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Buffy leaned against the trunk of the tree, the light rippling across her as the sun shone through the leafy branches. She watched intently as a bulldozer drove into the last ragged corner of Lowell House, adding a pile of bricks to the mound of wood, plaster and stone that was the temporary and only memorial to the Initiative. The official story was that they had found subsidence under the building, the same problem that had caused that terrible gas explosion that wrecked Sunnydale High. Buffy wasn’t sure exactly sure who made up the official story anymore, or if there was actually anyone left in Sunnydale who actually listened to it anymore. Buffy was pretty confident that nothing was about to come crawling out of the ruins, and her attention began to wander, which was when she spotted the small girl standing in the roadway watching the demolition workers. The girl couldn’t have been more than five, wearing a little floral print dress, brown hair, big green eyes, and seemingly alone. Buffy crouched down besides her, smiling. "Hi there, what’s your name?" "Jessica." The girl’s voice was distracted, and her attention didn’t waver from the big machines scooping up rubble and pouring it into trucks. "Are you with someone?" "My daddy’s over there." Jessica pointed towards a man who was talking with one of the campus security guards. "Maybe we should go over there, you can introduce me to him." Jessica frowned, pondering the idea, then she nodded and took Buffy’s outstretched hand, leading her towards her father. Just as the pair walked up the man seemed to realise that his daughter wasn’t besides him, from a distance Buffy had assumed the man was in his thirties, dressed in a sober suit with neatly cropped hair. Up close she realised he couldn’t be more than three or four years older than her. He was medium height, with a nice if rather serious looking face, and much the same colouring as his daughter, he sighed with relief as he saw Jessica hand in hand with Buffy. "Jessica, daddy told you to stay there while he talked with the man." "I was bored." Jessica announced in a tone that assumed that explained everything. The man turned his attention to Buffy. "Thanks for grabbing her, she just can’t stay still for a minute." "That’s ok I was like that when I was her age." The man stuck his hand out, "David Brennan." "I’m Buffy, Buffy Sum…" "Buffy Summers?" The man's tone was excited. Buffy was instantly wary, "That would be me." Brennan grabbed her hand and shook it firmly, "This is fantastic, I thought I was going to have to search this whole campus for you, no one was willing to give me the information." He stopped talking and let go of Buffy’s hand as her cool expression finally sunk in. "I’m sorry I’m standing here babbling. You must think I’m some kind of lunatic or," he lowered his voice and leaned towards Buffy, "Maybe even a demon." Buffy took a step back and instinctively her body moved to a fighting posture, and then slackened as a concerned looking Jessica moved between the two adults. "Please Miss Summers, I’m not here to cause trouble, well maybe I am, look I need to talk to you, alone." His eyes flicked towards the little girl and then back to Buffy. Instinct and experience told her that Brennan was desperate and scared. Of what? Well there was only one way to find out. "Ok, eight o’clock, a club called the Bronze, just about everybody knows where it is. If you want to talk you’ll be there" "The Bronze? Fine I will be there, thank you." But he was talking to Buffy’s back as she strode away. Giles strummed the guitar, checking the tuning. On this occasion he had ensured the door was locked, he still wasn’t entirely comfortable with his friends knowing about his attempts to pursue his one time passion. He hadn’t intended to take up playing again, he had just been shifting some boxes of books and there was his old guitar case. One minute he was just giving it a once over and the next it seemed he was gigging at the club. He had just struck the first chord of the new song he was rehearsing when there was a hammering on the door. Giles stood well clear as he opened it. "Do I ever get any time off?" Buffy huffed as she stormed in and dumped herself on the couch. "And a good afternoon to you too." Buffy pressed on. "I mean do they issue some kind of slayer calendar? Marked with the dates I’m supposed to save the world so they can plan when to turn up and bug me the most?" Giles moved his guitar off the chair. "I take it there’s some new trouble brewing?" "I was just minding my own business, I try to do something nice, and bam!" "Yes, bam what exactly?" Buffy took a deep breath and outlined her encounter with the father and daughter. Giles took his glasses off and polished them, giving himself a moment to consider what she had told him. "Well of course his denials aside there are nothing to say that this man isn’t a demon, or indeed the little girl." "Could be, but he didn’t come across like that, he is pretty scared though." Giles frowned. "I have to say the name Brennan does ring a bell but I can’t place it I’m sorry to say." "Is it a watchery kind of bell?" "I think so, I might give Wesley a call see if he recognises it." "And meantime I’ll go to the Bronze and see if the guy actually shows." "Would you like me to come along? Perhaps if I see his face it might jog my memory." "Or it might spook him into running, if there’s trouble brewing I’d like some advanced warning." The Bronze was already jumping when Buffy arrived. She scanned the room looking for Brennan. She felt a little uncomfortable as she realised how few familiar faces there were out there on the dance floor, so many had gone away to distant colleges, or jobs, or fallen prey to the monsters in spite of her best efforts. The ease with which so many people had just slipped away was scary, and Buffy felt a renewed sense of relief that the Scooby gang had stopped the rot before the damage to their friendships became irreparable. She saw Brennan leaning on the bar and looking lost. He stuck out like a sore thumb in the casual ambience of the Bronze. He brightened up on seeing Buffy, but tried to keep his expression neutral. "You actually came, I wasn’t sure you would." "Look, I’m here to find what you know about me, and how, and then why, or possibly why first." "I know about you because I know some people who have contacts inside the Watchers' Council, and when you broke away from the Council they passed the news on to me they thought it might make you more sympathetic to my situation." "Which is what exactly." "Well, and you're probably the only person I can say this to who won’t think I’ve lost it, demonic forces are stalking my daughter." "Demons don’t usually have a big attention span, why would they target Jessica specially?" "Because her mother was a Slayer." Buffy actually flinched as she took in the words; she was so shocked that she spoke her thoughts out loud. "Her mother's dead, poor kid." "Well there is only one chosen one right?" Buffy started to contradict the man, but shut her mouth when she saw the pain on his face. "Her name was Cassie, she was nineteen years old when she died, spring of ninety six." He stopped and looked at Buffy. "I think we could both use a drink, and then maybe we could find a quieter spot and I can tell you all about her." Buffy simply nodded while Brennan attracted the attention of the bartender. The pair found a couch in the corner and made room on the cluttered table top for their drinks. Brennan picked his back up and stared at it. Buffy was desperate for the man to talk, she could barely restrain herself from grabbing him by the collar and demanding answers. "We started going out when we were fifteen, Cassie was the first girl I ever went out with, and vice versa. After a while it was getting pretty serious, and then one day this guy walks up to us and tells Cassie that she has a destiny, she’s a chosen one. It was so weird I figured it had to be a joke, I didn’t notice how seriously Cassie took it. I carried right on thinking it was a gag right till I saw Cassie stake a vamp for the first time." He stopped and took a gulp from his glass, to Buffy it was practically a recap of her own calling, hardly surprising though, probably came straight out of page one of ‘Watcher for Dummies’. "I freaked out for a couple of days after that, I was in total shock. After that though I decided that I loved Cassie, and if this was who she was I had to live with it, and frankly it was kind of exciting, second string football player one day, saving the world the next, or at least holding the coat of the person who was saving the world. Major side effect of all the battling with evil was that our feelings, our actions," Brennan blushed, "Became more intense, and sometimes we got carried away with it all, which is how Cassie got pregnant." Brennan shook his head. "Man I thought the whole slayer thing was a shock, it was nothing compared to when Cassie told me she was six weeks late." "Guess your parents went kind of ballistic, huh?" Buffy offered. "Oh yeah, but that was nothing next to Cassie’s watcher, I thought he had gone crazy, he screamed at her, grabbed her, shook her, like he completely forgot that she could break him in half. Cassie was too surprised to do anything. I ended up hauling him off and shoving him into a chair. Next thing he’s on the phone to England, and the day after that some Watcher goon squad show’s up and tells Cassie she’s going to New York. "Diplomacy isn’t a big thing with the Watchers, did she go with them?" "Yeah but she insisted that I got to tag along. We ended up in this very expensive hotel, very old money kind of place if you know what I mean. We were deposited outside a conference room, and they left us there to stew for a couple of hours before they finally called Cassie in. They insisted that I stayed outside, but I got a look inside before they closed the doors. Four guys, all at least sixty, sat down one side of a table, and an empty chair set on the other side. Soon as I saw that I knew it wasn’t going to go well, they were planning interrogation not negotiation." Brennan drained his glass and thumped it down on the table, Buffy realised she hadn’t even touched hers, and her mouth was very dry. "When Cassie came out she practically tore the door off it’s hinges, and she used language I never heard from her before or after that. She nearly broke my arm dragging me into the elevator. She wouldn’t tell me what was said until we were on the plane home. Basically the Council gave her two choices, turn the baby over to their care after it was born, or…" "Or?" "Or don’t have the baby." Brennan’s voice faded out as he said it, and the glass shattered in Buffy’s hand as her grip unintentionally tightened. She let it slip to onto the tabletop, ignoring the cold liquid dripping from her palm. Buffy took the stairs up to her dorm room three at a time. Willow was sat on her bed when Buffy opened the door. "You won’t believe what I just heard." "Oh I think I might." Buffy turned to see Giles leaning against the wall. Willow got up and walked past Buffy. "I think I’ll just go and see what Tara’s doing, and it would be kind of nice if there weren’t any blood stains on the carpet when I get back." She closed the door behind her and Buffy and Giles stared at one another for a moment, then Buffy walked over to her bed and picked up one of her old stuffed animals. "I was thinking this might be nice for Jessica, she doesn’t have many toys, you know with being on the run." "Buffy I honestly didn’t know, it was Wesley who reminded me about Cassie Gillespie." "But you knew about her you knew what the council did." "I knew about it yes, but I had no part in the decision and I certainly didn’t agree with it, but the council did think they had their reasons." "Giles they told her to give up her baby or get rid of it. She ended up on the run, no back up, no support." Buffy’s tone was an accusation. "I know, because her watcher chose to stand with the council instead of his Slayer." The reminder brought Buffy up short, when the chips were down Giles had chosen her over the council, at no small cost to himself. She continued a softer, almost pleading tone. "Giles, just tell me why? I know the council can be callous, but this is low even by their standards." "The council has a vast collection of prophecies, legends and myths in its care, and it’s not easy to draw a dividing line between them, in some cases they don’t even try. There is one sketchy verse, barely two lines, ‘the line of the slayers will be ended by the child of a slayer’." Buffy’s eyes widened, "That’s it? That’s their whole reason?" "It’s enough to them, Buffy they have a responsibility to preserve the slayer heritage, if they ignored this and it turned out to be true what then? The world could end, and in their view better to lose one child than the entire human race." "And what about you? What do you think?" Giles considered for a second and then looked Buffy straight in the eye. "I think that a slayer is more than just a weapon, whatever opportunity for a normal life they get they should be allowed to grab." Buffy looked at her ex-watcher and then smiled, he smiled back. "So what does Mr Brennan want from you?" "It seems he’s picked up a tail, some demon seems to have gotten on his trail, guess now I know why." "It could be, did he have many details?" "He knows it’s race, apparently when they went on the run Cassie ‘borrowed’ some books from her watcher, but he doesn’t know it’s powers or how to fight it. Someone told him about my split with the council and he figured this was the place to come looking for help." "So what was the name of the demon?" Buffy fished a piece of paper out of her pocket, "A Polycoron." "Well if he is being trailed by only one of them then we need to move quickly. Polycorons are relatively weak individually; in groups they are quite dangerous. They are psychically linked together you see, at a distance they can share knowledge, closer together they can share their physical power." "So I need to nail this one before his buddies show up right?" "It would make life easier, they aren’t hard to kill, any kind of blade driven through their vital organs should do the trick. In addition I do still have some contacts, I might be able to put Mr Brennan in contact with people who can help him to slip away, perhaps have the chance to stop running, I can’t guarantee anything, but if he’s willing to trust an ex-watcher I will try." Buffy walked over and kissed Giles on the cheek. "He will because I do. I’m going to go fetch Brennan and Jessica, we can take him to Xander’s basement he’s getting used to it being our all purpose hideout." "I’ll start making some phone calls and meet you there in an hour say?" "Sounds like a plan to me." The motel Brennan was staying at was a little more up market than most of the others in Sunnydale, which meant that they actually changed the towels occasionally, and the all the letters in its neon sign worked. They were still too cheap to spring for proper lighting in the car park, so as Buffy approached she could clearly see light spilling from the wide open door of one of the rooms, it didn't have to be Brennan's of course, but Buffy knew you didn't get luck like that, not in Sunnydale. She sprinted through the courtyard, and as she did so a little girls scream echoed across it. As she burst through the door Buffy practically ran headlong into a figure leaving, a figure with his hand clamped around Jessica’s wrist. The hand was almost human, except for a patch of iridescent green scales on the back of it. The little girl was sobbing and wriggling in the demon’s grip. Buffy drew her knife from inside her jacket and slashed upwards tearing a gash in creatures arm, he let out a high pitched scream and released his hold. Jessica darted back into the room, where Buffy now registered the bruised and battered form of David Brennan slumped in a corner. Buffy lashed out with a kick and knocked the demon into the bathroom door, which splintered and disintegrated under the impact. With the creature out of action for the moment Buffy bent over Brennan, the man was conscious, but clearly dazed. She shook him vigorously. "David, can you hear me? David I need you to get it together, you have to take Jessica out of here." "Daddy please I want to go now, please take me away from the bad man." The pleas from his daughter seemed to draw Brennan back into focus; he staggered to his feet and took Jessica’s hand. "What do we do?" He still wasn’t entirely with it. "You take Jessica outside, I finish up here and join you, now move it." Brennan got moving, he new better than to argue with a slayer. The Polycoron climbed to its feet just in time to see the Brennan’s running out the door; before he could follow he found his path blocked by a knife wielding Buffy. He moved back until he backed into the washbasin. "Do not kill me Slayer." The scales that outlined the demons cheekbones, and the almost golden yellow eyes, were weird, but Buffy could still read the expression on its face, there was no fear, just grim determination; that made Buffy hesitate. "And exactly why should I let you live." "My kind know all that I know, if you let pass I will take the girl and it ends here. If I die they will not come for her again." Buffy shook her head. "You know you guys really need to read to work on this whole threat concept." "You truly know nothing, understand nothing." The demon's tone was full of disappointment bordering on contempt, it sprang forward and Buffy’s arm swung around, driving the blade into its chest up to the hilt. Her grip on the handle pulled Buffy down besides the creature as it slumped to its knees, green blood dribbled from the corner of its mouth, bubbling as he struggled to speak. "We will return Slayer, we will take her from you, we will take her from you." The last word stirred an unnamed dread in the pit of Buffy’s stomach, she wasn’t even aware she had pulled the knife out until she drove it back in again. "You stay away! All of you stay away!" Buffy punctuated her word by hammering the knife home time and again. Buffy looked up from the armchair as Giles walked into his apartment. "Did they get away ok?" "Yes my contact has made arrangements, the Brennans should be able to enjoy peace and anonymity for a while at least." He decided not to mention that his contact was Angel, the vampire had helped more than one person escape from their troubles, and so he had been a logical choice to ask. Still given the dark mood Buffy was in Giles had thought it best to stay vague. "It’s a pity you didn’t come to see them off, Brennan wanted to express his gratitude, and, well, he seemed a little concerned. He says you were drenched with the creatures blood, it put up considerable resistance I take it?" "It just made me mad I guess." Giles waited for Buffy to elaborate, but she simply sat staring at him, so he tried again. "I see, any reason in particular?" Buffy seemed oblivious to the question. "Giles, the Polycoron, do they have any precognitive powers?" "Not that I know of, they do accumulate a lot of other people's knowledge, which could amount to the same thing some times, what did the creature say to you?" "It’s not important, not now anyway." Buffy’s tone made a lie of the words, and Giles knew he wouldn’t get anymore out of her for now, he settled for placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. It wasn’t Giles fault that the fatherly gesture simply brought a new flash of pain to Buffy’s heart, she didn’t want to accept the meaning of what the demon had said. It had just been a parting shot, a final attempt to scare her into standing aside she wanted to believe that. But she remembered the demon's voice, not malicious, not vengeful, just a cold statement of fact, they weren’t coming back for Jessica Brennan, they would wait, wait for another Slayer child. THE
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