Chapter 3: "Together again soon my sweet"
“Dawnie wake up! You’ve been sleeping for hours!” Buffy screamed almost at the top of her lungs, but it didn’t seem to make a difference.
It was ten in the morning on Sunday, their last day of freedom before starting their new school and they were stuck unpacking. Both the kitchen and the dining room had been done along with getting the furniture up in Giles’ room. They still had to get the girls furniture up the stairs and unpack the living room. Though Dawn’s current sleeping form was right in the middle of the living room floor, leaving them with not being able to unpack without dropping something on her.
Buffy was starting to get frustrated with her younger sister. And they say I’m hard to wake up! Out of nowhere Faith sauntered up from the dining room carrying a bowl of coco puffs. “Can you help me wake up sleeping beauty?” Buffy asked as Faith plopped down on the couch, pulling her legs under her to keep her toes warm.
She swallowed the chewed up cereal and then spoke loudly, “Kiddo Brad Pitt is looking up for you!” The instant the words were out of Faith’s mouth, Dawn jolted up, looked around and didn’t notice that half her hair was sticking up while the other half stuck to her face. Both Faith and Buffy burst out laughing leaving Dawn’s head to whip around and glare at her sister and Faith. She stuck her tongue out which seemed to be a Summers trait since Buffy did it back to her.
Giles walked into the living room and looked at Dawn curiously. “Dawn dear, do you know that your looks rather...messed up?” Dawn’s hand shot up to grab at her head. Assured that Giles was telling the truth, the younger girl let out a whining sound.
“This sucks, my straightner is still packed up.” Buffy rolled her eyes.
“Dawn no ones going to see you. Were staying in to unpack.” Buffy told her younger sister.
Faith shoved another spoonful of chocolate-cereal goodness into her mouth before speaking with her mouthful, “Which means get your lazy ass up so we can use you to help take the heavy crap upstairs.”
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“FAITH! Why’d you have to have the heavy headboard?!?!” Dawn said through gritted teeth as the four of them lifted and tried to haul Faith’s headboard up the narrow stairs. They already had the Dawn and Buffy’s furniture and all that was left was Faith’s headboard, which was turning out to be a heavy bitch.
“Shut up Kiddo and just push it up already.” Faith growled back. Finally, after many stressful pulls they had it over the top landing of the staircase. Quickly they hauled it back to the back bedroom and dropped it the second it was fully in Faith’s bedroom.
“Thank God!!” Buffy exclaimed. She threw her golden blonde hair over her shoulder and rolled her shoulders. Moving was a bitch and she hoped they never had to do it again. At least not to a place with stairs.
Buffy and Dawn headed back to their own rooms intent on setting them up. Scrounging through a box, she pulled out her iPOD and the docking speakers. Setting that up on her empty dresser, Buffy put the player on shuffle and began to unpack. She could hear Faith and Dawn’s music coming from their rooms and knew Giles must be having a wonderful migraine coming on. As she moved throughout her room, Buffy sung along with the music happily, as she unpacked.
At random, Buffy picked up a box and opened to find that it was all clothes. She put the ones in the closet hung and the others in her dresser drawers.
Hours later Buffy had fixed her bedspread and picked up Mr. Gordo from the bottom of her last box. Sitting on the bed, she hugged Mr. Gordo her little stuffed piggy. Her grandmother had given it to her when she was three before she died and Buffy had fallen in love with it. It was slightly dirty from being years old, and the ear was being held on by a little thread with the stuffing seeping out of the hole. Nevertheless, Buffy still loved it. Giving him a kiss on the nose, she placed him properly on the middle of her bed.
Buffy walked over to the corner of her room where her acoustic guitar sat on its stand. Picking it up and taking the half worked on sheet music from one of her nightstand drawers, Buffy walked over to her window bench and sat down. She sat crossed legged with her guitar in her lap and the sheet music next to her.
It had been almost two weeks since she was able to really focus back on her finishing her music. Partly because of the move and she just hadn’t had the heart to finish the song.
The small blonde loved music. It was her passion and it was what drove her. When she had been younger, she loved singing and always had her mother sign her up for talent shows. Of course she had won because of her sweet angelic voice. Over time she began to write her own songs, especially after her mother had died. After high school, she hoped to get a little apartment in the city, and write her own songs in hopes of being discovered. Buffy didn’t think that her songs were that great. Everyone begged to differ. Most of them would leave you crying half way through because you could almost feel the emotion that Buffy had put into when writing it.
When the lived in L.A., Buffy would teach Faith how to play the notes on the guitar and together at a little club they would play. Buffy singing while Faith played. They had always had a large audience every time they had performed.
I wonder if this town has somewhere I could perform. Softly Buffy began to strum out the notes she had come up with so far while humming the words that went with it. It was just a simple song. A girl who had hoped she would fall in love before she died. Finally, she did but fate wouldn’t let them stay together. Now, the girl was an old woman and seemed to be going over memories of that one love. Ten minutes went by, she had almost gotten a whole verse worked out before Faith, and Dawn came bursting in from the main door of her bedroom, holding a sheet of paper.
“Ok B, considering that we have three girls in this house and only one bathroom. Well two…but Uncle-G refuses to ever let us use his, I feel that we should come up with some sort of schedule on who uses it first, at least for weekdays.” Faith explained. She dropped onto Buffy’s newly made bed being very careful not to get her Doc Marten boots on it.
Buffy put her guitar aside carefully so it wouldn’t fall. “At any rate we could just go with it and hope that we don’t kill each other.” Buffy said sarcastically. Faith gave her the ‘Please-are-you-that-stupid’ look. At the previous place there were two bathrooms for the girls so they didn’t have to have this dilemma. Now however there was only one and it was three teenagers that would be using it. There was bound to be someone that would be bitched slapped so the other could use the bathroom. Seeing Faith’s expression, Buffy got serious. “Alright I guess we could decide how long we get in the bathroom and then make shifts for different days.”
Faith gave her a smirk. “See I knew you were smart B.” The blonde simply rolled her eyes. A monkey could have come up with the same suggestion, but Buffy wasn’t about to say that.
The three of them worked on the ‘schedule’ figuring out that they would each get half an hour in the bathroom each morning and Buffy would be first to use it tomorrow then Dawn, and lastly Faith since she liked to sleep in as much as possible. Around six in the afternoon, Giles came up to the room and asked what they wanted from the Chinese restaurant.
Their meal had been eaten like all their meals. Around the table while having not exactly a pleasant conversation because that would make them seem like a family from the fifties. With the playful bantering between the girls, Giles would just shake his head, but would once in while take part in the laughing amongst the teenagers.
Faith had tried to get Giles to let her and Buffy go out to explore the town but he put his foot down, said no firmly, and explained that the two of them would be starting school the next day. The man knew that they would do something to make themselves known in town that would either end them up in jail for half the night, get into a fight, or simply come home at unreasonable hour were other reasons that were not stated. Faith had huffed, puffed, and left the room, stomping up the stairs. They could hear her door slam and blasting music get turned on shortly after.
Buffy giggled at Faith’s antics getting a returned glare from Giles. “You can’t really blame her Giles. She has been stuck in this house for almost two days now. I’d be going crazy by tomorrow if we didn’t start new classes.” Giles sighed knowing it was true. His niece was never the type that liked to be held up in the same place for more than one day. She was so much like her mother, who was Giles’ sister but at the same time he knew Faith was desperately not to be.
When Faith had been turned over to Rupert at twelve years old, it was because her mother’s rights of custody had finally ended. Faith’s mother, Katrina Giles had left England when she was eighteen to live in the states. She had hoped to be an actress in Hollywood. However, a few months into living in sunny California left young Katrina almost broke and homeless. She would never go back to England because Katrina and Rupert’s father had kicked her out for good when she claimed she wanted to leave the mother country.
Katrina was always wild and wanting to be free just like Faith. After almost weeks of about to kicked out of her shit hole one room apartment, Katrina met Ethan Rayne, who promised Katrina lots of money if she became a hooker and under his control. That is how Faith had come about.
After almost two years as one of the occupants for the oldest profession in the world, Katrina had gotten pregnant with Faith. Over the years, Katrina became to experiment with drugs and drinking more and more. Faith remembered nights of when she was young and her mother would bring home clients. Most of the time she would just call Buffy and ask if she could spend the night there and of course Joyce would happily allow it. When Faith got older, Katrina finally found herself with man that wasn’t paying for her. Though he didn’t just have an interest for Faith’s mother but for Faith as well. That was when Faith had fully learned to protect herself. Carter, her mother’s boyfriend had never fully been able to take away Faith’s innocence but it still left Faith a little scarred. She became tougher and wilder like her mother. She was a fighter though, which was definitely not what her mother was.
One night Faith had ran out after a near attempt Carter had made with her and ran without stopping all the way to Buffy’s house. From there on Joyce had called social services and they had taken Faith away from Katrina and called Rupert. He happily moved out there not knowing he even had a niece. After Faith had moved in with Giles, Katrina had moved away with Carter. Faith never heard from her since. “Good riddance too!” Faith would always say when the subject of her mother came up. Giles hoped that his baby sister was still okay but he highly doubted it.
Buffy waved her hand in front of Giles’ eyes and he shook himself from his thoughts.
“Giles you okay?” Buffy asked staring down at where he sat on the couch. The older man nodded his head. “Okay. Well I’m going to head up to bed. I guess I’ll see you in the morning.” She bent down to give her surrogate father a hug. “Thank you Giles, for all that you’ve done for me and Dawn.” She whispered into his ear. Buffy knew that Giles knew she appreciated all that he had done for her over the past five years but she just felt that she needed to thank him every time an opportunity came.
Giles looked up at the small blonde and nodded his head. “Good night Buffy.”
As Buffy walked up the stairs and to her room, she thought about why they had moved. It was for fresh start for all of them, but she knew Giles had made the decision so she could get the fresh start. So she could get away from the problem in L.A. Forever Buffy would spend the rest of life repaying her guardian back.
After showering, Buffy came into her room to brush her hair, she set her alarm as well. By nine o’ clock, she was in bed and the light was turned off. The door that connected her and Faith’s room was open a little just incase during the night they needed each other.
The minute her head hit the pillow Buffy was fast asleep…
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It was foggy. She could tell that much. She was also in a graveyard, Buffy noted to herself. There was no one around her and she could feel the cold air sweep by her. Wrapping her arms around her body, Buffy trekked on further.
Finally she stopped when she came upon a grave. A very familiar grave.
Loving Mother
1959-1993
Though it wasn’t her mothers grave that stopped her dead in her tracks, it was him. He sat crouching next to the her mother’s tombstone touching it lightly. Buffy let a sound between a gasp and sob.
“Get away from her!” She screamed at him. His head turned towards her, the most wicked smile she had ever seen on anyone before. He just laughed. That evil laughed he always used in her nightmares.
“Come on sweet cheeks, your overreacting.” He stood up and took a step towards her. She took a step back. Having the sudden feeling of being trapped again in the pit of her stomach, Buffy tried to seem strong and calm. He just kept laughing. Suddenly he grabbed her by the shoulders pinning her arms at her side. Pulling her so she was flush against his body, he took in her scent. “Soon my sweet. We’ll be together soon again.” She felt his fingers dig into her shoulders and the only thing she could hear was her own screaming
A/N: Third chapter, hoped you liked it. I know a lot of you by the reviews really want to know what happened to Buffy but you'll just be teased and lead on for another few more chapters. In the next chapter look forward to Spike sightings!! Yes I'm excited. Please Review!!!
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