Who: Buffy Summers and her first 'ghost' What: Blast from the past When: December 17th, night Where: Her bedroom Rating: PG at the most Status: Incomplete
If you were at the Hyperion, you didn't see much of Buffy these days. She trained, she ate, slept, she did her patrols, and the rest of the time she mostly kept to herself, or to where ever Spike was. The sun had still been up when she'd collapsed onto her bed for a needed nap. When she had awoke again it was dark out, and the room was silent. So when she saw a movement from the corner of her eye, she sat straight up, arms instantly going to the stake at her bedside table as she flicked on the lamp.
She was stunned into silence. The woman she hadn't seen in close to ten years, but wanted more than anything to have near her was standing in the corner of her room, smiling. "...Mom?" it couldn't be her. Her mother was dead.
The last time she had seen anything that looked like her mother, it had been The First. Was that was this was? Wasn't it a bit too soon to be seeing The First? They weren't even over a Hell-mouth. Though this was LA.
"What are you?" she asked shakily. Because it couldn't be her mother. Her mother was gone, and she wasn't coming back, even if Dawn had tried. It looked exactly like her, moved exactly like her. Even sounded exactly like her when she spoke. "It's me sweetie, who else would it be?"
Whoever the hell was responsible for this was going to die, or at least get smashed in the face, Buffy decided right then and there.
"You're not my mother. My mother-"
"Died." Joyce finished for her, face falling. Her 'mother' took a few steps closer to the bed, stopping just as the end of it, "Yes, I know. I died. I'm so sorry I left you, you know I never wanted to leave you and Dawn alone." she did know that, but it had happened. They were alone.
Buffy opened her mother to argue again, but Joyce continued. "And no, I'm not The First, or a demon, or anything like that." she said, in the way her mother use to speak when assuring Buffy. So convincing, almost impossible to argue with, because she didn't want to argue with her. Buffy didn't want it to be anything awful, so she almost believed her.
"But you did. You died. You left me, if it wasn't for Giles I would have lost the house...and now-" she blinked away tears, looking down. "And now Dawn is in Scotland, I'm trapped here, Sunnydale is gone. I caused the down to implode. ...sorry." there had been things in that house that Buffy knew her mother had cherished, things that Buffy had always planned on keeping that were gone now.
"Oh, Buffy." Joyce said, walking around the bed and stopping just short of her. "You did what you had to do, you did what you thought was right, just like you always do." Buffy noted that her mother didn't try to sit, or touch her. Maybe she couldn't. She was dead, after all. "You always come out on top."
Shaking her head, Buffy looked down. "No, not this time. I'm stuck here in LA, and I hate it. I can't leave, everything I've worked for is...is gone. It belongs to others now, even though I never gave it up." What the hell was 'it' anyway? Her job? Her status? Authority? "Everyone who use to look to me on what to do, or use to fight with me is running the show, and there's no room for me. I don't even know what the hell I'm here for." it made zero sense for her to be here.
Her eyes were on the ground, burning a hole into the floor when the fake-Joyce knelt in front of her. "Everyone has their slumps Buffy. It doesn't matter about everyone else. Everyone else doesn't matter to me. I'm so proud of you, you know that, right?" Joyce's hand reached out, as if to touch her, instead her hand stopped just an inch away from Buffy's cheek, as if meaning to place her hand down, but it didn't come any closer.
"You're not staying, are you?"
"Do you want me to stay?" she asked.
"I want you to be alive again. I've always needed you, mom." she responded in just a whisper.
"No, sweetie, you don't need me. You just miss me. And I miss you. But you're going to be okay." She sounded so sure of herself, how, Buffy didn't even know. "Don't forget I love you."
Buffy shut her eyes, taking in a deep breath. "I lo-" when she opened her eyes again, the room was empty. For a moment, she was frozen.
Slowly she looked around the room, but there was no sign of her mother, or the thing that had been her mother. "I love you too." she whispered to the darkness.
And she was alone again. Always alone. Tears spilled over her eyes. Tears for the loss of her mother, for how much she missed her, for always having someone there who would tell her it would be okay. For every frustration and angry feeling she had toward this city and for a small handful of people she just wanted to punch.
Lowering herself back on her bed, she curled up into a ball, and just let herself cry.