Disclaimer: I clearly don't own anything related to Buffy the Vampire Slayer or How I Met Your Mother. If I did, I'd be writing canon rather than messing with it.
Buffy: Cannon through Chosen
How I Met Your Mother will be canon apart from the things that are changed in the story. If an episode or story arc is skipped, feel free to assume that it happened the same as in the show and I just have nothing to add or twist to it.
"A people without knowledge of their past is like a tree without roots" - Marcus Garvey
Chapter 2
Two months.
The wedding wasn't supposed to happen for a while and now it was all happening in two months and she needed to get everything ready. There was no photographer, no caterer, invitations had to be sent out, and there was the band.
The 88 were supposed to be great, sure, but she hadn't even heard them play, and she couldn't just agree to a band without hearing them play. So with the help of Robin and Barney she was going to sneak in to a prom and hear them play. It seemed simple enough, but talking about sneaking into a prom was funny, even the act of finding a way in was fun, being inside however, that was quickly becoming torturous. Seeing these kids dancing and laughing, with their future ahead of them, in this particular setting. It brought up old feelings. So when Robin got puked on, she was silently relieved to get out of the dance and into the bathroom.
Relieved that is, until Robin asked about her prom. Lily flushed. She had long been used to living beyond her lies. Those conversations about her life before meeting them had happened long before with Marshall and Ted. She was past the need to lie to them, her lies had been accepted as a factual history, and though she had few regrets for the necessity of them to maintain her distance from her true past, she didn't enjoy lying to those she cared about. That was the danger of new friends. Still, there was little she could do to avoid it. The questioned was answered with a fabrication she had told before. The fact that she had told the story before made it easier for her mind to wander while she spoke, and in that wandering, she for once allowed herself to think on the truth behind the stories she told.
She told Robin all about her time in high school, with the geeky boyfriend who adored her, and about her prom when she broke up with her boyfriend to find herself. It was funny actually, that her made up past was so similar to the future she used to imagine herself when she was a child. Of course the geeky boyfriend should have been Xander, and the breakup at prom was actually pulled from Buffy. Still, remembering her prom should have been nice, hellhounds and all, but as she told the story, frustration set in. She complained to Robin about how she had never found herself, but really she was frustrated about how much of herself she had lost.
Her lies had taken over her life, and even though that had been the plan, Lily began to worry that her past was just a dream. In her old life, she had been a lesbian, but just a few months ago she was worried about being pregnant. She was here tonight to listen to a band for her wedding to a man. In her old life, she had sworn off lying to those she loved, now circumstances had forced her to sneak around and continue lying to those she cared about.
And it didn't even matter, she had left that life so she could be normal. So she could avoid the supernatural and the dangerous. But not long ago she had saved Marshall from a vampire, and met a slayer. She was even afraid that her magic was coming back.
Lily was grateful to Robin for inviting her to the awards show. She had felt like a movie star, and it was a great distraction from the difficulties of her life recently. She stamped down the memory of that vampire before it got too far. She didn't want to think about how she had made that jump, or why the slayer had hesitated when speaking to her. She didn't want to be afraid that she had been recognized or worse.
She had just managed to shut out that fear when Robin showed up with her date, and Lily swallowed hard. She trembled when she shook his hand, but Sandy just said something about how it was nice to meet a fan who was shaking with excitement to meet him.
She knew it couldn't be him, not only was Sandy nothing like him on the surface, there was nothing in him that gave any flicker of recognition to seeing her there. Besides, while it had been a while, Wesley was not one to give up the fight, especially not to read the newspaper on television, where many of the enemies she knew he had would have found him easily.
Still they looked exactly the same. Willow might have been more freaked out if she hadn't already experienced this situation before. She had seen a few doppelgangers before, the most jarring and scary one was in college with Daryl, who could have been the long lost twin brother of Oz. But while Oz wouldn't have been able to act like he didn't know her, Wesley had gained the ability to play things close to the chest in the years he was in LA., and regardless of her intellectual surety that it wasn't him, Lily still could feel her heart beating very quickly.
It got worse when she heard Marshall in her head. They had joked before about being able to talk telepathically, being so close that they could communicate with simply glances, but this time was different. She could hear him speaking in her head, and before she could stop herself, she replied. Later that night, she played it off as if she couldn't hear him, and Marshall had convinced himself that he was just interpreting her glances in her voice, but she was troubled. Besides the possible use the night Marshall was being followed by a vampire, she hadn't used any magic since the day she "went" to her grandparents.
If all it took was stress to bring her magic back out, then she was terrified that this wedding would bring hell down on her new life. Robin may have reminded her that she was marrying someone worth it, but she hadn't been lying when she said that her doubts were in herself. Her past was becoming harder to hide from (especially if Robin was going to kiss her ever again. Man, was that a stark reminder that she missed the feel of lady lips.)
Lily relaxed, and felt better when she danced with Marshall, but it was still there. As she supposed it always would be. Her past just waiting to come back and destroy everything she loved.
"What the hell is going on here?" The tall dark slayer yelled as her watcher burst into her room.
"We can't stay, we have to leave" The watcher was gathering everything he could, stuffing it into bags as he went.
"What? We just got here. Come on Dylan, we hunt for this nest for months, then when we get here you're trying to rush us out? The vamps are all dusted, I took care of them." The slayer folded her arms and looked coolly at the man who was trying to rush her away from something she had fought hard to find.
"You don't understand Amalia, The vamps were just the guards, the master is coming back. I saw him outside, and we need to get out the back before he comes in here to our arms." Dylan the watcher pulled his slayer forcefully by the arm. Amalia yanked her arm from his grasp, but reluctantly followed on her own, remembering that she was given NYC because it was low risk, and that she was trying to get experience, not fight something she didn't know about.
With one final glance and a sigh, she pulled herself out of the back window with ease, and ran into the night, their investigation ruined by some damn creepy crawly who just had to pick tonight to stay in and relax rather than go out hunting.
It didn't matter, time was on their side, sooner or later, they would figure out why the vamps were stepping up their game to even more than pre-awakening levels, and just who it was that was controlling them.
