Buffy: Innocent Blood Chapter 2

8/6/2019 Buffy: Innocent Blood Chapter 2

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Willow laughed. “You didn’t talk about anything else until July Fourth.”

“Ah, Fourth of July. Independence Day. Baseball, hot dogs, sparklers, and swimminguntil eleven o’ clock. Hangin’ with my bud Will while she tries to teach me the study of the stars,

astrology.”

“Astronomy,” she corrected him. “And you’re doing it again.”

“What?”“The ‘I’m capable of talking about things not related to Buffy so I won’t be talking about

Buffy’ thing.”

Xander pointed a finger at her. “Ah ha! But you just said last year I couldn’t do that until

July Fourth. I’m already doing it now, and it’s only the beginning of June. See me, muchimproved. Witness my improvement.”

Willow chuckled, but the arrival of Principal Snyder cut short her mirth; the man had an

uncanny knack, not unlike bees to pollen, of being drawn to students having fun. His appearance

generally put an end to any jocularity.“Let’s not take all day,” Snyder said to them. “Lockers cleaned out by one o’clock,

students off the premises by one-thirty.” He turned to go, but then stopped and faced them again.

“You two are friends with that delinquent Summers, aren’t you?”“She’s not a delinquent,” Willow argued.“I’ll be the judge of that,” Snyder shot back. “Actually, I already was.”

Willow started to speak up, but Snyder waved her off. “I’m not interested in your

opinion. A simple yes or no will do.”

Xander offered, “How about a complicated yes?”Snyder glared at him. “Well, since you’re the only friends she had, you get the honor of

clearing out her locker too. I suggest you make it snappy if you want to get done before the

school is closed for the summer.”Snyder turned away quickly and moved off.

“You know Will, one of these days he’s gonna get snippy with the wrong guy, and he’s

gonna pay for it.”Willow nodded in agreement. “Probably. But that wrong guy isn’t you.”Xander stared at Snyder’s receding form. “Pity, isn’t it?”

“14, 27, 9,”

“Huh?” Xander asked her.

“My combination,” Willow divulged. “We’d better get going. I don’t want that creepgoing through Buffy’s things.”

Xander rapidly dialed Willow’s combination with his good hand and opened her locker.

“Good call, Willow,” he said, but his jaw dropped as he peered into her locker.

“What?” she asked him.“Will, we have got to talk,” he said.

“Xander, what is it?”“This is not a locker, Willow. It’s a thing from hell.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, trying to sit up taller in the wheelchair and peer in herlocker.

“I mean, look at this,” he said, gesturing to the inside of her locker. “It’s so... so...so...”

“Clean?” she ventured.

He snapped his fingers. “Yes, that’s the word, clean. I was gonna go with frightening, butin this case, they’re the same thing.”

his entire document copyright [email protected]



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She smiled at him. “Come on.”

*Books lay in piles in a seemingly random fashion all over the large table that dominated

the lower part of the library. A ray of sunlight splashed over some of them, illuminating handwritten covers in gold ink, musty leatherbound volumes older by far than their current owner, the

building they were housed in, and in some cases, the town of Sunnydale itself.

Giles took off his glasses and rubbed his nose. I don’t know why I am bothering with this

now, he reflected. I have all summer. The Board of Education gave me a pass to work here all

through the off season. Giles looked at the messy pile of books. “Still, one can never be too

organized, I suppose,” he said to no one as he replaced his glasses and moved over to the table.

A ledger sat open with an old pen that his father had given him laying across the page; a

graduation gift, his father had presented him with the Cross pen, charging him to “write downthings that men will treasure as knowledge.” Giles had scoffed at the old man-- and had

purposely used it to compose many of his songs, while that brief flirtation with music had lasted.

But twenty years later he still owned the pen; though at the moment he did not write knowledge,but rather catalogued it. Ordinarily he would have asked Willow to type the books in on thecomputer, in a list she kept for him there. But Willow was preoccupied with all of the last minute

details that the final day of school demands; and he couldn’t bring himself to turn the damned

thing on after Jenny’s death, a trend rapidly running into habit. He’d never liked computers much

when Jenny had been alive to coax him and tease him and make them seem slightly morebenevolent. With her death he had decided, at least for the time being, that he’d had rather

enough of them altogether.

He found it oddly comforting to hear the scratch of the pen across the page as he wrotedown names like “The Tomerian Chronicles,” and “Diary of Andrew Hedge.” He wasn’t sure

why, exactly, but something in the rhythm of the writing and the sound it made comforted him.

Giles could hear students in the hall, indulging in a bit of boisterous behavior because they hadcome so close to, as they saw it, freedom; and outside as well, teenagers cavorted on the grass,talking, laughing, and generally having a ball. Giles didn’t begrudge them their fun, though he

would be glad when one-thirty came around and that policeman in disguise Snyder chased them

off.

He wrote down a few more titles, slowly because of the residual pain in his wrists frombeing tied up; Good thing Angelus sprained the fingers on my left hand, he thought. Giles took

care to get the names spelled correctly, and to jot down a note as to where the book came from or

its supposed age. But after a few minutes he removed his glasses and stared out the window

again, watching the students wander off the campus in small clusters. He glanced up at the clock-- twenty after one-- and decided maybe he should take a break and heat up some tea. He pushed

back the chair to get up and go back in his office when he saw a full cup of steaming Earl Greysitting next to the ledger book. He frowned at his forgetfulness and picked up the cup, taking a

sip of the still hot beverage.Giles put the cup down and exhaled. Last summer when Buffy disappeared, she at least

had the courtesy to tell us where she was going and when she would be back. But I’ve a definite

feeling she didn’t want us to know this time. Giles had no idea how he knew that, except that

spending two years with Buffy had taught him enough about her to read her moods as well asanyone could. She had vanished after stopping Angel from unleashing hell on Earth--quite




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literally, he mused-- and had left no note, no forwarding address, not even a good-bye. She

hadn’t skipped out only on him; she hadn’t said farewell to Xander or Willow either, a bad sign.Giles could almost understand her overlooking him, though he knew it would bother him a little.

But to overlook her best friends was so unlike Buffy that he had to accept that her silence was

intentional. He was certain she’d defeated Acathla; they would all be dead if she hadn’t.

“What if she died stopping Angel?” Cordelia had asked him the day after Buffy’sshowdown with her former love. Giles didn’t know which alarmed him more; the question itself,

or the fact that Cordelia had shown up at the school on a Saturday. He had considered it; that

maybe, like some macabre scene out of La Morte D’Arthur, Buffy and Angel had mortally

wounded each other and both lay dead in Angel’s hideout. But his examination of the place hadfound it deserted except for the statue of Acathla, several piles of ashes, and two swords. No

Angel, no Buffy, no Spike or Druscilla. Giles hadn’t known what to make of it, except that he

was certain Buffy wasn’t dead. As for the vampires, any one of them could be dead. Their dusty

remains offered no clue of who they had been while still whole. But like the previous year, Buffyhad effectively ended the vampire threat before she had left town. Only then, Giles had known

that she would be back in August. Now, I may be just another Watcher without a Slayer, just like

all the rest of them. The door creaked open, and Giles turned; too quickly, and he paid for his efforts with astabbing ache in his hip. Sleeping twelve hours does not heal all ills, he told himself as Cordelia

approached him. “Giles,” she said, “I was just heading home, but before I blew I wanted to see if

you needed anything.”

For a moment Giles merely stared at Cordelia. It’s hard to believe this is the same

Cordelia Chase I met two years ago. In many respects it isn’t, though, he thought. He offered her

a weak smile and said, “Thank you Cordelia, that’s very thoughtful. I’ll be fine here, though.”

Cordelia flipped her long hair over her shoulder. “Are you sure? It really wouldn’t be anytrouble.” She peered at him for a second and asked, “You’re not pushing yourself too hard, are

you?”

Giles took off his glasses. “No, I’m just cataloging books,” he assured her. “Nothingstrenuous.” He looked up at her. “Though I am touched by your concern.”Cordelia gave him a smile that he supposed would have melted Xander’s knees to butter.

“Well, someone has to worry about you until Buffy gets back, and I’d rather have that job than

help you go through some icky old books.”

“Well, yes, that makes two of us,” Giles said dryly, and Cordelia beamed at him again.“Okay, well...” she trailed off, searching for the right words. “Have a good summer.”

“Yes,” Giles said. “You do the same. And if you should, um, that is, if Buffy should--”

Cordelia cut him off. “Giles, trust me on this one, I would die of shock if Buffy got in

touch with me before she got in touch with you. Like it could happen.”“Quite so,” Giles admitted. “Well, enjoy the summer.”

Cordelia gave him a wave and turned to head out the door when it swung open, admittingXander and Willow.

“Xander!” Cordelia said“Cordy,” he replied.

Willow glanced from one to the other.

“I was just leaving,” Cordelia announced. “Do you need a ride anywhere?” she asked him

pointedly, smiling.




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Xander felt the temperature of his ears rise. “Um, you know, now that you mention it, I

do kinda need a ride to that... thing,” he said lamely. “But I have some stuff to do here first.” Hegave her a pleading expression. “God, I cannot believe I just said that.”

“I can’t either,” Willow mumbled to herself.

Cordelia frowned as she checked her watch. “I can stop back at two o’clock. Will that be

enough time for you to be ready for your thing?”Xander nodded eagerly. “That’s more than enough prep time. I will be way ready for

the... that, uh, thing,” he said.

Cordelia raised her eyebrows, held up two fingers, and mouthed ‘two’.

“Two it is,” Xander said, turning to study Cordelia as she walked out of the library.Giles greeted them and shifted over a bit as Willow moved the wheelchair next to him.

“No word?” she asked him.

Giles shook his head. “No one has seen her.”

“She’s not like in any danger, is she?” Xander asked.Giles shook his head. “To be honest, I’ve no idea where she is at all.”

Willow and Xander nodded. “Well, you know Buffy,” Xander said, his tone shaky. “She

always manages to show up just when you really need her.”Giles took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I just wish she’d told us, or left someindication, or...” He trailed off.

Willow put a hand on his knee. “We feel the same way.”

Giles inhaled deeply. “This is my fault. If I hadn’t been captured, if Buffy hadn’t had to

come to my rescue, she--”“She still would have had to show up to stop Acathla from gobbling up the world,”

Willow assured him. “Giles, this isn’t your fault. She would have been there no matter what. You

can’t blame yourself.”“I suppose you’re right,” Giles told her. “I just wish I knew if your spell worked.” He

gazed over at Willow. “I don’t have to tell you that was an incredibly brave but incredibly stupid

thing you did.”Willow pushed out her bottom lip. “Someone had to do it, and I was the only one,” sheargued.

Giles smiled gently. “I was rather more impressed with the brave part of it. But you

should be careful if you’re going to dally with magic. My advice, based as you know on personal

experience, is not to dally with it at all, if you can manage it.”Xander chimed in, “Yeah, Will, you know how this sorta thing gets started-- an

enchantment here, a spell there, and next thing you know, you’re riding a broomstick at

Halloween and talkin’ Shakespeare with your ugly sisters. I can see it now-- ‘I was a teenage

witch!’”Xander stopped at Giles’ frown.

“All frivolity aside, you saw what happened with Amy. I don’t need to tell you that youhave to do far more research if this is the sort of thing you want to pursue. I should think you

have enough other things to occupy your time right now.”Willow brightened. “Oh! That’s why we were here!” she said. Xander handed her a

backpack over her shoulder, and she handed it to Giles.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“It’s Buffy’s,” she answered. “We cleared out her locker.”Giles blinked at them. “What?”




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“Well, it was us or Principal Snyder,” Willow told him.

“You see our dilemma,” Xander added.“Yes, I believe I do,” Giles admitted.

He regarded the backpack for a moment. “But why give it to me?”

“Maybe you should open it,” Willow said quietly, and Giles did so, spilling the contents

on to the table.Giles expected to see notebooks and pencils, maybe some papers; but instead, where

school supplies should have been, he found two vials of holy water, a large wooden cross, and

several sharp stakes.

“Oh dear,” Giles said, staring at the pile on the table.“You do realize what this means?” he asked, his voice quivering just a bit as he glanced

from Willow to Xander.

Xander exhaled. “Looks like a retirement package to me. I always kinda preferred the

gold watch, but hey, when in Sunnydale...”“She’s not coming back,” Giles whispered.

“You don’t know that,” Willow told him. “Maybe she just didn’t have time to stop here

before she...” But Willow stopped as she saw the ashen look on Giles face.“She’s not coming back,” Willow echoed.Giles sat, mutely gazing at the Slayer’s tools cluttered on the table in the afternoon

sunlight. After a while he managed, weakly, “I think you’d better go now.”

“What?” Willow asked.

“I said, ‘I think you’d better go now.’”“Giles,” Willow started.

“G, we--” Xander began.

“I think you’d better listen to him,” a voice said.The trio turned to see Joyce Summers standing in the doorway, her arms folded, her eyes

glittering with anger.

Giles’ face fell even further. “Dear Lord,” he muttered.Willow glanced from Joyce to Giles. “Mrs. Summers, we--”Joyce pointed to the door. “Willow, Xander, out. Now.”

Xander moved behind Willow and started to push the wheelchair. As they got close to

Joyce, Willow pleaded, “Mrs. Summers, I know we should have...”

Joyce’s withering look cut her off.“Just going,” Willow said softly as Xander pushed her through the door. When they had

cleared earshot of the library, Willow looked up at Xander. “Poor Mrs. Summers,” she said.

Xander shook his head. “Did you see that face?” He shuddered. “Poor Giles.”

*Joyce moved over to Giles. Rupert stood up, wincing as he did so, and turned to face her.“Joyce,” he began. “Mrs. Summers, I--”

She slapped him, hard, and Giles recoiled.

“I suppose I deserved that,” he said.




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“You’re damn right you did,” Joyce told him. “I gave you the benefit of waiting over the

weekend because I thought maybe-- maybe-- my daughter might come back to me. But that’s it.That’s all the patience I have.”

He shook his head. “I don’t--”

Joyce pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket and threw it on the table. “Read it,” she

spat. Giles leaned over and picked it up, unfolding it carefully. He recognized Buffy’s circular

handwriting at once.

Mom,

I tried to explain it but you wouldn’t listen. There are things I just

have to do. I didn’t ask for all this and God knows there are times

when I wish I wasn’t who I was, but that’s my job and I have to do

it. If you knew how much it hurt sometimes to lie to you, or to hide

it from you, maybe you wouldn’t be so mad. I don’t know.

I have to leave. Everyone around me that I love gets killed or hurt

way too much, and I can’t stand the thought of anyone else getting

harmed because I care for them, or they care for me. I know you

love me and I want you to know that I love you. But if I leave,

you’ll be a lot safer, and if I love you then that’s what I want.

Please just be safe.

Buffy

“Oh my,” Giles said. He closed his eyes and tried to compose himself.“You knew!” Joyce said to him. “You knew about all this all the time, didn’t you?”“That she was leaving? Dear God, no.”

“Not that,” Joyce said, snatching the note away from him. “This ‘slayer’ thing she did.

You knew about it didn’t you?”

Giles sank into his chair. “Yes.”“Mr. Giles, I can forgive children their little games. Willow and Xander are only kids,

and they don’t know any better. But you... you’re a full grown man! You should know better

than to indulge my daughter-- or any child!-- in these wild fantasies about vampires and demons

and whatever.”“They’re not fantasies,” Giles mumbled.

“Excuse me?” Joyce asked him.“They’re not fantasies,” he said, stronger. “The things that Buffy fought were very real

and very dangerous. She saved all of our lives more times than I can recall.”“Don’t tell me you believe all of this?” Joyce asked, moving to the table and picking up a

stake.

“Yes, I believe all of this. Because it is true. Buffy is the Slayer. She is the Chosen One.

Whether I believe-- or anyone else believes -- in it or not, it’s true.”Joyce put the stake down. “So you’re in on this little game too?”




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“Mrs. Summers, I assure you this is not a game.” Giles stood, facing her. “This is very

serious and very important. Buffy is the one force that stands between us and annihilation at thehands of a race far older and far more evil than we are. I know it all sounds very dramatic, but it

happens to be the truth.”

Joyce shook her head. “I would have expected this of Xander, maybe. Or even Willow.

But you?” She gestured at him. “I thought you had more sense.”“I assure you, I am being completely honest with you. I realize your daughter’s leaving

town is distressing, but I--”

“Distressing? You’re damn right it’s distressing!” Joyce yelled at him. “I come home

from work and I see my daughter kill someone on my front porch. Only it’s not a someone, it’s asomething, because it disappears into a cloud of dirt and vanishes. And then she has to leave to

stop some other ‘thing’ from doing something else horrible. And whatever that it, whatever pulls

her to do this, is more important to her than me. Me! Her own mother.” She looked at Giles. “Do

you have any idea how that feels?”He looked down at the floor. “I’m afraid I don’t,” he murmured.

“And you knew!” she spat at him. “Even if all of this craziness is true-- and I’m a long

way from accepting that-- you knew all along and you did nothing to prevent it. Nothing to stopit. Just let my daughter go on her way killing vampires.” Joyce glared at him. “Without evenbothering to tell me!”

Giles sat down. “I’m afraid it’s far worse than that,” he said glumly.

Joyce shook her head. “How?”

“I trained her to go out and do it.”“What??” Joyce said, striding up to him.

“Yes, I’m afraid that’s my job, my part in all this. To prepare Buffy so that when she

goes to fight the vampires, she has a chance. So that she comes home safely, in one piece.”Joyce’s hands shook in anger. “You sent her out to kill those things?”

“That’s her job,” Giles offered meekly.

“Why didn’t you do it?” she hissed at him. “Sending a sixteen year old girl out to fightthese things? Very brave of you.”Giles said, “You don’t understand.”

“I understand,” Joyce growled. “You’re a coward. You send children out to do your

work.” She shook her head. “Is that why Willow is in a wheelchair? Because you aren’t man

enough to do this yourself? Because a vampire put her there?”“Mrs. Summers, it isn’t like that at all. There are reasons why Buffy must be the one who

stops the vampires. Only she has the power. Only she has the strength. We may help her, but at

the core it is always her. It has to be.” He looked at Joyce. “I wish it weren’t so.”

“The hell you do,” Joyce said to him. “If you cared so much, you would have stopped herfrom leaving. Or from doing any of this in the first place. Or even...” Joyce trailed off, her face

contorted in anger. “You don’t care about my daughter at all,” she said to him.Giles very slowly and very deliberately took his glasses off and put them down on the

ledger book. “Mrs. Summers,” he said, his voice low. “You can accuse me of being guilty of nottelling you about Buffy being the Slayer. You can accuse me of not training her well, or

preparing her properly, or even of failing to anticipating she would run away. But the one thing

you may not accuse me of is not caring about your daughter.” He paused, and then he told her, “I

miss her too. I am quite fond of her, actually, and I care very much about her. I guarantee you Iam as worried about her as you are.”




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Joyce glared at him.

“I am not a parent,” he told her. “I more than likely never shall be. So I’ll never knowexactly what you are feeling right now. But let me tell you something-- it hurts me as well that

she is gone. I worry about her. I hope she’s alright. I hope wherever she is that she’s safe, and I

wish to God she’d come back.” Giles stared at Joyce. “Not because she’s the Slayer-- to hell with

that for the moment-- but because there are people here who love her and want to look out forher and who are worried sick about her.” He sat down. “I want her to come back because I think

it’s the best thing for her.”

Joyce stared at him for a long moment; then she exhaled, long and slow, and shook her

head. “You sure sound like a parent to me.”Giles looked up at her.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she told him. “I’m still mad at you.” She pulled out a chair and sat

down. “But your heart’s in the right place where my daughter is concerned, and that means more

to me than I can tell you.”Giles was speechless.

“I’m not going to forgive you for not telling me,” Joyce said. “But I do accept that

whatever you did, you did to protect Buffy.” She sighed. “And, take the word of a parent, Irecognize concern when I see it.”“Mrs. Summers,” Giles began, “I know that I should have--”

Joyce closed her eyes and held up her hand. “No.”

“What?” he asked.

“I don’t want an apology. It’s not going to help.”Giles put his glasses on and looked at Joyce.

“But you can make it up to me,” she said.

“How?” Giles said. “Anything, of course.”Joyce looked him straight in the eye. “Find her.”

*It never ceased to amaze Xander how soft Cordelia’s lips were. He had no idea if she

kissed well-- he had a rather limited frame of reference in that area, having never kissed any

other girls-- but he thought she did, and he liked the way his entire mouth tingled when theyfinished kissing.

They came up for air after a long, deep kiss, and Cordelia smiled at him. “You know,

with school out, we’re going to have to work out some sort of schedule for this.”

Xander grinned back. “Let me check my calendar,” he said, closing his eyes a second.“Hey, we’re in luck-- turns out I’m available every single second of the entire summer.”

Cordelia chuckled and kissed him again. She knew on some level that she could do betterthan Xander, that she could score someone better looking, or smarter, or richer, or who had his

own car, or who knew how to dress, or who had better friends, or... but when he kisses me there’s

this buzzing, this kind of jolty fuzzy feeling, and I’ve never felt anything like it. Cordelia slid an

arm around his shoulder and pushed him back against the passenger side door. Okay, I have felt

something like it, but not when anyone else was around to share it with. She slid her tongue

deeper into his mouth, and she could feel him run his fingers through her hair.




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I wish he didn’t have to mess up my hair every time we do this, she thought, but he really

likes the fingers through the hair thing, so...whatever. Cordelia sighed inside; it seemed a prettyserious step that she didn’t really mind that a boy was messing up her hair. Careful, she told

herself. You don’t want to start liking him or anything.

They parted, and Cordelia said, “Ew!”

Xander frowned slightly. “Ew? You’re the one trying to tickle my lungs with yourtongue, and you’re saying ‘ew’?”

“What?” she asked him, taking a deep breath.

“‘What?’ what?” he replied

“Xander, what are you talking about?”“You said ‘ew,’” he told her.

“That was out loud?” Cordelia asked him.

“Oh, so it’s suddenly okay to think ‘ew,’ when you’re kissing me?”

“No!” Cordelia said. “I wasn’t thinking about you.”Xander shook his head. “Appreciate that ego boost, Cordy.”

“No, wait,” she said, taking his hand. “I was thinking about you, but... not that ‘ew’ part.

That was something different.”Xander folded his arms and tried to give her the Clint Eastwood glare. It looked more likepetulance on Xander, but Cordelia took him seriously.

“Okay, listen,” she said. “If I really thought ‘ew’ when I was kissing you, then why

would I be doing it so often?”

“Sick joke?” he asked. “Couldn’t think of an easier way to cause pain?”“Trust me, there are lots of easier ways,” she assured him.

“Great,” he told her.

Cordelia looked in his eyes and said softly, “I like kissing you, Xander. You know that.I’m not really sure why, but it does something for me.” She smiled at him. “And I know it does

something for you.”

“You don’t know that,” Xander said, his resolve to stay steely crumbling quickly.Cordelia nodded, still smiling.“How do you know that?” he asked her.

Her brown eyes flicked down at his groin and back up.

“Oh God,” Xander said, blushing furiously.

Cordelia tilted her head. “Don’t be embarrassed. I think it’s cute.”“Cute?” Xander asked her, his voice breaking in the middle, making him sound thirteen.

“Cute,” she echoed, drawing him to her and kissing him again. Xander tried to resist her

for a moment, but scant seconds later he had slid his arms around her and held her tight, kissing

her for all he was worth. They stayed lip locked for quite some time, fingers scraping along eachother’s backs; Cordelia had just started to feel lightheaded when they broke. She took in a deep

breath of air and smiled at him.Xander smiled back, all trace of embarrassment gone. Boys, Cordelia thought, still

smiling at him.Her watch beeped.

They made eye contact, and then Cordelia said, “Oh no!”

“Oh no what?” Xander asked.

Cordelia frowned. “I have to go,” she said. And just when I was starting to really feel

good and fuzzy...




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“You have us on a timer?” Xander asked incredulously.

Cordelia playfully tapped his shoulder. “No, silly,” she said. “I have a hair appointment.”Xander said, “You couldn’t be just a little late?”

Cordelia’s eyes widened. “Xander, this is a hair appointment.” She pulled out a comb

and ran it through her dark mane.

“Oh, well, a hair appointment,” he echoed. “You know, for a second there I thought yousaid hair appointment. But since this is a hair appointment...”

His sarcasm was lost on her. “It is so sweet that you try to understand,” she told him.

“Cordelia, I--”

“So we can continue this tonight?” she asked him, putting away her comb and pulling outher lipstick.

“Tonight as in later today tonight?” On a Monday? Yes!!!!

Cordelia gave him a blank stare that practically shouted, “Duh.”

Xander chewed on his thumbnail and said, “I’m supposed to be on patrol tonight.”“Oh,” she said, applying her lipstick. “So now we’re playing Buffy?”

“No,” he said. “But someone has to do it, and Giles is still pretty banged up. Willow’s in

no shape. That leaves me.”Cordelia frowned, knowing he made sense. “So, maybe I could come along?”Xander’s eyebrows lifted so high that feared for a second they might pop right off the top

of his head. “You? On a patrol?”

Cordelia gave him that look. He wasn’t sure if it bespoke exasperation, annoyance,

impatience, or any of the other vaguely negative looks that women seemed able to easily masterbut eluded most men. Cordelia had perfected this look while still young -- probably in the cradle-

- and could to use it to devastating effect.

“Yes, me on patrol. What is so bizarro about that?”“Nothing, nothing,” Xander hastily covered up. “If you really wanna go.”

“Well, it’s not hanging at the Bronze,” she said. “But I was thinking that if I drove you,

you’d get done faster, and then we would have more time to, um...”Xander gave her a smile. “I like the way you think, Cordy. I always knew you could beso devious, but I never dreamed I’d benefit from it.”

Cordelia shook her head as she started the car. “Whatever,” she said. “Nine o’clock

sound good?”

He glanced at his watch. Six hours?? Torture. Hell. Agony. Eternity. “Yep,” he told her.“That’d be perfect.”

“Great,” she said, pulling out of their parking space beneath the shady tree and coasting

up to the stop sign. “See you then.”

“All right,” Xander said, tapping his fingers on the door frame.“Xander,” Cordelia said.

“Hmm?”“Get out,” she said.

“What?”“The car,” she told him. “Get out of the car.”

“Cordelia, we’re all the way across town. You’re not gonna make me walk home!”

She turned to look at him. “If I’m late for my hair appointment, I’m gonna be in a major

bad mood. And if I get in a bad mood, there’s no telling how that might impact plans I have forlater on.”




39

Xander got the hint. He popped the door open and jumped out. “All right,” he said. “You

win.”He closed the door and she smiled and waved. “Nine,” she said, and drove off quickly,

tires squealing.

Cordelia watched him watching her leave in the rearview mirror. It pleased her that he

stood there watching her; it pleased her that he was so anxious to see her again; and, she realized,it pleased that she would be seeing him later. She found herself actually looking forward to it, to

being close to him again. You do like him, her brain argued with her.

“Ew,” she said out loud. “Shut up.”

*All things considered, Willow didn’t mind being confined to a wheelchair that much.

Getting in and out of bed proved a challenge, and baths presented an obstacle as well; and her

dad had to truck her up and down the stairs when she needed him to. Willow once or twice saw

exasperation on his face when she asked him to carry her up or down, but by the end of the tripfatherly devotion and concern practically beamed from his face. Her dad liked taking care of her,and that made Willow very happy.

He’s probably glad I have a laptop, she thought as she skipped to another web site. This

way he can just bring the computer to me, instead of taking me to the computer. Willow realized

that this web site had nothing to do with the techno-pagan studies she’d gotten into, but seemedmore of a glorified ad for the Lilith Fair. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, she amended

hastily, but that’s a whole different sort of magic than what I’m looking for.

She glanced at it hastily, then called up the next page in the list she had transcribed fromMs. Calendar’s notes. This one looked interesting, but whoever had programmed it leaned more

to the techno than the pagan. Even at her high connection speed, Willow saw that this page

would take a few minutes to load in, so she drank some milk and had another cookie. Mom madethese, she thought, and she wondered if her parents weren’t secretly glad she’d been injured, sothey could fuss over her. She reflected that most kids would find such attention overbearing, but

Willow just saw it as caring.

The phone rang, startling her. She had a separate line for her computer; her dad had seen

to that. Willow had discovered the web at age thirteen; it had turned at once into a fast friendshipthat had gobbled up her time. Her father provided her with her own phone line by that fall, four

years ago. It’s all Xander’s fault, really, she reflected as she took another bite of her cookie. If

he hadn’t gone away that summer, I wouldn’t have gotten into computers. As much.

“Willow, honey!” her mom called from downstairs. “It’s for you!”Willow picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Hey. How’s my baby?”“Oz!” She said, smiling. “End of school. You missed.”

She could almost hear Oz shrug on the other end. “Yeah, well, they weren’t waitin’ forme to end it, were they?”

Willow tilted her head. “ I was waiting for you.”

“Wait no more,” he said. “Your prince has arrived. Telephonically, anyway.”

Willow laughed, and Oz continued. “I was wondrin’ if you were free tonight?”




40

“I’m free every night,” Willow told him. “School’s out, and you’re asking me. That’s a

perfect combination.”“Perfect?” Oz teased her. “I dunno if I can live up to being part of a perfect anything.”

Willow smiled. “No, that’s not true. First you were a perfect stranger, and ever since I’ve

known you, you’ve been a perfect gentleman.”

“Fair Willow, you do me too much justice,” he chuckled. “Besides, if anyone inspiresperfection, it is you, my sweet.”

Willow felt her cheeks turning crimson. Oz only spoke like this when knew no one else

was within earshot. Willow hoped fervently that no one else in her house was listening in on this

call. Smothering her with affection was one thing; but she had the suspicion that a musicianplaying silver tongued devil with their daughter went beyond the indulgence limit.

“Oz!” she said, the blush fully evident in her voice.

He said, “We’re finishing practice early tonight, so I’ll be around while it’s still light out.

How does eight sound?”“Like the past tense of eating,” she teased him. “No, that’d be great.”

“Eight sharp, then. I’ll bring the van so you can bring your wheels. Sound good?”

Willow nodded. “Yep. We’re really lucky we have access to a van with a ramp.”Oz told her, “It’s Ricky’s. He installed the ramp because he’s too lazy to carry his drumkit. Never thought we’d be carting a beautiful woman up the that ramp. Hoped, maybe, but never

really thought.”

“Okay,” Willow said. “Where are we going? The Bronze?”

“Actually, there’s a new coffeehouse just opened up next to this dive we played the othernight. I thought we could check it out.”

“Oooh, someplace new,” she said. “Great!”

“Check you then,” he said, and Willow said good bye.With a big smile on her face, she returned to her work on the web. The page had loaded

in; a spinning fiery symbol of some sort dominated the screen. Willow scrolled down and read

that the page was dedicated to helping survivors of the Parsi diaspora find one another. Huh? she asked, and looked down at the link section. Why the heck would Ms. Calendar have this site

bookmarked? And who are the Parsis?

The links were all fairly standard: Parsis in California, Parsis in the Western U.S., Parsis

in the South, etc. Just what one would expect to find in a web page centering on locating people.

Willow scrolled down a little further, wondering what Ms. Calendar found of any interest here,but saw nothing, really. At the bottom of a long section of “Parsis in...” followed by every

conceivable location in the world, seemingly, there was a lone link labeled “Gathas.”

Willow clicked on it, but nothing happened.

“Could be broken,” she said aloud as she clicked on it again.Abruptly, her computer shut down.

“Woah!” Willow said in surprise. She checked the battery, but it was fine, and the laptopwas still plugged in. She hit the power button again and it started up normally, cycling through

diagnostic and virus detecting routines.“That’s weird,” she said, frowning. She took another drink of milk and waited

impatiently for the computer to right itself and finish booting up. She clicked on her web icon-- a

little picture of a cute smiling spider suspended from a golden ball-- and watched as Netscape

came up and announced that she had mail.Willow typed in the address of the Parsi Diaspora site and waited.




41

And waited.

After a moment she received a “Connection timed out” error message.“Hmph,” she said, and checked her typing of the address. It was correct. She tried again,

and after a pause, she got the same message.

“Now that is weird,” she said, grabbing a highlighter and running it over the address in

Ms. Calendar’s book.“Willow!” her mom called from downstairs. “Dinner soon, honey!”

“All right!” Willow shouted back. “Better tell dad!”

“Coming!” she heard him say.

Willow smiled.

*Giles gulped down another mouthful of stew as he stared at the atlas. “Three days,” he

muttered to himself. “Buffy could be anywhere in the country by now.” He thumbed backward to

the map of California. “Or the whole world, really.”He let go of the atlas and took another spoonful of stew. Normally Giles cookedsomething a little more appealing for himself, but the search for his Slayer preoccupied him. He

owed Joyce that much, and anyway, he saw it as a challenge to try to think like Buffy. This was

not ordinary research; this was a chance to prove to himself that he understood Buffy, that he

could tell how she thought, and with enough attention given to it he could predict her. The girlhad managed to surprise him almost every time he thought he had her figured out in the past,

though. Buffy’s innate resourcefulness, normally a welcome trait, piqued Giles at the moment.

But Buffy wouldn’t have access to a great deal of money, he thought. “She couldn’t haveborrowed any from any of her friends, or her mother. Plane tickets all over the world cost quite a

bit of money,” he said to himself. Which means the train, or the bus. Unless she knows someone

else who could have given her a ride somewhere. But if we allow possibilities like that the field becomes so open we can never narrow it.

He picked up his phone and dialed Buffy’s number. Joyce answered.

“Joyce, it’s Rupert,” he announced.

“Rupert,” she said, caught between trying to be civil and still being mad at him.

“Is there any chance you could ring the phone company tomorrow and get a transcript of your records? If we knew if Buffy had called anyone, that might help.”

Joyce nodded. Good thinking. “I’ll call tomorrow,” she said.

“You’ve called her father, I assume.”

“He was the first one I contacted,” Joyce confirmed. “I tried relatives she hasn’t spokento for years, just on the off chance.” Joyce paused. “No luck.”

“I, um, I don’t think she’s gotten far,” Giles confessed.“How do you know?” Joyce asked.

“Well, for one thing, she doesn’t have much money. That more or less rules out planetravel. If she stuck to the train-- or preferably the bus-- we’ll have a chance to get her before she

travels too far.”

“Rupert, three days on a bus, she could be in Kansas City by now.”

“Yes, I know,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “And I realize that this is total speculation,but I don’t think she wandered very far.”




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“What do you base that on?” Joyce asked.

“It’s just a hunch. A feeling. Call it intuition if you will. I just have the feeling that Buffyis not that far.” He sighed. “Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, I don’t know,” he admitted.

Joyce could hear the worry in his voice, and she sighed inside. “Rupert, I’m sorry I was

so harsh this afternoon.”

Giles shook his head. “Joyce, you had every right to be. Buffy is your daughter, and assuch you are naturally concerned about her. And anyone you see as a threat to her...” He trailed

off. “I completely understand.”

Joyce said, “But you were trying to protect her-- and me as well. I see that now.”

Giles looked at the phone in mild surprise. “Thank you, Joyce, but I must tell you, Iwon’t feel things are right between us until Buffy is back in Sunnydale, where she ought to be.”

“That’s very kind of you, Rupert.”

Giles said, “Yes, well... please do let me know about those phone records when you find

out, and I’ll keep working here.”“Right. If you find anything, feel free to call.”

“I certainly will. Good-bye now,” he said, and Joyce wished him well and hung up the

phone. Giles took a drink of water and another spoonful of stew.“I think we can rule out Mexico,” he said to himself. “Buffy doesn’t speak Spanish-- she

only barely speaks intelligible English most of the time-- and she has no way to convert her

currency. Good for eluding us but bad for long term prospects.”

Giles nodded, looking at the map. “She could be anywhere from Dallas to Phoenix to SanFrancisco to Portland in three days.” He had some more stew.

It’s times like this I wish she had a credit card, or even a computer; we could track her

that way... a computer!

Giles quickly dialed Willow’s number; she picked up.

“Willow, it’s Giles.”

“Oh, hello Giles,” she said.“I wonder if I might impose upon you this evening,” he said.“Ooh, Giles, not a good idea. Very not a good idea.”

Giles frowned. School’s been out for-- he glanced at a clock-- five hours, and already

they have booked up their evenings. Incredible.

“It is a matter of some urgency,” he told her.“Giles, no, that’s a bad thing to do to me. Don’t tell me I’m needed and you can’t do this

without me, because then I’ll feel bound to help you and as much as I like to help you-- usually--

tonight it’s just really not a good time.”

“You, um, you have a prior engagement?” he asked her. He’s so quaint sometimes, Willow mused. “Yes, Giles, I do, an important one.”

She could hear him sigh. “Will tomorrow be acceptable, then? I suppose it can wait untilthen.”

“Tomorrow’s cool,” she said. “Morning?”“Yes,” Giles told her. “I can pick you up at ten?”

“I can be ready,” she said. “See you then.”

Giles looked at the phone as she hung up on him without even saying good-bye. I

suppose another fifteen hours or so won’t hurt us much, he thought. But Willow picked a rather

inconvenient time to exercise her right to pursue happiness.




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Giles chided himself on that last thought and tore off a chunk of bread to sop up the last

of the stew with. “Right,” he said, closing the atlas with the other hand. “Buffy, I shallconcentrate on finding you tomorrow, since I seem to have reached all dead ends tonight.”

He finished off the stew and the bread and cleared his bowl, washing it and setting it out

to dry. He turned off the light in the kitchen area and sat in an easy chair by the window, his

favorite seat in the apartment. He opened his work satchel and unloaded the few personal effectsthat he chose not to leave on his desk at work over the summer, and withdrew a book from

inside.

The pile of books on the desk at the library had grown enormous; another Watcher had

recently taken very ill, and had all of his pertinent works shipped to Giles via the school’saddress. Though he had cataloged them in, it would take some time to go through them all. Giles

had merely taken one on his way out, hoping it would provide some interesting reading material.

Most of the Watcher diaries made for terribly dull reading; he suspected his did. But some had

been written with flair, and style, and the personality of the Watcher really shone through in theirwriting. These he preferred, because all of the stories of the Slayers ended the same way, none of

them happily. He had once gotten very involved in the story of a Slayer who lived in the thirties

named Laura, and he’d been rather pained when he had read that she’d been killed by a rathervicious vampire named Radigan. Laura’s successor had in turn impaled Radigan, so thatparticular tale had a footnote that set things in a better light. But overall, the books were sad

reading, so when there an author showed some life, some verve, it made it easier to bear.

I suppose I should tell them more about Buffy, how extraordinary she is, he thought as he

moved back into the kitchen and set the kettle on the stove. He turned on the burner and found ateabag, setting it in his mug. He sat down in the living room and looked at the rather plain brown

leatherbound journal. He’d seen older books in his day; his practiced eye placed this book from

this century, possibly from the fifties, but maybe earlier. The volume was in poor repair, as if ithad been read often or carried around a great deal. He opened the front cover and read the

inscription, written in a small, slightly sloppy hand: “For my father Harold, who started it all, and

my friend Mel, for whom I will see it all finished.” Giles raised an eyebrow and began to read onthe next page.

There are many evils in the world, and some of them, like the

recently defeated Nazis, are easy to spot. Their wear their wicked

intentions on theirs sleeves and wage war on anyone they see fit.

They wipe out cities and towns and people and maim

indiscriminately. Though my studies have suffered because of

them, I count it an honor to have fought against them in the last

few years of the war.

But there are evils that I have fought and still struggle against,

and they are far more terrible and subtle than the Nazis everdreamed. Had Hitler won the war it would have been frightening;

but it would have been like a playground compared to what could

still happen if we are not careful. I’ve seen things far worse than

shock troopers and Blitzkrieg warfare. I’ve seen things that cannot

walk in the light of day. I’ve seen demons that have been buried for

centuries rise up and kill men with a simple gesture. If any of these




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things ever gained control of the forces Hitler had at his disposal,

then we would have known a real war.

I realize that most of what I write will be read as fiction; I’m

used to being doubted. Unfortunately for me, my main witness to

most of this has been killed, so I have no one to corroborate any of

it. But my story is true, and I know there are other Watchers out there who can attest that what I write is real.

I should really start at the beginning, because it’s hard to believe

any of it unless you hear all of it. Even then, it’s sort of a stretch, I

suppose. But better not to leave anything out.

Dimly Giles head the teapot whistling, and he wondered how long it had been screeching

at him. This is terribly interesting stuff, he thought as he set the book down and went to attend to

the kettle. This should be an evening well spent. He poured the hot water into his mug, blowing away the steam, and he went back to the

chair by the window, kicked off his shoes, and settled in for a pleasant and engrossing night, he

hoped, of reading.

*“There’s not much happening here,” Cordelia said, peering out over the graveyard in the

darkness.

“That’s a good thing,” Xander told her. “When I’m pullin’ patrol, no news is good news.”

“Xander,” she asked him, “do you have to patrol the whole graveyard?”He turned to look at Cordelia in the dim light, struck for just a second by her beauty.

Cordelia was pretty, and she always took the time to make herself up just right. But something

about the dim light, and the look on her face, and her hair...“Your hair,” he mumbled.Cordelia blinked.

“They did a great job on your hair,” he told her. Women love compliments was the only

piece of advice Giles had ever given him on the subject. Not that he’d asked Giles, but it had just

sort of come up.“Didn’t they?” Cordelia asked, smiling. “Wasn’t that walk home worth it?” she asked

him, running a hand up his chest.

“Right now I’d say crawling over crushed glass was worth it,” he told her.

“I am gonna prove you so right,” Cordelia murmured, grabbing his shoulders and kissinghim fiercely. Xander put his hands on her hips and held her there for what seemed like an hour,

but couldn’t have been more than a minute or two.They parted, and Xander said, “Wow.”

Cordelia raised an eyebrow. “Wow yourself.”“My turn,” a voice said, and something grabbed Cordelia from behind. Clawed hands

pushed her long hair away from her neck.

“Not the hair!” Cordelia wailed. “I just had it done!”

“Shut up,” the vampire hissed, flashing its fangs.




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Xander drew a wooden stake from his backpack and said, “Let her go now, or I’m gonna

give you a case of heartburn you’ll never forget.”The thing hissed at him. “You’re next,” it said as it lowered its mouth toward Cordelia’s

exposed neck.

“Xander!” she cried out.

Xander stepped forward, stake ready, but Cordelia blocked the vampire’s torso. He hadno shot at the thing’s heart. He hesitated for a moment.

Cordelia screamed wordlessly as teeth grazed her neck.

Xander, at a loss for what to do, slammed the stake down into the vampire’s forehead.

“Gaaaagh!” it cried out, staggering back away from Cordelia, who jumped into Xander’sarms. Xander quickly moved her behind him and balled his fists, ready to fight.

The vampire toppled to its knees, staring at Xander, pain etched all over its face as it tried

to draw out the stake, with little effect. It pitched backward and began to twitch on the ground,

grunting in agony.“That’s a new look,” Cordelia said.

Xander raised an eyebrow as he watched the thing shake. “I didn’t know they did that,”

he said. “Wicked.”“Xander, what are you waiting for?” Cordelia said. “Kill it before it recovers!”Xander snapped into action and pulled on the stake, but it stuck fast in the thing’s head.

The vampire, for its part, continued to convulse on the ground.

Xander fished around in his backpack. “Good thing I always carry a spare,” he said. “Bad

news for you, though,” he told the vampire as he fell on him and stabbed him through the heart.A moment later, Xander lay on the ground in a pile of dust, with two stakes underneath him.

“That was gross!” Cordelia said.

Xander stood and brushed himself off. “Okay, I admit-- points off for sloppiness. But thedesired end result was achieved, right? Slayage?”

Cordelia shuddered.

Xander moved next to her. “Are you okay?” he asked her, gently brushing aside her hairto look at her neck.“I’m fine,” she said. “He didn’t bite me.”

Xander frowned. “I better check.”

“Excuse me, I think I would have felt it if those nasty teeth had sunk into me, and--”

Xander kissed her, tenderly, on the neck.Cordelia stood still.

He moved his lips up to her ear and whispered, “Your hair even smells good.”

Cordelia turned her face to his and kissed him, the adrenaline from the attack still surging

through her. Xander grabbed her and kissed her back, holding her to him, his body completelyalive after the brief fight.

When they pulled apart, after a while, Cordelia saw Xander’s eyes ablaze, a confidenceand a strength in him that she didn’t usually see, and that she liked.

“Killing agrees with you,” she murmured.“Killing requires that the killee be alive,” he corrected her. “That was slaying.”

Cordelia chuckled, but it was far from the sarcastic laugh she employed at school or so

often in public. “Xander, my vampire slayer,” she said, kissing him again.




47

them.” He removed his glasses and rubbed his nose. “I can name more than thirty vampire kings

who have been killed since the twenties, and I could even tell you where they were slain.”He tapped the cover of the book. “So tell me why, Miss Janice Covington, I have never

heard of you.”

He shook his head, turned out the light, and went to bed.

* It’s rare that I’m up this late, Joyce thought as she sipped on her herbal tea. She sat

crosslegged on the couch in the dark, with just a single candle burning on the coffee table. The

VCR clock read 2:24 a.m.; Joyce frowned as she realized she’d have a tough time getting up to

go to the gallery tomorrow.

Is it so much to ask? she queried silently, blowing on the hot tea. I just want my daughter

back. God knows I haven’t always understood her, or even listened like I should. Maybe I did

ignore the signs that there was something wrong, or strange going on, or... whatever. But I

always loved her and I always tried to look out for her and protect her.Joyce had to smirk at that thought. Me, protect Buffy. Buffy, who is some chosen warrior

who fights vampires. She shook her head. “I don’t even pretend to understand how that

happened.” How do they do it? Did someone like Giles just walk up to her one day and say,

“Hello, Buffy, you’re going to kill vampires for the rest of your life?”

Is that what happened at Hemery? Joyce asked herself. Is that why she burned down the

gym, to kill vampires? To save lives? To protect people?

“Listen to me,” Joyce said to the night. “Justifying arson because it killed some

vampires.” She shook her head and ran a hand through her hair. “I must be as nuts as they are.” But how would you explain that Spike person? Was he a vampire? Did she know many of

them? Are there any still here in Sunnydale? Joyce put down her mug. What do we do now? If

Buffy is some kind of protector, aren’t we all in danger without her? And why the hell does it have to be my daughter? Why can’t it be someone else’s daughter?

Joyce put her head in her hands. I don’t want to believe there are really monsters out

there sucking our blood and killing people for food. I don’t even want to accept the possibility

that this could be reality. I just want my life, my house, my gallery, and my daughter. I don’t

want to have to worry every single time I leave the house at night, or every time Buffy wanders

out of my sight.

She stood up. How do you deal with this? How do you tell yourself, ‘Dracula is real?’

How do you accept that all these stories and movies and novels-- that they are all true? How do

you sit down and rationalize that there are these things hunting us? How does Giles cope? How

does Buffy?

And Buffy fights them. She risks her life fighting these things because she believes it’sright? Because Giles fooled her into it? Because she’s some kind of “chosen one?” Joyce shook

her head. How does she do it? She’s seventeen years old and she has cars and boys and school

and dating and tests and clothes-- and me-- to worry about. How can she deal with the pressure

that she’s also the Holy One to who has to protect the world from these things?

Joyce moved to the window and parted the curtain, looking out on the silent, deserted

street. “Forgive me,” she whispered. “Buffy, please, forgive me. I didn’t know. I just wanted tokeep you safe.”




She felt a tear slide down her cheek. “Please,” she said. “Please, please, Buffy, just come

back. Just come back to me. We’ll work something out, I promise. I promise.”She let the curtain fall back over the window and hugged herself and started to cry.

Please God keep her safe until we can find her.

* * *

Buffy: Innocent Blood Chapter 2

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Transcript of Buffy: Innocent Blood Chapter 2