“Enemies” 11/14

[sroni]

He had to deal with a sobbing friend over the phone. The only thing worse than seeing a girl cry and not being able to do anything about it was hearing a girl cry, and not even being able to give her a hug.

No sooner had he thought that, than there was a popping sound, and Willow and Giles were standing in front of him. Giles looked annoyed. “Willow, next time, do give a bit of a warning when you’re going to do that.”

Willow hiccupped. “Sor-sorry. I just thought it would be better to talk in person.” She looked up, her eyes looking all big and wounded.

She’d been his friend for years. The friend he’d had for the longest.

So why was he so annoyed by her? Was it that she hadn’t seemed to learn her lesson about magic at all? Or was Vi’s age thing getting to him? He tried to cover up his feelings. “I’ll go get Buffy and Faith.”

He heard Giles addressing the lack of magical respect from Willow as he headed out the door. So he wasn’t the only one to pick up on it. Willow was still convinced that she could handle the magic. “It’s okay, it’s white magic. The magic is good. I’m not using the bad magic.” Which would be all fun and games, if Xander hadn’t researched magic himself. Hey, he might not be able to use it, but he could still find out about it. Magic is energy. There is no ‘good’ magic and ‘bad’ magic. It’s all in how you use the magic. What you use it for.

Willow just didn’t seem to get that. She thought as long as she wasn’t going all black-haired, black-eyed and veiny, that it was okay.

It wasn’t.

And her attitude was making it worse.

He found Buffy and Faith quickly, talking to each other in low voices in the living room. “Ladies, we need you upstairs. Wills and Giles popped in, and we’re going to be figuring out how to fix the age issue.”

Buffy took off up the steps. “Gee, get the feeling that she wants this taken care of fast?”

Faith shrugged. “B’s feeling guilty that it didn’t occur to her that this could happen. And you’re feeling the same way.”

Xander gave her another hug, more for his sake than hers. “Yeah, I am. I wish we’d known. Maybe we could have found a way around it. But would it have affected our decision? Don’t know. Hindsight is 20/20. And we did the best plan we could come up with.”

“You mean the only plan we could come up with,” she corrected him, trying to lighten the moment.

He went along with it. “Hey, the only plan is always the best plan.”

“It’s also always the worst plan.”

“Fine, Little Miss Pessimist. Be that way.” He stuck his tongue out at her, and she dragged his head down for a quick kiss.

Gotta love Slayers who know their own strength. Otherwise, he might have wound up with a broken neck.

They opened the door to their room, and found Buffy watching Giles and Willow having a heated discussion about magic. And by “discussion”, Xander meant “argument”.

Faith watched for a few minutes, then stuck two fingers in her mouth and blew a loud, piercing whistle. Giles and Willow shot twin glares at her. Buffy had realized what she was going to do and had clapped her hands over her ears. Super-hearing meant sensitive ears. Xander looked at her. “You’re really going to have to teach me how to do that.”

Faith ignored him. “Yo, people. I get that this discussion needs to happen, and normally I’d be all for it, but can we chill on it, and deal with the age issue now? Because we have to fix this.”

Giles nodded. “Yes. We’ll table the matter for now. But, Willow, we will talk about this.” She glared at him, but kept her mouth shut. “Now, about the age … or-or lack thereof. I’ve done some research on it for the last two or three hours, and asked a lot of my contacts for information, and so far we’ve come up with nothing to change it. But we will find it. We simply can’t let the girls be this young.”

Dawn was watching from the corner. No one noticed until she spoke up. “What if we can’t fix this? What will we do?”

Willow squared her shoulders. “We will, Dawnie. Don’t worry about it.”

Dawn’s expression darkened. Dawn had been the one hardest hit by Willow’s descent to the black veiny version, and had never quite forgiven her for it. And she hated to be called ‘Dawnie’. “What if we can’t?” Her voice came out quiet and controlled. Xander shivered to hear that tone and expression come from his Dawnie. “I might have an idea if we can’t. What if we still invite the younger girls to come here — for school and training, and most importantly, protection — but don’t let them fight until they’re at least sixteen? That way, when they do fight, they’ll be better equipped for it, and they’re not getting killed while they’re younger. And they’re not getting killed before we can find them, since we haven’t been looking for anyone under the age of fifteen.”

Giles nodded approvingly. “Good idea, Dawn. I’m sure that we can do that. Yes, we will continue to search for a way to move the age back, but until we find a solution, we will implement your plan indefinitely. And if we can’t put an age limit on the Calling, then your plan will be the permanent S.O.P.”

Dawn gave a soft smile. “Thanks, Giles. I’ve been thinking about this for awhile. I’ve suspected since the beginning that Vi was younger than the others, but I didn’t know how to approach the subject.”

Giles returned her smile. “Next time you have a suspicion of this sort, feel free to talk to me privately about it.” Dawn nodded. “Does anyone else have anything to say?”

Faith spoke up. “Just adding my two cents in to Brownie’s idea.” Dawn gave her a wary look. “I think it’s a good one. And the older girls can help the new girls feel safer here. They can look out for them emotionally. We can’t treat them any differently; no special treatment for the girls that go out and fight each night, except for first pick at showers in the morning. Beyond that, everyone needs to be on equal ground. We can’t have the younger ones doing extra chores since they have more time, or it’ll affect the way the older ones view her.”

Xander broke in. “I agree with what’s been said, but what do we do about Vi? She’s been fighting for awhile. We can’t just remove her from the patrols, but when the other younger ones start showing up, we can’t let them fight just because she is.”

Buffy shrugged. “Why not let her decide? That’s what this whole thing is about. Letting other girls choose their destinies. Vi, even though she’s young, is one of the best. If it weren’t for the fact that I’ve been doing this longer, she’d be able to beat me. She has more natural ability than I do. Give her a year, and she could wipe the floor with me. Yeah, she’s young, but she’s one of the ones that I would trust the most to watch my back, no matter what the situation.”

Faith nodded. “Yeah, but chick’s also kamikaze. She’d do whatever it took to win the fight and make sure other people survived. Her number one rule is: Don’t let innocents die. Number two rule: Kill the bad guys. Number three rule: Don’t die. We’d need to make sure she knows that, if we let her fight, ‘Don’t die’ has to be the first rule. Help her switch up the order of her prerogatives.”

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