August 2 - Three (BtVS/Loki)
Title: Three
Author: Glitterangelem
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Loki
Characters: Variant Buffys
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,832
Notes: Another story in the Lokiverse. This one went a little depressing, but it works. What happens when Buffy meets other variants of herself?
She can’t remember how many Variants she’d met.
It was impossible to keep track of time in the Void. Impossible to tell if the other Variants she met lasted hours, days, weeks, months. Time had no meaning. Nothing really had meaning in the Void, and sometimes it took all of Buffy’s strength to keep from walking straight into Alioth and ending it all. Sometimes she didn’t know what kept her from it.
Other Variant Buffys didn’t have the same problem, after all.
That was not a completely fair thought, Buffy knew, as there were others that hid, that fought, that ran…but in the end, they were all gone. Except the one that clearly came back wrong after Willow resurrected her - and wasn’t that just a horrifying thought - and ran off after killing an evil Variant Willow.
Again, what kept her from walking straight into Alioth?
She knew why. Three.
Three Variant Buffys.
The first. Oh, the first was the hardest. Anne.
Anne had appeared in a similar fashion as she had, falling to the ground in the Void after being reset. Looking around in muted horror at her surroundings.
“Come on,” Buffy had said, grabbing the girl’s arm. “I know a safe place.”
A double-take, and then a nod from the stunned girl was all Buffy needed to drag her to a small abandoned house, half toppled over but with enough cover to protect them through at least one night. The two had sat in silence at a surprisingly sturdy table, the new girl slowly eating food the other had scrounged.
“Why do you look like me?” she finally asked, looking over at Buffy. “What did the weird soldier people mean when they called me a Variant?”
“I think we’re each other, in a way,” Buffy answered with a small shrug. “I know I’ve seen a few other people show up here that looked like duplicates. Not all the time. Some look completely different but have the same…feel, I guess. But you’re the first one I’ve seen that seems like another me. Should we both go by Buffy? Buffy 1 and Buffy 2?”
The other shook her head, a sharp jerk of motion that made Buffy pause. “No, not Buffy. I left that behind. I go by Anne. I mean, I’ve gone by Anne.”
For a moment, Buffy felt a snarky response on the tip of her tongue, Really, you leave it all behind and go by our middle name?, but forced it away at the last minute. Instead, she asked, “Why did you leave?”
At first, there was only silence as Anne looked away, staring blankly at the torn and faded yellow flowered wallpaper. The ever present wind swirling through their decrepit abode, bits of paper, leaves, and debris circling around their feet. “They were all hurt. Because of me. I don’t even know if they lived. I got kicked out of school. I made a deal with Spike. Mom kicked me out of the house. Told me to never come back. I fought Angelus and just when I made the choice to send the demon to Hell, his soul came back. And I sent Angel to Hell instead. I failed everyone. And when Lily asked me for help, and I said no, I was taken by the soldiers and found guilty. And now I’m here.”
“Where I belong,” she whispered, turning back to Buffy, tears dripping down her cheeks. “Where I deserve to be. A place of destruction, of desolation.”
The speech seemed to ignite a fire into Anne and she stood up, giving Buffy a small smile even as tears still fell. “Thank you. For bringing me here. Letting me talk. I think…I think I needed to tell someone.”
Buffy surged to her feet, stepping around the table as Anne started walking away. Grabbing her by the arm, Buffy said, “What are you doing? You’ll die out there. You didn’t fail anyone. You gave them a chance.”
Shrugging her off, as she was a much a Slayer as Buffy, Anne shook her head. “No. I wasn’t enough. But that’s okay. I know after I go out there, and I meet that creepy glowing storm thing, someone will have been there when I needed to say goodbye. Someone understood.”
The words felt like a punch in the gut and Buffy could only watch helplessly as the other her - as Anne - turned and walked away, head held high. The clouds darkened as she made her way towards the thickest cloud; the cloud where Alioth slept. When the red eyes and mouth appeared, Buffy turned away, unable to watch the end of the other girl. Not that it mattered. The roar of Alioth told her it was done.
That was the first. The hardest.
The second.
That one was the strangest.
She had started to patrol the ‘drop off’ area as she privately called the area where most people reset by the TVA landed. Most of the time, she kept her distance, not wanting to attract attention from some of the more…chaotic…beings that appeared. After dealing with a string of people with incredibly inflated egos and most with absurd hats - all calling themselves Loki - she only approached people who seemed like they needed the help.
Or other hers.
Which is why when she approached the brunette in a dark blue jean jacket and black leather pants, she did not expect the first thing the woman to say to her was, “I’m not Faith. I’m Buffy. She switched bodies with me.”
“Who? What?” Buffy had asked BuffynotFaith before shaking her head. “Okay. Explanations later. First, we run because Alioth is on its way here.”
Looking over her shoulder, BuffynotFaith raised an eyebrow as she said, “The big ookie glowing cloud thing moving this way? Yeah, good call. Anything that looks that Hellmouthy is not of the good.”
Without another word, both sprinted away.
Later, in what Buffy supposed was considered night as it was slightly darker than other times, sitting in front of a fire they had made in the collapsed remains of a cave, she asked, “So who is Faith? And why do you look like her?”
“Faith is the other Slayer. After I died, and after Kendra died, Faith was the next one called,” she explained nonchalantly, seemingly not noticing the flabbergasted look on Buffy’s face. “She went evil for awhile, I stabbed her in a fight to help get blood to save Angel, she was in a coma, woke up and found some device the Mayor left her and poof! Switched bodies with me. I guess, according to the TVA creeps, I was supposed to switch back. But after I got away from the Watchers chasing me, I just kept running. Took the TVA awhile to catch up with me, even with their technology and time slow, but they got me and sent me here.”
Buffy blinked. Once. Twice. A third time. Putting her hand up, she said, “I think I need some processing time. That was. A lot.”
BuffynotFaith shrugged. “Yeah. I know I should have gone after Faith and switched back but maybe I just…wanted to be selfish. I didn’t want to have to be on everyone else’s pedestal. Didn’t want all the expectations anymore. I just wanted to be free.”
Something about the way BuffynotFaith talked irked Buffy. Bringing her legs up against her chest and hugging them close, as if to protect herself from the casual selfishness of the other Slayer, she asked, “But if Faith is so evil, what’s going to happen to your friends? To Giles? To everyone?”
The other her averted her gaze, as if not wanting to accept the responsibility of her decisions. The fire crackled as one of the logs fell apart, and the flickering flames sent shadows across her face. “I guess it doesn’t matter. They reset the timeline when they captured me so I guess other me will make better decisions.”
Bitterness tinted her words, and Buffy couldn’t bring herself to ask anymore questions. Instead, they both sat silently in the dark, the snapping of burning logs and the heavy winds of the Void the only sounds for the rest of the night.
The next day, when Buffy woke up, groggy from the smoke, wiping dirt and ashes off her face, BuffynotFaith bounced up beside her. “About time you got up. I’ve been bouncing off the walls, wanting to explore this place. Really get a feel for it.”
“It’s not all sunshine and roses around here,” Buffy snapped, instantly regretting it at the hurt look on the other Slayer’s face. “We just have to watch out. There’s a lot of other people I want to avoid.”
“Great!” BuffynotFaith said and off they went.
She lasted longer than Anne, but she was too foolhardy, took too many risks. Buffy sometimes wondered if BuffynotFaith was more Faith than Buffy.
It was a raid on the Lokis that was her step too far.
“Look,” she explained to Buffy one day while they explored a crazy advanced tower, “The Lokis always get the best of the stuff that appears here. The best food. The best weapons. The best clothes. I’ve been watching them for awhile and they always leave most of the stuff unguarded when they chase after one of the rogue packs. I say we sneak in when they’re gone, take what we want, and get gone.”
Glaring at her, Buffy shook her head. “That’s a no for me. Considering how backstabby they are to each other, I bet they keep scouts just in case someone else goes it. It’s too risky.”
With a snort, BuffynotFaith rolled her eyes. “Fine. You stay here. But I’m going to claim the best goodies while they’re gone.”
Without even a goodbye, the other Slayer stalked off, leaving the tower and quickly disappearing through another decaying building. Buffy stared after her, forehead wrinkled in concern. In worry. She should chase her but she didn’t want to die. And crossing the Lokis was a sure death wish.
BuffynotFaith never came back.
Maybe she got away, went to hide somewhere else, lead her own little kingdom within the Void but Buffy didn’t believe it. And that was the second.
The third.
The third hurt the most. But at the same time, gave her the most hope.
She found her at the same spot as the others. But when this one appeared, she didn’t fall to the ground. She landed in a crouch, eyes already surveying the area. As soon as her gaze fell onto Alioth, she snapped, “Clearly that’s a thing to avoid. Let’s go. Lead the way, since you seem prepped.”
Not used to having someone recover so quickly, an unnerved Buffy led the new Slayer away, up, up, up, up onto the cliffside that overlooked the remnants of pruned cities, to the newest hideout she created. The new her looked around and nodded. “High ground, good view of that monster. And I supposed human like monsters that lurk around, with the sneaking you did to get us up here.”
“Who are you? Why did you get reset?” Buffy couldn’t help but ask.
The other woman chuckled. “An older you, I guess. When the TVA caught me and took me to their retro base, I escaped the metal manacles. Clearly, they don’t usually have prisoners run amuck because there are an array of fantastic places to hide. I almost got hold of their little computers when they caught me again. After Sunnydale was destroyed and we activated all the Slayers, we were building a Slayer Organization, to make sure Slayers had a voice and were never used as disposable weapons again. A being called Twilight started organizing against us and killed some of our Slayers and allies. When I found out that Angel was Twilight, that he was the one that had killed my girls, my friends, and he gave me some crazy story about our love being divine and fated, I refused him. When his invulnerability ran out, I staked him.”
Spreading her arms, Older Buffy said, “And broke the sacred timeline. And now I’m here.”
Buffy was beginning to think that a lot of her problems with the sacred timeline began and ended with Angel. For someone who supposedly had an important role, he sure screwed up her life a lot.
Shaking her head away from that thought, not wanting to voice it aloud, she instead said, “Everytime I meet a variant, I think their story won’t be beat. I’m wrong every. Single. Time.”
“I guess we Buffys are always breaking the rules,” Older Buffy said with a smile. For the first time since landing in the Void, Buffy felt the tension between her shoulders relax, just the slightest. For the first time, it felt like she met a Variant that understood her. For the first time, she felt a connection between another Buffy.
It was something she would never forget.
They spent the first night in a ship that had crashed landed in the Void, its inhabitants long gone. But Buffy had managed to create a nice enough living space in the old cockpit, completely with make shift beds that still gave a view of the Void around them. Between the two of them, they managed to make an even more livable place as time went by. It was the closest to a home that Buffy had felt in…well, who knows how long, really.
Too long.
But some things were not meant to last.
It was from that view out the cockpit that Older Buffy spotted one of the rogue Loki groups.
“What’s up with the hat guys?” she asked, taking a bite of an unknown but consumable plant they had found. “I’ve spotted a few groups on the last few patrols we did, but that one seems…different than the others.”
Cranking her head around to look, Buffy nodded. “They are different. I avoid all the Lokis - the hat guys - like the plague, but those ones seem different. I mean, they’re also pretty easy to differentiate because they’re the only ones walking around with an alligator with a hat.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty wild. Even in all this.”
That surprised a laugh out of Buffy. “Yeah, makes it easy to get a feel for them. But they stick to more hidden places. They take care of each other, which is rare here. I sometimes almost want to meet them but I how could I ever trust them?”
Older Buffy turned to her, her sharp eyes catching Buffy’s. “Sometimes, its worth going out on a limb to trust others. Even in the darkest of times.”
Not having an answer to that, Buffy instead shifted to look back at the rogue Loki group. A gasp escaped her as she saw another group watching them, following them, sneaking up on them…
“Shit,” Older Buffy swore, flowing out of her chair in an instant. By the time Buffy threw the blankets off and stood up, Older Buffy had already grabbed weapons and was by the door. She moved to follow the older her, but was brought to a halt has one of the weapons was aimed at her chest. “Don’t follow me. I’m probably not going to make it out, not with that many of them. I know they use magic and are experts in different weapons. But if I can distract them enough to save the other Lokis? The ones that seem decent?”
“It would be worth it.”
Buffy shook her head, her vision blurring with tears for the first time since landing in the Void. “Please, let me help. I can’t…I’ve lived so long by myself. I don’t think I can be alone again.”
The weapon lowered and Older Buffy walked over and pulled the other Slayer into an embrace. “You are stronger than any of us. You’ve lasted this long in the Void and survived. When I’m gone, find in your heart a way to trust. And maybe start with those Lokis. Anyone willing to trust an alligator has to have some redeeming qualities.”
That shook another laugh out of Buffy and with that, Older Buffy was gone.
That was the third.
So many variants, so much time, but those three were the ones she remembered the most. The fragile one, so broken by her decisions to put others before her. The foolhardy one, taking greater and greater risks to escape her own decisions. And the wise one, knowing how to make the decisions that matter. That make a difference.
Those were the ones that kept her going in the Void. Kept her from giving up and just allowing Alioth to take her. And as she followed the rogue Loki group, with the young Loki, the old Loki, the alligator Loki, and a shockingly loud Loki, she knew she would eventually meet them.
When the time was right. And time was all she had, in the Void.
Author: Glitterangelem
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Loki
Characters: Variant Buffys
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,832
Notes: Another story in the Lokiverse. This one went a little depressing, but it works. What happens when Buffy meets other variants of herself?
She can’t remember how many Variants she’d met.
It was impossible to keep track of time in the Void. Impossible to tell if the other Variants she met lasted hours, days, weeks, months. Time had no meaning. Nothing really had meaning in the Void, and sometimes it took all of Buffy’s strength to keep from walking straight into Alioth and ending it all. Sometimes she didn’t know what kept her from it.
Other Variant Buffys didn’t have the same problem, after all.
That was not a completely fair thought, Buffy knew, as there were others that hid, that fought, that ran…but in the end, they were all gone. Except the one that clearly came back wrong after Willow resurrected her - and wasn’t that just a horrifying thought - and ran off after killing an evil Variant Willow.
Again, what kept her from walking straight into Alioth?
She knew why. Three.
Three Variant Buffys.
The first. Oh, the first was the hardest. Anne.
Anne had appeared in a similar fashion as she had, falling to the ground in the Void after being reset. Looking around in muted horror at her surroundings.
“Come on,” Buffy had said, grabbing the girl’s arm. “I know a safe place.”
A double-take, and then a nod from the stunned girl was all Buffy needed to drag her to a small abandoned house, half toppled over but with enough cover to protect them through at least one night. The two had sat in silence at a surprisingly sturdy table, the new girl slowly eating food the other had scrounged.
“Why do you look like me?” she finally asked, looking over at Buffy. “What did the weird soldier people mean when they called me a Variant?”
“I think we’re each other, in a way,” Buffy answered with a small shrug. “I know I’ve seen a few other people show up here that looked like duplicates. Not all the time. Some look completely different but have the same…feel, I guess. But you’re the first one I’ve seen that seems like another me. Should we both go by Buffy? Buffy 1 and Buffy 2?”
The other shook her head, a sharp jerk of motion that made Buffy pause. “No, not Buffy. I left that behind. I go by Anne. I mean, I’ve gone by Anne.”
For a moment, Buffy felt a snarky response on the tip of her tongue, Really, you leave it all behind and go by our middle name?, but forced it away at the last minute. Instead, she asked, “Why did you leave?”
At first, there was only silence as Anne looked away, staring blankly at the torn and faded yellow flowered wallpaper. The ever present wind swirling through their decrepit abode, bits of paper, leaves, and debris circling around their feet. “They were all hurt. Because of me. I don’t even know if they lived. I got kicked out of school. I made a deal with Spike. Mom kicked me out of the house. Told me to never come back. I fought Angelus and just when I made the choice to send the demon to Hell, his soul came back. And I sent Angel to Hell instead. I failed everyone. And when Lily asked me for help, and I said no, I was taken by the soldiers and found guilty. And now I’m here.”
“Where I belong,” she whispered, turning back to Buffy, tears dripping down her cheeks. “Where I deserve to be. A place of destruction, of desolation.”
The speech seemed to ignite a fire into Anne and she stood up, giving Buffy a small smile even as tears still fell. “Thank you. For bringing me here. Letting me talk. I think…I think I needed to tell someone.”
Buffy surged to her feet, stepping around the table as Anne started walking away. Grabbing her by the arm, Buffy said, “What are you doing? You’ll die out there. You didn’t fail anyone. You gave them a chance.”
Shrugging her off, as she was a much a Slayer as Buffy, Anne shook her head. “No. I wasn’t enough. But that’s okay. I know after I go out there, and I meet that creepy glowing storm thing, someone will have been there when I needed to say goodbye. Someone understood.”
The words felt like a punch in the gut and Buffy could only watch helplessly as the other her - as Anne - turned and walked away, head held high. The clouds darkened as she made her way towards the thickest cloud; the cloud where Alioth slept. When the red eyes and mouth appeared, Buffy turned away, unable to watch the end of the other girl. Not that it mattered. The roar of Alioth told her it was done.
That was the first. The hardest.
The second.
That one was the strangest.
She had started to patrol the ‘drop off’ area as she privately called the area where most people reset by the TVA landed. Most of the time, she kept her distance, not wanting to attract attention from some of the more…chaotic…beings that appeared. After dealing with a string of people with incredibly inflated egos and most with absurd hats - all calling themselves Loki - she only approached people who seemed like they needed the help.
Or other hers.
Which is why when she approached the brunette in a dark blue jean jacket and black leather pants, she did not expect the first thing the woman to say to her was, “I’m not Faith. I’m Buffy. She switched bodies with me.”
“Who? What?” Buffy had asked BuffynotFaith before shaking her head. “Okay. Explanations later. First, we run because Alioth is on its way here.”
Looking over her shoulder, BuffynotFaith raised an eyebrow as she said, “The big ookie glowing cloud thing moving this way? Yeah, good call. Anything that looks that Hellmouthy is not of the good.”
Without another word, both sprinted away.
Later, in what Buffy supposed was considered night as it was slightly darker than other times, sitting in front of a fire they had made in the collapsed remains of a cave, she asked, “So who is Faith? And why do you look like her?”
“Faith is the other Slayer. After I died, and after Kendra died, Faith was the next one called,” she explained nonchalantly, seemingly not noticing the flabbergasted look on Buffy’s face. “She went evil for awhile, I stabbed her in a fight to help get blood to save Angel, she was in a coma, woke up and found some device the Mayor left her and poof! Switched bodies with me. I guess, according to the TVA creeps, I was supposed to switch back. But after I got away from the Watchers chasing me, I just kept running. Took the TVA awhile to catch up with me, even with their technology and time slow, but they got me and sent me here.”
Buffy blinked. Once. Twice. A third time. Putting her hand up, she said, “I think I need some processing time. That was. A lot.”
BuffynotFaith shrugged. “Yeah. I know I should have gone after Faith and switched back but maybe I just…wanted to be selfish. I didn’t want to have to be on everyone else’s pedestal. Didn’t want all the expectations anymore. I just wanted to be free.”
Something about the way BuffynotFaith talked irked Buffy. Bringing her legs up against her chest and hugging them close, as if to protect herself from the casual selfishness of the other Slayer, she asked, “But if Faith is so evil, what’s going to happen to your friends? To Giles? To everyone?”
The other her averted her gaze, as if not wanting to accept the responsibility of her decisions. The fire crackled as one of the logs fell apart, and the flickering flames sent shadows across her face. “I guess it doesn’t matter. They reset the timeline when they captured me so I guess other me will make better decisions.”
Bitterness tinted her words, and Buffy couldn’t bring herself to ask anymore questions. Instead, they both sat silently in the dark, the snapping of burning logs and the heavy winds of the Void the only sounds for the rest of the night.
The next day, when Buffy woke up, groggy from the smoke, wiping dirt and ashes off her face, BuffynotFaith bounced up beside her. “About time you got up. I’ve been bouncing off the walls, wanting to explore this place. Really get a feel for it.”
“It’s not all sunshine and roses around here,” Buffy snapped, instantly regretting it at the hurt look on the other Slayer’s face. “We just have to watch out. There’s a lot of other people I want to avoid.”
“Great!” BuffynotFaith said and off they went.
She lasted longer than Anne, but she was too foolhardy, took too many risks. Buffy sometimes wondered if BuffynotFaith was more Faith than Buffy.
It was a raid on the Lokis that was her step too far.
“Look,” she explained to Buffy one day while they explored a crazy advanced tower, “The Lokis always get the best of the stuff that appears here. The best food. The best weapons. The best clothes. I’ve been watching them for awhile and they always leave most of the stuff unguarded when they chase after one of the rogue packs. I say we sneak in when they’re gone, take what we want, and get gone.”
Glaring at her, Buffy shook her head. “That’s a no for me. Considering how backstabby they are to each other, I bet they keep scouts just in case someone else goes it. It’s too risky.”
With a snort, BuffynotFaith rolled her eyes. “Fine. You stay here. But I’m going to claim the best goodies while they’re gone.”
Without even a goodbye, the other Slayer stalked off, leaving the tower and quickly disappearing through another decaying building. Buffy stared after her, forehead wrinkled in concern. In worry. She should chase her but she didn’t want to die. And crossing the Lokis was a sure death wish.
BuffynotFaith never came back.
Maybe she got away, went to hide somewhere else, lead her own little kingdom within the Void but Buffy didn’t believe it. And that was the second.
The third.
The third hurt the most. But at the same time, gave her the most hope.
She found her at the same spot as the others. But when this one appeared, she didn’t fall to the ground. She landed in a crouch, eyes already surveying the area. As soon as her gaze fell onto Alioth, she snapped, “Clearly that’s a thing to avoid. Let’s go. Lead the way, since you seem prepped.”
Not used to having someone recover so quickly, an unnerved Buffy led the new Slayer away, up, up, up, up onto the cliffside that overlooked the remnants of pruned cities, to the newest hideout she created. The new her looked around and nodded. “High ground, good view of that monster. And I supposed human like monsters that lurk around, with the sneaking you did to get us up here.”
“Who are you? Why did you get reset?” Buffy couldn’t help but ask.
The other woman chuckled. “An older you, I guess. When the TVA caught me and took me to their retro base, I escaped the metal manacles. Clearly, they don’t usually have prisoners run amuck because there are an array of fantastic places to hide. I almost got hold of their little computers when they caught me again. After Sunnydale was destroyed and we activated all the Slayers, we were building a Slayer Organization, to make sure Slayers had a voice and were never used as disposable weapons again. A being called Twilight started organizing against us and killed some of our Slayers and allies. When I found out that Angel was Twilight, that he was the one that had killed my girls, my friends, and he gave me some crazy story about our love being divine and fated, I refused him. When his invulnerability ran out, I staked him.”
Spreading her arms, Older Buffy said, “And broke the sacred timeline. And now I’m here.”
Buffy was beginning to think that a lot of her problems with the sacred timeline began and ended with Angel. For someone who supposedly had an important role, he sure screwed up her life a lot.
Shaking her head away from that thought, not wanting to voice it aloud, she instead said, “Everytime I meet a variant, I think their story won’t be beat. I’m wrong every. Single. Time.”
“I guess we Buffys are always breaking the rules,” Older Buffy said with a smile. For the first time since landing in the Void, Buffy felt the tension between her shoulders relax, just the slightest. For the first time, it felt like she met a Variant that understood her. For the first time, she felt a connection between another Buffy.
It was something she would never forget.
They spent the first night in a ship that had crashed landed in the Void, its inhabitants long gone. But Buffy had managed to create a nice enough living space in the old cockpit, completely with make shift beds that still gave a view of the Void around them. Between the two of them, they managed to make an even more livable place as time went by. It was the closest to a home that Buffy had felt in…well, who knows how long, really.
Too long.
But some things were not meant to last.
It was from that view out the cockpit that Older Buffy spotted one of the rogue Loki groups.
“What’s up with the hat guys?” she asked, taking a bite of an unknown but consumable plant they had found. “I’ve spotted a few groups on the last few patrols we did, but that one seems…different than the others.”
Cranking her head around to look, Buffy nodded. “They are different. I avoid all the Lokis - the hat guys - like the plague, but those ones seem different. I mean, they’re also pretty easy to differentiate because they’re the only ones walking around with an alligator with a hat.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty wild. Even in all this.”
That surprised a laugh out of Buffy. “Yeah, makes it easy to get a feel for them. But they stick to more hidden places. They take care of each other, which is rare here. I sometimes almost want to meet them but I how could I ever trust them?”
Older Buffy turned to her, her sharp eyes catching Buffy’s. “Sometimes, its worth going out on a limb to trust others. Even in the darkest of times.”
Not having an answer to that, Buffy instead shifted to look back at the rogue Loki group. A gasp escaped her as she saw another group watching them, following them, sneaking up on them…
“Shit,” Older Buffy swore, flowing out of her chair in an instant. By the time Buffy threw the blankets off and stood up, Older Buffy had already grabbed weapons and was by the door. She moved to follow the older her, but was brought to a halt has one of the weapons was aimed at her chest. “Don’t follow me. I’m probably not going to make it out, not with that many of them. I know they use magic and are experts in different weapons. But if I can distract them enough to save the other Lokis? The ones that seem decent?”
“It would be worth it.”
Buffy shook her head, her vision blurring with tears for the first time since landing in the Void. “Please, let me help. I can’t…I’ve lived so long by myself. I don’t think I can be alone again.”
The weapon lowered and Older Buffy walked over and pulled the other Slayer into an embrace. “You are stronger than any of us. You’ve lasted this long in the Void and survived. When I’m gone, find in your heart a way to trust. And maybe start with those Lokis. Anyone willing to trust an alligator has to have some redeeming qualities.”
That shook another laugh out of Buffy and with that, Older Buffy was gone.
That was the third.
So many variants, so much time, but those three were the ones she remembered the most. The fragile one, so broken by her decisions to put others before her. The foolhardy one, taking greater and greater risks to escape her own decisions. And the wise one, knowing how to make the decisions that matter. That make a difference.
Those were the ones that kept her going in the Void. Kept her from giving up and just allowing Alioth to take her. And as she followed the rogue Loki group, with the young Loki, the old Loki, the alligator Loki, and a shockingly loud Loki, she knew she would eventually meet them.
When the time was right. And time was all she had, in the Void.