By Sauscony
E-mail: sauscony@forty-two.co.nz
Rating: R for a couple of rude words
Pairings: Buffy/Riley, Buffy/Giles (if you don't like either, stop reading now)
Summary: A prophecy says the Slayer's daughter will save the world. But's who's to be her father? And is there someone out to change things? (Set in the summer between seasons four and five.)
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel characters are copyrighted ©20th Century Fox, Joss Whedon, Mutant Eniy, UPN and the WB, and are used without permission. No copyright infringment is intended.
I never believed in Guardian Angels.
With a family life like mine, how could I? If I'd had a angel to watch over me, why had he never shown up and done something to make everything right. I'd begged for one often enough and nothing had ever changed.
Still, I'm prepared to concede that Fate might not actually suck - having had a few conversations with her now, I find I actually kind of like her. And boy does she have a tough job. Not for me, thank you very much!
But she certainly has a very ironic and occasionally totally macabre sense of humour.
Because there's a little girl out there who is destined to save the world one day. Just like her mother used to do. And she does have a Guardian Angel keeping an eye on her, with permission to give things a bit of a nudge when they really need it.
She's the kind of person who makes everyone who knows her love her.
She has wonderful parents who adore each other and love her to distraction. She has another Angel, who is anything but an angel, who watches over her, not only because she is his hope of redemption, but for her own sake also, unaware of what Fate has planned for them. She has family and friends and a host on honorary aunts and uncles and cousins, who take her on picnics and send her presents on her birthday and always feel that the room is a little brighter when she is in it.
And she has me - someone who should never have existed but did all the same - her own personal Guardian Angel. We even get to talk sometimes, her and me, but there is no real place for me in her existence and I make sure I avoid her parents.
I was given permission to talk to father once. To tell him I had no regrets, that there was nothing I would change, even if I could. I'm not sure if he believed me or not, but he wanted to, so he let me convince him. He asked me how he could thank me. The answer to that one was easy. Love his wife and love his daughter. It's not like he needed me to tell him that. He couldn't stop if he tried.
And when the time comes and that daughter faces the End of the World, we will all be standing at her side in some way or other, and I will be the first among her allies and her supporters. That's my job now, watching her and loving her, protecting her and guiding her.
Despite having a tough destiny and the fate of the world on her shoulders, she's still one very lucky little girl, is Sara Anne Giles.
