Flirting With Insanity
Part 3
Tiredly, Giles sighed as he parked in the Summers driveway, with Oz parking on the street. As he turned his headlights off, he swore that he saw a flicker of movement behind the curtains, but he wasn’t sure. When he got out of the car, the door flung open and he saw Willow, looking agitated and relieved to see him. “Willow? What’s-“
“Giles! Thank god you’re here!” Willow cried out as she flung herself into Oz’s arms. “It’s Buffy’s mom. We finished calling all the people that she knew, and so she went upstairs. And she was upstairs in Buffy’s room and I heard a noise and now she’s on the floor and-“
Giles bolted passed Xander as Oz stayed behind to comfort Willow. She shouted out her warning, ”She found Buffy’s arsenal!”
At the first step, Giles turned to stare at Willow. ”What?”
“She-she found Buffy’s arsenal,” Willow said, her voice hitching. “And she’s-she’s just sitting there…I didn’t know what to do-and I-”
“I’ll take care of her,” Giles said as he headed towards the house again. He was somewhat aware that Xander was right behind him.
Taking two steps at a time, he stopped suddenly at the doorway of Buffy’s room, with Xander running into his back. “Hey! What’s with the-Oh My God…”
Some part of Giles had to agree with Xander’s sentiment. The sight of the room even stunned him. Granted, from the conversations Buffy had with him about her mother making her clean up her room, he was somewhat prepared to see a mess. But this…it had looked as if a storm had been through the entire room. Drawers were overturned, the closet was empty, stuffed toys on the floor, few articles of clothing were strewn about. And all over the floor of the room, Buffy’s arsenal was laid out on the floor. His eyes flew to look at Joyce, who was curled into herself, in front of Buffy’s bed. “Joyce?”
[She kept her weapons in her memory chest. With her perfume and cards. And in her closet, with her clothes and shoes. Under her bed. With her books and socks and junk. And behind her stuffed animals. Weapons. Why did she need so many weapons?] Joyce moaned silently, hugging the stake she found to her chest. [Why didn’t I see them?]
[Because you didn’t] taunted the nasty voice in her head. [You didn’t want to see, so you didn’t. Bad, bad, Joyceln. Bad girl. But then what do you expect from a little bastard?]
Giles slowly knelt as he approached her curled form. Making no unexpected moves, he placed his hands over the stake she held tightly. Pain shot up his fingers as his hands covered her. Vaguely, he thought that his fingers would never heal properly if he kept on using them. “Joyce?”
[I saw! I saw them! I saw her play with her toys and dress every day! Every night!] Joyce’s mind screamed back as she grabbed her head. [I saw Buffy every day!]
[Obviously you didn’t look hard enough, Joyceln] the voice taunted again. [See? Even Sir Gordon’s gone. Mr. Gordo went with her, and you know what that means, Joyceln!]
[No! No! That means nothing!] Joyce screamed back as she grabbed her head tighter. [Buffy-] “Buffy…”
“No, Joyce. Not Buffy,” Giles said softly as he passed the stake to someone behind him and pulled her hands away from her head. He gently gathered Joyce on to his lap, her head tucked under his chin. A lump formed in his throat as she buried her face into his neck. “No, Buffy’s not here yet…”
She was only aware of the warmth that held her, and grew cold as he said, ”No, Buffy’s not here yet…” Whimpering, she buried her head deeper into the warmth, trying not to hear. She moaned aloud again.
Burying his face into her hair in an attempt to soothe, Giles gathered her closer to him, rubbing her shoulders and back. ”Sh…we’ll find her. Hush, now. We’ll find Buffy.”
Giles looked up at Willow. ”How long has she-“
“I found her like this about an hour ago,” Willow said shakily as she held on to Oz. “We finished calling up most of Mrs.S’s relatives and friends and then I went down stairs for something to drink. Then I heard a huge bump and when I came up- when I came up, she was like this. Everything was like this.”
“Oh, man,” Xander said as he rubbed his face into his hands. He looked around. ”Most of Buffy’s arsenal is right here. It must mean that Buffy didn’t-“
“Xander, later,” Giles interrupted with a growl. When the man-boy looked at him, Giles pointed at Joyce with his eyes. He was gratified when Xander understood the implications. He looked down at the woman in his arms. “Joyce? Joyce, what happened? What’s the matter?“
Lifting her head, Joyce looked at him. With hopelessness filling her, she looked at him. He could barely make out the words as she sobbed, “She took Sir Gordon-Mr.Gordo. She’s not coming back.”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
As Joyce picked up the next box of things and opened it, Buffy grimaced, “Mom, these things are like, dinosaur age. What is this? Looks kinda funky.”
Joyce lifted her head and grimaced. “It was your father’s old lava lamp, now broken. You can dump that.”
“Dad had a lava lamp? Why do we have it?” Buffy asked as she threw the lamp into the discard pile. She looked at her mother with a slight frown as a thought occurred to her. “What’d he need that for? I mean, for cheap light-“
“And setting the mood,” Joyce said as she pulled out a bubble wrapped package and unwrapped it. At Buffy’s silence, Joyce smiled wryly. “Don’t knock it, it worked sometimes. Now, what is-oh.”
“Really don’t want to know about ‘setting the mood’, Mom. Too much info here,” said Buffy as she looked over to her mother. “What’s that? Hey! Mom, that’s your special yo-yo! What’s it doing here all double bubble wrapped? Hey, that rhymed!”
“And you’re a regular Shakespeare. And it’s here because I was scared to let it roam in my pocket,” Joyce said as she moved away from the box and slipped her finger into the string. “Still fits, and still needs to be re-stringed. Other than that, still looks good. Want to see me ‘Walk the Dog’?”
“Why not? Been years since I saw you do that trick,” Buffy said as she sat on the car hood. “You’re the only mother I know that has a pink Superlight Yo-yo, you do know that. Right?”
Whirling the yo-yo around to get a feel for it, Joyce grinned. “What can I say? I never move into a new home with out it? It’s just like keeping your baby clothes. And Sir Gordon.”
“But Mr.Gordo is special, he’s a pig,” Buffy protested as she watched her mother twirl with the yo-yo. “And that’s just a yo-yo.”
“Not just any yo-yo, the one that your Aunt Anne gave me when I first moved in with Aunt Regina and Uncle Harold,” Joyce replied as the yo-yo snapped back into her hands. She grinned at her daughter. Buffy was looking at her indulgently. “It’s been a good luck charm for me every time I’ve moved.”
“Which has only been three times in our entire lives,” Buffy said dryly. She watched her mother a few minutes more. “Having fun?”
“Loads,” Joyce replied. Then she grinned at her daughter. “Look at it this way, when you move out and go off to college and get married, you can take the yo-yo with you and you can leave Mr.Gordo with me.”
Buffy shook her head as she headed out the basement. “Nope, no deal. Mr.Gordo goes where I go. College, new apartment. Disney World. Timbuktu. He’s with me. But I’ll be generous and let you keep the yo-yo.”
“You’re all heart. I knew I should have never given you my pig when you were a baby,” Joyce chuckled as the yo-yo snapped back in place. She followed her daughter up the stairs. “Now I’ll never get it back.”
“Nope, he’s my pig now, so he’s my house-moving charm,” Buffy smirked as she opened the fridge. “But cheer up, Mom. You’ve got your yo-yo back. Now you’ll be the only Yo-yo packing Mom on the block. Are we done cleaning the basement now?”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Giles tried to calm the woman in his arms down. “Joyce, just because Buffy took her stuffed pig doesn’t mean that she’s not-“
“You don’t understand,” Joyce said quietly as she looked down at Buffy’s arsenal, then looked at him. “I- the pig, Sir-Mr.Gordo is the only thing she took with her. Clothes, yes. Money stashed away, I don’t know how much she had. I don’t know what she took. It looks like she left everything else here. Books, awards, jewelry, tapes, CDs, shoes, weapons. The only thing I know she took was Mr.Gordo. She left everything else, but she took her pig. She’s not coming back.”
Giles grabbed Joyce by her shoulders. He looked at her sternly. “Now, you listen to me, Joyce and you listen well. Buffy will be back, and she will return to home-”
“You still don’t understand,” Joyce whispered as she closed her eyes. She trembled as she looked down at her daughter’s arsenal. “Look at the room. See what you can find. Other than the-the clothes, all Buffy took was Mr.Gordo. She’s not planning to come back, she’s going to make a new home. Somewhere else, anywhere else, without me or you or any of us, she’s gone.”
Giles followed her eyes as she looked down at Buffy’s arsenal again. “And she’s not planning to be your Vampire Slayer anymore.”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
“I don’t think we should leave her, she’s like, on the verge of a total break down,” Willow said flatly as she watched Buffy’s mother sit by the couch again. Staring out the window. She looked at the others in the kitchen with her. “I mean, we barely restrained her from going out tonight. She could leave to go look for Buffy while we’re not here, and get eaten!”
“Yes, I know,” Giles said as he shifted in his seat uncomfortably. He quelled the urge to see if his parts were still in working order. Joyce’s knee had unerringly found contact with his groin again. “But other than to tie her up, I cannot see how we can stop her from going out at night.”
“One of us could stay with her at night,” Willow suggested. She looked at Xander, Oz and Giles, their faces looked tired. “Until she gets used to the idea that there are vampires at night or-or until Buffy come back.”
“That is one option,” Giles agreed with a sigh as he rubbed his head. “The other would be for her to learn how to walk out into the night with a stake, garlic and holy water. But I’d rather not teach her how to do that until she’s more-not likely to-”
“Go Drucilla on us?” Xander filled in. Giles glared at him, and Xander glared back. “Face it, Giles. She’s right now not playing with a full deck. Buffy’s gone, there’s a warrant for her arrest, she just learned that the Boogie-man and vampires are real and she was told that her kid was a vampire slayer. Not in that order, but told all in the space of twenty-four hours. What parent, other than mine, wouldn’t go a little bit nuts? And frankly, I think that she deserves a right to. But I don’t think that we should wait and say, ‘You’re all better, everything will be fine. Now stay home and keep away from the nasty vampires as you go crazy all alone’ to her. She deserves more than that.”
Giles stared hard at Xander. “I did not say that she should stay alone, I merely said that she should-“
“Sit by that window and wait for Buffy to miraculously appear? Not going to happen,” Xander interrupted. Giles, Oz and Willow stared at him. He looked at his friends defiantly. “Buffy’s playing wounded animal right now, leaving us to do the job she’s supposed to be doing. And we can’t wait until Buffy decides to come back, if she’s ever-”
“Buffy will come back,” Willow protested. Xander interrupted her savagely.
“But do we know that for sure? I mean, Mrs.S believes that Buffy’s not coming back. So what do we do in the meantime? Just sit around? And that tirade ended up someplace where it was not supposed to end up.”
“Fine, then,” Giles said as he rubbed his face. “We shall decide who stays with Joyce while I go out hunting in the meantime.”
The children looked at each other, then at Giles. Willow said to Giles determinedly, “We’ll decide who can stay with Mrs.Summers but drawing straws or whatever. And I don’t think that you should be out hunting for Buffy in your condition.”
“Which one of you can stay with her?” Giles said, ignoring the last part of her statement. “I know that your parents all expect you to stay home, especially yours, Willow.”
“Yeah, because of the hospital thing,” Willow admitted as she sighed. “They want to run some tests on me to see if I have my full mental capacities all present. And you’re changing the subject.”
“Yes, I am,” Giles admitted, then he frowned at her. “They want to run some tests on you? I thought the doctors all said that you were fine.”
“They did,” Willow nodded. “But Mom wants to run some of her own intelligence tests and some psych tests on me. To make sure that my head and memory wasn’t damaged too much by the bookcase. See if it’ll interfere with my getting into a good school and all that. And you’re still trying to change the subject.”
“I can stay. I just have to call Mom and tell her that I’m over at Oz’s,” Xander interrupted just as Giles was about to say something. “I can stay for this night, but you have to stay home and not patrol, Giles. Your fingers aren’t healed yet, and I doubt that you could even hold a chopstick.”
Giles shook his head. “The town needs to be protected-“
“Didn’t you say that after a major thing, like what just happened yesterday, most vamps like to lay low for a few days?” Oz said in a quiet voice. Giles stared at him. Oz pressed on. “I mean, this Acathla thing was major, and if it went down the drain with no leaders in sight. You don’t have to go patrolling. At least not until it’s well into the summer.”
“I suppose,” Giles said as he rubbed his head tiredly. “But the sooner-“
“The sooner we find Buffy the better,” Xander said with a nod. “But we’re not going to do it if you’re in the hospital or dead. Go home and rest Giles. I’ll take a turn to keep Buffy’s mom from running out into the night looking for her. But if she or you wants to run out for pizza, I won’t stop either of you.”
Giles was about to protest when Oz said quietly, “The other option is tying you up with Mrs.Summers while ordering pizza for Xander.”
Looking at the determined faces around him, Giles smiled faintly at the hint. “I shall order one right a way.”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
As Buffy's mother stared at the window, Xander watched her with hooded eyes. He slowly brought a cold slice of pizza over to her. "Mrs. Summers, you have to-"
When she turned her head to look at Xander, she stared at him unblinkingly, her head tilted slightly as if she was considering something. Xander gave her a nervous smile, the way she was looking at him, with her brown eyes slightly gazed and her head tilted as if she was trying to listen to something, she kinda reminded him of Drucilla when she was hovering around him on Valentine's Day. He gulped as he placed the slice on the coffee table. "Mrs. Summers-"
"You knew that Buffy was the Vampire Slayer," Mrs. Summers said. Her voice quiet, so quiet he barely heard her. She repeated again, "You knew that Buffy was the Vampire Slayer, you knew that she was fighting vampires and demons. When?"
Not knowing what to say, Xander nodded his head slowly, his eyes never leaving hers. "When what?"
"When did you find out that she was the Slayer? And fighting vampires?" Mrs. Summers demanded, her brown eyes narrowing as she looked at him. "How did you find out? Did you know who she was before we moved here?"
"Mrs. Summers, I-" Xander started, then stopped. Not knowing where he was to start or where even to stop. Or even if he should start. "Mrs, Summers-I-I don't know if I should tell you-"
"Xander, please." As she saw her daughter's friend struggle with himself, her lips trembled. "I need-I need to know."
She saw Xander sit down heavily on the armchair across from her and look into his hands. He was silent for so long, Joyce's heart fell. "I guess I first found out when I overheard an argument Buffy had with Giles on the first day of school."
Startled, her eyes flew to look at Xander's embarrassed face. "It was last year. I was in the back of the stacks looking for a book on math. And I overheard the argument that Buffy was having with Giles, about being the Slayer.”
Joyce watched as Xander looked at his hands, his face looking younger as he remembered. “She was angry to find that there were vampires in Sunnydale. She wanted nothing to do with vampires or anything like that. Then Giles told her that this was a Monster Island for vampires and mystical what’s-its and things that go bump in the night. He made her mad when he told her that he was the one that’s supposed to prepare her, then she demanded that if he should prepare her for losing all her friends again and for being kicked out of school before she stormed out.”
When Joyce sucked in her breath, Xander looked at her. “I thought they were nuts and just kidding around, knowing I was back there, behind the stacks, listening to them. But then Willow nearly got eaten, my friend Jesse was kidnapped and turned into a vampire and the Harvest was going to open the Hellmouth to let the Master out.”
“Harvest? Hellmouth? The Master? What?” Joyce repeated, confused. Her fingers ran through her hair. “This sounds like a bad sci-fi horror movie.”
Xander gave her a faint smile. “The Harvest is a gig that happens once a century, something that opens the portals between other dimensions. You should ask Willow or Giles about that, they know more about it in more fancy terms. The Hellmouth is what the Sunnydale is built on, it has mystical energy that attracts monsters to this town. Namely, vampires. The Master was the local vamp king that ruled the Hellmouth for about sixty years or so, he got trapped between dimensions and was trying to use the Harvest to get out.”
“How?” Joyce whispered as she shivered. “Did he get out? Is he still alive?”
“He used his right hand vamp to go up to the Bronze and feed, Buffy stopped him and stopped the Master from getting out that night,” Xander said with a small smile. “We, Willow, Giles and me, helped get everyone out of the Bronze that night. He escaped from the Hellmouth last year, but he’s dead now, so not to worry.”
“I don’t-when did this happen? I don’t remember anything about this happening,” Joyce said as she tried to remember what happened last year. “When exactly-“
“Remember when the PCP biker gang war was fighting in the Bronze?” Xander asked. Joyce’s brow knitted with concentration, then it cleared and she nodded slowly. “It was the same weekend that you grounded Buffy for cutting classes.”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Taking a deep breath, Joyce knocked on Buffy’s room door before she entered. She quickly hid a smile as she looked at her sulking daughter. If she closed her eyes quick enough, Joyce thought she could still see Buffy as a baby, full of energy and demanding her mother’s complete attention. Maybe if she had not dedicated so much of her attention to her failing marriage, Buffy wouldn’t have fallen in with the wrong crowd. “Well now, have we learned a lesson about all this?”
Her sixteen-year old daughter looked up at her mother and glared as she hugged Mr.Gordo. ”Yeah, but I still don’t see why I was grounded. And I still can’t believe that you grounded me. Other kids cut class.”
“But not on their second day in school, Buffy,” Joyce said calmly as she sat on her daughter’s bed. She looked at her daughter’s sulking face as she hid it behind her pig. Looks like Mr.Gordo was about to get another bath soon. “You know why we moved here, Buffy. To start a new life for the both of us and to give you a second chance at getting an education.”
Buffy was about to say something when Joyce lifted her hand. ”I know, it seemed unfair that I did this to you. Especially when you just made some new friends, good friends, and wanted to see them tonight. But you have to look at it from my point of view…you cut class. On your second day. And you still refuse to tell me why you cut.”
Joyce waited as Buffy picked on Mr.Gordo’s thread-bared ear. ”Because.”
“I know you feel it was unfair. That it was bad of me to ground you, but you know I didn’t do it so that I would ruin your life, honey,” Joyce said as she looked at the top of her daughter’s head. She pulled the pig away, forcing Buffy to look at her. “I did it because I love you.”
“By grounding me?” Buffy cried out as she stared at her mother. Her lower lip stuck out. “That’s showing me that you love me?”
“That’s showing you how much you scared me,” Joyce said quietly. Buffy stared at her mother. “I was scared that it was all starting all over again, you hanging out with a bad crowd. Going out late at night. Having blood on your clothes again. I don’t want to see you hurt, honey. And if your new friends are encouraging you to cut classes, then I don’t want to settle here. We can go to Illinois to be near Aunt Arlene or to West Virginia to be near Aunt Anne and Uncle Dante.”
“And leave Daddy in California?” Buffy wailed at her. “He won’t be able to find us and-“
To stem the wave of daughterly indignation, Joyce placed her finger on her daughter’s lip. ”Your father will find us no matter where we go.” [It’ll just be a matter of him slotting us into his damn schedule.] “And it’s not like we’re going of to England to live with Nana and the uncles. I don’t plan to move there unless we have a reason to, honey. Do I have a reason?”
Buffy shook her head. Joyce nodded. “Good because I just signed the contract for the lease on the gallery and new art shipment. And I can’t get my money back if I break the contracts this soon.”
Buffy smiled faintly at that, then asked, “How long am I grounded for?”
“Just for this weekend,” Joyce replied as she rose from the bed. “Are you hungry? You didn’t eat anything for dinner last night.”
“A bit,” Buffy admitted as she grabbed Mr.Gordo again. “Mom, I didn’t mean to cut class. I mean, I didn’t think that I was cutting class. I was going out on an errand. For Mr.Giles, he’s the school librarian. He told me to go off campus to go get him a book.”
Joyce lifted her eyebrow skeptically. ”The school librarian asked you to go off campus to get you a book? Why on earth would he do something like that?”
“Because he’s from England and didn’t know that I wasn’t supposed to go off campus?” Buffy shrugged.
“Not even the librarians in an English High School would ask a student to go off campus during scheduled hours,” Joyce said with a roll of her eyes. Then she narrowed her eyes to look at Buffy. “But you do have a point, if he’s at fault then I’ll have to call Mr.Flutie to tell him this.”
“I told Mr. Flutie, but he still thought that I was cutting class,” Buffy said. Joyce sighed as she considered this. “And he still said that I should basically ignore what Mr.Giles told me and go to class.”
“So why didn’t you?”
Buffy shrugged slightly. “Because I needed to think. About me. Leaving LA. The town.” Joyce felt a pang of guilt and remorse as she looked at that bowed golden head. “About being here.”
“Well, next time you have to think, do it in class and on campus,” Joyce said dryly as she reached the door. “And tell it to Mr.Gordo here. He’s a good listener. Are you coming down to eat?”
After a moment, Buffy got off her bed, carrying Mr.Gordo with her. “Why not? I’m starved after being grounded due to someone else’s fault and not of my own. Maybe you should meet my new friends and then I can get ungrounded? That a good idea, Mom? Earth to Mom. Come in Mom.”
After a moment, Buffy got off her bed, carrying Mr.Gordo with her. “Why not? I’m starved after being grounded due to someone else’s fault and not of my own. Maybe you should meet my new friends and then I can get ungrounded? That a good idea, Mom? Earth to Mom. Come in Mom.”
A wistfullness went through her. She remembered a time when Buffy had to drag her pig. At Buffy’s questioning look, Joyce smiled. “Sorry, I was just wandering. Meet your friends? That sounds like a very good plan to me. But you’re still grounded.”
“Mom!” Buffy wailed as she followed her mother out the room. “But it’s important for me to hang out with my new friends. You wouldn’t want me to be all alone in this town, do you?”
Joyce sighed as she started down the stairs. “We’ll see about you hanging out with your new found friends. What are their names?”
“Willow Rosenberg and Xander Harris,” Buffy said promptly. “You’ll like them. They’re normal and lively. And Willow’s a study person you’d love while Xander’s just like one of the girls.”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
At home, Giles sat on his couch as he stared at the phone. His hands trembled as he started to reach for it. Looking at his hands, he wondered, [Is this what will happen to me when Buffy dies? Will I be as broken as my fingers? Where is Buffy? Didn’t she know that she could come to me? That I would understand? What happened between her and Angel? She stopped him, yes. But what made her run away?]
“Do Watcher claim their Slayers if they die?” Joyce had asked. Her eyes daring him to say no, to say anything that would give her something. Anything that would help her understand what was going on. Giles looked at his hands as he answered her question. “Most Watchers don’t have a body to claim. And others don’t live long enough to claim them. And the unlucky ones can’t or won’t claim them. There’s your answer, Joyce. Plain and simple. ”
“So where does Sam Zabuto fall in?” Giles mused aloud. “Does he want to claim Kendra? Does he want her back? Should I call him and tell him that his Slayer has fallen?”
“Enough of this dithering, old man,” Giles said aloud. “You have a duty to fulfil, a duty to Kendra. So get on that phone and call the man. Call him and tell him that Kendra is dead-”
His voice faltered as he remembered Kendra. Serious and respectful when he first saw her, like a Slayer should be. Like a Slayer was trained to be. [But she changed before she left in October. Her mood was lighter, her eyes more lively. An effect of Buffy I suppose.]
Then he remembered her, as she was that last night. She was still serious and respectful, but there was something else in her eyes, something more. Like she knew that she wasn’t alone anymore. Her mood was for Kendra, more playful, as if she as looking forward to spending time with a friend. Being with a friend that was just like her. No, it was more than that. Kendra was looking forward to being with Buffy. His mouth grew grim. “Oh, you poor girl. If he doesn’t want to claim you, I will.”
With that rush of determination, he picked up the receiver and dialed a number. After several clicks, he heard a faintly accented voice. “Hello? May I please speak to Sam Zabuto?”
UNFINISHED FIC....
WILL BE FINISHED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE...