Rating: Still going with PG, although it's a pretty tame PG, at that
Feedback: Thank you kindly. Melpomenethalia@aol.com
Spoilers: Through season five's "The Gift"
Distribution: Fanfiction.net, the Warren, and Fonts of Wisdom's Crypt. If you're interested, please let me know.
Summary: Buffy jumped through the portal and died. But what happened to her next?
Disclaimer: All characters are owned by Mutant Enemy (Joss Whedon), a wonderfully creative company whose characters I have borrowed for a completely profit-free flight of fancy. Kindly do not sue me, please, as I am terrified of you. Thank you. Part 17Buffy and William took their time returning, wandering together contentedly, laughing quietly over small things and generally enjoying each other's company. By the time they reached the valley where Darla and Harmony still sat, Drusilla had awakened from her nap and rejoined them.
"Um, sorry," Darla mumbled quietly as she saw the pair approaching. Then she noticed their linked hands. "Or maybe not."
"Things seemed to have worked out for the best, Darla," William said with a smile. "Don't let's mention it again, shall we?"
"Mention what?" Harmony asked as she looked up from what appeared to be the latest issue of Cosmo.
Drusilla rubbed a hand over her face, but Buffy was fairly certain she heard the faintest of giggles coming from behind the long fingers.
"Oh! Right! The thing about William being in love with Buffy. I remember now," she cried with a smile. "Yeah, so, how'd that go?"
"We're kind of taking it slow, Harm, just seeing where things go," Buffy explained, making sure to use little words.
"In any case, I believe we should explain to Buffy why she's here. Drusilla, you seem to have the clearest idea of what exactly happened. Highly irregular, really," he added to Buffy. "I'm not entirely certain I understand it myself."
"Sit down, my dear," Drusilla suggested kindly as five large beanbag chairs appeared in a circle nearby. "This may be a little difficult to understand.
"Beanbag chairs?" Buffy asked in disbelief. Of all the furniture she'd expected Drusilla to bring about, the tie-dyed rainbow hippie puffs were about the last thing she'd expected.
Drusilla shrugged. "I liked the sixties. Flower children and all that. Anyway," she said as they each settled into a seat, Harmony momentarily tumbling backwards and being yanked back into her beanbag by an incredulous Darla, "I'm sure that by now you've grown quite curious about why you're here rather than heaven."
Buffy considered for a moment. "It's strange. I wondered that when I first got here, but it hasn't been on my mind all that much for a while. Too many other things going on, I guess."
Drusilla nodded understandingly, "Of course. Well, as William explained, Limbo is inhabited by souls who aren't entirely complete. A bit of them is still on earth. There are more of us here than you've met. A great many people who become vampires stay here until their entire soul is returned to them, allowing them to move on to the next level up."
"But I'm not a vampire," Buffy said in confusion, "so what am I doing here?"
"There's a part of you missing," Drusilla explained. "A very small part, to be sure, but it isn't here."
Buffy blinked in shock. "I'm not all of me?"
Darla shook her head. "Nope. Like Dru said, though, it's sort of like us and our souls. We aren't complete, either, but we're still us. There's just a little piece of us missing, not enough to change who we are on this level, but still enough to keep us from being able to move on."
"Wait a minute. If I'm not a vampire, and part of me isn't here, then you're saying some of my soul is still stuck in my body?" Buffy asked in alarm. "Part of me is still in that casket I saw buried?"
"No, no," Drusilla reassured her quickly. "No, you haven't been buried alive or anything of that sort. The bit of you isn't in your own body."
"Then where?" she asked.
"It's in Dawn," Drusilla answered her. "When the monks made her, they wanted her to be completely human, not merely an animated doll, and she is an entirely human, mortal girl. You were quite right when you said that the monks made her out of you, but it was more than that. One of their emissaries was sent to obtain a sample of your cells so that they could magically replicate them and build a complete human body out of them."
"Dare I ask?" Buffy questioned nervously.
"It was a bandage," William said. "You'd scraped a knee on one of your patrols about two years ago. Their agent simply went through your trash that one night, took the discarded bandage, and sent it to the monks. The few traces of blood on it were enough."
Huh, Buffy thought silently. So, technically, Dawn's mother was a Band-Aid.
"Okay, so I take it they kind of cloned me or something?" she said aloud.
"Pretty much," Darla agreed. "I'm not big on the science thing, but that's not what this is about anyway. They didn't create Dawn in a lab. They used magic."
"I'm with you so far, but what's with the soul thing?"
"Remember how I said that the soul wants to stay near its body, and that's why vampires wind up with taffy left in the wrapper?" William asked.
"Yeah," Buffy said slowly.
"The monks cast a spell once they'd created the body for Dawn," Drusilla said. "Since they wanted her to be truly human, they knew they'd need a soul for her, but you can't just create a soul out of nothing or even from cells. So, they tricked a very small part of your soul into believing Dawn was you, which wasn't hard to do since the two of you, though the monks made sure you don't look alike, have identical cell structures. Once they had a bit of your soul, they were able to make it increase, just like the cells from the bandage, until they had an entire, separate human soul for her. Even so, though, that small spark of yours clung to the body that it still thinks is you. It's like Dawn has one, tiny, extra bit of soul."
"And that bit just happens to be yours," Darla added.
Buffy's mind was whirling. This was starting to be deep into Giles-territory, but she thought she understood most of it.
"Okay, so, if I've got this right, Dawn has part of my soul, but she's not really using it? It's just sort of stuck there?"
"Pretty much," Drusilla said with a nod.
"And I'm here because I can't go on to heaven unless all of me is in one piece, right?"
"Yup," Darla confirmed.
"That means I'm going to be here until," Buffy frowned, "until Dawn dies, doesn't it?"
Drusilla shook her head slightly. "Not quite. It could mean that, but it doesn't have to."
"You see, Buffy, you have a choice," William said softly. "There are three things you can do, if I understand correctly."
Drusilla took Buffy's hand and patted it gently, "You can be correct. You can stay here until the time of natural Dawn's death. When her soul goes to her final home, yours will come along for the ride, so to speak, and you can leave."
"Just like when a vampire is staked," Darla said.
"But you have two other options," Drusilla continued. "Now that you know what the situation is, if you choose to, you can go to Dawn and call that part of yourself back to you. If you consciously call that piece of your soul to return, it will come. Dawn will experience no side effects because she has her own soul now, but you will be complete and can move on from here.
"Okay," she said, not sure how to respond to this yet. "What's the third option?"
"You can choose to return to earth as a human, as well," Drusilla said slowly. "Because your spirit hasn't crossed over completely, you have the chance to go back and return to them. It's an extremely rare case. I've never seen anything like it, but it is possible."
"But, my body is dead," Buffy reasoned. "I don't get it."
"Your body is only dead because there is no soul in it," Drusilla explained. "You didn't die from a normal situation. There was no illness or physical injury. When you jumped into the portal, it killed you simply by removing your soul from your body, nothing more. That's part of why this is so unique. Even the damage from the fall, which would have killed any normal mortal, wasn't severe enough to end a Slayer's life. If you want to return to human existence, all you would need to do is allow your soul to reinhabit your body. Since the soul is drawn to the body anway, that wouldn't be too difficult. You'd just have to will it to happen."
"And, I'd wake up," Buffy finished for her.
"In a coffin, yes, but the physical effects of your death would reverse. Since you died through soul-removal, the return of your soul would heal anything that caused," Drusilla said.
"There's a catch, though, and it's one we only know about because of Liam," William added. "You won't remember this place."
Buffy's head shot towards him quickly. "What?"
"For some reason, the memory of this place stays here," Darla said. "When you sent Angel to hell? You didn't. He was here."
"But… when Angel came back, he remembered hell perfectly," Buffy insisted. "He was completely traumatised."
"I assure you, Buffy, he was here with us during that time. The man you loved was not sent to hell. The demon was, though. You see, you didn't kill either Angelus or Angel. A sword through the heart wouldn't do that, only wood, which is why the Powers were able to bring him back. Angelus, the demon, along with Angel's body, did go to hell. Liam, Angel's soul, after a few moments back in your reality, was returned here. Neither time with the gypsy curse was Angel able to remember this place, and when his body was sent to hell, his soul, which of course had done nothing to warrant that horrible place, came here. It isn't the way of the universe to send an innocent soul to hell. It just doesn't happen that way," Drusilla soothed her. "You need never have blamed yourself for that."
"But, the memories?" Buffy asked, her mind reeling.
"Take a wild, guess, sweetie," Darla said with a smile. "Go ahead. I think you'll get it."
Buffy thought hard for a moment, and then it finally occurred to her. "When Angel's soul went back into his body the first time, he didn't remember this place, but he did remember everything Angelus had done. So, when he was returned again, his soul forgot this place, but it still had all the demon's memories?" she ventured.
"Exactly. But since Angel had no memories to replace them with, he assumed that was where he had been," Drusilla told her. "When those memories hit him, it was as though he'd actually lived them."
"So, if I return, I won't remember this place," she said to half to herself.
"You may remember a vague feeling of being safe and happy, not unlike the people who come here very briefly when they have near-death experiences, but that will be all," William explained.
"Those are your options, Buff. Stay here until Dawn dies, move on now, or go back to Sunnyhell," Darla summed up. "You don't have to decide right away, though. Eventually, in a few months, it'll be too late to go to earth again. Upset the natural order too much. But you have some time."
Buffy nodded numbly. This was a whole lot to take in, she thought. Just as she was about to open her mouth to ask another question, a loud snore interrupted her.
Four sets of eyes turned to the soul of Harmony Kendall, sprawled across her beanbag, sound asleep.
"Ahem, yes, well, that's one opinion on the matter," William said as his mouth fought hard against letting out the huge laugh that was on the tip of his tongue.
The tension slightly lessened, Buffy smiled at the others.
"Thanks. I've got a lot to think about, but I'm going to make a decision sooner rather than later. Is a month okay?" she asked Dru.
"That should be more than fine, Buffy. Until then, sift things over in your mind until you're completely comfortable with your choice. Once you've left here, there's no coming back, so be certain," Drusilla cautioned her.
Buffy nodded slowly, the enormity of the situation a bit overwhelming. Thankfully, Harmony took that moment to fall off her beanbag, landing with a loud thud and coming completely awake, her face a mask of guilty.
"I was awake! Really! Dru liked the sixties because of the flower children!" she said quickly.
That was it. In spite of themselves, the four other souls began to laugh, and the one who was currently lying on the grass joined in as well.