Xander rolled over and swiped his left hand in the general direction of the alarm, the shrill noise having jarred him from a deep sleep. He lay there for a while, drifting in and out of a doze. Finally, blearily, he opened one eye, seeking out the green glow of the clock’s LED numbers. The room was still blanketed in the thick, inky darkness of predawn. He frowned; it was Saturday morning, he thought, and his sleep-muddled brain struggled to reconcile his regular weekend wake up time with the obvious lack of light.
Confused, he searched again for the clock’s glow. To no avail, the darkness around him remained complete. For a split second Xander panicked, fear driving a stake into his guttering heart, his brain screaming a terrified chant, “I’m blind, blind, blind!”
He pushed up off the bed with his arms till he came to a halt, kneeling in a tangle of bedclothes. The sunlight creeping in around the curtains and the mocking light emitted by the clock, quickly extinguished his anxiety.
Damn, second day running he’d woken up with his good eye snuggled face down in the pillow, the empty socket of his left eye assigned the hopeless task of greeting the day. Sighing, he rolled back over, fitting big spoon like against the curve of Rowan’s back. He nuzzled into her hair, his good eye now clear of its blindfold and free to travel around the room.
Whew, not blind. Or at least only half blind, he thought.
It was quite light in the room; the sun had obviously been up for a while. He’d set the alarm for 7.30, so it was probably not much past that. In his blind panic, he’d forgotten to check the time. He wondered how long it would take before his brain caught up with the reality of his loss. It had been months now since Caleb had carried out his handiwork, but in his dreams, he could still see out of both eyes. And each morning when he awoke, it still took a moment or two before he remembered why he could only see half the room.
He sighed and snuggled up against the tiny girl who slept so peacefully in his bed. She was the best thing that had happened to him in a long time. After the Hellmouth, after Anya, he hadn’t expected to find love again, so quickly, or so well. But here she was.
She was stunning, pretty rather than beautiful, but with the likelihood of heading that way as she got older. And she was sweet and kind and caring and patient. She reminded him of Tara in some ways. More confident, but just as sweet.
He’d plucked up the courage to mention it to Willow last week. She’d stared off into the distance for a while, then smiled at him and said, “That’s because she has the same sort of energy as Tara, and I think she practices magic in the same way. She’s very connected to the Earth, just like Tara. She’s a lovely girl Xander. I think she could make you very happy.”
Mind you, Xander wouldn’t have gone after her. It was too soon for one thing, and he was still filled with grief and guilt and anger and doubt, and badly in need of some space to heal.
And Rowan seemed totally out of his league for another, although that was something he was trying to sort out in his head these days, both his poor self esteem and this unreasonable need he seemed to have to categorize people as either too good or not good enough to be with someone else. In fact, he was beginning to question his ability to read people or situations at all. So much for being the one who ‘sees and knows’. Becoming one-eyed was ironic given that he often only saw one side of an issue anyway. So yeah, he was working on that.
Finally, Xander thought Rowan was a bit young. Well not too young, obviously. She was almost nineteen. But maybe she just seemed young because sometimes he felt so very, very old.
Anyway, they’d all seemed valid reasons at the time not to go after the girl. But he hadn’t needed to. She’d reached out to him, her insight and healing nature telling her that here was someone that needed tending to. And she’d given him that; care, compassion, empathy, understanding, peace and tranquility. She’d given him a safe place to just be, a place to heal.
Not that she let him mope or moan or fester in his anger or bitterness. She made him consider life’s positives, challenged his judgments and misconceptions, and tempered his thoughtlessness. But she did all of this from a position of unconditional acceptance and concern. It felt a bit like being wrapped up in a warm, loving blanket of cotton wool.
She also got him to examine his upbringing and the way it had impacted on who he was today. It wasn’t a pretty picture. He’d hated the vision that the demon at his and Ahn’s disastrous non-wedding had shown him, the dark glimpse of future Xander, a replica of his drunken, belligerent father, and Ahn speaking his Mom’s words. But he really hadn’t considered until Rowan pointed it out to him, that it might be possible to change so that he didn’t become that person.
If he had realized that on the day of the wedding… well who knows? But instead he’d been weighed down by the inevitability of it all, convinced that he was saving Anya, and himself, from a future of grief and distress.
But now Rowan had made him consider the fact you could be a good person, but get bogged down with judgmental thoughts and actions. She was trying to get him to see issues from at least two angles, and think before he opened his big mouth. So yeah, a work in progress, but still.
Xander’s relationship with Rowan had been one of friendship to begin with, nurturing and healing. It had only become romantic three weeks after they’d got back from LA, and they’d not slept with one another until two nights ago, the slow transition from friends to lovers a startling contrast to how his relationship with Anya had begun. This felt better, the foundation solid and carefully built on. And the sex was no less exciting. Less kinky perhaps, but breathtaking nonetheless. More connected, more satisfying, he realized.
So now they were a couple, effectively working together and living together. During the day, Rowan helped him with the plans and preparations needed to get the new Slayers housed and settled in.
There was an enormous amount of work to do before the girls arrived, the first in a week’s time. If the Recruitment Teams were as successful over the next few weeks as they had been last week, then they were looking at around seventy girls per week for the next three weeks, with possibly the same number again during the first two weeks of September.
Xander and Rowan had reorganized the suites in both the East and West wings of the main building. They’d pulled the queen-size beds and lounge furniture out of all the rooms and replaced them with four or five singles. Any conference rooms situated amongst the bedrooms had been turned into large dormitories. They’d turned every fourth suite into communal living areas and also provided spaces in the dormitories for relaxing and for studying. All up, they would be able to accommodate up to 500 girls in the main house.
Xander had also been put in charge of staff recruitment. A skeleton staff had been kept on following the Hotel purchase. They’d had to let the restaurant’s Cordon Bleu trained head chef go, but they had retained two of the kitchen staff, a local couple, Dave and Annette, who had been working the hotel kitchens for the past ten years. They had handled all of the meals over the past two months, but with the expected increase in numbers, they were going to need more help.
Likewise with the cleaning and ground staff. They’d only held on to two women out of a crew of ten housemaids and only one of the gardeners. Xander had helped interview the Hotel staff and they’d had to question each worker carefully to determine whether or not they could be discreet about the goings on of Ashdown’s new residents. The staff they’d retained had all proven their worth, and were about to be offered management positions, modest salary increases and the opportunity to help Xander select their new team members.
The first interviews were set for this morning, which meant Xander had to get up and get ready. But Rowan was stirring, sleepily pushing her buttocks back against his morning erection, and he thought maybe he could afford another 20 minutes. He pulled her closer; thankful for this window of time they could share together. She’d slipped into his life so easily, that he wasn’t looking forward to the end of summer and the resumption of her classes.
This would be Rowan’s second year at med school. She was studying at Brighton and Sussex and was one of their inaugural students, the School being only in its second year. The campus was based at Falmer, just out of Brighton, only a 40-minute trip south of Ashdown. During the school year, which was only a month away, she lived on campus. She’d promised to come up on the weekends, but in the mean time he’d decided to make the most of their together time.
He felt her wriggling gain momentum and she turned towards him. Xander took her in his arms and kissed her awake. What a great way to start the day!
Willow woke up feeling hot and bothered. She’d been dreaming, the naughty sort of dreaming. Hence the hot. And quite apart from the fact that she was alone in her bed, with no-one to help her sort out her horniness, of greater concern was the fact that her dream hadn’t even been about Kennedy.
Her girlfriend was presently traipsing around Barcelona, she, Rona, Caridad and Robin spending the day catching the sights and chilling out before flying to Zurich in the morning. They’d had a great week, finding and signing up all sixteen girls that had been identified on the Iberian Peninsula. Both Caridad and Kennedy herself spoke fluent Spanish, undoubtedly a huge advantage on the Recruitment drive. Switzerland and Italy would be more challenging with only Kennedy’s 8th Grade German and an Italian phrase book to help out.
Willow and Kennedy had kept in regular touch since the teams had flown out a week earlier, either emailing or ringing one another each day. Kennedy kept the witch up to date with their successes and stories of the girls they’d met. Willow was envious in a way. It wasn’t exactly a holiday, but many of the girls they were looking for lived in the most beautiful and renowned cities in the world, so the recruiters couldn’t help but see some of the sights.
Still, Willow reasoned, her role here right now was vital, and undoubtedly she’d get a chance to do some sight seeing/slayer tracking later on. But for now, she was in charge of setting up the curriculum for the Slayer Academy that was to be run out of the converted chapel. The previous owners had sectioned the building’s vaulted space up into six different rooms, the largest of which was big enough for a lecture hall, while the others were all classroom sized.
Classes would start in six weeks and in that time she had to register with the Department of Education, organize an Ofsted inspection of the grounds, and crucially, apply to the Government for recognition of their status as an Academy. If successful, they could attract public funding, which would cover not only teacher’s salaries, but also equipment and resources.
The Board wanted the girls to complete their schooling with recognized credentials so that they could go onto tertiary training if they wished. So covering all the bases was essential. She needed to finalize core curriculum subjects, and employ teachers who were not only well qualified and available on short notice, but sympathetic to the ‘special character’ of their learning institution.
She, Giles and Anthony Collins, the principal of the Watcher’s Academy, Sackville College, had their first big meeting on Monday. Two bigwigs from the Department were coming to do a walk through and discuss their progress. She was nervous. A lot depended on the outcome.
There was a lot to do and a lot to focus on. Which was good really, as it kept her mind off the Kennedy situation.
Their relationship was definitely on the chilly side these days; it had been ever since they got back from LA. Kennedy had not been impressed with the re-introduction of Oz into Willow’s life. It seemed to play up all of her insecurities and she’d become jealous and resentful. For some reason, instead of rushing to assure her, Willow had instead become aloof, the irritation she felt at Kennedy’s petty behavior, somehow fuelling a hidden well of resentment and boredom.
Because, if the truth be known, she had been questioning her relationship with the young slayer even before they’d flown out to LA. Sure she was exciting and sexy and her confident, determined pursuit had been flattering and a much needed balm for Willow’s broken heart. But even back in Sunnydale, her confidence had often come across as arrogance and her determination as brashness.
Also, Willow knew that Kennedy was at best, only tolerated by the Gang, and at worst, openly disliked. It had made her uncomfortable and caused her to question the viability of a long-term relationship. And it was a direct contrast to the way that her friends had accepted her partners in the past, both Tara and Oz quickly becoming integral members of the team.
And finally, she came back to the very thing that had bothered her most about her erotic dream. Not only was it not about Kennedy, but the reason she was really so breathless was because the dream had been about Oz! Oh Goddess!
Well, there was no time to lie here and reflect on the hotness that was Oz-sex. Or the wrongness of it, she quickly amended. No, she had to get up and get going. There was just enough time for a cold shower. Willow sighed and crawled out of bed, heading for the bathroom.
Dawn looked in the mirror as she finished brushing her hair. She paused, frowning, as she peered carefully at her face. No matter how closely she looked, she could never spot the green glow of her energy matrix or any evidence of her wacky powers and abilities. She just looked the way she felt, like a normal seventeen year old girl. Well normalish anyway.
But the stuff she’d found out about herself over the last month was hardly normal. Although, it was pretty cool. And a little scary. To be full of an enormous well of energy, to be able to sense the energy signatures of others, to be able to open doors through space; all of these things were awesome.
It did leave Dawn feeling a bit strange and weird and otherworldly though. Like an alien. Or a mutant. This would have been hard for most teenagers to handle. But the fact that she lived amongst witches and vampires and super-powered slayer chicks made her weirdness just a little bit less abnormal. In fact the totally normal ones, like Xander, were the odd-ones-out at Ashdown.
It also didn’t hurt that at the moment, she was a very important part of the team. Sure Althanea could identify Slayers, and for that matter Willow and Rowan probably could too. But nobody could do so as quickly and easily as Dawn could. She could even use a portal to take her to the other side of the world, seek out all of the Slayer signals within a thousand mile radius, use the laptop ID programme, print out a list of up to two hundred slayers and be home by dinner.
It felt amazing to be so crucial to the recruitment programme, a fully-fledged Scooby at last. The others treated her with respect and gave her responsibilities they thought she could handle. Opportunities like travelling to LA to scan the West Coast, and the chance to be on the team that was going to break the crazy slayer girl Dana out of a psych hospital.
So, they pretty much treated her like an adult. Even Buffy! Which was cool, but underneath all these skills and responsibilities, she was still just a seventeen year old kid, and she also wanted to live life like any teenager. Part of that involved going back to school.
She could have enrolled in the Slayer’s Academy that Willow was setting up at Ashdown. If week one’s recruitment drive was any indication then most of the girls would be 15, 16 or 17, so she would have slotted in fine. But Dawn had set herself a firm goal, a normal, real world goal, not just a ‘lets do my part to help save the world from the next apocalypse’ goal.
She wanted to go to Oxford University. She wanted to do a B.A. with a double major in Classics and History (Ancient and Modern). She knew that her grades would have to be outstanding in order to qualify, and she wanted a really good grounding in languages during her final year at school. And she thought she’d found a school that could give her that.
Imberhorne School was on the north western outskirts of East Grinstead, only a fifteen minute drive from Ashdown, and had an excellent languages department. She’d already downloaded an enrolment pack.
The idea of starting school made her nervous though. She wasn’t worried about whether she’d be able to cope with the British curriculum, or what she’d look like in a uniform, or even if the other kids would make fun of her accent, but simply, whether she’d be able to fit in with normal kids. She worried that her ‘special’ skills would make her stand out in some way. Would her ‘uniqueness’ just come across as ‘difference’? She could ask Buffy or Willow or even Xander, if she seemed ‘normal’ to them, but they were either so weird themselves or had hung out with weirdos for so long that their opinions didn’t really count for much.
In the meantime, there was a month of summer left, and she had a huge amount of work to do scanning the rest of the world for slayers. She couldn’t cover the whole globe in the next four weeks, but she was going to try and scan the rest of the U.S., Canada and South America, and if she could manage it Russia. Willow and Althanea would have to deal with Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
But she also wanted to spend some of her time researching her Key abilities. She had so many questions. Would her Key energy replenish itself or eventually run out? Could she open portals through time and between dimensions? Could her blood be collected, stored and used by others to open portals? And most importantly, was she, deep down inside, a normal human? Could she still live a normal life?
With a wry grin on her face, she gave her hair a final flick of the brush and set off to meet the rest of her friends for breakfast.