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Disclaimer: Characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer are property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Kuzui Enterprises, Sandollar Television, the WB, and UPN.

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– October 2008 –

It’s all about the Slayer.

The Slayer is the reason I’m alive. (One of them. Not the most important.) The existence of the Slayer has intruded into every moment of my life since then. Past, present, future: all suffused, dominated, by the fact of the Slayer. For years, the Slayer has threatened to take away what matters most to me … and is now about to do just that.

Everything — everything — is about the Slayer.

I hate her.

*               *               *

The university library is never deserted, or even mostly empty; if it’s open, there are going to be people there, usually enough that you’re rarely out of sight of someone for more than a few seconds. I showed up half an hour earlier than the time I’d been given. All I can do with the extra is stew in anger, resentment, dread … but then, I’d be doing that no matter where I was, so why not get onsite and wait for the coming doom?

The Slayer. Always the damn Slayer.

I make my fists not clench, do a quick check on my breathing. Steady. Steady. I can’t really improve things by maintaining control, but I can certainly make them worse by losing it. And, no matter what happens, I won’t behave badly where Ryan can see. If I wind up with nothing else (right now, it’s looking like the most likely result), I can at least hold onto his good memory of me.

I keep telling myself that.

*               *               *

Sunnydale was a growth area, and attracted a lot of people. It lost a lot, too, and not just from the things that nobody talked about. Some felt the unease creeping up on them, from no cause they could identify or see if they tried to look at it straight-on, and started checking around for other opportunities after a few months or a year; some, following one or another of the various weird incidents that cropped up all too often, decided that somewhere else was a better place to be.

Like my folks.

Ryan’s dad worked at the same hopeful new startup firm as mine. When our families relocated, after the deaths at Sunnydale General, they again wound up in the same city and the same industry — though different companies — so that Ryan and I found ourselves attending the same school. From there …

He and I weren’t really alike, but we had two things in common. The first was that we were new kids in a school where we didn’t know anyone else. The second was that night in the hospital. What happened. What we remembered. What I could never forget, and he never wanted to.

I’ve always been different from other kids. The things that everyone knew without it ever being spelled out? I just didn’t get those things, didn’t get how it was simply there for everybody else. I understood study, schedules, rules (teachers loved me), but as far as ‘belonging’ went, I never stopped being at least a bit out of place. I’m smart enough, and I liked school because it was something that made sense, but I would have gone through it all as a quiet, shy, awkward girl who was always on the sidelines and that some of the nicer kids would have felt a little sorry for when they noticed me at all, while the rest wouldn’t have ever given me a thought in the first place (except, possibly, for some of them, to torment me for the fun of it).

With Ryan there, that wasn’t going to happen. He’d have been okay anyway, but I think taking me under his wing, looking out for me, helping me join and navigate this new society — just having a purpose — made it all go faster for him. Not that it would have mattered in the long run, Ryan would have done fine no matter where he was.

For me, though, it made all the difference in the world.

*               *               *

He spots me at the table as soon as he comes in the door, moves to join me. “Sorry, I know I’m early, didn’t know if you would be.”

“No, I just got here,” I say to him. (Fifteen minutes ago.) “So what are we looking at?”

He thinks about it. “I can’t remember exactly how much I told you when I called, so I’ll go over all of it. They’d seen some of the searches and inquiries we’ve been making, said they have alerts out for things like that. They’d looked into us a bit, even found out we’d once lived in Sunnydale. They asked … well, they wanted to know if I was just trying to find out about them, or if I was trying to find whoever might be doing the job they do. I said both, and they asked why.”

I know the rest, he’s been talking about it for years. “And you told them it was because you want to be part of it.”

His smile is like the sun coming up. “So now they want to see us.”

I’m surprised, I had to be here (to see it all play out), but I just thought that was Ryan keeping me in the loop. “Us? Me, too? Why?”

Now he’s the one showing surprise. “Hmm? You’re with me on this, you always have been. Like I said, they know about both of us.”

If they know enough, they’ll know Ryan is the driving force, and I’m his helper. I’ve only ever been in this because of him. And we’re both still teenagers; what would they really want with us? (Never mind me.)

“Well,” I answer, “let’s see what they have to say.”

*               *               *

Our shared history in Sunnydale started us off together. I was okay with that.

What I hadn’t expected was that it never stopped being a factor. Ryan … with anyone else, I’d say he was obsessed with the Slayer, but that wasn’t Ryan. He was focused, on what she had done and how many she had saved and what it all meant. From his perspective, we’d been in danger because we hadn’t known there was danger; not our fault, we were kids, but our parents hadn’t known, either. And we were alive because there was someone who had known, and was dedicated to fighting these hidden dangers. It wasn’t enough for him that we remembered, that we kept a wary eye on the shadows; he didn’t want to ever forget the source of our deliverance.

He would speak of her with awe, almost with worship. He credited her with saving us all.

I always kept it under control, but so many times I wanted to scream at him: She killed the monster, but it wasn’t her who saved us. You did that, you got us together and led us out of the children’s ward, you found a place where we could hide, and you fought him when he found us. The Slayer showed up in time because you bought us that time. It wasn’t her. It was you.

Eight years old, and he saved us all.

I choked back the words, every time, not just because I didn’t want him to see my anger with his idol, but because he wouldn’t have believed it. Ryan has never been able to see just how much there is to him. He looks to the Slayer for a hero. Me? I look at him.

She was the deux ex machina, last-minute and almost too late. He was the hero.

*               *               *

All through the rest of school, we were together. Which is to say, not “together” in the sense it was used in high school, but always together. He dated, I dated much less (and with substantially less enthusiasm), we belonged to one or two of the same school clubs but usually different ones … whatever else was going on, though, we were always in each other’s lives. Our memories, and what came from that, were the tie that kept us connected, and so I held onto that when I otherwise would have happily put it behind me long, long ago.

The time we spent together wasn’t dates. It was more serious than that, but serious about something we never thought to share with anyone else. (Ryan might have been able to weather having that preoccupation found out about him — maybe — but it would have moved me instantly from kind of odd to ‘stay-away’ weird.) And, in the aggregate, we absolutely spent more time with each other than with anyone outside our own families.

Of course, we spent it reading up on mythology and folklore, analyzing and discussing which obscure legends might have some physical reality in the outside world, or checking out cemeteries. (During the day, to see if any fresh graves showed signs of disturbance. At night, wearing strings of garlic and carrying flasks of holy water … I hated that so much that Ryan eventually stopped bringing it up, but I was always terrified that he might still be doing it alone.) That was not exactly my go-to definition of a healthy bond, but it was the one we had, so I held onto it.

When we started college (less than two months ago), it was with a curriculum chosen to help prepare us for what he wanted to wind up doing. And I went along, because it was him, and I didn’t want to let him go.

He was dedicated. He was still a hero. It never occurred to him to consider anything else, and I never suggested it because that would have compromised our own connection. After more time, my reticence was because I didn’t want him to be different. What he was, was what made him what I valued.

Even from the beginning, though, I knew that our bond was the very thing that held us apart. Which made it all the more important that I never let him see that.

Not that it made the ending any less inevitable.

*               *               *

We’ve been watching the entrance, naturally, so we see them first … I think. I can’t be totally sure, because the girl (maybe our age, maybe a bit younger or older) is centered on us the moment she comes in the door, and the two men with her follow her gaze to rest on us. I suppose such immediate recognition ought to reassure us as to their professionalism and preparedness, but frankly it’s a bit creepy. They come to where we’re sitting, stop an unthreatening distance from us as Ryan and I stand up. The man speaks, and the British accent goes with the mild, smooth-faced, middle-aged appearance. “Ryan, Lauren. Good afternoon. My name is Niall Robson, and these —” He gestures at the other two, at either side of him. “— are Mateo Novar and Nairi Gersang. I hope we didn’t keep you waiting.”

Mateo is young, handsome, Latin in appearance, and maybe in his early twenties. Nairi is harder to categorize; she has one of those faces that could be Latin, Middle Eastern, Asian, or one of the various sub-Asian groups you see in Pacific nations. (Even possibly Native American, if with some European blood mixed into her ancestry.) The same indeterminate ethnicity makes her age difficult to guess, she could be anything from fifteen to nearly-thirty-but-appearing-much-younger. She looks like an exchange student, or an exotic dancer, or the younger sister of an Orient Airways stewardess. She also looks like she’s aware of every person and movement in the library.

All this goes through my mind while Ryan is saying, “No, we basically just got here ourselves.” He glances over at the table where we’ve been waiting, albeit with chairs turned outward so we’d be facing the entrance. “Do we need to sit down to talk?”

We do that, Nairi after a sweeping glance that registers and gauges everything, like a sentry marking bushes at the beginning of a duty shift so he’ll know if any of them change location during the night, and she positions her chair in a way that doubtless covers the major lines of approach. I don’t know these things myself, but I just feel them from her. There is nothing about her that resembles anything I can remember of the Slayer — of Buffy — and yet she reminds me of her somehow.

It’s here, then. In a different form, but the thing that will take Ryan from me is here to deliver the doom that has been so long coming.

‘Talking’ turns out to be a distinctly single-sided affair, mostly Robson asking questions (and occasionally Mateo) and Ryan providing answers, looking to me now and then for details but essentially carrying the main flow of the interview. Because that’s what this is: a job interview, the young prospect wanting to join the established firm — Watchers, if what we’ve learned applies directly to this group — and giving his background and bona fides while learning a bit in return to see if there’s anything to give him cause to reconsider.

Robson indicates approval of our basic physical preparation; after evaluating a number of different programs, Ryan settled on krav maga, and we’ve both been taking those classes twice a week for nearly two years. There’s a bit of surprise at our study of languages; from very early on, Ryan decided that would be important for research and understanding. We both took Spanish in school, of course, and at his insistence we continued with as many advanced and college prep courses as we could, plus a few from online; but he also had us learning what we could of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, those mostly from resources linked to Bible study. Rather than trying to develop total fluency and proficiency, he had us focus on the basics, on structure and verb tenses and a framework of useful terms, and we reviewed that with each other to keep any part of it from fading while we slowly built around that core. Robson tests us on that, a brief but wide-ranging verbal assessment, and it’s easy to see that his knowledge comes from a very great deal of formal instruction. As usual, I have more grasp of the vocabulary and grammar, but Ryan has always been better at following his intuition to an understanding of meaning. At the end, Robson shakes his head and says, “A quite adequate foundation, far beyond what I would have expected, American schools tend to have a different focus. If that’s how you wish to proceed, we can certainly help you to build on top of all that. Now, as far as your understanding of history —” And we’re off again.

This is it. It’s happening now. And all I can do is go along and wait for sentence to be pronounced.

The most severe stress for me is when we’re asked about our first exposure to the supernatural; they already knew we’d lived in Sunnydale, but not the particulars of the deaths in the hospital. I have to listen while Ryan goes through the familiar litany of praise for the Slayer, even give my own supplementary testimony, all without showing any evidence of what it’s doing to me. Robson tilts an eyebrow while he weighs what he’s heard. “I read about that one, I think,” he says at last. “Wasn’t studying the incident itself, but it came up when I was researching something that might have been another Kindestöd manifestation; turned out to be Delzpiyrian practitioners, actually …” He stops himself, shakes his head. “At any rate, that you were involved in something so frightening, and at such a young age … And you’ve spent the past ten years learning what you can, and preparing to make your own contribution if possible?”

Ryan nods staunchly. “We’re alive now because someone knew what was behind the curtain, and was ready to fight for us. Doing what we can, that’s just paying back what we were given. It’s practically something we owe.”

I keep my expression impassive while he says this. I’ve heard it before, and I know he’s sincere. He’s always taken it as a given that I felt the same. I’ve never pretended to, but I didn’t go out of my way to correct him. I knew that day would come — as it has — and I had no desire to hurry along the inevitable breach. I’m still hiding that part of me, even now that the truth may come out at any moment, and eventually must. This is a pain I’ve got used to, and have had a very long time to prepare for.

Robson’s gaze rests on each of us in turn, measuring and considering. “We’ve spent some time now recruiting people for our operations, and some of our best prospects have come from, er, unexpected circumstances. The two of you, though … aside from the one exposure, almost everything in your background has been a matter of self-preparation, with no actual mystical resources to call on. That is certainly unusual.”

“We had a lot of inspiration to carry us,” Ryan says. He shakes his head. “If you’d ever seen her —”

“Oh, I have,” Robson returns almost absently. “Funny story there, but that can wait. We’ll want to learn more, but I’d say there’s more than sufficient justification for proceeding to the next stage.” He looks around. “Mateo, if you would —?”

*               *               *

It’s a graveyard. Of course.

I believe I’ve already mentioned that I hate graveyards. It helps some that I know this will be the last time. I suppose I should have already admitted the truth by now; but Ryan might need me on this, and I can’t bring myself to opt out of what is probably the last thing I’ll ever share with him. We’re carrying the familiar holy water bottles, and wearing prominent crucifixes around our necks (we’ve been informed that garlic isn’t completely ineffectual, but is generally reserved for situations when nothing else is available), plus sharpened wooden stakes at our belts. Additionally, Ryan has a hand-axe, and for some reason I was the one chosen to bear the crossbow.

He’s where he belongs. I’m not.

It was always going to come to this, always. He’s not just heroic, he’s good. He isn’t afraid the way I am, but neither is he fearless, what he does comes from dedication: to helping people, anyone who needs help. The same thing that moved him to befriend an odd, withdrawn girl from his old hometown, is what brings him here, now, and if he focuses on the supernatural it’s because that’s where he sees a need that he worries isn’t being fully met. I’ve helped him as much as I could, I’ve been his faithful companion, all the while knowing that the drive was his and I could never offer anything more than temporary support.

Ryan glances over, making sure I’m close enough for him to help me if I need it, just as I watch for anything that would mean I have to step off to the side to aim the crossbow without him being in the line of danger. We’ve reviewed and practiced such tactics before, it’s thoroughly familiar for us. This is what we do.

Or, I suppose I should say, have done.

… I think I probably loved him from the moment he saved my life. How could I not? And, by the time I knew it, I already knew it was hopeless. Not because he didn’t feel the same way, but because he could, and I simply couldn’t do that to him.

We didn’t spend as much time together as we did without becoming close. I was the one who made sure the closeness that was there, never became more personal. There was no doubt that Ryan was going to become some kind of crusader against supernatural threats; just as clear to me, though, was that I couldn’t follow him down that road. Every step along the way, fear was something I held back barely enough to keep going. My fear; fear for my own life, but also of what it would do to me to see him die. Either way, mine. Selfishness that I knew I couldn’t put behind me.

“I guess we should check the graves first,” Ryan observes thoughtfully. “Unless they’ve set up some other kind of test for us. Do you remember them saying anything that might offer a hint?”

“No,” I tell him. I’m not really thinking about what they said, or what they want, or even why we agreed to come here. My concentration is on everything else, everything around us, anything that might pose a threat. Because, test or no, we’re certain to be here for a reason, and that reason will be something we probably won’t like.

This is why any future with Ryan is impossible for me.

If we were together, really together, I would pull at him, tear at him, frantic to see him clear of that dark world. I wouldn’t be able to help myself, stop myself. And he would wind up putting me first, would let himself be drawn away from what he’s supposed to be. My own fear would warp him away from being all the things I love about him. I love the hero, and he couldn’t keep being that if he was with me.

I could hold him to me. I could. It isn’t vanity that has me saying this; he cares for me, and even my pretense has allowed us to share something he couldn’t share with anyone else. So, yes, if I was willing to do it, I could have us together: me at his side, swathed in ‘white lace and promises’ like the Carpenters song.

I could. I won’t. The price is too high, the price to him. I’ve come as far as I can; from this point on, being who I am would hold him back from being who he has to be.

There’s a light mist over the graveyard, almost luminous in the moonlight, like a scene from the black-and-white Universal version of the Wolf Man. It renders our surroundings near-surreal, and I didn’t need any extra atmospherics to add to the unease inside me. I can feel the tension in my arms, set to turn the crossbow toward any necessary target; in my thighs, as I pick my way carefully forward, watching my surroundings rather than sparing a glance to verify the ground under my feet. I want this to be over, even knowing that its end will be, for me, the end of the most precious period of my life.

While we’re here, though, I have Ryan’s back. Nothing is going to take that away from me.

Though trying to keep track of everything, we’ve been going down the rows of graves, alert for any signs of recent or active disturbance. We could be facing anything, of course (otherwise, Ryan’s axe wouldn’t make a lot of sense), but graveyard automatically means the higher likelihood of vampires, and our other accoutrements certainly seem to emphasize that probability. It gets darker — a glance upward shows drifting clouds beginning to haze the moon — and we slow down. Maybe Robson, Mateo, Nairi are flanking us, watching us, ready to come aid us if we need it. Past recognizing the possibility, I don’t think about it, we’re occupied in the immediate task before us. However else we might fail to measure up tonight, it won’t be from not taking this business seriously.

“The next row starts a bit further over there,” Ryan tells me. “Angle left so we keep the same —” And then it’s there, a grave bursting open as an earth-clogged arm thrusts upward, and I take a sharp hurting breath as I raise the crossbow … then, remembering the tactics we’ve discussed, I turn away, Ryan will want to focus on the emerging vampire and it’ll be my job to watch out for any who might have come in to welcome the newcomer. This is crazy, we’re kids, why would they have sent us out here without any more training than we’ve invented for ourselves? but we’re here, and this is what we have to do, and that’s just how it is.

A sudden exclamation from Ryan, and I look back to see the newborn vampire half-out of the grave, levering up on one elbow while he reaches for the convenient victim with his free arm; but there’s other movement, a nightmare figure materializing out of the darkness with fangs bared, and terror and despair sear through me as more come in, one to either side of the first, we’re outnumbered two to one here! I see Ryan set his shoulders, readying his stake and eyeing the approaching vampires in case they charge before he has a clear thrust at the new-riser, and without looking back toward me he says, perfectly calm and level, “Run.”

I fire the crossbow arrow to center-chest of the first upright vampire, then discard the bow (no time for a reload) and charge the others, a stake in one hand and a holy water flask in the other, screaming in desperation and fury and hate. I’m about to die, that’s not even in doubt, but if I’ve killed one and manage to take out or even seriously wound a second, Ryan might be able to take the last after dispatching the still-gravebound one. A slim hope, but it’s all I have, and I drive forward to hurl myself at the last enemy I’ll ever face —

Dislocation.

It’s wrenching, shocking, shatteringly disorienting. Robson’s hands are on me, holding me down as I struggle to lurch upright, and a frantic look around shows me Nairi likewise keeping Ryan in his chair. Ryan is fighting harder, but Nairi is immovable. “Calm, calm,” Mateo says to us, a light sweat beading his temples. “It’s okay, I know that was intense, and pulling you out so quickly must have been upsetting, but trust us, you’re all right.” He keeps on, repeating the words in a clinically soothing tone, while I sag back and try to tell my heart to stop hammering.

Ryan’s eyes settle on me, and he relaxes back into his chair. I realize we’re still in the library, and somehow we haven’t attracted any attention from the other patrons; is this because our visitors pacified us so quickly, or is there some kind of masking spell in effect? Either could be true, or both. I’m coming to terms with the situation quickly enough, possibly because I have a relatively passive personality. Ryan, more fundamentally oriented toward active response, needs a few more seconds to take it all in. He takes a breath, centering himself by conscious decision, and says to Robson, “Guided dreaming?”

Robson smiles. “Something of that type,” he replies. “We find it helpful on occasion.”

Ryan nods, eyes moving as he considers. “Okay. So did we pass the test in your scenario?”

“A moment,” Robson says. “All clear, Mateo?”

“Yes.” Mateo makes subtle, small movements with his hands. “Induction ended, screen down now. We’re back in normal time.”

Robson moves back to his chair, and Mateo likewise sits again. Nairi remains standing, surveying us and our surroundings with the same steadfast watchfulness she’s shown since our first sight of her. Robson looks to Ryan. “As to your question, the scenario wasn’t a pass-fail, more of a diagnostic. You could have failed, I suppose, but that’s rare. From your background and initial interview, we already know we can use you; your actions and responses ‘inside’ give us some idea of what the best use might be.” He shrugs, smiling slightly. “There’s no way to say it without it sounding melodramatic, but the fact is that each of you showed a willingness to die for the other. Very clearly, whatever we choose to do with you, we must accept that you’ll be doing it together.”

“Well, sure,” Ryan says. “That was always how it was going to be. Right, Lauren?” He looks to me for agreement, and something must show in my face, because his own expression goes still. “Lauren?” he says again, and this time it’s an actual question.

This is it. This is the moment, and I won’t back away from it. “You have to say yes,” I tell him, holding my tone level with fanatic calm. “This is everything you’ve ever wanted.”

He shifts forward in his chair. “Lauren, what are you saying?”

“This is you,” I say. I put every effort into keeping the pain off my face, out of my voice. “This, what they’re doing, that’s what you’re supposed to be doing. I’ve always known that. Now you can.” I stand up. “It’s yours now. It’s yours.” And it’s time to turn, to leave, because tears may begin at any moment and he mustn’t see that.

“Wait.” He’s standing now, too, his hand on my shoulder. “Please. This … this is us, it’s always been the two of us.” His eyes are on mine, searching. “I can’t do this without you.”

All my fears crash in on me. It’s happening, I’m destroying his dream even while trying to set him free. “You can,” I say to him. “You can do anything.”

And the uncharacteristic uncertainty goes right out of him, resolution replacing it. “I won’t,” he tells me.

No, no, this isn’t how it’s supposed to be! I’ve spent years foreseeing this moment, preparing myself to let him go, and now I’m the one holding him back! Everything whirls inside my head, my reality upended without warning. I knew what I had to do, I made myself ready to do it, I did it, and it isn’t going anything like the way I thought. How am I supposed to —?

Something catches my attention, just a small tilt of the head, but it’s Nairi, and she’s looking directly at me. Very low, something between a whisper and a breath — I can only make out the words from the motion of her lips — she murmurs to me, “Are you ready to be strong?”

And in that instant, at those words, two realizations drive straight into my awareness with the force of a lightning strike.

One, I thought I would deny Ryan his destiny if I stayed with him; instead, he’ll turn away from it unless I stay.

Two: as the minutes-ago dream patrol just showed me, I genuinely would rather die with Ryan (or for him) than live without him. If he’s going into this life … I have to be there.

For years, Ryan and I have been close, but never intimate-close; still, we’ve shared jokes and banter from time to time, and I call on that now. Letting my face fall into arch, mock-impatient lines, I tell him, “Well … if you’re going to be like that, then I guess they’re stuck with both of us.”

His smile comes back, changing his whole face, and for me it’s as if the sun just came out again.

And, watching us, Nairi is smiling, too.

– end –
 

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