Gingerbread ficlet post
Title: Vigil
Author: Samsom
Rating: PG
Summary: Being the Slayer sucks. Being the Slayer’s mother sucks more.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Notes: A very short ficlet set a few days before the start of Gingerbread. Thanks to damnskippytoo for the quickie.
Beta, that is.
Joyce hears the slide and thump of Buffy’s window closing, and opens her eyes.
She’d been waiting for it, like she did every night, and like every night since she found out her daughter went out into the dark and killed monsters, she checks the time and gets out of bed.
Ten p.m.
She doesn’t bother to turn the light on when she steps out onto the porch, wrapping a throw around her shoulders. She doesn’t want to interrupt the black sky; she wants to see every star, feel the cold air on her face.
Her daughter is out there, somewhere beyond the back fences and Fall-stripped trees.
She had spent the whole summer trying to wrap her mind around the fact that monsters were real, and that her daughter had some sort of calling to fight them. She’d listened to Rupert’s speech and tried not to let the scream inside of her escape with every word he uttered.
She’s still screaming inside, every night, every time she hears Buffy go out. Terrified out of her mind that one night she won’t hear her daughter come home. That if she falls asleep, she’ll wake up to a different world.
At two, she’s nearly asleep on her feet, dreams pushing on the walls of her consciousness, taunting her with images too horrible to fully acknowledge. Her body is numb from the cold, especially her feet, and if, by God’s grace, Buffy comes home and finds her, she won’t be able to bear the guilty reproach in her eyes.
So she goes inside the warmth of her house.
She climbs the stairs and huddles back into her bed, and when Buffy’s window makes that same noise at two-thirty, she tenses and listens. When she hears the muffled bump of Buffy’s bag hitting the carpeted floor, she closes her eyes and breathes slowly and evenly out.
Buffy is home.
Buffy is safe.
Maybe, she thinks as she turns over and allows herself to fall asleep, she can find a reason to go patrolling with Buffy next time.
Maybe she’ll bring a snack.
~end~
Author: Samsom
Rating: PG
Summary: Being the Slayer sucks. Being the Slayer’s mother sucks more.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Notes: A very short ficlet set a few days before the start of Gingerbread. Thanks to damnskippytoo for the quickie.
Beta, that is.
Joyce hears the slide and thump of Buffy’s window closing, and opens her eyes.
She’d been waiting for it, like she did every night, and like every night since she found out her daughter went out into the dark and killed monsters, she checks the time and gets out of bed.
Ten p.m.
She doesn’t bother to turn the light on when she steps out onto the porch, wrapping a throw around her shoulders. She doesn’t want to interrupt the black sky; she wants to see every star, feel the cold air on her face.
Her daughter is out there, somewhere beyond the back fences and Fall-stripped trees.
She had spent the whole summer trying to wrap her mind around the fact that monsters were real, and that her daughter had some sort of calling to fight them. She’d listened to Rupert’s speech and tried not to let the scream inside of her escape with every word he uttered.
She’s still screaming inside, every night, every time she hears Buffy go out. Terrified out of her mind that one night she won’t hear her daughter come home. That if she falls asleep, she’ll wake up to a different world.
At two, she’s nearly asleep on her feet, dreams pushing on the walls of her consciousness, taunting her with images too horrible to fully acknowledge. Her body is numb from the cold, especially her feet, and if, by God’s grace, Buffy comes home and finds her, she won’t be able to bear the guilty reproach in her eyes.
So she goes inside the warmth of her house.
She climbs the stairs and huddles back into her bed, and when Buffy’s window makes that same noise at two-thirty, she tenses and listens. When she hears the muffled bump of Buffy’s bag hitting the carpeted floor, she closes her eyes and breathes slowly and evenly out.
Buffy is home.
Buffy is safe.
Maybe, she thinks as she turns over and allows herself to fall asleep, she can find a reason to go patrolling with Buffy next time.
Maybe she’ll bring a snack.
~end~