This is poetic... see the pre-written note to this part VN12...
To answer your remarks - fast food? 100% free pure eyeball with every quart... ick.
It is interesting that you say that Tara is trying to get Willow to remember who she was not for Tara but for Willow. I had not really considered it but the way it was written I think it was lurking somewhere in me.
Part 34 below Kittens... now we are not mentioning the "F" word. Not that I was REALLY hiding it but this part... filled with "she's" and stuff to avoid that "F" word until the end. Live with it.
Katharyn
--------------
Title:
The Sidestep Chronicle – Arrivals (Part 34)
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Constructive criticism always welcome.
katharynrosser@hotmail.comSpoiler Warning: Pretty limited. The story occurs in an alternate universe though reference is made to events that occur in both realities.
Summary: Finally a certain someone arrives in Sunnydale.
Disclaimer: I still don’t own any of the copyrights or anything else associated with BTVS. All rights lie with the production company, writers etc, etc. I am making zilch from this series of stories.
Rating: 15
Couples: G/J
Notes: There was a lot of stuff to get out of the way before this could happen without diluting the earlier story. Do I think that it would ever take the Council this long to find the Slayer…? No. But it served my purposes. The VW/T situation as well as the Mayor and the Master is now set up and everything can move along together. It is now time to complete the introduction of the cast.
Thanks To: Stepping out to thank Vamp No 12 here. There have been many who feedback with insightful comments but none so consistently (and long winded!) as VN12… It made me think a lot. Thanks. Everyone else who has been feeding back… you are all stars. And the stars who make this work. Kerry, Jo and my dear Louise.
The Sidestep Chronicle
Arrivals
By
Katharyn Rosser
This was an important and auspicious day and so Rupert Giles had dressed accordingly. Best suit and tie, the ones he used for parents’ afternoons at the high school - when he was forced by protocol and Vice-Principal Snyder to allow interlopers into his library… and to actually talk to them. “Oh yes, Dwayne returns his books promptly…” The man had no concept of what a librarian should be, however it was the horrible little man who controlled that sort of event rather than the more enlightened Principal Flutie. He had another of those scheduled for next week it was terribly tempting to take a sick day, but he knew that he wouldn’t, it would go against his very nature.
He also wore the suit, of course, to the monthly memorial service but that was a mark of his genuine respect for the people he had failed to save in this town. That was his failure. Buffy Summers should have been
his Slayer, but because he had failed to appreciate that the prophecies about the Master rising were so imminent she had been assigned to another Watcher, another town.
Cleveland… the mind boggled. What on earth was in Cleveland?
Cleveland didn’t even have a Hellmouth. But would the Council know that? He doubted that a single member of the Council proper, other than the sanctimonious Quentin Travers, had been out to inspect the mystical convergences of the world since before he had started his training. It was just not the
done thing. The Yorkshire Moors… certainly they would have a group fieldtrip. But the world beyond, or even god forbid the colonies. Never. Their response time was laughable. Public utilities responded to change quicker than the Council. The Sunnydale Hellmouth had been judged to be ‘dormant’ after so little activity in the previous century. And that was that. Or that had been that.
It was all about not admitting to failures in judgement. That was why they were the Council. They were supposed to demonstrate good judgement. That was their sole function – to sit in judgement on every other Watcher. On every Slayer. On the situations across the globe that they hadn’t seen first hand for perhaps three decades. And when they finally realised that Sunnydale merited the assignment of a Slayer what had been the reason for that? Certainly not his telephone call – officially at least.
Quote: ‘The consistent failure of the Watcher on the scene to utilise resources to defeat the forces at work against him.’ Unquote.
Resources? What resources? But now the words were irrelevant. He had a Slayer, coming here and it was time to act.
He had got his Slayer… four years and two dead girls later than he should have, and why? Because he was judged to have failed in his task. Although how, precisely, he was he expected to have succeeded, he was quite sure that he didn’t know. Random vampires were one thing, but the rising of a vampire king… an ancient and fabled one – in the midst of everything else that occurred in this town – was quite another. He, Larry and the dear departed Oz and Nancy could have been expected, perhaps, to deal with the occasional vampire, the odd demon. The weaker ones, those that were simply attracted to the energy of the town without realising why. But his friends, unlike he, were not trained. He had tried his best for them and they were quite deadly when they had to be, but not good enough to save Nancy from the Master’s minions. And Oz’s killer was still out there too. Unidentified. He had to agree with Larry. It must have been a vampire… anything else would have made itself known again by now.
Unless the vampires had already dealt with it. They were quite effective at that. Only the Order of Aurelius was abroad in Sunnydale.
And they, Giles and his colleagues, were not a force strong enough to protect the people of Sunnydale – nor had they ever been. Instead they had done the Master’s work for him. They had just weeded out the weak and he kept the strong for himself. He had taken the people of this town and made them into cattle… if they were lucky. He had taken Giles’s students as well. It was funny how he saw them as students when they were taken from him. Alive they were irritations to the smooth functioning of a good library.
Some of them still had library books that he would never see again.
But
now he did have the resources. He had the Slayer and the plane she was supposed to be aboard had just landed. Pulled up to the stand and was finishing debarkation. He had her picture, he even had a name card to hold up. And a practiced friendly smile. Practiced because they’d had so little to smile about in the last few years regarding his true vocation that to try and put a nervous new Slayer at her ease now with it would be more than just tricky.
She supposed that she would be nervous. Everyone was when they moved home… and when they got a new ‘job.’
The Slayer had taken time to be tracked down. It was several months since the last Slayer, and her Watcher, had been killed in the course of their duties. He mused on that as the streams of people exited the plane. They had not died together but it was said that Mr Zabuto might have been tired after the death of his charge. Drained of fight. Perhaps he’d had nothing else to live for.
Soon now. Soon he would have his Slayer and Sunnydale would be protected. Perhaps more than merely protected, perhaps a permanent change could be effected. Cleaning up this town was almost too much to hope for. But did it have to be?
The last Slayer had not lasted long at all… less than a year, even though her Watcher, Zabuto, was highly respected and had been assigned to three other Slayers in his long service to the Council. Perhaps, though, it was time though for a younger generation of Watcher to take over guiding the Slayers? His generation. A Watcher who would not simply ensure that training was carried out and then assigns a target, waiting for the young girl, for that was all she ever really was, to return. Instead one who would go with her. Back her up. Perhaps preventing the sort of the simple, preventable death that had occurred in the more recent past. The Slayer would of course have to do the bulk of the fighting, but whatever her talents she would not have eyes in the backs of her head. He could be those eyes.
There was always another Slayer to be called but he fought against the simple acceptance that she had a limited ‘shelf-life’. To believe that it was perfectly in order for a young girl never to grow into womanhood; that defending the world precluded her from having any sort of normal life – that was just wrong to him. That was how his grandmother had talked of her Slayer.
He remembered one Christmas, long ago, that his grandparents had the young girl, barely older than he was, staying with them at the same time as the rest of the family. He’d known what she was, of course, being raised to be a third generation of Watcher in the Giles family. She had been nice, pretty enough to set the young Rupert’s heart a flutter, but even on Christmas Day… she had not received any gifts at all. His grandmother had labelled them ‘distractions.’ The small present that he had given over to her from his own stocking full of gifts had turned up back in his room later that evening. He never knew if it had been she that gave it back or if it had been his grandmother. But he had remembered the gratitude in Charlotte’s eyes when he had given it to her.
She had been forced to train that day too and was sent out on the hunt, in the snow and the cold that night when it was well known that there were no vampires in the locality. And the next year… she had not been there. When he had asked about the pleasant girl that he had liked he had just been told that ‘another Slayer was called.’
He knew what that meant. That she was dead. Could they not have said that? Admitted it. Perhaps it was too painful… he would like to think that was what had caused his otherwise wonderful grandmother to be so harsh, but he suspected that she was simply that cold when it came to her Slayer. He had never forgotten her face or her name. And he had never forgotten how matter of fact that announcement had been. Or how harshly she had been treated. It was her gift that allowed the Council to function. Not the other way round. He had firmly held to that belief from that day onwards. And even during his own Watcher’s training he had known that many of the methods in which he was instructed were outdated. Even then. And that was twenty years ago.
When he had finished his training he had taken the time to read his, by then deceased, grandmother’s Watcher Diaries. He found mention of his Christmas gift. He found mention of hunting in Little Gurston that Christmas Night. But next to nothing about
who Charlotte had been. Still less about the manner of her death.
The young women had the right to a life… of a sort. They certainly had a duty to perform but he had to remember that it had chosen them and not the reverse. They were not volunteers. Few other Watchers seemed to appreciate that. The Slayer had the right to expect whatever help he could offer. And she had the right to expect that, if necessary, he would die for the cause instead of her. Or with her. Most of all though she had the right to expect that he would do his utmost to keep her alive. That she was not some disposable tool, easily replaced.
Three years. That was the longest any Slayer had survived in a dozen generations. They were called at slightly different ages of course, but when was the last time a Slayer had seen the better side of twenty-one? The Summers girl who had died here in Sunnydale, after he had requested her presence, she held the record. He liked to think he would have kept her alive for longer than that brief time if she had not been sent to Cleveland.
Perhaps his methods would prove inadequate and perhaps his new Slayer would not survive any longer than the others, but they should at least share a mutual respect and friendship. He intended to make sure of that. He would push her, but she would have his true support. She would have that friend in her Watcher that he believed the hordes of dead Slayers before her had always lacked. And perhaps he and Jenny could help her feel like she had a family too. With a permanent assignment here in Sunnydale that was certainly possible… his Grandmother had been assigned to roving missions with all of her Slayers. There was no time for either of them to put down roots.
This one more than most lacked roots. Reportedly she was a true orphan, not simply removed from her parents by the Council, and had suffered poor family circumstances before that according to the research dug up by Wesley ‘I’m so modern’ Wyndham-Price. Relating to her would be a challenge but a worthwhile one.
But reports from that Watcher who had tracked her down were very positive. The words ‘pluck’ emerged from the pages quite a lot. The new Slayer had accepted her destiny rapidly and without argument - actually she had already been going out on local hunts – protecting the people who lived near to her. History suggested that could, of itself, be a problem. Unguided discovery of the Slayer’s power could result in a lessened understanding of the responsibility that went with it. He would have to address that quickly. To be certain – he made a mental note. She had to understand that the responsibility was far more important than the power.
Even without the photograph that he had been furnished with he would have recognised her instantly in the crowd. There had been only a few women of her age flying alone on the plane. He could not have mistaken any of them for
her. The way she carried herself was… confident, almost verging on the arrogant. Arrogance was often a good quality in a Slayer though – so it was said. The absolute conviction that she could and would succeed because she was so much better than her enemies might, one day, give her the courage she needed to face an enemy of otherwise overwhelming stature. It might be all that kept her alive and that was what he wanted most.
No glorious death fighting evil for this Slayer. Better she lose a few battles and live to fight another day. Better for Sunnydale, which might not get another Slayer, better for him and most importantly better for her. She had to live, and he had to help her do that.
He held up the card as she searched the crowd, no doubt having being warned that he would be waiting for her there. She damn well should have been anyway - though he had little faith in that youngster Wyndham-Price. All Wesley had been asked to do was track her down and to ensure that she made her way to Sunnydale – that had somehow had taken him months. Months in which more people had died here – even if the centre of town was, for some reason that he didn’t yet understand, becoming a safer place.
She was a striking young woman. Long dark hair that would probably be better tied back, to prevent an enemy gaining purchase on it. Quite a… ahh… revealing top. Not indecent but definitely… revealing in a lacy way. Practical leather boots of which he approved for a town full of sewers. With the vampires above ground the sewers were an invaluable method of moving around when one did not want to fight a number of battles before reaching one’s objective. Leather trousers too.
Her eyes came to rest on his card and then rose to meet his. Then she smiled. It was a quite lovely smile. She would be a captivating young woman when she was only a little older.
He smiled his practiced smile back at her as she came over to him carrying her bag.
“Good journey?” he asked conversationally after his welcome.
“Five by Five,” she told him happily and headed off towards the exit. She seemed to assume that he would follow her. So he did.
That seemed to be a good thing. ‘Five by Five.’ He supposed that there were bound to be both regional dialect and generational language difficulties to overcome.
“Yes, quite. Twenty-five. Excellent.” He turned and trotted to catch up with her then guided her to his car.
------------------
Giles looked with slight concern at the sky as they drove back towards town. It was dimming, the sun was already reddening. Still it should be, another, sunny day tomorrow. The flight had been in a holding pattern, landing late and now they were pressed for time to get back before the vampires emerged. Of course with a Slayer and his weapons he would have had no fear – ordinarily. Other than the fact that he did not want to plunge her into combat without having assessed her and on an empty stomach. Jenny had been very particular about the empty stomach part. The Slayer didn’t seem so reticent though. Actually she seemed quite… forthright and keen.
“So this Master guy? Anyone ever tried to take him out of the game?” she asked, curious as to why the vampire king had been allowed to remain in the town when it obviously had a Watcher. Killing vampires wasn’t that hard. She had dusted over fifty herself already. And that was just in the area around her home.
“It has, it has been tried,” Giles informed her as he turned the car into his neighbourhood and drove them back towards his home. He was just a little stung by the inference that no one in Sunnydale had ever attempted it.
“No luck huh?” she asked.
“No. He or his minions have killed everyone that ever stood against him.” And a lot more that weren’t standing against him.
“But you think that I can nail this guy?” the Slayer pressed. She didn’t doubt it herself. Chosen one and all that. She was still figuring out quite what that meant besides the obvious power but these Watcher-guys all seemed to think it was a pretty special deal. It could be the horniness. That was pretty special too.
“I certainly hope so,” the Watcher told her.
“You know, I’m not sensing a lot of confidence there G,” she commented.
The third time she had called him that in just ten miles. It was very, very, irritating but after correcting her twice it seemed that she either didn’t want to, or just wouldn’t listen to him. Wonderful. “A… well a Slayer
has tried it before.”
“Really?”
“Yes. A Miss Buffy Summers. Not your immediate predecessor but one of the most successful Slayers for quite some time. I understand that she did a lot of good in Cleveland.” He couldn’t believe that he was actually defending the decision to send that Slayer to Cleveland. Still without that she would not be here now and that was the important thing. Besides her implied criticism was stinging him a little.
“And she got bit?”
“Actually she got her neck… well broken,” Giles confessed. “So I was told.”
“You weren’t there?” she asked him, already having had the spiel about him ‘supporting her’ and ‘backing her up.’ To find out that he hadn’t supporting that other, dead, Slayer didn’t sound like the back-up she needed at all. In fact she was pretty sure that she didn’t need any backup.
“I was, actually I was dealing with a vengeance demon at the time,” he informed her. She had a right to question him after all. They hardly knew each other and there was a learning process to follow.
“Cool. You get it?” she enquired.
“Actually no, she… it eluded me,” Giles was forced to admit and though Anyanka had departed with her power focus he hadn’t been killed, just throttled into unconsciousness, so he called that a success of sorts. Tricky things vengeance demons. With their ability to affect all of reality they were potentially the most powerful foe that he had yet faced.
“So you lost your Slayer
and you missed the kill?” There was no judgement in her tone. Just sarcasm. The judgement was written all over her face when he flicked his eyes from the road to look at her.
“Miss Summers was not
my Slayer. As a matter of fact I advised her not to attack the Master until we could muster some force… and that is what, as your Watcher, I am telling you as well. Now that you are here I think we have an excellent opportunity to deal with the Master but not yet.” He wasn't losing her that cheaply in some hot-headed rush of bravado. He imagined that she could be capable of being hot-headed. That might be alright where she had come from… but not in Sunnydale.
And he didn’t intend to lose her at all.
“We’re not going there now?” she asked him, incredulous and wanting to get right to it.
Definitely capable of being hot-headed. “You’re not ready… we have never even trained. Have you actually trained at all?” He looked across and she shook her head in response, the dismissive look on her face making it fairly clear how much the idea of training appealed to her. “You have to master weapons,
hone your reflexes, make plans and as I said muster a force before we can even
think of attacking the Master. He is much more powerful than any vampire you have ever faced I assure you.”
She thought about that for a minute in silence. He might be right – he was supposed to be the brains of the outfit. She was just here to pummel things. Which was fine, because she could do that. She was good at that. And better him than Wes. “Okay…,” she agreed, “I was getting hungry anyway. So where
are we going?” she asked him.
“Back to my apartment. You can stay with us until we can find you suitable place of your own.” Apartments and houses became vacant all the time in Sunnydale. The trick, he had heard, was finding one in which no one had died. Not that this Slayer would be bothered by that. Still on a Hellmouth there was the possibility of poltergeist activity – and ghosts. He couldn’t imagine that she would be bothered by that either.
“‘Us?” his passenger asked him, latching onto his choice of word and probing as they pulled up outside where she figured he must live and then got out.
“I live here with my fiancée, Jenny,” he told her, proud of the status they had so recently achieved. There never seemed to be a right time to ask. So many deaths, so much tragedy. But as she had said when she asked him to marry her, it just meant they had to work that much harder to bring light to the world. It wasn't a reason not to be happy together.
“Wow, who’d have guessed?” the Slayer wondered aloud.
Her disbelief snapped him back from the happy place to which consideration of his impending nuptials always took him. “What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing. It’s just you’re kinda old for love’s young dream,” she told him. And oldies doing it? Well if nothing else it would prove there was hope for the future.
“Thank you very much, I’m sure. I shall try not to disintegrate before your very eyes,” he assured her as they walked up the steps. And suddenly he did feel very, very old.
“Hey don’t sweat it G,” she saw him wince and knew that she had found one of the buttons she could use to have fun in their future dealings. “I was just fooling around… which I assume that you two are doing as well. Sharing a place before the wedding and all. Naughty, naughty.”
“We… we chose to co-habit mainly as a safety measure actually, easier to defend one place than two,” he informed her – in his ‘matter of fact’ voice as Jenny called it. And his fiancée hated it. She hated being lectured to.
“Yeah…” she acknowledged. “That, and it took the pain out of figuring out where you were going to screw each night?” she suggested to him, a wicked grin on her lips.
Despite the grin he could see that she wasn’t joking. She really did think that. And actually it really was true. Jenny had said as much herself… without quite the turn of phrase. He looked back at his Slayer. The worst thing about her words was that she was willing to say them. It wasn't just a generation gap… was it? It couldn’t be just that. It was just her… she was uninhibited. She might have a wild edge to her. Something to be cautious of there.
Something to be curbed to keep the young woman alive and fighting.
“That…” Was somewhere that he was not going to go with this brash young woman. Whilst he had never been a fan of the Slayer Handbook he now mentally discarded it altogether. Faith was not the sort and it wouldn’t get read anyway. She lived far too much for the now to bother about accumulated wisdom of the past. That much was very clear.
She was brash enough too that he was horrified, as Jenny met them at the door and attempted to welcome the visitor to their home, to see the new Slayer very obviously look his fiancée over, whistle, and then to hear her pass comment.
“Oh yeah G, this place must be boink city. My bed isn’t going to be against a wall that is next to your room is it?” Then to Jenny who started out shocked before breaking into a broad smile, “Hi I’m Faith… G’s told me a lot about you. ‘Cept how you were a babe and all. I had you pegged as Mrs Tweed from what he said… and the look of him.”
Jenny just looked at him, raising her eyebrows as Faith breezed past her. She smiled wickedly and he knew that they, at least, were quite probably going to get on like the proverbial burning house. Life was about to get a lot less peaceful.
****************
You hear that baby? I am going nowhere.
by Zahir al Daoud » Wed May 08, 2002 12:02 am 
Betcha never knew that about me, right? 
Yes, leather and lace. And all of it black. 
at: 5/9/02 1:28:24 pm