August 27 - Pleased To Meet You
Title: Pleased To Meet You (Part five of ‘The Slayer and the Witchlighter’)
Author: 3am_moonlight aka mirrored_illusions
Summary: Buffy finally meets Pandora Halliwell.
Crossover: Charmed
Characters: Buffy Summers, Pandora Halliwell, Melinda Halliwell.
Rating: Gen.
Word count: 2132
Challenge: The 2016 August Fic-a-Day Challenge on the Twisted Shorts comm on LJ. Day 27.
Timeline: About a decade post-Chosen for BtVS, post-Forever Charmed.
Disclaimer: BtVS/AtS characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, et al. Charmed belongs to someone with big, scary lawyers.
A/N: There’s no Wyatt in this ‘verse. Melinda is the oldest of Piper and Leo’s children. Prue is alive. Actually, it’s pretty AU in general.
A/N 2: I’m a little iffy on the canon timeline for when Pandora/the Source’s Heir was/would’ve been born, but since I’ve already referred to her as being younger than Melinda I’m making her the same age as Chris rather than the same age or older than Melinda.
A/N 3: I’ve only seen a few episodes of AtS so my apologies to any inconsistencies concerning that show.
Buffy entered a cafe in yet another small town and immediately scanned the medium sized room, and catalogued both the interior and the customers along with the few members of staff. She also noted all the exits, the windows, and the doorways to other areas. On the other side of the room her friend was sitting at a table beside a black haired teenager whom she knew was Melinda’s younger half-demon cousin. Her senses pinged a little but the younger set off any alarms.
She crossed the room, walking around the noon crowd, and greeted her guardian angel.
“Hey, sorry I’m a little late. My sister’s in a particularly whiny mood today apparently and felt like sharing the misery with me, long distance.” She honestly loved her sister, but the relief of not seeing her every day was palpable. The betrayal still stung and even an indirect mention of Dawn brought it back up again. Add in that none of her so-called friends or sister understood how horrible they’d acted towards her back in Sunnydale and it was just twisting the proverbial knife even deeper. Petulant calls like the one she’d received today didn’t help.
Melinda smiled, “That’s okay. Believe me, we both know all about petulant siblings.”
Buffy laughed. Given the size of the Halliwell family there was no doubt in her mind that they could relate on some level to someone throwing a hissyfit for one reason or another. It made her miss Celia, and she made a mental note to see if she couldn’t get back in touch with her own two cousins. It probably wouldn’t go very far, but attempting to reconnect with her family hopefully wouldn’t cause any disasters. Hopefully.
Then Melinda sat up straighter and got a little more serious. “Buffy meet my cousin Pandora Halliwell, Pandora this is Buffy Summers.” Buffy smiled at the other teenager and reached out her hand.
“It’s good to finally meet you, despite all the failed attempts to set up a meeting.” Demons, family crises, friends wanting attention, and in the Halliwell’s case school. It had been difficult and had included several cancellations, and in a couple of cases Melinda had shown up alone.
Pandora shook her hand and gave a more vary smile. “Pleased to meet you.” The skin contact sent a small shiver up her arm, informing her in no uncertain terms that this was a part demon.
In an attempt to relax the atmosphere between the three of them, Buffy decided to start of easy since they were in a very public setting and anyone could overhear them. “No family crises or last minute homework today?”
A grin from her Witchlighter was her first response, followed up by a quirk of Pandora’s lips. “No, Mel has been on me all week to finish all my work early so nothing would stop this from happening today. And everyone has been informed that if something comes up they have to deal with it on their own.”
Rather than reply to the younger of her table mates she looked over to the waitress who was walking over to take her order. Both of the Halliwell cousins had a cup of coffee in front of them, along with an empty plate. So Buffy ordered a cup of coffee for herself and a couple of ham sandwiches, while the cousins ordered a refill. Over the next twenty minutes the three of them had a slightly strained conversation while she finished her food. There was nothing like wanting to get to the real topic they wanted to discuss when there were too many curious ears in the vicinity who were not allowed to know about it.
Finally Buffy had finished and they went to pay for their food, and to order some coffee to go before they left. The three of them walked in silence towards a park several streets over where they could have their real conversation without any busybodies listening in. After finding themselves a couple of benches which were close enough for them to sit on they sat down and sort of stared at each other for a few seconds before they burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of it all.
“Right,” Buffy joked. “We clearly know exactly where we’re going with this.” They laughed again, but the tension had broken. “To be honest I’m not sure how we’re supposed to tackle this, or precisely what we’re supposed to talk about.” She looked over to Pandora.
“Melinda told me that you have issues with being part demon and she seems to think that I can help somehow because the Slayer Essence is actually a demonic essence and that’s why I have the abilities I have.” The specifics of this hadn’t been discussed, which was an obvious failure on their part while trying to set up the meeting in the first place. But it was too late to fix that now and she would just have to wing it. It was what she did best after all.
“What if I go evil? Mom has a penchant for being turned evil, she was even the Queen of the Underworld for a while because of my biological father being the Source of All Evil at the time. And my aunts have also turned evil many times. My father was born evil, he spent over a century being evil before he met mom and tried to be good and *failed*.” Pandora had clearly decided to trust Buffy with some of her fears as she went over some of her reasoning for her apprehension.
“Did they go evil by their own free will or were they coerced in some way?”
Pandora got a thoughtful look on her face before she replied. “Most of the time there was a spell or a potion involved, but not always. Mom *chose* to become Dad’s consort.” Buffy nodded; love made people do the wacky in more ways than one.
“So if there were magical spells and potions causing a drastic change in personality, behavior, and to change their allegiance from Good and over to Evil in most cases then it wasn’t their choice. Don’t get me wrong; it’s bad that they’re susceptible to change like that, but it doesn’t seem to me like it’s voluntary.” Pandora opened her mouth to argue, but was quickly silenced by her cousin and Buffy continued after giving Melinda a brief smile in thanks.
“As for your mother choosing to become the Queen of the Underworld. Well, when you’re in love you do a lot of things you wouldn’t have done otherwise. Granted that was definitely in the extreme, but did she kill or torture innocents? Did she help her husband in doing evil things? Did she abdicate or was she forced to give up her crown?” It were some defining questions and would clarify Phoebe Halliwell’s personal allegiance.
“Mom has never killed or deliberately harmed any Innocents. She left dad to save my aunts and Uncle Leo. From what I’ve understood something happened and mom went to warn Aunt Piper and Aunt Paige, things escalated and she and Aunt Piper and Aunt Paige ended up using a Power of Three spell mom wrote to vanquish dad for the first time in the penthouse he and mom lived in. She was pregnant with me at time.” Buffy winced at the last part.
“Killing someone you love is horrible and breaks your heart in a way only people who has had to do the same thing can even begin to relate to.” Hello tragic past and doomed love. Buffy saw her sword fight with Angelus in her mind’s eye. Literally saw the soul returned to Angel’s eyes as Angelus was suppressed once again, just a little too late to make a real difference. Knowing there was an open portal which would destroy the world right behind the man she loved more than anyone else, and that the only way to close it was a sacrifice.
Both Pandora and Melinda frowned at that so Buffy elaborated. “When I was seventeen I was dating a vampire who had been cursed with a soul. The soul was accidentally removed and the demon took over again and began causing havoc. It was insulted and angry over what the soul had done and in common vampire fashion set out to kill the people who made him feel love. Thankfully he didn’t manage to kill me or my friends, but he did kill my Watcher’s girlfriend. Mainly because he knew it would hurt us, but also because she was a member of the Gypsy Clan who had cursed him with a soul in the first place and therefore would’ve been able to curse him again.”
The Halliwell cousins gave her sympathetic looks. “We’re sorry to hear that.”
“He, like your father, came back, but at least he was still Good. Our relationship had some serious complications after that, and it didn’t help that half my group didn’t trust him to begin with. We ended up parting ways not long after. He moved to LA and started a detective agency who saved people from demonic problems.”
“You’re speaking about him in past tense. Was he vanquished again?”
“No. Well… Not exactly. He and almost all of his group were killed during the blackout in LA not long ago." That was actually one of the things that had made her cancel on one of their prior attempts to make this meeting happen.
Melinda and Pandora flinched as she hadn't gone into details, just told Melinda that some of her people had been killed during the blackout. Both of their mothers and both of their aunts had been mighty angry when Leo and Andy had come back from the Elders and told them that the LA problem was outside of their jurisdiction. That another group of Champions were dealing with it and they were told to stay put in San Fransisco.
Buffy centered her mind again; this was in the past. Yes, the new loss of Angel was heartbreaking, but there was nothing she could do about it. Rehashing what had happened would only make her feel even worse. It helped a little that she and Angel hadn't been a couple in years, despite their stolen kisses during some of their encounters since the big official breakup. He would always have a special place in her heart, but it was over.
"Back to you, Pandora. My point is that I can see why your mother made the decision to try and make her marriage work, despite everything. And, not to go all mushy on you, but you wouldn't have been here if your mother hadn't decided that her demon boyfriend was worth the effort."
"Do you have children?" Given where their little chat had lead them it was a natural question.
"No. Slayers can't have children once Chosen. It has something to do with the Slayer Essence using our fertility to enhance us and to permanently attach itself to us. I don't really understand how it works." Robin Wood had been incredibly upset when they had found that information, but no matter how much they had researched no one had been able to find anything which contradicted it. There had been a few Slayers in the past who had had children, but once they'd dug deeper it had turned out that all the children had been born while the mother was still a Potential. Nikki Wood was proven to have been the Slayer for three years when Robin was born, but there didn't seem to be any information as to how he came into Nikki's custody or why as she obviously didn't give birth to him nor did she have a boyfriend
"I'm very sorry. I can't imagine not being able to have children some day." She gave a slightly crooked smile. "Growing up in such a large and close knitted family has made me want the same in the future." Buffy nodded. It wasn't the first time anyone had expressed similar things both to her and to other Slayers. Faith had been one of the few who had been relieved.
Suddenly Buffy's phone rang. Speak of the devil, the name on the little screen said 'FAITH'. She sighed, now what? It was four days until her next check-in.
"Sorry ladies, but it's Faith. She won't call unless it's really important."
The two of them nodded. "Yell or call if you need any assistance." They looked around carefully and seeing no one Melinda orbed out while Pandora shimmered. Buffy blinked at that as it hadn't come up during any of their conversations. Her phone kept ringing though and she pushed it aside as she slid the button on her smartphone so she could answer.
Author: 3am_moonlight aka mirrored_illusions
Summary: Buffy finally meets Pandora Halliwell.
Crossover: Charmed
Characters: Buffy Summers, Pandora Halliwell, Melinda Halliwell.
Rating: Gen.
Word count: 2132
Challenge: The 2016 August Fic-a-Day Challenge on the Twisted Shorts comm on LJ. Day 27.
Timeline: About a decade post-Chosen for BtVS, post-Forever Charmed.
Disclaimer: BtVS/AtS characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, et al. Charmed belongs to someone with big, scary lawyers.
A/N: There’s no Wyatt in this ‘verse. Melinda is the oldest of Piper and Leo’s children. Prue is alive. Actually, it’s pretty AU in general.
A/N 2: I’m a little iffy on the canon timeline for when Pandora/the Source’s Heir was/would’ve been born, but since I’ve already referred to her as being younger than Melinda I’m making her the same age as Chris rather than the same age or older than Melinda.
A/N 3: I’ve only seen a few episodes of AtS so my apologies to any inconsistencies concerning that show.
Buffy entered a cafe in yet another small town and immediately scanned the medium sized room, and catalogued both the interior and the customers along with the few members of staff. She also noted all the exits, the windows, and the doorways to other areas. On the other side of the room her friend was sitting at a table beside a black haired teenager whom she knew was Melinda’s younger half-demon cousin. Her senses pinged a little but the younger set off any alarms.
She crossed the room, walking around the noon crowd, and greeted her guardian angel.
“Hey, sorry I’m a little late. My sister’s in a particularly whiny mood today apparently and felt like sharing the misery with me, long distance.” She honestly loved her sister, but the relief of not seeing her every day was palpable. The betrayal still stung and even an indirect mention of Dawn brought it back up again. Add in that none of her so-called friends or sister understood how horrible they’d acted towards her back in Sunnydale and it was just twisting the proverbial knife even deeper. Petulant calls like the one she’d received today didn’t help.
Melinda smiled, “That’s okay. Believe me, we both know all about petulant siblings.”
Buffy laughed. Given the size of the Halliwell family there was no doubt in her mind that they could relate on some level to someone throwing a hissyfit for one reason or another. It made her miss Celia, and she made a mental note to see if she couldn’t get back in touch with her own two cousins. It probably wouldn’t go very far, but attempting to reconnect with her family hopefully wouldn’t cause any disasters. Hopefully.
Then Melinda sat up straighter and got a little more serious. “Buffy meet my cousin Pandora Halliwell, Pandora this is Buffy Summers.” Buffy smiled at the other teenager and reached out her hand.
“It’s good to finally meet you, despite all the failed attempts to set up a meeting.” Demons, family crises, friends wanting attention, and in the Halliwell’s case school. It had been difficult and had included several cancellations, and in a couple of cases Melinda had shown up alone.
Pandora shook her hand and gave a more vary smile. “Pleased to meet you.” The skin contact sent a small shiver up her arm, informing her in no uncertain terms that this was a part demon.
In an attempt to relax the atmosphere between the three of them, Buffy decided to start of easy since they were in a very public setting and anyone could overhear them. “No family crises or last minute homework today?”
A grin from her Witchlighter was her first response, followed up by a quirk of Pandora’s lips. “No, Mel has been on me all week to finish all my work early so nothing would stop this from happening today. And everyone has been informed that if something comes up they have to deal with it on their own.”
Rather than reply to the younger of her table mates she looked over to the waitress who was walking over to take her order. Both of the Halliwell cousins had a cup of coffee in front of them, along with an empty plate. So Buffy ordered a cup of coffee for herself and a couple of ham sandwiches, while the cousins ordered a refill. Over the next twenty minutes the three of them had a slightly strained conversation while she finished her food. There was nothing like wanting to get to the real topic they wanted to discuss when there were too many curious ears in the vicinity who were not allowed to know about it.
Finally Buffy had finished and they went to pay for their food, and to order some coffee to go before they left. The three of them walked in silence towards a park several streets over where they could have their real conversation without any busybodies listening in. After finding themselves a couple of benches which were close enough for them to sit on they sat down and sort of stared at each other for a few seconds before they burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of it all.
“Right,” Buffy joked. “We clearly know exactly where we’re going with this.” They laughed again, but the tension had broken. “To be honest I’m not sure how we’re supposed to tackle this, or precisely what we’re supposed to talk about.” She looked over to Pandora.
“Melinda told me that you have issues with being part demon and she seems to think that I can help somehow because the Slayer Essence is actually a demonic essence and that’s why I have the abilities I have.” The specifics of this hadn’t been discussed, which was an obvious failure on their part while trying to set up the meeting in the first place. But it was too late to fix that now and she would just have to wing it. It was what she did best after all.
“What if I go evil? Mom has a penchant for being turned evil, she was even the Queen of the Underworld for a while because of my biological father being the Source of All Evil at the time. And my aunts have also turned evil many times. My father was born evil, he spent over a century being evil before he met mom and tried to be good and *failed*.” Pandora had clearly decided to trust Buffy with some of her fears as she went over some of her reasoning for her apprehension.
“Did they go evil by their own free will or were they coerced in some way?”
Pandora got a thoughtful look on her face before she replied. “Most of the time there was a spell or a potion involved, but not always. Mom *chose* to become Dad’s consort.” Buffy nodded; love made people do the wacky in more ways than one.
“So if there were magical spells and potions causing a drastic change in personality, behavior, and to change their allegiance from Good and over to Evil in most cases then it wasn’t their choice. Don’t get me wrong; it’s bad that they’re susceptible to change like that, but it doesn’t seem to me like it’s voluntary.” Pandora opened her mouth to argue, but was quickly silenced by her cousin and Buffy continued after giving Melinda a brief smile in thanks.
“As for your mother choosing to become the Queen of the Underworld. Well, when you’re in love you do a lot of things you wouldn’t have done otherwise. Granted that was definitely in the extreme, but did she kill or torture innocents? Did she help her husband in doing evil things? Did she abdicate or was she forced to give up her crown?” It were some defining questions and would clarify Phoebe Halliwell’s personal allegiance.
“Mom has never killed or deliberately harmed any Innocents. She left dad to save my aunts and Uncle Leo. From what I’ve understood something happened and mom went to warn Aunt Piper and Aunt Paige, things escalated and she and Aunt Piper and Aunt Paige ended up using a Power of Three spell mom wrote to vanquish dad for the first time in the penthouse he and mom lived in. She was pregnant with me at time.” Buffy winced at the last part.
“Killing someone you love is horrible and breaks your heart in a way only people who has had to do the same thing can even begin to relate to.” Hello tragic past and doomed love. Buffy saw her sword fight with Angelus in her mind’s eye. Literally saw the soul returned to Angel’s eyes as Angelus was suppressed once again, just a little too late to make a real difference. Knowing there was an open portal which would destroy the world right behind the man she loved more than anyone else, and that the only way to close it was a sacrifice.
Both Pandora and Melinda frowned at that so Buffy elaborated. “When I was seventeen I was dating a vampire who had been cursed with a soul. The soul was accidentally removed and the demon took over again and began causing havoc. It was insulted and angry over what the soul had done and in common vampire fashion set out to kill the people who made him feel love. Thankfully he didn’t manage to kill me or my friends, but he did kill my Watcher’s girlfriend. Mainly because he knew it would hurt us, but also because she was a member of the Gypsy Clan who had cursed him with a soul in the first place and therefore would’ve been able to curse him again.”
The Halliwell cousins gave her sympathetic looks. “We’re sorry to hear that.”
“He, like your father, came back, but at least he was still Good. Our relationship had some serious complications after that, and it didn’t help that half my group didn’t trust him to begin with. We ended up parting ways not long after. He moved to LA and started a detective agency who saved people from demonic problems.”
“You’re speaking about him in past tense. Was he vanquished again?”
“No. Well… Not exactly. He and almost all of his group were killed during the blackout in LA not long ago." That was actually one of the things that had made her cancel on one of their prior attempts to make this meeting happen.
Melinda and Pandora flinched as she hadn't gone into details, just told Melinda that some of her people had been killed during the blackout. Both of their mothers and both of their aunts had been mighty angry when Leo and Andy had come back from the Elders and told them that the LA problem was outside of their jurisdiction. That another group of Champions were dealing with it and they were told to stay put in San Fransisco.
Buffy centered her mind again; this was in the past. Yes, the new loss of Angel was heartbreaking, but there was nothing she could do about it. Rehashing what had happened would only make her feel even worse. It helped a little that she and Angel hadn't been a couple in years, despite their stolen kisses during some of their encounters since the big official breakup. He would always have a special place in her heart, but it was over.
"Back to you, Pandora. My point is that I can see why your mother made the decision to try and make her marriage work, despite everything. And, not to go all mushy on you, but you wouldn't have been here if your mother hadn't decided that her demon boyfriend was worth the effort."
"Do you have children?" Given where their little chat had lead them it was a natural question.
"No. Slayers can't have children once Chosen. It has something to do with the Slayer Essence using our fertility to enhance us and to permanently attach itself to us. I don't really understand how it works." Robin Wood had been incredibly upset when they had found that information, but no matter how much they had researched no one had been able to find anything which contradicted it. There had been a few Slayers in the past who had had children, but once they'd dug deeper it had turned out that all the children had been born while the mother was still a Potential. Nikki Wood was proven to have been the Slayer for three years when Robin was born, but there didn't seem to be any information as to how he came into Nikki's custody or why as she obviously didn't give birth to him nor did she have a boyfriend
"I'm very sorry. I can't imagine not being able to have children some day." She gave a slightly crooked smile. "Growing up in such a large and close knitted family has made me want the same in the future." Buffy nodded. It wasn't the first time anyone had expressed similar things both to her and to other Slayers. Faith had been one of the few who had been relieved.
Suddenly Buffy's phone rang. Speak of the devil, the name on the little screen said 'FAITH'. She sighed, now what? It was four days until her next check-in.
"Sorry ladies, but it's Faith. She won't call unless it's really important."
The two of them nodded. "Yell or call if you need any assistance." They looked around carefully and seeing no one Melinda orbed out while Pandora shimmered. Buffy blinked at that as it hadn't come up during any of their conversations. Her phone kept ringing though and she pushed it aside as she slid the button on her smartphone so she could answer.