Adult-FanFiction.org : Buffy

One Clear Shot	By : QueenB Category: AtS/BtVS Crossovers > Het - Male/Female > Angel(us)/Buffy > Angel(us)/Buffy Views: 11736 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BtVS), nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 5
- 6
- 7
Buffy opened her eyes blearily. Angel was sitting by her side holding up a vial of blue liquid. She tensed at seeing his face as thoughts of all the suffering he’d put her through came to her. She began to struggle in his grasp.
He tightened his grip on her. “I’m gonna help you,” he whispered. He held the glass to her to her lips and forced her to drink. Buffy tensed again and then relaxed as she swallowed the warm fluid. Suddenly it was as if a fiery sword had been shoved down her throat to skewer her guts. She began to thrash violently. Alarmed, Angel grabbed her even though her greater strength meant she would throw him out of the bed--or break one of his limbs trying. “Giles!”
Giles? Giles is here? And Angel? Where’s Willow and Xander? Where’s here exactly? And when?
Forcing back the pain, which was even now beginning to ebb, she re-focused on her ex-lover. He was staring at her with the familiar love blazing through his smoky eyes and she felt her heart start up and flutter in her chest the same way as it always did in his presence. “Angel?”
Just then her mother came running in with Wesley and Giles close behind her. “Thank god! Are you all right? Do you hear voices?” Joyce Summers perched on the edge of her daughter’s bed and gazed anxiously into her daughter’s eyes.
Buffy stared at her mother in shock and then lunged towards her, wrapping her in a huge bearhug. “Mom! It’s you! You’re alive! Oh thank god, Mommy, I missed you so much!”
“That’s…sweet, Buffy. I was worried about you, too.” Joyce Summers smiled and then gasped from Buffy’s tight hold. She’d never been subjected to her daughter’s Slayer strength before and her vision was starting to swim from the lack of oxygen. “Honey, mommy really needs to breathe here.”
Buffy unwillingly released her and then turned towards Angel. She embraced him as hard as she could and whispered in his ear, “I can’t believe you’re still here. Oh god, don’t leave me. Please never leave me, Angel.”
“I won’t, beloved. But I think we should ease up on the public displays of affection. Your mother’s starting to get worried.”
Buffy drew back slightly and looked around her room. Yes, it was the same as when she’d gone to bed this morning and her narrow glance shot back to Giles, completely ignoring the younger Watcher. “Giles, what day is it?”
“Ah, pardon? Oh, it’s, um, April 27th.”
“The year?” When he gazed in puzzlement at her, she snapped, “C’mon, Watcher mine. This is an easy one. What year?”
“Nineteen ninety-nine, of course. Buffy, are you feeling quite well? You can’t still hear thoughts, can you?”
“God, I’m back in the right time. I can still fix things.” Noting everybody’s worried glances, she leapt up from the bed. “Look, you guys have questions, and, boy, do I have answers not to mention one incredible story you are not going to believe. But first things first.” She turned to Giles. “You have to get to the lunchroom. The lunch lady is going to put rat poison in the Jell-O. She’s got a cleaver so she’s really dangerous AND psychotic. I’ve got a date with a kid with a rifle.”
Giles started up and ran after his Slayer as she tore down the stairs. “Buffy! Buffy, wait! Did you get all this from the mind reading?”
She called back as she tore through the door. “I’ll explain it all later in the library!”
There was a moment’s silence then Angel looked around at the others. “Maybe someone should go after her and tell her to change out of those pajamas.”
__________
One would-be suicide and narrowly averted mass murder later, Buffy bounded into the library to find everybody who mattered in her life waiting for her. Willow with her arm around Oz, Xander, Giles, Wesley, Angel and, surprisingly, her mom…they all looked up when she entered.
“Um, I’m not sure how much of this is real. But when I was out--you know, getting a brain meltdown from all the telepathic overload--I had this really bad vision of a future world….”
“…and I don’t care what you have to say to convince the doctors, Mom. You are getting an MRI every month until we find that thing lying in your brain and fix it!” Buffy ran her hands through her hair and took a deep breath. She wished she had her diary from the future; she was sure she was missing a few things. But she was telling them all the major events; the minor details could be handled as they happened.
Of course, she left out a couple of items. She didn’t think Oz needed to know that Willow was going to stop loving him and turn to someone else in the future. She did tell him that Veruca was a werewolf and would try to kill his girlfriend. Oz didn’t say anything; he never did say much. But she saw his hand tighten ever so slightly on Willow’s. He would defend her to the death; that much was certain.
Still…was Oz better for Willow than Tara? She remembered what Willow had said about the blonde wiccan, how Willow had gone up against a hellgod, of all things, to avenge her beloved Tara. If Tara was Willow’s true love, then Oz would have to leave. That would be necessary in any case since he needed to get his werewolf half under control. But that was a decision for Oz to make; she wasn’t going to push him into anything. Buffy decided to keep all mention of Tara to herself.
She warned everybody about the Initiative although she said they posed more of a threat to the demon community than human beings. Buffy noticed with amusement that both Watchers withdrew slightly apart to make notes about this impending encroachment by the U.S. government onto the Slayer’s turf.
She fielded the questions coming at her from all sides as best she could. Then she took a deep breath and looked at Angel. She hadn’t said anything about Spike except that he would be coming back and more dangerous than ever. She saw his eyes darken at the mention of his Grandchilde but otherwise he had nothing to say about him.
There was only one protest about her revelations and that came from Wesley. “Miss Summers, I realizu you have everyone’s best interests at heart here. But is it entirely wise to reveal the future in this fashion? You will be altering it in ways you can’t begin to conceive. Every disaster you avert may possibly leave you vulnerable and ill prepared for mischances you can’t foresee. And I must believe that some of this is due to your desire to keep him beside you.” The younger Watcher made no attempt to hide his distaste; he was as bad as Xander when it came to making his displeasure at Angel’s presence known.
Buffy’s eyes grew cold and stormy and everyone except Angel shrank back a little. At that moment, they all remembered they were dealing with a Slayer and one who would take no censure about her man. “Listen, Wesley, I didn’t see you in my Sunnydale future and I can’t help but feel that’s a good thing if you’re still as much of a shit as you are now.”
“Buffy!” Joyce was appalled. Her little girl never swore, certainly not in front of her. Was this creature Angel responsible for that? She glared at him. He shuffled his feet under her ferocious gaze but didn’t move from Buffy’s side. Joyce decided she was going to have a few sharp words with him in private…where her daughter couldn’t interfere.
“Wow, we’re going to be fighting a god? Do I speak for everybody when I say ‘eep?’” Willow murmured, fear turning her white.
“That’s a long ways off, Wills. We have plenty of time to prepare. I’m thinking, since she needs this Key and a mystical meeting of star signs to get back to her hellhome, Wesley can take Dawn to L.A. while we deal with that pathetic excuse for a god.”
Giles glanced up sharply at that. “Are you sure that’s wise, Buffy? You said that you…died fighting this creature. Perhaps you should leave Sunnydale as well until she’s no longer a threat.” His throat closed up as he repeated her words.
“No can do, Watcher mine. Glory wants to go home. Preventing her from doing that means she’s still trapped on this world and, while she’s here, she’ll be making brain food of the people in Sunnydale. One way or the other, she has to die.”
“And how do we accomplish that precisely?” Mr. Wyndham-Pryce didn’t bother to disguise the huffiness in his tone. It wasn’t lost on him that he had been stuck with babysitting duty while the others would be waging war against a crazed Hellgod. Not that he was eager to pit his mortal strength against a deity. It would have been merely polite for them to ask him, that was all.
“Well, my diary tells about the plans we made. But, since that featured Dawn getting kidnapped, I’m thinking we should take that off the menu.” She gnawed her lip. That future also involved an insane Tara, a mortally wounded Giles, a chipped Spike hanging around (though she was going to make sure they didn’t need him this time around) and a Trollgod hammer from Anya’s ex husband. She hadn’t even told Xander that he was going to be hooking up with an ex-demon. He was still getting over his breakup with Cordelia. Knowing he would be replacing her with a former Vengeance demon would cause him to wig for sure.
I’ll talk it over with Giles and Angel. They’ll come up with a solution. No need to spook everybody else. She sighed and sat up straight as she looked each of them in the eye. “Guys, like I said, that’s future business. We still have one Ascension to stop and one big bad beasty to slay. Who’s with me?”
That shelved all discussion about the future--for the time being. She could tell by the gazes of both her Watcher and her lover that they wouldn’t be so easily distracted.
__________
She drew Giles aside after everyone else had left. There was too much they needed to go over. She sat him down at the table and filled him in on everything she’d omitted from her earlier recitation.
To say that he was speechless would have been putting it mildly. He removed his glasses and polished them several times, muttering several “Good Lords” and “dear mes” throughout. The news of Willow’s lesbianism didn’t appear to shock him as much as the tale of her aggressive overuse of magic. The revelation that she nearly ended the world caused him to blanch in horror.
“Buffy, we will stop this. If Willow becomes as dangerous as you say, then we will prevent that from happening. There are ways to bind her magically--”
“No.” The cold syllable escaped her before she could think.
“I beg your pardon?”
“No binding. You’re not going to put a muzzle on my friend. That smacks too much of a certain Slayer trial I went through, remember?”
Giles flinched from the harshness of her look and tone as they both recalled the terrible Cruciamentum he had forced her to undergo. “Buffy, I-I understand your reluctance. But the two things are entirely separate. The trial is meant to test a Slayer’s courage and resourcefulness. In retrospect, I can see that it is cruel and unjust and no girl should ever be subjected to it. But, from what you tell me of Willow’s future, a binding may be not only necessary but also vital. It is a matter of life and death not merely for one girl but for the entire world.”
“Then we watch her! That’s what you do, right? Watch? We all will and, when we see her getting out of line, we pull her up short and give her a good talking to! We let her know just how bad things could get. We stand by Willow and we support her.
“But we don’t keep her powers from her. I’ve seen the future, Giles. Willow needs to use her magic; it’s a part of her like my being a Slayer is a part of me. It would be removing something important to who she is as a person to try to shut her down completely. Besides her wicca know-how is as important in the future as her computer skills are right now. Willow keeps her powers and that’s final.”
He glanced at his Slayer and sighed at the stern-faced determination he saw there. Giles was fearful of the future Buffy had outlined. Things had gone very badly indeed and he hadn’t been there for any of it. Willow’s dabbling with dark magicks wasn’t even the worst of it. Buffy had been with Spike and that had been truly incomprehensible. He didn’t see how he could have abandoned her either. Had things between them really degenerated to such an extent?
Buffy could see his confusion and something inside her relented. This was a lot to place on his shoulders and she felt badly that she couldn’t share it with her other friends and take the burden off him somewhat. She reached out to grab one tweed-clad shoulder and squeezed it.
“It’s gonna be okay, Giles. We’ve seen the worst that could possibly happen and we’re gonna lick this.” She got up from the chair and began pacing around. “Now we should make plans about Faith. I’m gonna have to hurt her badly so she winds up down for the count. I can put her in a coma but we all know she’s gonna snap out of that and come back to raise hell in the future. Is there any place we can put her so she doesn’t pop out with her bad self and wreck things?”
“The Council is infinitely resourceful. We can always let them know and they can quietly spirit her out of any hospital. They can delete, forge or alter records so no one will ever know she existed. Considering the itinerant lifestyle she’s led, having her permanently…disappear would be a matter of great ease for them.”
“You mean they’d kill her,” was her flat response.
Her Watcher’s voice was equally noncommittal as he replied. “That would in all likelihood be their solution to the problem.”
Was that so very different from her own plans? She’d been prepared to kill Faith, after all. Oh, but that isn’t the same; I’ll be saving Angel.
How is it different? You’re trying to save your boyfriend; they’re trying to save the world from a psychotic Slayer. Oh, I see how it’s different. They’ve got a goal that isn’t based on petty selfishness. Kinda puts them above you, doesn’t it?
This is the COUNCIL we’re talking about here. They’ve always been hoity-toity, superior, stuck-up jerks who think they’re above the law and that Slayers are just replaceable little foot soldiers fighting an endless war while they sit back and keep their lily white hands spotless.
Details, details. They want Faith dead; you want her dead. You get them involved then you get to keep your hands spotless. This time you get to use them instead of vice versa.
No, I don’t want her dead just…out of the way.
Uh huh. And how do you manage that without killing her, exactly?
Lousy inner voice. All questions and no answers. She sighed and then shrugged helplessly. “I hate to say this, Giles, but I don’t think we can get the Council involved. Faith…changes in the future. She tries to become a better person and actually make up for the all screwy things she did. I know that won’t make any difference to the people she killed but she deserves a second chance. So no killing…and that means no Council. We’re just going to have to let this play out.”
“Very well. But you do admit she needs to be kept under supervision.”
“I’ve got it covered. I know the exact date when she snaps out of her Sleeping Beauty phase. We’ll be ready and waiting for her.”
Giles looked about the space and recalled something else. “Buffy…you mention a plan about destroying the Mayor…it involves explosives placed here?”
“Can’t put it in the gym. I think the cheerleaders might have a problem with packs of C4 all over the place.”
“Yes, yes. I understand. It’s just, all these books…my books…” He waved a hand helplessly at all the stacks and she heard the forlorn note in his voice and could have smacked herself. Of course, Giles would be upset about this sacrifice. There had to be a way to save his precious paper knowledge banks…
“Hey! Now that we know what to do, we can move all these books out. Angel can put them in the mansion. We’ll have plenty of time if everybody helps.”
The joy on her Watcher’s face warmed the Slayer all over. “Yes, splendid plan! Thank you, Buffy.”
She grinned back and jumped off the table. Yielding to impulse she kissed Giles on the cheek. “Thank you for always being there, Watcher mine.”
__________
Buffy repeated as much of this as she was able to Angel. She was with him when her mother came to tell Angel to leave and she and the older Summers woman had a few sharp words about Angel’s place in her life. Buffy made it entirely clear that Angel staying with her was a good thing and that things in the future got very ugly without him in it. Angel had tried to interject his own comments but a few yells from both women convinced him that this was something he didn’t want to get in the middle of. Unfortunately, it was broad daylight outside and there was nowhere else for him to go. He was forced to retreat helplessly to a corner of his mansion while the two of them battled it out.
In the end, Buffy won. She had stated quite clearly that if her mother persuaded Angel to leave, she was going with him and would never return and nothing the woman could do or say would change that. Joyce Summers seized on the appearance of Buffy’s fictional sister as a last-ditch attempt to persuade her to stay. But the younger woman had merely countered that she was certain the monks would place Dawn with Buffy rather than her mother; a Slayer who didn’t have to worry about protecting her mom as well as the Key would be a far better defense for her, anyway.
Joyce Summers was forced to concede the point. Her daughter was in love and no argument would sway her. Glancing into Buffy’s resolute face and the equally impassive man hidden in the shadows, Mrs. Summers realized there was nothing more she could say.
Buffy watched her mom slam the door and sagged in the wake of their argument. She’d kept up a bold face during the entire shouting match but it had taken a lot out of her. A pair of strong cool arms came around her and she relaxed into the welcome embrace.
“Hey. That was really…something.”
“Hey, yourself.” Buffy marveled how Angel could say so little with so much. The unexpected visit from her mother had thrown him but he was restraining himself on her account. His next words confirmed her suspicions.
“She’s right, you know. I can’t give you any kind of life. I can’t give you…life at all.”
She whirled around and glared at him with blazing eyes. “Listen, Angel. I just went through this with her. I’m not doing it again with you, not when we’ve got a big battle coming up. I NEED you and I love you and I’m not going to make it in the future without you.” Her gaze softened and she pled with him in a broken voice. “Don’t you want to stay with me?”
How could she even doubt it? “Yes, you know I do.”
“Angel, if I carry on, if things work for me, it’s because you’re there making it work. Being Slayergal and Buffy is something I struggle with every day and night but when you’re with me, it isn’t a struggle. It--fits. Everything fits. Am I making sense?”
“Perfect sense. It’s how I felt when I first saw you. Before you came along, I floundered, lost in the darkness. Literal and figurative. But I saw the light falling on you and just knew that I had to help you. I was afraid because you were the Slayer, sworn to destroy my kind. I hated having to lie to you about myself. But I knew you’d need help.
“I wasn’t planning on falling in love. And I never dreamed you could care for me especially if you knew…what I was. I couldn’t stay away from you no matter how I tried. But when I hear people like your mother, Mr. Wyndham-Pryce…”
“Wesley? What does he have to do with this?” Had Wesley been talking to Angel behind her back? Silently she wondered just how much of the future timeline would be changed if she were to hunt him down and break a bone or two.
“I’ve overheard him talking to Giles when he thinks I can’t hear. I don’t think he realizes just how sharp vampire hearing is.”
“Yep, that’s Wesley. Clueless as a stump. Makes Xander look like Knowledge Guy by comparison.”
Angel’s lips twitched, the only sign of amusement in an otherwise still countenance. “Perhaps. But he points out how I’m not just an abomination but a distraction for you. You think of me first instead of your friends.”
“Wrong. I think of you AND my friends. Putting a souled vampire above my friends was the mistake I made--will make--with Spike. I’m not doing that with you. And Weasley Wesley had better get over himself about you because he’s going to be spending time with you in L.A. in the future. Speaking of which…” She took a deep breath. She knew her next comment was going to invite debate and mentally prepared herself. “I think you should go away to L.A. soon.”
“What? Leave? Buffy, I can’t. You have to face the Mayor and you’ll need everyone you can get.” Angel’s voice was low and appeared unemotional but she could hear the pain and disbelief running under it. He couldn’t fathom why she was pushing him away now. Was she punishing him for the desertion his future self would commit?
“You’re right, Angel. I’ll need all the muscle I can rustle for the upcoming punchfest with his Snakiness. I’m talking about afterwards. These Initiative guys are nothing to be messed with and, if you stay here, you might be caught and tagged like Spike. You need to be able to fight humans if you’re going to do good in this world and the last thing I want is a mechanical vamp. Best to have you out of harm’s way.”
Angel’s eyes darkened again. He could tell there was a lot Buffy wasn’t going into. Whenever she mentioned the Initiative there was an undercurrent of unease that wasn’t there when discussing other future events.
“I guess.” Now that she had suggested that he leave, a curious reluctance to do so tugged at him. What if she needed him and he wasn’t there? But she had seen the future; if she said it was safe for him to go then he would do so. Then he wondered if her insistence had another source entirely…
“Buffy?”
“Mmmm?” She’d been winding her hands around his shoulders and slowly down his back and in another moment they were making naughty forays into the tops of his slacks.
“About Spike…”
“I don’t want to talk about Spike.” Oh yeah, those fingers were definitely headed south. He could feel certain parts of his anatomy stirring and taking interest as she groped at his buns and he steeled himself against the sensation.
“I need to know about him. In the future. You’re sending me away and he’s coming back…”
The fingers stopped and she stepped out of his arms, a look of total shock on her face. “And you think I’m getting you out of the way so I can get freaky with Spike?!? Are you insane? Part of the reason I’m doing all this is so I don’t wind up dirty dancing with that dyed loser.”
The snapping anger in her eyes convinced him and banished any lingering doubts he might have had. “Still, I don’t like the thought of you facing him. When he returns, he’s bound to have minions…”
“…who’ll be the usual run-of-the-mill dopes. This Slayergal will have no problems.” She grabbed his hand and drew him down onto the bed. “Now where were we?”

TBC
- 5
- 6
- 7
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

One Clear Shot