FIC: The Two - [4a/?] - R

[Andy Stoffel <see2go4me@xxxxxxxxx>]

TITLE:  The Two (4a/?)
AUTHOR: -Andy- (see2go4me@xxxxxxxxx)
RATING: This part: PG-13, R overall
STATUS: WiP
DISCLAIMER: This is a derivative work. All characters belong to
Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Fox Television, and others. I don't
own any of this, just the words gluing my story together.
SUMMARY: Buffy meets a different kind of Willow in an alternate
universe. (It's gonna be a B/W folks. Eventually. But not right
away.)
SPOILERS: All seasons of BtVS. AU after "Chosen" so no Angel
Season 5.
DISTRIBUTION: buffywantswillow and my blog fanfic pages. Anyone
else, e-mail me please. I probably won't say no.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: 
[1] Do I need to repeat the part about the possible posting
frequency of parts 6 thru X ?

- - -

Part 4a - "Conversations with Slayers"

Even though she'd collapsed into an exhausted sleep in her motel
room, Buffy wasn't able to stay that way for long. When she woke
up several hours later her slayer intuition was loudly insisting
that something evil and unknown was lurking somewhere in town,
ready to pounce on an unsuspecting populace. Quickly adjusting
to the lack of any evil permeating this version of Sunnydale was
going to be more difficult than she'd thought.

In her head she kept telling herself that she should relax and
enjoy the peace and quiet of what appeared to be a hellmouth
free town, but the inner turmoil was preventing her from getting
more than several hours of much needed sleep. Staring at her
tired eyes in the bathroom mirror, she hoped it was only a
temporary condition.

It was her first full evening in this town and she intended to
get a good look at the local nightlife. From a map she'd
purchased earlier at a small newspaper stand, it looked like
there were less than half the cemeteries as in her old Sunnydale
and none of the names seemed familiar. She was mildly surprised
the town itself had a name she recognized if it was that
different. 

Hopefully somewhere in the evening's itinerary she could track
down the local hellmouth. The town felt free of the kind of evil
that a hellmouth continuously expelled, so it had been closed
for a long time, assuming it was even there. But Buffy still
wanted to know where it was. She also wanted to do more than
visit the local cemeteries. But the local demon bars, if any,
would have to wait for another day. She still didn't know enough
about the area to risk any confrontations before she was ready.

Looking around as she headed towards the center of town from her
motel, Buffy was surprised at a trait that this peaceful looking
Sunnydale shared with her former hometown. The streets she
travelled seemed fairly deserted after dark and the people she
did see moved in groups of three or more, giving her a wide
berth when they saw she was by herself. This wasn't normal
behavior for most small towns but she hadn't detected anything
yet which would explain it. Buffy could only assume that
something she didn't recognize was going on. Even the local
all-night diner seemed close to deserted when she stopped
briefly to check it out.

Visiting all of the cemeteries, the only evidence of vampires
Buffy could find was at least a day old. To her trained eyes it
looked like the slayer had caught one before it was able to
escape from its grave. Not how she'd been trained but very
effective if the goal was to dust vampires while avoiding a
confrontation. She hadn't seen enough of the slayer in action to
know if this was her typical staking method but she anticipated
seeing that it was. It explained a few things that were puzzling
her.

They were very quiet cemeteries. Buffy suspected this was normal
for this Sunnydale but planned on confirming it at some point
with the younger slayer. If she'd had to patrol quiet ones like
this when she'd first come to Sunnydale she would have gone
gradually crazy from the boredom. While she'd never really
become as steeped in the adrenaline rush of slaying as Faith,
she couldn't deny how alive slaying used to make her feel. 

Based on this evidence, the five vampires from the previous
night were probably not local. This had her wondering what had
brought them to Sunnydale. If the hellmouth was closed so
tightly that even she couldn't sense its presence, what was the
attraction? And why was there a new slayer in a town with almost
no vampires. There was a chance it was all unrelated but Buffy
really needed more answers and not just the vague ideas and
feelings cluttering her thoughts before she formed an opinion.

Finding the slayer couldn't be too difficult. In her exploration
of the local cemeteries, Buffy had seen only one fresh grave
less than twenty four hours old. While she hadn't sensed the
presence of a vampire in it the slayer was sure to come by to
check it out just in case. If she'd ever had such a sleepy town
to patrol that's what she would do.

Returning to the cemetery where she'd seen the grave, Buffy
settled down to wait for her to arrive, perched cross legged on
top of a large, nearby headstone. Breathing in the cool night
air and meditating to expand her awareness of her surroundings
as Willow had recently begun to teach her, Buffy unconsciously
twirled a stake in her left hand and waited for the subtle
presence of the young slayer to appear at the edge of her
consciousness.

She'd been meditating for less than an hour, when she felt the
slayer approaching the cemetery. Buffy opened her eyes and she
seemed to appear out of thin air. If Buffy hadn't noticed her as
she entered the cemetery she would have been taken by surprise.

"Well, hello! Looks like you have the physical part of being
stealthy under control. Too bad there are demons, including
vampires, who would have no trouble sensing you from a
distance." Buffy began in her best imitation of a Giles-like
tone. "You really need to start working on the metaphysical side
of being a slayer."

"What do you mean?" asked a shocked slayer. "How can a demon
sense me from a distance?" she asked with a bit of concern. 

Relieved that she wouldn't have to deal with an overtly hostile
slayer, Buffy went with the simplest explanation. She wasn't
sure she could give Willow's explanation for the whole
slayer/vampire attraction without making a mess of it. She
wasn't even sure she really understood it herself. "Do you know
what an aura is? And how to look at one? Hopefully without
getting a headache?" 

"Yes. I've been learning about them but I'm not very good at
seeing them yet. If I try really hard..." Looking at Buffy with
a look of intense concentration on her face she murmured "but
today must be one of the 'not doing it too good' days. I can't
seem to see yours. It's like you aren't here. It wasn't there
yesterday when I tried it also."

"It's there. And so am I. I've just learned how to make it less
obvious if I don't want anyone to see it." She wasn't going to
admit she'd just learned how to do it and didn't have much
control over it once she'd 'turned it on'. "Comes in handy when
avoiding demons and other creatures. You, on the other hand, I
could sense when you walked into the cemetery." Buffy paused in
thought for a moment. "There must not be many demons or vampires
around here. You should be a demon magnet with that bright aura.
And a vampire, unless it is very stupid or very arrogant, can
tell a slayer is around and would stay far away. Unfortunately,
too many of them are both."

"And the vampires last night? Where do they fit in?"

"Just plain dumb minions. Somewhere there must be a master
vampire who was pulling their strings." Tracking it down would
give her something to do if she became bored, Buffy thought
before continuing. "They didn't know why they were supposed to
bring you to him, which would have been useful to know, but it
certainly wasn't for fashion tips."

"Why do you keep insulting my clothes? Not exactly the height of
fashion yourself. And what makes you a vampire expert!" a
petulant slayer asked. "There is only one vampire slayer in
Sunnydale and that's me!"

"You aren't the only person who has ever fought vampires, young
lady!" Buffy said. For a horrifying moment she felt like she was
channeling her mother. "I've managed to learn quite a bit about
them in eight years of chasing the bloodsuckers. There are
things you can only learn through experience... and any minute
now I'll also start channeling Giles. Yuck!" She shuddered at
the thought.

"Who or what is a Giles?"

"He was my teacher. Taught me everything I didn't learn from
experience. Didn't do too badly, even if he did start out as a
watcher. And you have no idea what a watcher is do you?" she
said rhetorically, remembering the blank look she had received
when she'd brought up the subject the previous night. "You must
have someone who teaches you and has trained you how to fight
demons and vampires? Being a slayer isn't an automatic free pass
from the Powers that Be for evil fighting skills. It just makes
it a lot easier to learn them. Where I come from a watcher
belongs to an organization that trains slayers."

"No... when I became the Slayer," Buffy could almost hear the
quotes when she said that, "the local coven trained me and gave
me a Guide to help me when I need it. And I get to use their
training room at their house, where my Guide lives. She's also
the computer teacher at my high school and knows my sister."

Buffy thought she sounded like an eager puppy. "So your family
trusts her? I'm assuming they don't know anything about
vampires." Buffy wondered what was going on here. A coven
involved in fighting? She hadn't heard of that before. The ones
she knew were very anti-violence. Hopefully they treated their
slayers much better than the Watchers council had treated
theirs. Another thing to look into when boredom struck. 

She could feel herself getting restless. She hopped off the
headstone. Her other questions could wait. She needed to burn
some energy.  She wasn't sure what she was going to do but
sitting here talking wasn't going to do it. "I have to run. I'll
talk with you more tomorrow."

Before she could get completely away, the slayer blurted out "My
Guide wants to meet you after school tomorrow."

"I'm busy tomorrow but if I have a chance I'll look her up."
Hmmm, Buffy wondered, Wiccan computer teacher. Someone she knew
from her Sunnydale? It had been a while since she'd thought
about Jenny Calendar. "She wouldn't happen to be a short
brunette? Sort of Gypsy looking?"

"Who? Ms. Rosenberg? She's had long red hair as long as I've
known her. And she's taller than you!" Dawn made a face. "All of
the boys in her classes have crushes on her, and some of the
girls too. Not sure why. And her taste in girlfriends? Ewww...
she even dated my sister in college. They've always been good
friends but that was a mess. Beth can be such an airhead some
times..."

"Okay." Cutting her off before she could say more, Buffy
frowned. This was more than she wanted to know, especially about
her potential double here. She really didn't plan on being
around long enough to get involved in the personal lives of
these people. "Just let her know that I'll catch up with her
tomorrow." 

After a quick glance around, Buffy slipped out of sight into the
woods. The young slayer attempted to follow her with her eyes
for a minute before shrugging her shoulders and leaving, with
Buffy shadowing her, well out of sight, through several other
cemeteries, the Sunnydale docks, and finally home. 

In the process she also dusted several vampires who seemed to be
spying on the oblivious slayer. Something else someone should
talk with her about. A predictable patrol route was not a good
thing even in a sleepy town like this sleepy version of
Sunnydale.

- - -

Having burned off enough energy trailing the younger slayer to
at least calm her restlessness, and without finding any evidence
of a hellmouth, Buffy headed back to her motel room to get a few
more hours of sleep. Lying there, staring at the ceiling, Buffy
wasn't sure if she could handle seeing another familiar person
from her past without losing it. This Sunnydale itself was
different enough that it was like being somewhere else. She
suspected this town had never experienced an immortal mayor
intent on ascending to full demonhood. 

And this Dawn, the slayer, was also very different from her
sister. The innocence, the sense of always experiencing the
world fresh every day that her sister exhibited, even during the
worst of their  battles with evil, wasn't there. This girl was a
slayer and that changed someone. She wasn't sure if she would be
able to address her by name but she wouldn't be confusing one
for the other any time soon.

And then there was this girl's sister, this Beth. She hadn't met
her and had no desire to see what another universes' version of
her would be like. From the things the slayer had already said
this sounded like it could be a non-slayer version of herself,
though her double being gay was a truly unexpected difference.
Seeing how she might have been if she hadn't become the slayer
was an experience she hoped to avoid.

On the other hand, this Ms. Rosenberg sounded a bit like her
Willow, with the red hair, computer teaching, preference in
companions, and being a Wiccan. Meeting her without falling
apart was going to be tough. No matter how much they'd grown
apart in the past few years, she still missed her former best
friend. If Willow had been with her she just knew they would
have been well on their way home already. As far as she could
remember it had only been two days since she'd last seen her but
it felt like a lot longer.

- - -

TBC in Part 4b.

- - -

-Andy-



=====
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Willow: "It's a good fight, Buffy, and I want in."
Buffy:  "I kinda love you."
                     'Choices'

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