Day 19 - Twenty Minutes
Title: Twenty Minutes
Author: Grundy (jerseyfabulous)
Rating: FR13
Crossover: Star Trek
Disclaimer: All belongs to Joss and Roddenberry. I just like playing in their worlds. No money is being made, it's all in good fun.
Summary: A lot can happen in 20 minutes.
Word Count: 590
Author's Note: speed write, cause 20 minutes is all I have...
A lot can happen in twenty minutes.
The world can end in twenty minutes.
It can start with the most trivial of things, and spiral rapidly outward in a series of unlikely chances, blossoming chaotically into the worst day ever.
A cyclist swerves to avoid a collision, and in the process mounts the pavement. An alarmed deliveryman tries to swing the heavy package he is carrying out of the way, in the process catching one crisp corner on the box of a woman who has paused to check something on her phone. The woman’s arm begins to bleed. It is not a trivial wound, but it is also not life-threatening.
For most women, a trip to A&E would end the story - perhaps not quite happily, but there would be little more to tell than the annoyance of having her whole afternoon disrupted and her arm stitched.
But the woman whose arm has just been sliced open is Dawn Summers. Her sister is the Slayer, but she is the Key. On any other day, this would not have mattered. But this section of the Whitechapel Road has enough darkness in its history - and not just Saucy Jack - that there are plenty of magic users of the less than good variety around, and one of them notices the change in energy surrounding the injured woman.
A whisper creates a portal, and when Dawn sees it, she decides that the fastest way to close it is to just step through it.
She should have poked her head through to check it first.
The world she lands on is undergoing the kind of seismic activity that indicates that today is not a good day to visit wherever she happens to be. The landscape is jagged, the atmosphere is hot and dry, and both are getting rapidly worse.
Damn.
She’s focusing on creating a portal to somewhere safer when the woman comes plummeting down, half a cliff in front of her. In for a penny, in for a pound, Dawn decides, and alters the portal just enough to grab the woman and leave the useless if terrifyingly large and fast moving rocks. Then she steps through it herself, sealing it just moments before the entire planet ceases to exist.
When she steps into the safe house set up in the grounds of Slayer Central for just such emergencies, Dawn looks in bemusement at the strangely dressed but very human looking woman in front of her, whose main expression is complete confusion.
“Where are we?” she demands immediately. “Where is Spock?”
“You’re welcome,” Dawn grumbles, eying her still-bleeding arm and hoping that it doesn’t take long for Willow or Giles to arrive.
“Where were we?”
The woman pauses, taking in her surroundings and Dawn’s injury.
“You’re not part of Starfleet?” she asks, puzzled. “I assumed you were also part of the rescue mission.”
Dawn blinks. There had been a rescue mission on hand? Double damn.
“Afraid not,” she sighs. “Welcome to Earth.”
Now it’s the other woman’s turn to blink.
“This doesn’t look like Earth. Unless it’s one of those retro enclaves that shun modern technology?”
She sounded so hopeful that Dawn hated to burst her bubble.
“Afraid not. Want to go back to where were we and who are you so maybe I can work on getting you back to where you belong?”
The woman paused for a second, but then visibly decided that it couldn’t hurt.
“My name is Amanda. We were on Vulcan, stardate 2258.42.”
A life can be saved in twenty minutes.
Author: Grundy (jerseyfabulous)
Rating: FR13
Crossover: Star Trek
Disclaimer: All belongs to Joss and Roddenberry. I just like playing in their worlds. No money is being made, it's all in good fun.
Summary: A lot can happen in 20 minutes.
Word Count: 590
Author's Note: speed write, cause 20 minutes is all I have...
A lot can happen in twenty minutes.
The world can end in twenty minutes.
It can start with the most trivial of things, and spiral rapidly outward in a series of unlikely chances, blossoming chaotically into the worst day ever.
A cyclist swerves to avoid a collision, and in the process mounts the pavement. An alarmed deliveryman tries to swing the heavy package he is carrying out of the way, in the process catching one crisp corner on the box of a woman who has paused to check something on her phone. The woman’s arm begins to bleed. It is not a trivial wound, but it is also not life-threatening.
For most women, a trip to A&E would end the story - perhaps not quite happily, but there would be little more to tell than the annoyance of having her whole afternoon disrupted and her arm stitched.
But the woman whose arm has just been sliced open is Dawn Summers. Her sister is the Slayer, but she is the Key. On any other day, this would not have mattered. But this section of the Whitechapel Road has enough darkness in its history - and not just Saucy Jack - that there are plenty of magic users of the less than good variety around, and one of them notices the change in energy surrounding the injured woman.
A whisper creates a portal, and when Dawn sees it, she decides that the fastest way to close it is to just step through it.
She should have poked her head through to check it first.
The world she lands on is undergoing the kind of seismic activity that indicates that today is not a good day to visit wherever she happens to be. The landscape is jagged, the atmosphere is hot and dry, and both are getting rapidly worse.
Damn.
She’s focusing on creating a portal to somewhere safer when the woman comes plummeting down, half a cliff in front of her. In for a penny, in for a pound, Dawn decides, and alters the portal just enough to grab the woman and leave the useless if terrifyingly large and fast moving rocks. Then she steps through it herself, sealing it just moments before the entire planet ceases to exist.
When she steps into the safe house set up in the grounds of Slayer Central for just such emergencies, Dawn looks in bemusement at the strangely dressed but very human looking woman in front of her, whose main expression is complete confusion.
“Where are we?” she demands immediately. “Where is Spock?”
“You’re welcome,” Dawn grumbles, eying her still-bleeding arm and hoping that it doesn’t take long for Willow or Giles to arrive.
“Where were we?”
The woman pauses, taking in her surroundings and Dawn’s injury.
“You’re not part of Starfleet?” she asks, puzzled. “I assumed you were also part of the rescue mission.”
Dawn blinks. There had been a rescue mission on hand? Double damn.
“Afraid not,” she sighs. “Welcome to Earth.”
Now it’s the other woman’s turn to blink.
“This doesn’t look like Earth. Unless it’s one of those retro enclaves that shun modern technology?”
She sounded so hopeful that Dawn hated to burst her bubble.
“Afraid not. Want to go back to where were we and who are you so maybe I can work on getting you back to where you belong?”
The woman paused for a second, but then visibly decided that it couldn’t hurt.
“My name is Amanda. We were on Vulcan, stardate 2258.42.”
A life can be saved in twenty minutes.