We are Watchers. Buffy felt as though someone had pulled the plug on her emotions as all the anger seeped out to be replaced by confusion. Her mind reeled in mental summersaults in a futile attempt to keep up. How could they possibly be Watchers? She had met Watchers and they had a tendency of being stuffy middle-aged British men with a disturbing affinity for tweed. By a stretch of her imagination she could probably believe that there were black Watchers, maybe even women Watchers. And who knew, the council might even keep non-tweed wearing Watchers on the sidelines just to keep things interesting. But demon Watchers? That was pushing things a bit too far. She would bet her life that the council had a strict policy against something like that. Then again, she could have betted her life that she was the only Slayer in her generation. "Huh?" She finally managed to utter. Over all she was quite proud of her reaction.
The elders watched her carefully, assessing her emotions and reactions, "did you know that nothing in this world has true immortality?" The dark vampire asked.
She stared at him, "try signaling before taking sharp conversational turns," she said acidly. "You lost me."
A shadow of a smile flickered across his pale face and was gone before Buffy could even be sure it was there in the first place. His blue eyes, however, glimmered with humor, "point taken. However, if you bear with me for a bit I'm sure things will become clearer." Yeah, I doubt that, Buffy thought. If anything she had never felt so confused in her life. "Nothing is truly immortal," he repeated, "not man, not the earth, not even demons, although they claim to be. What happens to a body whose demon dies, Slayer? What happens to all the power suffused in its once living cells?" She shook her head wordlessly, a terrible suspicion crawling through her bewildered brain. The dark elder crossed the room with feline grace, not quite invading Buffy's personal space, but way too close for comfort. "Does it die?" He hissed, "does it become a walking, soulless corpse? A ghoul? Or does it get its soul back and live happily ever after?"
Cold sweat began to drip down Buffy's spine, her throat clenched with dry fear as she stared at the elder with wide-eyed horror. "Gerrico!" The cry sounded like a command. The dark elder immediately tensed as the pale woman strode over with a warrior's gate. "Stop it, you're scaring the child," she said more softly.
Gerrico nodded, "I apologize," he said smoothly. "I wanted you to be aware of the questions we have been trying to answer over time." So much time, he left unsaid.
"Your demon's died?" The Slayer asked with wonder, searching Gerrico's face for an answer. He nodded. "Your soul, is it..."
"Not as far as I can tell," he said gruffly as he turned away from her towards the fireplace.
She shook her head, this day was just too shock filled for her fragile state of mind. Confusion always linked its way back to anger in her mind, and although her mind knew it was stupid her mouth already formed a verbal assault. "So your demon dies and you're thinking what to do with all the time you have left and come up with Watcher?" Her body tensed awaiting a violent reaction at her distrust, "I don't think so."
Gerrico smiled, "it wasn't quite that simple. But first you must consider; is a demon incapable of love? Is a man with a soul instantly devoid of evil? Where is the line drawn between a soul and a mind?" Buffy swallowed hard thinking of Spike's tenderness towards Drusilla and human abominations she had the misfortune to encounter. "Nothing is completely black or white, Slayer. We live in a world of gray and it is that world we ache to preserve."
"But Watchers?"
A look passed between Gerrico and the pale woman, one of hurtful memories and absolute trust. "Go ahead, Gammina," Gerrico conceded. "You tell it better anyway."
Gammina nodded and as she moved away from the fire Buffy noticed that her pale hair was a near white, drawing a veil of age over her otherwise youthful features. "A long time after our demons died we wandered searching for a purpose. Most died along the way, unable to live without the powerful emotions and cruel reason that the demon had to offer." Buffy sensed rather then heard the faint rush of longing in Gammina's voice. "Few joined us, the idea of a lonely life terrifying them into instant trust. In time we became a family of sorts, avoiding both vampires and mankind, for we truly belonged to neither." Gammina's pale features gleamed in the firelight, her beauty magnified with golden shadows. Buffy pushed down a pang of jealousy, she was beautiful and would remain so for the rest of her life. "It was pure chance that Anna stumbled along our way, beaten and dying, a little girl whose family had been killed by vampires."
"And you saved her," Buffy stated firmly, starting to understand where this was going.
Gerrico nodded, "and you can't help wondering why. How can a soulless being feel compassion? Why would a former demon help save a child of a race he once slaughtered?" His voice was tinged with unfathomable sadness, an old loss. "The answer, like most things is simpler than it appears. Life, in all its forms, is a precious thing. Especially to ones such as ourselves."
Buffy nodded, willing to accept. "And so we helped her," Gammina went on as though Gerrico's interruption had never occurred. "And we watched as wounds she had no chance of surviving healed quickly, as her body grew stronger than it should have."
"She was a Slayer," Buffy said softly, her own protective instincts awakened for a child Slayer that had long since died.
"She was a Slayer," Gammina confirmed. Gerrico turned away from them unwilling or unable to listen to the rest of the story. "They were nothing more than a myth back then, a story used to scare fledgling vampires at the break of dawn. But there were female children whose blood was infused with power, and there were vampire hunters who set out to find those children believing that drinking from them would make them strong." Gammina shook her head sadly, "We had always believed that that was what happened to Anna and her family. How the child managed to survive is still a mystery."
"They died quickly back then, some never survived the first week after they were called." Gerrico said, suppressed sorrow sliding off his voice. "Some never even realized they had been called before they died."
Buffy suppressed a shudder, thinking how easily that could have happened to her had the Watcher's council never approached her. "She hated vampires with a vengeance, every one of them a direct reminder to those who had murdered her family. Yet she stayed with us after she healed, despite her knowing what we were, what we used to be," a soft smile played upon Gammina's delicate lips. "She was a true creature of contradiction. We did what we could for her, we taught her to fight, to kill, and to become the woman of power she was destined to be. We researched for her, becoming the first Watchers in history." Ironic much? Buffy thought looking at the former demons. "She became the most formidable Slayer in history, the demons she slew never standing a chance against a force such as her. She died shortly after her first grandchild was born, her family all around her."
Gerrico turned to stare at the flames, his blue eyes lost in memories. He loved her, Buffy realized with a flash of insight. "How long ago was this?" She asked.
"Nearly two millennia ago," Gammina replied softly. She glanced over at the hurting elder with compassion in her eyes, "her death pains him still."
They stood in respectful silence for several moments while Buffy's mind churned over the implications of a Slayer raised by former demons. Then a single frightening thought banished away all others. "Does Giles know?" She demanded, her voice sounding shrill in the hushed room.
Gammina shook her head, "very few of the council know of our existence. At first Anna's daughters and their families became the first human Watchers, despite her wishes," her eyes gentled at the memory. "They were quite possibly as stubborn as she was. Later, as the bloodline dwindled, we found it necessary to pull apart from the council, remaining in contact with few of its high-ranking members." She shook her head, her white-blonde hair gleaming brightly, "the irony of fighting demons while led by ones such as ourselves was too great for some to accept."
"So you've remained in contact from afar," Buffy said, trying not to think about Giles and what this information would do to him. "Helping only when you found it necessary, which would of course, explain what you're doing in a camp full of vampires with their demons firmly intact."
"It was the lesser of two evils," Gerrico said dangerously, his eyes flashing blue fire. Be careful of this one, Buffy's mind demanded. "This way we also gained a place in vampire society, guiding their actions as well as the council's in preparation for this day."
"You knew this day was coming?" Buffy accused.Gerrico nodded, "Angelus' name was written in the skies long before he had even been born. It has always been his destiny to free the Evil One, destroying her is a different matter altogether."
"He must choose to destroy her," Gammina chimed in, drawing Buffy's attention away from the elder's hypnotic blue eyes. "Of his own free will. But he must also have the power to do it and that can come only of Cirta herself."
"At the present his will is fragile, worn away by grief and trauma. She aches to empower him, to corrupt him, to make him her own. She must be allowed to do so, it is the only way he will be able to gain the power he needs for her destruction."
Buffy's will seemed to crumble away to dust under the force of the elder's gazes, "I can't," she whispered.
"But he will grow stronger," Gerrico boomed on regardless of her small protest. "His love for you will sustain him bringing death to us all. That is why he must believe in your unlove for him, he must fall into Cirta's embrace while he is at his weakest."
"I can't," her voice couldn't even carry across the room.
"You must betray him or the world will become what it once was and all will be lost."
"I can't!" Her cry echoed through the room stunning them all into momentary silence.
"But you will," Gammina stated firmly, coldly, all traces of her former compassion evaporated as though it had never existed. "You are the Slayer. It is not WHAT you are, it is WHO you are. That choice was made long ago. You are defined by it as easily as it is defined by you. This betrayal is a part of that choice that you have made as you condemned your lover to hell."
She shook her head wildly, blindly, golden locks flailing about her pale face. She needed direction, she needed to talk to Giles. The thought of her Watcher brought cold fear into her heart. He gave his adult life to the council, finding out that it was led by demons from the start could destroy him, "Giles, my Watcher," she started.
