Funeral

.

Buffy stood in front of her mother's grave. Not speaking. Not moving. Barely daring to breathe.

Around her, the ceremony finished, and a swarm of people surrounded her, saying things to her that she barely heard. That barely mattered. She was alone.

And after everyone had left, and only Buffy remained, her eyes still fixed on that grave, she heard soft footsteps behind her. She didn't turn around.

A woman stepped up next to her. One with blonde hair, hazel eyes, attired in a blue jacket and black slacks. She didn't have the gun, this time.

Buffy darted her eyes over at Rose. Rose met those eyes with her own.

And there was loss in Rose's eyes. A loss that matched Buffy's, a loss of a parent that you couldn't save, a loss that hurt so much, it felt numb and raw and burning.

"I thought you were supposed to be saving the Earth," said Buffy.

"It can wait," said Rose.

She stayed there, with Buffy, for a few minutes longer, neither saying anything. And then Rose gave Buffy a sad yet supportive smile, turned, and walked back to her mission of saving the world, the multiverse, and the entirety of existence.

In the meantime, Buffy waited for someone she didn't know.

Who never came.


Rewrite

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The Doctor hunched over the central console as he tried to plug in the coordinates. But as he got closer and closer to the date-time marker, the time turbulence got greater and greater. He was never sure where and when he was going to land. And he'd noticed that he could intervene less and less.

A causal string, all leading to one point. One outcome.

The Doctor killing Dawn Summers.

But, no! It had to be possible, the Doctor knew, to save Dawn's life. That was what the TARDIS key told him. While there was a great big fixed point around that area of space and time, Dawn's death was not the fixed point in time. The TARDIS key was a spark of hope, letting the Doctor know that there was a probability, however remote, that Dawn would survive this.

(Unless he only dropped off the key, later, because he remembered finding Dawn with it, now.)

The Doctor pushed the thought out of his mind. He needed to get to Sunnydale. He needed to find a way to fix this. The Key was his responsibility, and no one else was going to take the fall for him, this time.

He was going to save Dawn Summers.

(Or kill her.)