Stolen Child
by Salatina

Bartholomew Hanslow ran faster than he thought it was possible to run. Sure, he'd seen plenty of people running full-tilt before--encountering the forces of Darkness tended to make a sprinter out of a person--but this was really far too fast, in his opinion. No one could keep this up for long.

He risked a glance to his right. Treave (why did Slayers always have such names?) was holding her own in the way of running paces, though obviously not without effort. Thinking back to the vampire ambush they were fleeing, Bart could remember that one of the vampires his Slayer fought had been a knife-wielding hunk of muscle that liked to cut low. He could remember noting the sick sound of that knife hitting flesh... Treave's leg.

Bartholomew winced. She wasn't going to be able to keep this pace on a slashed leg. The burning sensation taking hold of his lungs warned him that he wasn't in for the long haul, either. 'I've got to do something...quickly!'

Scanning rapidly, the Watcher took in darkened trees, shadowy headstones, dew-moist grass, and--

'There! That mausoleum'. It was one of the older ones, made of sturdy stone with a strong clay-tiled roof and, most importantly, a door. A lockable door, making the mausoleum a full-fledged building - and, therefore, requiring the undead to receive an invitation in order to enter.

Suddenly, Treave was tumbling to the ground. She gasped and curled around her injured leg, which had decided it had had quite enough running.

"Treave!" Bartholomew called, stopping at her side. Carefully, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, then grasped her thin, pale hand in his own. He checked on their pursuers, and was dismayed to find that there were two nasty, meaty vamps less then two blocks away, gaining far too quickly.

The Watcher grit his teeth determinedly, and tried to pull the downed girl to her feet. She made it half way, moving very slowly, before pain flared in her leg and she crashed to the ground, crying out.

"Treave, please..." Bartholomew pleaded, breathlessly. "You *need* to get up."

"Bart..." his Slayer responded, choking on red-rimmed pain. She struggled to rise, but wound up twisting her leg painfully upward. For the first time, Bart had a clear view of the troubling cut and winced. It was surprisingly deep and not at all clean, with too much blood spewing forth with her every move. There was grime and dirt rubbed into the upper part of the wound, and that meant that it was probably getting all sorts of infections. Running had stretched the edges of the cut, and the sides were puckered painfully. In one clear moment, Bartholomew knew that she wasn't going to be able to put her weight on that limb. In the blood pooling on the street under her small form, he saw death written for his Slayer.

She knew it, too. With a angled nudge to his shoulder that was such a weak imitation of her usual, good-natured shoves, Treave told him to keep running. A last glance into the eyes of his Chosen - now glazed with pain and the eerily lightening sensation of an accepted death - and he was off towards the mausoleum.

He was just in time. A snarling vampire slammed into the wooden doorway just after the Watcher tugged it closed. Miraculously, a large splinter from the aging portal found the creature's heart, and it disappeared into dust.

Bart fell against the door, panting with exhaustion - both physical and emotional. The tears springing to his eyes were not helping to steady his breathing at all...he knew had to calm down, or risk hyperventilating. Deliberately spacing out his grabs for air, he fumbled towards small square of missing bricks that was the mausoleum's only window. He prayed that they other vampires hadn't noticed where he'd slipped off to...

No, one glance told them they hadn't. They were circling the sprawled Slayer like hungry lions, licking their chops delightedly. Perhaps a dozen of them, grinning, growling, taunting her, kicking her - it was all a sickening game, and they knew it. They reveled in it. Kick the Slayer While She's Down. 'Malicious bastards. Just get it over with!'

But the vampires didn't hear him. They laughed, a ugly cackling sound that would haunt his nightmares, and played with her, letting her think for a moment that she was going to escape, then closing in on her and laughing some more. It went on and on, while the Watcher... Watched, and prayed that it would end soon.

Ah, there. One of the shorter ones - Patty Ferris, a part of Bart's mind supplied, one of Lothos' higher-up minions - had decided that feeding his incessant appetite was more important than continuing the "fun." He went down for the kill, and Bart turned respectfully away.

When he summoned the courage to glance back out the window, the vampires had gone. All that was left was Treave's broken body, lying in a bloody, twisted spread-eagle across the street.

His Slayer had fallen.

Bart put his head on his hands and wept.

Sunlight tickled his face the next morning, as he slowly returned from a grief-initiated sleep. Bartholomew's eyes protested the brightness when they opened, but he forced them to look at his watch. Nearly nine o'clock. Time for all Watchers to be up and out of dark, unknown mausoleums.

Muscles screaming, Bart clawed into a standing position and discovered that he'd slept on his neck in just the correct position to create a crick in both sides. He rubbed it absently as he reached for the rusted door handle.

The Los Angeles Police had come across Treave's "mysterious barbecue fork accident" during the night and removed her body. Numbly, Bart ducked under the yellow crime scene tape that sectioned off the area and knelt in the bloodstained street. His fingertips lightly traced the chalk outline that was the only monument to the death of the Slayer. Bartholomew knew this was the way it had to be, but, somehow, it didn't seem right. She died protecting the world, and the world didn't even care.

A sparkle of reflected light caught his red-rimmed eyes. Glancing towards the curb, he saw that Treave's clay- and glass-bead necklace - a charm given to her by her deceased parents - was lying in puddle. He picked it up carefully, looked at it for a moment, and placed it neatly away in his pocket.

Bart would never forget Treave, but Slayers died. He knew from the first moment of training that eventually he'd have to let her go. It was time to move on. The Forces of Darkness were still attempting to destroy the world, life went on.

And there was a new Slayer to train. Maybe, this time, he wouldn't get so attached.

Hemry High School was a bright, cheery place a short while after school was dismissed. Students milled about, gossiping and joking, then saying their good-byes and heading to their various places of residence. A gaggle of brightly-dressed girls walked down the north steps, dropping one member off partway down, presumably to wait for a ride.

Bart saw his chance. He had been following her for some time, making sure that this was truly the Chosen One. She seemed a bit dense and quite a bit self-centered, but Bartholomew really didn't think either would matter: this girl probably wouldn't even survive training. Lothos was on the move in this city, and he had killed every Slayer who tried to get in his way.

Far too aware that he was, in effect, signing her death warrant, the Watcher stepped forward.

"Buffy Summers?" She looked up, squinting in the bright light. Buffy pulled her lollypop out of her mouth so she could speak.

"Yeah?" She smiled. "Hi!" When she realized she didn't know him, "What?"

"I need to speak with you."

The new Slayer looked worried. "You're not from Bullock's, are you? 'Cause I meant to pay for that lipstick."

A real California teenager. If his duty hadn't been so serious, he might have shook his head in wonderment. "There isn't much time. You must come with me. Your destiny awaits."

"I don't have a destiny. I'm destiny-free, really."

"Yes, you have. You are the Chosen One. You alone can stop them."

"Who?"

Bart took a deep breath. This was always a bit awkward. "The vampires."

Her brows furrowed. "Huh?"

"I'll start at the beginning. I'm Merrick." New Slayer, new name. It was easier that way. "Your Watcher."

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