Title: Unfair
Author: Effie
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy nor do I own Torchwood in any way. They belong to JW and RTD respectively and various companies.
Fandoms: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Torchwood
Spoilers: Set during Children of Earth for Torchwood
Summary: A hero was supposed to save the world no matter the price. Being a hero meant eventually you got to go to heaven.
Word Count: 627
When Buffy had fallen through the portal, she had believed a place with no demons was a reward in itself. Buffy was tired but she was a hero she was suppose to fight when no one else wanted to despite how much it hurt. She was just so tired.
Torchwood had found her days later. In that time she had settled down quickly and was trying to adapt without papers or an identity. Three people manned Torchwood Three appropriately. They'd given an identity and left her pretty much alone.
It was only by chance that that she found herself in London the day the children all stopped and began speaking in unison. Buffy had tried to investigate and found answers at dead ends. This world did not need a slayer and her place on it was not one of power.
She saw as the government took the school children and drove off with parents wailing behind them. She fought them off hand and foot while parents ran with thankful looks in their eyes. She couldn't save them all.
She watched as the children vanished and parents were left behind with no answers as to why. When the flame vanished into the sky as mysteriously as it had come, Buffy tried getting answers from someone she knew would have them.
She travelled to Cardiff and found a hole in the ground. She saw Captain Harkness at the site one day after trying desperately to look for them. What she found was a broken man with the universe on his shoulders. He looked into Buffy's eyes and found some form of understanding.
Buffy desperately tried to help. Tried to tell him what she had done for the world. Sent her lover to hell, choose between her sister and self but nothing seemed to help because the guilt in his eyes didn't lessen. Captain Harkness said very little all that she learned was his grandson (he didn't look old enough to have one) and lover were gone because of him.
"So you really were in 'heaven' when you died?" He asked one day, bitterly. "How long were you dead?" He asked. Something in his voiced irked her. Buffy didn't lie.
"Months, I was rotting in the ground and I was in heaven." Captain Harkness laughed. He gave a laugh. And Buffy didn't know what to do, she couldn't save this man and nothing she could do helped.
"You better find a way to get back home then." He said as he looked to the stars. "Because all you'll find here, in the end, is darkness. There is no heaven, hell. They aren't real."
"How can you know?" She challenged feeling angered for the first time since she met the man.
"Because that's what I see every time I die." He said as he left her.
Buffy could only look after him feeling some shred of hope break. Buffy had longed stopped being afraid of death. She supposed in a way that it helped knowing she would go to either one of the myriads of heavens and hells. Somehow the prospect of nothing was more terrifying than the prospect of an eternity in hell.
She had hoped that she would at least meet her friends and family in heaven when she died. Now all she had to look forward to was darkness. It wasn't fair.