Aug. 8th - Slay Count
Title: Slay Count
Author: 3am_moonlight
Crossover: BtVS / The Walking Dead (TV)
Rating: Gen / Teen
Word Count: 2,042 2,039
Timeline: BtVS: Post-Chosen & TWD: 02x01: What Lies Ahead.
Disclaimer: The Buffyverse belongs to Joss Whedon and TWD belongs to someone with expensive lawyers.
Summary: Someone comes looking for Sophia at the traffic snarl.
Author's Note: Written for Day 08 of the 2019 August Fic-A-Day.
A/N: Follows 'Another Day'.
Edit Aug. 10th: I'm back from vacation and I have run this through a spell-checker. :)
Buffy woke with the sunrise and moved as carefully as she could so as not to wake the other two occupants of the car. She smiled softly as she noticed that the little girl they had found yesterday was sleeping soundly in Tara's arms. If she had still had her phone she would've snapped a quick picture to show them when they woke up, but all unnecessary items had been discarded early on. When the power went out and it became beyond obvious it wouldn't be back anytime soon her original group had decided to just leave all of the phones, laptops, and other electrical equipment behind.
As it was, she opened the door as quietly as she could and snuck out, closing the door as softly as she could behind her. After finishing her post-apocalypse morning rituals as they were, she climbed on top of the largest car close to the one her protectees were still sleeping in. Turning in a slow circle she surveyed the area for biters and other threats, but also a group of humans who could be Sophia's mother and someone else from their group. Buffy was really hoping no one was careless enough to travel alone, but it all depended on what they thought the girl's chance of survival was. And if she was brutally honest, then the chance of a pre-teen surviving by herself for two-three days was pretty close to negligible. Particularly since she didn't have food or water on her.
There were a few biters within her line of sight, but none of them were close enough to be a problem unless they were attracted by a loud noise. There were also few enough that she could take them easily enough. They weren't headed in her direction either, so all was good.
A movement from below alerted her to both Sophia and Tara being awake and in the process of getting out of the car that had doubled as their bed last night. She gave them privacy to get their own morning rituals done and kept her eyes on the road, the forest, and acres of fields surrounding them. The forest they had spent the last few days in was both the biggest threat and where Sophia's mother was most likely to come from.
Last night had yielded one big and one small, unopened bottle of water, a small packet of crackers, and four hermetic boxes of various foodstuffs. It was more than she had expected, especially since the little girl confirmed that her group had already looked through the cars. Still, it was food and they would take it.
The big water bottle was the kind used in watercoolers in offices and such, and it was quickly decided to redistribute the water into the smaller bottles they were all carrying. There was still a lot left afterward and it was agreed to use that before the smaller ones. It was too difficult and too unpractical to carry with them so they carefully drank their fill for the first time in several months, and then quickly washed off the worst of the grime.
"It wasn't a shower, but it still felt great!" Buffy smiled contentedly and Tara agreed with her.
Then Sophia told them about the CDC, and how they had gotten warm food and a proper shower. But also, that there had been an auto-destruct and how they had barely made it out alive because the only man left there had neglected to inform them of the impending explosion. It was a pretty awful thing to do, and even worse since that group included two pre-teens.
Buffy took the opportunity to teach the young girl a few easy defense moves while they waited for someone to turn up. Knowing how to twist if someone, dead or alive, managed to grab her could be the difference between living another day and joining the undead. She also gave her the smallest of her Kukri's and the holster to keep it in so as to not harm herself or others unintentionally. A short demonstration on both how to use it and how to take care of it followed.
It didn't really matter what kind of weapons you had if you didn't know how to use it. Preferably in the most effective way possible. Whatever her group had done, it didn't appear to have included much in the way of how to defend yourself. Which meant that the leader or leaders were probably alpha males who thought they were the only ones who needed to know how to defend the group, and the rest should just cower and hide. It was a terrible survival tactic.
Tara wasn't really a fighter and Buffy knew she was coddling her at times, but the witch did know how to defend herself both with and without magic. If it came down to it Tara could and would fight, but a part of Buffy would always see her as a non-combatant and subsequently keep her safe rather than in the thick of things. It didn't stop her from using breaks to teach her new things and make sure she remembered what she'd been taught before.
It was past noon when Buffy finally heard the sound of footsteps. They were much more sure and quiet than most people, which mean whoever it was had past experience in walking through forests. That meant a hunter of some kind and hopefully someone who knew the little girl's mother.
Alerting the other two, they ducked behind one of the cars while making sure they had a clear line of sight to where he was most likely to emerge. Some five minutes later a tall, lanky man with dirty, shaggy blond hair came up onto the shoulder of the road before he stepped onto the tarmac. He held a crossbow in one hand that made Buffy instantly jealous.
"That's Daryl!" Sophia blurted out excitedly in a whisper. Tara gave her a kind smile but put a finger in front of her own lips.
"Give it a couple of minutes. Let him look around." She wanted to see how he conducted himself in an area where there could be lurkers and undead ones under the cars and in between. The traffic snarl was free of anything but them and properly dead corpses, but the new arrival didn't know that.
Daryl went straight to the car with the message on and gave a barely-there twitch of the lips as he read the reply there. Which Buffy supposed was supposed to be a smile. Sophia had written 'I'm waiting for you' in smaller block letters beneath the original one.
He turned in a slow half-circle with the crossbow only half-raised. "Sophia?" His voice was higher than a whisper but lower than a normal speaking voice. He also kept looking around, including under the nearest vehicles. Buffy gave him mental points for both and gently nudged Sophia. It was all the encouragement the young girl needed and she rose and half-run to the man.
The reunion was short before Buffy and Tara rose as well and came around the car they had been using as both a shield and a hiding place. The man quickly moved in front of Sophia and the crossbow that had been pointing toward the ground previously was now pointed straight at them. Buffy gave him another menta point.
Sophia clearly felt the tension in the man who she had been hugging and made quick introductions. "Daryl, this is Buffy and Tara. Buffy saved me from some walkers and then they helped me find the road again." She turned to the two women and continued. "Buffy, Tara. This is Daryl from my group."
Daryl attempted to ask them some questions but Sophia interrupted. "Where's mom? And everyone else?" A pause and then, "And the cars and the RV?"
Keeping a suspicious eye on them, he answered. "Carl got shot. A vet and his family live on a farm not far from here, they've allowed us to stay for a few days."
"Is the farm safe, or is it just a question of when it'll be overrun?"
It wasn't the most subtle question to ask someone who was already looking at them like they were going to bite him in a second, but if the farm was at least moderately safe then it was a gold mine. Thoughts of fresh produce and hot showers flew through her mind and made her mouth water a little.
"No. And they don't want company either."
"Drat." Tara patted her arm gently.
"Can we follow you back to the farm, just so we can see that Sophia is reunited with her mother? We'll leave right after."
Buffy's heart hurt a little. They had joined several other groups but every single time she had ended up making them nervous, and it was only a question of if the others forced Buffy out or if she left on her own before they got that far. Tara always came with her, even when she was allowed to remain. Families were becoming rare, as was being in a group with people you had known pre-outbreak.
He looked hard at both of them. "How many walkers have you killed?"
Tara gave a startled blink, but as she had eye contact she replied first. "Eight."
He shifted his focus to Buffy, clearly expecting her to answer as well. "Uh…" She said intelligently. The truth was that she didn't know, but somehow she didn't think he'd accept that as an answer. So... "About 200? We were in Atlanta and we couldn't really get anywhere without encountering biters." Killing off herds on her own had been the main reason she'd been kicked out of the first three groups. Fear made people irrational and they took it out on her, rather than consider her a major asset to their survival.
Unsurprisingly, he gave her a disbelieving and very obvious once over before making eye contact again. He didn't question her answer verbally though, just focused on Tara and asked a second question. "How many people have you killed?"
"I have never killed a person." She was much too sweet and gentle for that, and if Buffy had a say she would never be in a situation where it was a possibility. Realistically, it was only a matter of time.
Buffy gave her own answer without prompting this time. "Eight". All of them had been while she was still living in Sunnydale, but she wasn't going to tell this guy that. Beside her, Tara barely managed to hide her surprise. She knew about Caleb, but apparently not the others.
Everyone had known she had killed Caleb, but she had the impression that none of them saw him as human. Or they were too busy putting her on a pedestal to realize she had killed a lot more people than Faith. For Faith, accidentally taking a human life had been an excuse to let herself go, but for Buffy, it had always been a necessary evil.
During a patrol over a year after Sunnydale became a lake, they were discussing slay counts, and Faith had admitted to killing three humans. If the topic hadn't been so serious then she would've laughed at her fellow Slayers expression when Buffy told her what her human slay count was. She also reminded her of the Gwendolyn Post situation. It had changed Faith's perception of her, and of her friends and their overall attitude since they knew about it but still judged Faith on one accidental kill. Yes, a lot of things happened afterward, but that was the part they had most commonly used against her.
Daryl nodded, but still didn't look like he believed her. Though luck.
"Why?"
"They were a threat to people." She didn't owe him any explanations, and given how he opened his mouth to ask something else only to close it again meant he read her expression correctly.
"Turnabout is fair play, so give."
He wasn't happy about her turning his questions on him, but he did answer them while they began walking off the road and into the forest before they made their way towards the farm.