This is a crossover between the Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny and Josh Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I own neither, but enjoy both greatly. If you want to know more about the Chronicles of Amber, read the series its really good. Also check out M Scott Eiland's The Unicorn and the Slayer fan fic.
Joyce stared at the tray in front of her. Hospital food was so bland, was it any worse than airplane food? Lying next to her side, snuggled against was her youngest daughter, Dawn. Sitting in the uncomfortable chair next to her was her older daughter Buffy. Glancing out in the hallway, she spied the former watcher Giles standing there. He noticed her looking, smiled and walked on in.
"Hello, Joyce, I hope you're feeling better today." He said.
Joyce smiled briefly. "At least my head isn't hurting today." She glanced at Dawn, who was glaring at her older sister again. Would the sibling rivalry between the two ever end. There was no time to deal with that. The surgery was coming up in two days. She had to do this now while she was still rational, just in case she didn't make it through the surgery. This was not the best way to approach Buffy with the truth, but she had a right to know. "Giles would you be a dear and take Dawn to get something to eat, I can her here stomach rumbling."
"But mom, I'm not hungry!" Dawn protested as her stomach rumbled loudly.
"Dawn." Buffy snapped, an angry glare directed at her sister.
Joyce sighed, her two daughters were about to start their bickering again. "Dawn, please go with Mr. Giles. There's something I need to discuss with Buffy."
Dawn glanced at her mom before giving in. "Fine, lets go." She skulked.
Buffy narrowed her eyes as her younger sister stormed out following Giles. Taking a deep breath to calm down, she stared at her mom. "Mom, are you okay?"
Joyce sighed, this was something she had been dreading for a long time. This was the wedge in her marriage to Hank Summers. "Buffy, there's something I want to tell you...something that I should've told you a long time ago."
"Mom, if this is about the surgery. Don't worry, you'll make it through." Buffy said attempting to smile past her own worries and doubts.
"No, Buffy. I need to tell you this myself. In case, I don't make it through the surgery and please don't interrupt. This is going to be hard enough as it is." Joyce said with a trembling voice. Taking a deep breath, she looked in her daughter's green eyes, eyes that she had inherited from her biological father. "Honey...please understand what I'm about to tell you. Hank Summers is not your real father."
The color left Buffy's face as she heard her mom speak those words. "Mom...are you..." she trailed off unable to complete the sentence.
Joyce hesitated for a few seconds watching her daughter's reaction. "I'm fine Buffy. Please listen."
"But mom that's not possible...how." Buffy said.
"When you were younger, you had caught a nasty flu virus. The doctor ordered some blood work done to double check everything. He noticed that you had an exotic bloody type, one that he had never encountered before. It was similar to an AB positive type, but Hank and I have type O blood. The doctor told me and I never breathed a word of it to Hank. He found out later...but that's not important right now. Your real father was a man named Carl Corey. " She stopped as she noticed the tears in her daughter's eyes. "I'm so sorry Buffy. I wanted to tell you sooner...but I just didn't have the courage."
Something suddenly snapped, causing Buffy to look down and realize that she had broken the chair arms with her grip. This was too much. "Mom..you're having another episode...right...this will pass right," desperation filled her voice.
"I'm afraid not Buffy. I'm sorry, honey. But its the truth. Please let me continue," she waited for nod. "It was in December of 1980. I had went with Hank on a business trip to New York. We were fighting pretty heavily then. I had been accusing him of having an affair with his secretary, funny how that turned out. I got mad and stormed off. I found a club and went in, I don't remember its name. I just remember meeting him there. He was a retired Army officer and one thing lead to another. He was very nice and understanding especially when I told him that I should go. He gave me his number in case I changed my mind. I waited until I was outside and in the car before I tore up his number and dumped it outside the car."
Buffy's world had been turned upside down yet again. This was too much for her to deal with. First some monks had done some of their mojo and created an annoying baby sister, then her mom had developed a brain tumor, not to mention some super-crazed Cordy wanna-be wanting to take Dawn from her, and then the hammer of truth came crashing down. A voice brought her out of her inner turmoil.
"Hey Mrs. Summers, how are you feeling?" Riley said as he smiled at his girlfriend's mom.
"Mom..I gotta go...Riley..stay here with mom...I gotta go." Buffy mumbled before literally running out of the room.
"Buffy..." Joyce said, sighing as she watched her daughter leave.
Xander sat between his best friend and his girlfriend in the waiting room snacking on a twix bar. Even the candy tasted bad in a hospital. He was fixing to say something when he spied Buffy literally running out with tears in her eyes. A cold fear seized him, Joyce...no. He leap to his feet, telling Willow and Anya to go find Dawn while he went after Buffy. After several agonizing minutes of trying to keep up her, he finally managed to get her attention. He started to speak between his wheezing only to be literally crushed as she wrapped her arms around him crying on her shoulder. "Buffy, I'm so sorry," he somehow managed to get out.
"Xander....mom...said....that Hank wasn't my real dad...." Buffy said in a incoherent ramble followed by sobbing.
"Breathing becoming an issue Buff," he said relieved that Joyce was okay before what she said hit him. "What?" He stood there stunned as she told him everything with tears flowing down her face never noticing the sad eyes of Riley Finn watching him.
"Interesting" the dwarfish hunchbacked said to himself. He walked over to his desk and flipped through some pages in the book. This was a most unusual event. He had never encountered anything like this before...well he had once attempted to try this once...but his son would've never agreed to it. With what had happened, it was probably for the best. Still, this had opportunity written all over it. This would change the game greatly, if this could be duplicated again...why this could end the conflict all together. But it had to be handled carefully. He couldn't do it, it would alert Suhuy of it and that could potentially be bad. Hmmm....he carefully went through his trumps. Benedict...no, he had the mark of doom still. Bleys.....no, he's too much of carouser....Cain...dead, what a pity, Corwin....since this in involves him, no Dara might take notice. He thumbed through more before he finally settled on one of his better students, a short fiery haired woman with green eyes. He waited until the contact began before he spoke "Ah, yes, Fiona. I need you to come here..yes..I'll bring you here," he reached and pulled her to him. "You're familiar with the shadow that Corwin was banished to by Eric?" He waited for her nod before continuing "Good. I need you to go there. There's something that I want brought back here. This is very important. No one needs to know about this just yet. There's a small town called Sunnydale..its in California I do believe. Buffy and Dawn Summers. Bring them to me unharmed." He could see the wheels spinning in her mind and he hoped that she didn't figure it out yet. After all, anyone who could create someone capable of walking the pattern out of mystical energy designed to pierce dimensional walls was someone he really wanted to meet.
It had been a week since the surgery and her mom had recovered just fine. She had left Dawn at home to take care of her while she was meeting Willow at Giles'. Evidently, she had done some cracking on Carl Corey and had a lot to say. She opened the door and sat down waiting for Willow to tell everyone what she found.
Willow glanced at her friend's anxious face. What she and Giles had found out had startled her quite a bit. Biting her lip, she glanced at the former watcher before she started to speak. "Buffy, I did some digging and well...I'll just get to the point. Carl Corey was a former Army officer who retired to become a mercenary. That's not all Buffy, well Giles noticed something similar about the signatures."
"Will, what about the signatures?" Buffy interrupted wanting to get this over with.
"See Buffy, your dad was supposed to have been adopted and had everything signed over to him by his adopted father, whose had writing very similar. So we traced it back..Buffy it goes back several hundred years, Giles traced it back to England."
"So Buff, you're real father is a Macleod. There can be only one" Xander quipped before several annoyed stares shut him up.
"Buffy this is serious," Giles spoke up. "There are a number of unexplained things that me and Willow have discovered about your biological father. Someone had him committed to an insane asylum and as he escaped shot out his tired. He spent a few weeks in a coma before escaping the private hospital dropping off the radar for a while. He reappears a year later bloody on the side of the road and is admitted to a hospital, when a nurse comes in to see him vanish before her eyes and he's never been seen since. We discovered that a woman named Evelyn Flaumel was paying for his private hospital care after his wreck." Giles stopped as he took off his glasses and polished them a sure sign of annoyance. "However, Mrs. Flaumel disappeared shortly thereafter as well."
Willow interrupted "There's more, evidently you have a brother named Merle Corey who also has some odd things occurrences as well. For about seven years, on every April 30th it appeared that someone kept trying to kill him. A mail bomb, attacked by three men with weapons, a suspicious fire, and someone tried to run him over. He went to UCLA, Berkley Campus and majored in Computer Science. He was a track runner for the Olympics and went to work for a company called Grand Design where in the early eighties he was considered a brilliant computer designer. He even did some work with Bill Gates before he resigned and disappeared as well. He had friend named Lucas Raynard and a girlfriend named Julia Barnes who both disappeared as well"
"You're sure this isn't Carl deciding to be someone else Willow, he makes a habit of coming up with new names just to keep his stuff." Anya added.
"Positive. I managed to snag a few pictures of both Carl and Merle Corey, there's a strong resemblance but it's obvious two different people unless he's a shape-shifter. However, I did find something. Carl Corey's personal friend and former lawyer Bill Roth. It seems that Mr. Roth has long since retired, but he maintains an address in Palm Beach, Florida. I've got his phone number and address if you want it Buffy." Willow said.
Buffy stared at the wall for a few minutes trying to decide what to do. She really wanted to meet this man who was her real father, since Hank had turned out to a bust on both counts. She really didn't have the time to deal with this right now. There was mom's recovery, trying to protect Dawn from Glory trying to get her, and not to mention what weirdness the hellmouth could generate on its own. She was broken out of her thoughts by her boyfriends voice.
"I'll go and check it out for you Buffy." Riley said and he quickly spoke up again to forestall her, "Facts are facts Buffy. You need to be here for you mom and Dawn, Willow is busy with college, Xander needs to be here with Anaya, and you need Giles here for training and not to mention if the hellmouth does throw you something as it always does, you'll need them all. And this won't be the first time I've had to track someone down." he said while mentally adding to himself "Maybe a change of scenery would do them both some good."
Buffy smiled at him and walked over to him, snuggled into his arms "What would I ever do without you." She said .
To everyone else it seemed the matter had been solver, but Xander saw the pain in Riley's eyes and knew what those eyes reflected. He needed to say something to Buffy, but now wasn't the time and besides this might do them both some good.
"Well, thank you all for everything," Buffy said as she pulled herself out of Riley's embrace quickly kissed him as she headed for the door. "I've got to go and check on mom. Once again guys, thanks and Riley..you're the best." she said as she shut the door behind her. She walked quickly to her home, skipping her routine patrols of the many cemeteries that Sunnydale held. She was dimly aware of Spike behind her, but paid it no mind. Maybe Riley would find something out and have some good news to bring her. Still, it was a classic case of the soap opera that her life had somehow always been. She entered her home and ran upstairs to check on her mom to discover that she was resting and Dawn was curled up next to her asleep as well. A brief smile formed on her face before she entered her room and picked up the phone and dialed the familiar number again. "Cordy, can I speak to Angel?"
