TITLE: Time Explains Us
AUTHOR: Erykah Miszti
EMAIL: erykah@miszti.net
WEBSITE:
RATING: R (mostly for language)
SUMMARY: Post-The Gift. Buffy jumps into the portal and finds herself in another time trying to save a certain young poet from his vampire destiny. // This is a revised version of this story dated 11/6/03 //
NOTES ON CANON: I started writing and plotting this after The Gift aired, therefore I am ignoring everything in 'Lies My Parents Told Me'. Canon for the show stops at The Gift, although you never know what else might crop up. ;-)
ARCHIVING: Anywhere but please keep this header intact. Telling me that you're archiving it would also be nice.
DISCLAIMER: At least a couple of these characters and situations belong to Joss Whedon and some big nasty corporations. I'm just borrowing them in a very non-profit kind of way.
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Chapter One: Death Don't Become Her
No time, nowhere special, a sort of nebulous amalgam of energy thought about stuff and had a bit of an idea that it ran by it's associates…
Xxxxxx
Buffy forced her way back to consciousness. All her internal organs felt as if they had been smashed to a pulp and then reassembled all wrong. Her stomach heaved and gave up its contents in a series of sobbing coughs that made her tremble and drained her energy. It took minutes or hours - she couldn't be sure which - to get herself steady again. Stumbling to her feet and looking around her she came to a conclusion.
"Sure ain't Kansas." She muttered in awe.
Although she was standing in the shadows of a dark alleyway, the scene before her was a surprisingly bright gas lit street, bustling with people in old-fashioned dress. Buffy was prepared to take a wild guess at Victorian for the clothes and, from the accents all around her, probably England. The how and the why though were her big concern.
Last thing she remembered was saying goodbye to Dawn and throwing herself into the portal to close it. So, she guessed, the big questions were: where, when or what dimension was this?
Scanning the crowd idly from the shadows - and wondering what to do now - Buffy's face froze as she saw three familiar faces walking towards her. Instinct made her retreat even further into the darkness behind her.
Angelus. Darla. Drusilla.
They were all in the same get up as the locals, which probably meant that they were local to wherever this was. The way they touched each other, the way they spoke to each other, all showed the closeness the passing of time had unraveled by the age Buffy knew them from. Basically that left Buffy with two possibilities. Either this was some hideous nightmare being sent to plague her by a demon in a Hell dimension she'd crossed into through the portal, or the energy discharge from the portal closing had somehow sent her back in time. Neither was a nice thought.
Buffy watched the trio, fascinated, as Drusilla turned to follow a young man in a beige coat. The young man had the most ridiculous hairstyle Buffy had ever seen but that didn't mean he deserved to be killed by Dru.
Buffy followed them.
She was a few moments too late. She arrived just in time to hear a girlie scream and see Dru pinning the man to the wall and chowing down. Buffy approached stealthily anyway and tapped Dru on the shoulder. The vampire let the body drop a split second before Buffy sent her fist flying into the other woman's face.
Drusilla staggered back, more in shock than in pain, and Buffy moved to stand in front of the collapsed body of the man. The vampire stared at the strangely dressed woman who had gotten between her and her new playmate.
"He's mine." She hissed petulantly and stamped her foot.
"Now, let me think about that... um... no... I don't think so." Buffy replied mockingly and the vampire frowned in confusion. "You never did have ANY dress sense did you, Dru? Hmm..." Buffy put her hand on her hip and looked the other woman up and down. "That outfit just screams nouveau riche."
Drusilla flew at her in a rage but Buffy's fighting technique was unlike anything the vampire was going to see for a good fifty to seventy years and so it wasn't really a fair fight. It could have only ended two ways and Dru took the smart way of running like hell in the other direction.
"I will have him!" She spat back over her shoulder.
"Yeah, whatever." Buffy sighed. This day was just too weird for her.
It was about then that she heard the gasping breaths coming from behind her. She turned to face what she had thought to be a dead body but it was now moving weakly, trying to stand.
"God…" She shook her head in disbelief. "What does it take you kill you?"
She dropped to her knees next to him and tried to encourage him to stay still while she looked at his wounds. He made whimpering noises and she comforted him by rubbing his shoulder gently and holding his hand. She saw the deep gash in his neck; still pumping blood outwards… still killing him slowly. She ripped a corner from her shirt and held it firmly against the wound but it was obviously not enough.
"We're gonna have to get you someplace where we can sort this out or…"
He looked up at her then and she found herself staring into pools of deep blue… Familiar pools of deep blue.
"Spike?!" She choked out past a dry throat. Spike... Human...
The brow of the young man, dying in front of her, creased in confusion. He shook his head, sending more of his blood rushing through the thin fabric and out over Buffy's fingers.
"William." He whispered hoarsely. "C-C-Castlemaine. At your service, Miss…"
Buffy laughed and dragged her gaze away from his. She focused on the bleeding gash in his neck instead.
"No, I think I'm at yours actually." She told him. "Is there somewhere I can take you? You need a doctor."
"Uncle Morty's a…" He paused to lick dried out lips. "...a doctor. Need to get home first."
"Fine. We go to your place then and they can call him." Buffy sighed. "This day just keeps getting weirder."
Buffy made him hold the compress to his own neck while she took the brunt of his weight.
Xxxxxx
To say that William's house was a surprise to Buffy would have been an understatement. The elegant Victorian townhouse reeked of both class and money.
The servants had looked at her very strangely when she'd rung the bell but then they'd seen the body of who they called their "young master" in her arms and had welcome her into the house. "Young William" had eventually passed out a few streets back and she'd been carrying him ever since.
Buffy had refused all help to carry him until she had been able to lay him down onto a bed. Once there she was pushed away firmly by the servants and reduced to standing by in the doorway as they fussed around him with bowls of water, blankets and towels.
It took some moments more before the shock of it hit her that she was standing in his bedroom and that she had just saved him from Drusilla. Buffy collapsed against the doorframe. She'd just stopped Spike from becoming a vampire. What the hell had she done...
Buffy's vision swam and everything faded away to black as she did a very un-Buffy-like thing and fainted dead away.
Xxxxxx
"Everything's wrong." Drusilla whined and curled herself tighter into a ball on the floor. "It's all gone strange."
Darla rolled her eyes in disgust.
"We can get you a different playmate." She told the mad vampire with barely restrained scorn.
"No!" Drusilla looked up at her with fire in her eyes. "He's mine! She can't have him yet!"
"Who can't, Drusilla?" Angelus asked softly as he knelt down beside her. Drusilla practically cooed under his gaze.
Darla turned away with a derisive glare.
"The Dead Girl." Dru hissed. "The Slayer."
"Slayer?" Angelus asked, his interest suddenly piqued. "Dead Girl..? What do you see, Dru?"
Insanity was blazing in her eyes as she looked directly into his.
"Everything's wrong. Wrong people, wrong times, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong…"
Drusilla went into a fit screaming the word. Darla turned back to them laughing. Angelus glared at her over his shoulder but put his hands onto Drusilla's shoulders to calm her.
"Dru." He said trying to get her attention but she kept repeating the word.. "Drusilla." She focused back on him at last. "We'll get you back your playmate." He looked back up at Darla. "And we'll get ourselves a Slayer."
Darla's face curled into a grin and she blew him a kiss.