Aug. 12th: Dandelion
Title: Dandelion
Author: 3am_moonlight (MirroredIllusions on TtH)
Crossover: BtVS / Criminal Minds / Stargate SG-1
Rating: Gen / Teen
Word Count: 1,743
Timeline: BtVS: Post-Chose, later seasons for CM, and not decided for SG1.
Disclaimer: The Buffyverse, the Criminal Mind 'verse, and the Stargate 'verse all belong to people who are not yours truly.
Summary: Buffy jumps into Glory's portal to close it and land in a back alley somewhere else.
Author's Note: Written for Day 12 of the 2020 August Fic-A-Day.
A/N: Mixing a few tropes here, but hey, we're doing crossovers here. ;)
The last thing Buffy remembered was falling through Glorificus' interdimensional portal and then everything went black. Despite everything it had been peaceful, waking up was anything but.
Disorientation was only part of it. For one, when she managed to open her eyes, she realized she was in a back alley instead of a large backlot at the foot of a highly unstable structure. There was no tower, just a couple of dumpsters. There were also several corpses of what looked like young women around her age.
The pain was another. Her entire body ached. The ground smelled like rain-wet tarmac and newly-spilled blood with added assorted trash, but the blood wasn't hers. She hurt, but her skin hadn't been broken, she was sure of that.
Everything was hazy and the blaring sirens in the distance didn't help matters at all. The last thing she saw before blacking out again was several police cruises and two ambulances arriving at the scene.
-----
Buffy slowly regained consciousness, and the first thing she heard was the regular beeping of the heart monitor, followed by other hospital machinery. The next was the squeaky noise of hospital shoes walking outside her room some distance away, followed by the breathing of a person close to her bed.
She guessed the person was female and most likely lost in her thoughts as she wasn't moving much. Anything else she heard was hospital-related and muted in a way it only got when it was late at night. Cracking her eyelids up just enough to see a sliver confirmed her suspicions as the room was mostly dark. The only light came from the moon outside and, to a lesser degree, the artificial light from the hallway.
The person in the chair was a woman, a 30'ish blonde who was absently watching the view out the window. A slow and careful look around the room proved there was no one else. There was no sign of Willow, Xander, Giles, Tara, Dawn, or even Faith or Spike. The blonde wasn't someone she recognized.
Buffy soon slid into a peaceful, restoratory sleep without her guard noticing her guardee had been conscious at all.
-----
When Buffy opened her eyes the next time she almost immediately got eye contact with a dark-complexed woman who was studying her carefully. She blinked.
"Good morning, Miss O'Neill. You have been missed."
Buffy blinked again, this time in confusion before attempting to speak. The woman quickly got a glass of water from a table beside the bed and placed the straw close to her mouth so she could get rid of the dryness.
After drinking and swallowing a few times, she tried again. "My name isn't O'Neill. Who are you and where am I?"
The stranger frowned. "I'm Dr. Tara Lewis, and I work for the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit. We're at St. John's Hospital in Tampa, Florida."
It was Buffy's turn to frown. How did she get to Tampa? "Your parents are flying in from Colorado and are expected to land in a few hours."
She sat up, both in an attempt to clear her head but also because it felt weird laying down when there was a stranger beside her bed. "My name isn't O'Neill," she repeated. "And my parents aren't in Colorado. My mom's dead, and I don't know where my dad is." Italy, maybe? Without getting a hold of him or knowing the people around him it was difficult to keep track. Especially when her life was so chaotic.
Dr. Lewis's face changed from a frown to sympathy. "Your name is Elizabeth O'Neill. Your parents are Jack and Sara O'Neill." She shook her head deliberately, that wasn't right.
"What do you believe your name is? And what do you believe the name of your parents are?" Dr. Lewis asked, changing tactics.
"My name is Buffy Summers. My mother's name was Joyce Summers, and my father's name is Henry Summers." Then, more as an afterthought, she added, "I'm from California, not Colorado."
"While Buffy is a rare diminutive form of Elizabeth, there are no signs anyone has ever called you that. Your parents referred to you as Beth."
Buffy sighed, frustrated. "I'm not imagining this. There's nothing wrong with my memory."
"It's okay, Elizabeth. You've gone through long, traumatic captivity, I'm sure your real memories will return in time." Buffy was certain the woman meant well, but she wasn't helping. Yes, everything with Glory had been traumatic, but somehow she didn't think that was what the profiler was referring to at all.
Dr. Lewis rose and smoothed out her outfit. "I'll go and find your doctor and then see if you can't get some breakfast. Buffy politely agreed, more so the Federal Agent would leave the room and give her some space, but she wasn't paying attention. A clock on the opposite wall declared the time to be just before six AM.
What had happened? By all accounts, she should be dead. Her death closed the tearing in reality's fabric, fixing what Glory, Doc, and their minions had tried to achieve. Instead, she was in Tampa where the FBI seemed to be under the impression she'd been held in captivity somewhere. Her friends were nowhere near and nothing was familiar at all.
She fell asleep again before anyone returned. Clearly, her body needed a lot of rest to heal itself.
------
When she woke a couple of hours later the blonde was back and paying much closer attention to her.
"Good morning, Miss O'Neill. I'm SSA Jennifer Jareau with the BAU, you spoke briefly with a colleague of mine, Dr. Lewis, earlier."
Agent Jareau handed her a glass of water and waited for her to take a sip before replying. "Right. The one who thinks I've got amnesia."
An eyebrow lifted slightly, "You don't believe you do? There are no holes in your memory, no lost time?"
"No. I'm in the wrong state with people I don't know, claiming I'm someone I'm not, but other than that my memory works perfectly."
"What is the last thing you remember?"
She heard her own voice as she saw her little sister in her mind's eye. Dawn, the hardest thing in this world... is to live in it. Be brave. Live. For me.
Buffy suppressed the memory so she could deal with it later privately. "Talking to my sister, and then falling off a rickety tower." The best way to lie is to keep it as close to the truth as possible, or that's what Spike had told her once when they had discussed how badly she lied.
"Dr. Rees did say you had injuries consistent with a high fall within the last few months, and they are healing well." Concerned blue eyes met Buffy's hazel green ones. "Is that the last you remember?"
"Kind of." She quickly sorted through the truth to find an acceptable lie. Or something close enough. "I remember falling, everything going black, then a back alley with dead people and emergency personnel, blackness again, and then I was here."
It was true except for the part where she didn't mention she had made a running jump off of the tower so her sister wouldn't have to die, and she could save the world one last time. Telling the nice agent that would probably have gotten her forced sessions with a psychologist.
On second thought, those sessions might still happen, depending on what they believed had happened to her. Both women had carefully avoided telling her that.
Those blue eyes widened and she became more intense as she leaned forward a little. "Do you remember seeing anyone else in the alley?"
Buffy shook her head lightly. "Just the bodies. Then I passed out as the police and medics arrived."
"Did you see or hear the person who called 911?"
"No, but I could hear the sirens when I woke."
If it hadn't been for her enhanced vision then she was sure she would've missed the microexpressions on the agent's face, but there was definite disappointment there.
"What is it the FBI think happened to me?" No special abilities were needed this time, Agent Jareau tensed, clearly hoping she wouldn't ask just that question. Then she collected herself and began speaking in a more professional voice than before.
"The BAU was asked to help with a kidnapper and serial rapist who has been active in the area for at least four years. As you went missing in Colorado you were not suspected to be one of his victims."
She could feel her heart rate go up, even though she knew she wasn't a victim. "I've never been raped, and I've never been kidnapped either." Demons and the undead didn't count, kidnapping and attempting to kill her was part of their M.O.
"Dr. Rees did say your test came back negative for sexual assault and abuse. But she did note that the injuries from the fall should've been fatal." At least they agreed on something. Any wounds, cuts, or bruises she gained during her patrols and other fights healed overnight or within a week at the most. So there was nothing to find, excluding a few old scars she hoped no one here would ask about.
Outside the room and further down the hall, she could hear an authoritative male voice demanding to see his daughter, Elizabeth O'Neill. A lower, female voice was just as urgent. From the sounds of it, they were being stopped by two male agents at the nurses station.
"Does Dr. Rees believe I'm a victim of the man you're after?"
"No," Agent Jareau simply said.
"Do you believe I'm a victim of the man you're after?"
"No," she repeated. "But I do believe you know more than you're telling me."
"All I know about this is what you have told me, and what I briefly saw in the alley. I'm no help to you."
Outside the room, the couple had gotten louder and much closer. Close enough for Agent Jareau to hear them and get up from her chair. "Excuse me, I need to deal with this."
'This' being her presumed parents apparently, and their desire to see her for themselves. Belatedly, she realized she had no idea when Elizabeth had gone missing, what date today was, or how closely she resembled the missing woman. What she did know was that the O'Neill's were going to be very disappointed when they finally got to meet her.
Author: 3am_moonlight (MirroredIllusions on TtH)
Crossover: BtVS / Criminal Minds / Stargate SG-1
Rating: Gen / Teen
Word Count: 1,743
Timeline: BtVS: Post-Chose, later seasons for CM, and not decided for SG1.
Disclaimer: The Buffyverse, the Criminal Mind 'verse, and the Stargate 'verse all belong to people who are not yours truly.
Summary: Buffy jumps into Glory's portal to close it and land in a back alley somewhere else.
Author's Note: Written for Day 12 of the 2020 August Fic-A-Day.
A/N: Mixing a few tropes here, but hey, we're doing crossovers here. ;)
The last thing Buffy remembered was falling through Glorificus' interdimensional portal and then everything went black. Despite everything it had been peaceful, waking up was anything but.
Disorientation was only part of it. For one, when she managed to open her eyes, she realized she was in a back alley instead of a large backlot at the foot of a highly unstable structure. There was no tower, just a couple of dumpsters. There were also several corpses of what looked like young women around her age.
The pain was another. Her entire body ached. The ground smelled like rain-wet tarmac and newly-spilled blood with added assorted trash, but the blood wasn't hers. She hurt, but her skin hadn't been broken, she was sure of that.
Everything was hazy and the blaring sirens in the distance didn't help matters at all. The last thing she saw before blacking out again was several police cruises and two ambulances arriving at the scene.
-----
Buffy slowly regained consciousness, and the first thing she heard was the regular beeping of the heart monitor, followed by other hospital machinery. The next was the squeaky noise of hospital shoes walking outside her room some distance away, followed by the breathing of a person close to her bed.
She guessed the person was female and most likely lost in her thoughts as she wasn't moving much. Anything else she heard was hospital-related and muted in a way it only got when it was late at night. Cracking her eyelids up just enough to see a sliver confirmed her suspicions as the room was mostly dark. The only light came from the moon outside and, to a lesser degree, the artificial light from the hallway.
The person in the chair was a woman, a 30'ish blonde who was absently watching the view out the window. A slow and careful look around the room proved there was no one else. There was no sign of Willow, Xander, Giles, Tara, Dawn, or even Faith or Spike. The blonde wasn't someone she recognized.
Buffy soon slid into a peaceful, restoratory sleep without her guard noticing her guardee had been conscious at all.
-----
When Buffy opened her eyes the next time she almost immediately got eye contact with a dark-complexed woman who was studying her carefully. She blinked.
"Good morning, Miss O'Neill. You have been missed."
Buffy blinked again, this time in confusion before attempting to speak. The woman quickly got a glass of water from a table beside the bed and placed the straw close to her mouth so she could get rid of the dryness.
After drinking and swallowing a few times, she tried again. "My name isn't O'Neill. Who are you and where am I?"
The stranger frowned. "I'm Dr. Tara Lewis, and I work for the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit. We're at St. John's Hospital in Tampa, Florida."
It was Buffy's turn to frown. How did she get to Tampa? "Your parents are flying in from Colorado and are expected to land in a few hours."
She sat up, both in an attempt to clear her head but also because it felt weird laying down when there was a stranger beside her bed. "My name isn't O'Neill," she repeated. "And my parents aren't in Colorado. My mom's dead, and I don't know where my dad is." Italy, maybe? Without getting a hold of him or knowing the people around him it was difficult to keep track. Especially when her life was so chaotic.
Dr. Lewis's face changed from a frown to sympathy. "Your name is Elizabeth O'Neill. Your parents are Jack and Sara O'Neill." She shook her head deliberately, that wasn't right.
"What do you believe your name is? And what do you believe the name of your parents are?" Dr. Lewis asked, changing tactics.
"My name is Buffy Summers. My mother's name was Joyce Summers, and my father's name is Henry Summers." Then, more as an afterthought, she added, "I'm from California, not Colorado."
"While Buffy is a rare diminutive form of Elizabeth, there are no signs anyone has ever called you that. Your parents referred to you as Beth."
Buffy sighed, frustrated. "I'm not imagining this. There's nothing wrong with my memory."
"It's okay, Elizabeth. You've gone through long, traumatic captivity, I'm sure your real memories will return in time." Buffy was certain the woman meant well, but she wasn't helping. Yes, everything with Glory had been traumatic, but somehow she didn't think that was what the profiler was referring to at all.
Dr. Lewis rose and smoothed out her outfit. "I'll go and find your doctor and then see if you can't get some breakfast. Buffy politely agreed, more so the Federal Agent would leave the room and give her some space, but she wasn't paying attention. A clock on the opposite wall declared the time to be just before six AM.
What had happened? By all accounts, she should be dead. Her death closed the tearing in reality's fabric, fixing what Glory, Doc, and their minions had tried to achieve. Instead, she was in Tampa where the FBI seemed to be under the impression she'd been held in captivity somewhere. Her friends were nowhere near and nothing was familiar at all.
She fell asleep again before anyone returned. Clearly, her body needed a lot of rest to heal itself.
------
When she woke a couple of hours later the blonde was back and paying much closer attention to her.
"Good morning, Miss O'Neill. I'm SSA Jennifer Jareau with the BAU, you spoke briefly with a colleague of mine, Dr. Lewis, earlier."
Agent Jareau handed her a glass of water and waited for her to take a sip before replying. "Right. The one who thinks I've got amnesia."
An eyebrow lifted slightly, "You don't believe you do? There are no holes in your memory, no lost time?"
"No. I'm in the wrong state with people I don't know, claiming I'm someone I'm not, but other than that my memory works perfectly."
"What is the last thing you remember?"
She heard her own voice as she saw her little sister in her mind's eye. Dawn, the hardest thing in this world... is to live in it. Be brave. Live. For me.
Buffy suppressed the memory so she could deal with it later privately. "Talking to my sister, and then falling off a rickety tower." The best way to lie is to keep it as close to the truth as possible, or that's what Spike had told her once when they had discussed how badly she lied.
"Dr. Rees did say you had injuries consistent with a high fall within the last few months, and they are healing well." Concerned blue eyes met Buffy's hazel green ones. "Is that the last you remember?"
"Kind of." She quickly sorted through the truth to find an acceptable lie. Or something close enough. "I remember falling, everything going black, then a back alley with dead people and emergency personnel, blackness again, and then I was here."
It was true except for the part where she didn't mention she had made a running jump off of the tower so her sister wouldn't have to die, and she could save the world one last time. Telling the nice agent that would probably have gotten her forced sessions with a psychologist.
On second thought, those sessions might still happen, depending on what they believed had happened to her. Both women had carefully avoided telling her that.
Those blue eyes widened and she became more intense as she leaned forward a little. "Do you remember seeing anyone else in the alley?"
Buffy shook her head lightly. "Just the bodies. Then I passed out as the police and medics arrived."
"Did you see or hear the person who called 911?"
"No, but I could hear the sirens when I woke."
If it hadn't been for her enhanced vision then she was sure she would've missed the microexpressions on the agent's face, but there was definite disappointment there.
"What is it the FBI think happened to me?" No special abilities were needed this time, Agent Jareau tensed, clearly hoping she wouldn't ask just that question. Then she collected herself and began speaking in a more professional voice than before.
"The BAU was asked to help with a kidnapper and serial rapist who has been active in the area for at least four years. As you went missing in Colorado you were not suspected to be one of his victims."
She could feel her heart rate go up, even though she knew she wasn't a victim. "I've never been raped, and I've never been kidnapped either." Demons and the undead didn't count, kidnapping and attempting to kill her was part of their M.O.
"Dr. Rees did say your test came back negative for sexual assault and abuse. But she did note that the injuries from the fall should've been fatal." At least they agreed on something. Any wounds, cuts, or bruises she gained during her patrols and other fights healed overnight or within a week at the most. So there was nothing to find, excluding a few old scars she hoped no one here would ask about.
Outside the room and further down the hall, she could hear an authoritative male voice demanding to see his daughter, Elizabeth O'Neill. A lower, female voice was just as urgent. From the sounds of it, they were being stopped by two male agents at the nurses station.
"Does Dr. Rees believe I'm a victim of the man you're after?"
"No," Agent Jareau simply said.
"Do you believe I'm a victim of the man you're after?"
"No," she repeated. "But I do believe you know more than you're telling me."
"All I know about this is what you have told me, and what I briefly saw in the alley. I'm no help to you."
Outside the room, the couple had gotten louder and much closer. Close enough for Agent Jareau to hear them and get up from her chair. "Excuse me, I need to deal with this."
'This' being her presumed parents apparently, and their desire to see her for themselves. Belatedly, she realized she had no idea when Elizabeth had gone missing, what date today was, or how closely she resembled the missing woman. What she did know was that the O'Neill's were going to be very disappointed when they finally got to meet her.