Newly Awake (Rain, Anyone)

[Rain McKnight]

Mist swirled around the ancient tombstones, muffling all noises. A lone woman with long hair and appearing to be in her early twenties stumbled through the old graveyard, disoriented. Her blue-green eyes were glazing with fear and she kept looking over her shoulder, sure she felt someone or something was there only to see nothing but the gloomy darkness of the graveyard. Rain McKnight had directly disobeyed the doctors at the Sunnydale General Hospital and she was beginning to regret it.

The good physicians at the hospital had warned her against going anywhere too late at night by herself. They had told her that many had and been found the next morning dead, frozen expressions utterly terrified. Rain felt that same terror now creeping up her spine.

Suddenly a shadow moved to her left. Rain spun around just as a horribly disfigured man burst forth from the mist. He charged at her, his mouth open, revealing deadly sharp teeth. He tried to grab at her arms but Rain was too quick. She dodged past him and dropped, kicking his feet out from under him in one fluid movement. Before the man could get back on his feet she launched herself onto his chest, pinning his arms down with her knees. Without really understand how she knew what to do, Rain grabbed at the man’s head and pulled. A horrible scream later and the man was nothing more than dust, having dissolved the instant she had disconnected his head from his neck.

Rain sat there on the ground in the graveyard, too stunned to move. What had just happened? How had she known what to do? These questions would go unanswered. It had been less than a week since Rain had awoken in the Sunnydale Hospital from a two-month coma. She was still getting used to her knew surrounding and it didn’t help that she had no memory of her life before the car crash that had caused the coma.

[Buffy Summers]

Buffy was doing her daily, or more like nightly, patrol of the graveyard. It had been unusually busy tonight, and Buffy was starting to feel it. She stretched, her muscles sore and bruised from being thrown by all the vampires.

Half way through her stretch, she paused. A lone figure was wandering around the graveyard and to Buffy she looked lost. Next thing she knew, a vampire had come out of the ground and straight towards the figure. Buffy made to move towards the woman to help, maybe yell out a warning, but she pulled the head of the vampire right off, like it was nothing.

Buffy's mouth hung open and she watched as the woman sunk to the ground. She found her ability to move and she rushed over there. "Hey, are you okay?" She knelt down and put a hand on the woman's shoulder in comfort, frowning in confusion.

[Rain McKnight]

For several minutes Rain sat on the dewy grass, staring at the swirling mist around her. Then she felt a hand on her shoulder and a concerned voice above her head. On instinct she whirled around, jerking away from the stranger’s touch and scarmbling back till her shoulders rested against a crumbling old tombstone.

Her blue-green eyes were wide and fearful as she stared up at the petite blonde who had crept up behind her. The young woman wasn’t very tall, but from Rain’s position on the ground she seemed a lot more threatening than she would have ordinarily.

“Who are you?” Rain demanded. She raised her pert nose ever so slightly to try and catch the woman’s scent but the wind was non existent and the mist made the air heavy, masking any scent the woman might have. Instead Rain settled for keeping her unnaturally keen eyes and ears open for any signs of an attack.

[Buffy Summers]

Buffy jerked back her hand, shocked how the girl reacted to her. Her eyes never left the frightened figure, concern written all over Buffy's face. Where had this girl come from?

"I'm Buffy, who are you?" She replied, staying in place in case she scared her again. "It's okay, I'm no threat to you... unless you're a bad, scaly demon underneath." She laughed, not even thinking that could in fact, be the case. A moment later, Buffy stopped laughing, realising this wasn't the time for joking since the woman was obviously distressed.

"How about we get out of here and to somewhere a bit safer and comfortable?"

[Rain McKnight]

Rain eyed the young blonde woman. What she had said about her not being a threat unless she was a demon was not comforting. Rain was in fact a half-demon, she remembered that much about herself; she also knew that she was several decades older than she looked and stronger than any human ever could be.

She stood shakily and squared her shoulders. “What if I am a half-demon?” she asked looking the woman in the eye to show that she was not joking.

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[Buffy Summers]

Buffy tensed at the woman's question. The look in her eyes proved to Buffy that she was serious. "Oh." Was all she could utter before looking to the ground for a moment. Looking back up, Buffy looked the woman up and down, wondering what exactly she was referring to.

"Half demon... not so bad, I guess. It has to be better than full on demon, right?" Buffy stayed where she was, now not sure about this woman. "Look, how about you tell me your name and, um, what your half demon thing is?"

[Rain McKnight]

Rain frowned. This woman was trying to help but for some reason the way she talked about slaying demons irked her. She could tell that the woman had possessed a total hate for demons, and in Rain’s mind that wasn’t right. Not all demons were bad, and not all demons were good, same as with humans.

Rain crossed her arms of her chest, a studying expression on her pale face. “My name is Rain McKnight,” she told the stranger. “I’m half wolf demon.”

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[Buffy Summers]

"Rain... I'm Buffy. I don't know if you've heard of me... and if you have, don't be afraid... I'm not planning to hurt you. I give some demons a chance." Buffy hoped she sounded reassuring, but the look on Rain's face wasn't helping Buffy's hope.

"If you tell me you don't kill innocent people in your half-wolf state, you're good to go." She raised an eyebrow, wondering if Rain would tell her honestly if she had. Since Buffy had just pretty much revealed she was a demon-hater, Rain might not tell or worse, turn against her.

"I'm friends with a couple of vampires, so I can't be that bad, can I?" She quickly added, showing Rain that she was indeed flexible with demons.

[Rain McKnight]

Rain sniffed the wind. She’d heard of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. As a general rule Rain tried to avoid Slayers; or at least she knew somehow that that had been her rule in the past. But this Slayer seemed alright. “I’ve heard of you,” Rain said with a nod. “Don’t worry. I’m pretty sure I don’t eat innocent people,” she said in response to Buffy’s comment.“I just have one question. If you’re the Slayer how can you be friends with vampires. Isn’t your job to kill them?”

[Buffy Summers]

Buffy sighed a mental sigh of relief, glad this woman was going to give her a chance. But she tensed again when Rain asked her about her friendship with vampires. "The first one was an exception... he has a soul." She shrugged, not bothering to add that said soul could leave him at any moment of true happiness.

"The second one, he helps out, kills the baddies, so we don't kill him." Buffy watched her for a reaction, wondering what she was thinking about these two.

[Rain McKnight]

The idea of a vampire with a soul wasn't knew to Rain. Although she did not remember much about herself of her own experiences her book learning was very much in tact. She had heard of a vampire that had been ensouled by Romanian gypsies a couple of hundred years ago and she had the feeling she had met Buffy's soulful vampire.

"What are your vampires' names?" she asked, relaxing a little. Of course Buffy's description of the second vampire that just helped out even though he wasn't ensouled was totally new to her and made her a little uneasy but she brushed the feeling aside.

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