Fic: Collections of Unfixed Points- Prologue
In my defence, I've been out of town almost the entire summer. I've spent the max 12 days I've been in my home sleeping, unpacking, repacking, and finally finishing Buffy. Also, taking turns working on all of the multi-chapter WIPs I started before I remembered that starting all of them would be an awful idea. Undiagnosed ADD is the worst ever. I'm lame and inconsistent, but here's fic.
Title: Collections of Unfixed Points
Chapter: Prologue
Characters: Buffy, Willow, Oz, Xander, Angel, Faith, Anya (Cordelia, Fred, Gunn, Tara, Wesley, Riley, Whistler, Jenny, Lilah, Giles, Andrew, Kennedy, Darla, OCs)
Pairing: Oz/Willow, Buffy/Angel, Xander/Cordelia, Xander/Anya, Faith/Tara
Rating: R (for violence and such, and not until later chapters)
Summary: In Passion, Angelus goes on to kill Giles, Xander, Willow, and Oz after he murders Jenny, causing Buffy to inadvertently wish that she and her friends had gotten to live normal lives, like they would've gotten to if she wasn't the Slayer and they weren't on the Hellmouth. As a result, she gets stuck in an alternate universe with no memories of her life as the Slayer until she, Xander, Willow, and Oz are confronted with a world out of balance that only they can set straight. AR canon that becomes AU.
Disclaimer: If I owned these characters, I wouldn't be writing fanfiction.
A/N: My first chaptered fic, and kinda high concept. The prologue's still in the divergent canon Buffyverse. Sorry if Buffy's a little over the top; she was always a little dramatic, especially in high school, and, besides, she's a 17 year old whose evil boyfriend just murdered all of her friends. Maybe she's a little overdone, but I think she's allowed to be dramatic at this point.
A big thank you to my two betas, Rowan Tritton and Alenida.
* * *
Prologue
"When I say out loud
I wanna get out of this
I wonder is there anything
I'm gonna miss"
-Third Eye Blind
A young woman slunk silently through narrow rows of tombstones. The California grass was brittle and dry; it had gone too long without rain, and it crunched with each step she took. Her steady, measured footsteps and the whispering brush of her long beige coat were the only sounds in the graveyard except the loud wails of another woman, hidden somewhere among the dead. The first woman followed the calls as if she were following a homing beacon, like a hunter scenting down her prey.
Buffy Summers was weeping deep within the cemetery, near the open field where the rows of the dead were replaced by still empty earth. Buffy was the first Slayer the woman had ever purposefully sought out, but, honestly, she wasn’t acting much like what she’d expected from a Slayer. Buffy was indistinguishable from every other scorned woman before her, brought down to the same level as a thousand mere mortals. Mortals were messy and destructive, careless in ways that demons weren’t, but they were so imaginative. They always made the best wishes.
Finally the woman found the Slayer, collapsed on her knees at the barren edge of the graveyard, bracing herself against the cold dirt. She knelt before four plots of fresh turned earth, weeping unrestrainedly and heaving gasping breaths to choke out half formed sentences.
“My fault,” the woman was able to distinguish, before Buffy choked on a fresh wave of tears. “All my fault!”
It was depressing and more than a little pathetic, really. All of the humans the Slayer wept over would've died before long; mortals were fragile that way. Like a swarm of tiny, flickering candles; just one careless breath (too hard, too fast, too close, no difference) and they’re gone forever. Maybe they wouldn’t have been killed by what was left of the girl’s lover, but they wouldn’t have lived forever. She wished the girl would hurry up and make a wish already. She couldn’t leave until a wish was made, and, though she really was anticipating granting the Slayer’s wish, even with her light jacket, it was cold for California at this time of year.
“It's all my-”
“How is it your fault?” the woman asked as she gazed down at the crumpled blonde. Her tone was sympathetic, her eyes as cold as the cemetery’s rusty iron gates. The set-up for the wish-making was always the worst part of the job; it would be much quicker if she could just ask what the girl wished for and grant it. Simple, direct, effective, and without all of the wasted time and energy.
“All my fault,” was the only answer Buffy was able to give.
“Yes,” her uninvited companion responded, trying desperately not to reveal her impatience, and, unfortunately, failing rather noticeably. “You've mentioned. How did they die, Buffy?”
The woman winced; she shouldn't have let it slip that she knew the Slayer's name. Humans were so untrusting, and too much knowledge immediately put them on guard. Paranoid infants, all of them. Thankfully, the blonde was too involved with her grief to notice the slip and just continued to cry, pausing only to heave out a broken-sounding answer.
“I couldn't save them.” Her words seem to trigger something, and the young woman’s arms crumpled beneath her, leaving her collapsed on the ground, her supine form shaking with the force of her sobs.
The earth before the row of four headstones was fresh and bare of grass. The burials had been recent, if the Slayer’s crow black attire was any indication. There had been enough time to put up nondescript grey markers for the four plots, but she was obviously still mourning their deaths, her pain as fresh as the newly marked graves.
“He killed them, and I couldn't save them.” Her sobs doubled, which impressed the strange woman immensely. She had seen a lot of hurt women in her day, but none of them had managed to cry anywhere near this violently. It was refreshing.
“Who?”
“A-A-An-gel!” the prostrate blonde somehow managed to choke out, between her ragged and labored breaths.
“What happened?” she asked Buffy, her voice coaxing and soft as silk, urging Buffy to speak. Now that she seemed to be getting somewhere, her patience slowly trickled back.
“They're all, all d-d-dead. They should be alive! All of them!”
Buffy had become more coherent, which she was grateful for; trying to decipher her sobs had become rather tiresome. However, the girl was becoming quite frenzied and out of sorts, which, frankly, wasn't all that much of an improvement. It was something though; this way she'd be easier to guide into making a wish.
“I was the one he wanted! He should’ve killed me! But now, now they’re d-dead! Everyone’s dead!” Her voice was broken, words jagged like rough-cut glass shards. She had the same broken look in her empty eyes, as if her world had shattered before her and watching it happen had pushed her one step away from insanity. Most of what had held Buffy’s life together was buried before her, and the part that wasn’t was in the Summers’ family burial plot in Los Angeles. “The-they shouldn’t be. I should’ve saved them.”
“He betrayed you, didn’t he? Breaking your heart, killing your friends? Though, honestly,” she said as an aside, “they would've died eventually working with you. But don’t you hate him? Want him to suffer?”
“See! All my fault!” Buffy shrieked, drowning out the other woman’s voice, partway through her coaxing. “If they didn't know me, they wouldn't be dead! If I wasn't the Slayer, if we were all normal, if we weren’t stuck on the Goddamn Hellmouth, they'd be alive! I wish we were all normal, all of us! I wish they weren't dead, that Angel never went evil, that he never killed my friends! I want this to be over! I just want to be normal!” During her tirade, Buffy had risen to her feet, and by the end, she shouted directly at the gravestones, a row of four, Giles, Harris, Osbourne, and Rosenberg.
If she had turned her back on her friends’ fresh graves, she would have seen the face of the woman behind her contort and twist, take on a reddish hue as blue veins spread like ink stains. She would have seen a slow, sinister grin twist across the demon's face, realizing the potential that this unanticipated wish had.
“Done,” Anyanka crowed triumphantly and vanished like a curl of smoke. When Buffy finally turned around, there was no one there, just rows of stone markers. Then, suddenly, there was nothing.
Title: Collections of Unfixed Points
Chapter: Prologue
Characters: Buffy, Willow, Oz, Xander, Angel, Faith, Anya (Cordelia, Fred, Gunn, Tara, Wesley, Riley, Whistler, Jenny, Lilah, Giles, Andrew, Kennedy, Darla, OCs)
Pairing: Oz/Willow, Buffy/Angel, Xander/Cordelia, Xander/Anya, Faith/Tara
Rating: R (for violence and such, and not until later chapters)
Summary: In Passion, Angelus goes on to kill Giles, Xander, Willow, and Oz after he murders Jenny, causing Buffy to inadvertently wish that she and her friends had gotten to live normal lives, like they would've gotten to if she wasn't the Slayer and they weren't on the Hellmouth. As a result, she gets stuck in an alternate universe with no memories of her life as the Slayer until she, Xander, Willow, and Oz are confronted with a world out of balance that only they can set straight. AR canon that becomes AU.
Disclaimer: If I owned these characters, I wouldn't be writing fanfiction.
A/N: My first chaptered fic, and kinda high concept. The prologue's still in the divergent canon Buffyverse. Sorry if Buffy's a little over the top; she was always a little dramatic, especially in high school, and, besides, she's a 17 year old whose evil boyfriend just murdered all of her friends. Maybe she's a little overdone, but I think she's allowed to be dramatic at this point.
A big thank you to my two betas, Rowan Tritton and Alenida.
* * *
Prologue
"When I say out loud
I wanna get out of this
I wonder is there anything
I'm gonna miss"
-Third Eye Blind
A young woman slunk silently through narrow rows of tombstones. The California grass was brittle and dry; it had gone too long without rain, and it crunched with each step she took. Her steady, measured footsteps and the whispering brush of her long beige coat were the only sounds in the graveyard except the loud wails of another woman, hidden somewhere among the dead. The first woman followed the calls as if she were following a homing beacon, like a hunter scenting down her prey.
Buffy Summers was weeping deep within the cemetery, near the open field where the rows of the dead were replaced by still empty earth. Buffy was the first Slayer the woman had ever purposefully sought out, but, honestly, she wasn’t acting much like what she’d expected from a Slayer. Buffy was indistinguishable from every other scorned woman before her, brought down to the same level as a thousand mere mortals. Mortals were messy and destructive, careless in ways that demons weren’t, but they were so imaginative. They always made the best wishes.
Finally the woman found the Slayer, collapsed on her knees at the barren edge of the graveyard, bracing herself against the cold dirt. She knelt before four plots of fresh turned earth, weeping unrestrainedly and heaving gasping breaths to choke out half formed sentences.
“My fault,” the woman was able to distinguish, before Buffy choked on a fresh wave of tears. “All my fault!”
It was depressing and more than a little pathetic, really. All of the humans the Slayer wept over would've died before long; mortals were fragile that way. Like a swarm of tiny, flickering candles; just one careless breath (too hard, too fast, too close, no difference) and they’re gone forever. Maybe they wouldn’t have been killed by what was left of the girl’s lover, but they wouldn’t have lived forever. She wished the girl would hurry up and make a wish already. She couldn’t leave until a wish was made, and, though she really was anticipating granting the Slayer’s wish, even with her light jacket, it was cold for California at this time of year.
“It's all my-”
“How is it your fault?” the woman asked as she gazed down at the crumpled blonde. Her tone was sympathetic, her eyes as cold as the cemetery’s rusty iron gates. The set-up for the wish-making was always the worst part of the job; it would be much quicker if she could just ask what the girl wished for and grant it. Simple, direct, effective, and without all of the wasted time and energy.
“All my fault,” was the only answer Buffy was able to give.
“Yes,” her uninvited companion responded, trying desperately not to reveal her impatience, and, unfortunately, failing rather noticeably. “You've mentioned. How did they die, Buffy?”
The woman winced; she shouldn't have let it slip that she knew the Slayer's name. Humans were so untrusting, and too much knowledge immediately put them on guard. Paranoid infants, all of them. Thankfully, the blonde was too involved with her grief to notice the slip and just continued to cry, pausing only to heave out a broken-sounding answer.
“I couldn't save them.” Her words seem to trigger something, and the young woman’s arms crumpled beneath her, leaving her collapsed on the ground, her supine form shaking with the force of her sobs.
The earth before the row of four headstones was fresh and bare of grass. The burials had been recent, if the Slayer’s crow black attire was any indication. There had been enough time to put up nondescript grey markers for the four plots, but she was obviously still mourning their deaths, her pain as fresh as the newly marked graves.
“He killed them, and I couldn't save them.” Her sobs doubled, which impressed the strange woman immensely. She had seen a lot of hurt women in her day, but none of them had managed to cry anywhere near this violently. It was refreshing.
“Who?”
“A-A-An-gel!” the prostrate blonde somehow managed to choke out, between her ragged and labored breaths.
“What happened?” she asked Buffy, her voice coaxing and soft as silk, urging Buffy to speak. Now that she seemed to be getting somewhere, her patience slowly trickled back.
“They're all, all d-d-dead. They should be alive! All of them!”
Buffy had become more coherent, which she was grateful for; trying to decipher her sobs had become rather tiresome. However, the girl was becoming quite frenzied and out of sorts, which, frankly, wasn't all that much of an improvement. It was something though; this way she'd be easier to guide into making a wish.
“I was the one he wanted! He should’ve killed me! But now, now they’re d-dead! Everyone’s dead!” Her voice was broken, words jagged like rough-cut glass shards. She had the same broken look in her empty eyes, as if her world had shattered before her and watching it happen had pushed her one step away from insanity. Most of what had held Buffy’s life together was buried before her, and the part that wasn’t was in the Summers’ family burial plot in Los Angeles. “The-they shouldn’t be. I should’ve saved them.”
“He betrayed you, didn’t he? Breaking your heart, killing your friends? Though, honestly,” she said as an aside, “they would've died eventually working with you. But don’t you hate him? Want him to suffer?”
“See! All my fault!” Buffy shrieked, drowning out the other woman’s voice, partway through her coaxing. “If they didn't know me, they wouldn't be dead! If I wasn't the Slayer, if we were all normal, if we weren’t stuck on the Goddamn Hellmouth, they'd be alive! I wish we were all normal, all of us! I wish they weren't dead, that Angel never went evil, that he never killed my friends! I want this to be over! I just want to be normal!” During her tirade, Buffy had risen to her feet, and by the end, she shouted directly at the gravestones, a row of four, Giles, Harris, Osbourne, and Rosenberg.
If she had turned her back on her friends’ fresh graves, she would have seen the face of the woman behind her contort and twist, take on a reddish hue as blue veins spread like ink stains. She would have seen a slow, sinister grin twist across the demon's face, realizing the potential that this unanticipated wish had.
“Done,” Anyanka crowed triumphantly and vanished like a curl of smoke. When Buffy finally turned around, there was no one there, just rows of stone markers. Then, suddenly, there was nothing.