Gamefic: Making Connections, Part III.
Title: Making Arrangements.
Rating: R.
Fandom: Covenant of the Slayer/Healy Compound.
Synopsis: Jerry and Sam try to connect over the phone, while things get a little unpredictable both at home and abroad. Originally written for ceolyn, for the first Valentine's Day round of Iron Author, but it fetched up a bit on the 'longer than intended' side of things. As so often happens. You can find part one here, and part two here.
***
Basingstoke, England.
*
Jerry had learned to deal with a great many things since discovering that she was a Maid in Waiting -- a revelation which, she had often thought, really ought to be reserved for people under the age of twelve, whose chosen career path was still torn between 'astronaut', 'first sensible Companion to travel with the Doctor', and 'saviour of a magical realm filled with talking ponies'. She'd learned to handle scorn, hunger, exhaustion, and high explosives (although the last had been really rather fun). With time, and practice, those things had come to seem very nearly, well...normal.
Yet despite all the grand battles, back-alley slayings, ambushes, and inevitable apocalypses, she'd never exactly learned to cope with being punched in the face by total strangers.
Somehow, it had just never come up.
Rocking backwards onto her heels in surprise, Jerry did what years of training and a great deal of only semi-repressed anger told her came naturally, and returned the blow in kind, punching the girl in the doorway with enough force to have put most women her size clean through the wall on the other side of the hall.
The girl grinned, looking deeply, ferally satisfied. "Oh," she said, "I really hoped that what I'd heard about you was right, and you'd be stupid enough to do that." Wiping a trickle of blood from the side of her mouth, she lunged.
"Can't be a vampire," said Leaf, thoughtfully. "She's inside now, and we didn't ask her to come in. I suppose she could be some sort of a demon..." Jerry grabbed the stranger by the braid, whipping her around and using it as a handle with which to bash her face into the wall. She responded with an inarticulate snarling sound, reaching up behind herself, taking hold of Jerry's wrist, and performing a complicated twisting motion that resulted in her standing behind the taller girl, holding her arm at a sharp, and probably painful angle. "She's bleeding red, though."
Jerry grunted, stomping down hard on the other girl's instep and wrenching her arm free while her assailant was occupied with swearing at the top of her lungs. "Not a demon," she said. The rest of the statement was cut off as an arm was locked around her neck, cutting off the air.
"Oh, you're going to wish I was a demon, you cheap little two-bit tramp," snapped the new arrival, squeezing more tightly. Jerry made an inarticulate choking sound. "It's always the same with you rich girls, isn't it? Can't keep yourselves from wandering, but God forbid someone else should take what you don't waaaa--" Her last word became a squawk as Jerry pitched her over her right shoulder, and she landed, hard, in the middle of the apartment floor.
Leaf considered the scene, thoughtfully. Jerry wasn't actually hurt. She knew all Jerry's 'need help now please' signs, and none of them were in display; while the British Slayer looked distinctly annoyed by being assaulted in her own apartment, she was also fighting back, and didn't seem to be in any immediate danger. Besides, random attackers with no apparent motivations were probably good for her right now. They gave her something to focus her aggressions on. Something that wasn't the plumbing. Still, it was polite to at least check on things...
"Did you want some help over there?" she called, curiously.
"I've got it under control!" Jerry replied, ducking under a spinning kick that had clearly been intended to catch her in the side of the head. "Thanks, though!"
"No trouble," Leaf said.
The newcomer paused, falling into a defensive position, and stared at them both as if they'd completely lost their minds. "Are you mental?" she demanded. "What do you think this is, a fucking tea party?"
"Oh, no," Leaf said, serenely. "Jerry doesn't like tea."
"Holy shit," said the new girl, sounding bewildered. "They weren't kidding. You left the Council because you were fucking insane! Is your crazy catching?"
"Oddly, autonomy and independant thought aren't like rabies," Jerry said.
Thoughtfully, Leaf added, "Pity."
"I'd heard you were bloody nuts, but this is even worse than--"
"Right, that's enough," said Jerry, and punched her in the face. Letting out an enraged shriek that would have sounded just as natural coming from an alley cat, the girl swung back, and the fight resumed.
"Council Slayer?" Leaf asked.
"Council Slayer," Jerry confirmed, just before getting hit squarely between the eyes. She reeled backwards, then aimed a kick for the other girl's middle. "That hurt!"
"Good!" snarled her assailant, and hit her again.
This looked like it could take a while. "I'm going to make more coffee," said Leaf, choosing retreat as the better part of valor. The fight was turning ugly, and Jerry had a tendency to forget about collateral damages when she got well and truly distracted.
"Good plan!" said Jerry, between dodges.
The intruder seemed to be getting more and more agitated as it became clear that not only was Leaf not planning to get involved, but Jerry wasn't taking her attacks as the end of the world that they had apparently been intended to be. "What the fuck is wrong with you?!" she demanded, as she swept Jerry's feet out from under her. The taller Slayer went down hard, landing on the coffee table, which protested this treatment by shattering into several dozen pieces. "D'you think this is some sort of joke?!"
"I think," Jerry panted, as she lunged back to her feet, "that this is how Kim and I suss who gets next turn at the bloody bathroom."
Snarling incoherently, the Council Slayer charged forward in a rugby tackle that managed to catch Jerry off-balance, and ended with her back slamming into the remains of the coffee table for the second time in under a minute. Jerry gasped as the wind was knocked out of her lungs, and reacted in the only way that instinct was willing to go along with, driving her legs up and out in a high, hard kick that turned into a throw and sent the substantially smaller Slayer flying halfway across the room, squarely into a very startled Leaf.
There was a thud as the two collided, followed by more swearing, both in English and Mandarin. Pressing herself back to her feet, Jerry grabbed one of the larger chunks of the remaining table, and called, "Sorry about that."
"It's all right!" Leaf called back, dodging under the other Slayer's fist before driving her elbow, hard, into her solar plexus. "Although warning would've been nice."
"A pitched brawl in the living room isn't warning enough for you?" Jerry nodded towards the plank in her hand, then towards the girl who was now vigorously attempting to punch Leaf in the head. "It's generally warning enough for me."
"Well, I guess you're just less trusting than I am," Leaf said, grabbing her attacker by the wrist and noting, calmly, "It's extremely impolite to hit people to whom you haven't been properly introduced." The other Slayer responded by snarling and planting a knee in the middle of Leaf's stomach. Leaf narrowed her eyes. "Oh. I see." She slammed her forehead into her attacker's, knocking her backwards without letting go of her wrist. "If you didn't want to play nice, you only needed to say so."
The only reply was a string of loud curses, and a second knee to Leaf's middle. This time, the blow was hard enough that Leaf released her grip, dropping to one knee and wrapping her arms around her stomach. Grinning, the stranger knotted her hands together and raised them over her head, preparing to deliver a knock-out blow.
Jerry koshed her from behind, shattering the already-weakened wood and sending splinters flying. Looking mildly surprised, the Council Slayer stopped, blinked, and toppled forward, landing slightly off to Leaf's left in a crumpled heap.
"Well," said Jerry, dropping the remains of her impromptu club and offering Leaf her hand. "Wasn't that exciting."
"Very," Leaf wheezed, letting Jerry help her up. She eyed the fallen Slayer warily. "What do we do with her?"
"Oh, the usual," Jerry said, and smiled sunnily. "Get the rope."
*
Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport, International Terminal.
*
If Edward had been asked to make a list of things he never wanted to do, ever again in his lifetime, even under threat of death or dismemberment, he probably would have put 'shepherd four Slayers through the International Terminal of a major airport in a vain attempt at keeping them under control while trying to book tickets for five on the first morning flight to England, without being detained as members of some global terrorist organization'. Honesty forced him to amend the last clause to add 'even though technically, all of us probably qualify', seeing as how the Watcher's Council was definitely global, probably terrorist by the standards of any mundane government, and unlikely to ever admit that none of them were technically members any longer.
Unfortunately, the odds of anyone asking for that list were only slightly lower than the odds of anyone actually giving a damn about it, and neither of those things was going to allow him to keep track of his charges while navigating the process of booking the tickets. "Excuse me a moment," he said, to the increasingly irritated travel agent. Sticking his head out of the office, he demanded, "Where is Evelyn this time?"
"Food court," drawled Kim, continuing to file her nails. "Corn dog onna stick place just opened up. She's been dispatched to bring us back some deep-fried therapy."
"It's six in the morning! Why the hell is the corn dog on a stick place open?" The bigger question of why the corn dog on a stick place existed was too much to be addressed, at least before he'd managed to secure their tickets. Quickly, he counted off the others. Carmen was dozing in her seat, head tilted backwards and a thin line of drool making its way down her chin, while Anna was sitting quietly, fussing with something inside her duffelbag. None of them were showing any signs of wandering away, which was both a nice change, and a relief.
Pulling his head back into the office, Edward once more settled firmly into his seat, fixing a sunny 'harmless foreign man just trying to get to his native land before his sister does something really, really stupid' smile on his face. "So," he said. "Where were we, again?"
"You were requesting five tickets to London, Heathrow, Mr. Harrington," said the agent, patiently. While she appreciated the windfall of booking several last-minute seats to England, this particular commission was well on its way to becoming more trouble than it was worth. "One-way?"
"That's right," Edward said. "We'll get our return tickets once things have been sorted out. You know how girls can be."
"...right," she said, slowly. "I'm afraid the airlines are all booked up for today. Can I start checking available flights for tomorrow?"
"Actually, I'm afraid not. Elopements have this nasty habit of happening without being stopped if you put off flying until tomorrow. Are you checking the first class cabin?"
"Er." She paused. "No, sir. Just coach."
"Can you go ahead and run that for me?"
"Yes, sir." Fingers practically numb, she typed in the query. She usually hated the early morning shift, which was traditionally the stalking grounds of broke college students hoping for last-minute openings on planes headed for exotic, adventurous, extremely cheap locales. Five first-class tickets to a major tourist destination was practically unreal. "I can get you on the ten-thirty Virgin Atlantic flight to Heathrow, sir. First class is all that's open."
"Fantastic," said Edward, and pulled out his wallet, producing a credit card. "If you would please book those for me, miss? Only I'm afraid we'll have to clear security, and we're all in a bit of a hurry."
She took the card, gingerly. "If you don't mind my saying so, sir, you must really love your sister."
"Yes," Edward replied. "I rather suppose I must."
*
Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport, International Terminal Food Court.
*
Evie jiggled her weight onto her left foot, scratching the associated calf with her toes as she squinted up at the Hot Dog Shack menu. As Kim had promised, they seemed to specialize in dipping practically anything you could think of in batter, then frying it until the batter calcified into a protective yet crispy outer shell. They were currently serving the breakfast menu, which included 'egg on a stick' and 'toast on a stick', with your choice of jam.
A surprising number of people seemed to think that battered toast on a stick was the right way to start their day, because the line was moving with near glacial slowness. Evie shifted to her right foot, and started scratching her left calf, for a change. Kim's instructions had been very explicit. She was to go, obtain fried things and coffee, and not start any fights, or wander off to anyplace that wasn't the food court. Normally, Evie didn't give Kim's orders that much weight -- what was so special about being a mouse priestess, anyway? They were just creepy demon rodents -- but since Kim was the only one with properly ensorcelled weapon-concealing luggage, she was operating at a bit of an advantage. Don't do as she asked, potentially don't get any of your weapons given back to you.
"It's not fair," Evie muttered, sulkily.
The woman ahead of her turned, directing a grandmotherly smile her way. "Don't worry, dear," she said. "They make specially sure never to run out of strawberry jam."
Unsure of whether it would count as 'starting trouble' if she explained that the unfairness she was protesting was the fact that someone else had all her weapons, not that the food court might run out of jam, Evie squirmed. "I, er, know," she said. "I'm just really hungry."
"Did you want to go ahead of me? I just need a little something before my flight, and I have plenty of time."
"No, that's okay," said Evie, reddening. "I can wait."
"All right, dear," said the woman. "You just let me know if you change your mind." She turned back to face in her original direction, leaving Evie to let out a small, almost inaudible sigh of relief.
If she really let herself think about it, she knew that being worried was just plain silly. Geraldine could take care of herself in England, and she'd never really let herself get married off to some dumb Watcher. Not when she had Sam waiting for her like a big sexy Wookie. And even if she was that stupid, Sam was probably there already, punching Watchers in the face and making Jerry get that thoughtful look that usually meant she was about to suggest Evie go and do something in a different room. And even if somehow Sam couldn't manage to find her -- England was sort of big, and Evie was pretty sure he'd never been there, given the questions he was asking at the passport renewal office -- Lord Shinyshoes was doing his Watcherly duty and riding to the rescue, with a whole bunch more Slayers in tow. So really, there was nothing to worry about. Nothing to worry about at all.
It wasn't like anybody had ever left her, right? And it wasn't like Jerry had ever said she missed England, or seemed to regret leaving the Council over a little thing like Giles being a jerk, or started to consider reconciliation when they found out that he hadn't been being an asshole, he'd just been a little bit possessed, right? Jerry liked chaos. And spending all her time chasing after evil things, and getting her hair mussed up, and not getting enough sleep, or any time to study, or time alone with her boyfriend. Jerry liked it. She'd never leave it to go back to being a boring old Watcher who had a whole lot of time to study because she didn't actually have a life. She had Evie. That was better than having a life. So there wasn't anything to be worried about Not anything at all.
Right?
Evie scrubbed at her eyes with the heel of her hand, resolutely ordering herself not to get all soppy over a stupid old Watcher who probably got herself into trouble in the first place. She should just think of this as a chance at a free trip back to England, and let Edward worry about Geraldine. "If she wants to ditch us, we don't need her, anyway," she muttered.
"What was that, dear?" asked the woman in front of her, turning to look back over her shoulder at Evie.
"Nothing!" said Evie, quickly. More carefully, she added, "Just hoping you're right about them still having strawberry jam, that's all."
The woman smiled. "Oh, I wouldn't worry."
"Believe me," Evie said, "I'm really trying not to."
*
Local Highway 19, Top of the Airport Shuttle.
*
Sam was out of the room, into his room, out of his room, and halfway down the road to the motel by the cursed Chinese place, where he knew they had an airport shuttle, before Edward had even finished explaining the situation. Maybe it was impulsive, but what was the point of being a giant monkey demon if you couldn't be a little bit impulsive sometimes? Especially when the honour of your finacee happened to be at stake?
Especially when there was a more than reasonably good chance that said fiancee might decide that she should just go along with getting married to whoever the Council had picked, because even though she liked to pretend to be all rebellious and independent, he knew her well enough to know that she still had a 'do what the Council tells you' streak a mile wide? And maybe she'd just be going along with it at first, figuring that she could get away when the time
was right, but what were the odds that she'd just adapt to being back with the Watcher's Council? Maybe even faster than she'd adapted to a life without them?
Sam had tried adapting to a life without Jerry, once. He hadn't liked it very much. It had mostly consisted of wondering what he did wrong, and worrying his mother by moping around the apartment. So doing that again? Not exactly seeming like a better deal than impulsiveness.
He'd been sitting on the roof of the shuttle, digging through his wallet and wondering whether a flight to England cost more than forty-three dollars and seventeen cents, when his cellphone started ringing. He pulled it out of his pocket with his tail, flicking it open and raising it to his ear as he said, "I'm not coming back, Eddie, and you can't make me. I have to find my fiancee." There. That sounded suitably tough and non-negotiable.
"It's not Eddie," drawled the familiar, dry-as-dust voice of Elizabeth Marie Fuquay. "If I were, I think Courtland would be a little upset." A faint gagging noise was audible in the background. "And I'd be dousing myself in lye. They're packing now. You sure you don't wanna wait for the cavalry?"
"Iggy, it's Jerry. I can't."
He heard keys clatter as Iggy started to type. "Didn't expect you could, Sam, but I wanted to be sure. How were you planning to get to England?"
"Buy a ticket." Sam glanced at his relatively cash-free wallet, and added, "Or maybe just ride to the outside of a plane. It worked on 'The Twilight Zone'."
"Honey, you're not a Japanese snow monkey. If you go becoming a Samsickle, Jerry'll tan my hide for me." The typing continued. "How close to the airport are you, and how fast do you think you can clear security?"
"Legally?"
"Since this isn't a Hong-Kong action flick, that would be best."
"Um...pretty fast? I have a valid passport. And a second form of ID. And I'm not carrying anything illegal, or any actual weapons or anything. I couldn't figure out how to get them on the plane."
"Uh-huh. What's your legal name?"
"Um. Samuel Coleridge Taylor?"
"Okay, hang on."
"Iggy? Um, what are you doing?"
"The usual. Sacrificing chickens to my dark masters, invoking the cosmic forces of bibbity, bobbity, and boo, and, oh yeah, hacking into the Virgin Atlantic computer system to get you on the next flight to the UK. You're on the six forty-five to London, landing in Heathrow at ten o'clock local time. I got you a window seat, since you'd have a view if you were riding on the wing."
Sam paused. "Are you making fun of the wing thing?"
"Little bit. But I got you on the plane, so I think I'm allowed."
"That's fair," said Sam, automatically. Then her words sunk in. "Wait -- what?"
"I got you on the plane, Sam. Their computers think you booked your ticket three weeks ago during their big sale. Everything's ship-shape and completely legal; just head for the gate, show 'em your photo ID, and get ready for a trip to jolly old England, courtesy of Air Iggy."
"I...Iggy, thank you. Thank you so much. If there's ever anything I can do for--"
"You can go to England, find your fiancee, remind her who she's marrying, and tell her to answer her damn email once in a while," Iggy said firmly. "That'll do it for me."
"It's a promise."
"Good. Oh, and Sam?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't eat the beef."
Iggy hung up.
*
Basingstoke, England.
*
"Do I want to know why your family felt the need to keep this much rope in their vacation flat, Jerry? Or the handcuffs? Or the hobbling straps?"
"Probably not. And you definitely don't want to ask why the rope is steel-reinforced."
"It is?" Leaf squinted at the coil of rope in her hands. "So it is. Why is the rope steel-reinforced?"
"Didn't we just establish that you didn't want to ask that?" Jerry finished tying the last knot, and straightened up, dusting her hands together. "All right. If she can get out of that, well, we deserve it."
Moving their intruder from the living room floor into one of the dining room chairs had been an easy process; she was barely taller than Leaf, and despite her having the softly rounded figure of someone who knew how to eat like a human being, Slayer strength meant that it wasn't an issue. "The biggest problem with trying to restrain the supernaturally strong," Jerry had commented, "is that people tend to put very, very strong individuals into very, very poorly constructed chairs." Lacking direct basis for objection -- and enjoying Jerry's renewed good mood, even if it had taken an unexpected catfight with a Council Slayer to create -- Leaf had simply nodded.
Once they had her seated, Jerry had produced a remarkable amount of rope from what seemed to be a designated shelf at the back of the pantry, and they had proceeded to pass a disturbingly peaceful twenty minutes or so tying her up, handcuffing her to the chair, and generally making sure that the only way she was escaping without being questioned was if the hand of God Himself decided to dip in through the front window and take her away.
"No, we established that I didn't want to know, which is different," Leaf said. "I probably shouldn't ask, but it'll bother me if I don't."
"Ah, right," Jerry said, and shrugged, looking marginally abashed. "You know my family's been Council a long time, right? Well, sometimes, in the course of...training a Slayer in the proper methodologies, it's been necessary to...exercise a certain amount of restraint. Just to make sure she'd keep listening as you told her she shouldn't be doing something."
"You tied your Slayers up?" Leaf asked, eyes wide.
"Not me, personally, no."
"But you would have."
"If I had to." Jerry shrugged. "As it stands, I can just sit on them. Literally. But without superpowers, sometimes a Watcher's greatest concern isn't the demons, it's their own Slayer."
"It still seems a little...barbarious," said Leaf, dubiously.
"I present exhibit A." Jerry gestured to the bound Council Slayer. "Unless you'd rather she were unbound when she came to?"
"Involuntary bondage it is," Leaf said, with a sigh. "Now what do we do?"
"Wait for her to wake up," said Jerry. Her stomach rumbled. "And get some lunch. Care for a take-away from the chip shop?"
Leaf's eyes widened. If Jerry was willing to eat something, she really was feeling better. Maybe they needed to arrange for unexpected living room brawls on a regular basis. "I could go down and pick something up," she said, carefully. "There's the Indian place right next door. They have good salads."
"That sounds like a plan, then," said Jerry. "Get me some cod
and chips and a side of peas, would you? There's money in my bag, it's on the counter."
"All right," said Leaf, and turned to head for the kitchen. Pausing, she asked, "Will you be all right alone with her?"
"I solemnly swear not to be caught by surprise by the tied-up girl," Jerry said dryly. "She may hop menacingly at me, but if she does, I promise to stay well out of range. I'll be fine, Leaf. Providing I'm fed soon. Go on, go."
"All right, I'm going," said Leaf, half-laughing with relief as she snagged the money from Jerry's bag and headed out the door.
Jerry waited until the sound of Leaf's footsteps faded, then walked over to the bound Slayer, nudging her ankle with the tip of one foot. "It's all right," she said. "You can stop playing at being dead and go back to calling me a whore now. Much more interesting."
The stranger raised her head, opening her eyes as she glared at Jerry. "How did you--"
"Know you were faking? Easy." Jerry shrugged, squatting down so that their faces were relatively level. "It's what I would've been doing. What's your name?"
"Bitch," she snapped, and spat in Jerry's face.
"Right." Jerry straightened up, wiping the saliva away with the back of her hand. "Suppose I should've expected that. So it's my fault, really. Besides, I don't actually need you to answer -- I can find out on my own."
"How're you planning to manage that, you traitorous whore?" snapped the Slayer.
"Simple," Jerry said, with a shrug. "I've got a telephone." To her immense satisfaction, the other Slayer froze, eyes widening as the words sunk in. "I've got a list of numbers." Her eyes widened further. "You're five foot five, black hair, Indian descent, clearly raised in London, got a fondness for hand-to-hand, an inexplicable but apparently personal grudge against me, and six piercings in your left ear. Can't imagine as the Council has more than one girl that fits that description, and since they're at least supposedly negotiating with us in good faith, they'll probably be awfully interested to hear that you're here. Won't this be fun?"
"The Council didn't send me!" said the girl, hurriedly.
"Did I say that I thought they had?" Jerry picked up her address book from the sideboard, starting to flip through it. "Now, mind, I rather wish that they had, as they have me in a sticky contractual bind just now that would be tidily resolved if they attempted to bump me off. Not," she added, after a thoughtful pause, "that you'd make a very good assassin. Too flat-out 'hello, I'll be hitting you today'. Like being mugged by a rhino."
"You can't call the Council!"
"That's a very new definition of the word 'can't'," said Jerry, looking up from her address book. "I mean, I have a phone. I have a lot of phone numbers. And I have you tied to a chair, in my flat, with no particular reason to care about getting you into trouble. Why can't I call the Council again?"
The other Slayer glared, rather than answering...but there was genuine distress in her expression. Jerry sighed.
"Look. I don't have a grudge against you -- well, beyond the bit where you punched me rather a lot a little while ago, which I don't particularly enjoy. I don't even know who you are. So would you mind explaining why you felt the need to charge in here and start wishing that I'd stayed dead? Because I'd really rather like to know."
The front door opened as Leaf stepped back into the flat, calling, "I got extra chips in case our guest wakes -- oh, hello. She's awake."
"Very much so," Jerry agreed. "She was just going to explain why she'd decided to come over here and play whack-a-mole with our heads."
"You're both mad," said the Council Slayer, flatly. "Utterly mad."
"We're not the ones breaking into people's apartments and hitting them," Leaf commented.
"She's got a point," said Jerry. "Look, why are you here? We never did anything to you."
"You did," snapped the Council Slayer, jerking her chin towards Jerry.
Jerry raised an eyebrow. "What did I ever do to you?"
"You stole my fiancee!"
*
Virgin Airlines, Transcontinental Flight #43.
*
"I thought," said Edward, conversationally, "that I'd discovered all the circles of Hell that there were to discover while a man was still alive. Not just Dante's circles, or the ones that Pryce documented. I mean, I found entirely new, undocumented circles of Hell, mostly located in Cleveland, mostly by stumbling into them. But this? This is a whole new circle of Hell. One the universe undoubtably created just for me."
"Oh, hush up and give me your pillow," said Kim, keeping her hand extended.
"This is first class, Kim; they'll bring you another pillow if you ask them. Six pillows, even. Plumped and perfumed and completely devoid of dandruff."
"Yes, but they won't be your pillow," Kim said, staunchly. "Carmen got your pillow. So did Evelyn. I'm feeling left out."
Edward sighed, digging his pillow out from behind his head and handing it over. "Here. Validated now?"
"Completely." Kim sat down on the arm of the empty seat across the aisle from him, clutching the pillow to her chest like a teddy bear. "Carmen looks comfortable."
Edward snorted. "Carmen looks comatose." The Canadian Slayer had stayed awake long enough to eat the battered toast on a stick that Evie brought back from the food court, make it through security, and board the plane. That, however, seemed to have been her limit; as soon as she was comfortably seated, with the first of Eddie's pilfered pillows tucked behind her head, she'd passed out cold.
"S'what I said, isn't it?"
"In a sense." Edward sighed. "Kim? I know you're about to say something, or ask me something, or otherwise disturb my already fragile peace of mind. Show mercy. Shoot to kill."
"What are we going to do if she's going along with this voluntarily, Eddie?" Kim squeezed her pillow tighter. "You know your sister. She probably isn't happy about it, but...it's..."
"A fast, easy route back into being exactly what she always thought she wanted to be, without getting cluttered up by anything as complicated as thinking for herself?" Edward shook his head, taking care not to disturb Carmen. "I don't think she is. But...if that's the case, and Samuel hasn't already convinced her it's the wrong thing to do?"
Kim nodded, silently. Only the way she was squeezing the life out of that poor airline-issued pillow revealed the fact that she wasn't entirely happy with needing to ask the question.
"Well, assuming we've been able to rule out mind-control, replacement with an exact doppelganger, or that recent addition to the Watcher's Council's greatest hits list, possession...if we can cut all that out of things, and yes, it's really Jerry, saying for herself that what she wants more than anything is to stay in England, rejoin the Council, and become Lady Leonard Cunningham?" Edward sighed, shifting slightly to keep the dead weight of Carmen's sleeping form from entirely cutting off circulation to his arm. "We let her. She's an adult. She wants to make decisions that don't allow for us being included in her life, it's her right."
"Do you think she'd do that to us? To Sam?"
"No, I don't," Edward replied, with flat honesty. "I think she would have once. Before Giles turned on us, before things reached their peak in Cleveland -- I think there was a time when she could have convinced herself that this was exactly what she wanted."
"Are all Watcher brats that good at lying to themselves, or is this a special Harrington trait?"
"I think it's just human, really. People want to believe there's a pot of gold at the end of some rainbow waiting to solve all of their problems."
Kim snorted. "Trouble is, Jerry's rainbow stops off in a cursed cornfield with an unstoppable zombie killer stalkin' between the rows, not at some dusty old library in Boringsvale England."
"And I'm fairly sure she knows that by now. So I'm not overly worried that she's doing this voluntarily, without any sort of magical coercion." Edward's lips drew down into a tight frown. "Mostly, to be honest, I'm concerned that someone on the Council will use magical means to make her go along with it, without telling anyone else. I have no objections whatsoever to hitting those who deserve it -- I'm even looking forward to it -- but these are men and women who I've served with, and some of them remain friends. I'd rather not have their noses broken over something they weren't even aware was going on."
"So we play it cool 'til we know what's going on, and then we start breaking heads," said Kim, with a sunny smile. "I mean, it's not like Leaf or Jerry would ever lose their tempers, is it?"
Edward groaned. "We're going to get there and find a smoking crater in the ground, aren't we?"
"I'd say there's a good chance. Also, there's that whole 'Sam is gonna get there before us' thing to consider, and maybe you and I have the breeding to be patient--" Edward snorted. Kim kicked him lightly in the knee, then continued blandly on, ignoring the way he was rubbing the side of his leg and swearing under his breath. "--the breeding and refined manners to be patient, but Sam? Not so terribly much, especially if, say, the mind-control option is being exercised, and he gets there to find that happy shiny Stepford Jerry is just peachy with this? There's gonna be a hittin'. I mean, Grampa Thomas wanted to hit things when he thought the only one brainwashing Gramma Alice was her own daddy, and the Watcher's Council is a much better target."
For a long, long moment, Edward considered her words in silence, continuing to rub the side of his leg. Finally, almost distantly, he said, "I suppose we're going to have to count on Leaf's capacity to serve as the voice of calmness and reason."
"That, or we just need to hope she leaves us somebody to kill." Kim stood, handing the severely misshappen pillow back to Edward. "Changed my mind; I'll get my own."
"You're too kind," Edward said, eyeing it dubiously. "Also, you've split a seam."
"They're better when they're broken in," Kim said, and smiled brightly as she turned back towards her own seat, two rows forward, next to the window seat where Evie was at least pretending to sleep. She hoped pretense would become reality at some point during the flight; according to Gramma Alice's Watcher diary, the jetlag between the United States and England was murder if you weren't prepared.
Of course, that section had ended with a recommendation that you don't go prepared, because you shouldn't go at all. But it was a little late for that.
Evie shifted as Kim sat back down, making a faint protesting noise. That was a good sign; it meant she was more likely to actually be sleeping. Her airline-issued headphones were still clamped firmly down over the black-dyed tangle of her hair. Kim glanced to Evie's in-flight entertainment display, and shook her head, smiling wryly.
"Ya found the mopey goth music channel," she said. "Oh, yeah, you're gonna sleep 'til we hit Heathrow."
Leaning forward, she retrieved Evie's blanket from the floor and spread it over the smaller Slayer, checking to make sure that it was tucked in around the edges, and not likely to fall again. Evie sighed in her sleep, but didn't otherwise react.
"Good girl, Evie," said Kim, and settled back in her own seat, pulling the second blanket up over herself as she closed her eyes. Wouldn't do to return to the ancestral cradle of the family too tired to hit what she was aiming at, after all. No, the Watcher's Council was getting exactly what they paid for when they decided to mess with Jerry: a Healy woman at her best.
If they survived the experience, they'd doubtless feel honoured.
As the plane hurtled towards England, Kim Healy slept.
Rating: R.
Fandom: Covenant of the Slayer/Healy Compound.
Synopsis: Jerry and Sam try to connect over the phone, while things get a little unpredictable both at home and abroad. Originally written for ceolyn, for the first Valentine's Day round of Iron Author, but it fetched up a bit on the 'longer than intended' side of things. As so often happens. You can find part one here, and part two here.
***
Basingstoke, England.
*
Jerry had learned to deal with a great many things since discovering that she was a Maid in Waiting -- a revelation which, she had often thought, really ought to be reserved for people under the age of twelve, whose chosen career path was still torn between 'astronaut', 'first sensible Companion to travel with the Doctor', and 'saviour of a magical realm filled with talking ponies'. She'd learned to handle scorn, hunger, exhaustion, and high explosives (although the last had been really rather fun). With time, and practice, those things had come to seem very nearly, well...normal.
Yet despite all the grand battles, back-alley slayings, ambushes, and inevitable apocalypses, she'd never exactly learned to cope with being punched in the face by total strangers.
Somehow, it had just never come up.
Rocking backwards onto her heels in surprise, Jerry did what years of training and a great deal of only semi-repressed anger told her came naturally, and returned the blow in kind, punching the girl in the doorway with enough force to have put most women her size clean through the wall on the other side of the hall.
The girl grinned, looking deeply, ferally satisfied. "Oh," she said, "I really hoped that what I'd heard about you was right, and you'd be stupid enough to do that." Wiping a trickle of blood from the side of her mouth, she lunged.
"Can't be a vampire," said Leaf, thoughtfully. "She's inside now, and we didn't ask her to come in. I suppose she could be some sort of a demon..." Jerry grabbed the stranger by the braid, whipping her around and using it as a handle with which to bash her face into the wall. She responded with an inarticulate snarling sound, reaching up behind herself, taking hold of Jerry's wrist, and performing a complicated twisting motion that resulted in her standing behind the taller girl, holding her arm at a sharp, and probably painful angle. "She's bleeding red, though."
Jerry grunted, stomping down hard on the other girl's instep and wrenching her arm free while her assailant was occupied with swearing at the top of her lungs. "Not a demon," she said. The rest of the statement was cut off as an arm was locked around her neck, cutting off the air.
"Oh, you're going to wish I was a demon, you cheap little two-bit tramp," snapped the new arrival, squeezing more tightly. Jerry made an inarticulate choking sound. "It's always the same with you rich girls, isn't it? Can't keep yourselves from wandering, but God forbid someone else should take what you don't waaaa--" Her last word became a squawk as Jerry pitched her over her right shoulder, and she landed, hard, in the middle of the apartment floor.
Leaf considered the scene, thoughtfully. Jerry wasn't actually hurt. She knew all Jerry's 'need help now please' signs, and none of them were in display; while the British Slayer looked distinctly annoyed by being assaulted in her own apartment, she was also fighting back, and didn't seem to be in any immediate danger. Besides, random attackers with no apparent motivations were probably good for her right now. They gave her something to focus her aggressions on. Something that wasn't the plumbing. Still, it was polite to at least check on things...
"Did you want some help over there?" she called, curiously.
"I've got it under control!" Jerry replied, ducking under a spinning kick that had clearly been intended to catch her in the side of the head. "Thanks, though!"
"No trouble," Leaf said.
The newcomer paused, falling into a defensive position, and stared at them both as if they'd completely lost their minds. "Are you mental?" she demanded. "What do you think this is, a fucking tea party?"
"Oh, no," Leaf said, serenely. "Jerry doesn't like tea."
"Holy shit," said the new girl, sounding bewildered. "They weren't kidding. You left the Council because you were fucking insane! Is your crazy catching?"
"Oddly, autonomy and independant thought aren't like rabies," Jerry said.
Thoughtfully, Leaf added, "Pity."
"I'd heard you were bloody nuts, but this is even worse than--"
"Right, that's enough," said Jerry, and punched her in the face. Letting out an enraged shriek that would have sounded just as natural coming from an alley cat, the girl swung back, and the fight resumed.
"Council Slayer?" Leaf asked.
"Council Slayer," Jerry confirmed, just before getting hit squarely between the eyes. She reeled backwards, then aimed a kick for the other girl's middle. "That hurt!"
"Good!" snarled her assailant, and hit her again.
This looked like it could take a while. "I'm going to make more coffee," said Leaf, choosing retreat as the better part of valor. The fight was turning ugly, and Jerry had a tendency to forget about collateral damages when she got well and truly distracted.
"Good plan!" said Jerry, between dodges.
The intruder seemed to be getting more and more agitated as it became clear that not only was Leaf not planning to get involved, but Jerry wasn't taking her attacks as the end of the world that they had apparently been intended to be. "What the fuck is wrong with you?!" she demanded, as she swept Jerry's feet out from under her. The taller Slayer went down hard, landing on the coffee table, which protested this treatment by shattering into several dozen pieces. "D'you think this is some sort of joke?!"
"I think," Jerry panted, as she lunged back to her feet, "that this is how Kim and I suss who gets next turn at the bloody bathroom."
Snarling incoherently, the Council Slayer charged forward in a rugby tackle that managed to catch Jerry off-balance, and ended with her back slamming into the remains of the coffee table for the second time in under a minute. Jerry gasped as the wind was knocked out of her lungs, and reacted in the only way that instinct was willing to go along with, driving her legs up and out in a high, hard kick that turned into a throw and sent the substantially smaller Slayer flying halfway across the room, squarely into a very startled Leaf.
There was a thud as the two collided, followed by more swearing, both in English and Mandarin. Pressing herself back to her feet, Jerry grabbed one of the larger chunks of the remaining table, and called, "Sorry about that."
"It's all right!" Leaf called back, dodging under the other Slayer's fist before driving her elbow, hard, into her solar plexus. "Although warning would've been nice."
"A pitched brawl in the living room isn't warning enough for you?" Jerry nodded towards the plank in her hand, then towards the girl who was now vigorously attempting to punch Leaf in the head. "It's generally warning enough for me."
"Well, I guess you're just less trusting than I am," Leaf said, grabbing her attacker by the wrist and noting, calmly, "It's extremely impolite to hit people to whom you haven't been properly introduced." The other Slayer responded by snarling and planting a knee in the middle of Leaf's stomach. Leaf narrowed her eyes. "Oh. I see." She slammed her forehead into her attacker's, knocking her backwards without letting go of her wrist. "If you didn't want to play nice, you only needed to say so."
The only reply was a string of loud curses, and a second knee to Leaf's middle. This time, the blow was hard enough that Leaf released her grip, dropping to one knee and wrapping her arms around her stomach. Grinning, the stranger knotted her hands together and raised them over her head, preparing to deliver a knock-out blow.
Jerry koshed her from behind, shattering the already-weakened wood and sending splinters flying. Looking mildly surprised, the Council Slayer stopped, blinked, and toppled forward, landing slightly off to Leaf's left in a crumpled heap.
"Well," said Jerry, dropping the remains of her impromptu club and offering Leaf her hand. "Wasn't that exciting."
"Very," Leaf wheezed, letting Jerry help her up. She eyed the fallen Slayer warily. "What do we do with her?"
"Oh, the usual," Jerry said, and smiled sunnily. "Get the rope."
*
Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport, International Terminal.
*
If Edward had been asked to make a list of things he never wanted to do, ever again in his lifetime, even under threat of death or dismemberment, he probably would have put 'shepherd four Slayers through the International Terminal of a major airport in a vain attempt at keeping them under control while trying to book tickets for five on the first morning flight to England, without being detained as members of some global terrorist organization'. Honesty forced him to amend the last clause to add 'even though technically, all of us probably qualify', seeing as how the Watcher's Council was definitely global, probably terrorist by the standards of any mundane government, and unlikely to ever admit that none of them were technically members any longer.
Unfortunately, the odds of anyone asking for that list were only slightly lower than the odds of anyone actually giving a damn about it, and neither of those things was going to allow him to keep track of his charges while navigating the process of booking the tickets. "Excuse me a moment," he said, to the increasingly irritated travel agent. Sticking his head out of the office, he demanded, "Where is Evelyn this time?"
"Food court," drawled Kim, continuing to file her nails. "Corn dog onna stick place just opened up. She's been dispatched to bring us back some deep-fried therapy."
"It's six in the morning! Why the hell is the corn dog on a stick place open?" The bigger question of why the corn dog on a stick place existed was too much to be addressed, at least before he'd managed to secure their tickets. Quickly, he counted off the others. Carmen was dozing in her seat, head tilted backwards and a thin line of drool making its way down her chin, while Anna was sitting quietly, fussing with something inside her duffelbag. None of them were showing any signs of wandering away, which was both a nice change, and a relief.
Pulling his head back into the office, Edward once more settled firmly into his seat, fixing a sunny 'harmless foreign man just trying to get to his native land before his sister does something really, really stupid' smile on his face. "So," he said. "Where were we, again?"
"You were requesting five tickets to London, Heathrow, Mr. Harrington," said the agent, patiently. While she appreciated the windfall of booking several last-minute seats to England, this particular commission was well on its way to becoming more trouble than it was worth. "One-way?"
"That's right," Edward said. "We'll get our return tickets once things have been sorted out. You know how girls can be."
"...right," she said, slowly. "I'm afraid the airlines are all booked up for today. Can I start checking available flights for tomorrow?"
"Actually, I'm afraid not. Elopements have this nasty habit of happening without being stopped if you put off flying until tomorrow. Are you checking the first class cabin?"
"Er." She paused. "No, sir. Just coach."
"Can you go ahead and run that for me?"
"Yes, sir." Fingers practically numb, she typed in the query. She usually hated the early morning shift, which was traditionally the stalking grounds of broke college students hoping for last-minute openings on planes headed for exotic, adventurous, extremely cheap locales. Five first-class tickets to a major tourist destination was practically unreal. "I can get you on the ten-thirty Virgin Atlantic flight to Heathrow, sir. First class is all that's open."
"Fantastic," said Edward, and pulled out his wallet, producing a credit card. "If you would please book those for me, miss? Only I'm afraid we'll have to clear security, and we're all in a bit of a hurry."
She took the card, gingerly. "If you don't mind my saying so, sir, you must really love your sister."
"Yes," Edward replied. "I rather suppose I must."
*
Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport, International Terminal Food Court.
*
Evie jiggled her weight onto her left foot, scratching the associated calf with her toes as she squinted up at the Hot Dog Shack menu. As Kim had promised, they seemed to specialize in dipping practically anything you could think of in batter, then frying it until the batter calcified into a protective yet crispy outer shell. They were currently serving the breakfast menu, which included 'egg on a stick' and 'toast on a stick', with your choice of jam.
A surprising number of people seemed to think that battered toast on a stick was the right way to start their day, because the line was moving with near glacial slowness. Evie shifted to her right foot, and started scratching her left calf, for a change. Kim's instructions had been very explicit. She was to go, obtain fried things and coffee, and not start any fights, or wander off to anyplace that wasn't the food court. Normally, Evie didn't give Kim's orders that much weight -- what was so special about being a mouse priestess, anyway? They were just creepy demon rodents -- but since Kim was the only one with properly ensorcelled weapon-concealing luggage, she was operating at a bit of an advantage. Don't do as she asked, potentially don't get any of your weapons given back to you.
"It's not fair," Evie muttered, sulkily.
The woman ahead of her turned, directing a grandmotherly smile her way. "Don't worry, dear," she said. "They make specially sure never to run out of strawberry jam."
Unsure of whether it would count as 'starting trouble' if she explained that the unfairness she was protesting was the fact that someone else had all her weapons, not that the food court might run out of jam, Evie squirmed. "I, er, know," she said. "I'm just really hungry."
"Did you want to go ahead of me? I just need a little something before my flight, and I have plenty of time."
"No, that's okay," said Evie, reddening. "I can wait."
"All right, dear," said the woman. "You just let me know if you change your mind." She turned back to face in her original direction, leaving Evie to let out a small, almost inaudible sigh of relief.
If she really let herself think about it, she knew that being worried was just plain silly. Geraldine could take care of herself in England, and she'd never really let herself get married off to some dumb Watcher. Not when she had Sam waiting for her like a big sexy Wookie. And even if she was that stupid, Sam was probably there already, punching Watchers in the face and making Jerry get that thoughtful look that usually meant she was about to suggest Evie go and do something in a different room. And even if somehow Sam couldn't manage to find her -- England was sort of big, and Evie was pretty sure he'd never been there, given the questions he was asking at the passport renewal office -- Lord Shinyshoes was doing his Watcherly duty and riding to the rescue, with a whole bunch more Slayers in tow. So really, there was nothing to worry about. Nothing to worry about at all.
It wasn't like anybody had ever left her, right? And it wasn't like Jerry had ever said she missed England, or seemed to regret leaving the Council over a little thing like Giles being a jerk, or started to consider reconciliation when they found out that he hadn't been being an asshole, he'd just been a little bit possessed, right? Jerry liked chaos. And spending all her time chasing after evil things, and getting her hair mussed up, and not getting enough sleep, or any time to study, or time alone with her boyfriend. Jerry liked it. She'd never leave it to go back to being a boring old Watcher who had a whole lot of time to study because she didn't actually have a life. She had Evie. That was better than having a life. So there wasn't anything to be worried about Not anything at all.
Right?
Evie scrubbed at her eyes with the heel of her hand, resolutely ordering herself not to get all soppy over a stupid old Watcher who probably got herself into trouble in the first place. She should just think of this as a chance at a free trip back to England, and let Edward worry about Geraldine. "If she wants to ditch us, we don't need her, anyway," she muttered.
"What was that, dear?" asked the woman in front of her, turning to look back over her shoulder at Evie.
"Nothing!" said Evie, quickly. More carefully, she added, "Just hoping you're right about them still having strawberry jam, that's all."
The woman smiled. "Oh, I wouldn't worry."
"Believe me," Evie said, "I'm really trying not to."
*
Local Highway 19, Top of the Airport Shuttle.
*
Sam was out of the room, into his room, out of his room, and halfway down the road to the motel by the cursed Chinese place, where he knew they had an airport shuttle, before Edward had even finished explaining the situation. Maybe it was impulsive, but what was the point of being a giant monkey demon if you couldn't be a little bit impulsive sometimes? Especially when the honour of your finacee happened to be at stake?
Especially when there was a more than reasonably good chance that said fiancee might decide that she should just go along with getting married to whoever the Council had picked, because even though she liked to pretend to be all rebellious and independent, he knew her well enough to know that she still had a 'do what the Council tells you' streak a mile wide? And maybe she'd just be going along with it at first, figuring that she could get away when the time
was right, but what were the odds that she'd just adapt to being back with the Watcher's Council? Maybe even faster than she'd adapted to a life without them?
Sam had tried adapting to a life without Jerry, once. He hadn't liked it very much. It had mostly consisted of wondering what he did wrong, and worrying his mother by moping around the apartment. So doing that again? Not exactly seeming like a better deal than impulsiveness.
He'd been sitting on the roof of the shuttle, digging through his wallet and wondering whether a flight to England cost more than forty-three dollars and seventeen cents, when his cellphone started ringing. He pulled it out of his pocket with his tail, flicking it open and raising it to his ear as he said, "I'm not coming back, Eddie, and you can't make me. I have to find my fiancee." There. That sounded suitably tough and non-negotiable.
"It's not Eddie," drawled the familiar, dry-as-dust voice of Elizabeth Marie Fuquay. "If I were, I think Courtland would be a little upset." A faint gagging noise was audible in the background. "And I'd be dousing myself in lye. They're packing now. You sure you don't wanna wait for the cavalry?"
"Iggy, it's Jerry. I can't."
He heard keys clatter as Iggy started to type. "Didn't expect you could, Sam, but I wanted to be sure. How were you planning to get to England?"
"Buy a ticket." Sam glanced at his relatively cash-free wallet, and added, "Or maybe just ride to the outside of a plane. It worked on 'The Twilight Zone'."
"Honey, you're not a Japanese snow monkey. If you go becoming a Samsickle, Jerry'll tan my hide for me." The typing continued. "How close to the airport are you, and how fast do you think you can clear security?"
"Legally?"
"Since this isn't a Hong-Kong action flick, that would be best."
"Um...pretty fast? I have a valid passport. And a second form of ID. And I'm not carrying anything illegal, or any actual weapons or anything. I couldn't figure out how to get them on the plane."
"Uh-huh. What's your legal name?"
"Um. Samuel Coleridge Taylor?"
"Okay, hang on."
"Iggy? Um, what are you doing?"
"The usual. Sacrificing chickens to my dark masters, invoking the cosmic forces of bibbity, bobbity, and boo, and, oh yeah, hacking into the Virgin Atlantic computer system to get you on the next flight to the UK. You're on the six forty-five to London, landing in Heathrow at ten o'clock local time. I got you a window seat, since you'd have a view if you were riding on the wing."
Sam paused. "Are you making fun of the wing thing?"
"Little bit. But I got you on the plane, so I think I'm allowed."
"That's fair," said Sam, automatically. Then her words sunk in. "Wait -- what?"
"I got you on the plane, Sam. Their computers think you booked your ticket three weeks ago during their big sale. Everything's ship-shape and completely legal; just head for the gate, show 'em your photo ID, and get ready for a trip to jolly old England, courtesy of Air Iggy."
"I...Iggy, thank you. Thank you so much. If there's ever anything I can do for--"
"You can go to England, find your fiancee, remind her who she's marrying, and tell her to answer her damn email once in a while," Iggy said firmly. "That'll do it for me."
"It's a promise."
"Good. Oh, and Sam?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't eat the beef."
Iggy hung up.
*
Basingstoke, England.
*
"Do I want to know why your family felt the need to keep this much rope in their vacation flat, Jerry? Or the handcuffs? Or the hobbling straps?"
"Probably not. And you definitely don't want to ask why the rope is steel-reinforced."
"It is?" Leaf squinted at the coil of rope in her hands. "So it is. Why is the rope steel-reinforced?"
"Didn't we just establish that you didn't want to ask that?" Jerry finished tying the last knot, and straightened up, dusting her hands together. "All right. If she can get out of that, well, we deserve it."
Moving their intruder from the living room floor into one of the dining room chairs had been an easy process; she was barely taller than Leaf, and despite her having the softly rounded figure of someone who knew how to eat like a human being, Slayer strength meant that it wasn't an issue. "The biggest problem with trying to restrain the supernaturally strong," Jerry had commented, "is that people tend to put very, very strong individuals into very, very poorly constructed chairs." Lacking direct basis for objection -- and enjoying Jerry's renewed good mood, even if it had taken an unexpected catfight with a Council Slayer to create -- Leaf had simply nodded.
Once they had her seated, Jerry had produced a remarkable amount of rope from what seemed to be a designated shelf at the back of the pantry, and they had proceeded to pass a disturbingly peaceful twenty minutes or so tying her up, handcuffing her to the chair, and generally making sure that the only way she was escaping without being questioned was if the hand of God Himself decided to dip in through the front window and take her away.
"No, we established that I didn't want to know, which is different," Leaf said. "I probably shouldn't ask, but it'll bother me if I don't."
"Ah, right," Jerry said, and shrugged, looking marginally abashed. "You know my family's been Council a long time, right? Well, sometimes, in the course of...training a Slayer in the proper methodologies, it's been necessary to...exercise a certain amount of restraint. Just to make sure she'd keep listening as you told her she shouldn't be doing something."
"You tied your Slayers up?" Leaf asked, eyes wide.
"Not me, personally, no."
"But you would have."
"If I had to." Jerry shrugged. "As it stands, I can just sit on them. Literally. But without superpowers, sometimes a Watcher's greatest concern isn't the demons, it's their own Slayer."
"It still seems a little...barbarious," said Leaf, dubiously.
"I present exhibit A." Jerry gestured to the bound Council Slayer. "Unless you'd rather she were unbound when she came to?"
"Involuntary bondage it is," Leaf said, with a sigh. "Now what do we do?"
"Wait for her to wake up," said Jerry. Her stomach rumbled. "And get some lunch. Care for a take-away from the chip shop?"
Leaf's eyes widened. If Jerry was willing to eat something, she really was feeling better. Maybe they needed to arrange for unexpected living room brawls on a regular basis. "I could go down and pick something up," she said, carefully. "There's the Indian place right next door. They have good salads."
"That sounds like a plan, then," said Jerry. "Get me some cod
and chips and a side of peas, would you? There's money in my bag, it's on the counter."
"All right," said Leaf, and turned to head for the kitchen. Pausing, she asked, "Will you be all right alone with her?"
"I solemnly swear not to be caught by surprise by the tied-up girl," Jerry said dryly. "She may hop menacingly at me, but if she does, I promise to stay well out of range. I'll be fine, Leaf. Providing I'm fed soon. Go on, go."
"All right, I'm going," said Leaf, half-laughing with relief as she snagged the money from Jerry's bag and headed out the door.
Jerry waited until the sound of Leaf's footsteps faded, then walked over to the bound Slayer, nudging her ankle with the tip of one foot. "It's all right," she said. "You can stop playing at being dead and go back to calling me a whore now. Much more interesting."
The stranger raised her head, opening her eyes as she glared at Jerry. "How did you--"
"Know you were faking? Easy." Jerry shrugged, squatting down so that their faces were relatively level. "It's what I would've been doing. What's your name?"
"Bitch," she snapped, and spat in Jerry's face.
"Right." Jerry straightened up, wiping the saliva away with the back of her hand. "Suppose I should've expected that. So it's my fault, really. Besides, I don't actually need you to answer -- I can find out on my own."
"How're you planning to manage that, you traitorous whore?" snapped the Slayer.
"Simple," Jerry said, with a shrug. "I've got a telephone." To her immense satisfaction, the other Slayer froze, eyes widening as the words sunk in. "I've got a list of numbers." Her eyes widened further. "You're five foot five, black hair, Indian descent, clearly raised in London, got a fondness for hand-to-hand, an inexplicable but apparently personal grudge against me, and six piercings in your left ear. Can't imagine as the Council has more than one girl that fits that description, and since they're at least supposedly negotiating with us in good faith, they'll probably be awfully interested to hear that you're here. Won't this be fun?"
"The Council didn't send me!" said the girl, hurriedly.
"Did I say that I thought they had?" Jerry picked up her address book from the sideboard, starting to flip through it. "Now, mind, I rather wish that they had, as they have me in a sticky contractual bind just now that would be tidily resolved if they attempted to bump me off. Not," she added, after a thoughtful pause, "that you'd make a very good assassin. Too flat-out 'hello, I'll be hitting you today'. Like being mugged by a rhino."
"You can't call the Council!"
"That's a very new definition of the word 'can't'," said Jerry, looking up from her address book. "I mean, I have a phone. I have a lot of phone numbers. And I have you tied to a chair, in my flat, with no particular reason to care about getting you into trouble. Why can't I call the Council again?"
The other Slayer glared, rather than answering...but there was genuine distress in her expression. Jerry sighed.
"Look. I don't have a grudge against you -- well, beyond the bit where you punched me rather a lot a little while ago, which I don't particularly enjoy. I don't even know who you are. So would you mind explaining why you felt the need to charge in here and start wishing that I'd stayed dead? Because I'd really rather like to know."
The front door opened as Leaf stepped back into the flat, calling, "I got extra chips in case our guest wakes -- oh, hello. She's awake."
"Very much so," Jerry agreed. "She was just going to explain why she'd decided to come over here and play whack-a-mole with our heads."
"You're both mad," said the Council Slayer, flatly. "Utterly mad."
"We're not the ones breaking into people's apartments and hitting them," Leaf commented.
"She's got a point," said Jerry. "Look, why are you here? We never did anything to you."
"You did," snapped the Council Slayer, jerking her chin towards Jerry.
Jerry raised an eyebrow. "What did I ever do to you?"
"You stole my fiancee!"
*
Virgin Airlines, Transcontinental Flight #43.
*
"I thought," said Edward, conversationally, "that I'd discovered all the circles of Hell that there were to discover while a man was still alive. Not just Dante's circles, or the ones that Pryce documented. I mean, I found entirely new, undocumented circles of Hell, mostly located in Cleveland, mostly by stumbling into them. But this? This is a whole new circle of Hell. One the universe undoubtably created just for me."
"Oh, hush up and give me your pillow," said Kim, keeping her hand extended.
"This is first class, Kim; they'll bring you another pillow if you ask them. Six pillows, even. Plumped and perfumed and completely devoid of dandruff."
"Yes, but they won't be your pillow," Kim said, staunchly. "Carmen got your pillow. So did Evelyn. I'm feeling left out."
Edward sighed, digging his pillow out from behind his head and handing it over. "Here. Validated now?"
"Completely." Kim sat down on the arm of the empty seat across the aisle from him, clutching the pillow to her chest like a teddy bear. "Carmen looks comfortable."
Edward snorted. "Carmen looks comatose." The Canadian Slayer had stayed awake long enough to eat the battered toast on a stick that Evie brought back from the food court, make it through security, and board the plane. That, however, seemed to have been her limit; as soon as she was comfortably seated, with the first of Eddie's pilfered pillows tucked behind her head, she'd passed out cold.
"S'what I said, isn't it?"
"In a sense." Edward sighed. "Kim? I know you're about to say something, or ask me something, or otherwise disturb my already fragile peace of mind. Show mercy. Shoot to kill."
"What are we going to do if she's going along with this voluntarily, Eddie?" Kim squeezed her pillow tighter. "You know your sister. She probably isn't happy about it, but...it's..."
"A fast, easy route back into being exactly what she always thought she wanted to be, without getting cluttered up by anything as complicated as thinking for herself?" Edward shook his head, taking care not to disturb Carmen. "I don't think she is. But...if that's the case, and Samuel hasn't already convinced her it's the wrong thing to do?"
Kim nodded, silently. Only the way she was squeezing the life out of that poor airline-issued pillow revealed the fact that she wasn't entirely happy with needing to ask the question.
"Well, assuming we've been able to rule out mind-control, replacement with an exact doppelganger, or that recent addition to the Watcher's Council's greatest hits list, possession...if we can cut all that out of things, and yes, it's really Jerry, saying for herself that what she wants more than anything is to stay in England, rejoin the Council, and become Lady Leonard Cunningham?" Edward sighed, shifting slightly to keep the dead weight of Carmen's sleeping form from entirely cutting off circulation to his arm. "We let her. She's an adult. She wants to make decisions that don't allow for us being included in her life, it's her right."
"Do you think she'd do that to us? To Sam?"
"No, I don't," Edward replied, with flat honesty. "I think she would have once. Before Giles turned on us, before things reached their peak in Cleveland -- I think there was a time when she could have convinced herself that this was exactly what she wanted."
"Are all Watcher brats that good at lying to themselves, or is this a special Harrington trait?"
"I think it's just human, really. People want to believe there's a pot of gold at the end of some rainbow waiting to solve all of their problems."
Kim snorted. "Trouble is, Jerry's rainbow stops off in a cursed cornfield with an unstoppable zombie killer stalkin' between the rows, not at some dusty old library in Boringsvale England."
"And I'm fairly sure she knows that by now. So I'm not overly worried that she's doing this voluntarily, without any sort of magical coercion." Edward's lips drew down into a tight frown. "Mostly, to be honest, I'm concerned that someone on the Council will use magical means to make her go along with it, without telling anyone else. I have no objections whatsoever to hitting those who deserve it -- I'm even looking forward to it -- but these are men and women who I've served with, and some of them remain friends. I'd rather not have their noses broken over something they weren't even aware was going on."
"So we play it cool 'til we know what's going on, and then we start breaking heads," said Kim, with a sunny smile. "I mean, it's not like Leaf or Jerry would ever lose their tempers, is it?"
Edward groaned. "We're going to get there and find a smoking crater in the ground, aren't we?"
"I'd say there's a good chance. Also, there's that whole 'Sam is gonna get there before us' thing to consider, and maybe you and I have the breeding to be patient--" Edward snorted. Kim kicked him lightly in the knee, then continued blandly on, ignoring the way he was rubbing the side of his leg and swearing under his breath. "--the breeding and refined manners to be patient, but Sam? Not so terribly much, especially if, say, the mind-control option is being exercised, and he gets there to find that happy shiny Stepford Jerry is just peachy with this? There's gonna be a hittin'. I mean, Grampa Thomas wanted to hit things when he thought the only one brainwashing Gramma Alice was her own daddy, and the Watcher's Council is a much better target."
For a long, long moment, Edward considered her words in silence, continuing to rub the side of his leg. Finally, almost distantly, he said, "I suppose we're going to have to count on Leaf's capacity to serve as the voice of calmness and reason."
"That, or we just need to hope she leaves us somebody to kill." Kim stood, handing the severely misshappen pillow back to Edward. "Changed my mind; I'll get my own."
"You're too kind," Edward said, eyeing it dubiously. "Also, you've split a seam."
"They're better when they're broken in," Kim said, and smiled brightly as she turned back towards her own seat, two rows forward, next to the window seat where Evie was at least pretending to sleep. She hoped pretense would become reality at some point during the flight; according to Gramma Alice's Watcher diary, the jetlag between the United States and England was murder if you weren't prepared.
Of course, that section had ended with a recommendation that you don't go prepared, because you shouldn't go at all. But it was a little late for that.
Evie shifted as Kim sat back down, making a faint protesting noise. That was a good sign; it meant she was more likely to actually be sleeping. Her airline-issued headphones were still clamped firmly down over the black-dyed tangle of her hair. Kim glanced to Evie's in-flight entertainment display, and shook her head, smiling wryly.
"Ya found the mopey goth music channel," she said. "Oh, yeah, you're gonna sleep 'til we hit Heathrow."
Leaning forward, she retrieved Evie's blanket from the floor and spread it over the smaller Slayer, checking to make sure that it was tucked in around the edges, and not likely to fall again. Evie sighed in her sleep, but didn't otherwise react.
"Good girl, Evie," said Kim, and settled back in her own seat, pulling the second blanket up over herself as she closed her eyes. Wouldn't do to return to the ancestral cradle of the family too tired to hit what she was aiming at, after all. No, the Watcher's Council was getting exactly what they paid for when they decided to mess with Jerry: a Healy woman at her best.
If they survived the experience, they'd doubtless feel honoured.
As the plane hurtled towards England, Kim Healy slept.