BE STRONG

Author: Ana

Disclaimer: I don't own, you don't sue. I'm just borrowing. I do own Terin though, she's my charactor.

Rating: PG-13

Summary: There's a new slayer in Sunnydale, and it takes a while for the veterans to get used to the rookie. Takes place after The Gift.

Author's Note: This is my first Buffy fanfic, and it's kinda sucks.

Feedback: Please, please, please. Even if you only have something bad to say about it.

Email: [email protected]

Terin Skyla stared through the elegant glass windows of her new room on the top level of her adoptive parent's new mansion. It was the most beautiful house she could have ever dreamed of: four stories tall, a beautiful white exterior, a red tile roof, and red trim over its large and elegant windows. Inside it had an elegant spiral staircase leading from the entrance all the way up to the fourth floor. The back family sitting room had an entire wall made of glass that reflected the ocean, only a mile away. Each of the six bead rooms had an ocean view, and four of them had their own private bathrooms. Yes, this house was all Terin could ever ask for and more: it was a prison.

The man in the long coat said nothing as he picked up his bags at the baggage claim of Sunnydale's small airport. His face was set in a strict military manner, his blue eyes looking nowhere but straight in front of him. He walked out of the airport, got into his rental car, and drove away. And for the first time in a long time, a tiny bit of the firmness of his face was washed away, and his eyes lost some of their directness. If you looked behind those piercing blue eyes long enough, you could see something he was desperately trying to hide: deep, blinding sadness. He drove to a house he hadn't been to in over four months, a house he had left along with the people inside it in what seemed like an eternity ago.

A tall man with a young, ageless face opened the door. His face held despair, anger, loss, and resentment, but all he said was "Hello Riley."

Faith was falling, and she knew it. But, instead of jerking awake as she usually did, she stayed falling, into a sea of white fire. She knew some one else was falling beside her, it was too dark a silhouette to see, but she knew, instantaneously, that it was B. Of coarse, her mind told her who else would it be, but B? "Fay, Fay wake up girl, its time for breakfast!" that would be Martha, Faith's favorite of the 3 girls she lived with.

The man with the ageless face was crying. He couldn't remember the last time that he had cried, for all he knew it might have been one or two hundred years ago. He had stayed strong, in the Summer's den, strong for Giles, strong for Willow and her little friend, Tara, strong for Dawn, and strong so that Riley would not see him as he felt. But now, alone in the safety of her room, he cried. He wrapped his arms around her pillow and buried his face in it just to smell her, to try to connect with her even though she had gone to a place he could not go, a peace he could not have.

The funeral was small, and, Giles thought, as she would have liked it. Riley and Angel seemed to have reached a sort of truce with each other to join himself, Spike, and Xander in the Paul-bearing duties. Buffy would have appreciated that as well, having the two men who had loved her carry her away like that. Of coarse, Giles continued, there had been others who had loved her every bit as much, in a different sort of way. Xander and Willow, for instance, Dawn, and Spike in his odd sort of way. And me, he added as an after thought, and his eyes filled with tears for the daughter he had lost. He quickly wiped them away with the back of his sleeve. He needed to be strong for the others.

Terin woke up from the dream, wondering at it. It had been of a funeral, a funeral at night. Six tall, sad looking men had carried a beautiful wooden coffin across a silent graveyard. A shy looking red head had said a few words, something about being strong, because that's how the slayer would have wanted it. Terin wondered for a little while about what a "slayer" was, but then went on reviewing her dream. A small brunette had been staring at the coffin, a look on her face that showed she was beyond tears. They all looked like they had loved the person in the coffin very much, too much it seemed to say her name, for it was not mentioned in the entire ceremony. What a weird dream, she thought, and falling back into a deep sleep in her silk sheets. She did not remember her dream in the morning.

"Do you think you'll be able to entertain this week, Terin, dear, while you father and I are in Washington?" said the tall blond woman in a rich and aristocratic voice.

"Yes, and he's not my father."

There was no more conversation at the breakfast table between the two women who sat sipping their orange juice. These two women were very different in look and manor; one was tall and blond, with green eyes. "Big boned" would be a gentle way of describing her weight, and the by the lines on her face, she would have to be 45 at least. The other, "Terin", was short and thin, with long black hair and dark blue eyes that searched the face of the older woman. Every morning it was the same. After saying good morning, the two women were silent, occasionally joined by an older balding man of about 50, who said even less then the girls. A perfectly happy "family", Terin thought.

In the end, she thought as she walked along, she didn't know why the Masons had adopted her. Its not that she wasn't grateful, she really was, but she didn't know why such busy people would want a child in their lives, especially a loud fifteen year old who'd run away from the orphanage three times. They didn't seem to like her very much or be very interested in her, in fact, she always got the impression that she was more of a bother than anything else, like a fly buzzing around their heads. "Excuse me," said a man in a British accent, "but are you Terin Skyla?"

"Ladies and Gentlemen, honored guests from around the world, it is my greatest pleasure to welcome you to the 325th National Alliance Meeting." Cheers echoed around the large entrance hall, formed by about 100 prestigious, well-off looking adults between the ages of 30 and 70. The announcer went on thanking and greeting people with a fake smile while the crowd watched him through their whine glasses, smiling and nodding at his every sentence. Meanwhile, in a dark room behind the entrance hall, 15 grim faced people sat in a tight circle and listened to the real alliance meeting.

The man in black spoke first. His voice was soft and refined, as slippery as an eel. "Have you any word on the new slayer, Mason?" "She's in our custody, my Lord, and we are keeping close tabs on her." Replied the tall balding man. "Good, good. This is all very well. Has their been any contact from our old British friends?" "No watcher has made contact yet, my Lord, and it appears that there have been no attempts." "Well, Lord knows their will be. A slayer can't drop a napkin without those British pricks sticking their noses right in the middle of it. There will be." "Shall we, dispose of her, my Lord?" "No. We won't kill her, yet."

"How do you know my name?" Terin said, a little freaked at being approached this late at night. She looked at the speaker again. He was very handsome, with wavy black hair and dark green eyes. Very hansom, she thought again, if you liked that type. He had the look of a Southern Californian, but his voice had a British sound to it. He couldn't have been older that twenty-five.

"Oh, I apologize for not introducing myself. I am Jon Wyndam-Price, a representative of the British Watcher's Council. You are she then? You are the slayer?"

"The what council??? Listen mister, I don't know what you're talking about, or what you're selling, but I don't want to by an bibles or anything." Slayer, she thought as she spoke, slayer, the word from my dream. The man looked at her curiously. "Oh dear. So you haven't been notified. Well, I suppose the first thing to do would be to tell you that you are the slayer."

The girl with the flame hair sat on her bed, tears streaming down her face. She hadn't cried since she had been in LA to tell Him about Her. She had sat on the couch for what seemed like eternity, although in reality it had only been a few hours. Still, a few hours alone left to her own miserable thoughts weren't very good. And when they came in, they all looked so happy- it broke her heart. He was saying something like. "There's no place like home" when they saw her. "Willow." She couldn't remember who had said it, but it didn't really matter anyway. Angel had looked at her with those deep brown eyes, and at that moment, she knew that he knew. "its Buffy." That hadn't even been a question on his part. But for the benefit of the others, she had said the only words that could register in her brain, "She's gone." With that, she couldn't control it any longer. Sobs that had been locked in her chest since That Day finally escaped, and she cried her eyes out. He came to her and held her as she sobbed for what seemed like another eternity. She could remember little else about that night, Cordelia's look of shock, as though she couldn't believe what had happened, Wesley's concern and despair, and the confusion of the two unfamiliar faces. Since then, she had been strong. Strong, like everyone else had been. Like SHE had been. She didn't think she could be strong anymore though. She lay there on her bed and cried once more, wishing she could do something to bring her beloved best friend back. She cried until she was inches away from a deep, restless sleep. It was then that she sat straight up in bead, her eyes red and sad. But her eyes were different than they had been just a few minutes before- now they held a slight glimmer of hope. She went to her bookshelf and pulled out a book called Los Muertos, a dark and dangerous book, full of spells and secrets.

Terin Skyla carefully climbed out of her forth floor bedroom window. She stepped out on to the small ledge, and quietly jumped from there to the balcony of the Mason's third floor suite, and from there to the roof of the small overhanging that covered the back door of the mansion. Finally, she was on the ground. It was hard for her to believe that she would have to do this every single night, until, Until what? She thought until I die? She quickly stopped thinking about the topic and headed for St. Paul's cemetery, where she was to meet her new "watcher" Jon. She remembered her initial reaction to the news of being a slayer. Shock. Disbelief. Denial. That was until Jon threw a knife at her, and she caught it, mili-seconds before it would have implanted itself into her scull.

Dawn lay still, after a night of horrible throwing-up and crying. She'd been having a lot of those lately, whenever she thought about her sister. About the fact that she was gone, forever. She saw Spike come to the doorway of her room. He didn't say a word, just came over, brushed her hair out of her face, and held her. That was all. But it was enough. She felt warm and safe in his arms.

Through dark street after dark street she walked. Nothing is standing between them and the forces of darkness except me, They needed the world to be saved and they sent a fifteen-year-old orphan with a C+ GPA and an "attitude problem". The world is doomed. She was so lost in her own thoughts that she had failed to notice the person- or thing-that had snuck up behind her. Whirling around at the last minute, she frantically swung at it. She felt her hand connect with its nose and heard a crunching sound. It threw a punch at her stomach before it fell backward, holding its nose, which was now dripping with blood. She grabbed her stake and pounded it into its heart, watching with awe as it exploded into dust. It was only her ninth staking. With the foolish pride of a rookie, she smiled and moved on, only to turn around into the faces of ten large, forbidding vampires.

In the cold dark night, a girl sat alone in graveyard. Tears streamed down her face. She did not know who she was, or were she was. All she remembered was darkness. A dark a man with a horribly contorted face came toward her. She screamed and ran for her life. Down one dark street after another, into a cold ally way.

Kate heard the scream first. Its not like she wasn't used to hearing screams, this was LA, after all, the bad part of LA. But this scream was different. Filled with terror, confusion, anger, hostility, and most of all fear for life. Kate ran in its direction as fast as she could, with her gun out of it's holster.

Fight, fight, fight. That was all she could remember to do, so she turned around and faced it. She fought madly, clawing it at with her nails, kicking, beating it to the ground. It looked surprised, as though it could not have imagined that such a small girl could be so vicious. She fought it until it ran away in terror, and when the blond haired woman came, she fought her too. She had almost defeated her when she heard a sharp shot, and it was only as she slipped into unconsciousness that she realized that there was a bullet lodged in her stomach.

"Angel investigations."

"Angel, its Kate. I was out tonight and I found something."
"What do you mean, 'found something'"

"I, I think it's a demon. I'm not sure. It was really strong."
"What does it look like? Is it alive? Did you kill it?"

"I shot it. It's alive but unconscious. It looks like a regular person. Actually, it looks like a very innocent young girl, but it fought very viciously. I'm not even sure why I kept it alive. Angel, this girl looks familiar, but I can't place her face."

"I'll be right there."

The second he walked into Kate's office, he froze. He could not move. Could not think. She was there, on the couch. It was too good to be true. Is it good? He didn't know. Is it even her? No answers there either. "Angel what is it?" he had forgotten that she was even in the room. Not knowing how to answer, all he could say were the same two words he had said the three months that seemed like and eternity ago.

"It's Buffy."

To Be Cotinued.