I had this plot bunny hopping around in my head. I wanted to write a time travel one shot for a while.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. It's Joss's world and I just play around in it.
Dawn couldn't believe the mess she saw around her. Everyone she knew, everyone she loved was either dead or signed their souls to the Senior Partners of Wolfram and Hart. As tears streamed down her face, she thought about everything that happened in the past few years, how everything should've gone differently. As a green portal appeared beneath her, she thought back to when Buffy told her about her death at the hands of the Master. She gathered some books on the ground and jumped into the portal…
The next thing she knew, she found herself in the stacks of Sunnydale High School's library. Using whatever latent powers she had from the portal, she mentally linked herself to the monks who created her and used her imagination to create a new persona. She stepped outside and saw Giles pouring over the Pergamum Codex.
"Mister Giles?" Dawn asked.
Giles looked up in confusion and surprise. "I didn't hear you come in."
"You fell asleep." She stepped out from the stacks and walked down the stairs. Unsure if her younger self existed in this reality, she thought of the first name that came to her head. "My name is...Joan Winters. I'm a Watcher-in-training from New York. The Council sent me here because they heard you were translating the Pergamum Codex."
"Yes," Giles said. "But I highly doubt you can be of any help."
Dawn slammed three volumes onto Giles's desk. "I've been translating documents for the Council for two years. I'm very gifted in translating dead languages. I can read Ancient Sumerian as well as Polynesian, Mayan, and Egyptian hieroglyphics. Ancient Greek comes easily to me."
"So what are these volumes?"
Dawn held up the first book. "This is the properly translated English version of the Pergamum Codex. I want you to show this to Buffy. I'll show you the other two books later."
Giles nodded. "Thank you, Joan."
"No problem!"
Later on, Buffy arrived in the library with Willow and Xander.
"Morning, Giles!" Buffy said.
"Who's the new girl?" Xander asked.
Dawn blushed as she looked at Xander, but maintained her composure.
"Oh, yes," Giles said. "This is Joan Winters. She is going to be my assistant."
"And I'm gonna be transferring here next year," Dawn said.
"We were just checking up on things after the earthquake," Willow said.
"Which reminds me," Giles said. "I have something that I need to show all of you."
Giles showed the newly translated Codex to the three teenagers. Willow read the prophecy written out loud: "In the coming of early spring, the Anointed One shall lead the Slayer to the Master. The Slayer will not know him. If the Slayer falls under the Master's thrall, the Master will take her blood and drown her. She will experience a short death before life returns to her, able to live alongside the newly called Slayer."
"I guess we didn't take down the Anointed One after all," Buffy said. "But I'm not really gonna die...or at least not for long."
"Just don't fall under his thrall."
"Good. Because I don't want to miss out on the dance!"
###
The assurance that she could prevent her death gave Buffy a newfound confidence. She put on the dress that her mother bought for her along with Angel's jacket and took down the Anointed One and the Master with ease. After the dance, Dawn, who was getting used to being called Joan, told Buffy to grind up the Master's bones to prevent him from being summoned back in a ritual. During the summer, Joan divided her time between her part time job at the Magic Box and assisting Giles in training Buffy.
Eventually, Joan was invited to Buffy's house, where she found no trace of her younger self. She realized that her psychic connection with the monks rewrote reality so that her newly made self was still the Key, but not Buffy's sister, clone, or daughter. She knew that she had to take care of Glory when the time comes around.
When the new school year started, Joan enrolled as a student at Sunnydale High. Buffy's newfound confidence grew to a borderline cockiness with the lack of vampires that came around during the summer break. She enjoyed fighting as much as she enjoyed slaying and pushed herself to be in top physical condition.
In October, however, Buffy finally met a formidable foe in the form of Spike, the slayer of Slayers. The two of them met outside the alleyway of the Bronze, where he declared that he would kill her on Saturday. Dawn provided Giles with the second volume she brought with her: a complete biography of all four members of The Whirlwind.
Buffy laughed as she read Spike's biography. "Oh my God. He was called William the Bloody because of his bloody awful poetry?" She read the poem written in the book. "To be honest, it's not that bad."
"You have a serious advantage here," Joan said. "Spike only goes after Slayers with a death wish."
Buffy nodded in agreement.
Later on, Buffy fought Spike and his gang when they broke into the school during Parent-Teacher Night.
"News for you, Spike," Buffy said as she fought him off. "I may be the Slayer, but I don't have a death wish." She did a sweeping kick to his legs, knocking him down to the floor. "Did my research on you and your paramour, Dru. You don't need my blood. You need Angel's."
Stunned and confused, Spike got up. "You are definitely not like the other Slayers I fought."
"And you're definitely better than most of the vamps I've been fighting the past few months. Hell, even The Master wasn't much of a fight."
"You are way too confident for your own good, Slayer."
Spike was able to knock Buffy down, only to meet the blunt end of a fire ax wielded by Joyce. Joan decided to take advantage of the situation by leading Joyce and Buffy to where Angel and Xander were fighting some of Spike's minions. Angel greeted Joyce with a fully vamped out face, which scared her so much, she fainted. Any interest Buffy had in Angel fizzled when he tried to excuse his actions. After the battle ended, Joan told Miss Calendar to perform a disinvite spell for Angel over Buffy's house and to tell the Scooby Gang about why she was really in Sunnydale.
###
Despondent over Buffy not returning his feelings, Angel found himself wandering through a playground a week later. Drusilla invited him to play a game with her and quickly cast her illusion onto him. In an instant, Angel saw Buffy in Dru's place. The insane vampire took advantage of the situation and fooled Angel into having his moment of true happiness, which released the soul from his body.
Distraught over Dru's betrayal, Spike sought out Buffy again in the hopes of meeting the pointy end of her stake. Instead, he found Joan at the library with Giles and Jenny Calendar.
"What are you doing here, Spike?" Joan asked with a defensive tone.
"Drusilla used her special powers on Angelus. Your domesticated vampire has been brought back into the wild."
"But how could she give him a moment of happiness?" Miss Calendar said.
"By making him think she was Buffy," Joan said. "We need to re-ensoul Angel and get him out of Sunnydale. He has become too much of a liability."
Miss Calendar nodded in agreement. "We have to get to the Magic Box and get everything we need. But I need some help."
"I know just the girls for the job!"
Giles made a quick call to Buffy and informed her about the goings-on. Meanwhile, Drusilla and Angelus got straight to work in assembling The Judge to begin Phase 1 of their takeover of Sunnydale. They paid no attention to Spike, who later informed Buffy about their plans.
Joan and Miss Calendar picked up Willow and Amy and together, the four of them performed two spells. The gypsy was able to modify the ensouling spell so that the soul was a gift instead of a curse, extended the recipients to Spike, Angel, and Drusilla, and permanently anchored the souls to their vampire bodies. The second soul the witches casted was a spell specifically for Drusilla, which restored her to the innocent girl she was before Angelus tortured her into insanity.
Meanwhile, at the mall, Buffy blasted the judge to bits with a rocket launcher she borrowed from a military base. She was about to stake Angel and Drusilla when the spells took effect and knocked both of them out. Spike, who was there to help Buffy under a truce, also felt his soul coming into his body.
###
When the battle with the Judge was over and done with, Joan showed her third document to everyone: a properly translated version of the Shanshu Prophecy.
Two apocalypses shall arise in the valley of the sun and the city of angels. On the eve of these apocalypses, when the sky is shrouded in darkness and demons overthrow the earth, when humanity is at its last stand, two champions of light will emerge. One is the demon with the face of an angel, the other is an enemy turned ally. In the Valley of the Sun, the one who ascends shall descend into his death in the gate of the Hellmouth at the hands of the Valley's champion and the Slayer. In the City of Angels, the Wolf, The Ram, and the Hart shall open the circle, but the circle will close at the hands of city's champion. After these battles, the champions shall be granted new life and the strength of Slayers.
After much deliberation, it was decided that Angel would go to Los Angeles while the newly ensouled Spike would stay in Sunnydale. Drusilla, with her restored humanity, found a convent that accepted her gift of visions. The formerly insane vampire made her peace with God and became the nun she always wanted to be.
Jenny called one of her cousins to keep Angel accountable in Los Angeles. It didn't take long for Angel to get started on helping the helpless. One of the first people he helped was a teenage runaway from Boston named Faith Lehane who worked for a demon until he sold her out to a nest of vampires. Under Angel's tutelage, Faith became Angel's right hand woman at Angel Investigations, which consisted of Angel, herself, Jenny's cousin, and Whistler. The lawyers at Wolfram and Hart attempted to summon Darla from the dead, but Angel's team was able to prevent that.
Over in Sunnydale, Buffy and Spike took down a team of scientists who were experimenting on demons. Spike got his hands on the Gem of Amara and was able to be there for Buffy during the daylight hours. The two of them developed from reluctant allies to friends to having unresolved sexal tension over eight months of fighting together. Xander realized what kind of guy Buffy needed and developed feelings for the Watcher-in-training because she understood how it felt to be sort of on the outside. Meanwhile, Willow found true love with one Daniel Osbourne, a guitarist for the band Dingoes Ate My Baby.
###
During the summer before Buffy's senior year, Joan found Ben out on the town. She paid a vampire from a suck job house to seduce Ben and drained him dry, then told Buffy to burn down the house. It wasn't until after the house burned down that Joan realized that Ben was never truly human.
After taking care of Ben, the Scooby Gang turned their focus on taking down the Mayor. They were unable to prevent him from becoming invisible and learned that the eclipse was the one foreshadowed in the Shanshu prophecy.
The prophecy came to pass in May, during Buffy's graduation day. In Sunnydale, Buffy and Spike lured the Mayor to the library, where they blew him and the entire school to bits amidst the entire population of Sunnydale High taking down the Mayor's minions. After that battle finished, the Scooby Gang went over to Los Angeles to help Angel take down the Circle of Black Thorn. The Wolf, The Ram, and the Hart ascended into the city with their minions. Los Angeles became a battleground for an epic battle worthy of a blockbuster movie and for almost a second, Joan lost faith that things would turn out okay.
But the good guys won. And the Powers fulfilled their side of the prophecy by granting humanity (with additional Slayer strength) to Angel and Spike. As soon as they gained their humanity, plans ensued for a double wedding with Buffy and Spike and Angel and Faith.
Giles and Jenny married after working with the city to restore Sunnydale High School to its former glory. Willow spent her college days learning how to be a technopagan under Jenny Calendar's tutelage. Later on, Willow met a young witch named Tara who was starting out on her own in Sunnydale away from her abusive family. The young witch eventually became the owner of the Magic Box and gained a lot of confidence from spending her time with Buffy and her friends. Dingoes Ate My Baby eventually broke up, which gave Oz the time he needed to tame his inner wolf. He eventually mastered it to the point that he could retain his humanity in his wolf state. Xander worked for Sunnydale's department of city planning and eventually became a deputy director. Cordelia moved from Sunnydale to LA and became an actress and model. Eventually, she would start a nonprofit that provided employment people living on welfare.
Xander and Joan married in a double ceremony with Willow and Oz after they all finished college. Buffy continued her studies, even after her mother went through a tumor and a nearly-missed aneurysm, and worked as a guidance counselor for the students of Sunnydale High. Spike became an adjunct professor at Sunnydale University. And while they led mostly domestic lives in the daytime, they still defended the Hellmouth every night. Joan felt proud at the new lease on life that everyone received.
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