One-Shot: Normal, Not: BtVS/VHD
Title: Normal, Not
Author: Patriciatepes (Patricia de Lioncourt @ FFNET and PatriciaLouise @ TTH)
Fandom: Vampire Hunter D/Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Buffy Post S7. When the world was going to be in danger, there was only one person that could save it. But for Buffy, that meant more than just giving up a Tuesday afternoon.
Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Vampire Hunter D. All the characters belong to their respective owners, making no money here.
Word Count: ~1900
A/N: So, first off, this is totally unrelated to my Vampire Hunter T series that I concluded back in 2012. That being said, this idea came to me and I just had to write it. Written during August Fic-a-Day 2014.
Normal, Not
She was dreaming. But, in all fairness, maybe she wasn't. After all, was it still considered dreaming if you just relived things that really happened? Because that's what Buffy was doing. She knew she was sleeping-in a way-but it still replayed over and over, the events that led her here.
The coven called Willow, said they'd predicted The End-capital letters and all. Not the end of the world, exactly. But the end of the world as they knew it. Something awful was going to happen, and to top it all off, not a Slayer was to be seen in their vision. Something about that upset Buffy. There were hundreds upon hundreds of Slayers now, thanks to her. But in this vision of a distant, terrible future there were exactly zero Slayers. But that was why the coven had called. They had called to prevent this.
They had spells, and then the rest of the world had technology. Those two things were combined. And then someone had to be chosen. One of the girls had to sacrifice everything to save a world they wouldn't even recognize. That didn't seem fair. Here Buffy had handed them untold power and untold responsible, sure… but to give up everything when she hadn't? No. That wasn't going to happen to her girls. So, it was time for The Chosen One to be chosen again. Or rather, she volunteered.
There was a hissing noise invading her dream. She didn't remember that. Not at the part she was dreaming about at the moment anyway. Buffy was dreaming about her good-byes. Telling all her loved ones-sister, friends, all of them-how much she, well, loved them. And that this was for the good of everyone.
There was that hissing noise again! This time, it was followed by beeping. Beeping that strangely sounded like a countdown. Buffy tried to ignore it, to continue with her dreaming. But her dream was reaching the end of its loops. She was climbing into the machine constructed by both science and magic-the machine she was sleeping in now. The clear, glass dome was closing over her and she watched as Dawn tried her best not to let Big Sister see her tears.
And that was it. Usually, the dream restarted there. But this time, it didn't. Instead, she felt her finger twitch. In real life, her finger twitched. God, she didn't even know how long it had been since that had happened. She heard the hissing noise again as the beeping stopped, and suddenly became distinctly aware of a light being shined in her face. Her eyelids fluttered, trying to fight it, but finally, Buffy managed to open them.
The lid to the machine was open, and Buffy was really, truly awake. She blinked against the light, trying to adjust. It took her only a moment to realize that that light had to be coming from somewhere. She wasn't alone. The voice behind the light confirmed that for her.
"Buffy Summers."
The voice was old, gruff, and harsh. Very much called to mind a bent old man.
"Do I know you?" she asked.
Her own voice sounded pretty bad, and she just realized how really dry her throat was. She rested her hand to it when another voice said, "Here, drink this. It's water."
Buffy's eyes had still not cleared, and she knew better than to trust absolutely. Life lessons learned, but right now, she was at their mercy. Why would they poison water when they could just shoot her or something? She took the canteen and gulped the lukewarm liquid down. She was pretty sure she returned it to the owner bone dry. But, hey, at least her throat felt better.
"Do I know you?" she asked.
"No," the gruff voice said, sounding just a tinge sad. "But I know you. You're the Frozen Girl. The Slayer that, thousands of years ago, chose to be both mystically and cryogenically frozen so that she could be awoken in a future that would need her. Took me a while to find you, but I'm glad I did."
Buffy wished she still had enough water left in her mouth to do a spit-take. Her vision was clearing, and the light was moved out of her face. It was odd, but she was pretty sure that only one person was standing there when she had definitely heard two voices.
"Thousands? How many thousands?" she asked, starting to get up out of the machine.
"Add about ten thousand, give or take a handful, to the year you went to sleep."
"Twelve thousand!"
"Plus some."
Buffy, now standing completely out of the machine, leaned back against it. The gruff voice sighed.
"Sorry."
The Slayer blinked a few more times, getting the last bit of blurry out of her vision before she finally rested her eyes on the person that had probably woke her up. She found herself very surprised. He was young, at least in his early twenties… or at least that's how he looked. When she met his cold eyes, something told her that lying about his age would probably be a good idea. He was much older. And handsome in an androgynous way, with long black hair and pale skin. He was dressed all in black, with a cloak about his shoulders and a wide-brimmed hat on his head. A long sword, almost going the length of him, was strapped to his back.
"You look too young to sound that old," she commented.
"That would be because you were talking to me," came a voice somewhere from around the vicinity of the man's left hip.
As if in answer to Buffy's unasked question, the man before her lifted his left hand until the palm was upright in front of her. And she blinked again to make sure she wasn't seeing things. There was a face in the hand! A little, wrinkled face!
"Call me Left Hand, and, toots, we need to book!"
"What?"
There was hissing again, but different from the sounds Buffy had heard when she awoke. This time, it sounded like snakes.
"It'll be safer when we're out of here," the younger man-and voice-said.
"O-kay. Let's go with that," Buffy agreed, seeing movement in the shadows of the stone room she stood in.
She pushed off of the machine, only to find her legs wobbling underneath her. She couldn't hold her own weight and fell forward, with the young man catching her.
"Look, I don't even know your name to have you making me all swoon-y."
"I'm D. And it's a side effect of being frozen for so long. It should wear off in a few hours, a few days at most. For now, let's go."
#
But D had been wrong. Weeks had passed, and while Buffy was now strong enough to walk, she still wasn't strong enough. Left Hand, once the three (was it really three? Did the hand count?) got safely out of the castle they had found her in, explained that it had taken him quite some time to convince D to seek out the Frozen Girl. But he finally managed it due to a new problem they were facing.
But that didn't matter at the moment. At the very present moment in time, Buffy was more worried about her lack of Slayer abilities and her necessity to stay alive long enough to gain them back. The world was harsh now, harsher than hers had ever been. Apparently, and Left Hand glossed over the details here, nukes had been fired between world leaders. And then, vampires and other nasties that had survived took control of the world.
It was a wasteland, full of monsters both old and new. And some that weren't even really fightable, like a mist that melted you like acid that just lazily drifted from place to place. And the landscape? The landscape was nothing but flat and barren. Just getting from the castle to the next town, D had fought no less than twelve different monsters, all the while Buffy having to hide.
And now, weeks later, they had set up a secured campsite somewhere in the middle of God-knew-where. Buffy didn't recognize her world anymore, but one thing was certain. This had to be it, the future that needed the Slayer. But it was a shame that the Slayer was broken.
"So, you're without your super powers. Plenty of people survive out here without super powers, kid," Left Hand said while Buffy sat in the threshold of a tent.
"But that was the whole reason I gave up everything."
"You're normal," D said in his even way that Buffy found very annoying.
"But I'm not. And, you know what? Neither are you. You've got a talking Left Hand and you're half-vampire. Yeah, that's right! Your appendage outted you! And I'm just the little hanger-on… the scared girl who should be the most useful person you've ever met, but I'm not. I feel great. But I'm still not strong."
"A side effect of the mystical side of your sleep?" D offered, completely side-stepping like a boss the fact that a vampire Slayer now knew he was half-vampire.
Buffy shrugged. "Even if it is, everyone I knew who could help me is dead. I've got no Giles or Willow to go to."
No one questioned who those people were, but that didn't seem odd. It may have only been a few weeks, but Buffy had already learned that D wasn't exactly the share-and-care type. But, now that she was thinking about it, something did come to mind. She leaned forward, pointed at the two (one?) who had woke her up.
"When you found me… you said there was a reason. You got D to find me because something had gone weird. What was it?"
D had long stopped with the courtesy of lifting up Left Hand so he could talk face-to-palm with Buffy. But the two still talked, D's comfort be damned.
"Not what, sweetheart. Who. A vampire that's stayed pretty well hidden for all this time has stepped out of the shadows, trying to reclaim the world for his kind. He kills like no vampire D has ever seen, and now he's got twelve-plus thousand years of technology to help him do it. But you know him. And that's why we need you."
Buffy's eyes narrowed. "Who?"
"Angelus."
She didn't say anything. Instead, she crawled into her tent and zipped it up. So this was the future she was going to save? Her friends gone, Angelus on the loose, and her powers MIA? Since Tuesdays were Dawn-in-Danger days, this sort of stuff usually happened on Wednesdays.
#
"I want to help you stop Angelus, but first I need my Slayer mojo back," Buffy finally said after a few days.
No answer from either of her traveling companions. So she continued.
"It might take a while. Some visits to shamans or whatever. It might be smarter for you to drop me off and let me do this on my own. We could arrange a meet-up."
"Not happening," Left Hand finally answered. "You'd be dead in less than a day."
"So, you're going to help me get them back?"
They were astride D's cyborg black stallion, trotting through the open, flat landscape. D glanced over his shoulder at her.
"We'll aid you… unless something needs to be about Angelus sooner. Then you'll just have to figure it out."
Harsh. Like everything was around here. But Buffy nodded.
"Aside from escalation, you'll help. Sounds fair. Now, we should start right away."
"I'm heading to a well-known Witch Doctor that lives in the coastal town of Blue."
Buffy smiled. Normal, not, whatever… she still had great people skills.