Giggling, feeling almost really happy for the first time in years, Melissa
flew into Spike's
arms, causing the jaws of the rest of the group to drop. "Oh,
thank God," she laughed. Then
she drew back in alarm as Spike winced slightly. "You're okay,
right?" she asked, panicking
slightly. "I mean, you're not hurt or anything are you?
You seem okay, but..." her voice trailed
off.
"But what, sweet? I'm fine. I was temporarily
incapacitated by a church falling on me," he
explained, looking pointedly at Buffy who blushed slightly. "But,
really I'm fine now."
"Then why did you just wince? What's wrong?"
Melissa asked and then looked down
when Spike pointed toward her chest. Seeing the small cross on a silver
chain that Giles had
given her for her birthday a few years before, she blushed. "Oh,
sorry about that."
Spike smiled. "It's all right. What
did you think was wrong?"
"Well, I just thought... Oh, I don't know
what I thought. I just pictured Angelus finding out
you're not quite as evil as you've been pretending to be. I don't
like imagining what would
happen then. Where's Dru?" she asked, noticing for the first
time that Drusilla wasn't there.
"She's back at the mansion, making sure that Angelus
doesn't kill Willow," Spike
responded, then looked at Xander and Buffy. "Do they know about
her?"
"Yes," Melissa said. "I told them. William,
does Angelus know about Willow? I mean, is
he working with the new Master?"
"Well, he does know about her, of course.
He was supposed to help us watch her. I don't
think he's working with the Master on this, though. He figures
that if he kills her, it'll achieve
the same result and he doesn't like the new Master much. He likes
to work alone."
"So, we just need to deal with him. We don't
have to worry about the Master butting into
this. That's good, 'cause then I might have to break that promise
I made to myself about not
killing anybody. I'm not really sure who that guy is, but I'm
pretty sure I wouldn't like him, and I
most certainly don't want him ruling the world. All right, can
we get in to get Willow out of that
mansion?" Melissa rushed on, returning to the problem at hand.
"Okay, hold on just a second," Cordelia spoke up.
"I am very confused. Is Spike on our
side? Why is he here? What are you guys talking about?
So, Willow is like this all-important
person that we have to save otherwise the world's going to end?"
Cordelia's eyes were
getting wide and, as her voice starting increasing in pitch, Melissa
realized that she might
need to do a little more explaining.
"All right, slow down. Yes William, Spike
I guess, is on our side. He's here to help us get
Willow to safety. We're talking about how we can do that.
And yes, Willow is quite probably
the most important person in the world right now. If Angel really
has turned evil and he's
planning to kill Willow, we have to act quickly. The world won't
end immediately if she dies,
though. It's just that years from now, there will be nobody to
stop the Master when he decides
it's time to attempt world domination."
"I'll stop him," Buffy asserted. She was confused
as well, and she was happy that
somebody had finally said something she could latch on to. "I
am the Slayer after all. That's
my job," she added somewhat defensively.
Melissa looked at her and smiled. "I'm sorry,"
she apologized. "You have done an
excellent job, too. You're one of the best Slayers who's ever
lived. Sorry Giles," she said
glancing at Giles who had winced slightly. "I know that you don't
think it's a good idea to tell
her that, but I think she should at least get some acknowledgment.
She's a whole lot better
than I was. As a Slayer it was probably irresponsible of me to
decide not to kill anyone. I just
couldn't bring myself to do it after I killed that first one, though.
It hurt too much."
"It hurt?" Buffy asked, curious. "Like emotionally,
or physically? And wait, you were a
Slayer?"
"Well, both kind of. And yes, I was the Slayer.
All right, more explanation is probably in
order. I guess you should all know the whole truth since Giles
doesn't even know everything.
You have to promise, though, that after I finish telling you, you'll
let me help you save Willow.
After that you can hate me, distrust me, whatever. We have to
save Willow, though, and I
may be the only person who can stop Angelus from hurting her."
"I promise," they all said in unison, causing Melissa
to smile broadly.
"Okay," she said. "Here goes. I have
to start the story when I was three years old, living in
Paris because that's when I met this guy," she started, glancing at
Spike. "I was born
telepathic. For as long as I can remember I've been able to read
people's minds."
"Really?" Xander interjected. "Can you read
my mind?"
"Yes," she answered impatiently. She raised
an eyebrow. "Now get your mind out of the
gutter. She could be in danger you know. Concentrate."
At this, Xander blushed, hiding his
face in his hands, and stopped talking.
"Now that's taken care of, let me continue. Yes,
I can read people's minds. I always have
been able to. It's unfortunate, therefore, that my parents were
unable to love me. It wouldn't
have been so bad if I hadn't been able to read their minds. I
could, though, and my earliest
memories are of seeing hatred for me in my mother's mind. I know
that it seems
unthinkable," she said, seeing the looks of disbelief on the faces
of her friends. "She did,
though. She hated me, resented me, pretty much wanted me dead.
I was never sure why.
Maybe because I took up so much of her time. Maybe because my
father tried so hard to
love me that he didn't have time for her. He simply couldn't
love me. It wasn't so much hate
on his part as it was just an inability to connect to me. I was
a somewhat aloof child. I didn't
need to have close personal contact all the time like most children,
and it was difficult for him
to understand that.
"So anyway, when I was about three years old I decided
one night to leave so they wouldn't
have to hate me anymore. I got the biggest bag I could carry
and put all of my underwear, a
toothbrush, and a tube of toothpaste in it. It never occurred
to me that I might need regular
clothing. These were the items that everybody always told me
to bring when we went
somewhere so I figured that was what I needed. I was an odd child.
So, I packed them all in
a bag and slipped out while my parents were asleep. We had a
little door in the kitchen that
our cats used to get in and out of the house which was just big enough
for me to squeeze
through. Once outside, I started walking, dragging the bag along
behind me. I managed to
get about three blocks away, which is a pretty long way for a three
year old dragging a bag full
of underwear," she added, a defensive note creeping into her voice
as she saw the looks of
amusement on her friends' faces. "And then, there on a bench
on the sidewalk, I saw a man
and a woman. My three year old mind tried to grasp how to speak
to them in French,
because even though we were living in Paris my parents were American
and had not begun
to teach me French yet. We spoke English at home, and I hadn't
started school yet. I was
very happy, then, when I carefully scanned their minds and realized
they weren't French but
English. It took me awhile to figure out exactly what nationality
they were because I'd only
known one English person, at that point, and it had been awhile since
I had scanned his
mind."
"Do the minds of people from different countries
feel different?" It was Cordelia's turn to
interrupt. This was fascinating for her. She had never
known anybody who could read
minds. This was definitely cool, even if the person who could
read minds was such a
dweeb. "Maybe she's not such a geek, though," she thought in
defense. "Xander and Willow
didn't turn out to be so bad."
"Yes, actually they do feel somewhat different,"
Melissa answered, surprised that Cordelia
even cared. She and Cordelia had never gotten along very well,
since Cordelia had always
been cruel to Willow and Xander and Melissa adored them both.
"It's not just the thoughts,
because I'm very careful not to read thoughts when I do an initial
scan. I suppose it's out of a
sense of propriety. It would be like walking into somebody's
home and immediately opening
all the cabinets to see what was in them, rather than waiting for them
to show you. Anyway,
people from different cultures tend to order their minds differently.
French minds are very
relaxed. They don't really have much organization at all.
On the other hand, English minds
are extremely ordered, even those of people who don't seem that organized
on the surface.
For an English person, especially an older one, order and propriety
are the most important
things in the world. And the only person older than William and
Drusilla that I've ever met is
Angel. But then, he's not English. He's Irish, and we all
know about them," she said smiling,
knowing that she would get a response out of both Spike and Giles.
They may have been
"enlightened" English people, but old sentiments die hard. She
laughed at the looks she
found on their faces. "Priceless," she thought to herself.
"Anyway, once I found out they were English, I walked
over to them and asked them very
politely if they could tell me where a three year old girl who wanted
to run away from home
should go. I was very serious, but William couldn't help himself
and started laughing. He
seemed to think it was amusing for some reason. I didn't think
it was very funny, but I did like
the fact that he seemed to like me well enough. I pulled myself
up onto his lap and touched
his cheek with the palm of my hand. Although it's not necessary,
I usually tend to touch a
person's cheek while I look into his mind. Then I carefully entered
his mind. I didn't want to
make him angry and I wasn't sure what I would find in there.
Even then I was wary of
unknown minds. A person's traumatic memories can be very damaging
to my mind if I'm not
careful. I was looking for something specific, which makes it
easier. I wanted to see if he
hated me too. It's unreasonable, of course. He didn't even
know me. Why would he hate
me? I didn't know that though. In my mind, the two most
important people in the whole world
hated me, and I knew that emotion damaged them. I didn't want
to inflict more damage on
people I hardly knew. When I looked into William's mind, I found
no hate, though. When I
searched for his emotions regarding me, I found amusement and curiosity,
nothing more. I
was so relieved that I started to cry. Drusilla started cooing
to me and wrapped me up in her
arms, pulling me out of William's lap and onto her own. She let
me cry until I was done, and
then she took William's handkerchief and wiped the tears off my face.
Then, William smiled at
me and told me that he was sure that my parents were worried about
me and that I should go
home rather than run away. When I explained that my parents hated
me and that I didn't want
them to have to, he surprised me. Most people would have told
me that I was talking
nonsense and of course my parents didn't hate me. William just
looked at me and sighed.
Then he told me that my parents were foolish for hating such a 'sweet
creature' (those were
the words he used), but that I should go home nonetheless. He
promised that he and Drusilla
would come by the next night to make sure I was all right.
"They did, too. I agreed to go back, of course.
It was the only thing the two of them had
asked of me after they had been so kind to me. You have to understand.
They showed me
the first kindness I had ever received in my entire life. The
two of them respected me even
when I was only three years old. They believed that my parents
hated me when I said they
did and they respected me enough to accept my emotions as both genuine
and mature.
When they asked me to go home, I couldn't refuse. So, for the
next seven years (imagine
that, seven long years) I obeyed my parents dutifully, going to bed
at 8:00 just as they asked.
They also went to bed early and then William and Drusilla would come
into my bedroom and
we would play games, watch television, listen to music, and read.
Of all of the things we did,
reading became my favorite. William had the most amazing books
and we read them aloud
acting out the parts whenever we got the urge. I don't know how
many times I played Dorothy
while Drusilla played all of the witches and William did everybody
else. As I grew older I
started doing more parts, until I was Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, Wendy,
Michael, John, their
parents, and everybody else besides Captain Hook. William was
Captain Hook, of course,
and Dru was the audience. She would watch while we performed
and then laughed and
clapped at all of the appropriate moments. I absolutely adored
both of them. They were the
first two people who ever loved me, and in return I was devoted to
them.
"Then my tenth birthday came, the day that is permanently
etched in my mind as both the
worst and the best day I have ever had. Isn't that strange, how
one event can be good and
bad at the same time? Well, the day was normal, it was the night
that changed my life
forever. Shortly after sundown, my parents bundled me into our
car and drove me down to
an old building. It looked like it had been condemned to me and
I said as much, but my
parents told me to hush and we carefully slipped through the back door.
Merrick was waiting
inside, although I didn't know that was his name at the time.
To me, he looked like a
frightening old man, and I quickly decided that I didn't want to be
there one moment longer.
When I turned to leave, though, my mother placed a firm hand on my
shoulder, holding me in
place. Then she said something to Merrick about me being ready
and it being time for me to
go to him. She handed him my suitcase (it was small and had Strawberry
Shortcake on it),
which is when I started to get really scared. Then she pushed
me towards him and told me
that I would be living with him now. Then my parents turned and
left. That was the last time I
ever saw them," Melissa broke off, the tears that had been threatening
to come finally spilling
over from her eyes.
"Did they die?"
"What?" Melissa asked, accepting the handkerchief
Giles offered and drying her eyes.
"Your parents. Did they die?" Cordelia repeated,
ignoring the glares pointed at her by
Xander and Buffy.
"No," Melissa answered, regaining control of her
emotions. "Thank you," she said softly to
Giles, returning the handkerchief. Spike squeezed her hand, having
taken hold of it when he
saw her becoming upset, and then released it. He nodded encouragingly
at her, indicating
that he knew she could handle this after everything she'd already been
through. "No, they
didn't die. They just abandoned me. I'm sorry. It
just hurts to remember them leaving me
there with a man I didn't even know. I didn't even know his name,"
Melissa defended herself.
"Of course it hurts sweetheart," Giles reassured
her. He had only been her Watcher for a
year, but in that time he had come to think of her as his own daughter.
It broke his heart to
see her hurting, but he knew that she had to deal with the pain and
anger before she would
be able to move on. "Perhaps you should continue with the story."
"Wait a minute," Cordelia interrupted. "I
thought Giles said that your parents made you
leave Sunnydale. I thought I met them once, too. Your parents,
I mean. At Open House or
something."
"Those were my adoptive parents. They adopted
me when I was twelve. They took care
of me pretty well, but they didn't really love me either. They
knew about me being the Slayer
and everything and when they found out I was friends with Angel they
went ballistic. They
both quit their jobs that night and packed everything up. We
left the next morning. I didn't
even have a chance to say goodbye," Melissa sighed. "Now he's
evil and I might never see
the real him again. You know, I'm really sick of adults telling
me what to do."
"Well, I suppose you don't have to anymore.
You're an adult yourself now, right? That's
why you left and came here. Happy Birthday, by the way," Giles
smiled at her.
"Yup. You remember that letter, huh?" she
asked, smiling.
"You said you would leave their house the day you
turned eighteen and you would never
go back. It seems that you haven't changed your mind."
"No, I haven't. Anyway, I'd better get on
with the story or else we'll be here all night. Okay,
well. As I said, my parents left me with Merrick. The first
thing he did was to open a book
and show me pictures of the most ghastly things I had ever seen, pictures
of vampires feeding
on innocent children, pictures of werewolves, pictures of people burning
witches. He then told
me that I was the Slayer. That my job was to kill vampires and
werewolves and to be one of
those people burning the witches. I hate that man. He destroyed
in one night the faith in
humanity that William and Drusilla had taken seven years to instill
in me. He wanted me to
kill. That may seem like nothing to you, but I had been taught
by the people who raised me,
the people who came to my room every night for seven years to help
me get along in the
world, that killing was abhorrent.
"I tried to explain this to Merrick, but I was only
ten. I may have been very intelligent for my
age, but I was still only ten, and I couldn't win an argument with
him. He gave me a cross
and a stake and sent me out alone to kill my first vampire. I
don't know what he was trying to
do. Perhaps he wanted me dead. I can think of no other
explanation for why he would send
a ten-year-old child with absolutely no training to kill a vampire.
This is precisely what he did,
though. I remember thinking that he would probably abandon me
as well unless I managed
to kill a vampire, so I quickly considered where I could find some
vampires. The cemetery
seemed like the most likely place to me, so I headed for the cemetery,
which conveniently
enough was nearby.
"Cemeteries in Paris are not like the Sunnydale
cemetery. There was an almost palpable
blanket of history hanging over the cemetery as I entered. It
was smothering in its intensity;
there were entire families whose lines had died out buried in that
cemetery. I felt as though
thousands upon thousands of voices were murmurring to me, inviting
me in, pleading with
me to bring them back. I answered that I didn't know how, but
the voices grew louder and
more insistent. I think that they sensed that I had the power
in me to bring them back, but they
didn't realize that I didn't know how to use it. Finally, just
when I thought the din in my head
would destroy me, it lessened, receding until it was a soft murmur
at the edge of my
awareness.
"Then I saw him, the reason the voices had died
down. They were quieting in awe and
respect for the newly risen. They wanted what he had, the opportunity
to live again, and in the
presence of it they grew quiet. He had just emerged from the
grave, dirt still covering his
clothing and coating his hands from digging himself out. I gripped
the stake more firmly in my
hand and made my way slowly towards him. I'm not really sure
how I knew he was a
vampire, I just did. I also knew that young ones were easier
to kill than old ones, and
vampires don't come much younger than he was. It's not often
you get the opportunity to
catch them right out of the ground," Melissa paused as she saw Buffy's
smile. "Do you patrol
at the cemetery?" she asked.
"Yes," Buffy answered, smiling. "You're right,
that's the easiest time to kill them."
"I used to patrol at the cemetery, but I'd just
beat them up. Then they'd run into an old
vampire who didn't like the way they acted and they'd die anyway.
I guess it worked out
okay," Melissa said, still feeling guilty that she had not done a better
job as the Slayer.
"Anyway," she continued, shaking her head slightly to clear it.
"This particular brain-dead
vampire was so observant that I managed to walk all the way up to him,
stand on my tip-toes,
and plunge a stake into his heart through his back before he noticed
me. He turned towards
me right before he exploded, and I saw his face just before it disintegrated
into dust. That did
not affect me nearly as badly as the mental explosion that hit my mind
like a freight train hitting
a wall, though. All of his memories hit me at once, and then
were ripped out of my mind as
his soul or personality or whatever you want to call it ceased to exist.
This left a gaping hole in
the fabric of the universe where he used to be, causing my mind to
reel away from the horror
of it. So, that was my experience with killing a vampire," Melissa
smiled wryly. "At that
moment, I vowed to never kill another vampire, for self-preservation
if nothing else."
"How did you survive?" Buffy asked, compassion for
Melissa washing over her. She could
understand why Giles was so protective of her. She had been through
a lot in her life, more
than even Buffy had. At least Buffy knew her parents loved her
and she did not personally
experience a vampire's death. She silently thanked God for that.
If it were half as violent as
Melissa said it was, she knew she didn't want to experience it.
At the same time she could
understand why Xander instinctively looked to her for help saving Willow.
This girl was strong,
stronger than anybody Buffy had ever known. Compassion and pride
fought a battle in Buffy's
mind and pride won out. She was proud of Melissa. She didn't
even know her that well, but
she was proud of the strength that had carried her through.
"I almost didn't," Melissa responded, her eyes growing
distant, as if she were watching the
events occur. "I remember curling up into a ball on the ground,
sobbing. Giant, horrible sobs
that seemed to come from the very depths of my soul. And then
I remember arms lifting me
and carrying me to a bench. I remember resting my head on William's
shoulder and letting
him rock me back and forth while I continued sobbing until I had no
more tears to cry. When I
fell asleep, I felt Drusilla in my mind protecting me from my own memories
as well as outside
thoughts. She shielded my mind while William shielded my body,
and between the two of
them they managed to keep me alive. If they hadn't come along,
I would have been wide
open for attack and I would be dead now."
"Anyway," Melissa continued, pushing the unpleasant
thought aside. "When I woke up,
they escorted me back to the building where Merrick waited for me.
They stopped outside the
door and William bent down so that his eyes would be level with mine.
He told me that he
had something to tell me and something to give me. He asked me
which I wanted first.
Being a typical female (I'm sure that's what he thought), I asked for
the gift first. He handed
me a small box with a ribbon around it. Inside was a tiny ring,
designed specifically to fit my
ring finger. It was silver and had three hearts conjoined, the
one in the middle slightly bigger
than the other two. He explained that the two smaller hearts
belonged to him and Dru and
that the larger heart was mine, and that knowing me had made their
hearts bigger, too. I
started crying and I hugged him tighter than I had ever hugged anybody
before. Then I gave
Dru a hug which was almost as big. I adored them both so much,
even though I knew what
he had to tell me. I had sensed it when he held me in his arms
and let me cry. He sighed
and looked into my eyes. Then he told me that he and Drusilla
were vampires and that I
couldn't see them anymore. I answered that I knew they were vampires
and that I would
associate with them if I pleased, no matter what Merrick said," Melissa
said proudly, her eyes
shining at the memory.
Spike laughed, then quickly stopped when he saw
Melissa glaring at him. He couldn't help
it, though. She looked so much like she had then, a tiny little
thing stating very clearly that if
she wanted to be in the company of vampires she would do just that.
"God, I love her," he
thought to himself for approximately the hundredth time that night.
"She's just so bloody
perfect."
"Umm, Daddy?" a young voice broke into Xander's
story. "I don't mean to be rude or
anything, but what does this have to do with the story? Besides,
how do you know what
Uncle Spike was thinking? Aunt Melissa can read minds, but you
can't. You shouldn't make
stuff up when this is supposed to be a true story," Melissa Harris
admonished, smiling. She
knew the answers to her questions of course. She also knew that
her father was not making
anything up. This was the appropriate place to interrupt, though,
since that was where she
had asked the very same questions the first time she heard the story.
Even at the young age
of two years old, she had known that there was something wrong with
the idea of her father
knowing what someone was thinking. "Well, Melissa said she would
be precocious," Willow
thought to herself. She had not known, however, what Uncle Spike
being in love with Aunt
Melissa had to do with how she had gotten her name. Xander had
explained that Spike had
told him later what he had been thinking and that she needed to understand
that everybody
loved Aunt Melissa and why they loved her. Xander gave the requisite
answers this time and
then started into his story again.
"So did you associate with them anyway?" Cordelia
asked, once again taking Melissa by
surprise. "Maybe I should reassess my opinion of her," she thought
to herself.
"Daddy?" Melissa Harris interrupted again, taking
both of her parents by surprise. She
usually only interrupted once in the story. "Can we skip this
part and go to the good part?"
"The good part?" Xander asked, smiling. He
thought he knew what part his daughter was
referring to, but he figured he should make sure.
"The part where Mommy was in the mansion and she
was with Angelus and they played
Monopoly."
"Are you getting tired, munchkin?" her father asked
giving her shoulders a squeeze.
"A little," she yawned. "Besides, you always
repeat that part anyway when Aunt Melissa
tells Mommy later. I want to get to the part with Mommy."
"Well, that's perfectly understandable angel," Willow
nodded in agreement. "My parts are
always the best."
"Are you sure you don't want to hear the parts about
why Uncle Spike was helping us and
how Aunt Melissa came to Sunnydale and everything?" Xander asked.
"I'm sure. Aunt Melissa explains that stuff
to Mommy later anyway, so I don't see why you
should tell the same part twice." Melissa answered
"Alright, then. We'll get to the part with
Mommy," Xander chuckled. "But anyway, in case
you wanted to know, Melissa did still associate with Spike and Drusilla
even though Merrick
forbade her. This made Merrick turn her over to Giles when he
found out."
