Title: Inquisition: Chapter 01: Gibbs
Author: 3am_moonlight (MirroredIllusions on TtH)
Crossover: BtVS / NCIS
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 1,374
Timeline: BtVS: Post-Chosen & NCIS: anytime after Ellie joined but before Abby left.
Disclaimer: Nothing copyrighted belongs to yours truly.
Summary: Vampires, witches, Slayers, and what goes bump in the night has been exposed to the public. The vampires have become media darlings while Slayers are being painted as evil. After four years of being hunted by law enforcement, Buffy has allowed herself to be capured. Major AU.
Author's Note: Written for Day 01 of the 2022 August Fic-A-Day.
The interrogation room she had been placed in was relatively small, but at least it was in neutral colors rather than the orange that seemed to be the main color theme for the rest of the building. Aside from that, it was drab and impersonal. There was a basic table and two chairs, one on each side. On her left was the door they had come in through and on the opposite wall was a two-way mirror allowing people to watch without being seen (and for the Slayer to spy on the watchers).
Rather than a single agent escorting her in, she'd had an entire entourage of large, beefy men. If the situation hadn't been so serious she would've laughed at the exaggeration, but instead, she played kind of docile and let them lead her wherever they wanted. It was better for her, at least for the time being, if they believed they were in control of the situation.
As soon as they were close to the chair she was ordered to sit, and then they attached her handcuffs to a hook under the table. Once the lead beefcake was satisfied she had been chained up properly, they all left. The setup meant she was forced to keep her hands in her lap rather than on the table. This was odd since if she'd had a hairpin or something she could've just picked the lock and no one would be the wiser unless she chose to do something.
It took a good twenty minutes before another agent finally arrived. He was tall, in good shape for his age, with grey/white hair, and piercing blue eyes that glared at her with plain distrust and disgust. Peachy, this was going to be the kind of fun that wasn't.
Agent Blue Eyes did the cop routine they were so fond of doing on TV shows and in the movies. Which was to say that he pretended to be busy sorting through the folders and papers he had brought with him. It was well choreographed, but also clearly habitual and meant to make her nervous. It didn't work.
Finally, his heart rate went up a little as he leaned back and made eye contact. The preview was over and it was showtime. "I'm Agent Gibbs," the man stated before he looked back down at the single piece of paper in his hand, "Buffy Anne Summers, born in 1981 to Henry and Joyce Summers in Los Angeles. Moved to Sunnydale in late 1997 with your mother after your parents' messy divorce, getting expelled from Hemery High, and a short stint in an asylum."
Steel blue eyes met her own hazel green, "that's quite the resume before you had even turned 16." As there weren't any questions in there she refrained from commenting. He raised an eyebrow slightly as his attempt failed and he continued. "Why did your parents have you committed to an asylum, Miss Summers?"
"I made the mistake of telling them vampires are real and that I had been Chosen to fight them."
"How did you get out so fast?"
"I wasn't crazy, but my parents were wealthy and in the middle of a bad divorce. All I had to do was give the doctors the Valley Girl excuse and they believed me when I told them that I just wanted my parents' attention. This did happen in L.A., after all. I'm sure it wasn't the first time someone claimed something outrageous and ended up in one of those places, and got out just as quickly."
"So you lied to trained medical professionals and they believed you, just like that?"
"No, it took some convincing. You have to remember that people didn't know about vampires and demons back in the 1990s. If I had kept it up they would never have let me out of there." Part of her was still relieved that her mother didn't have to experience her daughter being an internationally wanted "criminal".
"According to your records, your mother is deceased." He made eye contact again and held it. "Did you kill her?"
Buffy's mouth actually dropped open for a moment as she lost her cool. "What? NO! I would never hurt her!" Only long practice ensured that she didn't accidentally break the chainlink between her handcuffs, but it was a close call.
Quickly getting control of herself again, she glared. "That was a low blow, even for someone as prejudiced as you."
"You know nothing about me, Miss Summers. We've just met, but I know a lot about you and the trail of dead bodies you've left in your wake."
"I don't need files to know your type, Agent Gibbs. Your body language and your choice of accusations tell me everything I need to know. But more than anything it tells me that you are not going to believe anything I have to say. You're not going to believe me because someone else, probably vampires, has already made up your mind for you. They've told you that they are victims and that all Slayers are criminals."
"You've got that right. They are American citizens with all the rights that entail, and no one has the right to kill them. There is no evidence that they have broken any laws or bitten anyone without explicit consent. You understand that, don't you?"
Buffy gave him a sad, slightly disbelieving look, "I believe you believe that, but it isn't true. Vampires have killed, raped, and stolen anything they've wanted for centuries. Just because people have decided to TRY and give them rights doesn't mean they're suddenly good. It doesn't mean they have stopped doing any of that, they're just hiding their tracks because they've had years, decades, and sometimes even centuries of experience in doing just that."
The agent across the table from her was clearly gearing up to defend the undead, but she didn't want to hear it. "They are criminals without a conscience, thanks to all the vampire movies and TV shows they have a ready-made platform to gain support, and suddenly they have a free-standing buffet. People are standing in line for days just to get the supposed 'honor' of being food for them, and maybe get turned into one of them. It's sickening, and one day you're all going to realize that they are building an army right under your nose."
She paused to gather her thoughts and realized she had missed a point. "Also, vampires don't leave bodies behind. If they're undead they'll leave on their own, or with the help of their own kind, and if they're staked they turn into dust. If a demon is killed by a Slayer then their remains simply vanish. So this trail of bodies you claim is mine definitely isn't."
"You sound very certain about that."
"Unlike you, I know what I'm talking about based on experience and real knowledge. You're just repeating whatever the vampires want you to think so you'll support them and their cause."
The interrogation derailed after that and it took less than ten minutes for him to leave the room in a huff. A few minutes later he reappeared in the room behind the two-way mirror. Not willing to reveal exactly what her abilities were aside from the strength and speed they already knew about, she pretended to do something in between meditating and keeping an eye on the door while in reality, she was eavesdropping on their argument.
It quickly became obvious that most of the people on the other side wanted her to be publicly executed, mainly to make it look like they were doing something rather than actually believing that she was capable of what the vampires kept accusing her of, but a few of the apparently less biased people kept pointing out that they didn't actually have anything to charge her with. If they wanted to execute her they needed Buffy to confess to a number of crimes that were on the list of capital offenses where that punishment could be given, without that they were lucky if they could even get the case to trial.
After all, being a Slayer wasn't a crime. At least not yet, but the movement was gaining votes.