"Suspicions" -- Jonathan


Forrest	Willow	Xander	Giles

Buffy walked by the medical building, where she had run into Jonathan and the vampire the night before. Yellow police lines covered the area. It was too much of a coincidence for her. She took a mental inventory of recent weirdness involving Jonathan: the apparent break-in, the trips to the Latin wing, hanging out with Anya, his sudden martial arts prowess, and… something else. She focused her thoughts – something she had forgotten…

The trading cards, showing Jonathan as a professional basketball player. She had kept one and Anya had the rest.

Jonathan dragged himself out of bed and headed to the door. It was Anya, of course.

"No, Anya, I’ve been sleeping," Jonathan replied testily through the crack in the door. "Anyway, it’s Saturday – Professor Jameson’s office hours are on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It’ll be a few days before I can even ask her about the books."

"Let’s go to the library," she said, "there may be other books that can help."

"If you’d prefer spend the weekend playing hide and seek with your own personal demon…"

He opened the door, pulled her in, and then closed the door. There were always people in the hall and he didn’t need to have them thinking he was weirder than they already thought he was.

"I’d rather have only one demon hunting me at a time," he retorted with exasperation. "Anyway, I have homework to catch up on."

"I’ll do your Latin for you," Anya offered. "You can work on the rest of it while we’re at the library."

He sighed. There was no arguing with Anya. He looked at his clock. It was one o’clock. "We can only stay for a couple of hours – I have to go shopping before sundown."

"I have something to tell you," Buffy said. Willow and Xander had joined her at Giles’ house.

"If you mean that thing with Jonathan," Xander said, "she explained it to me. She’s helping him with his Latin and he’s checking out some books from the library for her."

"Any books she’s interested in are ones she probably shouldn’t be reading," Willow cautioned. "Some of them are magic."

"Does your university have an extensive collection of occult texts?" Giles asked her eagerly, momentarily forgetting the purpose of the meeting.

"Pretty extensive. A few of the professors are in to the paranormal," Willow answered. "Which makes sense – if you’re studying scary stuff, Sunnydale is the place to be. I think they’ve collected the books to help with their spooky research."

"So," Xander said with mock enthusiasm as he stood up and clapped his hands together for emphasis, "crisis over."

"No," Buffy said crossly. "Anya’s feeble alibi may be good enough for you guys, but she’s definitely up to something. She working with someone else, manipulating him. I have proof," she said as she reached into her purse. She pulled out the trading card she had taken from the magical box a week ago and held it up to her friends. "How do you explain this?" she asked defiantly.

Her friends stared at her as if she’d gone insane. "H-have you been under a great deal of stress recently?" Giles asked.

"I-it’s just that we find it kinda hard to believe that Anya is using a professional basketball player as a pawn in her game of world domination," Willow said softly.

"Wrong sport Will," Xander said gently. "Plus, Tiger Woods is one of the good guys."

"No," she said petulantly, unwilling to admit that Jonathan had knocked her down during her patrol. She stared at the card. Why had she thought it was Jonathan?

Anya sat at a study carrel, feverish working on Jonathan’s Latin project. He returned from the stacks with a small pile of books and sat down at an adjacent carrel. "How’d you learn to read?" he asked. "I thought most people were illiterate during the dark ages."

"My mother was educated," she replied absently as she continued to work. "When she was still young, her father died but didn’t have any male heirs so his estate, what little there was, went to her uncle. He threw my mother out in the street. She ended up marrying a peasant to survive. She taught me even though we were destitute. Finished," she said as she looked up.

"That would have taken me all weekend," Jonathan said appreciatively. "Can you help me prepare for finals?"

"Sure," she said with a shrug, then turned her attention to the books Jonathan had brought. "Let’s see what have: De Pictura Sacra, The Librum of Flavius Josephus, the Fons et Origo… These are priceless," she whispered excitedly. "It makes me wonder what they have in the restricted section…"

"Why does the university have so many evil books?" Buffy abruptly asked Riley. They had met for an early dinner. Buffy had been distracted for most of the meal, barely paying attention to his offhand comments and awkward compliments.

"The ‘evil’ ones are under lock and key," he said. "You need a security clearance to gain access to them. And even then, the books can’t be removed from the room. The ones available for the general public are harmless."

"Some of your ‘harmless’ books have spells in them," Buffy replied. "Bad mojo." She paused, then asked thoughtfully, "Why have them here at all? You’re just asking for trouble. It’s like building a bonfire in a fireworks factory."

"Many of the professors here work as consultants for the Initiative," he explained. "We have the most reputable paranormal researchers in the country. They need a good library to continue their studies. We provide them the best and, thanks to them, we have an almost exhaustive catalog of demons and the particular means to combat each of them."

"Not a problem," Riley assured her. "We keep track of every person who checks out books even remotely connected with witchcraft or demonology."

"Usually they’re just kids, pretending to be Wiccans, Satanists, Neo-Pagans…" he began reassuringly.

"But occasionally," he continued, "we come across someone with real ability. Even then, as long as they don’t break any laws, or attempt a summoning, we don’t need to rehabilitate them."

"Yes," he replied. An uncomfortable silence ensued. "Is there a name I should be looking for?" Riley finally asked.

It was late; the sun was setting. He had been stuck in the library longer than he had wanted to be and the downtown buses had been running later that he had anticipated. Jonathan hurried to his dorm with an armload of new lamps he had purchased in a nearby office supply store.

He opened his door, set down the packages and reached for the light switch – and froze. Something moved in the shadows of his room. Near his bed, where the Jonathan slaying weapons were. A shadow, slightly darker than the surrounding gloom, glided soundless toward him. Jonathan stepped back quickly and slammed the door shut, but almost lost his footing as the door jolted back into him as if from the force of impact of a heavy object. He held the door firmly as a pounding began from the inside – loud enough to attract the attention of his fellow students.

And then the pounding stopped. Jonathan looked around him – a dozen students had gathered in the hall to watch the commotion. "What’s goin’ on, Levinson?" Jake Remner, one of the bigger kids, demanded. He’d been a jock in high school, but hadn’t been good enough for college, even at UC Sunnydale. He was one of the guys who always gave Jonathan a hard time.

"Nothing," he said evasively. He locked the door, then carefully released it and backed away. He glanced at the assembled students. He couldn’t think of a reasonable explanation, so he just walked away, calmly, serenely. At least he hoped he looked calm and serene – inside his head was chaos. The crowd parted to let him through. When he reached the street, he broke into a run.

Anya wasn’t home. Jonathan hovered near her apartment for a few minutes, becoming more and more nervous. The streets in this neighborhood were dark – only a handful of streetlights were functional.

He could see someone approaching from the opposite side of the road. In the darkness he couldn’t tell if it was Anya or not until the figure came closer. Crossing the street to meet him, a shabbily dressed young man called out to him, "Got a cigarette, dude?"

A knife appeared in the young man’s hand. "I’ll take it all," he said with a malevolent smirk.

And suddenly the stranger was lying on the ground, spitting out blood and tooth fragments. Jonathan had his knife. "Dude," he said shakily to Jonathan, "that wasn’t cool. I was just kiddin,’ man."

"Don’t let it happen again," Jonathan said. He still couldn’t believe how fast he had been; the kid never had a chance, never knew what had hit him. Jonathan tossed him the knife.

The young man grabbed it, lurched to his feet, and ran off. At a safe distance, he stopped, looked back, and yelled obscenities at Jonathan before continuing on his way.

With no sign of Anya, Jonathan headed back to campus, unwilling to remain any longer in her neighborhood.

Jonathan cautiously walked to his door. He was about to unlock it when his neighbor’s door opened. It was Jake.

"Levinson," he said seriously, "the RA was up here, ‘cause of the noise. He searched your room after you left and found your needles." Jonathan turned pale. "Said something about expulsion," Jake continued. "Thought I’d give you the heads up." Jake returned to his room.

Jonathan cautiously opened the door to his room. Inside, the place was a mess. He checked his stash of weaponry – the needles and the knife were gone. He was too tired to try to track down Anya again, so he set up his new lights, turned them all on and went to bed – although not to sleep. The lights were bright and he was worried – about the nemesis, about the needles and the break-in, and about the violation of the no-weapons provision of his probation.

He went to see his Resident Advisor the next morning. The RA was unsympathetic, unwilling to listen to Jonathan’s half-hearted excuses, telling Jonathan the matter was out of his hands, and that three deans would meet to discuss his fate Monday evening.

Jonathan returned to his room to wait for Anya. The spells were supposed to have given him a better life, but all they’d brought him was trouble – and now he was going to be expelled. Maybe even sent to prison. It was all her fault; she was behaving more like a demon than an ex-demon, luring him with promises that turned into curses. She had set him up for this disaster and now he was totally dependent upon her for an escape.

"That’s early for a Sunday," Willow continued. "Usually you sleep ‘til one or two."

"That’s ‘cause I catch up on all the sleep I miss during the week," Buffy explained. "I’m meeting Riley for brunch. He gets out of church at eleven. Want to come?"

"Not much of a brunch person," Willow confessed. "It’s an unnatural meal. I never know what I should order – it feels like I should order stuff from the lunch menu since it’s almost lunchtime, but it’s the first meal of the day, so it seems like muffins and bagels time. And if you mix and match, you end up with something like a-a hamburger with hashbrowns, or pancakes and french fries. And I don’t even want to think about what to drink..."

"Okay," Buffy interrupted, "You’re not a ‘brunch’ person. I get it. Have you eaten yet?"

Buffy opened the door – it was Riley, dressed in his Sunday best. "Ready?" he asked.

"Just a second," she replied as she dashed back into her room for her purse. "Is it okay if Willow comes along?" she called back to him.

Surprised, Buffy turned to look at him and Willow looked up from her book. Riley entered the room with Forrest trailing behind him.

"I-I just remembered I can’t go after all," Willow began. "I have a… thing to do, remember that thing I told you about, Buffy? Plus I’m not really that hungry. I’m don’t want to go to a sit-down restaurant, I’ll just get a cup of herbal tea and some bagels at the coffee shop."

"I’ll join you," Forrest said. Buffy and Riley looked at him quizzically. "Don’t get me wrong," he explained to them, "I like you guys, but when it’s just the three of us I might as well be by myself."

"I-I guess so," she replied softly. As Forrest ushered her out the door, Willow cast one last glance back at Buffy. Buffy just shrugged.

"Yes – no," he said quickly, "I mean, he doesn’t really know you. We were in Basic Training together. Since I met you, I’ve been spending less time with him. A lot less. He thinks you’re a bad influence on me. Sort of the way your friends reacted to me when they first met me."

"You don’t have to worry about that," Riley assured her. "Willow’s not his type. He likes his women a little…"

"His interest in the occult seems to be recent. All the books he’s checked out have been in the last week. He came in twelfth for the month. Most of the people above him are on our payroll. His activity is not yet significant enough to warrant surveillance."

"Maybe," he said. "I can’t find out if she is, or by whom, without arousing suspicion – it’s strictly need-to-know information."

Xander quickly pulled on his clothes and hurried to his door. "I’ll be right back," he told Anya. His mother had a knack for interrupting him when he and Anya were together. She had said one of his friends was insisting on seeing him, an emergency. It had to be Buffy or Willow – no one else would bother him this late at night.

Xander stormed back down into his basement. "Was it Buffy?" Anya asked indifferently.

"He said he needed help with a Latin project. ‘It’s an emergency. It’s due tomorrow morning. I’ll fail if she doesn’t help me,’ " he mimicked. "I got rid of him… what are you doing?" She was getting dressed.

"I promised to help him. I forgot." She slipped her shoes on and headed for the stairs. "I’ll be back later."

Buffy walked quietly on her patrol. Riley wasn’t with her for the first time in several weeks – Initiative paperwork had been keeping him busy. She was still bothered by his remarks about rehabilitation, sounding too much like ‘reeducation’ to her. She also wondered what would happen to Willow if the initiative decided she was dangerous. Buffy hadn’t had a chance to warn Willow yet – she hadn’t seen her roommate since Willow and Forrest had left for the coffee shop that morning. They made a very strange couple…

Buffy stopped. "Forrest," she whispered to herself. "He’s the one that’s watching Willow. That’s why he’s been hanging around with us so much lately."

Jonathan ran through his list of grievances as he and Anya walked to her apartment. She listened impatiently for a time, doing little to allay his fears and suspicions.

"Can’t you just tell them the knives and needles were someone else’s?" Anya asked. "They know something else was in the room; they heard the noise."

"First of all, I don’t have a roommate. He disappeared at the beginning of the semester," Jonathan replied hysterically. "Secondly, they found the contraband under my bed."

"He dropped out, I guess. I mean, he just vanished – all his stuff was gone one night when I got back from the library."

"At the start of the year, Buffy wiped out a group of vampires who killed freshmen and took their possessions," Anya said. "Although they usually left a ‘college is too tough’ note."

"He’s probably dead. Perfect! Blame your roommate – say he came back, that the needles and knife were his and he forced you to help him. No one will know."

"They’ll have to," she responded ominously. "We’ll make sure of that tonight."

"Another ritual?" Jonathan complained. "I already have so many scars on my back that I’m starting to look like torture victim."