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Africa.
Sand swirled, dancing to an ancient and unheard melody the wind played for it. Dust flies and midges added a dark tinge to the shimmering golden cloud. Mercilessly, the sun beat down on the desert, sending anything living into the shade's cool embrace. This place was not friendly to outsiders or even to its inhabitants; the day belonged to the elements, but the night belonged to the living, and the undead.
Waves of heat rose up like solid walls from the sand, creating the illusion of water to the unpracticed eye. Tracks that had been laid down earlier by a caravan had already been wiped out by the wind. The desert always kept its secrets.
Unless someone was looking for it, the cave at the edge of the desert was hidden. She was the only living being that knew of its existence, and she kept a store of food and water in it. These were normally things her people collected at night, but her duties kept her otherwise occupied. As a result, she had to steal moments during the day to build her stores. Wood was hard to come by here; she had resorted to using woody roots from the riverbank, and scavenging boards from wrecked canoes and abandoned huts. The vampires feared her. The tribes feared her. She feared herself and the strength she knew that only vampires could possess.
The week after, she had stayed out in the sun all afternoon, hoping that she was a vampire and that her suffering would end. But it didn't. Her skin burned, but she remained one flesh. She dreamt of blood. Her lullaby was a battle cry uttered amidst flying ash and bodies. Her dreams were tinged red, and smelled sickly. She would wake up covered in sweat and sand, her heart racing. She didn't understand what any of it meant.
It took two weeks for the first vampire to find her, led to her cave by the smell of her awakening. Only then did the dreams begin to become coherent to her, and she knew what she had to do. Her thirst wasn't slaked by the slaying though. Instead, she became ravenous and she stalked the night, slipping in and out of shadows. She began to eat meat fresh from hyena kills. The hyenas feared her, and would give way when her scent reached them.
She smelled unnatural to them.
England.
Standing with his back to the assembled council, Rupert Giles cleaned his glasses. Satisfied that the glass was as clear as it could be in the dusty heart of the building, he finally turned and addressed the group.
Buffy looked at him expectantly before her gaze turned to the opposite side of the table. Willow nervously fiddled with the pencil in front of her, and Xander sat silently, stewing in his memories of the newcomer. They weren't sure what to make of the newcomer's defection and were unsure of how to act around him. Only Dawn looked comfortable. With a wisdom beyond her years as a human, Dawn understood the man's need to come back to England. Everyone assembled in this room had been in his position at one time as much as they tried to forget it. She reached towards his hand, and gave it a reaffirming squeeze.
Condolences were not spoken. They would have seemed trite within a group that had collectively lost more than most, and instead were understood from the tilt of their heads and the cast of their eyes.
"Willow has managed to locate another girl. Unlike the others, she will be more difficult to locate. She has been turned out by her village's shaman, and was last seen near Hurghada." Giles referred to a map that he had drawn on an overhead transparency. Willow and Buffy both muffled giggles at memories of Giles' last attempts at illustrating on transparencies.
"Do we know anything else about her? What she was like…before?" Dawn interrupted the giggling, trying to refocus everyone's attention.
Giles shook his head. They had very little to go on. It was clear that Buffy thought she was the best for the job, but her responsibilities remained in Italy, with the small group of girls that she had brought together to fight the darkness.
"I'll go." Slowly, heads turned towards the newcomer. Since arriving a week ago, those were the first words that Wesley had addressed to the group.
Africa.
Spring was a time of renewal in her village. Huts were usually cleaned as young children watched the arrival of flowers to the area surrounding the river bed. The girl wondered what her family would be doing. The memories pained her, and she distracted herself by searching for new sources of wood. The previous night, she had lost her last two stakes and would need new ones before the sun set.
England.
"My father used to take my mother and I there to vacation. I know the area and the language. I'll find the girl." Wesley addressed the group, the confidence in his voice contrasting sharply with the defeated look in his eyes.
Buffy tried to protest, but was stopped by Dawn. "I can go with him. School is finished for the summer. We could pass as father and daughter on vacation."
"Dawnie…" Willow protested.
"She's right. Wesley and Dawn would be able to slip in and out of the area better than you would Buffy. People would remember you." Giles scribbled some notes down. He'd need to obtain passports for the pair, as well as a guide.
"I'm going too. It's on my way back to Aswan. I can help them locate the girl before heading back to my base of operations." Xander spoke with a finality that dared his friends to challenge him. Nobody did. Silence filled the room to bursting until Giles dismissed the group with a nod and a wave. He had planning to begin.
***
Wesley returned to his room and began to pack up his meager possessions. When he had left LA, he had only brought the essentials with him. Watching Fred die had taken its toll on him, but having to see Illyria every day was pure torture. At one time in his life, he knew that he would have remained in LA, letting Illyria serve as a reminder wrought of flesh and blood of his failures. Instead, he had given Angel his notice in the form of Illyria's dismembered head and come back to England. He had no intention of remaining with Rupert, but it had just happened. He had come and told him of Cordelia's death; in his grief, Angel had neglected to inform anyone outside of Wolfram and Hart. Rupert had insisted he stay to tell the others about Cordelia, and he had obliged. After he delivered the news, the only person to attempt to talk with him had been Dawn. And despite his unwillingness to talk about anything other than her schooling in Italy, she had managed to break through his barriers to learn about what had made him leave LA. She was the only one that knew about Fred, and in turn, she told him about losing Tara. One thing led to another, and he told her everything that had happened to him in LA, including shooting his father. He felt somewhat less burdened now that someone other than himself shared these secrets.
He paused when he came to the stuffed rabbit. He still wasn't sure why he had brought it to England with him. Maybe it was because it was the only thing in Fred's office that had still smelled like her. Snapping his suitcase shut after placing it inside, Wesley was about to head to Rupert's office when a soft knock came at his door.
"Hi Wesley. I…" Willow looked nervous, standing in his doorway. She straightened her shirt. Despite all that he had heard she had been through since graduation, she still seemed the same to him. He was sure she didn't think the same of him.
"I tried to get more information on the girl for you, so you wouldn't be flying blind in Egypt. I know where you can find her, but not much more than that." Willow quickly brought him up to speed with the information about the girl's cave, yet Wesley knew this new information was only an excuse, not the reason, for her coming to see him. They sat in awkward silence, not sure how to proceed. Willow fidgeted on his bed before getting up and heading towards the door. She turned to look back at Wesley, debating whether or not to say what was on her mind.
"When I was there, last year…Cordelia really wasn't herself, was she?"
Wesley shifted on the bed. He had been expecting her to bring this up, but now that he could give her the answers she wanted, he felt oddly uncomfortable.
"No, she wasn't. We didn't know it though. She had Angel's soul, and she was pregnant with the being that..."
Wesley paused. Despite the time since Jasmine had been vanquished, it wasn't easy to remember how they had all lost the feeling of warmth and family…of belonging. Willow nodded her head, acknowledging the pain these memories brought to Wesley.
"I'm sorry. I wish I could have done something. Despite everything, I still thought of her as a friend, you know?" Willow didn't wait for Wesley to reply. She turned and left.
Africa.
The girl crouched in her cave, gently removing the eggs from her pouch. She had taken advantage of a momentary rain shower to raid some neighbouring nests for food and decoration. She remembered how her mother hung eggs in their hut last year…before she had changed. She set aside half of her collection to eat, and reverently cleaned the eggs she would use to decorate her cave. She handled each egg as if it held a secret, both marvelous and divine. She went around the cave, gently placing the eggs where she would be able to see them from where she slept each morning. She thought she could hear her mother's voice, explaining why they always decorated with eggs in the spring.
Finally satisfied with the placement of the eggs, she retired to her sleeping place, and shut her eyes, resting up for when she would have to go out into the night to fight.
***
Wesley watched the ground come up to approach the plane. Normally, he was not a fan of flying; he preferred to keep his feet on the ground. This time though, he had actually enjoyed it. He wasn't sure if it was Dawn's incessant chattering or watching Wild Bunch for the first time since…he had watched it with Charles.
For the first time since leaving LA, Wesley felt true hope. Not the false kind that Jasmine brought with her or even the kind of hope Fred had given him. This was the kind of hope that Wesley had felt when Angel and Cordelia had accepted him into their family unit all those years ago; it was the hope that came with belonging and it came when you least expected it. He had been certain that Xander would have been the last person that would have made him feel like he belonged, but the boy had changed. Actually, Wesley knew that "boy" was the wrong title for him -- he had grown up and was different from the awkward high schooler that used to be jealous of Cordelia's affection for the young Watcher.
But in the back of his mind, Wesley couldn't help but doubt the hope he was feeling. He wasn't sure how long this feeling would last for, or if it was a different kind of orchestration that was meant to lull him into some false sense of belonging. Too many things had scarred him to be able to take feeling hope at face value.
Trying to shake these thoughts from his mind, Wesley instead began to think of the preparations that would be needed for their journey to find the girl slayer.
***
With Xander as their guide, it hadn't taken them long to locate the cave that Willow had described to them. They cautiously approached the mouth of the cave, and Wesley called out, hoping to draw the girl out into the open. He listened as his voice echoed through the cave, but there was no reply. Dawn headed back to the jeep to look for a flashlight. While she was gone, Xander and Wesley discovered why nobody had answered them from the cave; the girl was behind them, crouched and ready to attack.
Slowly, so as not to startle the girl, Wesley stepped in front of Xander and tried to communicate with the girl. It took him about three tries before he found a language that she understood.
{{ We do not mean you any harm. We are here to help you. }}
The girl grunted and held her ground firmly.
{{ You do not know what you are dealing with. Leave here now! Nobody can help me. }} She gestured as she spoke, pointing her stake at Wesley.
"Is it just me, or does she want us to get out of here?" Xander tried to lighten the mood but Wesley motioned for him to be silent.
Wesley began to tell her how there were other girls like her and they could help to train her to use her gifts, but her fingers stiffened around her stake and her muscles tensed even further. Without warning, she sprang at Wesley, screaming.
{{You are wrong! I have been punished, and you are only here to punish me further! You are no better than the creatures that stalk the night! }}
Before anyone could react, the girl was on top of Wesley, clawing at his face with one hand and trying to bury her stake in his chest with the other. Wesley's face was wet with his own blood as Xander tried to pull the slayer off of him. As if shrugging off a cloak, the slayer tossed Xander to the desert floor and continued her attack on Wesley. So intent on maiming her opponent, the girl did not hear Dawn run up behind her, and was caught by surprise when the older girl barreled into her.
Dawn matched the girl blow for blow, thankful for Buffy's thorough training sessions. The girl bucked beneath Dawn, trying to free herself, but Dawn was too strong for the untrained girl. She became still. Dawn didn't let up on her pressure though; she knew the girl would be looking for a weak moment to try and escape.
{{Little girl, little girl…come out and play. We are hungry, and we see you have friends tonight.}}
The voices came out of nowhere. Dawn and the girl were surrounded by several dark figures, circling like vultures around carrion.
"Vampires!" Dawn yelled towards Xander and Wesley, galvanizing them into action. She jumped off of the girl and began to fight the vampires that surrounded her. The girl grabbed her stake and also jumped into the fight. She had been hunting these six vampires for the past couple of weeks, but had not succeeded in finding their hiding place. Now there was no need to, as they had found her.
Fists flew as Xander and Wesley leapt into the fray. Wesley quickly finished off his vampires with his concealed stake, and was about to help the others fight their vampires when he stopped. It had been awhile since he had stood back and watched a fight; he was used to fists and fury and not stopping until the fight was over, since that was Angel's way, but he couldn't help but admiring the skills with which his companions fought. He had never seen Dawn or the girl fight before, but it was uncanny how similar their style was, and how similar that style was to the style that Buffy fought with. Xander was more than holding his own. He fought with a style that could only have been developed by trial and error, and years of trying not to die. The fighters all moved as if they were in a choreographed ballet, and standing at the edge of the desert, Wesley knew this was a ballet that had been going on since the beginning of time.
As the last of the dust settled to join with the desert sand, Wesley realized that he was a part of something much larger than himself, and the feeling filled him with warmth. Maybe the hope he had been feeling for the past couple of days wasn't such a fleeting feeling after all.
Panting from the exertion, Dawn and the girl stood opposite each other, warily waiting for the other to make the first move. The girl dropped her stake, and walked towards Dawn, her head bowed and hands in front of her. Wesley and Xander watched in awe as Dawn let the girl approach her, and touch her hair and face. Dawn smiled at the girl -- she couldn't have been more than thirteen -- and let her familiarize herself with a sister she had never known she had. When she stopped, Dawn pointed to herself and said her name slowly.
The girl tilted her head and pointed to herself.
"Nita."
{{Nita, we can help you, if you will let us. }} Wesley paused.
Nita looked back to Dawn before slowly approaching Wesley. As she had done with Dawn, Nita ran her fingers over Wesley face, trying to familiarize herself with this strange man. Xander stood back, speechless for one of the few times in his life.
{{You want are not like the others. You are not afraid of me. You have darkness within you, as does she. She is like me. I will go with her. }}
Nita disappeared into her cave and emerged as the sun was rising with a small bundle wrapped in cloth. She had packed all that she had left of her family. Without looking back, she joined Wesley, Dawn and Xander as they walked out of the desert, towards a new life.