FF: The Spiral Cage 7/?

[Carol.Clarke@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Title: The Spiral Cage
Part Seven: What Your Mother Knows
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Joss Whedon owns Buffy and Chris Carter owns the
X-Files. 
Rating: NC -17 
Pairing: Joyce/Dana the rest wait and see
Note: This story is in an alternate universe. It does not follow cannon
story lines. The people are different in places because they have lived
different lives. Dana Scully is a lot happier in this world. Dawn was there
from the beginning. And Buffy isn't the Buffy you know. Also there are many
kinds of vampires and demons, mixing them from the X-file world and BTVS,
and other myths. 
Thanks: I can't believe I forgot this: THANKS TO CHERYL HILL!

The Spiral Cage
What Your Mother Knows

Willow hadn't made her bed up in 3 days. This was a very un-Willowlike thing
to do. Willow was the child that never had to be told what to do. She was
the good one. Ok she was also a little anal retentive but she was the only
child of a gay college professor and a lesbian FBI agent. 

Actually her parents were both great but they were not around that much, and
she had to learn to do things for herself. When her mother was in medical
school she had spent much of the time with her grandfather "the captain."
And Captain Scully ran a tight ship. If she were still living with her
grandparents or even Aunt Melissa there was no way she would have gotten
away with not making her bed. 

Only there was a reason she hadn't made her bed. She was trying to cover up
something until she found a way around the problem. She had been playing
around with magic, trying to learn to use the four elements, and she had
burned a large hole in the middle of the bed, and then soaked it with water
seconds later. Ok, no one was hurt. But she had to sleep on the floor while
the mattress dried, and she still didn't know what to do about the huge hole
in her bedspread. She would need to get a new one. But that would draw
attention. She thought about ordering one off the Internet, but that was
expensive and would involve a large package arriving at the house. Her
mother was a detective, Willow was sure her mother would notice a large box
arriving. 

She was still studying the problem by looking at her bed when she heard a
knock on the bedroom door. 

"Can I come in?" Joyce asked from out side the door. Willow shrugged to
herself and opened the door.

"I bought you something yesterday, but I thought we should have a little
talk about it first." Joyce said coming into the room with a new comforter,
still in the plastic, in her arms. 

"Awww," was all Willow got out at first.

"I saw your old bedspread in the trash yesterday. Buffy forgot to take it
out before she went to school like normal. Actually I was wondering why you
didn't make up your bed, it's not like you." Joyce explained handing over
the comforter to Willow. It was just like her old one. 

"Thanks?" Willow said as a question. 

"Willow, I know playing around with magic seems fun at your age, but I would
appreciate it if you didn't practice in the house, or teach Dawn." Joyce
said evenly staring Willow in the face.

"Howdidyouknow, Ididmean, I won't ... in the house anymore." Willow babbled,
rushing the first part but slowing her speech when she spoke the last part.

"Good, we understand each other. Now, will you please make up your bed. Dana
while be home for dinner soon." Joyce said the last part smiling at Willow
before she turned and left the room. 

Willow just stood in her room looking at the bedspread, not really knowing
what to say. Then she started to turn, to start making the bed when she felt
Buffy touch her arm. 

"AAHH!" Willow screamed as she jumped about a foot away from the halfling
vampire and landed on the floor. "Don't sneak up on me like that!" Willow
said as she recovered from the scare.

"You got busted by mom, I heard." Buffy said as she held out her hand to
help Willow up off the floor.

"I just don't get this, your mom seems to know all about my secret Wicca
stuff, and my mom knows something about you. I don't know what it is, but I
do know that my mom knows." Willow said straightening her clothes up. 

Buffy was taking the bedspread out of the plastic cover it came in as she
looked at her stepsister. "Yeah but your mom is clueless about you being a
witch." 

"And your mom is clueless that you're... I don't actually know exactly what
you are, but the magic buzz I get off you is big. Are you a werewolf?"
Willow asked as she and Buffy began to make Willow's bed. 

"I am a Feral Vampire, well a half one, Mom is human. At least I think she
is human. But she is definitely my mother. I smell her, she smells like she
belongs to me." Buffy said the last part as her eyes switched to their cat
like form. 

"Yeah I love my mom too. Don't understand her at all. But I love her."
Willow said with a smile. She no longer feared Buffy. In fact Buffy felt
like she belonged with her in the same way Buffy was explaining her mother's
scent. For her, as a witch, she could feel the magic pool and swirl around
people and places. And somehow her mother and Joyce, even Buffy and Dawn
belonged in the magic pool she swam in. A warm hot pool that was filled with
magic, and love, and belonging. 

"It's nice here, where are you?" Buffy asked as she finished making Willow's
bed and then sat down in the center of the bed. 

"Sorry, you got me thinking about us belonging together, or rather our
parents, but us too. Powerful magic is binding us together. But when our
parents find out that they have been hiding stuff from each other, well the
honeymoon is going to be over. Mom is a red head; she can have a temper.
Nanna always said mom was too much like Captain Ahab, my grandfather The
Captain. Man, can she be stubborn." Willow said flopping down next to the
still cat-eyed Buffy. 

"Mom has a temper too. Willow, since you know I am a halfling vampire, you
must have guessed Dawn and I don't have the same father?" Buffy asked as she
rolled over on the bed and looked at Willow.

"Your mom was raped, I over heard your mom telling my mom stuff about it,
when they were dating. I think Joyce felt safer telling mom stuff, at our
house when you and Dawn weren't around." Willow explained. 

"That's what worry's me. I think for awhile she started to believe I was
dad's, Hank's, I always called him dad. He hates me. I can't help stuff now;
I don't want to be a bloodsucking demon, When I was young, I didn't even
know stuff like this happened. I thought I was human. I mean stuff happened
but I could blow it off." 

Willow had questions but she knew Buffy needed to get this out of her
system, so she let Buffy babble.

"Now I can't stop stuff. My eyes change. And I want to hunt all the time. I
feel trapped if I don't hunt. It's like I am a caged tiger, locked in a
spiral cage that just leads down right into hell, and I can't help pacing
right down into the fire. Only I always stop before I walk into the fire, so
I am left pacing in the cage." Buffy was looking off in the distance
staring, her eyes, and her aura had lost all its humanity. Buffy was up on
all fours in the center of the bed. And Willow knew she could leap just as
fiercely as the tiger in the cage she was describing. 

Willow could feel the energy and magic flowing around her stepsister, but
she was not afraid at all. So she leaned over and put a hand on Buffy's
shoulder and said, "Buffy, dinner is in about an hour. Why don't you go for
a quick walk? Go hunt for a little while. Just be back for dinner." 

Buffy seemed to snap out of her daze and shifted back into human form. "I
could go for a quick run. Will, thanks." With that Buffy shot off the bed
leaping from the middle of the bed straight on to her feet. She was already
moving down the stairs before Willow could move off the bed.

"You two have a fight, or is she just being weird again?" Dawn asked from
the door to her bedroom.

"She needed to go for a run before dinner." Willow said politely.

"She still doing drugs." Dawn asked.

"That's what your mom thinks?" Willow asked.

"Yeah, to be honest, both our parents are weirder than Buffy is about it. I
thought for sure they were going to put her in rehab after the honeymoon.
Now who knows?" Dawn said as she walked into Willow's room.

"Buffy isn't on drugs, at least as far as I know. It's more medical. So just
cut her some slack ok?" Willow answered.

"She isn't going to die or something?" Dawn ask concerned. 

"No, but it's a rough time for her. Oh and your mom made me promise no more
Wicca stuff in the house. And she told me not to teach you anything." Willow
said frankly.

"So don't, Melissa is." Dawn answered with a large smile.

"I am so getting grounded over this right?" Willow said rolling her eyes.

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Jenny Calendar was uncomfortably sitting in a large over-stuff chair in a 50
million-dollar mansion somewhere in Bel Air. Jenny was paid to make others
uncomfortable; so it was not something she normally experienced that and
true fear. Jenny was feeling a great deal of fear. 

"He will see you now." A tall thin vampire named Rupert said as he held the
inner door open for Jenny to follow him. 

He was dressed like a butler, and Jenny could only guess at his actual age,
somewhere around 500 years old. And in all that time he had served Lothos
loyally. 

"Ms. Calendar, I understand there are problems with my daughter's training?"
The cat-eyed dark figure of a man sitting behind a large and expensive
wooden desk said. 

"Yes, the step mother has found out about Beth, she wants to meet me. She is
an FBI agent, one who knows much about the masquerade. She has done work for
Majentic, I believe she is a balancer: One who walks in the spaces between
the worlds." Jenny said as professionally as she could.

"What does the old woman say?" Lothos asked turning his head as he spoke.

"She will say nothing. She did not want the clan to send me on this mission,
so she washed her hands of it. The counsel sent me to train the girl. I
haven't asked the others yet. I wanted to tell you first. If you had asked
the counsel seers, then you are asking Wolfram and Hart's seers to look into
it as well. And they may see more of what you plan than you want them too. I
thought you should decide this matter." Jenny answered carefully. A wrong
answer would end with her death, and maybe a clan war. The elder woman of
her clan truly did not want to be involved in this matter. The clan was
actually divided over the chief's decisions. Jenny personally felt her
chief's days were number as it was, but she really had no choice in the job.
Too many markers were owned. Both she and Tara were easy pawns to sacrifice;
Jenny understood that going in. 

"How is she taking the training. Is it working?" Lothos asked.

"We are only in the first stages, but she is doing well. I think she even
likes most of it. She is powerful, as are all your children. I can tell she
is gaining more control over her body after each session." Jenny replied
carefully.

"But is she awaking?" Lothos asked, fangs gleaming at the gypsy witch. 

"She was awakened before we started. Each day the cat wants to hunt that
much more. I think she will be ready to shape shift early. Maybe as soon as
a year from now. She is only 17 almost 18 now. But I can feel the cat inside
her." Jenny explained.

"She will walk into the fire, yes, I can feel that. Impregnating one of Van
Helsings great grand children was a good choice. The Van Helsings are
natural slayers. Beth is going to be my little enforcer. Wolfram and Hart
were wise to have one of their lesser peons marry the woman. I believe my
daughter has a half sister, who has the slayer blood in her as well. When
she is older I plan to use her as breeding material as well." Lothos said
proudly, as he thought about his future plans. Jenny could actually hear
manic laugher in her head as he spoke. She had been told Lothos thought of
women in general as nothing more than breeders, or servants. 

"Meet with the step mother, if she is protected as you think then work a
deal with her. She must understand the girl has to be trained. And the
little witch, the blond assistant of yours. My daughter fancy's her, yes?"
Lothos said.

"I believe Beth has a small crush on Tara." Jenny said nervously. She liked
Tara; she really didn't want to have to kill her. She would if Lothos
ordered, but she wouldn't enjoy it. 

"For now encourage it, about her other lovers, the boy Pike, I am seeing
that he leaves the city. I have arranged for him to take a job in Denver. I
don't want him harmed. It is important Beth not be alarmed by those
possibilities just yet. I want her to come to me willingly. The cheerleader
is of no threat, so Beth may continue seeing her. Did you know the girl is a
seer, or will be when she is awakened, the power should come to her on her
20th birthday," Lothos said teeth still gleaming. He was pleased to have
information Jenny didn't have. 

"Cordelia Chase is going to be a seer, I feel nothing from her." Jenny
answered, knowing her ignorance was what he was testing her on. Knowing too
much or not enough was dangerous. 

"It is deep inside her, and she is not awakened yet. But the fact she and my
daughter were drawn together must mean something. At any rate she can't get
my daughter pregnant so there is no harm from their relationship. I also
want the relationship with the blond healer witch continued, tell Tara to
bed the girl on her own. Her sex drive needs feeding at this stage, as much
as her need for blood is going to increase. She will need more than a simple
high school cheerleader to meet her needs. For now keep her away from male
lovers, I know she may bed a few, it's in her nature to do so, but I don't
want her pregnant. My daughter with a child at this stage would be
dangerous. I want her loyal to me, before she breeds." Lothos said letting
his full game face surface. Jenny turned her head and shook in her chair.
The feel and look of pure evil was not easy to be near. She cried out as his
fangs pieced her skin. Jenny knew he was just tasting her, marking her as
his property. He would not kill her this time. But the touch of evil
couldn't be washed away.


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