented. Giles, rather than answer directly, fetched the standard first year text on the subject, Wheelock's Latin, and opened it to the first page, and showed her the heading.
Verbs; First and Second Conjugations:
Present Infinitive,
Indicative, and Imperative
Active; Translating
"What's a verb? No, wait, I know that, we did that..."
"Do I have to go on?" The Watcher looked up over his glasses at his slayer, sighing to himself at the decline of formal English teaching. He refused to entertain the unkind speculation that perhaps she really was a natural blonde after all. "Buffy you are a better student than Faith, in as much as you still bother to turn up, and yet the chapter heading confuses you. For Faith to be fluent enough in both Latin and New Testament Greek to read the requested works is staggering, though Caesar is admittedly considered introductory in difficulty."
"Julius Caesar's Latin isn't good enough for you?" The elder slayer said in a huff. She knew what conjugation meant anyway, it was about bacteria or earthworms or something breeding, she remembered it from a nature special Willow had been watching once. "I mean, anyway, she grew up in a poor area, maybe she picked it up from the Mexican kids."
"Why would Mexican children teach Faith Latin Buffy?" Angel asked, slowly and hesitantly. He still loved the Summers girl with all his heart, but sometimes the difference in education was embarrassing. By her age he knew Greek, Latin, German and French, all well enough hold a conversation with someone fluent. It was just a part of being a nobleman's son.
"Well it's Latin America, they speak Latin there, right?"
Giles rethought the idea about the natural colour of his charge's hair.
Later that evening, again at the library. The dark slayer had dumped a mountain on them, some of it good, some bad, some just confusing. The good was her apology for trying to frame Buffy, a general apology to the group, and talking Wesley out of sending to England for trial by the Watchers council.
The bad was learning that the mayor was planning to turn into a 60-foot demon at the graduation ceremony and eat the town. It was more than they had ever handled, but with the warning time provided something could be arranged. Possibly the Box of Gavrok could be intercepted and destroyed, preventing the ascension altogether.
The confusing was Faith's Latin and Greek, which were at a good second or early third year university level, but in a pronounced Irish accent. The same accent Angel spoke those languages in, incidentally, though in his case it was simply that he had learned in Trinity College, Dublin, and did not speak in them regularly enough to pick up the accent of the area he was in. But why did Faith use the exact same accent?
That the Boston slayer had learned her Latin from Angel, or at least had only him to practice it with on visiting days, was unknown because only she remembered the prison time line. Certainly she was not going to tell anyone without a better reason than she had been given so far.
"So, SB, what do you think about that girl over there at the bar with the red dress?" Faith asked.
"Do you think she's a vampire?" Xander asked, smiling to himself over the new initials for himself. Not smiling much though, because the woman with him was clearly nervous, not a state he was used to seeing her in.
"No, I think she wants to take us both home and fuck us." The slayer said. There, it was out in the open, or at least she had started out of the closet. She was terrified of rejection, by Xander if not necessarily by anyone else. "I vote we take her up on it."
"How do you know?" he did not know what else to say under the circumstances. A threesome on offer and Faith was cool with it, he wondered if he was dreaming.
"I asked her and she said so. But I wanted your approval first, can't make deals like this without your permission." Very clearly nervous now, and Xander assumed she had been working up to it.
Ever since the Alternate Vampire Willow had turned up in all her rampant bisexual glory and Dead Boy had started to say it meant Willow had to have those leanings, he had thought hard about it. He had to be ready if one day his best friend dumped Oz for a girl, he had to be ready to support her and not freeze up in surprise or something. Now he was more ready for the dark slayers offer, he said what any heterosexual male would want to say in a situation like this.
"Faith, as long as you're not planning to go back to my place I'd love to."
"Xander, is Faith hurting you, she's hitting you isn't she?" Willow asked, a mixture of concern and hatred of the slayer evident in her voice. She had never liked or trusted the Boston girl and her involvement with the zeppo was one more source of annoyance.
When the red head had patted him on the back the pain had been far worse than he was used to and he winced. It was something most people, people who have not been beaten all their lives, would have made some sound about, a scream of pain, for example. Xander made a visible response, clearly of pain, and his oldest friend noticed, she did love him, she just did not respect him particularly.
"No Wills, she isn't hitting me, but when a Slayer hugs you it causes bruising." And possibly strained/cracked ribs, but lets not get into that, he thought. Willow had a strong jealous streak; he had seen it before when she was upset at him sleeping with Faith. She had her own boyfriend, what possible business of hers was it if he had sex with the dark slayer?
"Buffy's hugged me and it doesn't leave bruises."
"Not in her sleep, unless you have a closer relationship with the Buffster than you're letting on." There, it was said, he had told her he was sleeping with Faith, not just in a one-night stand, and refused to sound apologetic about it. He had to stand up to her about this, he had a right to a love life and Faith needed him, which was more than could be said for the rest of the Scooby gang. "Willster, you're the sister I never had and I love you dearly, but don't do this, because I don't want to have to choose between you."
"Is she trying to force us apart, it that it, how could you even suggest choosing her over me unless she's using her evil skank ways to..."
"Willow she needs me and you don't, any of you." The look on the red heads face was of hurt and surprise, but it was true, and, as the poorer of the two slayers said, reading people and situations was a real strength of his. The statement had surprised him, but she made him go over his arguments with the gang, and he had consistently read dangers that the others had failed to see even when pointed out. "You all keep telling me I'm useless and a burden, that I should stay out of things for that reason, but she begged me for help and I will provide it, minor injuries or not."
And with that Xander walked off to his shop class, where he was, with his teacher's permission, making something special for Faith. Actually he had told the teacher it was a special project for ancient history, which was true, in one sense, and a blatant lie in another. After all, vampires are said to be myths, and ancient history includes myths, right? But since saving Mr Ganger from a group of Vampires - who had seen them dusted, and understood what he had been saved from - that teacher had been willing to cut him some slack.
"As long as you stop slacking off in class anyway Harris, because you have more natural talent at this than a lot of tradesmen I've met." Actually Mr Ganger had been saying that to the youngest Harris since the first day in class, but Xander had never believed it. He still didn't, not really, but the gift idea meant it was for someone else, and therefore important, not for himself, and therefore unimportant. "I have contacts in the construction industry, if you show me some proof I'm right I can get you a job with them, I'll give all the advice you want but PAY ATTENTION AND SHOW SOME DAMN INITIATIVE."
Sunnydale High school library, that afternoon
Faith was working on translating one of Giles texts, a preliminary translation with all the parts that were open to alternative meanings clearly marked. That was a big help to him, since it allowed him to focus on the questionable bits that were the heart and soul of prophecy interpretation. It was also at the limits of her grasp of Latin, which made it hard, time-consuming work for her, but work she was proud of.
The librarian himself was bemused by the whole situation, with the second slayer going spectacularly off the rails only to be brought back by Alexander Lavelle Harris, of all people. Who had also made Wesley useful, by the miracle of turning him into their access to Council resources. Of the entire group only he, Wesley and Xander really appreciated what asking the council to recover The Box of Gavrok meant, which was fortunate because it prevented the emotional teenage drama that would happen when Buffy and Willow, to name the obvious suspects, found out.
Xander Harris, would be funny man, poor student with a kind heart, had specifically requested an assassination. Probably more than one, given the habits of the Watcher's Council strong-arm teams. He had taken the second Watcher aside and explained that, if the 'blood thirsty killers' on the Council payroll could be sent after a slayer, surely they could 'waste the bastards' holding the key to the Mayors ascension.
"It's a valuable magical artefact, the mayor plans to buy it and have it shipped here, so it has to be owned, guarded and controlled by humans or have enough humans involved to pass." The boy had explained, after researching the ritual needed to destroy the object and finding it's last reported location. He created a written report of a quality never produced for his teachers, explaining the known facts and his plan of action. Including why killing one or more humans was inevitable, which was the scary part.
Not that the killing itself was scary, or even the fact that it was inevitable. It was that the least respected member of the slayers support team had stood calmly in front of the two Watchers and explained that humans had to die in this, with no emotion or concern at all. Xander the ruthless was present, some young, coldly pragmatic equivalent to Ripper in Giles, seen before but not in so analytical a way. His report, for example, had listed expected Watcher fatalities under expenses, along with motel fees and airfares.
"Giles, we don't tell Xander he's useless do we?" Willow asked, breaking him out of his reverie. She was right there and he had not noticed her entry, and she had not noticed that the dark slayer was sitting a few feet away, listening. But Faith had certainly noticed her.
"For his oldest friend you're not very kind to him red." The Boston slayer said, anger in her tone. She had wished this reality into existence by wanting to have asked the zeppo's help, knowing he balanced out her homicidal impulses, he was never homicidal impulsively. She had never expected to fall in love with him, but she slowly was, and the disrespect of his so-called friends angered her, anger she fought to control with difficulty. "I don't have much experience with friends, never had one before, but basic respect has to be in there somewhere, doesn't it?"
"I think we have all greatly underestimated both Faith and Xander, Willow, and he has certainly made his resentment of being excluded from Vampire fighting well known." The older watcher was beginning to realise he had not been objective enough in his dealings for a long time, his judgement clouded by his ties to Buffy, perhaps. "Why did none of us ever ask how Miss Faith was to be expected to support herself alone, for example? Mr Harris had to point that out to Wesley and I, and certain discretionary funds are paying her living expenses until more formal arrangements can be made."
"When was I going to be told about this?" The dark slayer demanded. Xander had talked the council into paying the rent on an apartment and living costs, and then not mentioned it to her? The idea of a man doing something for her without demanding anything in exchange was still one she had trouble with, in this case it had simply not occurred to her. "Xander got me out of that rat hole and let me think it was the council being generous, guys have expected me to star in private porno flick's for smaller favours. Do you understand why I love him red?"
Into the stunned silence that followed the announcement of slayerly love for the youngest male Scooby, came the sound of the Library door opening as the man himself entered, holding a large bundle wrapped in pretty paper and with a card on top. Xander looked nervous, and carried his awkward load carefully over to the girl he had just missed declare her love. She stood and took the present, read the card and kissed him deep on the lips, using extensive tongue.
The boy in question was not mentally in the same universe as the others anymore. Faith using her tongue was an amazing thing to experience; she could do that thing where you tie a cherry stalk into a bow with just your tongue, after all. After she opened the present she would either give him more tongue in even more delicate places, or turn him into fertilizer for the school lawn. 'Ok Xan my man, think positive. Ok, I'm positive if she hates it she'll turn me into fertilizer for the school lawn.'
"Faith, Faith, FAITH."
"Yes, G?"
"First, don't call me that, and second, perhaps you should open the package Mr Harris has given you. I take it that it is a present for you?"
What was in the bundle was the final product of Xander's special project, creations that were to help him earn the only A+ of his entire school career. It was a matched pair of tomahawks, with the handles turned on a lathe to make stakes out of either end at need, and what looked like jewel encrusted handles.
Smaller and handier than an axe, and better suiting the dark slayer's infighting style than a sword, the hatchets handles were actually much more practical than they looked. The fake rubies and emeralds provided a better grip than wood, especially when wet with blood or covered in demon slime, without sticking out enough to hurt her hand when tightly gripped. Also the handles were sized to Faiths grip, he had gotten out of bed at night to measure her hands without her knowing and ruining the surprise.
Faith was speechless, they were beautiful and practical and the sheer amount of thought and care involved made her break down and cry while hugging the boy she loved very tightly. Everyone else could see the pain on his face and his struggle to breathe, which she noticed before he passed out from lack of oxygen. She picked then both up, stepped away from everyone and made some experimental chop, slash and stake combination moves.
"May I examine one of those Mr Harris, Miss Faith?" It was Wesley, who had been watching the whole thing quietly from the stacks, and adding to his assessment of the second slayer and the zeppo, as he had heard them described. His quick examination of the weapons, added to the official Watchers council response to Xanders' action proposal, and reinforced his opinion.
"These are custom made for Faiths exact size and fighting habits, are they not?" Despite his failures here he genuinely did have some weapons skills, actually his judgement of weapons and artefacts was better than Giles, it was human skills he lacked. "And from her response a good job of it, very well done Mr Harris, perhaps the council will have to reconsider letting the slayer gather a support team. Mr Giles, perhaps young Mr Harris should attend the councils armourers course, to polish his skills in this regard?"
The report Xander had given to the watchers had been sent, unedited, directly to the Council Headquarters in England. The younger of the watchers had sent his own comments, on the author, the younger slayer, and the startling affect of their interaction. They had responded by saying that both teenagers had tremendous potential for good and evil, to monitor the situation carefully and encourage any positive trends.
"Xander, you never made custom weapons for me." Buffy said in a small voice, sounding like a small child that Santa had forgotten. She had walked in and seen Faith take out the tomahawks and practice, seen the blurring speed the other slayer had shown and how clearly the weapons were matched to her and her alone.
"Buffster, well you tend to not close in quite so much and think a little more before attacking, no offence Faith." The dark haired boy was jubilant over the reception of his present, but was back to carefully logical explanations when dealing with a jealous slayer. He had anticipated this, and she was also his friend and deserved a decent explanation. "So you would really need a sword, and they don't sell swords in hardware stores like they do heads for axes and tomahawks."
"Xander they sell swords in lots of places, those Katana sets with stand go for a couple of hundred dollars and..."
"Are total crap, strictly display items. A real, master craftsman made Katana costs a mint, and anyway that would not be a custom sword for you, at least it would not be one I could make for you."
"Yes Buffy, I must side with Xander on this one." Giles said. Once again, his view of whom he was dealing with had been changed radically. First the custom hatchets, then Wesley actually saying something intelligent about them, now the well researched explanation of why swords were out of his present abilities. "The cheap, factory made swords you can purchase in some gun stores are not intended for real use and would break in a fight. Sword smith was a trade, though Wesley is right, the council's armourers course would be the obvious next step, if Mr Harris is agreeable."
Xander's ego had had more boosting in the previous ten minutes than the preceding 15 years. First his shop teacher had complimented him on the hatchets, and then Faith clearly loved them, then a complement from Wesley Wyndam Price, of all people. Now Buffy was begging for something from him, and Giles agreed he should be given extra training because of his talent.
"Oh sure Giles, but, how long would I be away from Faith, can I afford it, and, while I hate to sound mercenary, if there a job in it?"
"Xander, the council will pay all expense, Faith can go and get advanced training at the same time if she likes, since we have Buffy here and it will have to be after the possible ascension in the summer low vampire activity season anyway." The elder watcher was on safe ground with this explanation, even though the armourer's course was not actually scheduled to happen, in summer or any other time. The Council had only one armourer currently, who was close to retirement age, and he would have to take Xander through a compressed apprenticeship.
"As to monetary compensation, people with the talent and interest in medieval weapon making, who will respond to a request for demon killing weapons by anything other than a call to a mental asylum are rather thin on the ground." Giles was polishing his glasses again, not in agitation this time so much as to gain time to think. He had not had a specific message from the council, but he knew they would want to observe the couple closely, this was a golden opportunity to do it without suspicion, and, anyway the whole 'we need a new armourer' claim was true.
"People who fit this description that the council is willing to trust are essentially non existent. There will be a retainer as well as payment for your creations, not enough for a comfortable living but certainly more than unemployment benefits." Giles added, while also thinking that this was the best opportunity yet to start reforming the council.
Written reports were one thing, but, as Wesley had said, Xander was living evidence that the traditional ways needed changing. Buffy was already older than most slayers ever go to be, and the Watchers Council actually was not totally run by morons. He knew them; a pair of living individuals would have more affect than any amount of report writing. Quentin Travers actually had more enemies than friends, a shift in mood towards the reform wing could be used to oust him, and to bring the council into the twentieth century only a year or so after the twenty-first arrived.
More than welfare? This would make him the highest paid member of his family, or at least the part of the family he lived with, Xander thought with wonder. And Faith was looking at him with hope and pride, plus, was that love? Life was getting better.
Faith often wondered what Willow Rosenburg would be like in bed. She had a lot of passion hidden under that mousy exterior, and lighting the spark to see what would happen appealed to her greatly. But Xander was right, as usual; actually seducing the red head would start more trouble than it was worth.
She didn't used to worry about things like that, pre-mayor, but than she had only been into guys then anyway. It was prison that had broadened her horizons, so to speak, and involvement with the man sleeping beside her that had introduced romance to her life. So she had no experience to guide her in the 'whom can I bed, who can't I?' area, she had to rely on logic, her philosophy readings, and her love's advice.
Mainly it amounted to Xander's advice, in the end, since even she, despite her inexperience knew that love is not about logic. Besides, questions of when it was all right to introduce lesbian love to your boyfriends best friend, who is herself happily involved with a male werewolf, are not covered in sufficient detail in The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. And anyway the damn stoics were of the 'self denial is the way to happiness' school.
The breasts of the other woman in the bed felt good pressed into her back, so she turned to face her. The blonde was bigger in most ways than the slayer, but looked vaguely like Buffy, because, as Xander had pointed out once, most of the women the dark slayer seduced looked like Buffy. He had been smiling when he said it, and incorporated the shared fantasy into their large store of such.
Jennifer had only been dozing, not really asleep, when the other woman turned around and woke her, and she looked into the others eyes to see smouldering lust. Kissing followed immediately, followed by fondling, followed by activities that woke Xander and meant none of those in the bed got any sleep for a fair while. Only the slayer got to sleep in the next morning though, since one went to school and the other had to get to work.
"Why does Faith keep looking at me that way Xander?" The red headed girl said to her oldest friend, who she was trying to renew her friendship with. It was going slowly, since some of her habits were just that, habits she fell back on without thought, and others were real problems, like Faith. "I mean, I know she's, you know, into girls too, but, why me? She has all these other girls, beautiful girls, why me and anyway how come you don't object to the 'she's cute, lets take her home and fuck her' thing, because, if Oz did that I'd kill him, or, maybe, not actually kill but definitely hit on the nose with a rolled up newspaper on his wolf days or..."
"Why not you?" Now he had to introduce the subject that had to be raised sooner or later, and it might as well be sooner and get her denial, and yelling and not speaking to him for a week out of the way. "She knows that vampire you was bisexual, and that therefore you are too, and you resent her because you want Buffy but can't admit that to yourself.
"I'm gay, I can't be gay, Angel didn't actually say the vampire being gay meant I was too, I mean, I know Buffy cut him off but, hey, maybe he wasn't going to say that, and I'm not in love with Buffy we're just really close friends, and, so what if I look at her in the shower after gym, I have eyes, and there she is naked, with water flowing over her as she shampoos her hair and the suds run down her slick, wet, perky breasts with the pink nipples and..."
"Breathe Will, and does the phrase, 'denial is not just a river in Egypt' mean anything to you?"
"Does this mean I have to wear overalls and start to hate men because, I like men, I like Oz, and you, you're my best friend even if I haven't shown it recently?" The only Rosenburg child asked.
"Only if you really want to, and anyway if you like men too that's technically bisexual, and the Lesbian Collective at UC Sunnydale can help you with this."
"How do you know?" The still confused and uncertain girl asked. How does a heterosexual male learn this stuff?
"I found out about the collective because Faith, ah, 'engaged in acts of extreme friendship' with a member one night, and I know they accept bisexuals because I researched it for you."
"YOU WHAT?" He researched it for me, the computer wiz asked, stunned at his nerve. "You told them about me, how dare you, did you use my name, I mean, what if they call my home and dad answers?"
"I dare because, despite how things have been between us recently, you are my oldest friend and you have to know this stuff, who to talk to about girl/girl stuff." Then he smiled at his friend. "I just said I had a friend who might need their help and they gave me their website address, they list social groups in the area, there's one for 14 to 21 year olds that you might want to think about."
"But what will Oz say, I can't keep this a secret, I love him, I can't just, you know, put my Denise Richards poster up in my locker without telling him, will he be upset, he'll leave me won't he."
"First, Denise Richards Poster?"
"You know the scene in Wild Things where she's about to have sex with Neve Campbell and Matt Dillon pours Champaign over her breasts? I have a poster of that I made up, actually I have five but the full size ones are too big to fit the locker door."
"You made up five life size posters of Denise Richards Champaign covered breasts and thought you were straight?" The White Knight asked incredulously.
"Four, the fifth is small enough to fit the lockers at school, I measured carefully." His friend corrected. "The big ones are actually better quality though, it looks like you could just lean in and lick her dry."
There was a moment's silence while Xander tried to get the image out of his mind. From her tone she really seemed to be mainly interested in the interesting technical challenge, she had that, 'my new computer program works' look.
"Secondly, as to Oz's reaction, he will do what any other red blooded male American werewolf would do, he'll ask if he can join in, or at least watch."
"And if you want to take my advice red, you need to take a test ride before you tell everyone you're buying." Faith added, having walked up on them without being noticed. She was trying to give sensible advice, but also she really wanted to get kinky with the Wicca. One required the other, in this situation, she felt. "Just me and you, I promise SB won't even watch, Slayer's honour."
"Sure, no, I, ah...why do you call Xander SB now?"
As an attempt to change the topic it was obvious, but worked because no one wanted to push further today. The only male present had been worrying himself for months that Willow's denial would get deeper, leading to a shouting denunciation and the loss of her friendship. He would leave it alone for now.
One of many Sunnydale graveyards, that night. "So, Faith, what did you talk to Willow about this morning, she's been looking at me strangely all day?" Buffy Summers asked. Faith had been using the hatchets for a while now, and was carrying them now, with a now empty back pack to hide them from the police when necessary.
"How I've wanted to make love to you from the moment I met you." It had the virtue of being the simple truth, and of diverting the older slayer away from thinking about Willow, who did not want to come out any further just yet. "How much Xander and I both want me to actually, how happy the three of us could be."
"I'm in love with Angel, Faith, and I'd never cheat on him."
The out bisexual noticed that her fellow slayer said nothing about being appalled or disgusted at the idea. And of course Faith owed Angel her chance at redemption, even if it was on the original time line and no one else remembered.
"I wouldn't hurt Fang like that either B, and neither would Xander, not after what happened with Cordelia. But if you ever are single again, just remember the offer stands."
"Bronzing it after the patrol?" Said the blonde slayer changing topics.
"No, Jennifer is coming over again and bringing some toys, so, no, I have to be home early."
"Getting serious with her is it, how does Xander feel about your falling in love with another woman?"
"I will only ever love one woman Buffy, and it's not Jennifer."
Buffy connected the statement with the previous offer, and realised she had no idea what to say. At the end of a long and tiring week, hell, a long and tiring few years as slayer, it was too much to think about.
"I'll be going to see Angel, 'cause, you know, he's my boyfriend."
"I know B, I know."
Willow Rosenburg was woken by Faith's thrashing and shouting, as was Xander. Which was interesting, because she was in the same bed as the slayer, while her childhood friend was in the other bedroom, sleeping on the floor. The same room Buffy was sleeping in, though she was in the bed, and still asleep. The blonde was a last minute addition to the group, her bedroom at home reminded her that Angel was gone, and she had been too upset to wonder why Xander was watching late night TV when she arrived, instead of in bed with his woman.
The red head was stunned by the situation, and scared, standing next to the dark slayers bed, while the dark haired boy looked at his troubled girlfriend. He did not look surprised, depressed but not surprised. The he turned to speak to her.
"It's ok Will, just a nightmare." He was speaking softly, having moved her away from the bed so as not to wake Faith. He had agreed to sleep in the next room as part of the agreement with Oz, despite his fears that this might happen. "She thought she was over it, you go sleep in the other room and I'll take over here."
And with that he undressed completely, giving the Wicca the first look at his naked body since they were old enough to be bathed together. In particular, the fact that he was bigger than Oz in more than height. Longer AND wider, in fact. When he climbed gently into bed the dark haired girl immediately hugged him tight, causing him to wince, then she relaxed and dropped off to sleep.
After watching the scene, and the amazing transformation caused by her guy friend's presence, Willow picked up her clothes and went to the other bedroom. PICKED UP MY CLOTHES, I WAS FULL FRONTAL TO XANDER! And he had taken a good look, which was a comfort to her ego, but most of his attention had been on Faith, and whether to be hurt at his not paying more attention to her or be amazed at the same maturity was a question.
Willow was more awake now, as she had not been since having sex with Faith. Oz was on tour, had left straight after the graduation ceremony. Graduation had been a boring affair, Snider had made a speech in place of the Mayor, who was in a mental asylum, raving about preparing 100 years to ascend to full demon hood, only to fail at the last minute.
"Time for you to take the test ride Faith offered." Was all her boyfriend had said before getting in to his van full of band equipment and heading off. When she had broken the news of her suspected bisexuality to her werewolf, along with the dark slayers advice to 'take a test ride before you tell everyone you're buying', his total response had been, 'good advice, but, no Xander.' After her second orgasm of the night she had called Oz's motel to assure him that, yes, she definitely was buying. He had responded with 'Ok.'
When Willow entered the bedroom she saw the empty bed and assumed Xander had been sleeping in it, as planned. Presumably the blankets on the floor had fallen off when he got up to deal with Faith. She crawled into bed and, feeling good about the world and her place in it, went to sleep. She did not even notice the blonde slayer re-enter, after getting up for a glass of water.
Buffy was too tired to wonder about Willow's sudden presence, as she had been too tired to consciously notice Faith's shouting in her sleep. 'I'll ask in the morning' she thought, and crawled into bed, and unknowingly into a favourite dream of her red headed friends'. They had had sleepovers before, the blonde thought, not knowing this night was different.
Willow was having what she thought of as 'Buffy sex fantasy number 4', the one where she was the slayers' sex slave, expected to satisfy her mistress every night, without the inconvenience of having to be asked. Mistress Buffy acted coy, her faithful concubine was expected to take charge and see to her orgasms. So when Buffy ACTUALLY DID get into bed with her, it registered as part of the first stage of a dream rather than a real world event.
Willow snuggled up to Buffy, and this registered very differently with each woman. To Buffy it was just something the other did on sleepovers, it had surprised her as first but that was years ago, and, anyway, it was Faith who was into girls. To Willow it was the first phase of her fantasy, positioning herself and letting Mistress get to sleep first. That Willow usually slept in quite modest attire, and was totally naked now, was puzzling to Buffy, but not enough to trigger alarm bells.
Buffy sex fantasy number 4 only really got going once Mistress was sound asleep, so Willow's unconscious, which had noticed that the centre of the dream was physically present, had adjusted the opening phases to suit. Now the Wicca entered the phase where she 'relaxed' her stressed Mistress after another hard day as ruler of all she surveyed. This involved slowly arousing and then masturbating the other woman, so that she achieved a mind-blowing orgasm in her sleep. It worked in the fantasy, anyway.
The older of the two slayer's had subconsciously noticed what was happening, that the other girl in the bed was touching Buffy's breasts, nipples, and then after raising her arousal levels to a new height, gotten to work on her clitoris. By this stage her subconscious was far to turned on to give a rat's arse about anything but how good it felt. Eventually Buffy came, harder than she ever had before, loud and violently, unlike in Willow's fantasy, where Mistress always came quietly and simply had a better nights sleep. No one was asleep in the apartment now.
Elisabeth Anne Summers awoke to find that her best friend had three fingers inserted into her vagina, having reached over her and slid her hand under her pyjama bottom. She had been in what was, to her, a very odd dream, featuring sex with a stranger, her dreams were always about someone specific, i.e. Angel, and now, after a truly mind shattering orgasm, she was facing a horrified looking Willow Rosenburg who had to take her left hand out of her cunt. The red heads right hand had just withdrawn from her own, having had her orgasm seconds before the Buffster.
"Oh my god, Buffy, I'm so sorry, I was dreaming and, I thought it was just a dream, I didn't mean to, if I'd know you were actually there I would never..." All the red headed Wicca, and as she was now standing up against the wall Buffy could clearly see she was a natural red head, could think of was that she had just raped her best friend. Buffy was straight as an arrow, had made it totally clear on numerous occasions, and now I shove my hand in her pussy while she is asleep and can't defend herself. That is having sex with someone without her consent, and there is a word for someone who does that, rapist.
'I just raped Buffy, I just raped Buffy, I just raped Buffy', kept running through her head. The slayer watched the other woman slide down the wall while gibbering apology after apology. She was not angry, even in her confused state it never occurred to her to think the Wicca had deliberately taken advantage of her. Faith and Xander entered the room, turned the lights on, and asked what happened.
"I JUST RAPED BUFFY!" Mr and Mrs Rosenburg's only child shouted, while sliding further along the wall and into a corner of the room. The couple standing in the doorway looked at Buffy, who was clearly confused but did not seem angry, looked at their friend curled up in the corner naked, looked back at Buffy, and then split up. Xander picked up a blanket from the floor to drape over his oldest friend. Faith took Buffy into the kitchen and made coffee for them all. Clearly it was going to be a long night.
"Miss Rosenburg, clearly this was not a planned violation of Miss Summers." Wesley was looking at the group, while speaking in his usual tone, the one that annoyed everyone. He was doing it deliberately, in his estimation right now what was desperately needed was to focus the two women involved on something other than, ah, well, 'the events of the early morning', was how his neatly ordered mind put it. If that meant getting them to focus on how much they hated him, well, it was in a good cause. "You have come out of the closet in a dramatic way, true, but you are NOT a rapist and Buffy has said so repeatedly. Though I would advise the two of you sleep in separate beds in future if avoiding a recurrence is deemed appropriate."
"Ok." Willow said in a small voice. Eventually it had begun to sink in, and, at least on a conscious level, she knew she had not committed a crime. It was still not how she had hoped to break the news of her sexual identity to her friend, and she clearly felt guilty for not being able to somehow control herself. She still felt bad, but Buffy having spent most of the preceding five hours reassuring her meant she was no longer convinced she deserved to die, or even that she should crawl back into the closet and never come out. "If Buffy still wants me around, I mean it'll be a long summer with Xander and Faith in England, and if she doesn't want me around so much I'll understand, so..."
"Willow, Will, for the last time I don't hate you. I don't fear you. I don't think of you as a rapist. And finally..." Buffy let the sentence trail off, so that everyone was looking at her expectantly.
"And finally, well get on and finish the sentence B."
"Willow, I miss Angel desperately, and always will, but you are way better in bed. You have convinced me to give playing for both teams a go, but I want to do Faith and Xander tonight, since they leave tomorrow." She had not asked the couple about it, given that Faith had specifically asked her about it often enough for both of them. "But, until Oz gets back, I would like to repeat last night, with me awake this time, ok?"
"So, I only have to sleep alone tonight?" The Wicca in training asked.
"You don't have to sleep alone at all red, Oz said, NO XANDER, but he did say the test ride was a good idea." Faith was in her element, finally, she was getting what she had wanted since this whole alternate reality had started, a chance to bed all the female scoobies and Xander on the same night. Buffy had actually come on to them, even knowing Faith wanted to make that a permanent arrangement, life was definitely improving. "Make it an extended test ride, that's all. You, me, and Buffy, with Xander reserved for slayer duty, sounds like a plan to me."
"And now, Mr Harris, have you made all your preparations for departure?" Wesley was trying to focus on the topic, rather than the three-way grope fest happening between the women. Clearly the 'can we still be friends' question was answered, for now. "The council has assured me all arrangements are fine at their end, despite Mr Travers objections."
"Fuck Travers." Xander responded. He remembered the officious swine from his treatment of Buffy and Giles on her 18th birthday.
"Only with an electric cattle prod." Responded Wesley.
"Five feet?" enquired Giles.
"Ten at least, no sense taking chances with vermin." Responded Wesley Wyndam Price, who had actually thought in detail how long the electric cattle prod should be.
"I was thinking of a rack and thumb screws." Buffy threw in the comment, before returning to activities inappropriate to what was, after all, a schoolroom.
"Yes, effective certainly, but rather old fashioned, don't you think? It is nearly the twenty first century after all." Price responded. "We can't be like him, after all, have to think about bringing ourselves up to date in equipment."
In the end it was a much bigger departure group than expected, because the council had had a team returning home, and decided to fly the whole group over at once. They were the team that had captured and destroyed The Box of Gavrok, a fact that had made Xander curious, and nervous. That had been his plan, after all, and it had involved casualties, enough so that the group was only now fit enough to travel as a team. He had been expecting them to blame him.
Instead the group was buying him drinks. Of course they didn't like the casualties, but they had all signed up for the council expecting to fight vampires and demons. Instead they were kept sitting on their hands until the Council decided that a watcher somewhere had gotten too independent, and were sent to prevent the horror of independent, and, or, original thinking. Sometimes they were ordered to intimidate slayers, or slayers in training. Not work to be proud of.
Xander's plan had sent them up against a large and nasty group of demons, with some South American thugs working for them as cover. It was a tough fight, not all of the team came out alive, but they had prevented the rise of a big, nasty demon, killed a lot of human size ones, and rescued some hostages/food supplies, into the bargain. They felt like heroes for the first time in a long time, and without him it wouldn't have happened. They wanted more of it, and said so.
So it was a somewhat drunk Xander Harris that answered the boarding announcement. Faith was in better shape, partly because of her slayer constitution and partly because she had more experience at heavy drinking. Cordelia and Angel arrived in time to see them off, both having been emailed about it and not knowing the other was around. They agreed to stay in touch, since both were living in LA anyway. The former zeppo was just happy they arrived to late for Angel to find out what he, Faith and Willlow had been doing with Buffy the previous night.
Xander Harris had seen very little of England in his time here. David Hemmings, the weapons maker, or Master Bladesmith, to use the alternative title, had him pounding steel in the smithy most of the day, when he wasn't learning the theoretical side of things from one of several lecturers, or practical swordsmanship from others. He had researched on the Internet and learned that swords are made with blacksmith tools, and that it would be hot, hard work, but the reality had him collapsing in exhaustion early every night.
Faith was in better shape, and had a literally inhuman constitution, which is all that allowed her to keep with her end of the training. Slayers had always been trained in the field by their watchers, who were in turn trained at the Council training compound on one of the owner's estates. So the trainers had no experience with slayers, but a great deal of experience in teaching fighting skills, vastly more than they could ever teach the watchers, who were, after all, academics by profession and upbringing.
Therefore Xander was being given the undivided attention of the man he was expected to succeed, as well as a group of weapons teachers to explain the realities of combat sword use, and how they affect customisation to an individuals need. Proper sword making needed the swordsman who fought for his life to tell the bladesmith what worked and didn't, a bladesmith who created what was needed with useful suggestions of what was, and was not possible, he was told. Only the council used swords as day to day weapons any more, therefore he would get the best training, be the best in his trade, even if it nearly killed him in the process. For the first month they nearly had killed him, but he learned.
Faith was being run through a variation of the British Army Sergeants course. Her physical and mental toughness were being tested and pushed to the limit, because a weakness in one will cause a weakness in the other. Tired people make mistakes, mistakes kill, inability to think quickly while exhausted and in a confusing, life or death situation, kills.
So the fittest group of Watchers in training ever assembled was going through it all with her, the individuals each given command at different times for different missions, and instructors 'on extended leave' from the real sergeants course were running the group at a pace intended to tax the slayer. The physical toll was always high, and the drop outs for various injuries higher than normally expected, but the military is, after all, the end result of 10,000 years of experience in practical psychology, and everything about it is the result of that. Faith, the worst leader in the course at first, was improving rapidly.
"How did it go today, enjoy your stroll in the beautiful Welsh countryside?" Xander asked, after finishing his email. For the last few months of High School he had been doing home handyman work, as Harris Renovations, staff of one. Willow had created a web page for him, after a while, as his confidence improved and a reputation developed. So now here he was, in 'wherever the hell, England', still getting work requests over the net. All he could do was subcontract the work and hope no one demanded his personal intervention. So far, so good. "And Angel sends his regards."
"Everybody made it on his feet, I'm proud to say, well except for Smithers. And what did Angel contact you for?" The dark slayer responded, fresh out of their shower, looking tired but proud. A 15-mile forced march up, down and along the steep hills and ridges, in drizzling rain, with 50 pound packs all the way, and a man to carry as a casualty for the last five miles, had been the task for today. Keeping the group together AS A GROUP, while finishing within time limits and without pushing anyone to ankle injuries, collapse from exhaustion, etc, it was a real test of judgement, and she had been in charge of it.
"What happened to Smithers?" He was one of the fittest, not to say largest, of the group, actually did this kind of hiking for fun, and had not been expected to be a problem. Well, except for his tendency to judge what others could do by his own standards, which had caused problems when he was in charge for the day. "And Angel had to contact me because he is my 'field representative', someone has to interview possible contractors, check finished work, and all that.'
"Smithers was the one Sergeant Major Lewis chose to be the casualty. Bastard hadn't even told us there would be a casualty to carry, and then he makes us carry the heaviest of the group, and his pack." But, she was proud to know, no-one was left behind, no-one had gotten ahead, no-one sprained or twisted anything, and they were at the pick up point on time anyway. Lots of blisters, aches and pains, but nothing a night's sleep wouldn't fix.
"Sword practice is in an hour, will you be there?" The self-employed businessman asked. Both of them had to, supposedly, but after today maybe they would let her sleep or something instead. Certainly none of the others would be doing more than shower, eat, and sleep.
"Of course I will boytoy. How does fang feel about working for you, anyway?" She had not really been following her lovers business dealings, beyond feeling pride that her encouragement, based on Angels visiting day reports in the original time line, had led to something real. He had saved her from being a brutal murderer and she was saving him from poverty, it felt like a good trade.
"Not sufficiently unhappy as to give up the money, he has rent to pay like the rest of us you know. He has a two bedroom place with Cordelia, if things keep expanding I'm thinking of asking her to come into it too, collect money owed, that sort of thing." For that matter some guy named Doyle was getting the brooding one's help save people, and the former scourge of Europe was determined to attain his redemption. How to make that a paying proposition, that was the question? He would think about it more, some idea would spring to mind.
"Cordelia is living with Angel, what happened to becoming a film star?" Faith asked, now naked and kneeling on the floor in front of him. She got under the table, undid the towel he was still wearing after his shower an hour ago, and proceeded to start licking his inner thighs. As his erection rose she switched to sucking on that, running her teeth along the shaft because he like the feel.
"Ah, Cordy is fine, better than she would be if she took up the only job offer she has had since she started looking, which was actually during high school I should point out." Damn that felt good, Buffy had a different style and Willow had a way of breathing heavily on his balls that was ...oh that felt good.
"What other job offer?" Faith asked, then returned to her task. The Council tested her ability to think under stress their way, she tested Xanders her way. It was certainly more fun, and she was convinced it was a real test of ability to think of two things at once.
"Working for a brothel for high powered Lesbians, actually, it would pay as much in a day as secretary would in a week, app...oh yeah, keep doing that, just keep doing that..."
"A brothel for Lesbians only, never heard of that." She could keep this up until her jaw got too sore, which, given slayer constitution, was a long time.
"She says it's a new idea, or at least their Madam says so." Faith was keeping him just on the sane side of losing his ability to respond rationally. She had, on their second night, told him how she learned to do it, after she broke down and begged his help.
"Female management always makes a good recruitment pitch, but they still lie to you like pimps if it suits them." Which was something she had learned from experience, paying her way to, and then while living in, Sunnydale. She got up and dragged him to the bed, pushed him down on it and impaled herself on his cock. "Mmm, just imagine Cordelia eating pussy, who's your favourite?"
"Angelina Jolie."
"Cordy eating her, Angie fisting me, oh god, yes, yes, yes, YES." After a while the dark slayer felt her boyfriend blow his load into her, and she milked him of every drop he had. Her own orgasm was soon after, still with the image of a certain naked cheerleader in her mind. "We both need another shower, come on."
Spike and Drusilla's place, Brazil
Spike came home from a hard nights killing to find his beloved Drusilla with a fungus demon. Spike attacked, the demon defended itself, killing him in the process, before killing Dru, because it thought she had set him up to be killed. Then it walked outside and was run over by a bus. People who liked Spike mourned him, as did people who thought Buffy/Spike had romantic possibilities, from the padded cells they were in. I certainly will not.
Xander was moving cautiously, because he was alone in unknown territory, on a mission that was as potentially dangerous as it was foolhardy. He had noted a pattern of disappearances, remarkably consistent with what happened in Sunnydale when something evil was collecting sacrifices. Girls between 14 and 20 had been going missing, regularly, and to his Sunnydale conditioned mind the conclusion was obvious, it was a demon and it was trying to raise something terrible and ugly.
Faith being on a training exercise in Scotland, he went alone to the site his research said was the most likely lair. He had a sword he had made and tested, in fact the one he had made for himself, which was not surprising. After all, what other blade would he be expected to carry into battle? Without the Scooby gang he was feeling very alone, but there was no one else he trusted to bring along, his experience with the Watchers being what it was.
The entrance was hidden by thick brush, but had clear signs of recent movement, in particular movement of something man size, dragging something also human size. It was the place. There was light to be seen once he followed a turn in the cave, which hid the light from viewers outside. Faint voices became louder as he approached.
"Please let me go, I won't talk, I won't tell the police, please just let me go, I'll..." It was a frightened girls voice, presumably Sally, the latest missing person. A girl of 15, considered pretty but without a boyfriend, potentially some kind of virgin sacrifice for whatever demon this was.
"You won't tell anything, I bet you won't, no of course you won't, not after I..."
"CAN I INTERUPT, BECAUSE, HEY, YOUR DIALOG REALLY SUCKS." The White Knight shouted to get the creatures attention, it was still in human form but he was not fooled. It was holding a big knife, a knife that dripped blood from the shallow cuts on Sally's naked body. She was in the classic 'virgin sacrifice' position, spread eagled nude on a stone alter with her wrists bound. "And your ceremony, very Hammer Horror 1966, don't you think?"
"AHH." Was all it said, as it ran towards him with the knife held high. Really terrible fighting position, he thought, and as it ran to him he swung up and then diagonally across the creature, from its left shoulder to its below the rib cage on the left side. Its scream was cut off as blood flowed everywhere, from the two pieces of the corpse.
Xander took its knife and cut the ties holding the terrified girl, before looking around for some clothes for her. In his search he found what he had desperately hoped not to, while also expecting it. The dismembered bodies of the other missing girls. Then the former zeppo did what he always did at home, he took the injured to hospital, the one the tourist information place had told him how to find that afternoon, it had seemed obvious information to gather.
That was when, as NASA once memorably phrased it, 'The solid biological waste hit the rotating air movement device.' This was not Sunnydale, the constabulary actually noticed people going missing and tried to find them, if dead tried to catch the killer. It had never occurred to him that would happen, and he was unprepared for it. As he was for the police interrogation that followed. And the questions about the huge sword in the boot of his car.
"Giles, what happened, what have you heard from the Council, Xander's not going to be charged with murder, is he?" Willow asked. It was all over the news, the kidnappings, the apparent rescue by 'a lone American tourist', the 'remains' of missing girls being found, along with the bisected corpse of John Taylor, 27, from a nearby village. The tourist was 'helping the police with their investigations' - i.e. he was being held for interrogation. "He didn't kill anyone, it was a demon, right, he killed a demon and helped that girl, Xander wouldn't kill anyone, he wouldn't...would he?"
"Miss Rosenburg, it would appear that Mr Harris did indeed kill a human being. However, according to Watchers Council contacts with the police, DNA testing links Mr Taylor with 8 previously unsolved rape/murders, quite aside from the victims in the cave." Wesley spoke calmly, but it was lack of sleep rather than any real mood. He had been in constant contact with various associates in Britain, and, with the time difference, he was functioning like a robot.
"But, we don't kill people, we kill monsters, Xander will feel awful, he's never killed anyone before, I have to go to him, I'll borrow the money from my parents, can you organise something Wesley?" The red head was still flustered.
Giles had also been in contact with England, but mainly it had been a phone call to Xander, who was being shown remarkable courtesy under the circumstances. Obviously the council was intervening quietly, to avoid a scandal making their existence public, providing a solicitor, that sort of thing. But being allowed to talk to a suspect in a murder enquiry was unusual, given he was not family or anything of the sort, simply the listed 'contact in case of emergency.'
"Willow, it appears that Xander set out to kill a monster, and did. It is just that the monster was biologically human, or that is how your friend phrased it to me." Giles responded.
"Giles, what is the council doing to get Xander free?" Buffy demanded as she entered the library, slamming the doors into the wall on both sides as she did so.
"Providing a solicitor, to begin with." Wesley responded.
"He doesn't need a hooker he needs a lawyer."
"A solicitor is a lawyer, it is the English term for one type of lawyer."
"Oh." The slayer was thinking of a follow up question about whether soliciting is illegal in England, given that solicitors are lawyers, but thought better of it.
"Actually Miss Summers, Miss Rosenburg, one good thing, one VERY good thing, has happened as a result of this already." Wesley spoke again.
"What?" The slayer said.
"Quentin Travers wanted to deny all knowledge of Xander, and formally tabled a motion to have him killed in prison ugh..." The younger watchers sentence abruptly cut off as he slammed into the wall with his air cut off. Buffy was less that totally happy at the news, and his apparent joy at it. Giles made sure he was outside kicking or punching range as he spoke to her on behalf of his fellow watcher.
"If you would let Mr Price finish Buffy, he was going to add that because Xander is a public hero right now, and several of the council members have female relatives in the victims age bracket." Apparently one actually had a missing niece, missing since the disappearances started. "They used the incident as proof Travers is totally out of touch with reality and staged a palace coup, as it were. The reform wing now controls the council."
"He won't just give up, will he?" The Wicca asked.
"Apparently he went to his room, got drunk, took a pistol, and went back to the council chambers shouting about traitors and fools." Wesley added. He had been up keeping track of this whole mess, since clearly the police were holding Xander mainly as a formality. The bladesmith's apprentice would be back at the anvil as soon as an appropriate press release could be written, one that did not appear to promote vigilante justice, which was the big hold up.
"Did he kill anyone?" Buffy asked.
"He did not get the chance, the council does have guards, after all, one took his head off with an MP5."
"That's awful." Willow said with feeling.
"Yes, I agree, the holes in the wall and the bloodstains on the carpet, well, a terrible thing to do to Lord Sumersby's ancestral home. The carpet can be replaced, of course, though at huge cost. But bullet holes, well, as I said, terrible things to try to cover up in that old stone work."
"So, how do you know?" Faith asked.
"Know what?" Xander responded. He was back in their room at the estate after an interesting few days dealing with the police. Who were remarkably more interested in their work than Sunnydale's equivalent, but than a dead whale has more interest in police work than Sunnydale police department.
"What kind of blow job Willow gives. She never did that for you while Buffy and I were there." Inwardly she smiled at the use of 'Buffy and I', rather than 'me and Buffy'. The dark slayer was not totally certain it was grammatically perfect, but it was a move away from 'psycho slut Faith', and she was proud of it.
"There was the fluke thing, given another few minutes Cordy and Oz would have seen a lot more than a kiss." He was speaking slowly and tiredly; it still depressed him how it had turned out. How stupidly he had hurt one of the women he loved, destroying his relationship with Cordelia and nearly doing the same with Willow and Oz. "Willow's mother loaned us her copy of 'The Karma Sutra' and a whole bunch of sex toys and movies. I mean, I know she's a California Sociology professor but…"
"You didn't hear what she said when us girls turned up at the door the night of the, ah, going away party."
"You mean while I was putting the car in the garage?" Uncle Rory's old beast, he had not dared to risk leaving it on the street. "What did she say?"
"Well, first she looked at us, then she said, 'your father and I are going to visit Carley', and then she noticed you and said, 'The spare handcuffs and whip are in the upstairs cupboard, plus there's honey, strawberries, and whipped cream in the fridge'." And then she just smiled at us and walked out to the car with this big bag over her shoulder. "Willow seemed to think it was normal, even picked up the nipple clamps that had dropped out of the bag and handed it to her dad. Weird family."
"I can top that. You know Will was really nervous about telling her parents she's bi, well, do you want to know what her mother said when she was told?"
"What?" The slayer asked.
"Compulsory hetrosexism is a construct of the Patriarchy." Xander announced, in his most formal tone.
"What in god's name does that mean?"
"Well, it was right after that that Mrs Rosenburg explained her and Mr Rosenburg's exact relationship with Carley Witherspoon, his secretary. Strange family."
"Oh, and Faith, I have a very important question to ask you."
"What is it xman?" Faith sounded concerned. It was his tone; clearly a vital issue was about to be raised.
"Have I told you I love you today?" Xander spoke in the same concerned, very important question tone. Because it was a very important question for him.
"Yes, but you can say it again if you like."
"I love you Faith."
"I love you Alexander Lavelle Harris." The slayer responded.
Buffy was sleeping curled up next to Oz. The red headed hacker watched them sleep, standing by the window, thinking about things. They were alone in the house; inevitably, Sheila and Ira were at a conference in Cancun, with Carley. They had left her with a new present, the larger room and a King size bed, 'so you can sleep with all your friends, tell us if you need something larger and we will have it custom made.'
Money, leftist academic platitudes, and an attempt to burn her at the stake for witchcraft, were all she had from her parents. She had almost been hoping they would scream and rant at her being gay, but then mom just had to top her with the embarrassing details about how each of them found out the other was cheating, but both with the same woman. "Really dear, it was like a French farce, but it all worked out in the end. And Carley does have a very nice end, doesn't she Ira?"
And now she was in her room with the werewolf she loved, a woman she cared about, and a picture of her family that had nearly given Giles a stroke. He had shown her a picture of his own family, including brothers, a sister and various nephews and nieces. She had remarked on the red hair of so many of them, he said it was a family characteristic; he was the odd man out.
So she had brought in this picture, of her and her parents, and he started turning purple before passing out. The red head wondered what had caused it. She looked at the beautiful, peaceful scene in front of her, the moonlight over her lover's faces so romantic, and she had a puzzle, a Giles puzzle, to solve. Dear Giles, who, fortunately for himself, had never been involved with California academics, how could he, he had lived in England all…"
"I'm an idiot." The girl exclaimed loudly. Then she did something she had never thought to do, despite all her hacking and the invasion of secrets that involved. She went to her parent's bedroom and went through her mother's papers. Finally she found it, advanced research towards her PhD in London, while Ira Rosenburg was in Germany looking at Medieval farming methods.
Rupert Giles house, just after first light the next day – technically later that morning.
The pounding on the door got the librarian out of the shower a little early, and he was starting to wonder if being the school librarian was a good cover now, anyway. With Buffy no longer in high school she and the rest had no reason to go to the library, well he would think about it more later.
"Yes, coming, what is it – Willow, what are you doing here?" He said, as she pushed her way past into the room, holding a bundle of books and framed photo's under her arm. She slammed them down on his coffee table, and opened one to a page and shoved it under his nose. It was Sheila Rosenburgs notes from long ago, mentioning she had not seen Ira for six months, and it was dated.
January, with her birthday in August, that year.
"I just thought it would be nice to see you early today, DAD."
"So, Xman how is the world of big business?" Faith wanted to know; actually she wanted to know what was happening back in the world anyway. This place was starting to make her understand why people had risked the Apache to settle in the USA. Not that she hated England, but it was a nice place to have migrated away from, in her estimation.
Then again, she had never liked the country, and this was as bucolic an area as she could imagine. Xander, on the other hand, was enjoying himself hugely, now that the Crown Prosecutor had decided not to toss him in jail, or gaol as they spelled it here, for the next thousand years. He had been from the moment he found he really could do the work properly, and that people were depending on him to get it right. He was needed, he actually could learn to do what was needed, and, as for the warm beer, Newcastle Brown ale was quite drinkable.
"Angel nearly got staked last night, Cordy is working on a private detective agency idea for him, but says its just research in case she is offered that kind of role."
"What was that about Fang nearly getting dusted?"
"He went to check out a possible contractor, and they got suspicious of him insisting on meeting them at night." The Bladesmith explained. The story was funny, as long as you weren't Angel, but the implications were, mm, interesting. "Some guy named Gunn, Charles Gun, has a gang that fights vampires, and thought deadboy was trying to make a meal out of his uncle."
"Broodboy IS alright though." She owed the souled vamp a lot, even if he didn't remember it. Paying those kind of debts was new, since having anyone help her was new, but she did try. "He didn't get hurt or anything?"
"Oh, he's fine, he had to make a deal with very interesting implications, though." The rising businessman said.
"Interesting, not bad, I did notice the difference."
"They want work, it's a place called South Central, lots more willing hands than work for them. Gunn's crowd are all young, fit, and poor as church mice, but a lot of them know someone with a trade, and the deal is we contract with his friends wherever we can, and they hire the vamp fighters as day labour."
"The interesting implication being what, don't you trust Gunn and his friends?"
"No, not that, Gunn seems responsible and deadboy says the tradesmen he's met all seem as good as any." Xander took another drink, and then looked at the girl across the table. "It's that I seem to be financing demon hunting, I get this image of myself in twenty years time, with this network of secret crime fighters and a public image of the benevolent millionaire."
"You see yourself becoming batman?"
"More The Shadow, actually." He took another sip from his beer. "Or maybe Buckaroo Banzai, but without all the university degrees and the band."
"Buck who?"
"The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai across the Eighth Dimension, you never saw it?" Xander looked at her amazed, how could anyone not have seen his favourite movie.
"Hey, Hey, be nice out there, always remember, no matter where you go, there you are." He quoted the hero, matching tone and voice quite well, actually, given that he was not, in fact, Peter Weller. She still didn't get it, how could anyone not know the line, 'no matter where you go, there you are'? It was engraved on the plaques on the bridge of at least one of the minor vessels in a Star Trek movie. Of course, you had to be a bit obsessive to pick up that detail, Jonathan had told him, but still…
"Don't know that one, ok, how about, '…time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so'." He said hopefully. Still nothing.
"The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is the best selling book in the universe, for two reasons, one, because it has Don't Panic, written in large, friendly letters on the back cover. And secondly it not only tells you how to make a Pan Galactic Gargleblaster, the best drink in the universe, it has a comprehensive list of the volunteer agencies that will help you through the long years of recovery involved in having consumed one." She was smiling, though apparently not in recognition. "Never drink more than two Pan Galactic Gargleblasters, unless you are a thirty ton mega elephant with bronchial pneumonia."
"You're strange, but you're mine." Commented the young slayer.
"But Giles you did meet Willow's mother, she tried to burn us at the stake, remember?" Buffy said, watching the father and daughter look at each other. They had had hours to work this out, and her friend seemed to have accepted the situation. "How could you not have recognised her before, anything about her, and why didn't you look her up when you got to the States?"
"Buffy, having the woman I gave my heart to, that I had the best six months of my life with, suddenly announce she was meeting her husband at the airport and going home was devastating." The older man looked at his charge, more confident of his ability to explain now that he had gotten through to Willow.
"She had not even informed me she was married, was going under her maiden name in fact. Something about 'subverting patriarchal dominance', anyway she just got on the plane, flew away, and that was that." Willow had accepted his version of events, both because she knew her mother, and because she had read her mothers journal.
"Yes Buffy, Mom and Dad had an 'Open Marriage' arrangement, actually they still do but they don't go to separate places for work any more, so the opportunity isn't there." She had been told about it while quite young, but it had never really registered as real until now. "I guess I just have to start calling dad Ira, and you dad, Giles. Unless you don't want me to of course, I mean, I'd understand if you didn't want me to call you that."
"Willow, after failing to even know you are alive I feel more privileged than you will ever know that you want to acknowledge me as your father." The librarian was cleaning his glasses, and obviously fighting tears. "But don't you think it will upset your, well I suppose step father, to do that, I mean, I know he must love you very much. He did raise you as his own child, where most men would have just demanded a divorce."
"Giles, I TOLD him that you were more of a father to me than he is last year, and he just repeated some of moms BULLSHIT about 'deconstruction of the atomic family.' They will be cold and distant and give me material goods instead of concern and love, which is what they have always done."
"Oh." Was all he could think to say. After all, how do you respond to something like that. So, instead of saying anything, he just hugged his child.
"Thanks dad."
Faith was enjoying the warmth of the night, or at least the relative warmth of the night. One of the things she had hated about England was the weather. Cold, damp, and experienced far too often with a 50lb pack on her back in the howling black middle of nowhere. All right, that was often actually Wales rather than England, but it was still too cold and wet for someone who had spent years in southern California.
It was, in fact, not a warm night, and the way the demon blood congealed so quickly proved it. Cleaning the hatchets was going to be a bitch, she thought, as she walked down the street to her home. The neighbours might have been expected to comment on a teenage girl covered in blood, holding two blood covered tomahawks, but that would be in another town. This was Sunnydale. Her running shoes made a squelching sound as she walked, still wet from the blood.
People passing her going the other way were muttering about the squelching sound, rather then the multi coloured blood soaking her from head to foot. Squelch, squelch, she walked, thinking she should bring a change of clothes, or at least stash one somewhere, for situation like this. Squelch, squelch, the blood soaked sneakers went, while the blood on her other extremities congealed, squelch squelch.
Xander was probably not home yet, given where his business premises were and that he was still setting up. Some people in Sunnydale have horses, it is a small town away from LA, rather than a big city after all, so a blacksmith and saddlery had some automatic business. Then there was the office of Harris Renovations, which was growing and mutating in a way reminiscent of the monsters in some old B grade movies, or maybe the original Alien. Not so finally his weapons making was a part of the business that was actually why the others were being created in the first place.
So when Faith arrived she expected to get home past the strange looks of any awake neighbours, as usual, change out of the demon goo and vampire dust covered clothing, as usual, 'do something' about her extreme horniness, as usual, - but alone, not so usual – then eat like a horse and sleep, also as usual. Instead she was met by a very horny Buffy, who ripped her clothes off and flung them in the general direction of the laundry. Faith had the deeply intellectual response normal to her in this sort of situation.
"Fuck dinner." She said, as she manoeuvred the other woman into the shower, which she was still in desperate need of.
"Girl smell nice."
"Whatever you say B." Well, at least she seemed over the whole Parker thing, anyway. Though how anyone could call this a good smell is… oh yeah keep doing that…. how anyone co…oh that feels good… turn up the hot water…oh that…green and blue blood flowing down her and over Buffy's naked form…oh, oh, oh, oh.
The fact that the older slayer was not able to make any coherent comments about anything was, in fact, in a chemically induced cartoon Cro-Magnon state, but this was not obvious at the time. And when the man of the house arrived, he found his two slayers becoming reacquainted after a long separation. Being a kind hearted soul, much given to maintaining friendships, he joined them in their highly social activity, rather than question or even notice the slayers somewhat intoxicated state.
Buffy was acting strangely in the morning, very primitive, grunting, and not understanding much. Xander had a meeting to go to, and had to leave it to Faith, who took the slayer to Giles. Giles, in turn, had a meeting with the person Xander had found to work on his business plan and aspirations. 'Failing to plan is planning to fail', the former zeppo had quoted, and the librarian had accepted the advice.
Principle Snider was gone, having been thrown out by the new mayor. Mrs Constance Highland was mystified why anyone would hire such a man for this role, or as anything else but palace executioner. And since she, as a small town mayor did not have a use for an executioner/torturer, she had arranged a job transfer to an oil drilling site in northern Alaska. She had no idea exactly why the company had agreed to take him, but they needed an education officer, it was an environment where sloppiness and undisciplined behaviour was lethal, and it paid well. He was gone.
Hopefully into a polar bears jaws.
"So, Giles, what do you think of Buffy?"
"I think she is under a spell. And that you should call Willow straight away."
"Willow knows what's wrong with her?"
"Willow still had some of your, ah, personal items, and asked me to get you to come and pick them up. Or she said she would use them, apparently that is intended as a threat." He was confused, but not as confused as he liked to make out. He just did not want to think about what items, actually the word used had been toys, Faith might have left that another persons free use of might …no, he definitely did not want to think about it. Not after what Jenny Calender had called her toy collection.
"Ok, so, what about B?"
Unknown to either of them, Buffy was actually behaving far more reasonably than she had been the previous night. It was just that Faith had been in slayer heat, and Xander had just assumed Buffy had come over to party after patrol. She was sniffing the books, looking around, and making grunting sounds, all of which was not normal, even for her. And normal is not a word used very often about slayers.
"Has she said or done anything unusual?"
"Well, there was the demand we go back to a bar for beer, but Xander just gave her some of his. But to be honest, we didn't do a lot of talking"
"I licked Faith's pussy all night." The Summers girl announced.
"Why would your cat need help with its grooming Faith?" Giles commented, in his most sincere 'clueless British librarian' tone. "And for that matter when did you get a cat?"
"That was so embarrassing." The Summers daughter said. No one really believed that Giles was actually that naive. Willow had told them of the celebration she had had with her father, they had both gotten fairly smashed and the conversation had rambled all over the place. In particular as to some of the Ripper background. "I really started explaining that licking pussy isn't a reference to cat grooming, didn't I?"
Perhaps fortunately, at this point a group of vampires attacked. Faith swung up her hatchets, and Buffy brought out the sword she had decided to carry. It was one of several Xander had insisted she decide between, if she was going to start using a sword. He had spoken of balance, and suiting weight distribution to her fighting style.
She had been surprised, on her own part, by the lightness of the blade. Even after the fight with Angelus she had thought a good sword was supposed to be heavy. This one weighed a little over 2 pounds, and felt better in her hand than any of the others, for some reason. It went through the lower arm of the vampire in front of her fairly easily too. The vamp hauled the arm back, screaming, and she beheaded it.
That was the pattern set, and how Xander had suggested she use the sword. It was, like all his weapons, a straight, European style weapon, a slashing blade. And she went for the hands, to remove the defence, then the head, or something else to disable the bloodsucker, then the head.
"I don't know if I really like this, maybe I should stick to using stakes?" The blonde announced, dusting a second vampire while Faith took her third. That ended the fight, with very little muss or fuss. But while the dark slayer had immediately fallen in love with her hatchets, the blonde was unsure if this was right for her.
"Did you, or did you not, dust those vamps faster than usual?"
"Faster, but, I don't know, its not the same." The university student announced, trying to get across something she really had no words for.
"Did you, or did you not, enjoy it more?"
"Less."
"So B, you're choosing mood over effectiveness." The dark slayer commented.
"Well, when you put it that way, yes, I guess I am."
"B, that's putting mood over survival, and ok I used to be like that, but if the sword lets you live longer, than why not use it?" Faith was worried about where this was all going. Buffy had been at a loss after Angel left, then Parker screwed her, in both senses, and she felt used.
Which she was, of course, but the Boston slayer would have understood that she was not being offered more than a fun night. The older slayer was painfully young in some ways. A year older physically, but it was embarrassing to see her in pain because a guy had treated her the same way Faith had treated so many of them in the past. And now this Reilly character was around, what was he, why did he seem to ring alarm bells in her head?
"B, if you really don't see why choosing a slaying method that lowers your life expectancy, just because it improves how you feel, is a bad idea…maybe you should come home with me tonight?"
"No, I have a date, well, kinda a date, not a date date, or, well, maybe it is, with Reilly, the TA in my psych class."
"Buffy, I don't know about that guy, something about him and his friends seems, well, out some how."
"I know he's kind of ordinary, but, maybe I NEED a normal, ordinary guy at this time in my life?"
"Then why not Xander? He does ordinary well, if you want him to." Lately he didn't seem to be like that, certainly Faith did not see him as ordinary, but Buffy presumably needed something like that.
"He's with you now Faith."
"We can share." The younger slayer said. "We've done it before, and you liked it, and, you know, maybe you need to be loved?"
The pleading tone in her voice would have been obvious to anyone who was less screwed up than Elisabeth Summers. But all the slayer known as Buffy could feel was that she had to take this one, last shot at a normal life, with a totally normal guy. Xander Harris was no longer a normal guy, and dating Faith was not a normal girl thing to do. Reilly was totally ordinary, Mr Middle America, boringly normal.
"I have to try, Faith, I have to give it one last try."
Xander was finally home; actually he had been home long enough to get the evening meal prepared. It still had to be nuked up in the microwave, which was the price of being a Scooby; set meal times were a doomed idea. But everything was ready for his love to come home, since her shower and first orgasm of the night always took enough time for the reheating and allowing the wine to breathe. She walked in, and he started everything even as he saw the look on her face.
"So, Faith, glad to be home after a long nights slaying?" Clearly she was not, but a routine was important, he felt. If he could not be there for her on patrol, and at least until the business was running smoothly he could not, then a pleasant place to come home to was not too much to ask of him. At least he felt he was making a contribution that way. "Whatever happened, you survived it, none of us is in hospital or you would have called about it, have a shower with me, dinner will be ready soon, and we have a bottle of Mateus properly chilled."
The 1950's housewife routine would have seemed bizarre or insulting to most people, but neither person here had had that kind of upbringing. It was not the routine of their childhoods, it was the unattainable fantasy of childhoods involving alcoholism, broken marriages, beatings, gambling debts, and going hungry because asking for food would get you a beating from your drunk/stoned parents. At least they both hoped the 1950's housewife thing was everyone else's reality, because, if not, it was just too depressing.
Faith kissed him and headed for the shower. Her boyfriend joined her, a plastic cup of Portuguese Rose. Glasses were more romantic, but the broken glass in the shower resulting from their use was anything but. It was not the most expensive wine, but they both liked it and that made it good, in this case. There was a lot of steam in the shower, not all of it from the hot water.
"Why doesn't she love me, Xander, am I really so awful a person?" It was a fairly straightforward meal; of the kind the budding businessman and bladesmith had learned to make from cookbooks. Lots of people buy the books and look at the pictures, and then order home delivered pizza. Xander, who was trying to learn the limits of his ability to create with his hands, had discovered another talent. The real secret, as Buffy's mother had told him, was being willing to throw out the occasional failure as the price of learning.
"No fair, the Buffster has been rejecting me way longer than she has been rejecting you." Chicken breast, sautéed in onion, capsicum, and tomato, with some garlic and wine in the sauce as well. He thought it worked well, with a salad of lettuce, olives, tomato, asparagus and tuna, in a vinaigrette dressing. "We just have to try our best, love her as best we can – and we do DAMN GOOD loving – and show her that we are the best she can get."
Faith though about it as she tore off a piece of French bread, and scooped some of the tuna and tomato from the salad onto it. Ok, she thought, so I'm a barbarian with no table manners, sue me, and she bit into the result. This was a better meal than anything her mother had ever done, better than she had had for the first 17 years of her life, in fact.
"Should I crack open another bottle?" The wealthiest Harris commented. Actually none of this was very expensive, it just took a little time and thought.
"Can I have a coffee instead?" She knew the answer, she could smell it from here. "And what's for desert?"
"Coffee, well I did Jamaica Blue Mountain, and we have lemon cheesecake for desert." Ala Xander, of course, since the recipe had asked for lemon juice from a squeeze bottle of the brand that subsidised the cookbook, rather than fresh lemons. Damn savages.
If anyone had told Faith, a year previous, that she would be living like this, she would not have believed it. Giles had commented, when they had the gang over for a welcome home dinner, that the cheesecake was better than anything he'd eaten recently in a coffee shop. The zeppo had been walking on air over that comment for days afterward.
"Xander, have I told you what you mean to me lately?"
"Never having to eat at MacDonald's again?"
"Never wondering if life is worth living again. I have the memory of times like this, and I will even if life gets bad again. You make my life worth living." She took another bite from her cheesecake, then washed it down with more coffee.
"Even without Buffy to share it with?"
"You've saved my soul xman, Buffy will come around one of these days, but I have what I need because I have you." She sat back, her slaying induced hunger gone, and hugged her lover to her. "Cuddle me."
"A Xander's work is never done."
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." This is sometimes known as Clarks Law, created by the science fiction writer, and inventor of the communications satellite, Arthur C Clarke. The initiative was working partly on the concept that the reverse was also true, that you can't do anything that is physically impossible, therefore magic had to be scientifically studyable. It was an interesting idea that, in the hand of competent, objective, intelligent people might have led to breakthroughs in many sciences.
Unfortunately, people that would not be missed by their respective scientific communities ran the initiative. People who had to think they knew everything, or they would not have taken on this dangerous work, despite the fact that they were not respected enough to be even missed. In two words, arrogant fools.
The clash was quick and dirty, the initiative members overcome by speed, numbers and surprise. The electric stun guns they were relying on, big tasers basically, simply could not deal with multiple targets, as the demons leader had calculated. At least, not well enough to stop some of the demons from getting into hand-to-hand range, and then it was over. Fortunately, the fight was also noisy, and Faith, Xander and Buffy arrived in time to prevent a massacre.
Hand to hand fighting against enemies with talons, fangs and literally inhuman speed, strength and pain tolerance was a losing move, which is why it was not supposed to happen. 'No battle plan survives contact with the enemy, as the saying goes.' As Faith, the first Scooby to arrive attacked, the first of Riley Finn's men died. He was also the last to die at the scene. Of the five-man team, one was Killed In Action, the others badly chewed on. How badly was impossible to tell in the dark, and with all the blood. But there was a human arm being eaten without a human attached to it, which was an indication.
Buffy took off the head of the creature eating the arm, then turned and made a diagonal cut, right shoulder to lower left side, on another. The sword was holding up well, Xander had insisted that you should never stop trying to learn, that he was a long way from a master craftsman yet, but his current efforts impressed her. And everyone else who had used them in combat, which included several Watchers Council strike teams.
The whole teams, that is, not just members of a given team. With the new global search and destroy policy strike team casualties were up, but morale was high. Unfortunately here and now they had a group of badly torn up Scooby wannabe's to help. The blonde turned to notice the dynamic duo, Xander and Faith, organising the aftermath, Faith on her mobile phone.
"Whoever is on the other end of this radio, you have a team down at the western entrance of the Shadyrest cemetery. Can you arrange medivac or will I take them to Sunnydale General?" Xander said into Riley's shoulder mike.
"This frequency is for tactical use only, clear the air."
"LISTEN FUCKHEAD, I am giving you ONE chance to avoid going public, either get Dustoff here NOW, or they go to hospital and the public record." Xander was exasperated, and falling back on his soldier possession as he viewed the scene. "Answer me, because I already have a van coming, and I'm not waiting."
"We have to speak to the patrol commander, and …"
"Fucking REMF." The bladesmith muttered, just loudly enough to be heard by his friends. Willow drove up with his van, purchased for his business, but for things like this as well. "Too late, meet us at Sunnydale General Emergency Department."
The drive was fast and furious, Willow, despite her mousy exterior, was, when she focused, an extraordinary driver. Focusing meant ignoring the speed laws, among other things, which were what restrained her the rest of the time. The sirens of pursuing patrol cars cleared the road for them, at least. Buffy was in the back holding on to the most badly wounded survivor, and praying quietly.
"What's a REMF?" She asked the dark haired man, but Faith answered. The blacksmith was cleaning all the teams' weapons even on this wild drive. Better to have unbloodied weapons, mounted in plain sight, than bloody swords in their hands when the cops caught up.
"Rear Echelon Mother Fucker." The dark slayer explained. "Dustoff is a casevac helo."
"Ok." The blonde said, still confused by the explanation. Xander was running on soldier guy possession memories, and he had been US army. Faith her recent training by 'borrowed' British Army personnel, who use a slightly different set of terms. For the same reason the dark slayer said recce where her lover said recon, which had caused confusion before.
The cops caught up with the Scooby's after they had begun getting the casualties of the night into the hospital. The sight of badly injured men in military style uniforms, together with the notorious slayer group, was enough to get Sunnydale's finest to quietly drive away without asking questions. Better not to know too much, a mayor inspired policy that still held.
Fitting everyone into the van had been a major achievement, but it had been done. Having Willow on standby with the van was new, Faith's idea, and one of the changes resulting from her training. The interior had been designed for easy changeover, builders van to ambulance and transport for weapons & reinforcements. At least one Scoob was on call, with the van, whenever the others were patrolling. Giles had been with his daughter when the call came, and had driven to hospital to organise things ahead of them.
"Ah, I see our reservist's have survived their accident, and who do we have to thank for this, timely help?" It was an officer from the local army base, woken up by a call from his superiors to come here and '…make up some bullshit, damn black ops fuck up, turn up and pretend it's a training accident. And find out who the civilians are, NOW COLONEL, NOT NEXT WEEK!'
"Wesley Wyndam Smythe Colonel, yes it is most fortunate we observed this unfortunate accident and could help, isn't it?" Wesley was speaking for two reasons, one, he was the only member of the team with no police file, and secondly, his cultured British accent would add to the level of disorientation clearly being felt by the military representative. "Although I must add that you in fact have one man dead, we were to late to help him, I am most afraid to say."
"Let me see if I have this straight. Doctor Frankenstein here." The General said, pointing to Professor Walsh by jerking his thumb. "Sends you out against enemies who are your physical superiors in every way, armed only with bug zappers."
The early disaster, barely avoided in the original history, had attracted an investigation from parts of the Pentagon establishment who disliked the whole Special Operations community. Which is basically everyone not in Spec Ops, since so called elite units are bitterly resented by officers who are, by implication, not elite. When General O'Malley's men found the hidden room, 314, and the ADAM project, all hell broke loose, because it brought the accountants into the whole mess.
"Then she kept these thing alive to try to create some kind of super soldier, which we could never field because, wow, IT'S A DEMON AND LOOKS LIKE IT. Too obvious to be used for infiltration or special operations, and in regular units the press would find out as soon as the first GI phoned home with "gee ma, guess what's new in MY platoon?"
The sheer idiocy of the thing was what really bugged him. ADAM was stronger, faster and tougher than any normal soldier, but could still be taken out with normal weapons. And had been, because the men who had found it had been fully armed, as he ordered after taking one look at the monsters in their plastic cages. Two men entered room 314, saw it, and cut loose full auto. The rest of the squad, hearing the shooting, had run in and opened up also.
What was left was barely enough to make a sandwich, a radioactive sandwich.
"And your 'field agents' had to be rescued by these Slayers, who Walsh insisted were just a myth despite having kept careful track of their efforts over the last year." The slayers and their support team impressed him; apparently they had been fighting these things with sharp sticks until this Harris individual re-equipped them. "By the way, I personally intend to file charges against you, Professor Walsh, for experimenting on your men without their consent.'
He wasn't totally certain what charges would be brought against everyone, but Walsh was up for embezzling government funds, just as a start. Stealing operational funds to create ADAM, treating her soldiers like experimental animals, and keeping these dangerous things alive in cages. 'Well what happens if their's a prison riot, DIMBULB,' he thought. Was that grounds for reckless endangerment charges?
"Reilly, I expect you will get through the court marshal with the Nuremberg defence." Cornfed just looked at him, puzzled. Was it the drugs or some kind of conditioning not to think too much? Or was he really as thick as two planks? "You know, 'I vas only following mine fuehrers' orders.' Say goodbye to this place everyone, because once we strip it bare it gets filled with concrete."
Willow was sitting holding hands with Tara, a sweet natured, if shy girl who really seemed to have captured her heart. After Oz left she had been shattered, and spent every night in Faith and Xander's bed. But the other Wicca had been there, when The Gentlemen had stolen everyone's voices, and the rest was young love doing its will.
Giles was proud of his daughter, and confident that this new venture would work. The High School Library was totally inappropriate as a headquarters with Buffy now in University, but this was good. It explained the magical supplies, the ancient texts on strange subjects, even the medieval weapons could be explained as an attempt to help an old student, i.e. Xander, by selling his wares. He smiled at Tara, trying to let her know he was supportive as long as she made his child happy.
Xander was working on several things at once. General O'Malley had commissioned a sword, a two handed broad sword, as part of thanking the Scoobs for helping, and for their regular evil fighting. The simple acknowledgement of the importance of their efforts meant a lot, 'thank you' being something they were not told often. And swung some of the work of concreting up the initiative labs his way, as a more practical thanks. Gunn and a group of his guys would be doing the actual work, spreading the money around a bit more.
And finally there was the big news. With Reilly on his way to Washington for secret hearings Buffy was alone again. This time she had decided to give up on the dream of a 'normal life', and was moving in with Faith and himself. She had announced it to them in bed that morning, after Faith had fucked her in the ass with a huge strap on.
"I love you Faith, Xander, and I'm sorry it took this long to say so. I kept trying to run away from who I am and what I really want. And what I really want is your love, from both of you." She had been looking down, mournfully, a sad tone in her voice. They had been so patient with her, through her various infatuations. "I will do anything to make it up to you, just name it."
"Buffy, it's alright, you don't have to…" The dark haired construction boss started to say, before Faith cut him off.
"ANYTHING B? Now that has possibilities." The dark slayer said, with a mysterious, sexy gleam in her eye.
The whole Tara demon thing began with Faith, or, more to the point, with her wondering how Xander could sleep at night. When she had killed Alan Finch, in the original history, by accident, it had scarred her profoundly, and started her down the path to 'the dark side of the force.' But her beloved seemed to have no problems with having killed a man who he had deliberately hunted down, none at all.
"He was evil Faith." Which seemed to end the debate from the bladesmith's perspective.
"But he was human, and we don't kill humans, its wrong." The dark slayer responded. The Scooby gang had always made a big ethical point of that.
"Why do we kill demons Faith?" The ex Zeppo asked, steepling his fingers in a way he had seen Spock do in Star Trek II.
Sometimes the ex convict wondered if she should ever have tried to introduce him to philosophy. As soon as she had explained Socrates style, Xander had acquired his first intellectual hero.
"Because they're demons, and vampires, and that's what we do, hence the name, Vampire Slayer." She knew she was walking into a trap, from recent experience, she just couldn't see where it was yet.
"So, we don't kill vampires because they're evil, or eat people?" He asked, looking slightly confused. Tara was watching intently from a distance, as she waited for Willow to get here. Here being The Magic Box, in particular the table in back where study was normally done.
"Well of course they are evil, that's why we kill them."
"Not because they are vampires then?" Still the puzzled look on his face, and still the blonde Wicca paying careful, unnoticed attention in the background.
"What?" He was doing it again, and, for someone who had only read about this before it was intriguing, in the sense that falling into a river full of piranha is intriguing for however many seconds.
"Faith, I'm not really following you." Which was getting under her skin.
"We kill vampires because they are evil." Buffy stated from the front of the room. She had not known who Socrates was, except for vague references to ancient Greece, and the portrayal of him in 'Bill and Ted's excellent adventure.' "They eat people and try to end the world, and they torture people and want to make food or slaves out of us."
"So, all vampires and demons should be killed?"
"Yes of course." The blonde slayer said confidently. Faith could see the hammer rise now; glad she was not under it for a change.
"So Angel should be killed." The picture of a not too bright individual trying to grasp a complicated idea.
"WHAT!!"
"Well, you just agreed that all vampires and demons must be killed, and Angel is a vampire." He sounded a little more confident now, but 'clearly' because his friend had helped clear up this point.
"Angel is not evil."
"You just said all vampires and demons should be killed." The construction boss was scratching his head now, lost again.
"But not Angel because he's not evil." The Buffster was angry now, how could he not understand.
"But he is still a vampire, with a demon inside him." Now he looked like a man picking his way though a minefield, every word a step that could blow his foot off.
"But not an evil vampire Xander, we've been through this before." Frustrated Buffy, oblivious to where this was heading, indeed had almost arrived at, in her anger.
"So, only evil vampires and demons should be killed." A spark of understanding behind his eyes now. Clearly the poor boy was finally grasping it.
"Yes Xander, only evil things should be killed."
"So, we kill them because they are evil, not because they are vampires and demons."
"YES XANDER, WE KILL EVIL THINGS BECAUSE THEY ARE EVIL AND DESERVE TO DIE." Really pissed off Buffy, trying to get the point home.
"So we should kill evil humans." The xman announced cheerfully, the look on his face that of a man who had finally emerged after being trapped in a collapsed building.
"What, how can you say that Xander?" Confused by the apparent sudden turn in reasoning, her anger and frustration near boiling point.
"You just said we kill evil things because they are evil, well some humans are evil, and…" The bright, 'at last I understand' look was gone from his face, back to puzzlement at her reasoning.
"AHHH" The older slayer shouted, before storming out of the shop in frustration. He had been expecting another round of 'but Buffy you just said that…' before she took off. Still, it was a good beginning.
"Socrates was forced to take hemlock as a result of doing that once to often, you do realise that don't you Xander?" It was Giles, who found the whole discussion deeply disturbing but, unlike Buffy, recognised Socratic Method when he saw it. He was also clapping quietly; the former poor student had impressed him, again.
Socratic Method involves drawing out someone's thinking and then showing him or her the logic flaws that make it unworkable. Doing this to people while maintaining the 'I can't tell you the answer 'cause I'm too dumb' bit is central, the method won't work without it, and Xander played the amiable halfwit so well even people who knew him failed to realise it was an act. Or they failed to realise it until he dropped the hammer on them, anyway.
"I know Gman, but for a second there I thought I was going to be torn limb from limb by an angry slayer." That the ancient Greek had eventually been executed as a troublemaker had only added to his lustre, from the teenager's perspective. He had, after all, started the entire western intellectual tradition by triggering new thought though, and Xander just wanted to shake up the complacency in the Scooby's.
Tara and Faith were both thinking quietly, for different reasons, about what had been said. Giles, for his part, was wondering how much of what he 'knew' about Alexander Lavelle Harris was as much an act as the one that had just been put on for Buffy.
"So, SB, you don't lose any sleep over the Taylor dude cause he was evil, right?" She asked, hoping for a straight answer. Xander didn't do the run them round in circles thing every time, it was a teaching tool with him, not a way of life.
"Faith, he raped and murdered AT LEAST 23 girls. I had to stake Jesse because he would, note the future tense, kill people because he was a vampire." She knew it was a thing he normally never mentioned, indeed had not spoken of to anyone since doing it. She had seen him at his friend's grave, and gotten the story that way, otherwise she would not know at all. "If I could be forced to kill one of the precisely two people who had ever given a damn whether I lived or died, because of the lives he inevitably would take, how could it be wrong to kill Taylor because of the life he was about to take right there and then?"
"So why do I feel so bad about Finch, is it because he wasn't evil." Faith asked.
"Well we don't know he wasn't evil, he did help the mayor get almost to the point of turning into a dinosaur size demon and eating the town." They had been over this before, regularly, because it was a big part of Faith's trip to the dark side. "His being near you may have been a co-incidence, we don't know he was changing sides, that's just an assumption you made, and without actual evidence I must add."
"But I thought he was innocent, so I feel bad?"
"Faith, cops who shoot people generally wind up on antidepressants and getting counselling paid for by the department for the rest of their lives." It was something he had learned as part of his research into the dark slayer's emotional problems. "And that's righteous shoots, where it was proven they had no reasonable alternative. Killing people hurts, unless you are one of the minority that can handle it."
"And are you are one of that minority?" She asked.
"Ever since Jesse I've kept going by thinking of the lives we save. Not the lives we take, because the demons we kill are living individuals with friends and sometimes even families, but the lives we save by killing them. It has to be enough, that's all."
After a while the dark slayer finally had to break the silence. The implication that her breakdown, because that is how she thought of what had happened in the original history, a breakdown and spiral into insanity, had been because she was NORMAL, required more thought before acceptance. Time to think of something else for a while.
"Buffy is at her mom's tonight, how about we go over after patrol and see how Joyce took the news?" Faith said.
"The news that her sweet, darling, innocent, precious baby is involved in a sustained threesome, and was part of a different threesome with a witch and a werewolf over the summer?" Xander asked
"Yeah, that news."
"Cool."
"Willow, do you think all demons are evil."
"Well mostly, yeah."
"But, I mean, all, do all deserve to be killed."
"Not all, I mean, Buffy met Whistler, the balance demon who knew Angel, and he worked for the Powers That Be. So maybe we only see evil demons because the not evil ones don't do anything to get noticed." Willow responded, wondering where the question had come from.
"Would you, you know, love me even if I was a demon?" There it was, the question she had been stressing over since meeting the red head.
"Yes." The hacker immediately and unhesitatingly responded.
"Willow, there is something I have to tell you about the women in my family."
There are various words to describe the state Mrs Joyce Summers was in when Faith and Xander arrived. Calm would not be one of them, nor would reasonable, or possibly even rational. Although to be honest the youngest Harris's definition of rational was not most peoples, fighting demons and vampires, while seeing friends turned into rats by witchcraft, WILL tend to warp your view of reality from common norms.
No, Joyce was in a mood closer to the one known as wildly irrational, or, perhaps, foaming at the mouth. The construction manager had been hoping for something else, but this was the woman who had responded to finding out her daughter's hobby was saving the world by throwing her out of the house. It had been the feared outcome, which is why he had warned the blonde slayer in advance it might happen, and why the sight of her crying hysterically under her mothers glare depressed, but did not surprise him.
"Mrs Summers, hi, can I talk to you in the kitchen?" The dark haired man took the older woman by the hand and led her away, while Faith hugged the sobbing form on the couch. Only the total focus the gallery owner had on Buffy and her announcement allowed him to move her, she was not really aware of anything outside herself and the elder slayer. "Did you enjoy the summer before last?"
"What, why are you dragging me in here and leaving her with that PERVERT?" She was rounding on him now, which was the immediate idea, better him than the Buffster. "How dare you interrupt a family discussion, especially one about what you and your, your, your…"
"I SAID, DID YOU ENJOY THE SUMMER BEFORE LAST?" He was staring directly into her eyes, not letting her break contact. He would deal with her insulting Faith later; she had to be brought back to reality first. "Did you enjoy not knowing if you would ever see her again? Because that is where this is headed, DO YOU WANT THAT, think before you answer?"
Summer before last, the summer after she had learned Buffy was the slayer, the summer when she spent her time praying for the phone to ring, for a knock on the door. Dreading it would be the police, asking her 'did you have a daughter named Elizabeth Summers?' followed by 'we would like you to come with us to the morgue to identify a body.'
It was like a bucket of cold water had been thrown over her. That had been the worst time of her life, the time of regrets at hasty words, of doubts and recriminations over her actions. And of blaming Giles, who had been in no better state himself. Was she chronically unable to accept anything outside her reality, was she that conventional that she would risk losing her only child twice rather than deal with unconventional choices?
"Mrs Summers, why don't we make everyone a long, cold drink, and talk about this rationally?" He asked.
"Ok." At least it was a familiar task, comforting in its familiarity.
"And, I need your help understanding something else." A slightly embarrassed look on his face.
"What Xander, I mean, of course I will help?" Anything to distract her from Buffy the sex pervert.
"Where do you think the Slayers powers come from?" The construction company owner asked, in his most confused tone.
"You're a demon?" Willow squeaked.
"Please don't hate me, I love you, I need you, please don't leave me, I would never hurt you." The larger woman responded. At least the red head had not run screaming from the room, when she had been told the truth. The truth that the women of the Maclay family turned into demons on their twentieth birthday, which was not that far away now.
"I don't hate you, I'm afraid of you, I mean, demons normally try to kill me, or eat me, or open the hellmouth, your not going to open the hellmouth, are you, cause, I can't help you with that, even though I love you, and, well, anything else, anything not of the 'lets go kill heaps of people' variety anyway, would be ok, its just that…"
"Willow, breathe, remember to breathe."
"Ok, calming down, I'm calming down, Ok, I'm calm, see, me calm." The original Scooby gang member said. Her lover had come to her voluntarily about this, wanting help and clearly in fear of rejection. Had come to the woman she loved rather than Giles, who would know the answer to any of her questions, if anyone did, or at least be able to look them up. "You love me, even though I'm human and you're a demon?"
"Yes I love you, and I'm not a demon yet."
"Lets go to Dad, if anyone can help he can."
"So, Buffy and Faiths powers have to come from God." Xander asked. It had taken 20 minutes or so to reach this point, him doing his 'concerned friend with no brains' routine, Joyce going more and more into 'mother helping one of her children's friends understand the world.' Buffy and Faith were listening intently from the other room Slayer hearing meaning they did not have to intrude to listen to what was happening.
"Yes Xander, I mean, the term Powers That Be keeps being thrown around, but ultimately the power must come from God." Joyce Summers could be the soul of patience when necessary, it was how she had avoided murdering Buffy numerous times over the years.
"So, Buffy and Faith are the chosen of God?" The teenager asked, slowly and clearly, 'obviously' slowly learning due to her help. "They have their powers because he chose them, and could take them away if he chose."
"Yes Xander." Joyce Summers, woman of infinite endurance.
"So, God is ok with Buffy and Faith being bisexual." The former Zeppo announced.
"WHAT!"
"Dad, we have a problem, and, we need your help, in a watchers way." Willow Rosenburg, who had decided not to change her name to Giles, for the present, said.
"Yes Willow, what is it?" He was bleary eyed at this hour, but his child needed him, so he made tea to wake himself up.
"Tara will turn into a demon when she becomes twenty." There, it was said.
"Indeed, well, I must admit I have never heard of a type of demon that does that. What can you tell me about it Tara?" In full Watcher mode now, clearly his daughters love was not dangerous, at least not yet, or she not have come here to him about it.
"Not a lot, just when we turn twenty we turn into demons, and practicing witchcraft makes it harder for them to control us."
"How do they, I assume you mean the men of the Maclay family by the term they, control the demon women?"
"Buffy, I'm sorry." Mrs Summers announced. She had a lot to think about, and how she had nearly driven her only child out of her life for good was part of it. "This is a shock to me, and I was raised to go to church every Sunday, I guess it really did stick to me after all."
"Mom, I am who I am and I need to know you accept that, even if you can't be happy for me." Buffy had calmed down, and listening to the conversation in the kitchen had changed her perspective on many things. Her place in the cosmic order of things, to some extent, but also, like Giles that morning, on the question of exactly how much of what she 'knew' about Xander Harris's personality was true.
"Buffy, I will learn to support you and your, ah, tastes, but I have a lot to think about now." The Summers mother said. She really did need time to digest everything, and her talk with that dear boy had raised all kinds of things. "It isn't easy for someone raised in a strict protestant home to realise that her child was chosen by God above all others. I have to think, and you have Faith, also chosen of god, who wants to be with you."
"Will I be welcome if I try to come back." The Buffster asked.
"Yes, Buffy, my daughter, Chosen of God, you will be allowed back into our home. I'm sorry; it's just a lot to take in. Please go and enjoy yourself with the woman who loves you, and you too Xander."
"Well Tara, so far your families demon control method seems to be for the women to stay barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen." Giles said thoughtfully. "And I must say, if that was all it took to control demons, well, I could use a housekeeper."
"You want Tara to move in with you and have your babies!" Willow was horrified, and not thinking very clearly.
"No, I think the Maclay menfolk are pathological liars." The former librarian was cleaning his glasses, not looking either woman in the eye. "We will have to do more research, and there are demon finding spells that can confirm this. And ultimately, if it is true, well, I'm sure Willow would allow you to cook, clean, and make love to her unusually frequently, purely as a demon control method, of course."
"Really?" From Tara, meaning, 'I'm really not a demon?'
"Really, I will allow you to make love to me frequently, after all it is a prominently mentioned method of Maclay demon control, right dad?" Willow said.
"Yes, quite, but don't forget keeping a beautiful house and making delicious meals too?" He was happy enough to play along, provided the cheerful domestic scene moved out of his living room and allowed him to go back to sleep. "I will drive you home, and, we can check on the demon finding spells tomorrow afternoon."
"And I can learn to cook from Xander, he cooks well."
"You certainly don't have to learn to fuc…" Willow was cut off by the blonde kissing her, much to her fathers relief.
"Willow, yes, really, there are some things about his daughters life that a father really prefers not to know." The former Ripper announced, as he manoeuvred the still kissing couple out of his home and into his car. Surely they would have to stop for air at some point, wouldn't they? "Oh, and Tara, I will expect you to get Mr Harris's cheesecake recipe and make prominent use of it."
"Mmm, MMm, Mmm." The larger of the two women responded, clearly both had learned to breathe while kissing or, had unusual breath holding ability.
"I'll bring the wine." The doting father said decisively, and with that the Giles family, as it arguably was, drove off.
"Saturday night,
In Toledo, Ohio,
Is like being nowhere at all,
All through the day,
How the hours rush by,
You sit in the bakery and watch the buns rise,"
Xander was in a karaoke bar, surrounded by demons, singing an old John Denver tune. He had barely heard of the man, but the song was one he had encountered in his country music listening, if only as one no self respecting country music fan would ever listen to. Or anything else by Mr Denver, for that matter.
"…they roll back the sidewalk precisely at ten,
and people who live there are not seen again,
just two lonely truckers, from Great Falls Montana,
and a salesman from places unknown,
places-un-known,
all huddled together,
in down town Toledo,
to spend their big night,
all alone"
Doyle had found Caritas, and mentioned it to Angel, who had taken Cordelia, who had mentioned it in an email to him. Harris Renovations had taken on the quality of a monster from a video game some time ago. It just kept mutating and growing, from a one Xander handyman idea, to a subcontracting home renovations and repairs outfit, then people asked 'who did your web site?' so Willow developed a side line in ebusiness, which was now using a lot of the computer science students at UCS. There was also the medieval weapons making, and blacksmithing for horse owners, which actually took up a lot of time, to add to the confusion when people asked 'just what does your business do, Mr Harris?'
"But lets not forget,
the folks of Toledo,
unselfishly gave us the scale,
No springs, honest weight,
That's the promise they made,
So smile and be thankful,
Next time you get weighed"
Even more bizarre, the dot net end of things was making money, for his business and the ones that hired them. Not even Yahoo or Amazon.com were making a profit, which had brought Wired magazine in for an interview. He had been on the cover, pounding steel over his blacksmiths anvil, making a broadsword, with the headline 'Xander Harris has found out how to run a profitable dot net business. Does this mean MIT has to start a blacksmith's course?'
"And here's to the dogs,
of Toledo, Ohio,
ladies we bid you,
goodbye"
That had led to enquiries about other computer stuff, and in particular, a legal hacker business. Willow had various anonymous friends try to crack the security of clients systems, and report on their progress and measures that might make things harder for unauthorised people. That made money too. Cordelia had taken over the day to day running of his LA office, Angel and Doyle going into the Private Detective industry, also an arm of the White Knight's organization. At this point Cordy suggested singing for Lorne, and seeing what lay in his future.
"Well big boy, the important news is that you are never going to be like your father. Develop the skills you have, get a clear agreement with each of your slayers about what is ok with them, stuff like that. But the big message is your fear of becoming your father are nonsense." The demon smiled at him, and added. "By the way, where DO you work out because those shoulders, ooh, know a lot of bodybuilders who would kill for your secret."
"I'm a bladesmith, uh, that means I…"
"You don't have to tell me, I'm from Pylea, bladesmith is one of the few respected trades there, aside from merciless killer." The demons in the bar generally had gone back to their drinks, but having a vampire slayer in the room was making most uncomfortable. The fact was that Faith, at this exact point in time, was having sex in the ladies room with a female demon of some kind, loudly enough so that even some of the humans could hear. "Oh, and congratulations on becoming a father."
"A what?" Cordelia asked, she was having a hard time dealing with all the changes that had occurred to the man she had called the zeppo. Bringing Faith back to the light side of the force, the business, well, it was not the Xander she had known. "And what do you mean by Your Slayers, plural?"
"A father, I'm going to be a dad." The construction boss muttered to himself in wonder.
"He means Buffy is sleeping with Xander and Faith. She may be in love with them, Faith is certainly desperately in love with her and always was." Angel commented, somewhat in pain over it.
"A child, and I'm not going to be like dad, I'm going to be a good dad." The muttering continued, in a quiet, awed way.
"Why didn't you tell me, how can you be so calm about this Angel, she was the love of your life?" The former cheerleader said. Faith and the woman/demoness finally came, loud shouts from the slayer and a howling sound from the demon. It was clearly audible at the far end of the room, Xander just smiled a little more, Faith normally confined herself to humans, but the females of this species always got her engine running for some reason.
"A son, or a daughter, maybe one of each, twins, my children." Xander Harris was not really in the room anymore, he was there physically but mentally he was a million miles away.
"She still is the love of my life, but I CAN NEVER BE WITH HER." The pain and resignation in his voice was obvious, but so was the determination. Angel was interrupted by the whole room clapping as the dark slayer and the cat like demoness left the powder room, stopping to acknowledge the applause before going back to their respective friends. "Xander and Faith, can, and they can protect her as well as anyone, and that's the best I can hope for."
Faith walked over to the table, a huge smile on her face, and sat down next to Xander. She kissed him on the mouth, deep and with tongue, then he whispered in her ear and she blushed.
Lorne watched the whole thing from the bar, sipping on a Sea Breeze, glad the subject of his reading was able to take his advice. Faith was not capable of monogamy, she had to have some variety, and not many men could handle the reality of it the way this one did.
Having a girlfriend who was into women is the single most common male fantasy, but this was not fantasy, it was reality, a much messier thing entirely. The dark slayer would confine herself to female lovers, he had already done a reading on her to confirm that, but she COULD NOT go without. He had never done a reading on the blonde slayer, but she seemed different, and hopefully it would be handled with a minimum of friction of the unwanted variety. If anyone could handle the whole thing then Harris could, he seemed to have a gift for it.
Rupert Giles, a.k.a Ripper, was thinking about his recent conversation with Joyce Summers. She kept saying how hard it was for her to be relaxed about what her daughter did, her 'sexual inclinations', how she could never share his 'let them do what they want' attitude, as a mother she could not ignore consequences the way he could. It was the first time in his life he had really felt like punching a woman.
Giles was far from casual and relaxed about the lives of his children; he simply had a different perspective on what was worth worrying about. Yes, Buffy was actively bisexual, as indeed were all the female Scoobies except, apparently Cordelia. Wesley was, as discretely as he could manage, researching that fact, since the reforming council wanted to know everything it could about Buffy and the 'pseudo-familial bonds' that seemed to be her reason for outliving the majority of slayers. If bisexuality seemed to make for more effective slayers, or if more effective slayers were inclined to be gay, the pragmatic thing to do would be to encourage Slayers In Training to 'broaden their romantic horizons', as it was delicately phrased.
Given that the whole idea of allowing slayer to have romantic horizons of any kind was radical, Giles thought it would be a while before the Watchers Council was charged with discriminating against heterosexual women. He personally simply did not regard sexual tastes as a problem in the way a drug or drinking habit would be, or gambling addiction, or using slayer abilities in a crime career, or summoning the demon Eygon, or any of the things he would have regarded as worthy of intervention. Buffy having sex with women did not rate as a problem, by comparison.
Mrs Summers was actually coming along nicely, from a certain perspective. She was not openly hostile to Faith, Willow, or Tara anymore, and was trying to repair her relationship with the group. Interestingly, but to someone who knew him, unsurprisingly, Xander was the holdout. He simply would not accept Joyce's friendship until she fully accepted his friends. Actually Xander had called this meeting.
"HEY, I have an important question to ask, and I need everyone's attention." The table went quiet, indeed the room fell quiet. He stood up, pulling Faith to her full height, then dropped to one knee."
"Faith Jennings, will you marry me?"
"Yes Xander, of course I will."
The room was in shock, except for Buffy, who the bladesmith had informed of his intentions and reasons. Willow and Tara were holding hands and looking at the newly engaged couple with smiles and tears. Giles walked up to the couple and hugged them, offering his congratulations, while Wesley smiled at them and offered his own blessing from further back in the room
"We have another announcement to make." Xander proclaimed. The room fell silent, what could compete with an engagement? "We are going to be parents. I'm going to be a dad."
Loud cheers from most of the room, even Giles, who, as a watcher by training should have had the same reaction as Wesley, who was too stunned to speak. The gang generally had had a lot of time on their hand over the last month or so, because demon activity had fallen off to almost nothing, worldwide. A group of entrepreneurial vampires had established a blood bank in a high crime rate area, offering protection from gangs etc, in exchange for deposits, and that was about it. Odd, and being researched, but a welcome break, and now more good news.
"Miss Faith, my most heartfelt blessing upon your union with Mr Harris, and your pregnancy. How did you confirm that you were pregnant, just a detail for the watchers diary." He had to clarify this, had to confirm it, both the Watchers Council, and the Jesuits he was researching slayers sexual appetites with, would HAVE TO KNOW if this was true.
"My doctor, actually, well, after Lorne said Xander was going to be a father, and the home test kit. Then my obstetrician did his own check." She was not so totally over the moon with excitement that the Englishman's attempt at casualness had fooled her. Something was clearly up. "Is there a problem, do slayers babies die, if you know something SPIT IT OUT."
"Faith, the watchers council written records begin with the invention of writing, which was rather a long time ago. No slayer has ever been pregnant before, it has been assumed that it was not biologically possible." While the watchers traditionally kept the slayers on a short lease, in the thousands of years of records Faith was far from the first to lose her virginity after becoming a slayer. Therefore, statistically, there should have been pregnancies ... suddenly a thought struck him, fortunately not causing serious injury by doing so.
"Faith, do you have a date for when you became pregnant?" The junior watcher asked, quietly.
"Five weeks ago, according to my Obstetrician, why?" She was getting concerned now, and everyone had been stunned by the knowledge that this baby was unique in history, even Giles. That slayers could not become pregnant had been an article of faith for so long that it was not discussed in watcher training, beyond one lecture in the first year. He had not thought about it since that lecture, focusing on things that seemed more relevant.
"The fall off of recorded demon activity began five weeks ago. It too, is a unique event." Recorded demon activity meaning relevant to the slayer activity, killing, human sacrifice and so on. Demons who did not do anything harmful to humans normally dropped beneath the Watchers Council radar, so to speak, but peaceful demon activity seemed on the rise.
"Wow."
"Yes Xander, I think you have summed it up nicely." Giles commented.
The only provably unique thing about Faith was that she was one of two live slayers. How could that lead to pregnancy? Which was a delicate question, raising the basic point that slayers were no longer human, and their breeding had never been studied, since there had been no breeding to study.
Also, of course, neither watcher was comfortable with discussing sex, and, if Faiths child was due to the presence of a second slayers than either mystical forces, or some kind of transfer of bodily fluids was needed. After the disturbing lecture by Buffy about 'licking pussy' the older watcher had actively avoided thinking about it, but is seemed the only 'fluid transfer' was likely to be oral.
Unless there was something else they were doing that might get the job done, and at that point the Scooby's father figure decided that getting a council approved specialist to handle the investigation was crucial. He could not intrude on their personal lives that way, but someone had to, Wesley having made it clear he could not handle 'that aspect of things' either. There was a knock on the door, which Buffy answered.
"Oz." She said, and there he was, standing in the doorway.
"High, I was told Willow would be here, and, hey." He looked at Willow, and the larger blonde woman she was holding hands with. Holding hands with, the way she used to hold his hand. Well, that would make his visit interesting.
Faith had been told how this visit went, in the original history, and fortunately it already was going differently in this one. Thinking about it was a distraction, and after finding out her unborn child had changed the entire world already she needed a distraction.
"So, you'd be Tara, Willow's girlfriend." The musician said, not as a question. Unlike the original history, Xander was a man with connections and money, and had found out where Oz was, and established regular contact. Specifically his connections were with a werewolf community near Colorado Springs that organised international trout fishing holidays – werewolves being a dominant force in the outdoors/adventure holiday industry. "I need to introduce you all to someone, she's a little shy."
A girl stepped into the room, looked around the place and held on to Oz. When she saw Xander she smiled and waved shyly, he was a familiar face from the non-werewolf community. He had found out about them by way of Doyle, then found the guitarist and sent him to them for guidance. Then he improved their marketing to the point where the community had as much business as they could handle, and Harris Renovations ANOTHER odd sideline, but that was another story.
"This is my Sharon, my wife." The group looked at her more closely and then Willow and Tara walked up to the couple and hugged the pair. It was not a total surprise; the youngest Harris had kept everyone informed of Oz and his doings, as he had of theirs. The couple had met while leading a tour group through the Italian Alps, with side trips for Oz to visit some monks as part of his efforts to learn better wolf control methods.
"So, Xander, has anything happened since I phoned you yesterday, and congratulations on getting married?" Oz asked as a formality, not really expecting anything more dramatic than the engagement/pregnancy announcement to have happened.
"Well, yeah, it's about Faith's baby…"
"We've been friends now for so many years,
We've been together through the good times and the tears,
Turned each other on to the good things that life has to give,
We've been apart for a little bit of a spell,
At night I get a call and I know that you're well,
And days I was down you would help me get out of my home,
Lets be friends, lets be friends, lets be friends,
Oooooh oh oh,
Lets be friends, lets be friends, lets be friends,
You told me when my girl was untrue,
I loaned you money when the funds weren't too cool,
I talked your folks out of making you cut off your hair,
We've been friends now for so many years,
We've been together through the good times and the tears,
Din bin bily, din bin balooh din bin bily din bin I oh,"
Xander Harris's singing voice was not one suitable for a professional audience, but singing 'Friends' at Willow and Tara's engagement party was something he had insisted on. Had insisted on while sober, actually, while Oz coached him in singing techniques, after listening to the song. It was an old Beach Boys number, and he had known it, being Oz, but been surprised that Xander did, before learning it was on one of Giles old albums. Faith had also listened and insisted on singing one of the tunes, it was, well, very Faith.
The party was in good and rocking on, with Faith and Xander Harris paying for the whole thing out of White Knight Ventures money, which was considerable. And there was a lot to celebrate, with Faith's pregnancy confirmed as the reason for the 'demon truce' as it was being called, the Maclay family sent home minus Tara, and Glory just sent home.
Idly Xander wondered how much trouble the goddess might have been if no one had applied logic to the situation. Potentially someone might have been monumentally stupid enough to try FIGHTING the demented bitch. After all, the only reason she had been after Dawn was to open a dimensional gate, and there were other ways to do that. Wesley had found a spell to open a gate to Pylea, Lorne's home dimension, modified it with help from various Watcher Council contacts, and SENT THE BRAIN DEAD FASHION VICTIM HOME. End of problem, she had even given him a goodbye kiss, before taking all her followers with her through the gate.
Faith waddled up to the stage, Oz and the band being ready for her version of a classic old song. Giles having the entire Beach Boys repertoire on disk had surprised everyone until he had huffily commented 'there is surf in England you know, and what, pray tell, did you think the 9 foot Malibu Board in my garage was for, anyway?' There was a chair ready, she was close to term and had been resting through the party. As the tune started some of the women from the university Lesbian Collective, many of whom knew Faith in the biblical sense, started cheering.
"Well east coast girls are hip,
I really dig those styles they wear,
And the southern girls with the way they talk,
They knock me out when I'm down there,
The mid west farmers daughters really make you feel alright,
And the northern girls with the way they kiss,
They keep their boyfriends warm at night,
I wish they all could be California,
I wish they all could be California,
I wish they all could be California Girls,
The west coast has the sunshine,
And the girls all get so tanned,
I dig a French bikini on a wild island doll,
By a palm tree in the sand,
I been all around this great big world,
And I seen all kind a girls,
Yeah, but I couldn't wait to get back to the states,
Back to the cutest girls in the world,
I wish they all could be Californian,
I wish they all could be Californian,
I wish they all could be California Girls
Given the number of women present that Faith had 'engaged in acts of extreme friendship' with, the cheering and catcalls were understandable. Many were from other states, some other countries, and the dark slayer had really had experienced the variations she sung about.
The specific California Girl the song was sung to was crying, knowing she had the heart, if not always the tongue and fingers, of the other slayer all to herself. Buffy Summers was quite content with her life, all things considered. She had the love of Faith, who had brought no small number of the women she sung about to their bed, which she rarely felt like complaining about.
She also had the love and absolute loyalty of Xander Harris, and, having found out from Angel exactly where the 'White Knight' label came from, and who had dragged who into the master's lair the night she died, her appreciation of the value of that loyalty had only increased. And after living with the couple for the last year, she had thought a greater respect for him was not possible. Turning she saw Father Brown and some 'associates' of his, an odd group to attend a disproportionately gay party.
Father James Brown – and he had long since grown used to the jokes about his name – stood watching God's Chosen Defenders, as they were officially referred to by the church, and wondered that he was privileged to be among their supporters. He had been blessing all their weapons and holy water for five years now, had performed the Harris wedding, and convinced the Jesuit Order to investigate.
It turned out that the Catholic Church, as one of the few organizations with official records for two thousand years and an institutional belief in demons, knew all about slayers. They had been accepted as personally chosen of god, an accepted fact not studied seriously for centuries since the Watchers Council had not allowed anything to change or adapt for those centuries.
The chosen ones Faith Harris and Buffy Summers had changed things in ways they did not really appreciate. The Jesuits have been called the Catholic Church's intellectual shock troops, and had come to exactly the conclusion Xander had when he applied Socratic method to Joyce Summers rant about 'perverts'.
Specifically, they were Chosen by God personally, their powers coming directly from him and removable by him. Since they were openly lovers of women, and still kept their powers, He must not have a problem with gay women. That is why the Jesuits were at the party, and why their report was being read and discussed at the highest level. Official church doctrine had not changed, and given the conservative nature of the current College of Cardinals and pope probably would not for centuries.
The order had come to its own conclusion, and was fighting it out against threats of excommunication for heresy. Heresy is not a charge to be taken lightly in an organization that had burned unknown thousands at the stake for it. However, it was accepted that God had made his will known. They were here to support the University of California, Sunnydale, Lesbian Collective, and its members, not just the Chosen and their friends. With Faith off the stage they moved as a group over to the slayers and their friends.
Buffy had watched the group warily through the party. Ok, so father Brown has said they were ok, still their intensity gave her the creeps. Now they were nearly here, and clearly had something big to say. The room fell silent as they approached, expecting trouble.
"Mrs Faith Harris, Miss Elizabeth Anne Summers, Gods Chosen Defenders of His creation, we of the Society of Jesus ask a favour."
"And what would that favour be?" Giles asked quietly, in a tone as smooth and quiet as the bolt of a machine gun sliding back while being cocked.
"To allow the head of our order, Father General Alcalde, to perform the marriage ceremony we have learned you wish to have. We understand you are asking about a civil celebrant, but we hope you will accept our humble offer."
"The Pope could have you killed for that you know." People who did not know Xander Harris might have mistaken his comment for an attempt at humour.
"True." Was all the Jesuit spokesman said. The Jesuits had been accused of having the last Pope assassinated, after all. The Vatican is technically a sovereign country, they could be ordered home and executed in St Peters square and the Italian Police could do nothing about it. Certainly at least one of the Cardinals would recommend basically that.
"Cool." Was all Buffy could say.
"Guys, we have to get to the hospital." Faith suddenly announced.
"Why are you hurt?" Tara asked worriedly.
"My water just broke."
Sunnydale General Hospital, Maternity ward, later that night.
"Mr Harris, congratulations, it's a girl. Do you have a name?"
"Tracey, Tracey Harris." He finally managed to say. Faith had asked him not to be at the birth, since labour pain would make her squeeze his hands, leaving him without useable hand given slayer strength.
"Your wife has asked to see you and your friends."
Tracey was small and delicate, he held her in his arms and was afraid he would break her. Faith looked like she had spent the last few hours fighting demons in a cage. He though she looked perfect. He stood next to her, Buffy stood on the other side of the bed, a picture was taken.
The White Knight family album had its first picture.
Xander Harris was taking time out to think, to ponder the meaning of it all. He was at his smithy, having worked on a new hatchet for one of the Council's roving hunter killer teams. Dawkins had broken his during the last mission, recovering another mystical artefact capable of opening the hellmouth if used at the right hour, on the right day, after sacrificing many virgins etc, etc, etc. The reformed Council now had its teams hunting down such items and destroying them immediately, no effort to study, just destruction.
Not that there was anything like the demon problem that there was before Faith's pregnancy. Various scholars, some human, some not, had their theories, but the exact mechanics of it all remained a mystery, except that 'the demon truce', as it was being called, involved a dramatic reduction of demon led violence, beginning, as far as anyone could tell, at the exact date Faith became pregnant.
The bladesmith sat in the shade, with a towel wrapped around his waist cooling down after his shower. Pounding steel always cleared his mind, and just sitting here with a jug of ice water while the breeze dried him off felt like heaven. A friend of Tara's from UCS was looking after Tracey, his daughter, while Faith worked part time for Giles at the Magic Box.
Tracey, at the age of 4 months really did seem to be the most important child in the world. He had seen a Feyoral demon walk right up to her in he pram, as if in a daze, look down, smile, say, 'she's beautiful' and walk off. And this individual was a notorious mercenary, a killer for hire most of his life. The known facts of the phenomena where few, beyond its link to the hellmouth. When his little family had gone to LA to show Tracey off to Gunn, Angel, and various contacts there, there had been a worldwide upsurge in demonic violence. They returned, and the violence stopped.
So one of the few proven facts was that whatever it was that was special about his daughter, it was acting to suppress the hellmouth, and its evil vibes. Another proven fact, due to the wonder that is DNA testing, was that Tracy had three biological parents; Buffy's genetic contribution being found by Watchers Council controlled testing labs. The group of Jesuits that seemed to have moved in to Sunnydale permanently had independently confirmed the same thing, and fired off another of their long reports to the Vatican. They seemed totally awed by the whole situation, which was damn sensible of them.
Xander finished the whole jug of ice water; working red-hot iron near a furnace will have that effect on you. Then he looked at the clock, realised he had an appointment in an hour, and goes to his change room to get into his 'Mr Businessman' clothes. His coffee machine is going; everything is set, so he does some paperwork while waiting.
The car rolled into the parking area and Warren walked out. He wondered what this was about, he knew Xander was part of the Slayer's group, but also knew he had a developing business empire. If this was about the fembot, what was her name, who cares, anyway if it was about that he had done nothing wrong, it had destroyed the windows of the Bronze looking for him, that was not his fault? Maybe Xander wanted a robot of his own, well the last one was too much trouble, no sir, no more robot pussy for this wizard, no sir.
"Warren, would you like some coffee?" Xander was not really anxious, he did not have a lot of money riding on this, but something about Warren, and for that matter his friendship with Andrew and Jonathan, worried him. If only in the sense of some amazing money making opportunities going to waste.
"Black, two sugars, and what's this about?" The inventor was trying to hide his nerves and failing, for the most part. Siting in what looked for all the world like a blacksmiths shop, when he dealt with magic and electronics, was incongruous.
"Warren, did you ever hear about the Pentagon project to have computers drive tanks?" Xander was looking at the other man across his desk, and had a folder with newspaper clippings open, among other things, open. This was Warrens copy, presumably the other man would want to think about his proposal, do his own checking, that sort of thing.
"No, what had that to do with me, anyway?" Jonathan might have heard of it, he could check with the little geek later.
"Guess how much they spent failing to get it to work?"
"$20,000 maybe, who knows, $200,000, they do like to piss money away over there." People had mistaken his robot for human, almost everyone did actually, and only the Scoobies saw the machine for what it was. It was a hobby project, a good fuck but that was all, what had that to do with military research?
"Try $200 million dollars." Warren was flabbergasted, he had solved the problem over a long weekend, it was trivial compared to things like three-dimensional object recognition, or getting it to walk realistically.
"Warren, do you have any idea how much money you could make from licensing any ONE of the technical breakthroughs involved in that bot? Did you know that NASA keeps losing space probes at a few hundred million a time, for lack of something onboard to do basic maintenance and navigation tasks?" The blacksmith added.
"Something like my bot." The inventor said.
"Yes, something like your bot, that can do human type thinking more than well enough to explore new worlds, do maintenance and repair on one way missions, all without consuming oxygen, needing exercise, food, entertainment." Xander was excited now, really pushing the point because he had seen the possibilities as soon as Willow mentioned what a technical marvel the bot was.
"So what do you want, why should I talk to you, why not take this to them myself?" Warren was greedy, short sighted and a woman hater, but he was not totally stupid. Why cut the zeppo in on anything when he could keep it all for himself?
"Nothing beyond the fact I have some contacts you can use. General O'Malley is now at the Defence Advance Research Projects Agency, and I have another sword to add to his collection, if I brought your bot along …" The wealthy Harris would not have gone to the military with this as a first move, until he had learned how much the United States high tech industry was reliant on commercialising DARPA and NASA ideas. Everything from the computer chip, to Video recorders, to Pizza delivery bags with warmer inside had come from military or space research originally.
"Who's General O'Malley?"
"Guy who was sent to run the inquiry into the initiative."
"Well at least he knows a stupid idea when he sees one, maybe he can see a good one as well." Warren looked thoughtful. "What's your exact proposal?"
"We need another bot, plus as much technical detail as possible, plus a patent attorney, a good one. I can line up the attorney, make sure they don't steal your idea and then classify it all when you try to sue." With this kind of money at stake the former high school failure wanted to leave nothing to chance. "I propose to fund all of that, for 10% of the gross income from the bot and anything derived from it."
"I can do that myself and not pay you the 10 per cent."
"Do you really have the $50,000 to $100,000 involved, because I do?" Xander added. He was in very tight with his bank manager, and had shown that individual a business plan about this and had it approved. Nothing had been signed, but the money needed was not an issue, even if it turned out to be a lot more than estimated.
"$100,000, are you kidding?" How did people manage to spend that much, the robot maker thought?
"Attorneys who work for less than $100.00 an hour are not worth hiring, and one able to take on the Federal Government and win, which is what we need, not cheap, definitely not cheap." It was all carefully charted and itemised in the folder he had prepared for the inventor. Presumably the other man would want to think about this very hard. "We need a new bot, you and presumably your buddies, will need money to live on while building it, and so you don't have to take the first offer they make us to avoid starving."
"Ok, let me go away and think about this, and I promise to get back to you." The woman hating sleezoid said. He took the folder Xander had given him and left. The bladesmith watched him go with a good feeling. With luck Warren, Andrew and Jonathan would be gone from Sunnydale forever before long, with money in their bank accounts and a steady flow to his. Instead of being unemployed in his town, possibly causing trouble, they would be busy and rich in someone else's, everyone would win.
And so it was that the geek squad never caused trouble for Buffy and the Scoobies, Tara was not shot, and Willow, instead of being driven to the dark side, took up physics and got involved in a project investigating alternate realities, and the possibility of exploring them.
Warren went on to make a mint of money and marry a woman who only wanted him for his bank account. Each was exactly what the other secretly expected of the opposite sex, so it worked, more or less, as a marriage. She expected him to cheat on her, took it for granted going into the marriage, so when he did it was not a problem to her. He expected her to spend money like water and have a discrete lover, so when she did he was not upset. Some people would prefer one or both die horribly, but as a couple at least they were not bothering nice people somewhere, let alone killing Tara.
Andrew eventually came out of the closet, becoming a wealthy gay icon. He got over Warren, realising he was scum and only using him anyway.
Jonathan eventually gained enough self-confidence to stop dealing with the other two and lead his own life. He ultimately took the bot idea over and led the exploration and human colonisation of the solar system by having them create human habitable environments ready for occupants when they arrived. Died of old age in his villa overlooking the Mariner Valley on Mars, surrounded by a family that never knew what a twerp he had been as a teenager.
Xander Harris made an ocean of money out of it all. More of his story will follow.
Rupert Giles sat and waited for the next set of waves to come. The next oldest person out surfing today was half his age, and he was a well-known fixture here, ironically as Ripper, from his aggressive surfing style. Today he was on the short board, or at least what he thought of as a short board, 6 feet long with triple fins, known as a thruster. The 9-foot Malibu board came out in summer, with its smaller waves, or just when he felt like showing the kids what hanging ten was.
The Watcher was certainly the only one here with grandchildren to worry about, and certainly he had something to worry him. Or at least concern him, given that Tracey was now a known commodity from the perspective of prophecies. Their failure to find a suitable prophecy before was, in retrospect, understandable.
They had not been looking for the baby prophesised to result in the Earth's demons rising to new heights of wealth and power. Tracey was the demonic messiah, the Klemnach, the one who would change the demon world forever, by suppressing their hellmouth inspired tendency to stupidity and stupidly violent and destructive behaviour. That was what the 'demon truce' turned out to be, a lessening of violence as the demons got smarter, and let their intelligence overrule their 'lets kill all the humans' tendencies.
He waited for the second wave in the incoming set, and started paddling furiously in front of it. From the shore Faith watched him, without really understanding what she was seeing, Boston not being a noted surf spot. In a red and green wet suit, making a series of manoeuvres, and 180 degree turns he made some of the 18 year old just sit and watch. A photographer from Surfing World was here today, and Ripper was definitely going to be included in the article he was doing, as he had been routinely over the last six years. People are never just one thing, they are complex creatures with dimensions to them, and Rupert 'Ripper' Giles, world famous Southern California surfer, was one of those odd dimensions.
Speaking of odd dimensions, the rise of the benevolent vampire master was a new one, courtesy of Tracey. The central brilliant inspiration of the new era was that vampires and demons were hugely better off in a human run world than they would be in a world run by 'the old ones.' Earths demons were currently crossbreeds, almost exclusively, and therefore not much better than humans from the 'pure breed' perspective.
The 'old ones', who would take over in a demon run world, were also total bigots, who would exterminate 'the impure', as a group of neo-nazi pure breeds in LA had proven. This had been known, of course, it was impossible to not know how pure breed's felt about the issue, but it had not really sunk in that humans killed them because they were a direct threat, but the old one would kill them simply for existing. Remove the threat and the humans could be persuaded to leave them alone, and keep the TV soap operas, football, air conditioning, and cold beer coming, none items high on the 'old ones' list of priorities.
"Maybe I should take that up, it looks like a lot of fun." The hooded figure sat down beside the slayer, looking like a Jawa from the original Star Wars movie in its cloak. He, or at least she assumed demon facing her was male, had sat on the opposite side from Tracey, on the accurate assumption that a demon sitting next to her child would be instantly killed, public place with photographers present or not. "Slayer Faith, I have a favour to ask."
Looking at the green face and red horns, the dark slayer wondered how her world had ever gotten this strange. Giles turned out to be internationally famous in the surfing community, she was a wife and mother with an impressive bank account, Xander was moderately wealthy looking to be stinking rich, and now demons were asking her for favours instead of running or trying to kill her.
What next, would Dawn stop whining all the time? Would Buffy stop feeling sorry for herself and thinking the whole world revolved around her? Would Tara start taking a sexual interest in males? Would sheep take up tap dancing? No, that was silly; Tara taking an interest in men was far less likely than sheep taking up tap dancing.
"What favour would that be?" She responded. The photographer was taking pictures of her and the baby as part of the background scene. Such shots rarely made it in unless a feature on a given surfer was being done, but Ripper's daughter in law and grandchild would be good for any such article, and here they were. Along with a figure in a monk's cloak, that seemed to be wearing some weird makeup.
"We want his help a chain of karaoke clubs, like Carita's in LA that I know you have been to."
"What marketing or something?" She noted how he shook his head
"Immigration. We're refugee's from Pylea and, well, we don't have green cards. Not that there is actually any legal way to deport us, immigration law only relates to humans, and I can prove that in a court if they make me." The figure seemed adamant about that, clearly anticipating some kind of court room drama, maybe he'd seen one to many repeats of Perry Mason or something. "But without legal status running a club is just a pain, electricity, garbage removal, even buying booze at normal wholesale prices is hard. And don't get me started about the IRS."
Faith watched Buffy as the blonde made love to her husband. The dark slayer was just out of the shower after her own bout with the other slayer, and admired the view without feeling like a second run. Dawn should be returning Tracey soon, which was one reason she had taken the first turn, Dawn got nervous about using her own keys when the married three were possibly having sex. Which was anytime they did not answer the door and she had to use her keys, if you thought about it.
Eventually the younger Summers girl arrived, dropped off the littlest Harris, and went off home. Faith finished the preparation to the dinner Xander had mainly prepared, and had it on the table when the others came in from the shower to eat. It was a very 1950's scene in one sense, and a totally 21st century one in another, but it was Faith's first real home and she loved it.
"So, Faith what do you think?" Buffy asked.
"About what B?"
"About helping with the immigration thing." The blonde clarified.
"Well, I think we are being asked to bring demons into the legal system. This group are actually asking to be brought into the human system, to be given a legal status similar to humans." Faith had had most of the day to think about it, plus all the time since Xander and the famous 'why do we kill demons?' Socratic. "Bringing demons into the human legal system means killing them is murder, unless it's execution, and that takes all kinds of legal stuff like trials, appeals, and like that. Big step B."
"What, if Xander helps get them green cards we can't slay any more, that's not fair." Buffy pouted.
"Well B, the whole Judge, Jury and Executioner as the same guy thing has been out of fashion for a while, you know." Faith said. Xander smiled at her, and she grabbed his hand.
It was one of the things she had gotten from him, thinking about the larger issues and her place in things. It was one reason she was not who she had been, along with all his talks about how important she was, all the people she saved, it made her feel like a protector instead of a killer. And the feeling that she was just a badly paid killer with no prospects had been a big part of her joining the Mayor, in the original time line.
"It also means we would have the United States Federal Government officially acknowledging the existence of Demons, and giving them a legal status where people in OTHER countries can't just slay them on sight." The businessman was thoughtful, this was not a suitable time for brining Socrates to bear, but careful thought was needed. "Because that would bring Uncle Sam into it, executing US residents without trial being a no no in the world."
"This is too big for us alone to decide on." Buffy commented.
"Did you get a phone number?" Xander asked.
"Mobile phone and email address." The younger slayer commented.
"Ok, first we talk to Angel, then Giles, and then the Watchers Council." Xander said
"Why in that order?" Buffy asked. They seemed like the right people to consult on this, but why in that order?
"Angel, because he has a different perspective." And being the only souled vampire would indeed give him a singular view of things. "Giles because, well, he's Giles, and I trust his judgement. The council because they seem to have pulled their heads out of their asses finally, and because they are the ones with the resources to put an open contract out on us for fucking up something this big."
"Faith, do you really think they would kill us?" Buffy said, clearly the idea seemed absurd to her.
"I would." Xander replied. "I've killed humans before over less. This is the future of the whole planet, and making demons an open part of society, with the protection of the court system and police, yeah, I can see how some might think maintaining the old ways is a better idea."
"More comfortable with feeding us slayers head first into the meat grinder, like always, than fighting the vampire equivalent of Mob Lawyers, you mean." Faith said. Buffy was shocked by the turn in the conversation, long term thinking not really being a big hobby of hers. "But that also means they might kill Tracey, she is the cause of all this, ultimately."
"Can't do that." The bladesmith said decisively. "Prophecy is clear, the Klemnach is under the protection of the powers that be, and sacred to demons too. No human can kill her, no demon would want to, and she is invulnerable to disease and things of that nature."
"AND YOU WERE GOING TO TELL ME THIS WHEN!!!" His first wife screamed.
"Hey, I only found this out today, while you were at the beach some of us were researching." The former zeppo said defensively. "Besides, how do you think she could be so graceful at eight months unless she was born with slayer powers?"
Tracey, at the aforementioned eight months was able to walk, without falling down, and tie her own shoe laces, and their were other things too. They were used to it, and only Buffy had memories of a younger sibling to tell her it was unusual. The blonde slayer had not really thought about it, refusing, as parents often do, to see that there might be anything unusual about the child she thought of as hers. That by some strange twist of Slayer biology actually was her child.
"So what else did you find out about Tracey, the Klemnach, was that the term?" The dark slayer asked.
"Not a lot, Peace on Earth, good will to all demons. The only losers of the change seem to be the pure demons, and, well, they have this whole Master Race philosophy going so screw them. And they still can't do anything to harm Tracey."
"This bit about demons becoming wealthier and more powerful really worries me though." Buffy commented. And she did look worried, as she sipped on her Chablis. The desert was fruit cheese, with apricot and coconut embedded into the cheese it went well with coffee, though both she and Xander had a cup of coffee and a glass of wine, alternating between them.
"Buffy, we have a choice between demons and vampires trying to destroy the world on a regular basis, and we only have to fail once for the apocalypse to happen, or demons and vampires trying to become rich assholes with expensive cars and flashy houses." The white knight said. "I personally would rather compete with a vampire businessman than be tortured by a vampire henchman. Call me strange."
"Oh, yeah, I see that. So, when do we call Angel?"
"I haven't been very grateful lately, have I?" Buffy Summers asked, looking at her wife and husband. She had come to realise just how lifeless she must seem, how empty of joy. It was not fair on her lovers to go on like this, and not fair on her either.
Her mother had ALMOST died, which was a shock, had been saved by Giles casting a preservation spell that kept her from deteriorating until surgery could be performed. The hospital was amazed that someone could live with burst blood vessel in the brain, but she had. Buffy had nearly burst a blood vessel when she learned why Giles was available to do the spell.
Rupert Giles, her nerdish watcher, had apparently become 'very close' to Mrs Summers while trying to get her to accept the blonde slayers bisexuality. They were in the shower together when Joyce nearly died, to be specific.
"Its ok B, we understand it's been a stressful year for you." Faith replied
The discovery that she was not human, arguably unrelated to any Earthly life form, actually, had also been a shock. When Faith became pregnant, she was a little jealous, but then it was discovered Tracey had her DNA, as well as Faith and Xanders. No slayer had had children before because a second slayer was needed to 'cross pollinate', - apparently from shared sex toys - as it had been delicately phrased. No earthly animal does that, the two sexes seem adequate.
"No, I mean Faith, the whole pregnant by TWO other people thing doesn't seem to have affected you the way it did me. And since you were actually the pregnant one it should have been me consoling you."
Finding out that she was not really human, her sister had not even existed a couple of years ago, her mother was a homophobic bitch who came around to accepting her sexuality after GILES, of all people, started screwing her brains out – Dawn kept commenting on the loss of sleep resulting from the bedroom noises until she noticed Buffy running out of the room at every such discussion – she and her wife were the cause of a religious schism within the Catholic church, then the publicity over the head of the Jesuit order performing a gay wedding against the direct orders of the Pope…
"Why would I need to be consoled?" Faith said, clearly hurt that anything as wondrous as the birth of their daughter could be anything other than a joy and a blessing.
Then there had been the memorable day that Dawn had come back from a day of combined baby sitting and pretending to support Giles at a surfing contest while actually looking at the cute guys, wearing a t-shirt from one of the contest sponsors. It read 'Doctor Zoggs Sex Wax, Get Some for Your Stick.' Buffy had been in a stuttering rage while her sister smiled at her and her watcher calmly explained about waxing down surfboards for grip, looking absolutely calm and relaxed all the while. Her mothers comment about 'you wouldn't want Giles to be hurt because his big long thing was wet and he fell out, now would you?' did not help, especially followed by Faiths 'We are still talking about surfboards, right?' and her mother's angelic face as she said replied 'surfboards?'
"Faith, we're not human."
"Course not B, were slayers, I thought you would have figured that out by now." The dark slayer responded. Faith had always been proud of being special, one of the chosen two, whereas Buffy resented losing a normal life. The different reactions were a product of this, to some degree.
"I just meant to say that I love the both of you more than words can easily express. I have a husband who I love and who has loved and protected me from the day he met me. I have a wife who I love and who loves me and who has loved me for a long time. And I have a child who is the demon messiah, while also born with slayer powers. We're a weird family, but we are family, and I should really tell you how happy you make me more often."
All in all it had been a stressful year, but that had not really been enough justification for her generally down mood since high school. Ok, so Angel was gone, and she missed him to some degree. Well to more than a degree, doomed first love and all that, but still Angel had been to both Faith and Xanders wedding, as well as her and Faiths wedding, and been polite and supportive. Maintaining that politeness in the face of the Jesuits awe struck questions about 'what was hell really like?' and 'did you meet Satan?' had been a serious trial, but he had done it. And she genuinely did love Tracey, Xander, and Faith.
"If you love us so much B, come here and prove it." Faith said, as she undressed. Xander stood behind the dark slayer and cupped her naked breasts with his hands, kissing her neck at the same time. "Come on B, make me scream your name."
"Oh, Oh, Giles the project is really moving, we think in a few months we may be able to explore an alternate reality, or, well, send a mind to one." Willow was excited and babbling a little, reminding him of herself in high school to a degree. He was intensely proud of his only flesh and blood child, and would have been horrified to know that in the original time line she was by this stage a serious magic addict. "The idea is you would just wake up in your alternate self, like Quantum Leap, but, hopefully without the memory gaps, cause, waking up in an alternate reality and not knowing what's going on, wow, not good, could be really confusing there."
"So this is totally safe then?" Tara asked
"Well, there is a chance that the alternate self would go into you instead, or you would wake up with the alternate you's memories." The red head conceded.
"How big a chance?" Giles asked. This did not sound good, it sounded very dangerous actually.
"Not high, don't worry, we will have all the bugs out before we test it." His daughter reassured him. They were waiting for Buffy and co to arrive, and Willow Rosenburg, reassured everyone that nothing could possibly go wrong.
If they had been aware of how horribly wrong her alternate reality had gone wrong, with her a magic addict and Tara leaving her over it, they would not have taken the reassurances quite as much at face value. But here she had come out far earlier, developed enough self confidence to be able to listen to Tara's advice on the dangers of magic abuse. Her return to physics balanced her magic, leaving a much more rounded person. Buffy entered the room and the whole conversation was forgotten in the wake of the slayers statement.
"I have called you all together to make an announcement." Buffy said to the assembled Scooby gang. They were in the back area, sitting around the table.
"Yes Buffy, what is it?" Giles asked. She seemed happy and scared and a whole range of emotions, so it was not some message of doom, presumably.
"Tracey is going to have a little brother or sister."
"We've been invited to be guests of honour at the Mardi Gras." Buffy was reading an invitation she had received in the mail.
"New Orleans?" Faith asked. "Why would New Orleans ask us to be guests of honour?"
"No, the Sydney annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras has formally requested our presence, as the first gay couple to be married by a Catholic Church big shot." Buffy had been reading from the attached letter as quickly as possible, looking up to speak to her wife. "Apparently the whole theme for this year is going to be a push for recognition Gay and Lesbian Couples, see, they sent us a copy of a magazine with our wedding picture on the cover."
The magazine was called Lesbians on the Loose. And, indeed, Buffy Summers and Faith Harris were there in all their wedding day glory, taking their vows under the auspices of the head of Father General of the Jesuits. She flicked through the mag, to see an editorial, letters to the editor, and several articles about them. Faith was reading over her shoulder with interest.
"We're a hit, B." Faith had been aware the gay press was more than marginally obsessed with the whole thing, and with good reason. She had been too cocooned by Slaying, pregnancy, the Lesbian collective and a simple inability to give a rat's arse what bigots thought to really appreciate how important it was to other people.
"Sydney, Sydney Australia, has a Mardi Gras especially for Gays and Lesbians? Since when?" Xander was puzzled, he associated Australia with Crocodile Dundee and that lunatic in the shorts who also chased the big reptiles. Plus some stuff from Giles surfing magazines, but that was very narrowly focused on the surf, weather, the surf, and the surf.
"Several decades actually, and its supposed to be the biggest in the world, making San Francisco's Gay Pride parade look rather small and tame." The watcher added. "And they invite everyone, apparently they had 700,000 spectators at the last one."
"Giles, why do you know so much about this?"
"Xander, you and I are the only heterosexuals in what you insist on calling the Scooby gang, not including Dawn or Mrs Summers as members obviously." He was cleaning his glasses, rarely a good sign. "My research began when you mentioned Faiths interests one day in the school library, I failed her so badly and felt it was a chance to redeem myself."
Faith was puzzled for a moment, 'G man finds out I like girls and starts researching it, why would…because he's Giles, that's what the G man does, he researches.' She walked over to the Watcher and hugged him, he was clearly feeling serious guilt, and forcing himself to control it.
"Its ok Giles, really, it's ok."
"No Faith, its not ok, IT IS DEFINITELY NOT OK." Rupert Giles had been thinking about this for years. "I was supposed to be your Watcher, hell I was supposed to be an adult with responsibility for the welfare of a minor."
"But I left you in that disgusting flea trap motel, financed by activities no one should be forced to resort to for survival" Buffy looked puzzled at the comment, and then noticed that she was the only one of the four there who was. 'My god,' she thought 'what was Faith doing for money?' she hadn't even known or wondered. Xander obviously knew though, and Faith knew that he knew, but she's surprised Giles does. "please understand I did not know about, ah, your day job, until after Xander forced us to start financially supporting you. It just, it just honestly never occurred to me to wonder, and I will live with the shame of that for the rest of my life."
"Ok, so everyone here clearly knows what you were doing but me Faith." Buffy felt like she had been punched in the mouth, and it was herself that did it. She had not noticed either, how could she not wonder what a teenage girl with no skills paid for clothes, rent, food, Bronzing…how could she not wonder? "Faith, I'm your wife and I love you and I'm obviously even more guilty of neglecting you than the others, because they worked it out before now. Please tell me, what awful thing did my self obsession make me miss, what were you doing for money?"
"Sucking cock, being ass fucked, S & M, a fair bit of missionary position, and the ever popular lesbian act." Faith was looking the blonde slayer directly in the eyes as she said it, containing the fear that B would abandon her when she found out she had married a whore. Xander had known almost from the start, and had responded to finding out by starting his campaign to get her a salary for slaying, the watcher had worked it out after that apparently, with the Buffy totally blind to it until now. "The brothel was real accommodating about hours, adjusting my schedule at the last minute, all kinds of stuff like that. A four hour shift every second day B, been doin' it since I was 13, no big."
There was silence in the room. Xander walked over to the dark slayer and hugged her; she relaxed back into his arms and buried her face in his chest. Giles stood leaning against the kitchen counter, looking at the couple, then the older slayers and back, while the bladesmith mouthed 'talk about it later' to him. Buffy sat down on the couch, numb.
"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, please, Faith, I'm so sorry." Buffy was whispering more than saying; they could hear her but not loudly. Of course it was big, it was just too big and painful for the other woman to think about except as 'no big.'
"Don't be sorry Buffy, be my wife. For two years I've been afraid you'd spit in my face if you found out, that I'd lose my chance with you forever, so just kiss me and tell me you still love me, even as a whore."
"I love you." She had the sense not to say something like 'you're not a whore.' The dark slayer was perfectly well aware that the blonde was in shock, and just wanted to know she would not be abandoned. "I love you, Xander loves you, and Giles just wants to hear you forgive him. I need that too, please forgive me for being a self centred cow and not noticing."
"Ok B, I forgive you for being a self centred cow." The younger slayer was smiling. "Giles, I forgive you for being too upper class English to know how the peasants sometimes live. I'd forgive Xander if I could think of anything he needs to be forgiven for."
If they had been alone she would have said 'I forgive you for saving my soul' and kissed him, then 'I forgive you for convincing me I deserve to be loved' and kiss him again, followed by 'I forgive you for making my life better than I ever fantasised about it being' followed by activities best not described in a forum possibly including minors. Being with the others, who would only feel worse because of it, she just smiled.
"Miss Rosenburg?" Professor Nelson asked, walking toward the student who was his principle research aid. Nelson was vaguely aware that the red head had a life beyond his project, but like anything outside his area of expertise it would remain only a vague awareness. After all, a man who has a bumper sticker that reads 'Heisenberg was here, or somewhere nearby anyway', because he saw one on another physicists car and couldn't stop laughing for days, is clearly one who is perhaps overly involved in his field.
"Professor." Willow responded. The alternate reality project was humming along about as well as any science project can without experimental evidence of any kind. Scientific method ultimately defines a good theory as one that allows you to build equipment that works as advertised. A certain trial and error is involved, testing to see what theories are good, and what bad. And that was the problem.
Currently there were several conflicting theories about what would happen when the device was turned on. They varied from nothing, to sending the nearest person to an alternate reality, to sending a random person somewhere on the planet on the same trip, to bringing someone from an alternate to this one…it went on. The decision to not run the machine at all was not hard, frustrating in a way, but it was just too dangerous. Unfortunately, not all the alternate versions of Professor Nelson agreed.
"How come they hold this Mardi Gras in winter anyway, won't it be to cold for much?" Buffy asked. She showed her watcher the letter; it said festival month was February, with the parade on the last Sunday of the month.
"You never saw 'the Endless Summer', did you?" The man sometimes known as Ripper responded. They had gotten in several hours of mutual apologies and acceptances, and a change of topic was welcome.
"Huh." Was the blonde slayers response.
"Southern Hemisphere summer starts in December Buffy." Xander had been reading some of the watchers surfing magazines, as an escape, features on trips to remote surf spots in Indonesia, Africa, and Pacific Islands helped. One, on a beach in Sydney called Cronulla, had mentioned a Christmas eve surfing trip, on a train, where they pulled into one station playing 'White Christmas', and left with 'Santa Claus is coming to town', on a day that was never below 97 degrees, even at night.
"Christmas is summer." Buffy was used to warm summers, never having left southern California, but it still sounded a little odd. Sadly she added. "We can't go anyway."
"Why B, sounds perfect, a little sun, a little hero worship as lesbian icons, maybe some cute babes, what's not to like?"
"Well, leaving aside the fact that we have a husband and the lesbian icon thing may not fit in with that, remember when we took Tracey to LA? Do you remember the demon violence, and that was an afternoon drive. If we both go to the other side of the planet with Tracey, lots of people will die Faith." And neither would go very far without their daughter, it just would not happen.
"Actually Buffy, that will not be a problem by then. According to prophecy, the Klemnach grows in strength so that by its first birthday she can leave the hellmouth and still control it." Xander had been reading furiously, exactly where he got the time for all of his activities, as well as being a father and husbands, was a mystery to many.
He was also developing a carpentry hobby, thinking about making furniture and selling it. Or at least, designing furniture for some friends to make for a percentage of the gross, anyway.
"Yes, precisely, and with the Lombach on the way that is reinforced. We can go for a few trips to test, but Buffy, it will work, the whole family can go if you want to." Joyce would require a certain easing into the idea of her daughter as center of a month long gay party. Fortunately that mainly involved seeing she had at least one orgasm a night, and he was more than willing to see to it.
"What's the Lombach, I mean, I assume you mean my little passenger here, but, what does it mean?" The blonde slayer had patted her stomach as she referred to 'my little passenger'; she was actually not showing yet but already shopping for maternity dresses, as first time mothers do.
"It means 'The Enforcer,' which is also the title of my favourite Clint Eastwood film, and my son to be being titled after Dirty Harry gives me an odd tingle, let me tell you." The younger male of the group said. He went to check on Tracey, who was asleep in the spare room. Watching her little face relaxed and inspired him, as it always did. Loving her was a reward all by itself.
"My son, The Enforcer. Has a nice ring to it, don't you think B?" Faith had found the idea of being a sort of co-father, in the biological sense, less weird than she would have if she had not had to talk Buffy into not panicking about being co-father to Tracey. "How does it sound to you Giles?"
"My grandson enforcing a world peace among demon kind, alongside his sister, who created it, well, I could not be more pleased. And the watchers council confirms our interpretations, by the way."
Several alternate realities away, a Professor Nelson who was distinctly more manic than the familiar one put the finishing touches to his experiment. His assistant, or at least one version of her from one reality, would be taking a little trip soon. And with luck he might even live to monitor the result and bring her here for interrogation.
If he didn't survive, well, he would not have to worry about anything, now would he.
George Ganger, was having a birthday, his 43rd to be exact, and had his family and some friends present. Schoolteachers are not the wealthiest people in the world, but it was a good day and he was happy enough. The sound of several cars pulling up in front of the house distracted him from the barbeque, and the knock on the door even more so. His sister went to check, and brought a group he recognised as former students of his. He wondered what it was about.
"Mr Ganger, I hope I'm not interrupting your party too much, but I have something for you." It was Xander Harris, who was dangling something from his hand, a set of car keys. Remembering how he had gotten the now very rich man his first weekend job, he wondered what this was about. "It's out front, or, at least part of my present is out front."
There were several cars out front, because of his family and the ones Xander and his friends had brought. The one he noticed though was the silver grey Mercedes, brand new and the exact model he had been looking at, without hope of ever buying, every time he passed the dealership. Xander was holding the keys, and a small folder of documents.
"Mr Ganger, you were the only teacher I had who ever told me I could amount to anything. You got me the start that headed me to where I am today, and I owe you something." The Ganger family was looking at the whole scene with no small bewilderment, and some pride. CNN, Time, and Fortune had covered his rise to wealth, the robot development deal in particular; and here the now multiple millionaire was crediting George. "So, how do you like your new car?"
"My new car?" The shop teacher looked at the keys being held out to him, on a Mercedes key ring. More than slightly stunned, the tall man picked up the key and got into his new car. The engine started, and quiet and powerful, like the sound of a great cat, a leopard perhaps, preparing to charge.
"Insurance is paid up for the next five years, it's registered in your name, also paid for for five years. And one last thing." Xander took out the folder again, and Steve, George's brother the accountant, immediately changed expression. Something had caught his eye, and the teacher wondered what it was.
"One percent of Harris Ventures stock. To help pay for gas, and so on." George knew very little about shares, and it showed on his face. Steve leaned over and spoke to him through the open car window.
"That's a little over 1.5 million dollars George, a lot more if the robot development goes the way I expect."
The individual getting the biggest charge out of the day was definitely Xander. He remembered vividly that he had only listened to the shop teacher after getting with Faith in his final year, and even then only to get her hatchets made. But they impressed everyone, Faith kept telling him construction was something he could succeed at, and then the weekend job confirmed it. Not ever Giles or Willow had tried to convince 'the zeppo' that he had skills, employable skills, but Mr Ganger had, and been right about it.
"Mr Ganger, all the paperwork is in the folder, read it over the weekend and I will contact you on Monday to see if there are any problems. Oh, and Happy Birthday." And with that the businessman vanished, if only into his car, and went off. He would have preferred to just vanish, right in front of everyone and in broad daylight, but some nasty experiences with magic had convinced him to be more conventional. He thought appearing, dropping off the gift, and disappearing would be cool, unlike hanging around afterwards, which would have a 'ain't I great' feel he was trying to avoid.
Professor Nelson was doing a good impersonation of a mad scientist, partly because that is what he was. Willow Rosenburg was strapped naked to the table in front of him, ready for the experiment to begin. She needed to be there, but there was no reason for the naked and spread-eagled but except his personal sense of theatre. And lust; of course, since once she had served as the focus point she needed to be made passive and obedient, and he had read that repeated rapes had that affect.
He was uncertain if it was true, but it certainly seemed like an interesting theory, and one he was willing to provide experimental evidence for. He looked at her, her breasts, small but perfect, her cunt hair, a thick red wedge, and decided finally that, yes, he would perform the second experiment immediately after the first. Assuming, of course, that both of them still existed after the first experiment, which was not totally certain.
It is a fact that when the very first atomic test was scheduled, the majority opinion overrode the minority one. The majority view was that there would be an explosion of about the scale actually observed. The minority view was that the atomic explosion would do what it eventually would do in the interior of a Hydrogen bomb, i.e., create the temperatures and pressures needed to fuse hydrogen. Specifically, the hydrogen in the Earth's atmosphere, thus burning the planet to a radioactive cinder in eight minutes flat.
There was no way to know what would happen, so it was decided to set the weapon off and find out.
I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP.
Professor Nelson was in this position, he had chosen to carry out his experiment in the belief the majority view was true. In the Atomic bomb case, the majority view was true, and the world survived. In Professor Nelson's case, he was wrong. Dead wrong.
Willow was holding back tears, telling herself that the others would be here to rescue her soon. Professor Nelson turned on the device, looking like something out of a 1920's horror movie while doing it, and there was a vibration, not physical but metaphysical, and the explosion that followed blasted her lecturer across the room, redecorating the wall with him in the process.
The Wicca was unharmed, protected from the explosion by the distortion in reality caused by her being the focus point. The fire department arrived quickly, to find no fire, but rescue the naked student and return her to the bosom, or to be more accurate, bosoms, of her loved ones, Tara and Amy, her wives.
What actually was happening was interesting. Instead of a random Willow Rosenburg from a random Alternate Universe being dragged to his, Proffesor Nelson had dragged a Willow from an Alternate universe destroyed by magic, and dumped her into the replacement Willow of the new reality, several years to the day after the wish that caused the change. Eventually the new Willow would merge with the old, to form a single personality, but for the immediate future the inserted personality did not know any of this. She was asleep, after all.
Willow woke up with the warm, softness of a naked woman next to her. It had not been a long time since Tara, it seemed like yesterday. She had no idea who this woman was for the moment, and that was strange. She had not been either celebrating heavily or drowning her sorrows, why had she no memory of last night?
Then she noticed the feel and scent of the woman, so like Tara, no like her lost love that she started to cry. How could she betray her beloved by picking up another woman just because of a superficial similarity? Then the other moved, turned and spoke to her.
"What is it Willow, what's the problem?" Tara MacLay said, turning around to face her girlfriend. Willow liked to cuddle up, one arm over her with the hand cupping a breast. So Tara obliged, sleeping on her side to provide access, and had to turn he body to face the other woman. "Bad dream?"
"You were dead, Warren shot you, you died, I lost you, I..." Was it all a dream, had her whole turn to the dark side, skinning Warren alive and trying to destroy it all, a dream? How could it be it had been so detailed, it had gone on so long, how? "You died, I went crazy, I killed him, I tried to kill everyone, it was awful."
Willow walked in with Tara, Giles had insisted on seeing her immediately, perhaps her dream was prophetic or something similar. So the pair had come straight over, not having seen either of the Summers women that morning. So the red headed Wicca was not prepared for the sight that greeted her when she walked in the door.
"Giles, what are you doing with a baby?" A baby perhaps a year old or so, that the ex-Watcher was bottle feeding at the table the Scooby's usually did their research on. Where had the baby come from, had Giles teleported it back with him when he returned to fight her? But she hadn't gone bad, according to Tara, so who was the child?
"Miss Rosenberg, are you saying you do not remember Tracey?" A certain Ripper tone in his voice, as he held the child in a somehow very protective way. This was getting too weird, or so Willow thought, until she saw Faith walk out of the training room with her arm around a heavily pregnant Buffy. Then Willow did the obvious thing, that any rational person would do in such a situation.
She fainted.
Looking up from the cold floor at the assembled group, Ira and Sheila Rosenberg's daughter thought she was obviously having a nervous breakdown. Clearly the strain of the last year or so had been too much, she was delusional. Still it was a comforting delusion, with Tara back, Faith snuggling both Buffy and the baby without anyone being in danger, and no Anya. She smiled up at the group from her position, as the final piece of the delusional puzzle arrived, Xander smiling down at her.
"Enjoying the floor are we Wills, Tara keeping you up at night again?" And with that he offered her a donut. He looked about the way she remembered, at least, except he seemed so happy compared to the man she had nearly killed. And he was in a shirt with Harris Construction written on it. "Should I get you a pillow, blankets, a straight jacket?"
"Red, do you remember me going to prison?" Faith looked extremely nervous, and spoke quietly so it was hard to hear her. Everyone looked puzzled, Faith had never been to prison. Wesley had nearly sicked the council's goons on her after that fatal accident graduation year, but no prison risk. Everyone but Willow anyway, who looked concerned all of a sudden. "Do you remember it too?"
The gang all started talking at once, leaving Willow and Faith looking warily at each other as the red head sat up. Faith remembered both histories, to a degree limited by having been either in a coma or prison for much of it. Certainly she remembered being in the prison visitors room, talking to Xander, who had come to visit her after the whole Darth Willow episode. She had wished she had listened to him after the death of Finch, instead of choking him. A voice from somewhere had said "Wish granted" and suddenly she was back in the cheap hotel with Xander, his concerned face there offering to help. This time she had taken the help.
"You remember Anya too, don't you, how Xander nearly married her?" The two of them were now the centre of attention, clearly no-one else remembered any of it. But the red head remembered Xander was going to visit Faith in prison that morning, and the dark slayer remembered the visit as being that day too. "She never got seriously involved with us this time, never came back after graduation. D'Hoffryn must have gotten her back, changed the timeline as a way of doing that."
"Faith was my first girlfriend?" Willow was still a little stunned, and had not totally adjusted to it all. She was floating on air about most of it, of course, but her first time with a woman was a threesome with Faith and Xander? Faith was responsible for setting her up with Tara? "I slept with Xander, she was ok with that? You're ok with that?"
"Not a girlfriend, she was only ever interested in one woman romantically, and that is Buffy. But she was there after Oz left, and introduced us." The blonde woman was editing the situation a little, Faith had been important to her beloved's acceptance of her sexuality. "Xander is the man who saved her soul, she keeps saying it, and now you agree. She always said she needed his "white knight complex" to keep her out of trouble, and now we know what kind of trouble."
Tara was at a critical disadvantage in trying to explain Xander's importance to Faith, and knew it. She had never had any interest in men, and couldn't follow the motivations of women who were. Not that she disliked men in general, or Xander in particular. But without feeling any attraction all she could do was intellectualise the situation, and love is not about the intellect.
Xander seemed to have an odd relationship with the dark slayer. They had been lovers for years, Faith never looked at another man, while he only looked at women she brought into the relationship, finally including Buffy as second wife. Moreover he had never looked at his Senior wife's women the way he did at her, though he was kind, polite and skilful in bed with them. Also he showed no hint of jealousy if she chose not to share a woman she had picked up for a night, unlike Buffy. So it looked like she was in control.
Yet she always asked for and listened to his advice and guidance, and even in their occasional fights it was like Obi Wan disagreeing with Yoda. For a man who had barely made it through High School, his philosopher/guide role was odd, or had been until today. In the original history Faith was in prison, having screwed up her life to the point where she had finally begged Angel to kill her for being totally evil.
Angel had mentioned the post Finch motel strangling as a turning point, and she had grabbed onto the idea. After being sent back in time to the strangling incident, she had followed his lead, and her life had changed instantly for the better. She had apologised to Buffy and Giles, and had those apologies accepted. She had come out to Xander about her bisexuality, and been enthusiastically accepted. With Xander to make a place for her the Scooby's were friendlier, and he had persuaded Wesley and the Watchers council to cough up the money for a decent apartment. He boosted her self-respect when she was down, reminding her to be proud of herself and the lives she saved. Of course she treated him like her personal saviour, he was.
The returned Faith had remembered what she heard about her husband to be's post high school employment history, and persuaded him to focus on things in high school that would help with the one he eventually proved talented at, construction. He now owned a handyman and renovation business, enough to pay for two part employed wives, one child and another on the way.
"Why would I be angry about Xander, he never touched you like that after we were together." It seemed so obvious to Tara, but she was aware of her lover's possessiveness without sharing it, at least to the same degree. It had all been before they met, after all, Xander had carefully reassured her of that, while making her promise not to hurt Willow, ever. "I love you for the woman you are, you are my everything, you're my Willow. Now if you were trying to get me to let him father our first child by me through 'natural insemination', as Faith calls it, that would be a problem."
And with that the two had something to agree on. Despite the most persuasive efforts of Mrs Faith Harris, there would be no 'fivesome,'- another Faith term- and Tara would not lose her hetro-sexual virginity to Xander, or at all.
"Now kiss me like you mean it."
"I always mean it."
Faith Harris eventually accepted that she had changed as a person, and that she had atoned for her deeds. The initial friction caused by her immediate and total support for Dawn's 'business venture' smoothed out after Buffy had several long talks with Xander, about hypocrisy. She never cheated on Xander, though Buffy was annoyed by her tendency to sometimes take sensational women home and not share them.
Buffy Summers went on to be a suburban housewife, a nice, normal life of the kind she could only fantasise about as a teenager. She felt that she had saved the world enough times to be able to relax, and felt no need to top her achievements. Given the number of people who ruin their lives by trying to live on, or exceed, past glory, that was for the best. She was a good mother, a happy woman, respected throughout the world, and, most importantly to her, content.
Xander Harris went on to become insanely rich, and a well-known figure around the world. He eventually worked on some of Jonathan's space colonisation projects, and visited Mars, Earth's Moon, and several of Jupiter's moons before his death. He had children by Faith, Buffy, Willow and Tara, a total of seven, and 20 grandchildren, all of whom mourned his passing.
Joyce Summers became engaged to Rupert Giles, leading Buffy to say, somewhat seriously, 'if you hurt her I'll kill you.' Joyce's immediate response was 'he only hurts me when I ask nicely.'
Rupert Giles married Joyce Summers, and went on to think of all the Scooby's children and grandchildren as his family. Like all the Scooby gang he had stock in White Knight ventures, and never had to worry about money again. He was a little embarrassed about Joyce's revelation that she was both a masochist, and a submissive.
Willow Rosenburg married Tara Maclay, becoming Willow Rosenburg Maclay. She had two children, Jesse and Jenny, by Xander, and became a very successful designer of computer and robotic systems. The two alternate Willows eventually merged, with the newly arrived personality assimilating pieces of the Faithverse personality as they bubbled up from her memory.
Tara Maclay became Tara Maclay Rosenburg, and went on to be a famous Wicca, lifting several major curses. She had three children, by Xander, Jeffery, David and Sasha. She and Willow went on to be amazingly happy, and had eleven grandchildren.
Dawn Summers went on to be an internationally famous dungeon mistress. Mistress Summers slayer powers, inherited from Buffy's side since the monks formed her out of Buffy's essence, were reinforced by her Key powers, resulting in, among other things, instant healing. Given her of love pain, in particular her insistence that only REAL whips be used on her, not the fake ones normal to the scene, this was all to the best. She had many lovers but only one love, a gentle submissive called Tricia, who only ever referred to her as 'mistress', being referred to as 'slave' in return. They had a child each, and were actually quite happy.
Jonathan, Warren and Andrew have been dealt with in a previous section.
Angel finally atoned for his past deeds on the 23rd of January, 2189. Cordelia Chase was still with him, as a partial demon she had not physically aged, and they joined a colony on the fourth planet of the Barnards Star system. Each lived another seventy years, fully human, regarded as a nice, if somewhat excentric, couple, with a large family and many achievements crucial to the survival and prosperity of the colony between them.
Wesley Wyndam Smythe became head of the Watchers council, overseeing it at a time of enormous upheaval. With the demon and vampire population of the planet moving from ridiculous myth to everyday reality, the secret society leading part of the fight against them might have been seen as irrelevant. Instead they became central to the 'normalisation' process, often taking the odd role of defending demon behaviour to an ignorant and frightened public.
One example of this was the pit fighting that became a staple of demon entertainment enterprises. No one was actually killed in these contests normally, but demons like violence, they enjoy fighting, not simply watching others fight. Therefore there were no spectators at such fights, and no gambling. You paid to be allowed to enter the pit with everyone else and hammer away. For most demons it was the equivalent of going bowling. To people who had campaigned against boxing it was the ultimate nightmare. Wesley managed to get the demon viewpoint across eventually.
Much of the acceptance of demons that occurred, and given the history of the human race the level of acceptance was remarkable, was due to the presence of the Enforcer. While his sister had the peaceful, quietly radiating power of peace and logic, the enforcer was the demon worlds answer to Judge Dredd. 6ft 8 inches of Judge, Jury and Executioner, telepathic, with speed, strength and reflexes to tear most demons limb from limb he was also the most powerful wizard on the planet. Hidden demon crimes were uncovered, unfair human accusations of demon crime proven false, and the peace was kept.
Charles Gunn became a famous figure in the rise of South Central LA from a violent working class area to a solidly middle class one. Trading on Xander's awareness that White Knight Ventures rise from a one man handyman operation depended on people from the area, he persuaded the former zeppo to create a small business bank and advice company to give black businessmen the loans normal banks for one reason or another mainly refused them. Based on similar ventures in mainly third world countries, it treated clients like the businessmen and women they wanted to be rather than the charity cases the banks tended to view them as. It did not make money, but it did not actually lose it either, and was eventually copied in many other areas.
Professor Nelson was asked by Willow to do a delicate favour for one of the women in the Lesbian collective. Amanda Sheerer was a history lecturer, and had never actually tried sex with men. She became curious, but was nervous about how to go about 'acquiring experience'. Willow got her friend and mentor the physicist to handle the matter. The historian had gained her girlfriend Cory's permission for the experiment, and enjoyed it enough to get the other woman to try it too.
The result was that, six months later, the physicist turned up at one of the University staff functions with the best known lesbian couple on campus, both pregnant. It did wonders for his self esteem and reputation, and he gained a life long friends in Amanda and Cory.
The women remained a couple, of course, but he was an accepted friend, the man their children called dad, someone the academics could have long afternoon talks about their subjects with. They had sex with him regularly in various combinations, as something fun that adults do rather than making love, but for a man who's love life had been as depressing as Nelson's it was more than enough