Title: Unthinkable
Author: badly-knitted
Characters: Joyce, Buffy.
Rating: PG
Written Using: The dw100 prompt 'Inconceivable'.
Spoilers/Setting: After Becoming Part 2.
Summary: Joyce is feeling guilty over the ultimatum she gave Buffy.
Disclaimer: I don't own BtVS, or the characters.
A/N: Quadruple drabble.
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Joyce stared into her cup of coffee, untouched and now almost cold. Last night… was it only last night? Her daughter had turned her whole world upside down with a few words, before running out into the dark, Joyce's stupid ultimatum still ringing in the air. 'You walk out of this house, don't even THINK about coming back!'
Well, Buffy had taken that to heart, hadn't she? Sometime in the night she'd returned, packed a bag, and left. Joyce had found her note this morning, and now… What was she going to do? Yesterday it had seemed inconceivable that Buffy would rebel to such an extent, would completely ignore her own mother, and simply leave, but…
What if what she'd said was true? What if she'd gone to save the world? Again. That one short word chilled Joyce to the bone. If it was true, if Buffy WAS a Slayer, whatever that meant, if demons and vampires were real, if it had been Buffy's job, her DUTY, to protect the world from them, whatever she'd done must have worked or Joyce wouldn't be sitting here now, in her kitchen, staring sightlessly into her coffee cup.
Picking it up, she took a sip and pulled a face. Cold. How long had she been sitting here, her thoughts in a whirl, trying to make sense of the last twenty-four hours? Getting up, she poured the coffee away, rinsed the cup, and left it on the draining board. She didn't want coffee, couldn't face even the thought of food. What she wanted was her daughter, back home and safe. She prayed for Buffy to come breezing through the door saying she'd spent the night at a friend's, knowing full well it wasn't going to happen. As much as she wished it was all nothing more than a bad dream, she knew it had all happened just as she remembered.
Sitting back down on the kitchen stool, Joyce buried her face in her hands. Buffy was gone, and it was her fault, which made her the worst mother ever, and yet almost worse than that was the realisation that she'd never really known her daughter at all.
The trouble Buffy had gotten into at school, the fights, the truancies… Joyce had just thought Buffy was hanging out with the wrong people. If she'd been a better mother, maybe Buffy would have confided in her.
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The End