AUTHOR: Goddess Isa
EMAIL: goddessisa@aol.com
SUMMARY: Through alternate POVs, there's a high school graduation and the calling of a new Slayer nineteen years from now
RATING: TV-14
SPOILERS: Graduation Day
DISTRIBUTION: Knock yourselves out but send me the URL, k? I'm sick and tired of finding my work on pages I've never heard of before.
DISCLAIMER: Buffy, Xander, Angel and the other mentioned Sunnydale survivors are property of Joss. However, Cathleen and Garrett are mine. ALL MINE!
She has no idea what's waiting for her.
She's sitting on stage with her friends, giggling, talking. She's so happy. Smart too, way smarter than I ever was. She planned on going to college, possibly NYU. She wants to be a lawyer, preferably one that works in child custody disputes. She wants to be a savior of the innocent, that's what she said.
And that's just what she will be.
"Cathleen Cordelia Summers."
I beam as my little girl, who isn't so little anymore, holds the teal cap on her head as the wind threatens to blow it off. She gives me a sincere smile and accepts her diploma from Dr. Rand, looking down into the empty leather folder as though it were really in there.
Xander nudges me. "Who'da thunk this, huh?"
"Not me."
"Have you told her?"
"Does Garrett know his mother's a Witch?" I countered.
"Fair enough." we watched her sit back down, then he spoke again. "Buffy?" his voice was softer now. "She has to know. Soon."
That, I'll agree with. I've kept her sheltered from the truth since the day of her birth. I was rewarded official retirement after the Ascension and a year later, when my daughter was born, I fought another battle. This time, for her.
It was destiny that she would be a Slayer. I couldn't fight it and I couldn't change it, either. There was only one thing I could do.
Delay it.
Giles went to bat for me and once again, we rewrote a rule in the Slayer Handbook. Cathleen would not be called until her eighteenth birthday. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. It was enough to give her a normal high school experience, something I never had.
I watched her hurl her cap into the air with her friends and I felt a pang in my heart. My high school graduation should've been like this. Xander and Willow and even Cordy and I should've been huddled together, singing 'American Pie' for no reason and taking the tassels off of our caps before tossing them so we'd have something to toss in our yearbooks to keep track of the day. I'm not sure about Xander and the others, but I've got a charred diploma and a scar on my neck to commemorate my commencement.
Everyone's hugging now, and I realize this is what we should've had, what we all deserved. Instead, we killed a God-awful demon and blew up the school.
I remembered everything and everyone we lost that summer.
Nineteen years and I've never heard from Angel. I wonder if he even got the letters I sent, the pictures of our daughter. I wonder if he knows how much I still love him.
I notice Xander catch someone's cap and realize he must be remembering and hurting the way I am. Cordelia died that summer, and even though he and Willow eventually got married and had Garrett, I think his heart still aches for her.
It was only right to name Cathleen after her. She was born on the same day as Cordelia, June 16th, and she was my little May Queen from Day One.
Sometimes I call her Cordy, but Garrett always has, since the kids first learned to talk. I look at them and I see miniature versions of all of us. I shudder when I realize how much the truth is going to hurt when we finally tell them.
*****
The weeks have flown by since graduation. My birthday is tomorrow - eighteen years. I finally made it.
I cannot believe I'm going to have to tell Mom the truth.
That I am the Slayer.
I wasn't supposed to find out. Garrett said no one's supposed to find out until they're called, which is usually on their sixteenth birthday. He was snooping through the books his mom thinks he doesn't know about and he found the Codex or something like that.
He said it's a great book of prophecy that never lies. It said that I was to be a vibrant Slayer, powerful, passionate for the cause. I guess I'm excited about it. I mean, Mom met the love of her life because she was the Slayer.
Of course, all of that doesn't matter, because I've already met the love of mine.
*****
Cathleen accepted her destiny with wonderful grace, something I never expected. She still intends to go to college and be a lawyer, she said she can do it all from her computer.
"I'm gonna make you so proud of me, Grandpa Giles." she promises. "I'm going to balance both worlds, the Slaying and college, you'll see." She kisses my cheek and dashes up to her room.
And I'm left sitting here, hoping she succeeds because that's what I wish for her.
To be happy.