The Ties That Bind.
A/N: This is a first for me, a Buffy/WWE crossover. I love them, but almost no one writes them, so if you know of a site anywhere, or an archive, drop me line.
Time for this is a little skewed, but hey, that's why this is fanfiction, not reality.
Buffy timeline is after season 2, Becoming Part 2, while Buffy is in LA. Anne never happens, but it's all pulled into present day.
Wrestling is kind of AU, but all the characters are there. Only major change is that John Cena is on the RAW roster.
Throughout the story others refer to Buffy as Elizabeth, but in speaking I'm still calling her Buffy. Hope that doesn't confuse anyone.
Anyway, happy reading, and let me know what you think.
Samantha.
"Hey little girl, watch what you're doing." A pair of hands closed around the weight she was lifting, and attempted to drag it back up and place it on its rest.
"What are you doing?" Buffy asked the guy, finally relenting and letting him guide the bar back into it's cradle.
"That thing is heavy, you should be more careful."
Buffy sat up and looked at her 'helper', a tall well built guy with blonde hair. "I should be more careful lifting something that I'm quite comfortable lifting?" She asked. "No offense, but leave me alone."
"You should have spotter here as well."
"I don't need one. Look whatever your name is, just leave me alone."
"You don't know who I am?"
"Should I?" Buffy looked amused.
"Hey Dave, come here and check this out."
Buffy started when the tall, well built, dark haired man turned around, then managed to control herself. "If you're coming over to check me out, the door's down past reception. The owner doesn't take too kindly to staff mixing with clients."
"You're a staff member?" The dark haired guy asked. "Aren't you a little young?"
"No." She shook her head.
"What do we have... here." A younger man sauntered over to them. "Hi, I'm Randy, you are?"
"Not interested." Buffy told him. "By the way, did your parents hate you?"
"You're kidding?" He stared at her in shock. "How can you not want this? Don't you know who I am?"
"I don't care who you are. I'm not interested."
"Shut down." The tall blonde guy chuckled.
"If you don't like my name so much, what's yours?" Randy asked.
"Elizabeth." Buffy answered, using the familiar alias she'd chosen. "You want to keep trying to pick me up, the door is down past reception, don't let it hit on you on the ass on you way out."
"You're very feisty aren't you?"
"Trust me when I say I'm too much for any of you to handle." Buffy just shrugged. "Please excuse me, I have to go and get ready for my next class."
As she sat on the small stage, choosing the music she would use in her tae bo class.
"Hey that was pretty funny over there, watching you take Randy down a couple of pegs."
Buffy looked up to see a guy making himself comfortable as she sorted CDs into piles. "Can I help you with something?"
"I thought you might want to come out for coffee with me, after you finish work that is, or on your next break."
"No thank you, the door is down past reception, should you feel compelled to use it."
"So that's a 'no'?"
"What is it with people today who can't understand the world 'no'." She stood up and adjusted her top and sweat pants, pulling her hair up into a ponytail.
"Would the two o'clock tae bo class please assemble in front of the stage." She called out, watching as eighteen or so people assembled on the mats. "Okay, who's done tae bo before?"
A handful of people raised their hands.
"Okay, so we'll start out with a basic warm up, get into it, and then do a proper cool down. Is everyone okay with that?"
Everyone nodded.
"Just before we start, does anyone have any medical conditions that I need to know about?"
Not receiving a response, Buffy hit the music and began the warm up.
She was pleased to note that by the time the class was over, everyone else looked a lot more worn out than she did.
"Hey, thanks for the class."
Buffy looked up to see two women, one blonde, one brunette, though her hair was heavily colored with red dye. "You're welcome."
"Look what are you doing now?"
"Shower, coffee, and then I have no idea." Buffy smiled.
"So your name is Elizabeth, right?" The blonde asked. "I'm Trish, and this is Lita. Do you want to come out for a coffee with us? Saves you sitting alone, unless you're meeting someone."
"No, I'm not meeting anyone, it would be nice. Just give me five minutes to get cleaned up and into street clothes." Buffy answered.
"Wow, girl you look great." Lita smiled as Buffy walked out of the staff locker rooms.
"I try." Buffy smiled as she ran her hands over her loose-cut jeans and comfortable t-shirt.
"So do you know a good place to get coffee?" Trish asked, "Or should we get in a taxi and say 'take us to the best coffee in LA'?"
Buffy laughed. "There's a great little place about five minutes walk from here. They serve all your coffee, and food as well, which I could use some of."
"Sounds good to me." Lita smiled. "I'm always hungry after exercise."
"Lead the way then."
"Where are you ladies off to?" A big, bald man asked.
"We're just going out for coffee Steve." Lita told him.
"Can I have an address of where you're going please?"
"In case I'm serial killer who preys on people she finds at the gym?" Buffy asked with a smile. "We're just heading down to a cafe on Tyne Street. Here's my phone number and address if they don't get back safely."
"Okay."
"So do you have a boyfriend?" Trish asked as the waitress walked away.
Buffy shook her head. "No, not at the moment."
"Bad break up?" Lita asked, "Because I can really sympathize."
"Trust me you cannot sympathize with this one." Buffy shook her head.
"I don't know, I've just had a pretty bad break up. My boyfriend dumped me on live TV."
"Mine tried to kill all my friends and leave them for me to find." Buffy answered. "Things were great in the beginning, and he was great. Then he changed, and he got mean and I wanted so much to help him, for him to just be the same Angel that he was before, but I couldn't help him.
He didn't want me to. Then he orchestrated an attack on my friends. He lured me away from them, and by the time I got back... One of my friends was dead, one missing and two were seriously injured, broken bones, head injuries. Another ran, as soon as they were attacked she just ran, and escaped unscathed.
I found Kendra, my friend who had died lying in a pool of her own blood and I knew that she was already dead. Police came up behind me, and I was frightened because I knew that they'd think I'd done it.
So I ran and spent the next few hours avoiding the law, and taking the fight to my ex-boyfriend. One of my friends was able to clear me of murder charges, but I couldn't deal anymore
. When I left my house I had a huge fight with my mom. She couldn't understand that I had things to do. Things, responsibilities that were so important that I couldn't stay home, even if I'd wanted to." Buffy closed her eyes in pain, before continuing. "She told me that if I left I shouldn't think about coming back. So I didn't. I sent Angel to hell, and left."
"You ran away from home?" Trish asked, "Before you seemed so much older, but now you seem so young. How old are you?"
"Eighteen in a few months." Buffy shook her head. "Sometimes it feels like it was all so long ago, like it happened to someone else."
"I don't know honey." Trish said to her. "I think that's how we reflect on the turning points in our lives. If we didn't have that feeling like it happened to someone else, then we wouldn't be the people we are today."
"Hey ladies!" A voice greeted them, grabbing a chair and sitting down to join them.
"Hey yourself." Lita chuckled. "Elizabeth this is Rob, Chris and John." She gestured to each of the three guys in turn.
"You were the tae bo instructor weren't you?" Rob asked her.
"Yeah." She smiled, "Elizabeth Summers."
"That's kind of pretty. Chris Jericho." One of the other guys told her, holding his hand out to shake. "This chain wearing thug is John Cena."
"It's nice to meet you too." Buffy told him, then looked down at her coffee stirring the sprinkling of chocolate with the tip of her finger, then licking the frothy milk off.
"So I'll bet that tastes good, huh?"
Buffy looked up in surprise at Jericho. "Something like that." She redirected her attention but found herself staring off into space.
"Don't you just hate guys who are all tall dark, and broody?" John asked, glancing at what she was staring at, a guy who would easily have fitted his description.
"You just described my ex-boyfriend." Buffy told him, "And everything I loved about him."
John stared at her, looking remarkably like he wanted to melt into the floor.
"Nice going Romeo." Rob chuckled, clapping John on the back.
"So where are you from Elizabeth?" Chris asked.
"I was born in Los Angeles if that's what you're asking." She answered. "My mom and dad divorced just before my freshman year of high school, so mom and I moved. I wasn't very well behaved at my previous school and they asked me not to return."
"I remember getting into trouble in high school." Rob grinned. "I did a back flip off the school roof, and when I got up, half the school had seen it, and the other half were begging me to do it again. So I did."
"I did some things that were significantly worse." Buffy shook her head. "I wasn't a very good student, and I... misbehaved a little."
"Doesn't sound like anything I didn't do." Chris told her.
"Trust me, you have not done some of the things I've done." She told him.
"So where are your parents, or your mom at least, what's she do?" Rob asked.
"Elizabeth has sort of left home." Trish explained.
"Like you ran away?" John asked.
"I look at it more as being in my own space." Buffy told them. "I was having a lot of problems at home, a lot of bad things happened, and once I finished it all, I left. I didn't want anyone to see how much pain I was in."
"So you must be what like... eighteen?" Chris asked.
"In a couple of months." Buffy answered. "It's not really a big deal to me. I have a good job, an apartment. Since I left I've needed a lot more solitude than I ever needed before."
"You're pretty brave then." Rob told her. "I don't think I would have had the courage to do that."
"It's not about courage." Buffy told him. "Very few things in this world are. Most often they're about stupidity, or about pain."
"See now you've got me wondering about your age again." Trish shook her head. "I can't believe that you're so young, you say something like that I start to wonder."
"I've seen a lot of things I wish I hadn't, and done a lot of things that I wish I could forget." Buffy told her. "Stuff like that makes you older, even if you don't want to be." She took a sip of her coffee and set the cup back down, looking at John for a second before speaking to everyone. "So you guys are all wrestlers?"
"Yeah." Rob grinned. "You'd be about the right type for it too."
"The right type huh?" She grinned at him. "What makes you say that?"
"You're fast on your feet, and you're a trained fighter. Anyone who knows martial arts could see that while you were taking us through the tae bo class."
"So I've been trained a little." Buffy shook her head. "I know how to kick ass better than anyone else I know. I had high school linebackers and quarterbacks afraid of me."
"You're kidding?" John looked at her. "You couldn't be any more than five- five, one thirty pounds."
"It's not the size that counts." Buffy told him. "It's the drive of the individual. I'm not afraid of a challenge."
"Yeah you'd fit right in." Chris nodded.
Completely out of the blue Buffy looked at John, something bordering on recognition in her eyes. "You remind me of him."
"What?" John stared at her for a second, confused.
"I don't know what it is about you, but you remind me of him." Buffy told him.
"Who?"
"My ex-boyfriend. Physically, you share almost no attributes, but there's just something in you that reminds me of him."
"So what are you going to do with your life?" Rob asked, "Do you have any ambitions at all?"
Buffy shrugged. "I never really had any. I never really made any firm plans about what I wanted to do with my life, I mean I have direction, but there's just nothing I really want to do with my life. Maybe I just haven't found the right thing yet."
"Maybe." Lita nodded. "So you're going to stay in LA, once we're gone I mean."
"Most likely." Buffy nodded. "Where else would a teenage runaway go but the city of lost angels?"
"What if you came with us?" Trish said suddenly. "We don't have a personal trainer on tour with us anymore, so it's kind of a pain. We could talk to Vince and see if he'd hire you."
"Then we could train you to be a wrestler." Chris told her. "We could give you a future."
"One that I think you'll be very good at." Rob told her.
"I don't know." Buffy began, "I barely know you."
"We just met you." Lita told her, "But I feel like I've known you for a lot longer. So let us help you. You can't close yourself off from the world, Elizabeth. Sooner or later you're going to have to let it back in."
"Let us help you." John said suddenly. "Let someone take care of you for once, I know it sounds patronizing, but you're just a kid. You shouldn't have to try and be a grown up yet. Let us protect you." He reached one hand out to her, waiting to see if she would take it.
Buffy stared at him for moment, a look fleeting in her eyes that the others could quite name. Then she reached out and took hold of John's hand.
"You got me for good now." John told her as he pulled her into an unexpected hug.
A/N: This is a first for me, a Buffy/WWE crossover. I love them, but almost no one writes them, so if you know of a site anywhere, or an archive, drop me line.
Time for this is a little skewed, but hey, that's why this is fanfiction, not reality.
Buffy timeline is after season 2, Becoming Part 2, while Buffy is in LA. Anne never happens, but it's all pulled into present day.
Wrestling is kind of AU, but all the characters are there. Only major change is that John Cena is on the RAW roster.
Throughout the story others refer to Buffy as Elizabeth, but in speaking I'm still calling her Buffy. Hope that doesn't confuse anyone.
Anyway, happy reading, and let me know what you think.
Samantha.
"Hey little girl, watch what you're doing." A pair of hands closed around the weight she was lifting, and attempted to drag it back up and place it on its rest.
"What are you doing?" Buffy asked the guy, finally relenting and letting him guide the bar back into it's cradle.
"That thing is heavy, you should be more careful."
Buffy sat up and looked at her 'helper', a tall well built guy with blonde hair. "I should be more careful lifting something that I'm quite comfortable lifting?" She asked. "No offense, but leave me alone."
"You should have spotter here as well."
"I don't need one. Look whatever your name is, just leave me alone."
"You don't know who I am?"
"Should I?" Buffy looked amused.
"Hey Dave, come here and check this out."
Buffy started when the tall, well built, dark haired man turned around, then managed to control herself. "If you're coming over to check me out, the door's down past reception. The owner doesn't take too kindly to staff mixing with clients."
"You're a staff member?" The dark haired guy asked. "Aren't you a little young?"
"No." She shook her head.
"What do we have... here." A younger man sauntered over to them. "Hi, I'm Randy, you are?"
"Not interested." Buffy told him. "By the way, did your parents hate you?"
"You're kidding?" He stared at her in shock. "How can you not want this? Don't you know who I am?"
"I don't care who you are. I'm not interested."
"Shut down." The tall blonde guy chuckled.
"If you don't like my name so much, what's yours?" Randy asked.
"Elizabeth." Buffy answered, using the familiar alias she'd chosen. "You want to keep trying to pick me up, the door is down past reception, don't let it hit on you on the ass on you way out."
"You're very feisty aren't you?"
"Trust me when I say I'm too much for any of you to handle." Buffy just shrugged. "Please excuse me, I have to go and get ready for my next class."
As she sat on the small stage, choosing the music she would use in her tae bo class.
"Hey that was pretty funny over there, watching you take Randy down a couple of pegs."
Buffy looked up to see a guy making himself comfortable as she sorted CDs into piles. "Can I help you with something?"
"I thought you might want to come out for coffee with me, after you finish work that is, or on your next break."
"No thank you, the door is down past reception, should you feel compelled to use it."
"So that's a 'no'?"
"What is it with people today who can't understand the world 'no'." She stood up and adjusted her top and sweat pants, pulling her hair up into a ponytail.
"Would the two o'clock tae bo class please assemble in front of the stage." She called out, watching as eighteen or so people assembled on the mats. "Okay, who's done tae bo before?"
A handful of people raised their hands.
"Okay, so we'll start out with a basic warm up, get into it, and then do a proper cool down. Is everyone okay with that?"
Everyone nodded.
"Just before we start, does anyone have any medical conditions that I need to know about?"
Not receiving a response, Buffy hit the music and began the warm up.
She was pleased to note that by the time the class was over, everyone else looked a lot more worn out than she did.
"Hey, thanks for the class."
Buffy looked up to see two women, one blonde, one brunette, though her hair was heavily colored with red dye. "You're welcome."
"Look what are you doing now?"
"Shower, coffee, and then I have no idea." Buffy smiled.
"So your name is Elizabeth, right?" The blonde asked. "I'm Trish, and this is Lita. Do you want to come out for a coffee with us? Saves you sitting alone, unless you're meeting someone."
"No, I'm not meeting anyone, it would be nice. Just give me five minutes to get cleaned up and into street clothes." Buffy answered.
"Wow, girl you look great." Lita smiled as Buffy walked out of the staff locker rooms.
"I try." Buffy smiled as she ran her hands over her loose-cut jeans and comfortable t-shirt.
"So do you know a good place to get coffee?" Trish asked, "Or should we get in a taxi and say 'take us to the best coffee in LA'?"
Buffy laughed. "There's a great little place about five minutes walk from here. They serve all your coffee, and food as well, which I could use some of."
"Sounds good to me." Lita smiled. "I'm always hungry after exercise."
"Lead the way then."
"Where are you ladies off to?" A big, bald man asked.
"We're just going out for coffee Steve." Lita told him.
"Can I have an address of where you're going please?"
"In case I'm serial killer who preys on people she finds at the gym?" Buffy asked with a smile. "We're just heading down to a cafe on Tyne Street. Here's my phone number and address if they don't get back safely."
"Okay."
"So do you have a boyfriend?" Trish asked as the waitress walked away.
Buffy shook her head. "No, not at the moment."
"Bad break up?" Lita asked, "Because I can really sympathize."
"Trust me you cannot sympathize with this one." Buffy shook her head.
"I don't know, I've just had a pretty bad break up. My boyfriend dumped me on live TV."
"Mine tried to kill all my friends and leave them for me to find." Buffy answered. "Things were great in the beginning, and he was great. Then he changed, and he got mean and I wanted so much to help him, for him to just be the same Angel that he was before, but I couldn't help him.
He didn't want me to. Then he orchestrated an attack on my friends. He lured me away from them, and by the time I got back... One of my friends was dead, one missing and two were seriously injured, broken bones, head injuries. Another ran, as soon as they were attacked she just ran, and escaped unscathed.
I found Kendra, my friend who had died lying in a pool of her own blood and I knew that she was already dead. Police came up behind me, and I was frightened because I knew that they'd think I'd done it.
So I ran and spent the next few hours avoiding the law, and taking the fight to my ex-boyfriend. One of my friends was able to clear me of murder charges, but I couldn't deal anymore
. When I left my house I had a huge fight with my mom. She couldn't understand that I had things to do. Things, responsibilities that were so important that I couldn't stay home, even if I'd wanted to." Buffy closed her eyes in pain, before continuing. "She told me that if I left I shouldn't think about coming back. So I didn't. I sent Angel to hell, and left."
"You ran away from home?" Trish asked, "Before you seemed so much older, but now you seem so young. How old are you?"
"Eighteen in a few months." Buffy shook her head. "Sometimes it feels like it was all so long ago, like it happened to someone else."
"I don't know honey." Trish said to her. "I think that's how we reflect on the turning points in our lives. If we didn't have that feeling like it happened to someone else, then we wouldn't be the people we are today."
"Hey ladies!" A voice greeted them, grabbing a chair and sitting down to join them.
"Hey yourself." Lita chuckled. "Elizabeth this is Rob, Chris and John." She gestured to each of the three guys in turn.
"You were the tae bo instructor weren't you?" Rob asked her.
"Yeah." She smiled, "Elizabeth Summers."
"That's kind of pretty. Chris Jericho." One of the other guys told her, holding his hand out to shake. "This chain wearing thug is John Cena."
"It's nice to meet you too." Buffy told him, then looked down at her coffee stirring the sprinkling of chocolate with the tip of her finger, then licking the frothy milk off.
"So I'll bet that tastes good, huh?"
Buffy looked up in surprise at Jericho. "Something like that." She redirected her attention but found herself staring off into space.
"Don't you just hate guys who are all tall dark, and broody?" John asked, glancing at what she was staring at, a guy who would easily have fitted his description.
"You just described my ex-boyfriend." Buffy told him, "And everything I loved about him."
John stared at her, looking remarkably like he wanted to melt into the floor.
"Nice going Romeo." Rob chuckled, clapping John on the back.
"So where are you from Elizabeth?" Chris asked.
"I was born in Los Angeles if that's what you're asking." She answered. "My mom and dad divorced just before my freshman year of high school, so mom and I moved. I wasn't very well behaved at my previous school and they asked me not to return."
"I remember getting into trouble in high school." Rob grinned. "I did a back flip off the school roof, and when I got up, half the school had seen it, and the other half were begging me to do it again. So I did."
"I did some things that were significantly worse." Buffy shook her head. "I wasn't a very good student, and I... misbehaved a little."
"Doesn't sound like anything I didn't do." Chris told her.
"Trust me, you have not done some of the things I've done." She told him.
"So where are your parents, or your mom at least, what's she do?" Rob asked.
"Elizabeth has sort of left home." Trish explained.
"Like you ran away?" John asked.
"I look at it more as being in my own space." Buffy told them. "I was having a lot of problems at home, a lot of bad things happened, and once I finished it all, I left. I didn't want anyone to see how much pain I was in."
"So you must be what like... eighteen?" Chris asked.
"In a couple of months." Buffy answered. "It's not really a big deal to me. I have a good job, an apartment. Since I left I've needed a lot more solitude than I ever needed before."
"You're pretty brave then." Rob told her. "I don't think I would have had the courage to do that."
"It's not about courage." Buffy told him. "Very few things in this world are. Most often they're about stupidity, or about pain."
"See now you've got me wondering about your age again." Trish shook her head. "I can't believe that you're so young, you say something like that I start to wonder."
"I've seen a lot of things I wish I hadn't, and done a lot of things that I wish I could forget." Buffy told her. "Stuff like that makes you older, even if you don't want to be." She took a sip of her coffee and set the cup back down, looking at John for a second before speaking to everyone. "So you guys are all wrestlers?"
"Yeah." Rob grinned. "You'd be about the right type for it too."
"The right type huh?" She grinned at him. "What makes you say that?"
"You're fast on your feet, and you're a trained fighter. Anyone who knows martial arts could see that while you were taking us through the tae bo class."
"So I've been trained a little." Buffy shook her head. "I know how to kick ass better than anyone else I know. I had high school linebackers and quarterbacks afraid of me."
"You're kidding?" John looked at her. "You couldn't be any more than five- five, one thirty pounds."
"It's not the size that counts." Buffy told him. "It's the drive of the individual. I'm not afraid of a challenge."
"Yeah you'd fit right in." Chris nodded.
Completely out of the blue Buffy looked at John, something bordering on recognition in her eyes. "You remind me of him."
"What?" John stared at her for a second, confused.
"I don't know what it is about you, but you remind me of him." Buffy told him.
"Who?"
"My ex-boyfriend. Physically, you share almost no attributes, but there's just something in you that reminds me of him."
"So what are you going to do with your life?" Rob asked, "Do you have any ambitions at all?"
Buffy shrugged. "I never really had any. I never really made any firm plans about what I wanted to do with my life, I mean I have direction, but there's just nothing I really want to do with my life. Maybe I just haven't found the right thing yet."
"Maybe." Lita nodded. "So you're going to stay in LA, once we're gone I mean."
"Most likely." Buffy nodded. "Where else would a teenage runaway go but the city of lost angels?"
"What if you came with us?" Trish said suddenly. "We don't have a personal trainer on tour with us anymore, so it's kind of a pain. We could talk to Vince and see if he'd hire you."
"Then we could train you to be a wrestler." Chris told her. "We could give you a future."
"One that I think you'll be very good at." Rob told her.
"I don't know." Buffy began, "I barely know you."
"We just met you." Lita told her, "But I feel like I've known you for a lot longer. So let us help you. You can't close yourself off from the world, Elizabeth. Sooner or later you're going to have to let it back in."
"Let us help you." John said suddenly. "Let someone take care of you for once, I know it sounds patronizing, but you're just a kid. You shouldn't have to try and be a grown up yet. Let us protect you." He reached one hand out to her, waiting to see if she would take it.
Buffy stared at him for moment, a look fleeting in her eyes that the others could quite name. Then she reached out and took hold of John's hand.
"You got me for good now." John told her as he pulled her into an unexpected hug.