The car ride to the bar on Shoreline was quiet. As soon as Angel settled onto the seat an air of tension had spread out like a fine mist over the passengers, though none of them knew why. Both Cordelia and Angel had noticed immediately that the Slayer was a little different than they last remembered, though Cordy chalked it up to hormones and her father’s presence. That and being back from the dead. It had certainly played hell with her hair, God knows what something like that did to a person’s personality.

“So…Buffy…you’re here to visit your dad, that’s great,” Cordelia began hesitantly. “How’s Dawn doing?”

Buffy remained face forward, though her eyes were downcast as she played with her hands. “She’s fine.”

Cordy exchanged a glance with Gunn, who said nothing.

“And everyone else is okay? Willow? Xander?” she asked the Slayer.

“Everyone’s fine,” came the stoic reply.

“Oooh-kay,” Cordelia muttered under her breath.

“What did the demons say to you?” Angel asked her quietly as they drove through the streets.

“Just that they had information about my afterlife…that I’m not supposed to be here,” Buffy told him.

“Not supposed to be here? What’s that mean?” Cordy asked, leaning in from the backseat.

Buffy’s face remained passive. “I don’t know.”

“So…okay. You died. And somehow a friend of yours brought you back. And now these demon guys are showing up on your vacation to tell you that you’re not supposed to be here?” Gunn summarized.

Angel’s eyes flicked to Buffy’s face as she nodded. “If you’re not supposed to be here, where are you supposed to be? Back in the demon dimension you were captive in?” he guessed.

Buffy didn’t say anything, though his words cut through her. All of you are so stupid, a voice growled deep inside her.

“Those demon guys are trying to kill you, to bring you back to Hell?” Gunn yelped.

Buffy shrugged and looked out the window as they sped towards the bar.

Angel watched her quietly from the driver’s seat.

“So!” Cordy said brightly, desperately trying to make herself, and the others, more comfortable. “Everyone in Sunnydale is fine, you’re fine, we’re all fine. I’m sure once we tell Wesley what’s going on that he’ll be on the phone to Giles and they’ll get it all straightened out,” she assured the blonde in front of her.

Buffy mumbled something.

“What?” Cordelia asked, leaning in.

“Giles went back to London. Permanently.”

Cordy gasped. “No! Really? When? But he’s your Watcher!”

Buffy shrugged again and continued to stare out the window as rain began to fall. “A few weeks ago.”

“And you just let him?!” the seer cried. “Man, you two were like…oh, gosh, Buffy, I’m sorry. I know how close you guys were.”

“Wasn’t my decision,” the Slayer muttered, a note of anger in her tone.

Angel glanced fervently between Buffy and the road, concern and shock furrowing on his brow. Giles was gone? He’d just left her? Alone?

Something was wrong. Seriously wrong. Since the battle had stopped Buffy seemed to have just…shut down. Her fighting was better than ever, but her personality seemed off, altered somehow. Of course, getting used to being brought back from the dead would take a lot out of a person, he accepted that, particularly when she’d been in a Hell-dimension…he hadn’t been a real picnic when he’d come back, either, and they’d been there about the same amount of time.

After she’d been returned and they’d rushed to see each other again, meeting halfway between Sunnydale and LA, he’d felt it. Or hadn’t felt it, to be exact. That familiarity between them hadn’t been there. The tingle that alerted them to each other’s presence, the butterfly in his stomach, the creeping prickle up his spine, he hadn’t felt it that time, either. On his drive back into the city that night he’d concluded, reluctantly, that it had simply meant that he and Buffy had moved on, and away, from each other. They no longer shared the deep bond that had once been more important to him than anything else in the world. The connection had been severed.

But a part of him still nagged. He didn’t believe that in its entirety. Angel still cared for her as deeply as he ever had, he had in fact wept silently, alone in his room both the nights he learned of her death and of her rebirth. She still held onto a piece of his heart that he knew, and was sure that, she always would possess, no matter what life threw at them. And yet…nothing. No tingle. No indication that she was near, and she’d obviously not felt him judging by the way her eyes had flown wide as she recognized him. Perhaps…perhaps she really had moved on.

That thought was more than he cared to deal with right now and he changed the subject in his mind to something lighter…his son. Connor was just a month old now and together he and his make-shift family had gotten into a routine, with Fred calling most of the shots. In fact, Angel now believed that the Powers had sent him, or Cordy, rather, to Pylea to retrieve Fred so that she would act as Connor’s mother since Darla’s suicide. The skittish girl was sweet and tender, and more than thrilled to play mom to the infant boy, especially if it meant spending more time with Angel.

The thought of his son made him smile and he glanced at Buffy to see her watching him carefully before turning back to the window.

The smile faded. How the hell was he going to tell Buffy about Connor? The thought had never even occurred to him. We’ll deal with that when it comes, he told himself.

Making a right turn he parked in front of the bar, slow on this Thursday night, and the foursome got out of the car. Buffy went first, striding with confidence she hadn’t displayed in the car, but had been full of during the fight. The double doors slammed back at she burst through them and the few patrons looked up simultaneously. A few of them gasped at the sight of Angel, his reputation preceding him.

“Just like Willy’s at home,” Buffy muttered to herself and ambled to the bar. “I need to see someone here…about some robed guys, demons.”

The burly bartender smiled at the little girl on the other side of his wide oak bar. “Is that right? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Buffy cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Oh, this is going to be so, so good, isn’t it?” Gunn whispered to Cordelia, fascinated.

Cordy elbowed him in the ribs and went back to watching the Slayer.

Buffy crouched down low and jumped up, landing solidly on top of the bar, kicking the bartender in the throat and sending him crumpling to the ground. “What do you remember now?” she taunted, jumping down behind the bar.

The bartender clutched at his windpipe as Buffy grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and yanked him up. Angel leaped over the bar to help her out as Cordy and Gunn turned to face the rest of the patrons, a crossbow in her hands, an ax in his.

“In…back…” the bartender rasped, still groaning in pain.

“Better than ginko,” Buffy quipped and released her clutches on his neck. He fell to floor, gurgling in agony, and she stepped over and around him, heading to a door in the back marked “Employees Only.”

She burst through this door, too, to find a storeroom, empty except for boxes of beer bottles and Spanish peanuts. Surveying the scene she noticed a giant crate in the middle of the floor, out of place. Walking to it she bent over and pushed it out of the way to reveal a hidden door in the floorboards.

“Door number one it is,” Gunn muttered, leaning over to help Buffy open it. Concrete stairs led down to a dimly lit room. Buffy took them two at a time, Angel following, his duster flapping behind him. Cordelia and Gunn took up the rear, weapons at the ready.

The room was empty. Chairs lay on their sides, the remnants of some sort of liquid in half-filled cups on a table.

“Someone left here in a hurry,” Angel observed. “They were tipped off.”

Buffy set her jaw as she looked around. “Come on…we’ll ask around upstairs.”

When they reappeared the bartender cowered behind the bar where a patron was helping him until the ambulance arrived. Buffy slammed a fist down on the bar, but Angel did the dirty work this time, striding into the room and stepping up onto a table. Looking down, he surveyed the sparse group. “I need to know about the demons that were hiding out in the basement,” he said, in a voice that told them clearly he was not here to waste his time.

No one spoke.

Angel grinned. “No takers, huh? Come on guys! Don’t make her mad again! Look at that poor chump over there!” he said, pointing to the bartender.

Buffy planted a sweet smile on her face. Gunn burst into a huge grin while Cordelia rolled her eyes. Angel and Buffy; Good Cop, Bad Cop.

“Look, we’re not here to fight. We just want info. These guys have obviously been watching her…and they said they weren’t local. We just want to know what’s the plan,” Angel continued, hopping down to stroll leisurely around the room.

Finally, a small, purple-hued man in the back stood nervously. “I heard somethin’,” he told them. “They said the procedure wasn’t complete, they needed her back. That’s all I know, I swear.”

“Nothing about where they wanted to take her?” Angel asked, hurrying to him and staring him down.

“No, no…Just that the extraction wasn’t complete and she’s all wrong now. That’s all I know!” he said, cowering down into his corner booth.

Angel looked back over his shoulder at Buffy who had turned white as a ghost. Patting the man on the shoulder caused the demon to faint, and the foursome left the bar together.

“Back to the hotel?” Gunn asked, hopping over the door and into the backseat.

Angel glanced at Buffy. “Where do you want to go?”

She seemed to not hear him so he repeated the question. “Uh, I need to go home…to my father’s.”

“You got some ‘splaining to do, Lucy,” Gunn quipped.

She granted him a weak smile and turned back to look out the side window.

“Buffy…you’re not telling me something,” Angel insisted. “I think you know more about this than you’re letting on.”

“No, I don’t,” she answered him without turning to face him.

Angel stared at her, then glanced back at Cordelia, who shook her head almost imperceptively. Sighing, he started the car and followed instructions to take Buffy home. When they pulled up to the curb he grabbed her arm as she went to exit the vehicle. “I’m going to look into this. Come by tonight, okay? I—I’ve got some news…some things to show you.”

She stared at him for a moment before nodding, then got out of the car and walked into her father’s apartment building without looking back.

“Boy,” Cordelia muttered as she climbed into the front seat. “Bucket o’ sunshine, wasn’t she?”

“She always so gloom and doom? I can see why you guys got along,” he said, tapping Angel on the shoulder.

Angel watched her as she walked up the steps. “No…she wasn’t always like that,” he said, mostly to himself.

“We’re about to get involved in something, aren’t we?” Cordy grimaced.

Angel didn’t answer her as he continued to watch the apartment building.

***

Buffy slipped her key in the lock and turned the knob to find the apartment dark except for a lamp in the corner.

“Dad?” she called out, suddenly fearful.

“Over here,” his voice came from the dark.

“Dad,” she said, flipping on a lamp. “What are you doing in the dark?”

He gave her a small smile. “I was working through some things.”

Father and daughter studied each other.

“I guess you want to talk, huh?” she asked him.

“I think we need to, Buffy,” he said sincerely.

Buffy swallowed and sat precariously on the couch, hands between her knees, kneading. With Giles, he’d already known about her Slayer-status. Willow, Xander, Cordelia…Oz…they’d accepted it fairly easily. Angel…well, that’s the reason he’d come to Sunnydale in the first place. Spike…she wasn’t going to think about Spike right now. Riley had been a totally different story. He’d tried to logic his way out of believing her calling at first. Even her mother had accepted the truth more easily than Riley.

Her father was probably going to be a different story altogether.

“Dad,” she said, taking a deep breath. “I’m the Slayer. The Vampire Slayer, if you want to get technical, but I kill more than just them.”

Her father cocked an eyebrow. That’s where I get that from, she mused. “The Slayer,” he repeated.

“Uh-huh.”

“And that is?”

“Well, see…in each generation there is a Chosen One…oh, never mind. Dad, there are bad things in the world. Things we don’t see everyday. I’m not talking burglars and murderers and Carrot Top, I’m talking demons and monsters and vampires. And I’m the one who has to stop them. I’m the Slayer, the Chosen One.”

Her father said nothing, so Buffy rambled on.

“When I was fifteen, Merrick came to me outside Hemery and I was called to be the Slayer. I killed vampires and demons in LA until that whole burning down the school incident, which, I’d like to point out, was completely Slayer-related, and then you and mom divorced and she moved me and Dawn to Sunnydale.”

“And you’re still the Slayer in Sunnydale.”

Buffy nodded. “Yes. Merrick was killed here before we moved. When I got to Sunnydale, Giles, Mr. Giles, was my new Watcher.”

“Watcher?”

“A Watcher is the person who, well, watches after the Slayer. He trained me and taught me all I need to know about fighting the demons. Merrick was my first Watcher, Giles is, was, my second. I don’t have a Watcher anymore, though.”

“And your mother knew about this.”

“Yes.”

“Does Dawn?”

Buffy nodded. “Yes…and that’s actually a really funny story that…we’ll go into some other time way, way, way in the future,” she rushed.

“And these people that you were with tonight…they’re…”

“Old friends. Cordelia went to high school with me, Gunn’s new, I just met him tonight…and Angel and I…he used to be…we were involved in Sunnydale and he moved here after I graduated from high school,” she said reluctantly.

Hank Summers took a breath, crossed and then recrossed his legs, and finally stood up to pace. “So you’ve been doing this for six years.”

“Yes.”

“And you always win.”

“Well…” She winced, really, really not wanting to get into this.

“You don’t always win.”

“No…not always. I’d say 96-97 percent of the time. Maybe even 98,” she added cheerily.

“Have you ever gotten hurt?”

“Sometimes…but that’s part of the Slayer insurance-package. I heal ultra-quick.”

“Tell me about this Angel. He’s a demon.”

She swallowed again and glanced at her hands. “Yes, he is. He’s a vampire.”

“Those things you kill.”

“Well…with Angel it’s a little different. See, when you’re turned into a vampire your soul is lost. Angel’s soul was returned to him over a hundred years ago. He’s a good guy. He fights here, in LA.”

“Quite the little team you’ve got, isn’t it? Vampires, Slayers…why not throw in a witch or a warlock or a werewolf? Maybe Frankenstein? Have you met Dracula? Or, ooh! The Blob? I always loved that movie,” her father quipped. His tone was light, but his eyes were dark.

Buffy stared at him dumbly. “This is not a joke.”

“Oh no, of course not. My daughter, Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. How perfectly believable. I should have figured this out on my own.”

Buffy stood and crossed to him, taking him by both arms. “Dad, look at me. I’m not kidding. This is all true. How else can you explain what you saw tonight? What you saw me do tonight? Trust me, I haven’t just been spending all my time at the gym!”

Her father smiled at her like she was a child. “Honey, it’s okay. If you want me to believe you, of course I do.”

She glared at him. “Don’t talk to me that way! I’m not ten-years-old anymore!”

“Watch your tone, young lady,” he warned.

“Or what? You’ll ignore me for another six years?” she threw back at him.

“That’s enough, Buffy! I’m still your father!”

She laughed now. “I told you earlier. My father left me a month ago, not six years ago.” Grabbing her shawl and her bag she headed to the front door. “I’ll be at the Hyperion Hotel. I’m leaving tomorrow morning to go back to Sunnydale. Nice to see you again, dad.”

“I’ve already contacted my lawyer about transferring Dawn to my custody, Buffy.”

His chilling words halted her retreated but she didn’t turn to face him. She couldn’t. She couldn’t look at him.

“He’s drawing up the paperwork. It shouldn’t be hard to convince a federal judge that a fifteen-year-old girl belongs with her father, not her twenty-year-old sister. You’re an adult now, Buffy, I know that, I can’t force you to do anything. But I’m urging you to get help. I don’t know what your mother was thinking when she let you carry on this way.”

Buffy walked out of the door, slamming it shut as she did.

Chapter Four: Left of Center
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