Was It Always Like This?

Chapter 9

Willow was studiously poring over a notebook when Buffy finally arrived downstairs. “Did Dawn remember her note for P.E.?” Buffy asked as she got herself a glass of juice and went to sit beside her friend.

“Uhuh” Willow mumbled and finished writing down some information before looking up at Buffy. “She also said that shght ght need another note for later in the week as the bruise might not be gone by then”

Buffy looked a little sheepishly at her friend then stared into her juice. “It’s not my fault that she didn’t inherit the slayer healing along with everything else. And I did try to tell her that she was too young to be practising with the larger swords”

Willow got herself some more tea. “She’s more annoyed that she can’t wear her new skirt because the bruise will show and she doesn’t want to have to explain it to Martin”

Buffy looked up quickly. “Who’s Martin?” she asked. “She’s never mentioned him to me before, do we know him, have we seen him outdoors in a sunny place?” Buffy was in the middle of a rant and Willow thought it best not to interrupt her before she ran out of steam. “How short is this skirt if it would show the bruise on her upper thigh and what’s this boy doing looking at her legs anyway?” she finally stopped to draw breath.

“Buffy, she’s fine and Martin’s OK too” Willow reassured her. “I checked his school records and did some background work on his family and he just seems to be a normal teenage boy” she grinned at her friend. “Which just leaves you with the normal teenage boy type stuff that could go wrong!”

“Willow!” Buffy shouted. “You are not helping. Can you even remember the danger contained within the body of a ‘normal’ teenage boy?”

“I’m not that old” Willow responded. “I do remember what they were like but I’ve met Martin and he seems nice, a bit quiet and he’s in the science club”

“Oh and that worked out so well for you” Buffy said before she could stop herself. A look of embarrassment took up residence on her face and her hand flew to her mouth as if to stop the words.

Willow looked at her, grinned and raised her eyebrows. “OK, well perhaps I should be giving Dawn some lessons in how to deal with the opposite sex in high school since her sister can only cover the ‘getting dumped’ and ‘one night stand’ sections of the class”

Buffy smiled and tried to look affronted. “Hey I didn’t always get dumped…” she ground to a halt as Willow tried desperately not to laugh out loud. “OK, but I didn’t do the one night stand thing until….”

“Skanky?” Willow suggested and drank some more of her tea.

“Witch” Buffy retorted and pulled the notebook from under Willow’s elbow. “So what are we working on today” she pretended to take great interest in Willow’s colour co-ordinated notations.

“These are some of the contacts that Giles suggested we talk to about the sect and also some ideas of my own on possible descendants still living in the area” Willow gave her tacit agreement to dropping the subject of Dawn’s extra curricular activities. “I thought we could spend the day trying to see as many as we could before we send another email to Giles.”

Buffy nodded. “Sounds like a plan to me, let’s hit the sidewalks” she stood up and took her glass into the kitchen. “Willow” she said quietly as she watched her head for the stairs. “Thanks for looking out for Dawn, I really appreciate it”

Willow smiled over the bannister at her. “What else would I do for my little sister?” she asked and ran upstairs.

*****

They sat in the Espresso Pump, drinking mochas with extra whipped cream. “Who knew there were so many experts on ancient sects in this area?” Buffy asked. “I always thought Giles just knew this stuff, turns out he had people feeding him the answers all along”

Willow smiled and sipped her drink. “I met some of his contacts but the ones we visited this morning were new to me.” She looked thoughtful for a minute. “I guess the weird thing is that we all thought he sat in his apartment waiting for us to come to him with the monster of the week, but he seems to have had all these other people he kept in regular contact with and we didn’t even know”

Buffy nodded. “I just assumed I was the only oblivious one where his private life was concerned but he got pretty good at keeping you guys out of the loop as well”

“I don’t think it was him excluding us so much as none of us being interested enough to find out about him as a person” Willow suggested and frowned. “We were all equally guilty, except maybe for Tara”

Buffy looked a little surprised. “I didn’t know that Tara was especially close to him”

Willow nodded. “In the last six months or so they were getting closer because of their concerns about me and also whhe whe was new to the group she made the effort to get to know him”

“We made the effort when we first met him although were all kind of thrown together at the beginning” Buffy suggested.

Willow interrupted her “And we were sixteen years’ old and too selfish to be interested in an old fossil like him. Parts of his past kept leaking out, like when we found out about Ripper, but he kept the rest to himself and by the time we were older he was like a piece of the furniture and we thought we knew him. When Tara met him for the first time she understood that he was an important part of the group, even if we didn’t treat him as such at the time, and she instinctively knew that he could teach her about the things she needed to know to survive.” Willow took another sip of her coffee and stared at the foam for a few seconds.

Buffy gave her a moment or two before putting her hand over her friends. “You OK Will?”

“Yeah” Willow smiled a little weakly at her. “It’s just sometimes I don’t think about her for a few hours and then I suddenly remember her and what happened and it’s like losing her all over again” She took a deep breath and finished her coffee. “Let’s go and we can try to see some of these possible descendants before we meet up with Dawn at school”

Buffy nodded. “OK, but let’s make sure we get to school in time to see Martin” she suggested and took the list from Willow to work out the nearest address. Willow just shook her head and followed her friend outside.

********

The gang were sitting around Xander’s table, finishing off a pizza, and discussing the results of their day’s findings. “So we know that the Guilen sect were actually the good guys. Everyone we spoke to said they were renowned for the care they took of those within their community and they genuinely battled evil in all of it’s forms” Willow passed round pieces of kitchen paper while Dawn removed the empty boxes to the kitchen. “They seemed to have some sort of unknown power to vanquish the minor demons that were around at the time, mainly annoying things like fear and mischief demons, but there aren’t any records of how they managed this or of what happened to wipe them out”

Buffy took over “This Professor Jennings seemed fairly certain that something happened and wiped out all of the sects at once. This must have been something big because there were ten or twelve groups spread throughout the state at the time and they all disappeared overnight”

Willow nodded and took over the story. “The strange thing is that there aren’t any records of a big bad taking over Sunnydale at the time and you would expect whatever had wiped them out to be all gloaty and take overy”

Xander handed round some drinks. “Maybe they self destructed, you know, tried to get rid of a little demon and it back fired on them or something”

Willow nodded. “Perhaps, but I don’t think that sort of accident would eradicate all of the sect communities”

“How about the people who still live here, don’t they have any family stories to tell?” Dawn asked.

“Not really, it was a bit of a long shot, we are talking about family folklore surviving for over 200 years” Willow looked a little discouraged. “I keep thinking that this is just a case of the residents of the home picking up on whatever happened all those years ago and, although it’s frustrating not to be able to find out what it was, it’s not really that serious?”

Xander looked a little uncomfortable. “I know this isn’t end of the world stuff but those old ladies were really wigging about this and I’d like to clear it up for them”

Buffy smiled at him. “Xander, you looking to be a toy boy again?”

“Not unless you’re looking for a new flame Buff” he joked back and ducked as she threw her paper towel at him.

“Perhaps Giles would know some way we could desensitise the home?” Willow suggested. “I know he spent quite a lot of his spare time a few years ago researching poltergeist and hauntings so maybe he could come up with a cleansing spell that would at least tone down the events”

“Soulikelike a plan Will” Xander suggested. “Are we going to wait until next week when he visits or try to sort this out before he gets here?”

Dawn looked a little worried. “He did say he was coming for a holiday and didn't want to work when he got here”

Willow looked a little uncomfortable. “I don’t really think I could do the necessary spells and he would probably be able to clear this up in a day or two”

Buffy looked a little surprised. “Perhaps we could give him a heads up on the situation tonight and he can let us know the best way to deal with it?” Willow seemed a little relieved and Buffy knew that her fear of undertaking any serious magic was at the root of her discomfort, however, she wasn’t sure whether to agree with her friend in this situation or force her to ‘get back on the horse’ by doing the spell. Perhaps she would call Giles later and speak to him about Willow’s progress and the best way forward.

*****

Giles jumped a little when the phone rang and took a moment to mark his place in the book on his lap before reaching for the table beside him. “Buffy, how nice to hear from you, is everything alright?” He could hear her sigh a little and found himself smiling at her slightly petulant tone. “No, of course I don’t think you only phone when something is wrong. Perhaps you were calling to give me a suggestion list of presents for next week?”

Buffy smiled despite her grumpy mood and decided that a little one-on-one Giles time was probably just what she needed right now. “I’ll get to the presents later but first I need to ask a quick question about the golden ghost stuff we’ve been working on.” She could almost imagine him putting his glasses back on and moving the phone to his other ear as he picked up a pen to note down any salient points. “The contacts you gave us were all quite helpful and agreed that the Guilen peeps were of the good so we’re all a bit stuck on where to go with this. Xander would still like us to try and interrupt the ghostly goings on because they seemed to be freaking out the wrinklies but Willow’s not too sure and is suggesting we wait till you’re here”

Giles frowned slightly. “Does Willow think this is something serious?”

Buffy found herself shaking her head before she answered him. “Nope, I think she’s just a bit wigged about doing her mojo without you here in case she gets her bad self back again”

“But she has handled magic before now and everything has been OK” he suggested. “Is she there, perhaps she just needs some advice on the best spell to use”

Buffy again shook her head. “Nope, she’s out shopping with Dawn for some more macho bed linen. Apparently you shouldn’t have to put up with snoopy pillow cases” He could visualise her broad smile and chuckled at the memory of the last time he had been staying with them. “Anyway” Buffy continued “Will said you are guru guy about this kind of thing and wants to wait till next week so you can deal with it but I think that she’s just using that as an excuse”

Giles thought for a moment or two. “Perhaps it would be better to wait until I can talk to Willow about this” he finally suggested.

Buffy was a little surprised at his suggestion. “But we don’t want you working while you’re here, it’s supposed to be a holiday”

Giles chuckled again. “And you weren’t going to train with me or let me patrol with you?” he asked in a disbelieving tone of voice.

“That’s different, it would be fun and I’ve been practising this new kick and you are laughing at me, I can tell, even at this distance” she tried to po lit little but could feel her smile overcoming her. “OK, you can talk to Willow when you get here but this had better not eat into the planned quality shopping time”

Giles sighed. “Tell Willow I’d rather have a chat with the people experiencing the events before you do anything and I’m sure she’ll be fine”

Buffy felt a small sense of relief wash over her and identified it as the feeling that always hit her when Giles took control of the situation. “Damn” she mumbled to herself, “I’m never going to get rid of that”

“Did you say something, I couldn’t quite catch it?” he suggested, although he was sure he had heard her curse under her breath. That wasn’t like Buffy at all and he felt a little concerned that he wouldn’t be with them for another week but then he heard her clear her throat and knew everything was going to be OK.

“About those presents” she began and he pulled his notepad towards him as he cradled the phone between his shoulder and ear.