Empty Spaces: A Single Step

[valyssia]

Summary: Welcome to the worst day of the rest of your life, Buffy.
Rating: FRT: Contains Some Mature Themes: Parental Supervision Suggested.
Word Count: 800.
Beta: Howard Russell.
Character: Buffy.
Episode #1: Welcome to the Hellmouth.
Disclaimer: Another day, another…they don’t pay me anything at all. I just do this to amuse myself and you. That’s what allows me and mine to slip under the radar while playing with characters created by those more fortunate than us.
Author’s Note: This story begins and ends with quotes from Welcome to the Hellmouth. The odd material in the breakdown was loosely sourced from The Eurithmics song Doubleplusgood.

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A Single Step

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“Come on. This is Sunnydale. How bad an evil can there be here?” The words ring in my ears as I say them. I sound convincing, incredulous even. I want to believe them, but really I don’t—not any more than he does. Katharine Hepburn, eat your heart out.

I slip past him and march down the emptying hallway. I can’t believe he had the nerve to pin me like that. I still feel his arm in my face blocking my path, the heat of his breath billowing over my skin. I’ve heard that spiel before. The Watchers Council must be like a finishing school where they take arrogant, priggish, prickly boys and turn them into stodgy, haughty, insufferable old men.

Students scuttle into classrooms as I pass. I envy them their boring lives. All they have to worry about is the algebra test on Tuesday, homework, home life, did they make the team, will that special someone notice them, blah, blah, blah…

My life used to be like that. I miss it. Imagine, there was a time when I loved being chosen, being singled out, being seen as something special. Now I just want to be left alone.

Obnoxious. I can’t believe skipped ‘obnoxious.’ Giles is definitely that. Who here isn’t?

Willow.

I consider my answer. Xander and his tiny fence, Giles and his great big book, Principal Flutie and his clean slate, Jesse and his leering, and then there’s Cordelia.

It’s fair. So, how do I belong here?

That’s crazy. I don’t—

The bell rings. A fresh wave of searing tension tangles with my spine. My pace doubles. I’m not even sure I’m headed the right way. I don’t have my books. I was going to my locker when Commander McBragg waylaid me with handy, helpful tips and tidbits on how to ruin my life; fail school; become a social pariah; suffer repeated, horrible, painful injuries; and eventually—all too quickly—come to a tragic, lonely, sticky, violent end.

And they can’t understand why I wouldn’t want that. I laugh the laugh of someone who’s had enough fun for one day. I wanna go home, wherever that is.

They don’t care. All that matters to them is—

Someone keys the P.A., producing a crackly screech that goes on for somewhere between forever and ten seconds. Clueless which, but we may be looking at punitive damages. When the cacophony ends, a stuffy sounding older woman says, “Students, may I have your attention?”

My head pounds a rhythm with the echo of her voice.

“Attention. Your attention, please.”

I spot a familiar sign and almost pass it by. Hiding in the bathroom, yeah, that’s mature.

“Attention.”

I duck inside. The door bangs against its stop.

Atten – ten  – tension.

It almost hits me. I turn out of its path…ten, ten…pirouetting as it slams closed.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six…

I snap. The first thing I lay eyes on gets it. The towel dispenser cracks. I hit it again. The faceplate breaks in two.

Tension. Attention. Your attention, please.

The part not held by the latch hangs precariously. Slowly, it shifts, tilts and swings.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four…

The piece finally falls, taking a bunch of paper towels with it. It clangs into the trashcan lid, bounces and clatters to the floor. Paper towels go everywhere.

What a mess.

I should leave. Someone might’ve heard that.

No. I shouldn’t. I can’t. Not like this. I need to cool off.

I go to the sink and turn it on. Water swirls down the drain.

I stare.

My knuckles are skinned. I flex my forearm. Blood drips from my hand, leaving a streak on the shiny white porcelain.

I look up. A smudged, tearstained wreck greets me in the mirror. I’m hopeless. I’m not even sure how I got here. One minute, I was in my therapist’s office; the next, the greatest hits of ‘my worst nightmare’ were looping around in my head. She asked me if there was anything I wished was different. That’s all.

Another blood drop falls. It drizzles down the bowl to be swept away by the water.

All I did was tell her I wished there was someplace where I belonged. Her face turned gross and I woke up. I thought I’d imagined it. Then I opened my eyes. I was in a strange room with boxes all around. I must’ve missed leaving the hospital. I missed a lot. No clue when we moved, but the stuff in the boxes was mine, so…

I was afraid to say anything because—

Well, because anything beats being locked up. Even this.

Mom was calling my name. ‘Don’t wanna be late for your first day.’

I played along. ‘No, wouldn’t want that.’

How do I belong here?

Comments

[valyssia]

Nice job of combining the two universes. I love how the wish!demon put her into Sunnydale.

I’m sort hesitant to respond to this. So first off, thank you. I just never manage to say the right things. It’s funny I can write prose for days and it comes out just fine, the interactions feel genuine, the pacing is snappy, blah, blah blah…but give me one person to talk with and my foot’s in my mouth up to my thigh in thirty seconds flat.

That said, I view this as canon spackle not an AU.

In Normal Again Buffy drops the bomb that she was institutionalized before she came to Sunnydale. Yet in five seasons of Joyce, never once does that little gem come up. And you’d think that she would’ve had a slightly different reaction to Buffy impassioned ‘I’m the slayer’ speech if was that the case. The way that plays out is beautifully like Buffy comes out of the closet. I wouldn’t change a thing, but let’s face it, Joyce would’ve been having kittens had that back story been taken into account.

What if the memory of being institutionalized was Buffy’s alone?

Basically, Normal Again is the terribly cliché episode that ripped the fabric of canon. Just a tiny rip, mind you. And there are tons more.

We see Halfrek target Dawn in the series. And I say ‘target’ because there wasn’t a rash of parents being turned to hideous blobs of goo or anything like that. Halfrek is trying to earn points with the boss so she goes straight for the slayer’s kid sister. It’s a calculated thing.

Is it ridiculous to think that a justice vengeance demon would take a run at the slayer herself?

Next take Sunnydale into account. It’s a town in Southern California where the houses have basements. Just that basic thing screams WTF? There aren’t any basements in SoCal. State law forbids them. But boy do they make fantastic places for vamps to hide. And look at the miles of sewer tunnels. Really?

Sunnydale has twelve cemeteries. What’s the population of the silly town? And when was the last time you saw photos of a gothic cemetery taken in SoCal? Umm…that’s kind of rare too.

It’s the source of a ‘great mystical convergence’ called the Hellmouth. Huh?

The mayor has been around for a century plotting to become a demon. No one’s noticed that the face of their mayor hasn’t changed in—

The town’s denizens are dumber than bricks of cheese. Really mild stuff, like Colby. There’s too much bacteria in a really ripe cheese. That might push it too far up the evolutionary scale.

You get the idea. This list could go on for days. Sunnydale comes off almost like it is a place that was dreamed up as a Habitrail for the slayer. It’s a place where she belongs.

In my opinion, this story works a little too well. It fits canon without butchering it, but it also turns it on its ear.

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

In which season does Normal Again appear? I'm most familiar up through season 4. I also have owned season 5 for a while and Dad just got me season 6 for Christmas. (We exchange at Thanksgiving because he visits my sister and her kids in December.) While I've seen all the BtVS episodes at least once, I don't like seasons 5 - 7 as much as the earlier seasons and am not as up on them.

All of your points about Southern California are fascinating. Being from the east coast myself, they aren't things that I ever would have thought of.

Sunnydale comes off almost like it is a place that was dreamed up as a Habitrail for the slayer. It’s a place where she belongs. So you're suggesting that, at least in your story, Sunnydale itself was created as a place where Buffy would belong? *huge grin* That's awesome!

[valyssia]

In which season does Normal Again appear?

Season six, episode seventeen.

All of your points about Southern California are fascinating. Being from the east coast myself, they aren't things that I ever would have thought of.

I'm from the Midwest. I've just traveled a little and known people from all over.

The basement thing came up when I beta'd a story written by a lady from San Diego. She had a character fire a gun in a basement. I asked her how many people she had intended to kill. We talked my observation over and she got the idea that the bullet would ricochet willy-nilly to hell and gone. She'd lived in SoCal her entire life and had never been in a basement.

Fascinating stuff.

I verified the detail with Whedonist last night, who lives the L.A. area. She wasn't aware of any ordinances, but she assumed they existed because she'd never been in a basement in SoCal either. They don't exist except in the fictional town of Sunnydale. The reasoning is sensible. Earthquake country. Nuff said.

So you're suggesting that, at least in your story, Sunnydale itself was created as a place where Buffy would belong? *huge grin* That's awesome!

Yeah, that was my thought and the drive behind the piece. It's Band-Aid to slap over canon. A relatively tiny one considering all of the things it fixes.

Thanks. *hugs*