Only something about this dream felt different from dreams she'd had in the past. It felt almost like a Slayer dream, but she never seemed to know she was having one of those until it was over. Furthermore, everything around her was crisp and clear, not the muddled mix of metaphor she tended to get from Slayer dreams.
She stood in a house she didn't recognize. It was tidy, but the things inside of it were worn, some threadbare. Outside, thunder rolled and lightning crashed, and the house shook and groaned with each burst of light outside.
Faintly, she could hear the sound of tears, though they were almost drowned out by the rain pounding outside. She moved towards the soft noise, the floorboards hidden under old carpet creaking beneath her feet.
Buffy stopped when she reached a closet, knowing she'd find whomever was crying inside. She took a deep breath before she pushed the door open, the stopped when she saw the small form of a little girl huddled on the ground, her knees pulled up and her face hidden against them.
Buffy knelt down in front of the little girl and spoke gently to her. "Why are you crying? Are you afraid of the storm?"
The girl made no signs of awareness of Buffy at all. Buffy reached out to touch her then, but she stopped short when she suddenly realized they weren't alone. She looked up, gasping at the white-haired woman standing over them.
"You… I remember you," Buffy said. "You were the Guardian of the Scythe."
The woman nodded, a soft smile on her face. "I was. But I was more than that, my child. I was the Guardian of the Essence of the Slayer. I protected it. I kept it safe from harm until the time would come for the army to push back the darkness. Now that time is here, and they do not need one who is only a Guardian. They need more. They need a leader."
"Me," Buffy said, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Yes, child. You. For so many years, prophecies have spoken of your coming, of what it would mean to the Slayer line and the world you fight to protect." The old woman's smile grew wistful. "These prophecies have spoken as well of the Warrior of Dark turned Champion of Light who would fight by your side."
Buffy smiled herself at that. "Spike."
"And now you are united, the way it was always meant to be. Things are falling into place, the forces of Light aligning to push back the coming tide of Darkness."
Buffy nodded, feeling deep down within herself that the woman's words were true. She knew defeating a force such as the First Evil had been a major victory for her side, and had hoped it could be a sign of things to come.
"What came to you last evening was the truth," the woman told her, catching Buffy's full attention again. "The essence of the Slayer does lay more strongly in some than in others. Someday, when goodness has grown in strength again, there shall be more true Slayers, but for now things must be as they are."
"So I was right, about it not being so random when it comes to choosing a Slayer? I wasn't just like drawn from a hat? It was really always meant to be me and none of the other Potentials around when I was Called?" Buffy asked.
"Yes. You and you alone were capable of facing the trials you overcame. It was never your destiny only because you were the Slayer. It was your destiny because you are you."
Buffy let out a deep breath, the old woman's words giving her the final push she needed to accept who and what she was. She was the Slayer. The One. Which brought another question to her mind. "Hey, how come you're being so straightforward and helpful? Usually when I have these dreams it's either all cryptic metaphorness or a gruesome history lesson."
"You do not need metaphors or a history lesson right now, my child," the woman replied. "You need answers. And I have more to give. As a Guardian, I strove to protect the Slayer line, even as the First Evil strove to destroy it. Alone, my power was not strong enough to protect all the girls who would be Called, so I chose only one, one girl that I could keep hidden away from the eyes of both good and evil until the time was right. She was the one girl in her generation with the strength inside of her to be most like what you already are, my dear. So I shielded the piece of the Slayer essence she carries, and there rested the hope for the existence of the line, should the First Evil succeed in its plans."
The woman reached down and stroked the hair of the crying girl. "I placed the hopes of the Slayer line on her shoulders. And now with the armies of the First Evil driven back and the powers inside of her awakened, it is time for you to guide her, to teach her of what she is. She needs you now, needs you to show her what it means to be the Slayer."
Buffy nodded, understanding. The woman moved her hand away from the girl, and now it was Buffy who reached out and stroked the girl's long, brown hair. "She hurts so much," Buffy said softly.
"Heal her."
In a snap, Buffy was awake, her surroundings again those of the cavern they'd stopped in for the night, the world of her dream fading away.
Almost, anyway. The soft tears she'd heard were still there, and Buffy rose to her feet to walk over to where Emma sat alone in the shadows, her knees pulled up to her face, just as they'd been in Buffy's dream.
"Trouble sleeping?" Buffy asked as she knelt down beside her.
Emma looked up suddenly, wiping her eyes harshly with the back of her hand as she did. "Did…did I wake you? I'm sorry. I was trying to be quiet…"
Buffy shook her head. "No. You didn't wake me. I had a dream. A Slayer dream."
Emma blinked. "Are we all gonna die?"
Buffy chuckled. "No. Well, I don't think so anyway. But it wasn't about this fight. Not really anyway. It was about you, Emma."
"Huh? Me? You had a Slayer dream about me?" Emma asked with surprise. "That's weird."
"No, not really." Buffy glanced behind her back towards the camp, making sure the other three were indeed still asleep, then sat down beside Emma, cross-legged. "There's something… I'd thought it before, but the dream confirmed it for me. You're special, Emma. Different than the other Slayers who were Called with you."
Emma snorted. "If by 'different' you mean 'more of a screw up,' then yeah, I guess."
"No," Buffy said, her tone even more emphatic than she'd meant it to be. "Emma, you are so not a screw up. I mean, since we've gotten here, you've been fighting like a pro. Both of the demons that attacked us, you've killed. And today, you figured out how to kill that turtley snake demon when the rest of us were getting our asses handed to us."
"Dumb luck," Emma said, looking down.
Buffy reached out and took Emma's chin, guiding her gaze back up to meet hers. "No, not dumb luck. Slayer strength." She dropped her hand. "There was a woman in my dream tonight, one I'd met before. She used to be the Guardian of the Slayer Essence, and she told me something important. I'm sure you've heard about last year, when the First Evil was trying to wipe out the Slayer line. It's why I had the spell done that Called all the Potentials at once."
Emma nodded. She had heard that. If there had been a Welcome to Slayer School brochure, that probably would've been the opening blurb. "Yeah, What about it?"
"This woman—the guardian—she told me she tried to protect the line by choosing one Potential to keep hidden away from everyone, one Potential to protect the line of the Slayer inside of her. That Potential was you, Emma."
Emma started, then began to shake her head. "No. I'm not anything like that, Buffy. I'm really not. I know I was able to fight those demons, but I'm still a screw up as a Slayer. I am. I am."
"Emma, you're not. Believe me here. The Slayer Essence is stronger inside of you than any of those other girls that were Called when Willow did the spell, because you've got what it takes to be a great Slayer."
"Buffy…" Emma took a deep breath, forcing her next words out. It was something she'd kept buried for over a year now, something no living person besides herself knew anymore. But it was time to let it out, for her to stop hiding from what she was, what she did. "Buffy, I killed someone. A human."
Buffy's eyes widened, her breath catching for a moment. "What?"
"I killed someone. When…when I was first Called." Emma gazed down at her hands, unable to look at Buffy's face and the disgust she was sure would be there as she revealed who she really was. "His name was Bobby. He was my best friend's boyfriend, but… God, he was horrible. He was a thief and a dealer, and I wouldn't have been surprised if he had more than a little blood on his hands. And he was always beating on Katie. Then, she got pregnant."
Emma stopped, taking a deep breath to try to calm herself, to fight the hot tears stinging her eyes. "He beat her so hard she lost the baby. She told me, and I just snapped. I was so sick of seeing it, so sick of watching as people got away with hurting people smaller than them, of taking advantage of the weak. So I went over there. I don't know what I thought I was going to do. Bobby was so much bigger than me. And at first, I wasn't able to do much at all. He was knocking me around like I was nothing.
"But then I felt it. Something just clicked inside, and I felt it, this great power surging through me. I figured out later it had been the moment I was Called, but all I knew then was finally, I wasn't the weak one anymore. For the first time in my life, I could fight back. And I did. I didn't even think about what I was doing, I just struck out, hit him over and over, and…" She stopped again, another shuddering breath. "I heard Katie screaming, and that's when I realized what I'd done. Bobby wasn't breathing anymore. He was broken and bloody and… I'd beaten him to death."
Buffy met Emma's confession with silence as she tried to digest what she'd just heard. She knew at one point in her life that she'd be horrified completely, wanting to try to push Emma's actions into a box clearly labeled "Evil." But in the almost decade-long run she'd had as the Slayer, Buffy had learned to look at things in shades of gray. Yes, Emma had taken a human life, which was something that typically, Buffy saw as wrong. However, she didn't think Emma was truly a killer. She had acted out of love, out of concern for her friend. She hadn't acted out of malice or for the thrill of the kill. She hadn't gotten out of control, hadn't used the strength given to her to fight for good for her own personal gain.
She'd been stuck in a bad situation, and she'd acted. Years of being held down, and this time, she stood up. Buffy saw the little girl in her dream, scared and alone, and she knew that had been Emma. So much pain in her life, and she'd finally snapped.
It had been the moment she was Called… Buffy swallowed, feeling her own twinge of guilt as she realized what that meant. Emma had possessed the strength to beat Bobby to death because of what Buffy had done. She'd given Emma that strength. Emma hadn't even been aware of what she was when she'd done what she'd done, had literally not known her own strength.
As quickly as her guilt came, Buffy pushed it away. Had Emma not become a Slayer at that moment, then chances were, she'd be the one who was dead now. She'd fought to defend her friend, and then to defend herself.
Buffy reached out and placed her hand on Emma's shoulder. "Emma… You're not a cold-blooded killer. You're…"
"There's more," Emma said, venturing a look up. Even with what Buffy had just said, Emma was expecting to find judgment on her face, and she was surprised when she didn't. But it didn't make her feel better not to see it. She still felt like it should be there. "Afterwards, I hid the body out in the woods. Katie was freaking out, but I told her to calm down, it would be okay. I panicked, didn't know what to do. I just wanted to put it behind me, forget about it. I didn't want to go to jail because of scum like Bobby.
"But Katie… She couldn't handle it. The guilt weighed on her until four months after I killed Bobby, she killed herself. Katie was my best friend, and she killed herself because of something I did. I killed her, too."
Buffy's heart out to Emma. "You didn't kill her. She killed herself."
"Because of me. I started out my life as a Slayer like that, Buffy. I can never be a good one. Never."
Buffy took Emma by the shoulders, resisting the urge to shake her. "You will be. I've already seen what you can do, and tonight… Emma, when I had that dream, I felt it, felt what's inside of you. And I know it, because it's in me, as well. You're a Slayer, just like I am. Yes, there's a darkness to our power. I've faced it, I've touched it. But we're warriors. We fight the darkness outside of us, and we can fight it inside, too. You just have to believe in your own strength."
"I don't know, Buffy. I don't know…"
Buffy took her hands from Emma's shoulders and gripped the girl's hands instead. "I do. And I'll show you."
Emma held on to Buffy, and for a moment, she thought she could feel their shared strength passing between them. Could it be what Buffy was telling her was true? Could she honestly move past how she had begun as a Slayer?
She didn't know. She hadn't expected Buffy to be so understanding, to look at her with anything but disgust after she revealed her darkest secret, and now that Buffy was not only accepting her, but still telling her that she could be a great Slayer, Emma didn't know how to feel. She felt relieved and guilty for that relief.
"You're not alone, Emma," Buffy said softly.
Emma's tears had slowed, but they now began again, and Buffy wrapped her arms around her, sharing her strength.
Thanks again to Niamh for providing most excellent betaing.
I've been considering writing a story that would focus mainly on Emma. Buffy and Spike would be in, of course, though they wouldn't be the central characters. Before I start it, however, I need to know if there would be interest. So if you would be interested in reading a story about Emma, please let me know.
Don't forget to review!