Gifts

Air Date: 30/10/2000

3 Aug 2000, Thursday.

Jayde wakes feeling pumped and alive. Gemma wakes having one of her worst asthma attacks for a few years. Jayde helps her through it. Gemma is left feeling drained and exhausted. Both go back to sleep.

At breakfast David announces that Dr Alexandra Grey has moved to Berkeley and is now doing research at the university. She will be joining them for dinner. The twins exchange looks, remembering their dream.

The girls head off to sign-up week and go their separate ways. Jayde is feeling great, catches up with her friends and lines up several parties for that evening after dinner. Gemma finds that all of the subjects she's interested in are on opposite sides of the campus and is left tired and with aching feet. She's still feeling a bit foggy, the sun seems too bright and people are a bit hazy and occasionally she thinks she catches a glimpse of Leda smiling at her through the crowd.

Dinner goes well. Alex is enjoying her research and everyone is glad of the chance to catch up. Jayde heads off to party and Gemma catches up with friends to talk about poetry at the local coffee haunt.

All is joyous.

No-one dies.

4 Aug 2000, Friday

Jayde is feeling pretty good, no hangover despite all the beer she guzzled the night before. Gemma has thought to wear comfortable shoes today but the sun is still bright and looking at people is like walking out of a dark room where the colours are hazy and vibrant. While wandering through the psychology dept she bumps into Alex and they "do lunch" and talk about her research. Alex is working on alternative world-view psychoses and whether a common causative factor leads people to develop them and whether there are any common elements in the intricate and detailed realities they build around themselves. She offers Gemma a job helping to collate the data. Gemma accepts and agrees to come by later that afternoon to look around. Alex asks how Gemma has been sleeping and Gemma mentions the dream. Alex asks her to describe it and whether Jayde has also been dreaming of these things. Gemma doesn't know but gives Alex Jayde's mobile number and heads off to finish sign-up. Alex arranges for Jayde to drop by that evening also for a chat.

Gemma arrives back at the psych dept and is shown around for a while. Jayde arrives, Alex asks about the dream and Jayde is surprised. Alex describes the two women, Buffy and Faith, in detail and explains that she expected one of the girls might dream it but not both. "The dream is a side effect of a particular process. Perhaps its best I show you."

The three go to the gym and Alex picks a heavy weight. Gemma just hangs from it but Jayde lifts it easily, breaking university weight lifting records (and defying the laws of gravity) in the process. Both girls are freaked out - Jayde because she's now a freak and Gemma because once again Jayde gets the good stuff. Alex explains that Jayde has been given a destiny, she must protect the world from supernatural evil, blah blah blah and that there is normally only one but now there are two with this birthright. The other, Buffy, lives here in California. Gemma asks what happened to the other woman from her dream and Alex explains that Faith was killed in jail two nights ago, the night of the dream. More detail about the mystical evil, "Jayde, I am your watcher, use the force Jayde" kinda stuff, quick crash course in vampireology and come with me to the park and see for yourself. The girls are pretty much convinced that the good doctor has been paying too much attention to her patients.

They reach the park and not one but two vamps attack. Jayde recognises them from the dream and realises its true and taps into her inner slayerness. Gemma realises that this must be a psychology experiment in triggering psychoses and that the vamps are grad students in rubber masks. Jayde kicks one in the shin and breaks his leg. The other grabs Alex by the throat and pins her to the ground. Gemma starts hitting it with her cross, poking it with her stake and yelling at the "horrible grad student" to "go home and sleep it off!" There is a chuckle from some nearby bushes. Jayde pulls the second vamp up off the ground bringing Alex up with him. Gemma bites ineffectually at his wrist trying to get him to let go of Alex. Eventually he does and Jayde throws him across the clearing. He lands in the bush and there is a frightened yelp as a boy, Jonathan, goes running off from behind the bush where he has been filming everything. Gemma sees to Alex and Jayde, feeling hyped, stakes the first vamp and he explodes into dust. Gemma suddenly grasps the reality of the situation and gets hysterical.

Jonathan runs straight into a mid 30s man in a tweed coat. Jonathan goes to get up but is pushed back to the ground with the man's cane. The second vamp, on seeing his friend get dusted runs away, straight at Jonathan and the man, who stakes it with his cane and it explodes all over Jonathan. The man then leads Jonathan over to where the others are seeing to Gemma and introduces himself as Conrad Cayse from the watcher's council. Gemma and Jayde recognise Conrad as man trapped inside the transparent man from their dreams. All go back to Alex's office.

Jonathan and the girls vaguely recognise each other from high school. Conrad asks why Gemma is here and says of Jonathan that "he knows" and should be "disposed of". Jonathan is terrified and promises not so say anything. Conrad explains that he is here to observe and learn from the new slayer now that there are two - does the power become dilute? Will the new slayer turn against them as Faith did? Has the power been corrupted? Yada yada yada but agrees not to turn in any findings to the council before he has presented his findings to Jayde and her watcher. Gemma is looking a bit calmer, for once Jayde got something that didn't turn out to be perfect and she could keep it. Alex tells her they need her help too, not all the evil is necessarily vampires and often it is recurring so they can learn how to fight by studying the histories. She agrees to help if she can. The girls head home. Jonathan is still looking absolutely terrified. Alex talks to him and explains that he can't tell anyone what he saw because they'd think he was crazy and they'd have him locked up and perhaps he should come by regularly to talk about it and how about tomorrow at say four o'clock and perhaps she should keep the tape. He agrees and then bolts.

Roll Credits

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