Interlude: At the Kitchen Table
As the members of the Scooby gang gathered around the kitchen table and glanced at her sympathetically, Buffy groaned.
Willow glanced at Faith, who simply shrugged. “B, it’s not the end of the world...”
“Yes, it is,”Buffy’s muffled voice said.”It’s a disaster!”
Joyce patted her daughter's head."It's not so bad, honey. You'll see. We have eight days to the wedding..."
Buffy glared at her mother."Mom, Dad's in the hospital for a cracked jaw. He has to stay there for the night. Angel was the one who cracked it. Dad *hates* Angel now, I know it! Angel was supposed to make nice with Dad, but instead...he decks him!"
Willow, Xander and Faith glanced at each other. Faith cleared her throat.“Buffy...did you say that *Angel* decked your father?”
Buffy nodded morosely, then glared at the basement door.”Yeah. Angel was aiming for Spike, but Spike ducked. Angel clocked my dad instead. Now Dad’s in the hospital with a broken jaw.”
The ceiling thumped twice. Buffy glared at it.”Alright, it’s a cracked one. But still, result’s the same. Dad’s incapacitated.”
Xander whispered to Faith.”And we *missed* it?”
The ceiling thumped. Buffy looked up and glared at it, then continued."And Dad has to take it easy for two days. In those two days, he is supposed to have no stress. That means we have to postpone the fittings of the tuxes, the planning of the menu for the dinner with the friends and families, start planning a wedding breakfast because Nana insist on it, shop for the rest of my trousseau, do the final fittings of my gown as well as yours, Willow's and Faith's. And a hundred other million little things that I can’t think of...And to top it all off, Dad wants me to use Owen’s help!"
The ceiling thumped twice. Joyce looked at the ceiling, then looked at her daughter.
“Cor! That dad of yours is a *real* idiot! First he’s hunted, now he cracks his jaw! What a moron!” shouted a voice from the basement. Buffy glared at it.
“Shut up, Spike! You keep out of this discussion!”shouted Buffy.
“If the great wanker that you’re marrying can stomp on the floor to voice his opinion, then I can bloody well shout mine from down here! Especially since this idiotic discussion is keeping *me* awake!”Spike shouted back at her.”And furthermore-”
“Oh, wow! Look, gang, Spike knows a three syllable word!”Buffy said snippily. The ceiling thumped once.
“Buffy...”Joyce said in a warning tone.”Stop. And you as well, Liam! If neither of you are going to say something productive, then I suggest that you don’t say anything.”
“But, Mom! What can we do with Dad and the stuff that he’s supposed to do? I mean we worried about him knowing about my Slaying, but I didn’t want him totally incapacitated!”Buffy wailed as she put her head down on the table.”And he’s being hunted! Mom!”
"Well, look at it this way, at least your father is temporarily not in the way of our talking for the moment,"said Xander. Buffy shot him a look."And *that's* not the thing that I should have said just about now, is it? Oz, help me out, here."
“Nah, I’ll just watch you master the foot-in-mouth disease,”Oz said as he entered the room. He sat next to Willow.
"Fine then. I can extricate myself from this. How about Owen? How's he doing? What's he doing?"Xander asked. Buffy simply shrugged. The ceiling thumped twice.”And I’m guessing that change of topic is not good for Dead Boy up there...”
“You bet it’s not, Ears! Angel boy’s cursing a blue streak and saying something about ripping your ears to tiny pieces,”Spike chortled. Xander thumped his head on the table.”And he’s sayin-”
"Ignore them, I’m trying to. Owen said that he's working for my dad. He does some sort of security system management with the computers,"Buffy said loudly as she scowled both at the basement and ceiling."He got out of the brooding stage when he got out of the service three years ago. He said that he wanted to do something while he's staying to help Dad. Said that he'd-"
The ceiling thumped twice, then four more times. Buffy looked up at it and scowled.”If you don’t want to hear this, Angel, then don’t listen!”
“Pretty boy said that if you talk about this Owen chap, he’s going to have to...rip out his lungs and use them as a clothes line after he...flosses his teeth with them and use his intestines as a condom,”Spike said. Buffy and the other looked at each other, then up at the ceiling.
“Eww!”they said collectively. Buffy scowled at the ceiling.
“Angel! That’s disgusting! Now I’m totally turned off! You don’t want Owen near me, but you’re willing to use his intestines as a condom to use? Gross!”
The ceiling thumped several times. Joyce looked up at it.”Angel! If I have to get a new ceiling because of your stomping, you’re paying for it! Anyone want a drink?”
“Can I have my usual, Mum?”Spike shouted immediately. Joyce got out the packet of cocoa and small marshmallows.
“Anyone else want a drink?”
“I do. Hey, when is Giles supposed to be here?”Xander asked in general.”Is he still in the library?”
“I’ll have a glass of OJ, Mom,”Buffy said.”Yeah, I think he’s trying to delay talking with Nana for as long as he can. I think that he’s a bit afraid of her.”
“As well he should be, Elizabeth,”said a voice imperiously from the door way. Buffy looked up and saw her Nana Bethie, and grinned. Her Nana smiled back.”I’ll have some water, please, Joyceln. Well, that was a refreshing nap. Thank you, young man.”
Oz nodded as he moved back to his seat and Nana sat in hers.
“You need it for an old girl of your age,”shouted Spike’s voice. Nana looked at the basement door.
“Is the giant leech still here? Funny, I thought he would have morphed into something the dustman could carry out,”Nana said complacently.”In a very *small* packet.”
“Yeah, the leech is still here, Nana,”Buffy said as she scowled at the basement door.”And he’s being a royal pain in the arse.”
The ceiling thumped. Nana Bethie looked at the ceiling, then at her great-granddaughter.”And I assume that the groom-to-be is up there and awake?”
“Yeah, that’s Angel,”Xander quipped.”Trapped up in Buffy’s room, sniffing at her underwear. And kissing Mr.Gordo.”
Everyone looked at Xander.”What?I’m not allowed to make a funny?”
“That wasn’t funny, Xander,”Willow said as she looked at him.
“It was sort of kinky,”Oz finished.”In a pig fetish sort of way. With underwear.”
The ceiling thumped several more times. Buffy scowled.”Can we like *not* talk about my underwear?”
“Why? The poof likes wearing it often enough,”Spike hollered out. The ceiling thumped several more times.”Yeah? You and what army, Pretty boy? I’m ready-What? I’ll stake you-”
“SHUT UP!!”Joyce screamed at the top of her lungs.”I’ve had quite enough out of both of you. Next one that thumps or hollers will get their little butts tanned, and I mean it! And Xander! Drop the subject on kinky and underwear!”
Xander nodded meekly. Joyce looked at the basement door. Spike’s voice came out meekly.”Yes, Mum. And...Poof up there says he’s sorry, too. But he still wants to talk about the Slayer’s underwear. Especially the red lace one.”
Faith cocked her eye at a very red-faced Buffy as Joyce growled at the basement door. ”Liam...”
“Ah, sorry, Mum,”said the voice. Satisfied, Joyce went back to gathering drinks.
“I must say, Elizabeth, you have interesting friends,”Nana Bethie said. She looked at Xander again.”Quite interesting even if they are a bit...eccentric. Now, how goes the wedding plans?”
“The Slayer’s whining! And she’s crying about her da having his jaw cracked by Poof upstairs!”
Buffy scowled at the basement and was about to go down when Joyce stopped her.”Liam! You stop baiting her this instant! Or else the cocoa and the marshmallows are going right down the sink!”
“But she started it!”
“Liam...you started it this time. Now, if you don’t stop, I’m pouring the cocoa down the drain,”Joyce said warningly. Nana Bethie looked at her granddaughter with interest, then looked at her great-grandchild. Then she caught the eye of the other Slayer, Faith. She merely shrugged. In amazement, Nana Bethie shook her head.
After a moment’s silence.“Yes, Mum.”
With a satisfied nod, Joyce turned to get the drinks.”Good, then. Now, Buffy, now that we have a moment’s respite from all the mayhem that was going on this morning, we start planning a schedule. Willow, are you ready?”
“Pen in hand, paper out front,”Willow said. Oz smiled at her as he kissed her hand.
“That’s my wife,always prepared,”Oz said. Willow blushed.
“Can you get this show on the road? You lovey-dovey people are starting to make me heave!”
Buffy rolled her eyes.”First order, I’ll stay with Dad in the hospital tonight. So that no vamp will get him while he’s there.”
“No vamp will, Elizabeth,”Nana Bethie said complacently.”But you had better guard the hospital just as well. The leeches are planning to raid the blood bank.”
Everyone looked at her with great interest. Joyce cleared her throat.”Nana? How do you know that?”
“Because, I do, Joyceln,”Nana Bethie said complacently as she sipped her water.”Just as I know that if there will be a beautiful wedding for Elizabeth, there will be a messy reception. Or vice versa. Just as I knew that you were going to have a daughter.”
“Giles said that you were a Finder, not a Watcher. You find potential Slayers. What is that, Nana?”Buffy asked.”And why didn’t you find me?”
“A Finder is a part of the Watcher. We’re an order of, well, the flicks call us precogs or espers. But that’s sort of what we do. It’s a jumble of being telepathic, precognitive and damn good researchers. And I didn’t have to find you because I didn’t have to,” she said. Nana Bethie looked at her granddaughter, then at her great-granddaughter.”Because I knew.”
“You knew that Buffy was going to be a Slayer?”Willow said in amazement.”But she didn’t start training until she was about fourteen or fifteen years old.”
“I know, and if I had my choice, she wouldn’t *be* the Slayer at all,”Nana Bethie said.”But the Finger of Fate was not to be denied. Suspended, but not denied.”
Everyone looked at her in confusion.
“I suppose that you want the long and short of the story,”Nana Bethie said.”But here it is in a nutshell...I am, or rather, I was a Finder. I find potential Slayers and tell the Watcher’s Council where the potential girls Chosen to be a Slayer were. If a vampire knows we are nearby, they kill us immediately.”
“Damn right we do! And I would have killed you if it hadn’t been for that bad piece of luck!”
Nana Bethie ignored Spike.”In my ten years of training and forty years of being a Finder, I have found over two thousand potential Slayers. And in that time, over fourteen hundred of them were activated. And if they were not, then their daughters or grand-daughters were.”
“A record for a Finder that has never been broken,”Giles said softly as he entered the kitchen. He smiled at Joyce and gathered her into his arms.”You were friends with my grandmother, and both of you retired when my father became a Watcher.”
“Your grandmother was my greatest friend, Rupert. I miss her still,”Nana Bethie said affectionately. She looked out at the dying sunlight.”We retired because we could not do our jobs with absolute detachment anymore.”
Nana Bethie focused her eyes on Joyce.”I was the mother of five sons. Your father, Joyceln, was my middle child and my dearest child. When you were born, I knew that you were a potential.”
“Mom? A potential Slayer? You’re kidding!”Buffy said in total astonishment.”My mom? She can’t even kill bugs!”
“Then you know how slayers are chosen,”Willow exclaimed.”Is it some like great process? Hand of God and all that?”
Nana Bethie shook her head.”Nothing like that. Any female from the time they had their first menstruation to nine years after can become the Slayer. And any female can be stopped from becoming a Slayer.”
“Any girl? A Slayer? And can be stopped from becoming one?”Willow yelped.”But-”
“Several factors. It is all very vague,”Nana Bethie sighed.”There are direct and indirect ways to become a Slayer. Such as either parent or child exposed to a Slayer or a potential. The child before the age of five exposed to a demon. The child is born on a certain or time of the year. And all other sorts of ways to become a Slayer or a potential. It is all very, very confusing.”
“And how do you stop one from becoming a Slayer?”Buffy asked meekly. Nana Bethie looked at her grand-daughter sadly.
“There are many ways to stop a potential Slayer. But the one sure way is to fall in love and have a child before being called,”Nana Bethie said softly. Joyce looked at her grandmother as realization hit her.”But then if a daughter is born within four years of having sex...that child will be the Slayer.”
“What about me?” Faith demanded.”How was I chosen to be a Slayer? My parents died in a street accident when I was a baby, and then I was picked up by my Watcher when I was ten. I became a Slayer when I was nineteen. Why was I Chosen?”
Nana Bethie smiled.”Because you were. Your mother was a potential and your paternal grandmother was. They were watched, but then your parents had that accident and you were lost to us until another Finder found you.”
“This is all so confusing,”Buffy complained.
“Told you it was,”Nana Bethie smiled wryly.”You should see me try to do a confidence game or parlor tricks on my friends. Want to see me shuffle cards and make them disappear? I’m even better at betting pools.”
Xander, Willow, Faith and Oz smiled weakly at the joke. Nana Bethie looked at them with a canny eye.
When Giles cleared his throat, Nana Bethie looked at him.”You said...that both you and my grandmother retired because both of you couldn’t do your jobs anymore...what happened?”
“You were born. And Joyceln was born,”Nana Bethie said. Giles’s mouth fell.”It was simple and as confusing as that.”
Buffy scowled.”Come that by me again?”
“When Rupert was born, I saw him as a great Watcher to a Slayer,”Nana Bethie explained.”That was why your father was harsher than most. And that was why...the Watcher Council... swallowed your antics like a bitter pill for so long. When Joyceln was born, I saw three futures for her. And all with the same ending. One as a Slayer. Another as the Mother of the Slayer. And another as a normal mother with children about her. Care to wager on which future I wanted for her?”
“Let me hazard a guess, a normal mother of the Slayer?”Xander asked. Willow and Buffy rolled her eyes. While Oz stared calmly at Xander as Faith smacked him on the head.
“Elizabeth, why don’t you let Spike have him for dinner?”
“No way, Beth! I might get indigestion!”Spike shouted back.
Joyce asked hesitantly.”And what was the ending of my life?”
“Joyce...”Giles murmured as he gripped her hard.”You may not want to know...”
“It’s nothing drastic, Rupert. Not really, since it all came to pass, anyway,”Nana Bethie said.”You were supposed to be a prominent figure in Joyceln’s life. Be it as her Watcher, Elizabeth’s Watcher or her husband.”
Nana Bethie’s eyes clouded over as she smiled and looked at her glass of water. Her eyes filled with memories.”My husband had died two years before your birth, Joyceln. He was not there to stop me. Your grandmother, Rupert, helped me hide Joyceln.”
Nana Bethie smiled as she looked at Joyce and Rupert.“It became rather simple when your parents died in the aeroplane accident, no one really remembered your birth because it was all kept very quiet. No one had the desire to see you as a Slayer or the Mother of one. Guineve was the only one that was aware of your existence, and of my plans for you. I sent you to my cousins in America, in a relatively demonless area. They cared for you, and you were to resurface when you were past time to become a Slayer or the Mother of one.”
Then Nana Bethie smiled wryly.“But then you met the idiot and became involved with him, won that art contest which took you into contact with a potential Slayer, then had Elizabeth. In short order. Like I said, Finger of Fate can’t be stopped, only delayed. More water please?”
The room remained silent. Then Xander spoke.“Well, that’s depressing. Can you tell me my future as well?”
“Do you really want to know? Or are you just asking,”Nana Bethie said bluntly.”The future is all very vague and can change at any time, given all the actions we do. What I say may delay a reaction or action, and the future is changed again. When Guineve and I...when we hid Joyceln, it was clear to us that we were interfering with the Choice of the Slayer. We could do what we once did for the Watchers, no more. And we have never regretted it.”
Then Nana Bethie smiled slightly as she looked around her.”Don’t look so Friday-faced, children. All will be well. As long as you don’t encounter a blizzard of white from here on to the wedding.”
“What?!?” Xander yelped.”Tell me you’re kidding, Nana! Please!”
Nana Bethie looked at him warily.“You *are* a strange one, child. But to make matters rest more easily, yes, I was joking. Are you drinking too much tea?”
“Nope, just living by the Hellmouth too long,”Willow said cheerfully.”Now let’s get to planning.”
“Yes, I have to discuss some things with Rupert soon, but I’d like to get this done first,”Nana Bethie said briskly.”Now, Elizabeth, though I disapprove of Thurman wanting to take you out to lunch tomorrow to a small Chinese restaurant-”
“Owen’s not taking me to a Chinese restaurant,”Buffy said slowly.
“He will,”Nana Bethie said confidently. She scowled at the sudden thumping of the ceiling.”Hush, up there, Angel! It will happen!”
More thumping was heard. Buffy winced.”I think he’s upset.”
“Yeah! And he’s cursing a blue streak that puts *my* mouth to shame!” Spike hollered happily.”Is it time to come out yet? I want more cocoa, Mum! With lotsa marshmallows!”
“In an hour, Liam! Where is sunset when you need it?”Joyce groaned.”I never should have told him that I had bought extra cocoa and marshmellows.”
Buffy scowled at her mother.”That reminds me, why did he come here, Mom?”
“She sent me an email,”Spike hollered back.”Needs me to behave and represent Angel’s side of the family of sorts. To make your idiot of a dad happy.”
Willow stared at the basement door.”You have an email account? How? Why?”
“So that Mum can contact me whenever she wants, send me some clothes and tell me if Dru ever shows up in Sunnyhell,”Spike hollered back. It’s not *my* fault that Hotmail sets up free email accounts! Take it up with them if you don’t like it! SHUT YOUR HOLE UP PRETTY BOY! ”
Everyone stared Joyce who shrugged.”What can I say? It works. It keeps him out of trouble. And it brings him here.”
Nana Bethie rolled her eyes and sighed.”I think that there should be an assylum for us soon.”
~Fin.