FOLLOWING FRANKENSTEIN

Chapter 1: Departures

Buffy glanced behind her for what must have been the millionth time. No matter how far the truck took her from that underground lair, she still couldn't believe it. She kept expecting to see a blur of movement, a dark figure appearing next to the truck with a devilish grin and a hand smashing through the window to grab her by the throat.

"You really thought I'd let you leave?" his smooth voice would say. Then he would drag her back, force her to return, all the more defeated and desperate for the taste of freedom evaporating from her tongue.

Yet, no matter how many hours passed, all she could hear was the hum of the truck's motor and the bump, jar, blump, of the tires over the uneven dirt road. No matter how she strained her eyes, all she could see was the interminable expanse of desert sands and rocks and glaring sun. She gave an exasperated huff and leaned her head against the window. She pulled back at once when the heat of the glass surprised her. Then she let her eyes rove over the road before her, prying her attention away from what she left behind in an attempt to actually see what was in front of her.

She had never been more than a few steps outside of her creator's underground bunker. She had tried, a few times, to bask in the sun outside the garage door. She had seen a scene in a movie where the main characters discussed tanning. With more time than she knew what to do with, she thought she might as well try. Afterall, most characters she saw in movies didn't spend their lives locked deep underground the earth and many seemed to enjoy fresh air and sunshine. She didn't last five minutes before she decided it was more akin to "baking" than "basking" and she decided that comfort trumped beauty. It was so hot she didn't know how anyone could bear exposing their delicate skin to the burning sand during the hours the sun was at its zenith. Then again, she also doubted "real" people knew how to fly or burn through walls with laser eyes, so she chalked this "love of the sun" up to another movie myth.

She had managed to watch the sun set a hand full of times, when she grew so desperately bored with the inside of her underground prison to stand it a moment longer. The temperature was far more tolerable by then and the way the sun sank into the desert beyond and draped the landscape in a canopy of stars took her breath away. Yet, it also reminded her of just how tiny and insignificant she was in comparison. As far as she could look in every direction, she was the only living creature above ground and it imprinted her with the unsettling reminder of just how very isolated she was. Her dreams of future escape seemed all the more out of reach when she looked out into the vastness of the night sky and so she did not feel inspired to repeat the ritual on more than a semi-annual basis.

Now that her once far-off dream was becoming a tangible reality, she could hardly believe it. She was not only leaving the only home she had ever known, but she was leaving the entire continent behind her and diving headfirst into the unknown. She was finally free to pursue her own life "in the wild" and she couldn't be more excited… or more terrified.

She had done it. She had survived. She had gotten out. While she hadn't actually "slayed" her pet vampire, she had managed to escape him… or, well, it sounded more impressive to say she escaped him. In reality, he let her go. That wasn't quite it, either. To say he "let her go" gave her a mental image of Edward opening the back door for her and sending her out with a cheerful wave and kick to the butt. Edward had certainly not done that. No, in reality, he had thrust her as far from his little vampire haven as he could with both hands, making sure she had no incentive to remain or even to look back.

She swallowed deeply again. Why? Why her? When Badiyah (who he claimed to love) wished to leave, not only did he refuse, but he also literally locked her in her room to keep her from escaping. The woman spent decades as his minion, and he couldn't so much as let her retire gracefully in a grass-thatched hut with her own kid. Yet Buffy, after barely four years in his service, was given the golden handshake and sent on her way with all-inclusive travel arrangements and full retirement benefits.

She didn't believe his talk about "fulfilling his sworn oath" any more than she believed he felt genuine remorse over the "first innocent life" he had taken.

Something didn't add up.

She checked over her shoulder again and had to blink as she found herself looking straight into the glaring sun. She looked away and began to bemoan the loss of her sunglasses. Now, for the first time in her life, she had a practical reason to wear her beautiful sunglasses, and she'd left them behind. She'd bought those glasses on a whim and they looked fabulous, but they hadn't been all that practical in the florescent light of the Generation Lab. She had tossed them in her box of clothes she no longer used. She left that box for Decoy, not realizing that she should have grabbed her sunglasses from it first, but they'd just been tossed there in a temper one time when she gave up on using them herself. Not that Decoy needed sunglasses… but, well, if she wanted to wear them, Buffy wouldn't begrudge her for it.

At the thought of her second-in-command, Buffy closed her eyes and fought back another wave of nearly debilitating guilt. It was an uncomfortable emotion, but one she was far too familiar with. Kinda like her de-sensitivity to the scent of blood or the way she hardly flinched now when she heard one of the Others scream. It was all part of the job and she could either get used to it, or be miserable all the time. She didn't particularly like being miserable so that meant she was stuck with Option A.

She still considered Decoy her most brilliant life decision ever… you know, second only to setting up the security camera feed to her personal laptop… oh, and then there was the day she decided to give Buffy Episode One a try… and the day she first discovered glow-in-the dark nail polish and made sure Edward's fingernails were always doused in the stuff. Fine, she'd had a lot of strokes of brilliance in her life and she counted Decoy as one of the top five. Definitely top five.

The number of times her quiet sidekick had kept her alive far outweighed Buffy's personal tally sheet of wins over her vampire master and she knew, for a fact, that her continued existence was due to Decoy's intervention. Yet, she repaid her by leaving her behind.

She could have sent Decoy in her place. She should have sent Decoy in her place. Edward gave her the option and Buffy refused. She knew what it meant to be left behind. Alone. Still, she chose to put her own life ahead of Decoy's. Again.

Perhaps she can choose her own second-in-command, Buffy argued with herself, as she did every time she felt the guilt try to swallow her again. Edward promised he would release her, someday, too.

Yeah. Trusting in the word of a half-crazed, mad scientist addict of a vampire really would help her conscience settle. If Buffy with honest with herself, she knew the truth. She had left Decoy to a certain and very miserable death… and Buffy had run for her own life without looking back.

I am a terrible person, she thought to herself. She blinked back the sheen of tears threatening to gather under her eyelashes and she anxiously fiddled with the yellow envelope in her hands. Inside was her ticket to freedom, her new life, the chance to become a "real" person.

Insufferable bastard, she mused as she glanced over its contents for the millionth time. He knew exactly what he was doing. He wanted me to choose. He wanted me to admit my own selfish desire to live, at Decoy's expense, and to then live with the consequences of decision forever.

Like it ever was a choice. Buffy's desire to remain alive was the only reason Decoy still remained in the land of the living rather than as a rotting corpse in the sands outside the bunker. He would have consumed her months and months earlier, if not for Buffy's interference. Buffy had only delayed the inevitable. Yet, in doing so, she had given the cloned woman an unfortunate introduction to self-awareness, a survival instinct, and a will to live – all of which she would not have lived long enough to manifest otherwise. Was this knowledge of her own selfhood a blessing or a curse? Was it better to die oblivious and early on, like the rest of the zombie brides, than it was to die later, once there was an awareness of both life and death and a desire to choose one over the other?

It was too late now. Buffy had chosen Decoy and set her apart from the others. In doing so, had she done Decoy a favor or doomed her to a fate worse than all the rest? Buffy preferred not to think about it too much. One thing she was certain of: by leaving Decoy behind, it was only a matter of time before she, too, was given as an offering to the desert and Decoy knew it. She had seen the accusation in her dark eyes and the coldness in their final interactions. In one final, irreversible moment, Decoy had been left behind to take Buffy's place so that Buffy could go on living.

In twenty years, would Edward come back for her and drag her back to his underground crypt? Maybe. Probably. Most likely. She would be lucky if she even made it twenty years. Badiyah, after all, had only survived four years in "the wild" … and that's only because Edward hadn't had a "Decoy" to fall back on to keep him from running after her sooner. Most likely, Edward would accidentally eat Decoy, then burn through all his remaining harem, only to realize he had run out completely and needed someone else to grow his next crop of Bellas. Then, he'd come for her.

The only one left alive.

Then again, maybe he'd just eat her and it'd all be over and done with. Considering his tenuous-at-best grip on his sanity, that might be the most likely future.

Buffy decided she didn't care. She wouldn't care. Even if it was all an elaborate lie or a twisted vampire chase to keep the predator in him entertained, she was out of there. She would live as if she had a full life ahead of her, no matter how many days she actually had. She wouldn't keep looking back over her shoulder or checking under her bed for hidden vampires. She would live and live well… for as long as it lasted.

She had promised Badiyah, after all, and she would keep her word.

She'd do it for Decoy, too… and for all the Others – both the unnamed throng of brown-eyed rotting corpses and the living sacks of blood waiting to meet their destined end on the other side of Edward's teeth – she owed them all a full life. If Buffy was the only one of them to get out, then she would run without looking back and they could live vicariously through her to the utmost.

Until the day she joined them again.

Now, Buffy V. Slayer had a plane to catch in N'Djamena. She ran her fingers over the words printed on her plane ticket, over and over again, still hardly believing them to be real.

London. She was going to London.

She sighed and stared out the window again. The dirt road had met a paved highway and eventually the barren rocks and sand became dotted with plants and clumps of grasses. Soon, the land showed signs of regular rainfall and more permanent habitation. It was dark by the time they reached N'Djamena and the city lights spread out before her like stars growing from the ground. Highways with rows of cars crisscrossed the urban jungle before her and she stared transfixed at the patterns of light and movement.

It wasn't until the driverless truck dropped her off in front of the airport and vanished back into the night that she realized it. While clinging to her backpack and cardboard box of belongings, she looked around at the stream of taxis and passenger vans coming and going around her. There were people everywhere – honking and hooting and laughing and waving and whistling.

She had never seen a real-life human being outside of Edward's clones…and she wasn't entirely sure those counted. Sure, she'd seen people on TV and in books and even talked to them in internet chat rooms. She thought she knew what to expect. However, seeing three dimensional, living, breathing human beings without the intermediary shield of a glass screen left her completely overwhelmed.

On TV, it always worked out in the end (at least, it did in the good movies. If it didn't, then the movie wasn't worth watching). How could she know if it would work that way for her now, in real life? She did not know how to actually talk to anyone. She couldn't just turn off a button if she didn't like what happened to her and she couldn't hit pause if she needed to look up a word.

She had absolutely no cherry-pickin idea what she was doing.

Her breaths became shallow and she placed a hand against her chest, as if the action alone would help ground her. It didn't. Her head swam and she felt her legs get weak beneath her.

I can't do this! She screamed internally and she swayed, involuntarily, like a leaf being blown by the wind.

She felt a hand on her elbow and she nearly jumped at the unexpected contact. A dark skinned, bright smiled taxi driver spoke to her in French and said something she couldn't understand.

"Madam, you ok?" he said, switching to English and she forced herself to smile when she comprehended his words.

"I will be," she answered, appeasing him enough for him to leave her be.

Her chest heaved as she forced herself to slow her breaths and take in the scent of gasoline, concrete, and human bodies. When she could feel her feet again, she pulled her backpack straps down and she threw her shoulders back in a determined effort to keep going, to move forward, to not remain stuck where she stood.

If I can survive an insane, blood-crazed vampire, I can manage regular human beings.

Right?

At least, I hope I can.

At that moment, despite being surrounded by more people than she had ever dreamed existed, Buffy had never felt so alone.

Well, airplanes don't take off from the front of the airport. I suppose that means I have to go in through those glass doors. Here goes nothing…

She forced one foot to shuffle ahead of the other until she reached the set of double glass doors in front of her. She gave a startled squeak when the doors opened right of their own accord, without her having done a thing. She stepped back. After a moment, they closed. She stepped forward. They opened again.

Wow. That's cool. She thought to herself. She shook her head in amazement and kept going. A brightly lit room that seemed to go on and on around her was filled with people and suitcases and counters and screens of letters and numbers. The hum of noise was almost deafening. She looked around, nearly overwhelmed again as she tried to figure out what to do next.

Right. Well, someone here has to be able to tell me where to go… but that requires communicating with them… with words…

I don't think I can do this…

No. I can. I can do this. I can. It's just talking. I know how to talk. I've practiced.

She groaned and placed her cardboard box on the nearest counter. She leaned her head against it and watched the ever-flowing current of humanity around her.

If I can't manage the airport, how will I manage anything else? I don't know anything about living on my own… anywhere… let alone London. What if I can't even find my new flat? What if I can't even get myself on the damn airplane?

She fought back another round of tears and tried to push back the near-paralyzing wave of fear that crashed over her. She couldn't go back to where she'd come from. Not now. Not ever. Her only choices were to give up or go forward.

If Badiyah could survive "in the wild," then so could Buffy. How hard could it be?

Buffy picked her box back up and walked straight to the nearest counter where a uniformed man stood in front of a computer. He gave her an impassive stare and continued to type away on a keyboard.

"Excuse me?" she asked, gritting her teeth as she forced out the words. Then she pulled out her ticket from the now dog-eared yellow envelope. "I need to find my flight. Do you know where I am supposed to go?"

Oooooo

Author's Notes:

This story starts in 2176 (or The Remnants, Chapter 10).

Multiple reviewers wanted more of Buffy's story, post The Remnants. This is for you all. (LRK860, I blame you entirely for this story's creation.)

First off, I thought this would be a one-shot. Obviously, it won't be… especially as my first attempts to "jot down ideas" already spilled out into over 25 pages of rough ideas. I should warn you that it has no plot yet… other than "Buffy meets world". It's not epic (then again, after Darling's tale, I think we've had enough epic sagas for awhile) and I have no idea how long it will be. Yet, it wants to be written, so here is our first chapter. Note, this breaks with both the style and formatting of the other two stories and does its own thing, all from Buffy's perspective (at least so far).

Remember, Buffy knows Darling only as "Decoy". She never learned Darling's self-appointed name.

Finally, updates will be very slow. It's road trip season again… and summer break with three small children… so, well, we'll see what happens and when it happens. Still, stories do what they want and here we are.