Chapter 2:
Ohio, September 21, 1980
Veronica had been in the year 1980 for all of five days and she had already lost all hope that she would make it back home. She was almost thirty years in the past. Every person she would have turned to in a magic mixup wasn't even born yet, or they were on a different continent.
If they even existed anymore.
Veronica was pretty sure that she was actually in an alternate reality, or universe, or dimension of some kind. She wasn't really sure what the difference between all of those terms were, but she did know that there were differences. She vaguely remembered Andrew giving her a lecture on something similar once, there was a mention of cheese and shrimp, but she really just blocked out the whole thing. She was good with nerdiness, but only when it came to pop culture. Movies and games were her things, quantum physics and what not was a bit above her pay grade.
The reason she was so sure that she wasn't in her reality was that there seemed to be no magic.
—-
Cleveland Ohio, September 17th, 1980
Veronica had woken up from her embarrassing fainting episode as she was being placed onto a gurney in a hospital emergency room. Lights buzzed above her head, those long fluorescent ones that you can always hear buzz and flicker. There were so many voices as several adults talked above her head, and one small voice chattered at her from somewhere near her waist. Apparently the little boy from the field turned out to be one Aaron Myers, age six and a half (the half was very important). He and his father Allen had settled her into the back of their cab and drove her to the nearest hospital.
Aaron Myers was a little off on his first words to her. She did not wake up in Cleveland but in a field just between the city and Akron, in front of the Richfield Coliseum which she'd never before heard of. But she assumed it was about the same area where the Hellmouth would have existed in her reality. She'd gathered that info from the people talking above her.
She was glad she had woken when she did. Hospitals had the tendency to cut first and ask questions later. All she had were the clothes on her back and the stuff she had stashed in her shoes. Sure the shirt was about four sizes too big and her pants were only held in place by a belt, and yeah they were covered in demon guts but they were all she had and she wasn't about to let some quacks cut them off her to get to a wound that was probably halfway healed by now anyway.
She couldn't afford to lose anything that she had, and she didn't think they'd have reacted too well to finding the knife she had hidden under her pant leg, or the iPod she had tucked into a pocket she had sewn into the lining of her boots. She also probably still had a few bills tucked in there somewhere too.
Has money changed since the 80s? Would someone think her bills were fake?
Veronica had tried to make a break for it, it wasn't like the public had been too friendly with Slayers in the- her recent past. The whole Twilight and Anti-Slayer bullshit really put a dent on her already almost nonexistent people skills. But she was still physically tired from the battle. She could tell that her surface wounds had mostly healed up, the one on her head might still have been open, but at least it had stopped bleeding. It was the internal things that slowed her escape. Her ribs hurt, now that she had focused on taking in her injuries, they might have been cracked from a few blows she'd taken in her threeway standstill.
What really put a damper on her jailbreak, and what she would never admit to anyone, was the shoes. Veronica had hopped off the gurney as they were wheeling her past a waiting room and made it all of ten feet before she tripped. Her shoes were now like three sizes too big so she tripped over a raised trim from where the carpet turned to tile. And as she extended her arm to catch herself she had underestimated the distance between her newly smaller body and the wall and smacked down onto the cheap linoleum shoulder first.
And dislocated her arm
"Who the fuck puts carpet in a Hospital?!" She could feel the eyes of everyone in the waiting room, a few women even gasped or tsked at her language. The boy's father had been following the gurney and began to approach her slowly. He gave her his name and asked if he could help her sit up.
"What's your name, Sweetheart?"
Veronica was curled up on the floor, clutching at her shoulder. And the situation really sunk in at that moment. She could hear the news on the TV talking about Christians protesting in downtown Cleveland about letting some band perform at a concert hall somewhere in the city.
"They're endorsing Marijuana!"
"The single 'Another One Bites the Dust' was released earlier this year-"
Veronica was in 1980. Alone. Faith was probably only a few months old, somewhere in Boston with an alcoholic mother and an absentee father. Veronica didn't even know if Giles would be a reliable ally. He might have still been in his ol' Ripper days. Even if he was in fact currently all about the tweed, he was on a whole different fucking continent!
Ugh. She'd have to rely on Angel. Gross.
But being honest with herself, Veronica was willing to admit that she'd take the brooding vampire any day over having to deal with this on her own. She hadn't been on her own since Giles had retrieved her from the Devon Coven back in 2002, or forward in 2002. Her head hurt.
The man still had his hand extended towards her, palm up and patiently waiting for her own hand. She stared at him. Other than the unfortunate thing that was his mullet he seemed like a nice guy. Average height, brown hair, blue eyes, and lean. He had crinkles around his eyes, and lines around his mouth that showed that he was a happy man, he smiled and laughed a lot. His son looked just like him, maybe a smaller and more rounded nose though. Aaron stood behind his father with his hand fisted in the older man's shirt.
She put her hand in the Dad's, the hand that had been clutching at her injured shoulder. She decided that she could trust these people. For now. At least until her shoulder had been properly reset.
"Veronica." She cleared her throat, it was dry. She licked her lips, soothing her chapped lips as she tried to put her words together. "My name is Veronica."
"Okay, well let's get you back on that gurney, Veronica. And no Jailbreaks this time." He gently helped her up off the floor, but her shoulder was still jostled in the process.
She walked back towards the group of nurses and doctors that she had previously ran from. She made sure to stare down the doctor who was looking at her with the most disapproval. Major eye contact was being made. Yeah, she tried to make a break for it. And? She wasn't ashamed and she always stood by her decisions. She was slightly regretting the shoulder, but she wasn't going to be cowed by some doctor that didn't know the first thing about her. He looked away first.
She so won that one.
They wheeled her into an area sectioned off by a curtain in what looked like urgent care. Maybe? Veronica didn't spend much time in hospitals she didn't really know the difference. They passed by a few open curtains: an older man hooked up to an IV; a woman and her son arguing about something or other; a teenage girl sitting in a gown alone in her little room.
They stopped at the end of the hall/room. Then they started in on the inquisition.
What is your name?
"Veronica Hernandez." She figured that the truth couldn't hurt her too much. Hernandez was a pretty common Latino name. Though after she said it, she wondered if she should have went with something else, maybe a little less ethnic. She was half Mexican and she didn't have any proof of her existence in this time. They could probably deport her if she was being honest with herself. The 80s wasn't all sunshine and big hair, racism and homophobia was a big thing back then, now. But it was too late to take it back.
Age?
"Ten?" It came out like a question. She honestly didn't know how old she was physically. It wasn't like she could say 14, she didn't look a day over ten. Veronica was always a small child, which was why she had to do so much extra Slayer training when she was but a wee little potential still being raised by the Council. Her body looked like she was eight, but that was just her short Hispanic genes. Her gut told her that she was ten. She nodded her head and repeated her answer. Ten felt right.
Do you know what happened to you?
"No." And she really didn't know. One minute she was falling to her death and the next she was here.
No, that wasn't right.
One minute she was falling to her death, and then she felt a rush of energy roll through her. Power flared across her skin, making the hairs on her arms stand at attention. Then she woke up in 1980. But she wasn't as strong as Willow. She didn't have the power to bend time and space to her will like the redheaded Witch. She could admit to herself that she had read some of the texts on the subject but wasn't stupid enough to try to attempt such a thing on her own. She wasn't responsible for whatever it was that brought her here, but whatever did it was powerful.
"I don't know."
And that's how the rest of the conversation went. The doctors asked a question, she said she didn't know anything and then it continued. The Myers duo stepped out sometime during the questioning. A nurse pulled out a few items from the cabinets behind the doctors and then quickly left the room.
"We're going to need you to go ahead and change into this hospital gown. Is that okay?" Veronica nodded her head and everyone left. She hopped off the gurney and onto the floor.
Her shoulder jostled and the pain flared up, but she just grit her teeth and pushed past the pain.
She bent down to untie her shoes, and realized that it was really fucking hard to do so with only one hand. After a few attempts at undoing the knot she realized that she could just slip her foot out now that they didn't fit her anymore.
She had a hard time unstrapping the knife sheath from her leg. For some reason the holster had remained tight against her calf, it had shrunk to fit her leg. Veronica brought the sheath up to her face for a better look. The black leather was familiar under her fingers. She'd had the knife and holster for over a year. On one side of the sheath were the initials VLH branded into the fine leather. On the other side, the side that settled against her skin, was nothing.
Veronica smoothed her thumb across the leather and could feel something there. She pushed the barest amount of power into her finger tip and traced her thumb across the surface once again. A path of runes lit up in a golden light, fading as her finger moved away from each engraving and then camouflaging into the leather once again. "Protection," "durability," and "flexibility." There were a few more runes thrown in but those were the main ones. The sheath was spelled to grow to fit her and never break or damage. The magic receded back into her. She knew her eyes were also fading from the same golden glow as her magic.
She didn't know why her eyes glowed gold. She assumed it had to do with her Slayer abilities, as far as she knew there had never been a Witch called as a Slayer. The Council apparently had been in the mood to experiment when they had picked her up as a newborn. The Devon Coven seers had foreseen Veronica's birth and had been able to trace her location with the spell used to locate Potentials before she was even born. She hadn't even made it past the second trimester yet. Apparently that was pretty rare.
Giles thought that the Devon Coven were able to sense her fetus because of the latent magic that encased her soul. Very few magic users were born with magic within themselves. Most are born with the ability to access the magic around them, or the energy given off by certain mystical or natural objects or beings. Like called to like, and the magic in her soul somehow amplified whatever pinged off on the Potential radar.
Andrew just said that the Force was strong with that one. Veronica secretly agreed.
She blinked her eyes a few times to clear any lingering brightness. She quickly stashed the knife under the mattress of the gurney. She then stripped herself down to just her socks, underwear and a sports bra, and neatly folded her pants, belt and two shirts she had been wearing into a pile by her boots.
The underwear was baggy but they were a brand new pair, so the elastic waistband actually fit across her small body just fine. She took a moment to examine her body. The first thing that she had noticed were the bruises that colored her skin. There was only one purple bruise, the rest had already begun to heal and were already in their yellowish stages. Her ribs on her right side were purple, but she didn't want to move her arm on that side and bring back the sharp pain by examining the area. She had a few cuts across her chest and a lot of knicks that littered her arms. It looked like she had a fight with a cat and lost. Blood covered her arms.
Veronica looked beyond the wounds to examine her new body. She was all boney, with knobby knees, and she could see where the bone of her arm was grotesquely sticking out near her collarbone. She was paler than she had previously been. Where her skin was once a beautiful caramel brown, she was now pasty and washed out. She looked paler than Spike. Her curly brown hair was shorter than it had been as well, by about five inches. Her hair barely brushed her shoulders now. Her dark brown, almost black, locks were tangled and had grass sticking out in most places the sight made her grimace. Her hair was the one vanity she allowed herself. It would take forever to fix the mess that it was in.
She quickly threw on the hospital gown, and tied the thing the best she could with her injuries. She leaned over and checked for feet behind the curtain. It was empty. She figured she had a couple more minutes before someone came back in.
Veronica went to the sink in the corner of the room. Washing off the blood sounded like a good idea to her. She turned on the sink and let the water run warm while she lathered her arms in basically all the soap they had. She let the water run across her arms for a couple seconds.
The water ran a rust colored red. She began to scrub, lightly using nails to get the dried flaky spots off. She worked her way from her elbows down to her wrists. She went full on surgical scrub via Dr. Grey.
Man, that was a good show. O'Malley was so adorkable. Dawn preferred McDr-
Dawn. Whose blood was literally on her hands. Veronica began to scrub a little harder. The water went from warm to hot, but she scrubbed and scratched at her arms until the water ran red with the blood from her reopening her wounds.
A couple nurses walked passed the curtain, gossiping about one of their coworkers as they passed by.
That snapped her out of her mini breakdown.
Ugh. Veronica hated gossips. "Way to slut shame, Karen. It's not like the men should take any responsibility in the situation."
She grumbled to herself about snooty bitches as she switched the faucet to cold, rinsing of the last of the blood and began to carefully pat her arms down with a paper towel.
As she examined her now clean arms she noticed something new.
009
She now had a tattoo on her left wrist. "What the fuck?"
She turned her arm this way and that hoping that viewing it at different angles or a different shade of light might make it disappear. She ran her fingers over the ink. It was slightly raised, definitely scarred over and completely healed already. This thing wasn't new.
"Is this supposed to be some kind of time traveling passport? They just brand people now?!"
She could hear one of the doctors from before talking to someone as he approached. Veronica panicked. How was she supposed to explain this shit?!
She took a deep breath and concentrated on remembering the words to a certain spell. She chanted under her breath, eyes closed to hide the odd light in her eyes. She turned her back to the curtain and finished her incantation just as a fist wrapped around the curtains edge. She held her palms flat against her chest and she felt the magic flare from the center of her torso out to into every fiber in her body. Her skin rippled as the magic moved outward, concealing every bruise, cut and tattoo that littered her body. The doctors wouldn't see them, if they touched them they would feel nothing but smooth skin.
The grumpy doctor from earlier entered the makeshift room. A female nurse followed him in. They did the whole physical examination. Checked her eyes, ears, and throat. Checked her breathing. And when she mentioned her arm he raised a brow.
"You think you dislocated your arm?" The doctor asked in a skeptical tone of voice.
"Yes. I've dislocated bones before. I know what it feels like. I also got a good look at it when I was getting undressed. It's dislocated."
"It's highly unlikely. I saw your little stunt earlier. A fall like that won't do anything."
"It would if my joint had been under stress previously!"
"The pain you'd be in-"
"Oh, my Goddess!" Veronica began to fiddle with the tie at the side of her gown. She shoved the shoulder of the gown down and showed them her bare shoulder blade. The thing was definitely out of the socket. In her boney childish body the disfigurement was even more pronounced. A lump the size of her fist protruded from her collar, it was the skin stretched tight across the end of her humerus.
She watched his words die on his lips. She smirked at him. Yeah she won that round too.
"Motherfucker!"
The doctor quickly popped the bone back in place. And it hurt like a bitch. She narrowed her eyes at the slight lift at the corner of his lips. Maybe this round was a draw.
She rolled her shoulder a bit to make sure the joint was in right. It was. It just really hurt. The nurse passed her an ice pack and then they left again.
Sadistic fucking doctors.
She had a feeling that she was going to be there for a while. And she was. It felt like hours before she saw anyone besides a nurse that came in to bring her a sandwich and water. Eventually she had a lovely little chat with a few police officers. They'd asked her the usual questions, but they'd asked her a new one too.
"Where are you from? What city do you live in? Are you from the area?"
Veronica paused at that. She didn't really know what her best option would be right now. She could say Cleveland, but it wouldn't take long for them to piece together the fact that she actually didn't have any relatives in the area. They'd probably send a squad out to where the future Slayer Organization headquarters would be located, but it could be a McDonald's for all she knew. She figured the further the better as it'd take time for them to confirm any information she gave.
She opened her mouth to tell them Los Angeles, but ended up saying "Sunnydale, California" instead. LA was a big city, it was probably easier to get a hold of then the number of the local sheriff's station in a small town like Sunnydale. It would buy her more time. "1630 Revello Drive."
Veronica took a moment to down the rest of her water. She threw back her head and chugged down the last half of her water bottle as the two officers shared a look with one another. "Right. We're going to go see what we can find. You sure you don't have a telephone number we can call, kid?" She shook her head. The two officers left, shutting the curtain behind themselves.
"Never heard of a Sunnydale before, have you?"
"Naw, it's probably one of those smaller cities up north or something. I'd have been surprised if you did. Never stepped a foot out of Ohio a day in your life!"
"Let's just take this down to the station and check in on that call to CPS. Someone should have come down by now."
The two men walked away and she was left alone once again. Veronica huffed out a breath and flopped back onto the mattress. She wondered if the others survived the battle. If the Scooby Gang back in Sunnydale got a hold of whatever would destroy Twilight's effect on their universe. She was sure that Buffy did what had to be done, the girl was the poster girl for Apocalypse ending, but everyone's luck ran out eventually. The original Slayer had escaped death twice, she was running out of chances.
Veronica was being broody. She knew that her side won, she just didn't know at what cost. She vividly remembered seeing a Slayer crushed to death by that ugly ass octopus thing. She knew they'd lost people on their side. She just hoped that her people weren't amongst the casualties.
If they survived, were they looking for her? Did time continue on while she was stuck in the past? Or did things pause until she made it back? You know, live a week in the past and pop back in where she had originally left off?
Veronica curled into herself, staring off at the patterns in the groves of the wall. She allowed herself to continue her pity party.
At least another five minutes.
Only five.
She fell asleep in three.
—
Cleveland Ohio, September 21, 1980
Veronica thought back to when she had woken up after falling asleep at the hospital. She had woken the following morning to the whispered voices of a police officer and someone from child services.
Apparently there was no such place as Sunnydale. And that's what really woke her up.
No Sunnydale.
Sunnydale was founded in the 1800s, Wilkins and demons and whatnot. It existed. She'd been there. She'd fought there! She help destroy that sucker. There was no way it didn't exist.
It felt like a weight had settled in her stomach. There was a physical ache in her gut as she tried to avoid what a lack of Sunnydale could mean.
She needed to do some research and she needed to do that right at that moment. Which lead her to interrupting the two people outside her room to ask to use the restroom. After a round of introductions, she was allowed to go. She quickly slipped on her boots claiming cold feet, and tucked her knife into the waistband of her underwear.
She did in fact use the little girl's room. It had been about two days since she had actually used the restroom. She also took the time to try to tame the mess that was her hair. She splashed water onto her hair and tried to finger-comb out any knots. She washed her hands and let the faucet run before heading towards the door. While her escort's back was turned she slipped from the room, leaving the door locked from the inside and dashed down the hall. She quickly passed a few rooms, dodging hospital staff as she did so, hiding behind doors and peeking around corners. It was all very James Bond.
She found the room from the day before. The mother and son, they were both gone, but food was still left out on the little tray they provided so she assumed they'd be back soon. She quickly went through a cabinet in the wall and found a clear bag with the boys belongings in them. She stole the boys jeans. They looked like they would fit. She kicked off her shoes and pulled on the pants, they did fit, almost perfectly. They were definitely too long for her so she cuffed the legs a few times. She jammed her sock clad feet back into her boots and tied them as tight as she could before she dashed back into the hallway.
She could hear banging going on down the hall. They probably noticed her lack of response from the bathroom. The teenager from yesterday was pulling on a pair of pants herself when Veronica stumbled through her curtain. She swiped up the shirt the girl had yet to pull on and dashed back out. She managed to make it outside without being noticed. She tore off her hospital gown and threw on the stolen long sleeved top. It was red. Not really her color but it would do for the moment.
She had research to do.
And research she did.
First stop? The local library. There she confirmed that there was indeed no Sunnydale. No UC Sunnydale, Sunnydale Press, nothing. It was hard enough that the computers in the library weren't actually connected to any kind of internet source or search engine. They were really only good for typing things up.
And wasn't that a slap in the face. Veronica was used to being able to google shit like this. The only time she had to crack open book was when she had to research demons, and even then Willow had managed to upload almost everything they had onto their Online Demonology Database (Odd for short).
Veronica put on her best smile and somehow convinced the librarian that she had a project of some kind about different colleges in California. The lady directed her towards a couple books on universities and a couple books on maps when she asked for one. She even offered Veronica a piece of candy from a jar on the counter. The Slayer got to work, she read everything she could get her hands on that had anything to do with California.
No Sunnydale.
Well alright then, maybe she was in an alternate reality where Sunnydale never existed. These things happened. She just needed to check out some sources in the area before she did anything drastic. It was late though so Veronica made a show of thanking the librarian before heading out. And then she immediately snuck right back in through a side entrance. She spent an hour or so in a janitor's closet before she was able to confirm that she was indeed alone and everyone who worked there had gone home.
She raided the desk for snacks, and found a couple of candy bars and some trail mix in a drawer by the checkout counter. Veronica also raided the lost and found. She found herself a decent looking bomber jacket, black and a men's medium but good enough. She loaded the pockets with candy the librarian had offered her earlier in the day. She drank some water from the watercooler by the desks and then settled in for the night in a chair in a secluded corner of the building.
Friday didn't seem to work in her favor either. She walked around town searching out for the supernatural hotspots. Demon bars, vampire nests, magic stores, none of them were there. It could have been possible that they just hadn't been built yet, but every single one not existing? It was a bit too coincidental.
On Saturday after waking up in the library and this time being caught, she quickly went to the last place on her list. She made her way to Cleveland's biggest cemetery and waited until night. She walked that whole cemetery. There was nothing there. No vamps, no demons, not even a tingle of her spidey sense.
"Fuck!" Veronica screamed her frustration. She slammed her fist into the back of a mausoleum. The sting in her knuckles felt so fucking good. She punched and kicked at the stone until it crumbled to dust beneath her fists. Her hands were bloody and her skin was split open but she didn't care.
It felt good to feel that pain because she knew it was real. She just spent the last few days realizing that everything she ever knew didn't exist. Wherever the fuck she was, none of it was real. No magic. No demons. No vampire. No slayers. Nothing.
It was like the universe or God or Gaea or whoever was just giving her a giant metaphorical fuck you. You don't exit. Nothing important exists. It's not real. Your not real. You've never been real.
But the pain in her knuckles? That was real. Her blood sprinkled across the grass? That was real too. So were the tears in her eyes.
She just wanted to go home.
Veronica stumbled away from the ruin that she had created. She fell asleep sitting back against a tombstone somewhere near the end of the cemetery after crying her eyes dry and her throat raw.
—
Ohio, September 21, 1980
All of that research, and drama brought Veronica to where she was now.
She'd woken up Sunday morning with a crick in her neck and a pep in her step. She stopped by a supermarket and stole a few things; a bag of beef jerky, a few granola bars, an apple, a bottle of water and a bike. The people in the 80s were so naive, it was beautiful. A smile here and an inner pocket or two and she was all set. She didn't even have to twitch her witchy nose. The bike had just been leaning against the side of the building, not a lock in site.
Veronica quickly rode to the nearest park, ate her stolen breakfast and then set off once again, in the general direction she needed. She had a torn out page from a book with a map of the city of Cleveland. It was marked down with black dots each crossed over in a big red 'X'. All except one spot just outside the city limits. She had one more place to visit before she gave up and turned herself into CPS.
She'd popped up into existence just down the road from the Richfield Coliseum. She figured her last chance at a way home might be there. She didn't really hope to find anything there, she just would regret it if she didn't check anyway.
By the time she made it on the road leading to the Coliseum it was probably a little past noon. By the time she got to where she had fainted it was probably about two in the afternoon. She was able to tell due to the blood stains on the asphalt, probably from when she hit her head.
She hopped off the bike and wandered into the field. She closed her eyes and let herself just breathe. She let herself open up her senses, both Slayer and Witch, to see if there was any residual mystical energy from her arrival.
Veronica had been so caught up in getting back to the fight, to her family, that she hadn't paid attention to her surroundings. A six year old had managed to sneak up on her after all.
She dropped down onto the floor and into lotus position. She kept her eyes shut and meditated allowing her magic to leak into the air around her, searching for something that wasn't there.
She sat there unmoving for a few hours. Until the sounds of cars and music woke her from her trance. The sun had set. And she had felt no mystical energy but her own.
She was truly alone in a non-magical world. But she was done with being a whiny brat. She was going to hop onto that bike and head back into the city and turn herself in.
She was ten years old again and though she was mentally older and fully capable of protecting herself from whatever anyone threw at her, she knew that staying on her own and living on the streets wasn't something she was capable of doing for long.
Veronica walked back to the side of the road where her stolen bike lay. She hopped on and fully intended to ride her way back towards Cleveland. She began petaling and quickly passed the Coliseum. The lights were flashing and music was pouring through the walls. She spotted a sign promoting Queen.
Maybe she could make a quick pit stop before heading into the city. Blow off a little steam first. She had lived with Faith for the past few years, she knew the older Slayer would agree. The Dark Slayer did after all take out a bunch of underaged teen girls clubbing during an Apocalypse. Freddy Mercury was dead in her time. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity.
She veered into the lot.
—
She managed to sneak in and rock out until the very end of the show. Slipping her way into the standing floor zone and weaving through the crowd as the show went on. She might have pickpocketed a few attendees. It's probably what tipped people off that she wasn't where she was supposed to be. "Tie Your Mother Down" was just ending as a hand slammed down onto her shoulder. She was tugged away from the crowd on the floor as "Another One Bites the Dust" started up. She could still hear the music blasting as she was shoved into the back of a cop car.
She didn't care. It was so worth it.
Authors note: This chapter is more of a filler chapter to get Veronica situated in her new world. Next chapter will get to the town of Hawkins for sure. And definitely more of her past with the Scoobies.