Fic: Daybreak Postponed (6/12)

["C S Armitage" <soren_nyrond@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

TITLE: Daybreak Postponed [approximately] (6/12)
AUTHOR: Soren Nyrond
DISCLAIMER: All characters in this part belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy -- etc etc as in part (0/12). Some ideas have been borrowed for elsewhere to illuminate this story: they did once belong to Other Companies (and still do, I imagine), but since they are by way of being generic concepts, Idon't think anything's awry.
SUMMARY: It's next morning, Xander gets owwed, Willow does research and there are no smoochies. Still, it's a fic.
ARCHIVING:: All enquiries welcomed
SPOILERS: None - noen of this ever happened in the ME-world
AUTHOR'S NOTES: All nice feedback welcome. 
  
DAYBREAK HAS BEEN POSTPONED

By Soren Nyrond

Part Five - Search, Search & Research

  

The four youngsters fell on the food with gusto. Samantha and Elspeth locked eyes and words were imminent when, oblivious to that unspoken dialogue, Buffy said: "So what's the answer, Giles ?"

"I'm sorry," Rupert Giles replied, from inside Wharton's The Pendle Cultus.  

"Haven't you found out who or what I've got to slay yet ? I mean, I'm awake, you're feeding me: surely slayage is on the syllabus."

"Yeah, G-man: you've had all night to read up . "

Giles' eyes met Elspeth's.

"I . I wasn't able to finish everything last night . "

"That's okay, Giles," Willow said, looking up from her milk, with a white moustache: "I know how tiring those all-night sessions can be."

Suddenly Samantha grinned and giggled impishly, and slipped outof the room before Elspeth could speak or stop her.

"I . er . that is . "

They weren't listening, Giles realised: Xander was deeply involved in cramming a third cereal bar into his gullet, and Buffy was removing Willow's milk moustache by deft use of her lips and tongue. And Elspeth was carefully not looking at any of them.

 

By the time Samantha returned, dressed in cut-down denim shortsover a pale-green leotard, Willow, Giles and Elspeth were deep in the books, and Xander was (uncomfortably) standing in for a practice dummy, as Buffy ran through her morning warm-up exercises. It was cool, watching Buffy flex and twist her body in what, while they were lethal, were also boy's-eye-pleasing manoeuvres; it was also frightening, the way her hands and feet could obviously smash your skull, ribs and other bones if she didn't pull every blow at the very last second.  

What was also frightening was that, even if it was morning, it still felt like mid-evening. Giles had pulled back curtains, to let light in, but outside looked like twilight, and inside the room the shadows pooled in corners and by walls and gave a totally unnatural look to everything.

Finally the Buff-meister wound down, only for Xander to be gently twisted round, and asked "Can I try that?" by Elspeth. And before he (or anyone) could protest, she'd started.

It lasted for about ninety seconds and then, inevitably, the "pull" on a kick didn't, and Xander was rocketed to the floor, with Samantha landing atop him.

Buffy had just been towelling herself off, so there wasn't actually anyone immediately on hand to disentangle the two of them, and Xander soon realised that disentanglement would be a *good* idea, for three reasons. Two of them were poking through the top of her leotard, and they were, via his hormones, causing the third reason, which threatened to poke somewhere else entirely.

"Oops, sorry," Samantha said, and got up, with a wriggle that almost entirely destroyed Xander Harris's self-composure.

Buffy effortlessly pulled Xander up again and, erect, he tried to shrug the incident off.

"Maybe you need a little more practice . "

"Oh, I usually don't have any problem," Samantha said.

"Hang on," Buffy said: "You mean you spar like this regularly ?They are moving into a new breed of Watcher."

"Oh, no - I'm a Slayer," Elspeth said: "Or, at least, I hope tobe, when my turn comes. Elspeth's the Watcher."

Eyes turned, and Giles hasted to fill the conversational gap.

"The Council has often brought Slayers here, to assist with some of their training," he began.

"But a lot more of them recently," Elspeth said. "Another Inner Circle inititative. Samantha came to us about three months ago: her parents had . an accident . when she was young, and she had been educated at a Convent in Sussex. And then - "

"And then, one night," Samantha said, "I woke up and realised Iwas different."

"The Convent notified me," Elspeth said: "One of the sisters there had an inkling about the Council, from some archives she'd seen workingfor a Bishop in Galway - "

"Polycarp," Giles said, softly: "The Indweller business."

"- and I went, saw her, and brought her away. I was going to foster her with a Helper family in Belcester, but somehow Quentin Travers got to know and insisted she be brought here."

"Hey !" Samantha protested : "I like it here - much better thana convent."

"Giles," Willow suddenly interrupted: "Is this anything significant ?" She was pointing to a paragraph in the book she had been reading. "It talks about darkness in daylight."

"Eeww," Buffy (who was closest) said: "It also talks about something called a Lucovore demon."

Giles suddenly became very interested. "A Lucovore - you're sure ? Yes, I had better read that."

 

"It sounds like a vitamin drink," Samantha said, petulantly (perhaps a little disappointed at suddenly no longer being the centre of attention).

Only Xander appeared to be paying attention: "Don't worry - half these demons have wacky names. Sometimes it means something, but so far as I can tell most of them were just made up by very frightened people who didn't speak English."

"It's Latin, Xander," Willow said, seriously: "It means 'Light-eater'."

"So we watch for missing bulbs ?"

Any further banter was interrupted by a distant, distorted voice. Elspeth held her hand up for silence and they all strained their ears to listen as best they might.

 

"So Quentin wants another general assembly," Elspeth said, whenthe voice (relayed through loudspeakers out in the halls) had fallen silent.

"And with us Slayers there, too," Samantha said. "Maybe he's found out what's being going on."

"I think it would be useful if Buffy and I could somehow see and hear what goes on," Giles said to Elspeth, with an edge on his voice.

"And us, G-man ?" Xander said, standing beside Willow.

"I'd like you to stay here, with Willow, Xander," Giles replied: "She will want to go on searching the books and I don't want her here alone."

He turned back to Elspeth: "Can you arrange that ?"

Elspeth thought and then said "I don't think anyone uses the west annexe at the moment: there's a window there that looks down into the hall where Quentin wants us."

"He's using the Compton Room ?" Giles queried.

"Yes. Why ?"