August 27 - Emotionally Overwhelmed (BtVS/Loki)
Title: Emotionally Overwhelmed
Author: Glitterangelem
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Loki
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,351
Summary: Both Buffys deal with some emotional fallout.
Willow found her in a library.
It was fitting, really, for Buffy to be drawn to a library in her time of need. Her formative years were spent in a library, hours and hours of researching, training, studying, laughing, crying…in a way, the Buffy Summers that was here, now, was shaped by that time.
The younger Buffy - Void Buffy, Willow supposed, did not have as much of that luxury.
“Hey,” Willow called softly, footsteps haltingly slow as she approached the Slayer. “So that was crazy back there.”
Buffy turned around, and Willow could see her eyes were red from crying, her face shiny from brushing tears away. Without hesitation, Willow stepped into the Slayer’s personal space and pulled her into a hug, Buffy dropping her head onto Willow’s shoulder. For a moment, Slayer and witch stood there, Willow giving her best friend the strength that, for once, she didn’t have.
Slowly, Buffy pulled out of the hug and they drifted over to two chairs next to a bookcase, each of them slowly easing into them. Staring at the rows and rows of books, each organized just so, Buffy finally said in a hoarse voice, “All these years, we thought we were making our own choices, our own decisions. That the decisions we made were the right choices for us.”
“And if what she is saying is true, none of that was really our own decisions,” she said bitterly, turning to stare at Willow. “It was the way the timeline was supposed to go.”
There was nothing Willow could say to that as she looked down at her hands, still processing the information they were told, the long scale consequences of what it all meant.
“And that means everyone that has died along the way, everyone we tried to save, everyone that was taken from us when we weren’t ready, were supposed to die,” Buffy snarled, “All for the greater good. The sacred timeline. Because if that Buffy staked Angel, that means that Ms. Calendar wouldn’t have died. Who else would we have saved? But his life was more important than hers.”
“But maybe, there were only certain things that they decided,” Willow interjected, her brow furrowing as she pondered Buffy’s words. “Maybe some things had such a huge butterfly effect, that they needed to reset what happened. If Angel would have died after the Judge died, what would have happened with Spike and Drusilla? Spike never would have betrayed her, and maybe we wouldn’t have beaten them. Think of all the things Angel did that was instrumental in our lives? Maybe it would have been better, or maybe they needed certain things to occur?”
Sighing, Buffy shook her head. “Maybe. But how can we go back in there, go back to the other Slayer, and justify what was done to her? She was sent somewhere she never thought she could escape and lived there, survived there for years. How can we help her?”
Meeting Buffy’s gaze with sad eyes, Willow whispered, “Maybe we can’t. We can’t change the past, and seeing us, having lived a life she couldn’t have, might be too hard. How would you feel? How would any of us feel?”
*****
After Buffy and Willow had left, the rest of the group at the table had dispersed, most wandering aimlessly exploring the maze of the house. Giles found himself in a room filled with items in glass displays, each more extraordinary than the last. Some he even recognized as being considered lost thousands of years ago.
The Old Council members would have sacrificed a thousand Slayers to get their hands on some of them.
So entranced was he by the artifacts, that he jumped in surprise when he stumbled upon the Void Buffy sitting up against the wall, her eyes closed, her arms wrapped around her legs.
“You know, I thought about you a lot in the Void,” she said quietly, unexpectedly, and Giles slowly moved towards her, lowering himself to the ground near her. “When I first got there, it was a culture shock. Hello, cloud of doom, goodbye, hot showers.”
Questions arose from many things in that statement, but he stayed silent, listening to her story. Her life.
“And it was hard, at first, figuring out what to do. Knowing it would be really hard to go back, if I ever really could. I had just sacrificed the person I loved, and I was stuck in the Void. There were days I wanted to give up.”
“But every time that thought came to my head, I thought of you,” she said, opening her eyes and staring into his. “You came into my life, and I tried my hardest to run away from you. To escape my calling. But you were always there, always willing to support me, even when I was determined to have a life and be a high school student, and have friends and people I loved working with me, even though it was totally against all the rules.”
“And you trained me, helped me figure out my strength, spent hours researching every creature I fought against. You never gave up on me. And those days when it was the worst, I knew I could get through it. Because you showed me I could do anything.”
The words were so matter-of-fact, so certain, that Giles was overwhelmed by them all. Taking his glasses off, he wiped them gently, before placing them back on. “When I first met you, I was, frankly, disappointed. Here I was, in the Boca del Infierno, and my Slayer wanted nothing to do with me. Yet, from that first day on, I knew you were exceptional. While I played a role in guiding you, mentoring you on your path, your inner strength was more powerful than you could ever imagine.”
“I’m not at all surprised you lived and survived in the Void. Your power shone on that first day, and it only grew stronger.”
That got a smile out of her. “You know, I found this Tower when I was in the Void, hiding from other people, and there was this computer that ran the whole Tower. It couldn’t remember its name, but it had a British accent. So I named it Giles.”
“What?” he asked, thinking he heard her wrong.
This time, she gave him a real smile. “He didn’t like it that much, being called Giles, but he didn’t remember his name. What else I was going to call him? ‘Hey, random voice in the wall that takes care of everything in this Tower’ was way too wordy.”
“I don’t know if I should be honored or insulted that you named a computer’s voice after me,” Giles said, giving her a smile of his own.
Sheepishly, she admitted, “He’s kinda here. In a way. So somehow, Kid Loki worked with him and figured out how to get a copy in a portable format, in case we had to leave in a hurry. When we escaped the Void, he was carrying the portable Giles with him, in the pack he carried everywhere.”
“You know, your Buffy already met another Buffy,” she teased with the hint of an impish grin. “Maybe its your turn to meet another Giles.”
He chuckled at that, the and the two fell into a comfortable silence before Buffy hesitantly said, “Hey, Giles?”
“Yes?” he asked.
“What about my - Buffy’s - mom? Is…is she okay in this universe?” Void Buffy asked tentatively, and Giles’ heart broke at the slight hope in the girl’s eyes.
Closing his eyes momentarily, he opened them again and whispered, “Oh my dear girl,” and her hope vanished. Her lips quivered for a moment before she fell forward in shuddering sobs, the cries of a girl whose heart was broken. Pulling her against his chest, Void Buffy wept, clutching onto his shirt like a lifeline. Even knowing this wasn’t his Buffy, knowing this was a very different girl than the one he trained all those years, didn’t change his reaction.
His Slayer needed him. And he would always be there for her.
Author: Glitterangelem
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Loki
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,351
Summary: Both Buffys deal with some emotional fallout.
Willow found her in a library.
It was fitting, really, for Buffy to be drawn to a library in her time of need. Her formative years were spent in a library, hours and hours of researching, training, studying, laughing, crying…in a way, the Buffy Summers that was here, now, was shaped by that time.
The younger Buffy - Void Buffy, Willow supposed, did not have as much of that luxury.
“Hey,” Willow called softly, footsteps haltingly slow as she approached the Slayer. “So that was crazy back there.”
Buffy turned around, and Willow could see her eyes were red from crying, her face shiny from brushing tears away. Without hesitation, Willow stepped into the Slayer’s personal space and pulled her into a hug, Buffy dropping her head onto Willow’s shoulder. For a moment, Slayer and witch stood there, Willow giving her best friend the strength that, for once, she didn’t have.
Slowly, Buffy pulled out of the hug and they drifted over to two chairs next to a bookcase, each of them slowly easing into them. Staring at the rows and rows of books, each organized just so, Buffy finally said in a hoarse voice, “All these years, we thought we were making our own choices, our own decisions. That the decisions we made were the right choices for us.”
“And if what she is saying is true, none of that was really our own decisions,” she said bitterly, turning to stare at Willow. “It was the way the timeline was supposed to go.”
There was nothing Willow could say to that as she looked down at her hands, still processing the information they were told, the long scale consequences of what it all meant.
“And that means everyone that has died along the way, everyone we tried to save, everyone that was taken from us when we weren’t ready, were supposed to die,” Buffy snarled, “All for the greater good. The sacred timeline. Because if that Buffy staked Angel, that means that Ms. Calendar wouldn’t have died. Who else would we have saved? But his life was more important than hers.”
“But maybe, there were only certain things that they decided,” Willow interjected, her brow furrowing as she pondered Buffy’s words. “Maybe some things had such a huge butterfly effect, that they needed to reset what happened. If Angel would have died after the Judge died, what would have happened with Spike and Drusilla? Spike never would have betrayed her, and maybe we wouldn’t have beaten them. Think of all the things Angel did that was instrumental in our lives? Maybe it would have been better, or maybe they needed certain things to occur?”
Sighing, Buffy shook her head. “Maybe. But how can we go back in there, go back to the other Slayer, and justify what was done to her? She was sent somewhere she never thought she could escape and lived there, survived there for years. How can we help her?”
Meeting Buffy’s gaze with sad eyes, Willow whispered, “Maybe we can’t. We can’t change the past, and seeing us, having lived a life she couldn’t have, might be too hard. How would you feel? How would any of us feel?”
*****
After Buffy and Willow had left, the rest of the group at the table had dispersed, most wandering aimlessly exploring the maze of the house. Giles found himself in a room filled with items in glass displays, each more extraordinary than the last. Some he even recognized as being considered lost thousands of years ago.
The Old Council members would have sacrificed a thousand Slayers to get their hands on some of them.
So entranced was he by the artifacts, that he jumped in surprise when he stumbled upon the Void Buffy sitting up against the wall, her eyes closed, her arms wrapped around her legs.
“You know, I thought about you a lot in the Void,” she said quietly, unexpectedly, and Giles slowly moved towards her, lowering himself to the ground near her. “When I first got there, it was a culture shock. Hello, cloud of doom, goodbye, hot showers.”
Questions arose from many things in that statement, but he stayed silent, listening to her story. Her life.
“And it was hard, at first, figuring out what to do. Knowing it would be really hard to go back, if I ever really could. I had just sacrificed the person I loved, and I was stuck in the Void. There were days I wanted to give up.”
“But every time that thought came to my head, I thought of you,” she said, opening her eyes and staring into his. “You came into my life, and I tried my hardest to run away from you. To escape my calling. But you were always there, always willing to support me, even when I was determined to have a life and be a high school student, and have friends and people I loved working with me, even though it was totally against all the rules.”
“And you trained me, helped me figure out my strength, spent hours researching every creature I fought against. You never gave up on me. And those days when it was the worst, I knew I could get through it. Because you showed me I could do anything.”
The words were so matter-of-fact, so certain, that Giles was overwhelmed by them all. Taking his glasses off, he wiped them gently, before placing them back on. “When I first met you, I was, frankly, disappointed. Here I was, in the Boca del Infierno, and my Slayer wanted nothing to do with me. Yet, from that first day on, I knew you were exceptional. While I played a role in guiding you, mentoring you on your path, your inner strength was more powerful than you could ever imagine.”
“I’m not at all surprised you lived and survived in the Void. Your power shone on that first day, and it only grew stronger.”
That got a smile out of her. “You know, I found this Tower when I was in the Void, hiding from other people, and there was this computer that ran the whole Tower. It couldn’t remember its name, but it had a British accent. So I named it Giles.”
“What?” he asked, thinking he heard her wrong.
This time, she gave him a real smile. “He didn’t like it that much, being called Giles, but he didn’t remember his name. What else I was going to call him? ‘Hey, random voice in the wall that takes care of everything in this Tower’ was way too wordy.”
“I don’t know if I should be honored or insulted that you named a computer’s voice after me,” Giles said, giving her a smile of his own.
Sheepishly, she admitted, “He’s kinda here. In a way. So somehow, Kid Loki worked with him and figured out how to get a copy in a portable format, in case we had to leave in a hurry. When we escaped the Void, he was carrying the portable Giles with him, in the pack he carried everywhere.”
“You know, your Buffy already met another Buffy,” she teased with the hint of an impish grin. “Maybe its your turn to meet another Giles.”
He chuckled at that, the and the two fell into a comfortable silence before Buffy hesitantly said, “Hey, Giles?”
“Yes?” he asked.
“What about my - Buffy’s - mom? Is…is she okay in this universe?” Void Buffy asked tentatively, and Giles’ heart broke at the slight hope in the girl’s eyes.
Closing his eyes momentarily, he opened them again and whispered, “Oh my dear girl,” and her hope vanished. Her lips quivered for a moment before she fell forward in shuddering sobs, the cries of a girl whose heart was broken. Pulling her against his chest, Void Buffy wept, clutching onto his shirt like a lifeline. Even knowing this wasn’t his Buffy, knowing this was a very different girl than the one he trained all those years, didn’t change his reaction.
His Slayer needed him. And he would always be there for her.