Fic - The Reunion - 1/2
Title: The Reunion
Rating: FRAO (adults only!)
Pairing: None
Summary: Giles is transported to the U.S.S. Enterprise
Setting: Vaguely in season 5, post-Into The Woods; vaguely somewhere in amongst the Next Gen movies; no specific timeframe, really.
Disclaimers: Buffy is Joss's baby; Trek is Roddenberry's. All hail Roddenberry. All. do something with Joss. I don't care. Sod off, all of you.
Written for: sexyfoxcat
---
Things had finally quieted down on the Enterprise. And about time, too. Q showing up, people falling out of the sky, delegates disappearing into thin air; these sorts of things were not the type that made Jean-Luc Picard a happy man. And when Jean-Luc Picard was unhappy, his command crew grew nervous. When things were quiet, though, as they had been for the last three or four months, and Captain Picard could assume his guise of debonair philosopher, reader of great literature, thinker, orator and explorer. Beverly Crusher quirked a slight smile. He was so funny like that.
Out of the corner of his eye, Captain Picard saw his Chief Medical Officer smile, and he turned with an eyebrow raised. “Something amusing, Doctor?”
Beverly’s small smile turned into a wicked grin. “Actually, yes,” she said. “I was just thinking about how quiet it’s been lately. I mean, it’s been close to a year since anyone fell out of thin air onto the bridge.”
As the words left her mouth, a huge energy distortion opened up at the topmost point of the bridge ceiling. Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed out from it, and then, with the whistling sound of a falling meteor, a young woman’s body tumbled out to land on the center of the bridge floor. The distortion closed. All was silence for thirty seconds or so, and then Picard turned to Crusher. “I want you to know that I hold you personally responsible.”
Biting her lip and blushing furiously, Beverly dropped to her knees next to the young woman, scanning her with a medical tricorder. As she scanned, all traces of humor disappeared from her face, and she slapped her combadge. “Crusher to Sickbay, medical emergency incoming!” She slapped it again. “Crusher to transporter room three, two to beam directly to sickbay!” She and the young woman both vanished in a haze of blue light.
Picard stood and turned to his first officer. “Number One, you have the bridge. I’m going to go see what’s going on with our newest guest.” With a wry face, he headed into the turbolift and ordered it to take him to deck twelve. When he arrived, he entered the medical suite to find Crusher and two nurses working frantically to revive the girl, who had apparently just flatlined.
Doctor Crusher shouted for twenty cc’s of something that ended with “-zine” and Ogawa handed her a hypospray. She injected the girl and then used a defibrillator. Once. Twice. Three times. “Come on,” Crusher urged the dead girl. “Come on. Come back to me!” She used the defibrillator again and, quite suddenly, the girl drew a sharp breath. Her heart beat once, strongly, and then again, and again, and again. The spikes on the monitor timed each beat, and they all maintained their strength. Her breathing was steady and deep. Beverly leaned over, watching the girl’s face. After a moment, luminous hazel eyes began to flutter and the girl gave a soft moan.
Beverly stepped back a bit, giving the girl some room, and both of the girl’s hands went to her head. “Ohhhh my God,” she moaned. “Anybody get the license number off of that truck?”
Crusher and Picard exchanged glances. Had the girl lost her mind? The doctor reached over with a hypospray. “I’m going to give you something for pain,” she said, and the girl jerked back.
“No,” she said, her eyes coming wide open. She started looking around, clearly frightened. “Where am I? Who are you people?” Her muscles were tensing and she was clearly going into fight-or-flight mode.
“Please try to stay calm,” Beverly said soothingly. “You’re all right. You’re in Sickbay, and I’m Dr. Beverly Crusher.”
“Sickbay?” the girl replied, clearly not calmed down at all. “What the hell is a Sickbay?”
“It’s a medical facility on a starship,” Beverly replied, and the girl came off the biobed as if she’d been shot from a cannon.
“A starship? Look, lady, I don’t know what kind of crack you’ve been smoking, but there’s no such thing as starships and I think you’d better let me go.” Her eyes began to dart around the room, clearly mapping escape routes.
Picard stepped forward, his hand extended. “Young woman, please,” he began, but she fell quite fluidly into a defensive crouch.
“Don’t come close to me,” she demanded. “I swear to God I’ll get violent.”
Picard took a step back. “That really won’t be necessary.”
The girl uncoiled a bit as he stepped back, but remained tense and wary. Picard took a moment to study her. She was very small, probably not much over five feet, and slender, but there was something about her that suggested power. She held herself as though her body were a weapon and she knew how to use it to best advantage. Her hair was long and blonde, she was dressed in a loose white shirt of some woven material and her pants were of a sturdy blue material. Her shoes were dark and shiny. She was a lovely girl, and she was also clearly terrified. “Please,” he said gently, “will you come and sit? We can perhaps attempt to ascertain why you are here and what exactly has happened.”
She blinked, her body relaxing somewhat. “You sound like…” she shook her head. “Wiggins.”
Picard quirked an eyebrow. “Like…?”
She shook her head. “S-somebody I used to know,” she said, and there was a crack in her voice when she said it. “Somebody that’s… not around any more. It doesn’t matter.” She straightened up, throwing her shoulders back as she seemed to come to some decision. “Fine. Let’s talk. We’ll start with you proving I’m on a spaceship.”
--
They took her to one of the observation rooms on deck nine and let her look out the windows. She stood there for about ten minutes, her hands on the transparent aluminum windows, staring out at the scene. They were currently in orbit around Amot Four, which boasted a spectacular set of rings as well as three very lovely moons. Finally she turned around, leaned back against the window and slid down into a sitting position in the floor, hugging her knees to her chest. She looked up at the ceiling, her head falling back against the transparent aluminum. “I should have known,” she said softly.
“I beg your pardon?” Counselor Troi asked, glancing from Picard to the girl.
She raised her head with a world-weary expression. “My name is Buffy,” she said softly. “Buffy Summers. And… I should have known it wasn’t going to be over.” She shook her head, then leaned it back against the window. “It’s never over.”
“Do you know something about what’s happened here?” Picard asked, moving to sit in a chair near Buffy.
She looked up again. “You’ll never believe me,” she said in a flat voice.
“Why don’t you try us?” Troi asked. “We’re somewhat used to odd occurrences.”
Buffy gave an indelicate snort. “Okay, fine. What happened? I jumped off a tower into a dimensional portal that was opened by a hellgoddess.” She craned her head around to look out the window. “But of course I couldn’t just die, could I? How could I possibly have expected things to be so simple? California to deep space in three point two seconds.”
Picard looked at Troi. The girl had to be insane. Troi shrugged. “I can sense no deception, Captain. And there’s no dementia present, either.”
“I’m not crazy,” Buffy said softly from the window. “Stuff like this happens to me all the time.” She sighed. “I guess I’ll be here until I go home. Is there at least a gym on this boat?”
--
Rupert Giles had gotten a bit lonely in the weeks after his very good Watcher friend James Evans and his Slayer, Melissa Watson, had been transferred to the U.S.S. Reliant, and he had moped about for perhaps a week before what had become, in his mind, the Incident. He’d been minding his own business, lost on one of the lower decks, when he came across a signboard with notices of interest to the residents of the ship. He’d stopped to read it and been caught by an announcement of an archaeology exhibit in one of the large multipurpose rooms. He had nothing better to do, so he went. At first, he found himself alone, but the room was soon filled by the chatter of children: the twelve-and-thirteen year old class had come on a field trip.
For about the first ten minutes, the children had simply roamed the room, making comments to each other. Then the teacher had spotted Giles. She made a beeline toward him. “Excuse me… are you working the exhibit?”
“Oh, no, madam,” he responded regretfully. “Merely an interested observer. I have done some archaeological work in my time, mostly when I was a younger man, and thought this would be an interesting exhibit. And it has been,” he added. “Techniques have changed somewhat since I did any work.”
“Really?” The young teacher’s eyes glowed with interest. “Would… would you mind very much speaking a bit to my students about the work you did?”
Giles was startled but honored. “I should be happy to,” he replied honestly, and she called her young flock together. He enraptured them all for perhaps forty minutes with a description of twentieth-century archaeology techniques and of being on a dig which used just those techniques. As he lectured, people who had drifted into the exhibit drifted over to listen to him, and one of those people was Jean-Luc Picard.
Picard listened, fascinated, as the Englishman from the past spoke about his experiences on Earth digs. Archaeology was one of his passions, and to learn that this man knew so much about it was a very pleasant surprise. He rather thought he and Rupert Giles would need to have a nice long chat in Ten-Forward some evening very soon. When the Englishman finished speaking and his audience began to drift away, looking at the exhibits now with new interest, Picard moved forward. “Absolutely fascinating,” he said.
Giles smiled slightly. “Oh, yes? I should have rather thought, to a man who has seen so much of the galaxy, that simple Earth archaeology - rather primitive by your standards - might be, shall we say, boring?”
“Archaeology is one of my few passions,” Picard replied with a half-smile. “Bored I was not.” Something seemed to strike him, and he took on a thoughtful expression. “You know… I might just have a proposition for you.”
“Oh?” Giles replied, curious.
“You seemed most at ease lecturing the children,” Picard observed. “It so happens that our ancient history professor for the fourteen-and-ups left the ship a few months ago; it seems the rigors of life on the frontier of the galaxy were, er… too much for him.”
Giles gave him a wry grin. “Not enough sand in him?”
“Quite,” the Frenchman replied, quirking a grin of his own. “I wondered if you might like to take his place? If, that is, you wished to stay on the Enterprise. If not, we could always arrange passage back to Earth for you.”
Giles thought about it - really, seriously thought about it - for the first time in the ten or so months that he’d been on the ship. When he’d appeared on the bridge, the ship had been out in deep space, near the very edges of the explored galaxy. There had been no talk of sending him back to Earth because it simply hadn’t been feasible. Now, though, between diplomatic missions, they were well within range of Earth - Giles could be back in England within the month, if he so chose.
But what would he do there? he asked himself. The Giles family holdings had long since passed from him to, most likely, his cousin Eliot’s descendants. How would they react if great-great-great-great-great-uncle Rupert came strolling in from the past and simply announced that he was back, and where could he sleep, please. No, that would never do. And there was no question of returning to California. Even if Sunnydale had still existed, California would hold too many memories, too many ghosts. Everywhere he turned, he would see Buffy or Willow or Xander or, God forbid, even Anya. No, California was out.
“Yes,” he said, almost without realizing he was saying it. “I’d like to stay on. I’ve taught before, and worked with that age group before.” He felt a slight pang as he said the words - ‘worked with’ was perhaps a bit mild for what he’d done - but then he shrugged. “And besides, what is there on Earth for me to return to? A bit of family to whom I’d be nothing more than a relic, a name in the family Bible to which they ascribe no meaning? No.” He shook his head. “I’d rather be where I can do some good.”
“Excellent!” Picard replied, clapping him on the shoulder. “I’ll notify the dean of students tonight, and you can make the arrangements with her tomorrow.” Then he added, “I wonder, would you care to share a cup of tea in the Ten-Forward lounge? We could perhaps discuss the differences between the archaeological digs we’ve been on.”
“I should be delighted,” Giles replied, and they headed that direction together. And if, when they passed the ship’s gymnasium, Giles thought he saw a slender, young, blonde-haired woman working the punching bags with vigor, his heart might have constricted, but he forced himself to shrug it off and move on. It wouldn’t do to be haunted by her ghost for the rest of his life.
Picard saw the girl also, recognizing her as the one who’d fallen out of the most recent dimensional portal, and briefly considered telling the man at his side about her, but eventually he decided against it. There was no indication that the two even came from the same dimension, much less the same time period and, even if they had, how likely was it that a girl from California and a man in his late forties from England would have much in common? He let it slide.
--
It wasn’t him. It wasn’t him. There was no way it could have been him. She had to stop being ridiculous. Buffy paced the sitting room of her quarters, trying very hard not to hyperventilate. There was no possible way she could have seen Giles just now on deck eleven. How could Giles be on deck eleven, anyway? Giles was gone, disappeared from Sunnydale about three months before her own dive into Glory’s portal. He was probably dead… or possibly had been turned. He certainly wasn’t on the Enterprise. Besides, the only thing on deck eleven was the swimming pool, which she’d been leaving, some crew-only stuff like the torpedo bays, and some holodecks. Even if he HAD been there, there was no way Giles could figure out how to work a holodeck. Giles was the ultimate technophobe. And wouldn’t he be in awe of her knowing that word?
Buffy dashed into her bedroom, threw herself on her bed and began to cry. Nothing had been right since Giles had vanished. The fight against Glory had gone horribly wrong without Giles there to help. Tara had been left insane, Willow was crazed on the magicks, Xander and Anya were… Xander and Anya… but she herself had been bereft. He wasn’t just her Watcher or just her best friend… he was her Giles. Her other half. She was lost and incomplete without him, and she desperately needed him now. She was trapped in some other world, some world with spaceships and aliens with big craggy foreheads that watched her intently in the gym - the alien, not his forehead - and history books, or rather, history screens on the computer monitor that said Sunnydale had been blown up and she’d founded a Slayer school in Scotland.
She needed her Giles, and she needed him in the worst way. And he was gone, millions of light-years away. Not to mention the four hundred time years. How would she ever survive without him?
--
The pattern set itself and continued over the next four weeks. A flash of blonde hair down a corridor would catch Giles’s eye, but the girl he was looking for had always disappeared by the time he got there. Several times, Buffy saw a tall, broad-shouldered man getting into a turbolift, but he was always at the end of the hall and she never could get there in time. They both thought they were going crazy and they had vastly different ways of dealing with it.
Giles threw himself into his new teaching job. He spent countless hours devising lessons that fascinated his captive audience, wielding his status as The Man from the Past as he would a weapon to get and keep their attention. Several times he used the holodeck for “field trips”, designing programs to simulate archaeological digs, or undersea adventures to places that didn’t exist any more, or even a trip to London in the 1970s, to see what the twentieth century had really been like.
Buffy spent hours each day in the gymnasium and the swimming pool, working out intensely and letting the burn of her muscles wipe the thoughts from her mind. Her body was in the best shape it had ever been, every reflex honed to razor-sharpness… but she had nothing to use it on. Until the night the alien man with the craggy forehead came into the gym dressed in workout clothes and carrying two huge two-handed swords.
The swords were each about a meter long and vaguely curved, bearing four very wicked-looking points. The huge man walked toward her and stopped at the edge of the mat she was training on. She finished her routine and then walked over to him, barely breathing deeply. “Hi.”
He gave a slight bow. “Good evening.” His voice was incredibly deep and rumbly, and his teeth were funky and jagged. If she’d met him in Sunnydale, she probably would have tried to slay him on sight. Here, though, she knew what he was - a Klingon, and one who worked for the ship captain who was so graciously letting her stay rather than dropping her off at the nearest starbase to be shipped back to Earth. But the Klingon was talking, and Buffy focused.
“I am Lieutenant Commander Worf,” he introduced himself. “I have seen you here many times, and I have watched you at your training. You seem to be quite proficient.”
“Buffy Summers,” she replied, “and I am. I’m the best.”
The best what? he wondered, but did not ask. Thus far, questioning Buffy Summers had proved to be the equivalent of questioning a potted plant, even for Counselor Troi. The girl was closemouthed about anything having to do with her or where she had come from. They knew that she was from California, and some point in Earth’s past, but that was all they knew. Rather than question, he gestured to his swords. “These are Klingon bat’leth swords,” he told her. “Have you ever fought with one?”
“No,” she said, looking interestedly at the weapons. “But I’m dying to. Well, not literally dying. But I want to. A lot. May I?” She put a hand out.
He offered her the weapon and she took it, finding its balance easily. She backed away from him and took a few practice swings, and he was surprised to see how easily she handled the weapon. “Wow,” she said. “I like this thing.”
“Would you care to spar?” he asked her.
She grinned. “Only if you don’t mind getting your butt kicked.”
They circled each other a few times and then the bat’leths rang as they crashed into each other. Worf was careful; they were not on the holodeck using holographic swords and with the safety protocols turned on. He could hurt the girl if he actually hit her.
Buffy was careful as well. The sword was heavy and incredibly sharp; if she caught him wrong, she could kill him, and then what would the Captain say?
The first few minutes of their spar were mostly test swings, each feeling out what the other was capable of. They each began to realize that they were just about on equal footing; she had her Slayer strength, but he was much larger than she and knew the weapon better than she did. The rings of the blades coming together came louder and faster, both parties whirling, jumping and kicking as they fought, and both of them wearing identical fierce smiles. At last, though, Buffy misjudged the swing of her weapon and overshot her mark. She overbalanced and he knew it, and he took advantage to kick her to the floor. She felt the edge of the bat’leth very gently touch the side of her neck. “You die,” he said, and she gave an obliging death rattle and held her breath for a few seconds. Then she rolled onto her back away from the sword and bounced to her feet.
“Awesome,” she said simply. “We’ve got to do that again.”
“I concur,” Worf said immediately. “You are a worthy opponent and a strong warrior. I look forward to our next session.” This time when he bowed, she bowed back, and they parted with a great deal of respect for each other.
--
Three nights after her first spar with Worf, the Slayer proceeded to the gymnasium as usual only to find it closed. Some sort of work was being done in the Jefferies tube behind the bench presses - she could see it through the doors - and so she had no gym for the night. A quick check of the computers showed that Worf was on duty, so there would be no holodeck spar. She thought about commandeering a holodeck and programming a gym into it, but the thought of being so completely alone with her thoughts was repugnant to her. Then she remembered something.
She backtracked toward her quarters on deck nine and stopped at the big message board at the corridor junction. Someone had organized an open-mic night in Ten-Forward, which Buffy vaguely recalled was the ship’s lounge. She remembered that nice Counselor Troi, who Buffy flatly refused to go and see, had told her about it on her first day. She cocked her head. What the hell, she finally decided. Twenty-fourth century karaoke had to beat the hell out of sitting around by herself. She went back to her quarters and rummaged through her clothing.
Nothing in her closet made her happy. She had quite a lot of clothes in the style that women on the ship wore, and while they were flattering, they also made her feel distinctly like Magenta from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. All she needed was a ray gun and a Bride-of-Frankenstein hairdo… and she knew there were ray guns available because she’d seen a security man wearing one.
However… she still had her jeans, which she’d worn on her trip through Glory’s portal, and she had her sweater. Of course, she’d ripped her sweater… but there WAS the replicator. She turned to it. “Computer, can I get clothes out of this replicator?”
“Affirmative,” the computer replied.
Buffy thought about it. “Okay, computer, here’s what I want.”
--
She slipped into the Ten-Forward lounge in her jeans, boots and a new blue halter top, her hair down around her shoulders and her makeup perfect. There was a man with yellow skin, wearing a Starfleet uniform, sitting on a chair in front of the assembled crowd and playing a violin solo. Not her thing, but maybe the evening would liven up as it went on.
She stood against the bar for two more acts - a man with a harmonica and a young woman who read incredibly emo poetry - and then turned and slid onto a barstool. This evening was probably going to turn out to be a wash; at least she could have a drink.
The bartender, a kind-faced black woman with a seriously wiggy hat on glided up to her. “Get you something?” she asked.
“Please,” Buffy replied, and then paused, realizing she had no idea what to order. “Um…”
Guinan, understanding, gave her a gentle smile. “I’m Guinan,” she said. “Did you want alcoholic or non-alcoholic?”
“Buffy Summers.” Buffy pondered, then shrugged. “What the hell, it’s not like I’m driving,” she responded flippantly. “Alcohol.”
“Well, it just happens that I’ve recently acquired some authentic Baruvian wine. I think you’ll like it.” Guinan moved away, then came back with glass in hand. “Here you go,” she said. “Anything else?”
“No, thanks,” Buffy replied. “Not unless you can make these performers get better.”
The look on Guinan’s face was that of a woman holding an incredibly amusing secret. “Oh, I think it’ll get better. Have patience.”
Buffy had patience through two glasses of very tasty Baruvian wine, and then her patience ran out. Not only did these acts mostly suck, but nobody had even attempted to chat her up all night. She stood up, getting ready to leave, but found herself restrained by a gentle hand on hers. “Patience,” Guinan said, putting a third glass on the counter. “Have some Prometheus nectar and wait. Just a few more minutes. I think you’ll see something you like.”
Buffy sighed and sat, tasting the nectar. It was actually very good, and clearly not alcoholic, so she sipped at it, trying to ignore the racket from the tuba-drum-keyboard-maraca quartet who were doing, for some reason, “White Wedding.” Buffy thought the surreality of it might just be her undoing.
When the quartet were done, there was a smattering of polite applause and the accepted silence while the next person got up to do something. Buffy was rubbing her eyes at this point and did not bother to look around. She hoped this Guinan person would be satisfied with her patience soon and let her go to bed. She heard a very soft strumming of guitar chords, and sighed. This person, at least, seemed to know what they were doing.
The chords of the song were teasingly familiar to Buffy’s ears. She knew she had heard this song before, but she couldn’t place it. At least it wasn’t “White Wedding”. She took a sip of her nectar, and very nearly choked on it when a voice began to sing.
No one knows what it’s like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes
No. No, it was impossible. She was hearing things. She had to be. Her mind was so desperate, so starved for something familiar to her - and of course all of those recent sightings - that her brain was just making it up. This was impossible.
No one knows what it’s like
To be hated
To be fated
To telling only lies
No. No. She would not look around. She wouldn’t. Buffy clutched hard at the bar for support, her drink forgotten, everything forgotten except the rush of the world around her and the voice singing in her ears.
But my dreams they aren’t as empty
As my conscience seems to be
I have hours only lonely
My love is vengeance, that’s never free
She didn’t see Guinan turn to see how Buffy liked Rupert’s singing only to get a very startled expression on her face. Guinan had known that Buffy would actually enjoy Rupert’s set - after all, the man was a very talented guitarist and had a wonderful voice - but she hadn’t expected this pale, desperate countenance or the tears streaking down the girl’s face. She moved slowly, warily toward Buffy, unsure how to approach her.
No one knows what it’s like
To feel these feelings
Like I do
And I blame you
No one bites back as hard
On their anger
None of my pain and woe
Can show through
Would this torment stop? Buffy was going to scream if the song didn’t end and the singer vanish. She couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t stand the thought of turning around, her heart in her mouth, only to see some man whom she didn’t know singing with Giles’s voice.
But my dreams they aren’t as empty
As my conscience seems to be
I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance, that’s never free.
She couldn’t take it any more. Buffy spun in her stool and stood up, preparing to face this auditory mirage and then flee to her quarters so she could scream in privacy.
She discovered that she was the only one standing; everyone else had taken seats when the soft song began. She had an unobstructed view of the guitarist.
It was Giles.
There was no doubt about it. It was Giles. It could never be anyone else.
He was looking down at his fretboard, preparing to launch into the next verse, when something tingled up the back of his spine. He raised his head and looked out at his audience.
It was Buffy. Buffy standing there in jeans and a halter top, looking like a vision from the gods. Her face was streaked with tears and she was frozen in place, as unable to move as he was to breathe. And then he forced her name out from between his lips. “Buffy!”
She gasped in the sudden, complete silence. Everyone in the room knew that something was happening, something huge, and all eyes were on the two of them. “G-G-Giles?” she whispered, as though unable to believe what her eyes and ears were telling her.
He dropped his guitar, uncaring, and came through the crowd faster than he would have thought possible. They met in the middle, she coming toward him, and wrapped their arms around each other, both weeping, her hands fisting in the back of his shirt and his closing convulsively on her shoulders as she begged him through her tears to never, ever leave her again and he swore by every god, through his own, that he would not.
--
If Jean-Luc Picard had thought he was doing the girl a favor, he found out very quickly that he was not. Her stricken eyes were the first clue, and the second was the expression of panic on her face. “G-go? B-but where? C-can’t I stay here? Please? I won’t get in anyone’s way, I swear! Please don’t make me go!”
He raised an eyebrow. “I had no idea you enjoyed our company so very much,” he replied, attempting to calm her down. “By no means am I saying that you must leave the Enterprise. I only wished to suggest that the option was open, if you so desired, to go anywhere you should choose.”
She shook her head vehemently. “Please, I want to stay here.”
He cocked his head, looking at her with knowing eyes. “Your desire to stay on my ship wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain Mr. Rupert Giles, would it?”
Buffy blushed. “Is it that obvious?” She sighed. “I can’t help it, Captain. It’s…. it’s like a dream sometimes. Just being with him, and it doesn’t matter that we aren’t in Sunnydale any more, because I know everything turned out all right. It’s just… being with him. He… he… I don’t know how to explain how much he means to me, and I thought I’d never see him again, unless it was maybe in whatever afterlife there is. But I’m alive, and he’s alive, and we’re together, and I won’t let us be separated ever again. I can’t.”
There was a kind of fierce desperation about her as she spoke, and Picard recognized it all too well - even if the girl herself didn’t, and he rather doubted that she did, yet. His perverse sense of humor wouldn’t allow him to resist a small tweak. “Well,” he said, standing up. “Far be it from me or from Starfleet to stand in the way of true love. You are welcome to stay, Buffy, for as long as you like. If at any point, you should decide you wish to be somewhere else, you have only to let me know.” He nodded once, a clear dismissal, and left the Observation Deck through the bridge door.
Buffy didn’t move for a long few moments. *True love?* Surely Picard was mistaken. She loved Giles, sure, but she wasn’t IN love… was she? As the shock began to abate, she stood and left the Observation Deck through the turbolift, dropping down to deck eight where her quarters were, and slowly began to walk down the corridors, passing her door in her complete absorption with her thoughts. She kept walking, sunk deep in herself, not stopping until she collided directly with someone coming out of their own rooms. She and the person she’d hit bounced apart, and Buffy grabbed Deanna Troi before the older woman could fall.
“Omigod! I’m so sorry!” Buffy gasped. “Are you okay?”
Deanna smiled slightly. “I’m fine. It’s all right.” Then she cocked her head at Buffy. “Perhaps I should be asking you that question.”
“I’m…” she began to say ‘fine’, but what actually came out was “…not really sure.”
One of Deanna’s eyebrows rose. “Oh?” she asked, saying nothing else.
Buffy shrugged. “I mean, it’s just… Captain Picard said something earlier that was just… completely ridiculous. Like, not even based in reality. And it kinda threw me for a loop.” She shook her head. “Just so… off the wall.”
Deanna fought hard to keep the slightly-amused expression off her face. “And who are you trying to convince that the Captain has lost his mind, me or yourself?”
Buffy’s expression crumbled into one of abject misery. “He has to be wrong. He HAS to. There’s no way I can be… what he said. I just… I just CAN’T. I can’t go through it all again, not with him. I couldn’t stand it, especially not here and not now.” And then, to Deanna’s consternation, tears began to slide down Buffy’s face. “I just can’t.”
Deanna took the younger woman’s hand. “Come. We’ll sit and talk, and see if we can’t work out just exactly what it is that’s upsetting you.”
Within fifteen minutes, both women were seated at a table against a window in Ten-Forward, looking out at the starry view and noshing on chocolate sundaes. Buffy was slowly beginning to explain why she was so torn up inside. “…So there I am, I’m seventeen, and I’ve just, y’know, done it for the first time ever with this guy, this older guy, and I thought we were so in love, but he just…” She shook her head. “Badness. Lots and lots of badness. So that was it for two years. Celibate Buffy. But then when I started college there was this guy…” Her mouth twisted. “Parker Abrams.”
Deanna listened in fascination and no small amount of horror as Buffy explained the trauma that had been the three major ‘romantic’ - using the term loosely - experiences of Buffy’s young life so far. Her virginity had been given to a man who’d wooed and seduced her and then seemingly turned into a soulless, evil monster; then her second experience had been to basically be used and tossed aside; and then her third experience, an actual and seemingly-healthy (on the outside) sexual relationship, had actually been a very skewed, man-superior dynamic (in more ways than one) in which her partner’s feelings were simply understood to be more important than her own, to the extent that Buffy’s own friends and family felt neglected by her because all of her time was spent on her partner’s friends and career. It was really enough to turn anyone off of relationships.
The Betazoid could sense the extreme emotions running rampant in the girl’s mind. Whatever else Buffy Summers did, there could be no denying that she truly FELT, with her whole mind and heart. She threw everything she had into those she loved, whether she herself realized it or not. And that was both her greatest strength and her greatest weakness for, when everything worked out well, Buffy was stronger than anyone else and could withstand anything thrown at her; however, if everything fell apart, Buffy fell with it and was reduced to near-uselessness by her extreme pain. So it was perhaps understandable that Buffy’s next words threw her for quite a loop.
“I just…” Buffy sighed. “I wish I could still FEEL,” she said softly. “But I don’t. Not any more. Not for a long time. I’m just sort of… frozen.”
“Frozen?” Deanna repeated. “What do you mean?”
Buffy sat back in her chair, debating how much she should reveal. “I… when Riley left… I realized it was my fault. Because he really did love me, and I didn’t love him. I couldn’t. And I told Giles, you know, that I thought I might be… losing that. Forgetting how. Like there was so much going on, so much I had to do, that my… my capacity for love, for those good emotions, was getting less and less.” She sighed. “So… he knew about this… this… um… you’re gonna think this sounds crazy.” She blushed.
“You’re not crazy,” Deanna replied. “Go on.”
“Okay. Um. He knew about this… this dream quest thing. It would… It was like something the Indians would do… walking out into the desert seeking a spirit guide. But he talked me into it. So I did it. And I met… my spirit guide. And she… she told me I was full of love, and she told me…” Buffy trailed off, then shook her head. “A bunch of other crap.”
“What did she tell you?” Deanna asked. When Buffy shook her head, the counselor took a risk and pressed her. “I can’t make an informed judgment without all the information available. Please, Buffy?”
Buffy sighed. “Fine. She told me death was my gift. How about that?”
Deanna paused, dumbstruck. “What? Why would she tell you that?”
An alarm went off in the back of Buffy’s head and she knew she needed to proceed here with extreme caution. “I… I’m not really sure,” Buffy said, honestly enough. She had guesses, of course, but she wasn’t sure. “At first I thought it meant I was gonna have to die to save Dawn - my sister - but then, when I jumped through the portal, I wasn’t dead. I was here. So now it doesn’t make sense. I mean… am I still gonna die? ‘Cause to be honest… I really, really don’t want to. Not now.”
Deanna could sense that there was something else to it, something deeper, but whatever it was, Buffy Summers had it locked down tight. The Betazoid couldn’t even get so much as a glimpse into what Buffy was hiding. Rather than try, she focused on what was actually said. “But you did die,” she said softly. “When you landed on the floor of the bridge, you were clinically dead. Doctor Crusher revived you in Sickbay.”
Buffy stared at her. “She did?” she asked softly. “I died? Again?”
Deanna was beginning to think she would never stop being startled by the things the younger woman said. “Again?” she repeated.
Buffy blushed. “Sorry. When I was sixteen, I drowned. I was dead for about five minutes. My friend Xander used CPR and saved my life.” She gave a slight, bitter laugh. “I seem to have a talent for dying very briefly. Maybe THAT’s my gift.”
“I sincerely doubt that,” Deanna replied firmly. “However, I do agree that it is a topic which would require further study. Perhaps some afternoon, you and Rupert and I could sit down and discuss it further?”
Judging by the slightly queasy look on the blonde girl’s face, Deanna was fairly certain that hypothetical afternoon would never come about. But Buffy gamely replied in the vaguely affirmative and then, as soon as it was polite, she bolted for the door. Deanna shook her head, watching the girl go.
“Unusual, isn’t she?”
Deanna turned to find Guinan standing near her, wearing that knowing expression she specialized in. “Quite,” the counselor replied. “I take it you’ve had some contact?”
Guinan nodded. “I was working the night she and Rupert found each other.”
“Ah.” Deanna nodded. She wished she hadn’t missed that evening, but she’d already had a dinner date with Will and so had been absent. “I’ve heard it was… very emotional.”
“Yes, it was,” Guinan replied with a slight chuckle. “You could have cut the tension with a knife.”
“You still could,” Deanna groused softly. “I just can’t get her to open up.”
“You won’t,” Guinan replied. “Not unless he tells her she can.”
Deanna’s eyebrows raised up. “You don’t think so?”
Guinan shook her head. “I’m certain of it. They’ve got an odd relationship. In some ways, she seems to be the dominant one. She bosses him around, pouts until she gets her way, and generally seems to have him wrapped around her finger. But all he has to do is look at her a certain way, or say something in a certain tone of voice, and she does exactly what he wants her to do. He’s the one that’s in charge, and she won’t make a move without his approval. And I’m not even sure they know it.”
“How very fascinating,” Deanna murmured, looking toward the door the girl had vanished out of. “Fascinating.”
**
“Giles?”
“Mmm?”
“Can you please pull out of the Chronicles for a few minutes? We need to talk.”
He glanced up absently, then smiled. “Buffy! When did you come in?”
She rolled her eyes. “Just now, when I said your name.”
“Oh. Ah. Yes. Sorry. A bit distracted.”
“I know.” She draped herself across his couch. “Thanks for setting the door lock, by the way. It’s a lot more convenient than standing outside pushing the doorbell for half an hour and looking like a moron.”
“You know that my home is always open to you, Buffy,” he replied simply.
She paused. “It is, isn’t it?” she said softly. “It always has been. Even back in Sunnydale, despite what or who could just come prancing in, you always left the door unlocked for me.” She graced him with a sincere smile and he felt his heart skip a beat. “Thank you, Giles.”
“Y-yes, well,” he stammered, pulling his glasses off and cleaning them. “W-What was it that you needed to discuss with me?”
“A couple of things, actually.” She chewed her lip for a moment, thinking back on Captain Picard’s words. *True love* Well, they’d just see, wouldn’t they? She drew in a deep breath, and then blurted, “W-We, um… Captain Picard said we’re gonna be docked at Deep Space Nine for a few days, with planetary access, and I was wondering if you wanted to go down to Bajor with me. M-Maybe do some sightseeing?”
“Certainly,” Giles replied with a smile. “That would be lovely. I understand there are quite a lot of fascinating things to see on Bajor.”
“Cool.” She smiled nervously. *We’ll see.* Then she frowned. “The other thing… Giles, I… I think… we might have to tell some people about… about the Slayer stuff.”
She had his immediate and undivided attention. “Tell me why you feel that way,” he said evenly.
Buffy bit her lip. “Well, it… it’s like this…” She trailed off, searching for where to begin, and finally just decided to talk and hope she made sense. “Okay well, there’s the whole sparring thing. Which I’ve been doing. A couple of times. With Lieutenant Worf. He’s got the coolest swords, you should totally see them, they’re called bat’leths, and they’re two-handed, and they’ve got the best balance - and you really don’t care about that right now.” She blushed. “But anyway… he’s gonna start wondering, if he isn’t already, about how I can take him down half the time. He’s way bigger than me, and stronger than the average human type person. So he’s gonna wonder how I’m so much stronger, too.
“And then there’s Counselor Troi.” Buffy stood and began to pace, trying to articulate her feelings about the exotic woman. “She’s so nice, and she really wants to help, and I… I think… I…” she stumbled over her words.
“You think you might like to talk to her?” Giles asked softly, divining her turmoil immediately. “You’ve been thinking you need, perhaps, an impartial ear into which you might pour out your troubles, troubles which you feel uncomfortable bringing to me?”
She nodded miserably. “It’s not that I don’t want to, Giles, really. I just…”
He came to her, took her hand, and smiled gently into her eyes. “I understand,” he said softly. “It’s a hard shock, coming from California to this place, and having no one. You want to talk to someone, express your anger, your confusion, and even your grief at having been ripped away from all that you know and love. And who better than the person whose job it is to listen?”
Buffy’s face was almost pathetically grateful. “I should have known you’d understand.”
“Buffy,” he said softly, “I utilized the Counselor’s services myself a few times when I first came. I, however, have the advantage of simply being a normal human. I could describe the work I did in California, and my relationship with all of you, in terms which would not raise eyebrows. You, however, are the Slayer, and there are no euphemisms for that.” He nodded. “I agree with you on both points, and I think you are correct. Lieutenant Worf will undoubtedly seek an explanation, especially if I observe your sparring as you requested before. And Counselor Troi could be of little help to you without a thorough explanation of exactly who and what you are.” He tapped his chin with a finger. “And of course, once we tell either or both of them, we can expect that Captain Picard will immediately learn about this.”
Buffy nodded. “And probably Doctor Crusher, too. Because she’s like, the head doctor.”
Giles made a rueful face. “Perhaps we should simply place a notice on the community boards,” he snarked, but there was no heat behind his words. He knew that they had to come clean. “Well,” he admitted grudgingly, “at least we can be assured that our secrets will be safe with that group of people.”
“Always assuming they don’t have us locked up in the nearest looney bin,” Buffy replied cheerfully.
--
See next post.
Rating: FRAO (adults only!)
Pairing: None
Summary: Giles is transported to the U.S.S. Enterprise
Setting: Vaguely in season 5, post-Into The Woods; vaguely somewhere in amongst the Next Gen movies; no specific timeframe, really.
Disclaimers: Buffy is Joss's baby; Trek is Roddenberry's. All hail Roddenberry. All. do something with Joss. I don't care. Sod off, all of you.
Written for: sexyfoxcat
---
Things had finally quieted down on the Enterprise. And about time, too. Q showing up, people falling out of the sky, delegates disappearing into thin air; these sorts of things were not the type that made Jean-Luc Picard a happy man. And when Jean-Luc Picard was unhappy, his command crew grew nervous. When things were quiet, though, as they had been for the last three or four months, and Captain Picard could assume his guise of debonair philosopher, reader of great literature, thinker, orator and explorer. Beverly Crusher quirked a slight smile. He was so funny like that.
Out of the corner of his eye, Captain Picard saw his Chief Medical Officer smile, and he turned with an eyebrow raised. “Something amusing, Doctor?”
Beverly’s small smile turned into a wicked grin. “Actually, yes,” she said. “I was just thinking about how quiet it’s been lately. I mean, it’s been close to a year since anyone fell out of thin air onto the bridge.”
As the words left her mouth, a huge energy distortion opened up at the topmost point of the bridge ceiling. Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed out from it, and then, with the whistling sound of a falling meteor, a young woman’s body tumbled out to land on the center of the bridge floor. The distortion closed. All was silence for thirty seconds or so, and then Picard turned to Crusher. “I want you to know that I hold you personally responsible.”
Biting her lip and blushing furiously, Beverly dropped to her knees next to the young woman, scanning her with a medical tricorder. As she scanned, all traces of humor disappeared from her face, and she slapped her combadge. “Crusher to Sickbay, medical emergency incoming!” She slapped it again. “Crusher to transporter room three, two to beam directly to sickbay!” She and the young woman both vanished in a haze of blue light.
Picard stood and turned to his first officer. “Number One, you have the bridge. I’m going to go see what’s going on with our newest guest.” With a wry face, he headed into the turbolift and ordered it to take him to deck twelve. When he arrived, he entered the medical suite to find Crusher and two nurses working frantically to revive the girl, who had apparently just flatlined.
Doctor Crusher shouted for twenty cc’s of something that ended with “-zine” and Ogawa handed her a hypospray. She injected the girl and then used a defibrillator. Once. Twice. Three times. “Come on,” Crusher urged the dead girl. “Come on. Come back to me!” She used the defibrillator again and, quite suddenly, the girl drew a sharp breath. Her heart beat once, strongly, and then again, and again, and again. The spikes on the monitor timed each beat, and they all maintained their strength. Her breathing was steady and deep. Beverly leaned over, watching the girl’s face. After a moment, luminous hazel eyes began to flutter and the girl gave a soft moan.
Beverly stepped back a bit, giving the girl some room, and both of the girl’s hands went to her head. “Ohhhh my God,” she moaned. “Anybody get the license number off of that truck?”
Crusher and Picard exchanged glances. Had the girl lost her mind? The doctor reached over with a hypospray. “I’m going to give you something for pain,” she said, and the girl jerked back.
“No,” she said, her eyes coming wide open. She started looking around, clearly frightened. “Where am I? Who are you people?” Her muscles were tensing and she was clearly going into fight-or-flight mode.
“Please try to stay calm,” Beverly said soothingly. “You’re all right. You’re in Sickbay, and I’m Dr. Beverly Crusher.”
“Sickbay?” the girl replied, clearly not calmed down at all. “What the hell is a Sickbay?”
“It’s a medical facility on a starship,” Beverly replied, and the girl came off the biobed as if she’d been shot from a cannon.
“A starship? Look, lady, I don’t know what kind of crack you’ve been smoking, but there’s no such thing as starships and I think you’d better let me go.” Her eyes began to dart around the room, clearly mapping escape routes.
Picard stepped forward, his hand extended. “Young woman, please,” he began, but she fell quite fluidly into a defensive crouch.
“Don’t come close to me,” she demanded. “I swear to God I’ll get violent.”
Picard took a step back. “That really won’t be necessary.”
The girl uncoiled a bit as he stepped back, but remained tense and wary. Picard took a moment to study her. She was very small, probably not much over five feet, and slender, but there was something about her that suggested power. She held herself as though her body were a weapon and she knew how to use it to best advantage. Her hair was long and blonde, she was dressed in a loose white shirt of some woven material and her pants were of a sturdy blue material. Her shoes were dark and shiny. She was a lovely girl, and she was also clearly terrified. “Please,” he said gently, “will you come and sit? We can perhaps attempt to ascertain why you are here and what exactly has happened.”
She blinked, her body relaxing somewhat. “You sound like…” she shook her head. “Wiggins.”
Picard quirked an eyebrow. “Like…?”
She shook her head. “S-somebody I used to know,” she said, and there was a crack in her voice when she said it. “Somebody that’s… not around any more. It doesn’t matter.” She straightened up, throwing her shoulders back as she seemed to come to some decision. “Fine. Let’s talk. We’ll start with you proving I’m on a spaceship.”
--
They took her to one of the observation rooms on deck nine and let her look out the windows. She stood there for about ten minutes, her hands on the transparent aluminum windows, staring out at the scene. They were currently in orbit around Amot Four, which boasted a spectacular set of rings as well as three very lovely moons. Finally she turned around, leaned back against the window and slid down into a sitting position in the floor, hugging her knees to her chest. She looked up at the ceiling, her head falling back against the transparent aluminum. “I should have known,” she said softly.
“I beg your pardon?” Counselor Troi asked, glancing from Picard to the girl.
She raised her head with a world-weary expression. “My name is Buffy,” she said softly. “Buffy Summers. And… I should have known it wasn’t going to be over.” She shook her head, then leaned it back against the window. “It’s never over.”
“Do you know something about what’s happened here?” Picard asked, moving to sit in a chair near Buffy.
She looked up again. “You’ll never believe me,” she said in a flat voice.
“Why don’t you try us?” Troi asked. “We’re somewhat used to odd occurrences.”
Buffy gave an indelicate snort. “Okay, fine. What happened? I jumped off a tower into a dimensional portal that was opened by a hellgoddess.” She craned her head around to look out the window. “But of course I couldn’t just die, could I? How could I possibly have expected things to be so simple? California to deep space in three point two seconds.”
Picard looked at Troi. The girl had to be insane. Troi shrugged. “I can sense no deception, Captain. And there’s no dementia present, either.”
“I’m not crazy,” Buffy said softly from the window. “Stuff like this happens to me all the time.” She sighed. “I guess I’ll be here until I go home. Is there at least a gym on this boat?”
--
Rupert Giles had gotten a bit lonely in the weeks after his very good Watcher friend James Evans and his Slayer, Melissa Watson, had been transferred to the U.S.S. Reliant, and he had moped about for perhaps a week before what had become, in his mind, the Incident. He’d been minding his own business, lost on one of the lower decks, when he came across a signboard with notices of interest to the residents of the ship. He’d stopped to read it and been caught by an announcement of an archaeology exhibit in one of the large multipurpose rooms. He had nothing better to do, so he went. At first, he found himself alone, but the room was soon filled by the chatter of children: the twelve-and-thirteen year old class had come on a field trip.
For about the first ten minutes, the children had simply roamed the room, making comments to each other. Then the teacher had spotted Giles. She made a beeline toward him. “Excuse me… are you working the exhibit?”
“Oh, no, madam,” he responded regretfully. “Merely an interested observer. I have done some archaeological work in my time, mostly when I was a younger man, and thought this would be an interesting exhibit. And it has been,” he added. “Techniques have changed somewhat since I did any work.”
“Really?” The young teacher’s eyes glowed with interest. “Would… would you mind very much speaking a bit to my students about the work you did?”
Giles was startled but honored. “I should be happy to,” he replied honestly, and she called her young flock together. He enraptured them all for perhaps forty minutes with a description of twentieth-century archaeology techniques and of being on a dig which used just those techniques. As he lectured, people who had drifted into the exhibit drifted over to listen to him, and one of those people was Jean-Luc Picard.
Picard listened, fascinated, as the Englishman from the past spoke about his experiences on Earth digs. Archaeology was one of his passions, and to learn that this man knew so much about it was a very pleasant surprise. He rather thought he and Rupert Giles would need to have a nice long chat in Ten-Forward some evening very soon. When the Englishman finished speaking and his audience began to drift away, looking at the exhibits now with new interest, Picard moved forward. “Absolutely fascinating,” he said.
Giles smiled slightly. “Oh, yes? I should have rather thought, to a man who has seen so much of the galaxy, that simple Earth archaeology - rather primitive by your standards - might be, shall we say, boring?”
“Archaeology is one of my few passions,” Picard replied with a half-smile. “Bored I was not.” Something seemed to strike him, and he took on a thoughtful expression. “You know… I might just have a proposition for you.”
“Oh?” Giles replied, curious.
“You seemed most at ease lecturing the children,” Picard observed. “It so happens that our ancient history professor for the fourteen-and-ups left the ship a few months ago; it seems the rigors of life on the frontier of the galaxy were, er… too much for him.”
Giles gave him a wry grin. “Not enough sand in him?”
“Quite,” the Frenchman replied, quirking a grin of his own. “I wondered if you might like to take his place? If, that is, you wished to stay on the Enterprise. If not, we could always arrange passage back to Earth for you.”
Giles thought about it - really, seriously thought about it - for the first time in the ten or so months that he’d been on the ship. When he’d appeared on the bridge, the ship had been out in deep space, near the very edges of the explored galaxy. There had been no talk of sending him back to Earth because it simply hadn’t been feasible. Now, though, between diplomatic missions, they were well within range of Earth - Giles could be back in England within the month, if he so chose.
But what would he do there? he asked himself. The Giles family holdings had long since passed from him to, most likely, his cousin Eliot’s descendants. How would they react if great-great-great-great-great-uncle Rupert came strolling in from the past and simply announced that he was back, and where could he sleep, please. No, that would never do. And there was no question of returning to California. Even if Sunnydale had still existed, California would hold too many memories, too many ghosts. Everywhere he turned, he would see Buffy or Willow or Xander or, God forbid, even Anya. No, California was out.
“Yes,” he said, almost without realizing he was saying it. “I’d like to stay on. I’ve taught before, and worked with that age group before.” He felt a slight pang as he said the words - ‘worked with’ was perhaps a bit mild for what he’d done - but then he shrugged. “And besides, what is there on Earth for me to return to? A bit of family to whom I’d be nothing more than a relic, a name in the family Bible to which they ascribe no meaning? No.” He shook his head. “I’d rather be where I can do some good.”
“Excellent!” Picard replied, clapping him on the shoulder. “I’ll notify the dean of students tonight, and you can make the arrangements with her tomorrow.” Then he added, “I wonder, would you care to share a cup of tea in the Ten-Forward lounge? We could perhaps discuss the differences between the archaeological digs we’ve been on.”
“I should be delighted,” Giles replied, and they headed that direction together. And if, when they passed the ship’s gymnasium, Giles thought he saw a slender, young, blonde-haired woman working the punching bags with vigor, his heart might have constricted, but he forced himself to shrug it off and move on. It wouldn’t do to be haunted by her ghost for the rest of his life.
Picard saw the girl also, recognizing her as the one who’d fallen out of the most recent dimensional portal, and briefly considered telling the man at his side about her, but eventually he decided against it. There was no indication that the two even came from the same dimension, much less the same time period and, even if they had, how likely was it that a girl from California and a man in his late forties from England would have much in common? He let it slide.
--
It wasn’t him. It wasn’t him. There was no way it could have been him. She had to stop being ridiculous. Buffy paced the sitting room of her quarters, trying very hard not to hyperventilate. There was no possible way she could have seen Giles just now on deck eleven. How could Giles be on deck eleven, anyway? Giles was gone, disappeared from Sunnydale about three months before her own dive into Glory’s portal. He was probably dead… or possibly had been turned. He certainly wasn’t on the Enterprise. Besides, the only thing on deck eleven was the swimming pool, which she’d been leaving, some crew-only stuff like the torpedo bays, and some holodecks. Even if he HAD been there, there was no way Giles could figure out how to work a holodeck. Giles was the ultimate technophobe. And wouldn’t he be in awe of her knowing that word?
Buffy dashed into her bedroom, threw herself on her bed and began to cry. Nothing had been right since Giles had vanished. The fight against Glory had gone horribly wrong without Giles there to help. Tara had been left insane, Willow was crazed on the magicks, Xander and Anya were… Xander and Anya… but she herself had been bereft. He wasn’t just her Watcher or just her best friend… he was her Giles. Her other half. She was lost and incomplete without him, and she desperately needed him now. She was trapped in some other world, some world with spaceships and aliens with big craggy foreheads that watched her intently in the gym - the alien, not his forehead - and history books, or rather, history screens on the computer monitor that said Sunnydale had been blown up and she’d founded a Slayer school in Scotland.
She needed her Giles, and she needed him in the worst way. And he was gone, millions of light-years away. Not to mention the four hundred time years. How would she ever survive without him?
--
The pattern set itself and continued over the next four weeks. A flash of blonde hair down a corridor would catch Giles’s eye, but the girl he was looking for had always disappeared by the time he got there. Several times, Buffy saw a tall, broad-shouldered man getting into a turbolift, but he was always at the end of the hall and she never could get there in time. They both thought they were going crazy and they had vastly different ways of dealing with it.
Giles threw himself into his new teaching job. He spent countless hours devising lessons that fascinated his captive audience, wielding his status as The Man from the Past as he would a weapon to get and keep their attention. Several times he used the holodeck for “field trips”, designing programs to simulate archaeological digs, or undersea adventures to places that didn’t exist any more, or even a trip to London in the 1970s, to see what the twentieth century had really been like.
Buffy spent hours each day in the gymnasium and the swimming pool, working out intensely and letting the burn of her muscles wipe the thoughts from her mind. Her body was in the best shape it had ever been, every reflex honed to razor-sharpness… but she had nothing to use it on. Until the night the alien man with the craggy forehead came into the gym dressed in workout clothes and carrying two huge two-handed swords.
The swords were each about a meter long and vaguely curved, bearing four very wicked-looking points. The huge man walked toward her and stopped at the edge of the mat she was training on. She finished her routine and then walked over to him, barely breathing deeply. “Hi.”
He gave a slight bow. “Good evening.” His voice was incredibly deep and rumbly, and his teeth were funky and jagged. If she’d met him in Sunnydale, she probably would have tried to slay him on sight. Here, though, she knew what he was - a Klingon, and one who worked for the ship captain who was so graciously letting her stay rather than dropping her off at the nearest starbase to be shipped back to Earth. But the Klingon was talking, and Buffy focused.
“I am Lieutenant Commander Worf,” he introduced himself. “I have seen you here many times, and I have watched you at your training. You seem to be quite proficient.”
“Buffy Summers,” she replied, “and I am. I’m the best.”
The best what? he wondered, but did not ask. Thus far, questioning Buffy Summers had proved to be the equivalent of questioning a potted plant, even for Counselor Troi. The girl was closemouthed about anything having to do with her or where she had come from. They knew that she was from California, and some point in Earth’s past, but that was all they knew. Rather than question, he gestured to his swords. “These are Klingon bat’leth swords,” he told her. “Have you ever fought with one?”
“No,” she said, looking interestedly at the weapons. “But I’m dying to. Well, not literally dying. But I want to. A lot. May I?” She put a hand out.
He offered her the weapon and she took it, finding its balance easily. She backed away from him and took a few practice swings, and he was surprised to see how easily she handled the weapon. “Wow,” she said. “I like this thing.”
“Would you care to spar?” he asked her.
She grinned. “Only if you don’t mind getting your butt kicked.”
They circled each other a few times and then the bat’leths rang as they crashed into each other. Worf was careful; they were not on the holodeck using holographic swords and with the safety protocols turned on. He could hurt the girl if he actually hit her.
Buffy was careful as well. The sword was heavy and incredibly sharp; if she caught him wrong, she could kill him, and then what would the Captain say?
The first few minutes of their spar were mostly test swings, each feeling out what the other was capable of. They each began to realize that they were just about on equal footing; she had her Slayer strength, but he was much larger than she and knew the weapon better than she did. The rings of the blades coming together came louder and faster, both parties whirling, jumping and kicking as they fought, and both of them wearing identical fierce smiles. At last, though, Buffy misjudged the swing of her weapon and overshot her mark. She overbalanced and he knew it, and he took advantage to kick her to the floor. She felt the edge of the bat’leth very gently touch the side of her neck. “You die,” he said, and she gave an obliging death rattle and held her breath for a few seconds. Then she rolled onto her back away from the sword and bounced to her feet.
“Awesome,” she said simply. “We’ve got to do that again.”
“I concur,” Worf said immediately. “You are a worthy opponent and a strong warrior. I look forward to our next session.” This time when he bowed, she bowed back, and they parted with a great deal of respect for each other.
--
Three nights after her first spar with Worf, the Slayer proceeded to the gymnasium as usual only to find it closed. Some sort of work was being done in the Jefferies tube behind the bench presses - she could see it through the doors - and so she had no gym for the night. A quick check of the computers showed that Worf was on duty, so there would be no holodeck spar. She thought about commandeering a holodeck and programming a gym into it, but the thought of being so completely alone with her thoughts was repugnant to her. Then she remembered something.
She backtracked toward her quarters on deck nine and stopped at the big message board at the corridor junction. Someone had organized an open-mic night in Ten-Forward, which Buffy vaguely recalled was the ship’s lounge. She remembered that nice Counselor Troi, who Buffy flatly refused to go and see, had told her about it on her first day. She cocked her head. What the hell, she finally decided. Twenty-fourth century karaoke had to beat the hell out of sitting around by herself. She went back to her quarters and rummaged through her clothing.
Nothing in her closet made her happy. She had quite a lot of clothes in the style that women on the ship wore, and while they were flattering, they also made her feel distinctly like Magenta from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. All she needed was a ray gun and a Bride-of-Frankenstein hairdo… and she knew there were ray guns available because she’d seen a security man wearing one.
However… she still had her jeans, which she’d worn on her trip through Glory’s portal, and she had her sweater. Of course, she’d ripped her sweater… but there WAS the replicator. She turned to it. “Computer, can I get clothes out of this replicator?”
“Affirmative,” the computer replied.
Buffy thought about it. “Okay, computer, here’s what I want.”
--
She slipped into the Ten-Forward lounge in her jeans, boots and a new blue halter top, her hair down around her shoulders and her makeup perfect. There was a man with yellow skin, wearing a Starfleet uniform, sitting on a chair in front of the assembled crowd and playing a violin solo. Not her thing, but maybe the evening would liven up as it went on.
She stood against the bar for two more acts - a man with a harmonica and a young woman who read incredibly emo poetry - and then turned and slid onto a barstool. This evening was probably going to turn out to be a wash; at least she could have a drink.
The bartender, a kind-faced black woman with a seriously wiggy hat on glided up to her. “Get you something?” she asked.
“Please,” Buffy replied, and then paused, realizing she had no idea what to order. “Um…”
Guinan, understanding, gave her a gentle smile. “I’m Guinan,” she said. “Did you want alcoholic or non-alcoholic?”
“Buffy Summers.” Buffy pondered, then shrugged. “What the hell, it’s not like I’m driving,” she responded flippantly. “Alcohol.”
“Well, it just happens that I’ve recently acquired some authentic Baruvian wine. I think you’ll like it.” Guinan moved away, then came back with glass in hand. “Here you go,” she said. “Anything else?”
“No, thanks,” Buffy replied. “Not unless you can make these performers get better.”
The look on Guinan’s face was that of a woman holding an incredibly amusing secret. “Oh, I think it’ll get better. Have patience.”
Buffy had patience through two glasses of very tasty Baruvian wine, and then her patience ran out. Not only did these acts mostly suck, but nobody had even attempted to chat her up all night. She stood up, getting ready to leave, but found herself restrained by a gentle hand on hers. “Patience,” Guinan said, putting a third glass on the counter. “Have some Prometheus nectar and wait. Just a few more minutes. I think you’ll see something you like.”
Buffy sighed and sat, tasting the nectar. It was actually very good, and clearly not alcoholic, so she sipped at it, trying to ignore the racket from the tuba-drum-keyboard-maraca quartet who were doing, for some reason, “White Wedding.” Buffy thought the surreality of it might just be her undoing.
When the quartet were done, there was a smattering of polite applause and the accepted silence while the next person got up to do something. Buffy was rubbing her eyes at this point and did not bother to look around. She hoped this Guinan person would be satisfied with her patience soon and let her go to bed. She heard a very soft strumming of guitar chords, and sighed. This person, at least, seemed to know what they were doing.
The chords of the song were teasingly familiar to Buffy’s ears. She knew she had heard this song before, but she couldn’t place it. At least it wasn’t “White Wedding”. She took a sip of her nectar, and very nearly choked on it when a voice began to sing.
No one knows what it’s like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes
No. No, it was impossible. She was hearing things. She had to be. Her mind was so desperate, so starved for something familiar to her - and of course all of those recent sightings - that her brain was just making it up. This was impossible.
No one knows what it’s like
To be hated
To be fated
To telling only lies
No. No. She would not look around. She wouldn’t. Buffy clutched hard at the bar for support, her drink forgotten, everything forgotten except the rush of the world around her and the voice singing in her ears.
But my dreams they aren’t as empty
As my conscience seems to be
I have hours only lonely
My love is vengeance, that’s never free
She didn’t see Guinan turn to see how Buffy liked Rupert’s singing only to get a very startled expression on her face. Guinan had known that Buffy would actually enjoy Rupert’s set - after all, the man was a very talented guitarist and had a wonderful voice - but she hadn’t expected this pale, desperate countenance or the tears streaking down the girl’s face. She moved slowly, warily toward Buffy, unsure how to approach her.
No one knows what it’s like
To feel these feelings
Like I do
And I blame you
No one bites back as hard
On their anger
None of my pain and woe
Can show through
Would this torment stop? Buffy was going to scream if the song didn’t end and the singer vanish. She couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t stand the thought of turning around, her heart in her mouth, only to see some man whom she didn’t know singing with Giles’s voice.
But my dreams they aren’t as empty
As my conscience seems to be
I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance, that’s never free.
She couldn’t take it any more. Buffy spun in her stool and stood up, preparing to face this auditory mirage and then flee to her quarters so she could scream in privacy.
She discovered that she was the only one standing; everyone else had taken seats when the soft song began. She had an unobstructed view of the guitarist.
It was Giles.
There was no doubt about it. It was Giles. It could never be anyone else.
He was looking down at his fretboard, preparing to launch into the next verse, when something tingled up the back of his spine. He raised his head and looked out at his audience.
It was Buffy. Buffy standing there in jeans and a halter top, looking like a vision from the gods. Her face was streaked with tears and she was frozen in place, as unable to move as he was to breathe. And then he forced her name out from between his lips. “Buffy!”
She gasped in the sudden, complete silence. Everyone in the room knew that something was happening, something huge, and all eyes were on the two of them. “G-G-Giles?” she whispered, as though unable to believe what her eyes and ears were telling her.
He dropped his guitar, uncaring, and came through the crowd faster than he would have thought possible. They met in the middle, she coming toward him, and wrapped their arms around each other, both weeping, her hands fisting in the back of his shirt and his closing convulsively on her shoulders as she begged him through her tears to never, ever leave her again and he swore by every god, through his own, that he would not.
--
If Jean-Luc Picard had thought he was doing the girl a favor, he found out very quickly that he was not. Her stricken eyes were the first clue, and the second was the expression of panic on her face. “G-go? B-but where? C-can’t I stay here? Please? I won’t get in anyone’s way, I swear! Please don’t make me go!”
He raised an eyebrow. “I had no idea you enjoyed our company so very much,” he replied, attempting to calm her down. “By no means am I saying that you must leave the Enterprise. I only wished to suggest that the option was open, if you so desired, to go anywhere you should choose.”
She shook her head vehemently. “Please, I want to stay here.”
He cocked his head, looking at her with knowing eyes. “Your desire to stay on my ship wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain Mr. Rupert Giles, would it?”
Buffy blushed. “Is it that obvious?” She sighed. “I can’t help it, Captain. It’s…. it’s like a dream sometimes. Just being with him, and it doesn’t matter that we aren’t in Sunnydale any more, because I know everything turned out all right. It’s just… being with him. He… he… I don’t know how to explain how much he means to me, and I thought I’d never see him again, unless it was maybe in whatever afterlife there is. But I’m alive, and he’s alive, and we’re together, and I won’t let us be separated ever again. I can’t.”
There was a kind of fierce desperation about her as she spoke, and Picard recognized it all too well - even if the girl herself didn’t, and he rather doubted that she did, yet. His perverse sense of humor wouldn’t allow him to resist a small tweak. “Well,” he said, standing up. “Far be it from me or from Starfleet to stand in the way of true love. You are welcome to stay, Buffy, for as long as you like. If at any point, you should decide you wish to be somewhere else, you have only to let me know.” He nodded once, a clear dismissal, and left the Observation Deck through the bridge door.
Buffy didn’t move for a long few moments. *True love?* Surely Picard was mistaken. She loved Giles, sure, but she wasn’t IN love… was she? As the shock began to abate, she stood and left the Observation Deck through the turbolift, dropping down to deck eight where her quarters were, and slowly began to walk down the corridors, passing her door in her complete absorption with her thoughts. She kept walking, sunk deep in herself, not stopping until she collided directly with someone coming out of their own rooms. She and the person she’d hit bounced apart, and Buffy grabbed Deanna Troi before the older woman could fall.
“Omigod! I’m so sorry!” Buffy gasped. “Are you okay?”
Deanna smiled slightly. “I’m fine. It’s all right.” Then she cocked her head at Buffy. “Perhaps I should be asking you that question.”
“I’m…” she began to say ‘fine’, but what actually came out was “…not really sure.”
One of Deanna’s eyebrows rose. “Oh?” she asked, saying nothing else.
Buffy shrugged. “I mean, it’s just… Captain Picard said something earlier that was just… completely ridiculous. Like, not even based in reality. And it kinda threw me for a loop.” She shook her head. “Just so… off the wall.”
Deanna fought hard to keep the slightly-amused expression off her face. “And who are you trying to convince that the Captain has lost his mind, me or yourself?”
Buffy’s expression crumbled into one of abject misery. “He has to be wrong. He HAS to. There’s no way I can be… what he said. I just… I just CAN’T. I can’t go through it all again, not with him. I couldn’t stand it, especially not here and not now.” And then, to Deanna’s consternation, tears began to slide down Buffy’s face. “I just can’t.”
Deanna took the younger woman’s hand. “Come. We’ll sit and talk, and see if we can’t work out just exactly what it is that’s upsetting you.”
Within fifteen minutes, both women were seated at a table against a window in Ten-Forward, looking out at the starry view and noshing on chocolate sundaes. Buffy was slowly beginning to explain why she was so torn up inside. “…So there I am, I’m seventeen, and I’ve just, y’know, done it for the first time ever with this guy, this older guy, and I thought we were so in love, but he just…” She shook her head. “Badness. Lots and lots of badness. So that was it for two years. Celibate Buffy. But then when I started college there was this guy…” Her mouth twisted. “Parker Abrams.”
Deanna listened in fascination and no small amount of horror as Buffy explained the trauma that had been the three major ‘romantic’ - using the term loosely - experiences of Buffy’s young life so far. Her virginity had been given to a man who’d wooed and seduced her and then seemingly turned into a soulless, evil monster; then her second experience had been to basically be used and tossed aside; and then her third experience, an actual and seemingly-healthy (on the outside) sexual relationship, had actually been a very skewed, man-superior dynamic (in more ways than one) in which her partner’s feelings were simply understood to be more important than her own, to the extent that Buffy’s own friends and family felt neglected by her because all of her time was spent on her partner’s friends and career. It was really enough to turn anyone off of relationships.
The Betazoid could sense the extreme emotions running rampant in the girl’s mind. Whatever else Buffy Summers did, there could be no denying that she truly FELT, with her whole mind and heart. She threw everything she had into those she loved, whether she herself realized it or not. And that was both her greatest strength and her greatest weakness for, when everything worked out well, Buffy was stronger than anyone else and could withstand anything thrown at her; however, if everything fell apart, Buffy fell with it and was reduced to near-uselessness by her extreme pain. So it was perhaps understandable that Buffy’s next words threw her for quite a loop.
“I just…” Buffy sighed. “I wish I could still FEEL,” she said softly. “But I don’t. Not any more. Not for a long time. I’m just sort of… frozen.”
“Frozen?” Deanna repeated. “What do you mean?”
Buffy sat back in her chair, debating how much she should reveal. “I… when Riley left… I realized it was my fault. Because he really did love me, and I didn’t love him. I couldn’t. And I told Giles, you know, that I thought I might be… losing that. Forgetting how. Like there was so much going on, so much I had to do, that my… my capacity for love, for those good emotions, was getting less and less.” She sighed. “So… he knew about this… this… um… you’re gonna think this sounds crazy.” She blushed.
“You’re not crazy,” Deanna replied. “Go on.”
“Okay. Um. He knew about this… this dream quest thing. It would… It was like something the Indians would do… walking out into the desert seeking a spirit guide. But he talked me into it. So I did it. And I met… my spirit guide. And she… she told me I was full of love, and she told me…” Buffy trailed off, then shook her head. “A bunch of other crap.”
“What did she tell you?” Deanna asked. When Buffy shook her head, the counselor took a risk and pressed her. “I can’t make an informed judgment without all the information available. Please, Buffy?”
Buffy sighed. “Fine. She told me death was my gift. How about that?”
Deanna paused, dumbstruck. “What? Why would she tell you that?”
An alarm went off in the back of Buffy’s head and she knew she needed to proceed here with extreme caution. “I… I’m not really sure,” Buffy said, honestly enough. She had guesses, of course, but she wasn’t sure. “At first I thought it meant I was gonna have to die to save Dawn - my sister - but then, when I jumped through the portal, I wasn’t dead. I was here. So now it doesn’t make sense. I mean… am I still gonna die? ‘Cause to be honest… I really, really don’t want to. Not now.”
Deanna could sense that there was something else to it, something deeper, but whatever it was, Buffy Summers had it locked down tight. The Betazoid couldn’t even get so much as a glimpse into what Buffy was hiding. Rather than try, she focused on what was actually said. “But you did die,” she said softly. “When you landed on the floor of the bridge, you were clinically dead. Doctor Crusher revived you in Sickbay.”
Buffy stared at her. “She did?” she asked softly. “I died? Again?”
Deanna was beginning to think she would never stop being startled by the things the younger woman said. “Again?” she repeated.
Buffy blushed. “Sorry. When I was sixteen, I drowned. I was dead for about five minutes. My friend Xander used CPR and saved my life.” She gave a slight, bitter laugh. “I seem to have a talent for dying very briefly. Maybe THAT’s my gift.”
“I sincerely doubt that,” Deanna replied firmly. “However, I do agree that it is a topic which would require further study. Perhaps some afternoon, you and Rupert and I could sit down and discuss it further?”
Judging by the slightly queasy look on the blonde girl’s face, Deanna was fairly certain that hypothetical afternoon would never come about. But Buffy gamely replied in the vaguely affirmative and then, as soon as it was polite, she bolted for the door. Deanna shook her head, watching the girl go.
“Unusual, isn’t she?”
Deanna turned to find Guinan standing near her, wearing that knowing expression she specialized in. “Quite,” the counselor replied. “I take it you’ve had some contact?”
Guinan nodded. “I was working the night she and Rupert found each other.”
“Ah.” Deanna nodded. She wished she hadn’t missed that evening, but she’d already had a dinner date with Will and so had been absent. “I’ve heard it was… very emotional.”
“Yes, it was,” Guinan replied with a slight chuckle. “You could have cut the tension with a knife.”
“You still could,” Deanna groused softly. “I just can’t get her to open up.”
“You won’t,” Guinan replied. “Not unless he tells her she can.”
Deanna’s eyebrows raised up. “You don’t think so?”
Guinan shook her head. “I’m certain of it. They’ve got an odd relationship. In some ways, she seems to be the dominant one. She bosses him around, pouts until she gets her way, and generally seems to have him wrapped around her finger. But all he has to do is look at her a certain way, or say something in a certain tone of voice, and she does exactly what he wants her to do. He’s the one that’s in charge, and she won’t make a move without his approval. And I’m not even sure they know it.”
“How very fascinating,” Deanna murmured, looking toward the door the girl had vanished out of. “Fascinating.”
**
“Giles?”
“Mmm?”
“Can you please pull out of the Chronicles for a few minutes? We need to talk.”
He glanced up absently, then smiled. “Buffy! When did you come in?”
She rolled her eyes. “Just now, when I said your name.”
“Oh. Ah. Yes. Sorry. A bit distracted.”
“I know.” She draped herself across his couch. “Thanks for setting the door lock, by the way. It’s a lot more convenient than standing outside pushing the doorbell for half an hour and looking like a moron.”
“You know that my home is always open to you, Buffy,” he replied simply.
She paused. “It is, isn’t it?” she said softly. “It always has been. Even back in Sunnydale, despite what or who could just come prancing in, you always left the door unlocked for me.” She graced him with a sincere smile and he felt his heart skip a beat. “Thank you, Giles.”
“Y-yes, well,” he stammered, pulling his glasses off and cleaning them. “W-What was it that you needed to discuss with me?”
“A couple of things, actually.” She chewed her lip for a moment, thinking back on Captain Picard’s words. *True love* Well, they’d just see, wouldn’t they? She drew in a deep breath, and then blurted, “W-We, um… Captain Picard said we’re gonna be docked at Deep Space Nine for a few days, with planetary access, and I was wondering if you wanted to go down to Bajor with me. M-Maybe do some sightseeing?”
“Certainly,” Giles replied with a smile. “That would be lovely. I understand there are quite a lot of fascinating things to see on Bajor.”
“Cool.” She smiled nervously. *We’ll see.* Then she frowned. “The other thing… Giles, I… I think… we might have to tell some people about… about the Slayer stuff.”
She had his immediate and undivided attention. “Tell me why you feel that way,” he said evenly.
Buffy bit her lip. “Well, it… it’s like this…” She trailed off, searching for where to begin, and finally just decided to talk and hope she made sense. “Okay well, there’s the whole sparring thing. Which I’ve been doing. A couple of times. With Lieutenant Worf. He’s got the coolest swords, you should totally see them, they’re called bat’leths, and they’re two-handed, and they’ve got the best balance - and you really don’t care about that right now.” She blushed. “But anyway… he’s gonna start wondering, if he isn’t already, about how I can take him down half the time. He’s way bigger than me, and stronger than the average human type person. So he’s gonna wonder how I’m so much stronger, too.
“And then there’s Counselor Troi.” Buffy stood and began to pace, trying to articulate her feelings about the exotic woman. “She’s so nice, and she really wants to help, and I… I think… I…” she stumbled over her words.
“You think you might like to talk to her?” Giles asked softly, divining her turmoil immediately. “You’ve been thinking you need, perhaps, an impartial ear into which you might pour out your troubles, troubles which you feel uncomfortable bringing to me?”
She nodded miserably. “It’s not that I don’t want to, Giles, really. I just…”
He came to her, took her hand, and smiled gently into her eyes. “I understand,” he said softly. “It’s a hard shock, coming from California to this place, and having no one. You want to talk to someone, express your anger, your confusion, and even your grief at having been ripped away from all that you know and love. And who better than the person whose job it is to listen?”
Buffy’s face was almost pathetically grateful. “I should have known you’d understand.”
“Buffy,” he said softly, “I utilized the Counselor’s services myself a few times when I first came. I, however, have the advantage of simply being a normal human. I could describe the work I did in California, and my relationship with all of you, in terms which would not raise eyebrows. You, however, are the Slayer, and there are no euphemisms for that.” He nodded. “I agree with you on both points, and I think you are correct. Lieutenant Worf will undoubtedly seek an explanation, especially if I observe your sparring as you requested before. And Counselor Troi could be of little help to you without a thorough explanation of exactly who and what you are.” He tapped his chin with a finger. “And of course, once we tell either or both of them, we can expect that Captain Picard will immediately learn about this.”
Buffy nodded. “And probably Doctor Crusher, too. Because she’s like, the head doctor.”
Giles made a rueful face. “Perhaps we should simply place a notice on the community boards,” he snarked, but there was no heat behind his words. He knew that they had to come clean. “Well,” he admitted grudgingly, “at least we can be assured that our secrets will be safe with that group of people.”
“Always assuming they don’t have us locked up in the nearest looney bin,” Buffy replied cheerfully.
--
See next post.