Two Hearts Beat Loud
Title: Two Hearts Beat Loud
Author: kerrykhat
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG
Summary: Buffy stared at the man who said he was a doctor, listening to the two hearts beating in his chest.
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon owns "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and related characters; the BBC owns "Doctor Who" and related characters; I own nothing.
Word Count: 2438
Author's Notes: Response to the prompt, "brown" for crossovers100. Some dialogue taken from the episode "Anne".
Walking down the rundown LA street after a long night of waiting tables, Buffy was too absorbed in her thoughts and loneliness to hear a somewhat familiar voice calling out behind her.
"Anne?" No response. "Anne?" the voice repeated, this time with a little more force. "Buffy?" That caught her attention. She turned around and saw a young woman standing awkwardly a few feet behind her. She stared at the woman, trying to place her. "Don't be mad!" the woman exclaimed. "I won't turn you in or nothing. I guess you don't recognize me."
"Lily?" Buffy asked, trying to remember where exactly she had seen Lily before seeing her in the diner a few days ago. It was at the back of her mind, pestering and taunting her.
"I mean from before," Lily clarified, walking closer to Buffy. "I was calling myself Chantarelle then. I used to.." She paused with a sigh, and suddenly, Buffy could place her face amongst the darkness and Goth clothes from a few months ago. "Well, I was in this cult that worshipped vampires. So lame, I know."
"Yeah... I, uh, I remember that," Buffy assured her, wondering what Lily wanted.
"You kinda saved us," Lily stated, shrugging her shoulders awkwardly. "I never thanked you or anything."
"Did you tell anyone who I was?" Buffy asked, a little more insistently than she meant to. She didn't want anybody to know that Buffy Summers was hiding in Los Angeles when she didn't want to be found.
"No! Not even Rickie!" Lily exclaimed, with a slightly understanding look on her face. "I mean, I was so surprised to see you here, waiting tables. But I wouldn't tell. I know how it is when you gotta get lost."
They started walking towards the street where Buffy lived, talking about their respective chosen--or in Lily's case, assigned--names. Lily then went on to invite Buffy to a rave that she and Rickie were thinking of going to, only to have Buffy shoot the idea down in a heartbeat. The reason she gave Lily--that it would be too crowded--was partly true, but there was another reason behind her refusal: in all likelihood, there would be vampires at this rave, waiting to lure out somebody in order to feed. Buffy didn't want to go to a place where she would be reminded of what she was trying to escape and where she would feel obligated to intervene. Being the Slayer had only brought her heartache and pain, and it wasn't a life she wanted to return to.
"I-I do have the money, though," she added when she saw Lily's fallen face. "Why don't you and Ricke go, and then maybe I could met you some other time..." Lily raised her hands and waved down the offer.
"No, it's OK," she answered, somewhat sadly. "Just forget about it. Just..." She was interrupted, however, by an old man in worn out clothes shoving past her. "That's not very polite," Lily admonished the man with a frown on her face. He turned around and stared at the two girls, a blank expression on his weathered face.
"Are you OK?" Buffy asked, feeling concerned in spite of the emotional walls she had placed around herself ever since Angel's death.
"I'm no one," he answered hollowly. Buffy looked at him in confusion, not understanding what he meant. How could someone be "no one"? The man turned back around and started walking across the street. The world suddenly slowed down for Buffy. She could see the man continuing to walk, oblivious to his surroundings, including the truck that was barreling towards him. Dropping her bag, Buffy sprinted towards the man as the driver honked his horn frantically and tried to brake. Even though she knew that she was running as fast as she could, every step she took felt like it was taking was taking three times as long than it should have. Time snapped itself into place just as Buffy reached the man, shoving him out of the way just as the truck slammed into her.
The bumper hit her legs, causing her to fly backwards onto the hood and windshield with a sickening "smack." Her body rolled off as the truck finally stopped moving, hitting the ground with a hard "thump." She lay there doing her best to force air into her lungs as pain wracked her body. She dimly heard the door of the truck and the driver, along with several on-lookers, rush towards her. She staggered to her feet, ignoring the shooting pain in her legs.
"Stand aside, I'm a doctor," she heard a distinctly tweedy voice order the others among the general clamors of "Are you OK?" An extremely thin man with wild brown hair, wearing a brown pinstriped suit entered her field of vision. "Remarkable," she heard him mutter as he placed a pair of glasses on his face and looked her over. "Hit by a car and yet no sign of damage." Buffy barely paid attention to that, however, staring at his chest in shock. Despite all of the noise surrounding her, she could faintly hear the sound of two hearts beating in unison coming from his chest. He didn't set off her spidey-senses like a vampire or a demon would, but he definitely wasn't a normal human.
"I'm fine," Buffy protested, forcing herself to breathe normally and not to panic. "I'm fine!" she repeated louder when the crowd and the doctor made no move to get away from her. "I just... I need to go!" she continued, raising up her hands, trying to create a pocket of space around her.
"That's probably not such good idea," the doctor told her, putting a restraining hand on her arm. She jerked out of his grip, and seeing a space in the mass of people surrounding her, bolted through and ran away, bag forgotten in her need for space and air. Fortunately, her keys and some of the tips that she had earned that evening were in her coat pocket.
Even with a brief run-in with what appeared to be the local the local "savior" of the misfit toys that populated the streets, she still managed to get home in close to record time. Collapsing on the bed, she closed her eyes and tried to catch her breath. In the month that she had been living here, she had managed to escape most reminders of her former life. She wanted to keep it that way, though, and that meant avoiding both Lily and the man with two hearts. The ghost of Angel haunted her, reminding her what would happen if she took up that life again: only pain, tears, and rejection. She could never go back to being that same girl.
Curling up on her bed, Buffy hugged the pillow close to her, crying silently for the girl who she used to be before a troubled sleep overcame her.
~*~*~
The next day turned out to be uneventful, which Buffy was thankful for. The last thing she needed was to be approached by people who had seen her get hit by the car. There was also no sign of either that strange doctor or Ken, which she took as a blessing.
The next day, however, as she was refilling the sugar containers at Helen's Kitchen, Lily came in and made a beeline right towards her.
"Buff-Anne, can I talk to to you?" Lily asked, correcting herself before Buffy's full name came out of her mouth.
"Look, this really isn't a good time," Buffy told Lily, not looking up to meet Lily's eyes. "Can it wait?"
"Rickie's gone," Lily blurted out, her face filled with worry. "I haven't seen him for more than I day. He's never left for that long. I think something's..." Lily paused, trying to get the thought in her head while Buffy continued to pour the sugar into the containers. "Happened. Maybe something's happened."
"Did you call the police?" Buffy suggested, finally looking up to meet Lily's eyes.
"No," Lily answered with a shake of her head. "Rickie skipped out on his parole. That would just cause more problems."
Buffy bit back a remark along the lines of, "Sounds like a real winner." Instead, she decided to be supportive. "Did you try asking around?" she asked, wiping up the excess sugar from the counter.
"Well, I was kinda wondering if you could help me," Lily said, putting her hands in her pockets. "I know that you probably don't want to get involved," she added, seeing Buffy opening her mouth to protest. "But I don't know what to do, and you do, and I really need your help!"
Buffy took a deep breath and exhaled. Maybe, just maybe if she helped Lily out this one time, she would leave her alone.
"Fine," she gave in, screwing the top on the last sugar container. "I'll meet you after my shift ends at seven." A smile crossed Lily's face at Buffy's concession.
"Thank you so much!" she exclaimed. "I really appreciate this, Bu-Anne." She walked out, leaving Buffy alone with her thoughts. For all that she promised herself that she would be leaving that old life behind her, she was jumping right back into help somebody. At least she had some time to go back to her apartment to change into something other than her waitressing uniform.
Seven o'clock found Buffy waiting anxiously for Lily to show up. Bouncing on the balls of her feet, she spied a strange, blue shape in an ally that she could've sworn hadn't been there earlier that week. Glancing around to make sure Lily wasn't about to walk up, she quickly crossed the street to inspect the newest addition to the landscape.
"What the hell is a police box?" Buffy muttered to herself, examining the blue wooden box that was tucked away in this little alley. There was nothing remarkable about it, other than that it shouldn't be there. Walking around it, she found nothing worth noting. The only odd thing was that when she tested the door, she found it to be firmly locked, which caused her to frown. If this was supposed to be used to call the police, what use was it all locked up?
Before she could break down the door to see what was inside, she spied Lily standing in front of the diner out of the corner of her eye. Letting out a sigh of annoyance, she glared at the blue box. "You're taunting me, aren't you?" she muttered under her breath. She couldn't help herself--despite the self-imposed wall she had erected around herself in the wake of Angel's death and her mother's rejection of her, when given something strange and out of the ordinary, she was drawn like a moth to a flame. Damn Slayerness.
After an inconclusive, yet slightly suspicious visit to the blood bank that Lily had said that she and Rickie had been to a few times, they agreed to split up. Well, more like Buffy suggested it and Lily agreed.
After leaving Lily to follow her own lead, Buffy followed the vague directions that Lily had given her to a place where she and Rickie would occasionally crash for the night. Standing in front of the abandoned building, Buffy's mouth tightened. For as much as her job sucked and her apartment was on the squalid side, it was better than what Lily and Rickie had going for them. Walking inside, she did her best to breathe through her mouth, but smell of stale piss was so strong she nearly gagged. There were sleeping bodies strewn about, which made walking without stepping on anybody difficult.
Scanning the weathered faces, Buffy frowned when she saw a bottle of drain cleaner next to a man. Kneeling down, she realized with a start that he wasn't breathing. Reaching for his arm to feel for a pulse, she froze. Tatooed on his arm was half a heart with a banner underneath it. On the banner was the word "Lily."
"Rickie?" she whispered, staring at the body in shock. How? He had only been in is late teens, early twenties at most when she had seen him a few days ago, but now... Now he looked like he was in his sixties, with a worn, leathery face. Hesitantly touching the body, she knew that he was dead the moment she felt the cold, clammy skin. Straightening, she studied the body, wondering how she was tell Lily about this.
Walking outside, she was so caught up in her thoughts that she didn't see the man until she ran into him, accidentally running into him. Looking up to apologize to him, her voice caught in her throat as she recognized him: it was the man with the two hearts.
"Sorry about that," she apologized to him after she found her voice.
"Don't worry about it," he answered, dusting off his suit. "Bit preoccupied myself, don't mind me." He paused, taking a long look at her. "Oh, you're the girl from the accident. I wondered where you ended up. You weren't too badly hurt, were you? You really shouldn't have run off like that, not so soon after being hit." Buffy blinked, trying to keep up with the man's increasingly fast dialogue.
"I need to go," she replied, trying to go around him.
"Oh, but we've only just met!" he protested in a disappointed voice. "I don't even know your name."
"I was told never to give my name to a stranger," Buffy answered, backing away from him. "And I really have to go now." She ran off, ignoring the two-hearted man's cries for her to stay. Rounding a corner, she leaned against the wall and took a deep breath. She didn't know if the man's curiosity was as innocent as it seemed, or if there was something more sinister to it, but she wasn't going to stay around to see which one it was. Checking around the corner to make sure that he hadn't followed her, she took another deep breath and continued on to her apartment. She needed to find a way to break the news about Ricky to Lily.
Author: kerrykhat
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG
Summary: Buffy stared at the man who said he was a doctor, listening to the two hearts beating in his chest.
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon owns "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and related characters; the BBC owns "Doctor Who" and related characters; I own nothing.
Word Count: 2438
Author's Notes: Response to the prompt, "brown" for crossovers100. Some dialogue taken from the episode "Anne".
Walking down the rundown LA street after a long night of waiting tables, Buffy was too absorbed in her thoughts and loneliness to hear a somewhat familiar voice calling out behind her.
"Anne?" No response. "Anne?" the voice repeated, this time with a little more force. "Buffy?" That caught her attention. She turned around and saw a young woman standing awkwardly a few feet behind her. She stared at the woman, trying to place her. "Don't be mad!" the woman exclaimed. "I won't turn you in or nothing. I guess you don't recognize me."
"Lily?" Buffy asked, trying to remember where exactly she had seen Lily before seeing her in the diner a few days ago. It was at the back of her mind, pestering and taunting her.
"I mean from before," Lily clarified, walking closer to Buffy. "I was calling myself Chantarelle then. I used to.." She paused with a sigh, and suddenly, Buffy could place her face amongst the darkness and Goth clothes from a few months ago. "Well, I was in this cult that worshipped vampires. So lame, I know."
"Yeah... I, uh, I remember that," Buffy assured her, wondering what Lily wanted.
"You kinda saved us," Lily stated, shrugging her shoulders awkwardly. "I never thanked you or anything."
"Did you tell anyone who I was?" Buffy asked, a little more insistently than she meant to. She didn't want anybody to know that Buffy Summers was hiding in Los Angeles when she didn't want to be found.
"No! Not even Rickie!" Lily exclaimed, with a slightly understanding look on her face. "I mean, I was so surprised to see you here, waiting tables. But I wouldn't tell. I know how it is when you gotta get lost."
They started walking towards the street where Buffy lived, talking about their respective chosen--or in Lily's case, assigned--names. Lily then went on to invite Buffy to a rave that she and Rickie were thinking of going to, only to have Buffy shoot the idea down in a heartbeat. The reason she gave Lily--that it would be too crowded--was partly true, but there was another reason behind her refusal: in all likelihood, there would be vampires at this rave, waiting to lure out somebody in order to feed. Buffy didn't want to go to a place where she would be reminded of what she was trying to escape and where she would feel obligated to intervene. Being the Slayer had only brought her heartache and pain, and it wasn't a life she wanted to return to.
"I-I do have the money, though," she added when she saw Lily's fallen face. "Why don't you and Ricke go, and then maybe I could met you some other time..." Lily raised her hands and waved down the offer.
"No, it's OK," she answered, somewhat sadly. "Just forget about it. Just..." She was interrupted, however, by an old man in worn out clothes shoving past her. "That's not very polite," Lily admonished the man with a frown on her face. He turned around and stared at the two girls, a blank expression on his weathered face.
"Are you OK?" Buffy asked, feeling concerned in spite of the emotional walls she had placed around herself ever since Angel's death.
"I'm no one," he answered hollowly. Buffy looked at him in confusion, not understanding what he meant. How could someone be "no one"? The man turned back around and started walking across the street. The world suddenly slowed down for Buffy. She could see the man continuing to walk, oblivious to his surroundings, including the truck that was barreling towards him. Dropping her bag, Buffy sprinted towards the man as the driver honked his horn frantically and tried to brake. Even though she knew that she was running as fast as she could, every step she took felt like it was taking was taking three times as long than it should have. Time snapped itself into place just as Buffy reached the man, shoving him out of the way just as the truck slammed into her.
The bumper hit her legs, causing her to fly backwards onto the hood and windshield with a sickening "smack." Her body rolled off as the truck finally stopped moving, hitting the ground with a hard "thump." She lay there doing her best to force air into her lungs as pain wracked her body. She dimly heard the door of the truck and the driver, along with several on-lookers, rush towards her. She staggered to her feet, ignoring the shooting pain in her legs.
"Stand aside, I'm a doctor," she heard a distinctly tweedy voice order the others among the general clamors of "Are you OK?" An extremely thin man with wild brown hair, wearing a brown pinstriped suit entered her field of vision. "Remarkable," she heard him mutter as he placed a pair of glasses on his face and looked her over. "Hit by a car and yet no sign of damage." Buffy barely paid attention to that, however, staring at his chest in shock. Despite all of the noise surrounding her, she could faintly hear the sound of two hearts beating in unison coming from his chest. He didn't set off her spidey-senses like a vampire or a demon would, but he definitely wasn't a normal human.
"I'm fine," Buffy protested, forcing herself to breathe normally and not to panic. "I'm fine!" she repeated louder when the crowd and the doctor made no move to get away from her. "I just... I need to go!" she continued, raising up her hands, trying to create a pocket of space around her.
"That's probably not such good idea," the doctor told her, putting a restraining hand on her arm. She jerked out of his grip, and seeing a space in the mass of people surrounding her, bolted through and ran away, bag forgotten in her need for space and air. Fortunately, her keys and some of the tips that she had earned that evening were in her coat pocket.
Even with a brief run-in with what appeared to be the local the local "savior" of the misfit toys that populated the streets, she still managed to get home in close to record time. Collapsing on the bed, she closed her eyes and tried to catch her breath. In the month that she had been living here, she had managed to escape most reminders of her former life. She wanted to keep it that way, though, and that meant avoiding both Lily and the man with two hearts. The ghost of Angel haunted her, reminding her what would happen if she took up that life again: only pain, tears, and rejection. She could never go back to being that same girl.
Curling up on her bed, Buffy hugged the pillow close to her, crying silently for the girl who she used to be before a troubled sleep overcame her.
~*~*~
The next day turned out to be uneventful, which Buffy was thankful for. The last thing she needed was to be approached by people who had seen her get hit by the car. There was also no sign of either that strange doctor or Ken, which she took as a blessing.
The next day, however, as she was refilling the sugar containers at Helen's Kitchen, Lily came in and made a beeline right towards her.
"Buff-Anne, can I talk to to you?" Lily asked, correcting herself before Buffy's full name came out of her mouth.
"Look, this really isn't a good time," Buffy told Lily, not looking up to meet Lily's eyes. "Can it wait?"
"Rickie's gone," Lily blurted out, her face filled with worry. "I haven't seen him for more than I day. He's never left for that long. I think something's..." Lily paused, trying to get the thought in her head while Buffy continued to pour the sugar into the containers. "Happened. Maybe something's happened."
"Did you call the police?" Buffy suggested, finally looking up to meet Lily's eyes.
"No," Lily answered with a shake of her head. "Rickie skipped out on his parole. That would just cause more problems."
Buffy bit back a remark along the lines of, "Sounds like a real winner." Instead, she decided to be supportive. "Did you try asking around?" she asked, wiping up the excess sugar from the counter.
"Well, I was kinda wondering if you could help me," Lily said, putting her hands in her pockets. "I know that you probably don't want to get involved," she added, seeing Buffy opening her mouth to protest. "But I don't know what to do, and you do, and I really need your help!"
Buffy took a deep breath and exhaled. Maybe, just maybe if she helped Lily out this one time, she would leave her alone.
"Fine," she gave in, screwing the top on the last sugar container. "I'll meet you after my shift ends at seven." A smile crossed Lily's face at Buffy's concession.
"Thank you so much!" she exclaimed. "I really appreciate this, Bu-Anne." She walked out, leaving Buffy alone with her thoughts. For all that she promised herself that she would be leaving that old life behind her, she was jumping right back into help somebody. At least she had some time to go back to her apartment to change into something other than her waitressing uniform.
Seven o'clock found Buffy waiting anxiously for Lily to show up. Bouncing on the balls of her feet, she spied a strange, blue shape in an ally that she could've sworn hadn't been there earlier that week. Glancing around to make sure Lily wasn't about to walk up, she quickly crossed the street to inspect the newest addition to the landscape.
"What the hell is a police box?" Buffy muttered to herself, examining the blue wooden box that was tucked away in this little alley. There was nothing remarkable about it, other than that it shouldn't be there. Walking around it, she found nothing worth noting. The only odd thing was that when she tested the door, she found it to be firmly locked, which caused her to frown. If this was supposed to be used to call the police, what use was it all locked up?
Before she could break down the door to see what was inside, she spied Lily standing in front of the diner out of the corner of her eye. Letting out a sigh of annoyance, she glared at the blue box. "You're taunting me, aren't you?" she muttered under her breath. She couldn't help herself--despite the self-imposed wall she had erected around herself in the wake of Angel's death and her mother's rejection of her, when given something strange and out of the ordinary, she was drawn like a moth to a flame. Damn Slayerness.
After an inconclusive, yet slightly suspicious visit to the blood bank that Lily had said that she and Rickie had been to a few times, they agreed to split up. Well, more like Buffy suggested it and Lily agreed.
After leaving Lily to follow her own lead, Buffy followed the vague directions that Lily had given her to a place where she and Rickie would occasionally crash for the night. Standing in front of the abandoned building, Buffy's mouth tightened. For as much as her job sucked and her apartment was on the squalid side, it was better than what Lily and Rickie had going for them. Walking inside, she did her best to breathe through her mouth, but smell of stale piss was so strong she nearly gagged. There were sleeping bodies strewn about, which made walking without stepping on anybody difficult.
Scanning the weathered faces, Buffy frowned when she saw a bottle of drain cleaner next to a man. Kneeling down, she realized with a start that he wasn't breathing. Reaching for his arm to feel for a pulse, she froze. Tatooed on his arm was half a heart with a banner underneath it. On the banner was the word "Lily."
"Rickie?" she whispered, staring at the body in shock. How? He had only been in is late teens, early twenties at most when she had seen him a few days ago, but now... Now he looked like he was in his sixties, with a worn, leathery face. Hesitantly touching the body, she knew that he was dead the moment she felt the cold, clammy skin. Straightening, she studied the body, wondering how she was tell Lily about this.
Walking outside, she was so caught up in her thoughts that she didn't see the man until she ran into him, accidentally running into him. Looking up to apologize to him, her voice caught in her throat as she recognized him: it was the man with the two hearts.
"Sorry about that," she apologized to him after she found her voice.
"Don't worry about it," he answered, dusting off his suit. "Bit preoccupied myself, don't mind me." He paused, taking a long look at her. "Oh, you're the girl from the accident. I wondered where you ended up. You weren't too badly hurt, were you? You really shouldn't have run off like that, not so soon after being hit." Buffy blinked, trying to keep up with the man's increasingly fast dialogue.
"I need to go," she replied, trying to go around him.
"Oh, but we've only just met!" he protested in a disappointed voice. "I don't even know your name."
"I was told never to give my name to a stranger," Buffy answered, backing away from him. "And I really have to go now." She ran off, ignoring the two-hearted man's cries for her to stay. Rounding a corner, she leaned against the wall and took a deep breath. She didn't know if the man's curiosity was as innocent as it seemed, or if there was something more sinister to it, but she wasn't going to stay around to see which one it was. Checking around the corner to make sure that he hadn't followed her, she took another deep breath and continued on to her apartment. She needed to find a way to break the news about Ricky to Lily.