Time Shadows
by Petronius
Season - AU
Sequel to This Darkest Evening of the Year
Rating: Language and a little violence, otherwise tame
Disclaimer:
None of the characters are mine, nor do I make any money off them. I only mess with their heads and make them cry.
A note on the text:
This is story number two in the Time Shadows trilogy and completed in the story "and miles to go."
Song lyrics are by Joni Mitchell
"It's coming on Christmas,
They're cutting down trees.
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace.
Oh, I wish I had a river
I could skate away on . . . "
Joni Mitchell, "River"
It always happened this time of year just around Christmas, Hanukah, the Winter Solstice, or whatever annual ritual people chose to celebrate during December under the palm trees in Los Angeles The dreams would come on again.
Buffy Summers jerked awake, her lean muscled body drenched in sweat. Sometimes the dreams were nightmares filled with outlandish creatures and entities whose names she couldn't even pronounce. Sometimes they were raw, passionate sex dreams, but always he was in them, the tall dark youthful stranger with the high forehead, brown hair and piercing eyes.
He was someone from years back during her time at Sunnydale High. They knew each other. In the dreams, they lived for each other. She could see him clearly in her mind, but when she searched for a name or the circumstances of their time together, there was nothing. Not that she had forgotten, but rather it was as if the reality of him simply didn't exist. There wasn't anything there to remember.
Yet she was overwhelmed by the longing, the emptiness, the constant feeling of something lost that could never be recovered. Buffy lived with it every December. It affected her work, her auditions, how she felt every morning when she woke up.
Her therapist put it off on her mother's early death and Buffy's strained relationship with her father. But this wasn't in her mind. This was real, real events and emotions that she must have experienced for them to be so solidly and consistently part of her psyche. And the aching wouldn't go away
Buffy rubbed her forehead as she struggled to shake the cobwebs out of her brain. It was already late, and she had a noon appointment with Cordelia Chase for lunch. The struggling actress was her arch rival dating back to their days at Sunnydale High. Prom queen, school hottie, rivals for the affections of Xander Harris, both had been at each other's throats for years . . . which developed into a bizarre friendship that required they share lunch when one had just trumped the other. And the winner had to buy.
This time, Buffy had snatched the lead role in a new series away from Cordelia. It was supposed to be Cordelia's big break and Buffy felt rotten about the part being yanked away from her at the last minute. Well, just a little rotten. It wasn't a total trashing either since Cordelia did land a role she was perfect for in the pilot, that of a beautiful, arrogant, air headed cheerleader. Talk about type casting.
The two women weren't going to let this little bump in their competitive relationship keep them from a good lunch sniping at each other. Besides, both young actresses admitted privately that the script was off the wall, the director/screenwriter looked like a little perv and the show would probably get cancelled after three episodes. If not, the sex and gratuitous violence would definitely make it a target for Parent's TV and every other fundamentalist censorship group threatening to keep the airwaves of America clean and wholesome.
But more importantly, the luncheon date would let Buffy grill Cordelia. Sunnydale's ex-prom queen might remember who the mystery guy was that continued to plague Buffy's dreams.
* * * * * * *
"It don't snow here,
It stays pretty green.
I'm gonna make a lot of money
Then I'm gonna quit this crazy scene.
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on . . ."
"You really want to go there?" Cordelia asked sarcastically as she glared at Buffy over the top of her glass of Chardonnay.
"Where?" Buffy asked, honestly puzzled for a moment. "Sunnydale High?"
"Your love life at Sunnydale High!" the tall brunette actress snorted back.
"Do you remember him?" Buffy pressed on despite the scathing looks Cordelia cast back at her.
"Buffy," Cordelia huffed, "Considering the dozens of guys you went out with in high school and the fact that you can't remember a particular one night stand . . ."
Buffy was silent as she tried to conjure up an image of the stranger so she could provide Cordelia more details. She failed under her friend's withering gaze.
"I think he was . . . my first," she said softly to her wine glass.
"But I thought Xander . . ." Cordelia asked with raised eyebrows but didn't finish the question. She just shrugged and shook her head as if to say "What the hell do I know?"
"Sorry," Buffy replied quietly as if the word were an apology for every time she had had bested Cordelia, ranging from her stealing Xander Harris in high school up to the most recent recasting fiasco.
Cordelia glared.
"The only reason that two timing horndog Harris ended up with you," she snapped, "Was you put out and I wouldn't!"
Buffy absorbed the familiar rebuke in silence.
"Girl! What's wrong with you?" Cordelia lectured, "You go through this deal every December! You've made it! You have a real acting career. You could walk out on the street and pick up any hunk you want!"
Buffy looked down at her half eaten salad and poked it with her fork.
"I know you've been going through a dry spell with men," Cordelia continued, "And who's fault is that? You've always had issues with the trust and commitment thing. But what's with the wallowing in yearbook photos of old boyfriends? It's just pimples and bad hair!"
"I don't know," Buffy shrugged, "It's like I can remember this guy but at the same time, I can't . . . kinda like he didn't exist."
"Maybe he didn't," Cordelia said frankly, "Maybe he's just in your head, some kind of fantasy man. We've all got those."
"I was thinking of going to visit Willow," Buffy admitted.
"The one you really ought to talk to is Harris," Cordelia said. Buffy felt the statement plunge into her heart like a sharpened stake. "If ever there were issues and a need for some kind of closure . . . I mean he did save your life and then you dumped him two weeks later as he was getting out of the hospital!"
Buffy squirmed as if the gunshot on prom night seven years ago were headed through the restaurant window right now. She felt Xander's muscled arms yank her down on the front seat of the car, their bodies together crushing her corsage. Glass fragments rained down on them and in a moment she felt the warm trickle of blood from his damaged eye dripping across the skin of her face.
"Buffy! Focus!" Cordelia said sternly.
"Oh, yeah," she replied, "I just figured Willow might remember something."
"Je doubt!" Cordelia smirked, "Since she and Tara got back from Vermont, I don't think they've taken their eyes or their hands off each other. I bet she couldn't remember anything that happened before last week! "
"I'm sorry I missed the ceremony," Buffy said sincerely.
"You really did!" Cordelia agreed, "It was a blast and lots of gay guys. They're always the cute ones."
Buffy laughed to herself. Cordelia had a "thing" for gay men. Maybe it was their unattainability, maybe they always treated her like the crown princess she knew she was, maybe because they didn't expect anything of her in exchange for the praise and adulation.
"But Tara gives me the creeps," Cordelia continued, and Buffy nodded in agreement. Willow's partner was sweet and all and wouldn't hurt a fly but there was something about her that neither woman could figure, something that made the skin and hair on the back of the neck prickle. It wasn't evil but a sense of something horrifically tragic that hung about Tara like the morning LA smog.
"So, you're driving up to Sunnydale this weekend?" Cordelia asked as she finished her wine and glanced around, signaling the waitress for another glass.
"Yeah," Buffy said with a sigh, "I gotta get outta this town."
"Hun, that's what Aspen is for, not Sunnydale!"
"I know," Buffy smiled.
"Well," Cordelia said in a matter of fact tone as the waitress arrived with her refill, "When you see him, give Harris a kick in the ass for me."
Buffy nodded grinning.
* * * * * * *
"I made my baby cry . . .
He tried so hard to help me
He put me at ease
And he loved me so naughty
he made me weak in the knees.
Oh, I wish I had a river
I could skate away on."
"Buffy Summers! Big time TV star!" Willow exclaimed as she led Buffy into the apartment, "What brings you to my humble little abode!"
"Abode?" Buffy questioned, crinkling her nose at the word as she glanced around at the sunny, spacious apartment, "Humble?"
She couldn't help notice the new plush sofa and expensive arts and crafts furniture that barely made a dent in the room's bright airy spaces. The pulsing roar of a blender crushing ice echoed from behind the closed kitchen door.
"Oh, it's not so big," Willow said modestly, trying to put on the meek Willow front perfected during her four years at Sunnydale High.
"Willow," Buffy said marveling, "This place is twice the size of mine in LA."
"Hey, that's Sunnydale. Low rent district. And I got a surprise for you."
Willow turned to face the doorway to the kitchen.
"HEY!" she shouted imitating a street accent, "Where dose beers?!"
"Easy Will!" a familiar male voice rang out as the roar of the blender suddenly ceased, "Perfection can't be rushed."
"Xander?!" Buffy shouted with delight.
Xander Harris, a tray of mixed tropical drinks complete with colored mini-umbrellas, paraded through the kitchen door into the living room. His eye-patch hung jauntily across the left side of his face. With the grace of a Jeeves, he presented the tray to Buffy.
"Strawberry frozen Margarita, just like you like it."
Buffy lifted the glass, bringing the cool beverage to her lips.
"Ohh, scrumptious!" she cooed after a sip, "That's soo good! No one makes drinks like you."
"You bring out the artist in me!"
Willow broke up laughing.
"And for our hostess," Xander offered the tray in Willow's direction who delicately selected her lemon daiquiri. He then held his own glass of ferociously bubbling ginger ale and tossed the tray aside. He raised the tumbler in a toast.
"To old Sunnydale High . . . or whatever's left of the dump after Jonathan blew it up at graduation."
"To ole Sunnydale!" the two women said in unison as their glasses clinked together. For a moment there was an awkward silence as Buffy, unable to ignore the eye patch, stared at Xander.
He caught her gaze as the two looked at each other.
"Hi . . . Jack Sparrow," she finally said sadly.
"Hi, Kendel," he grinned back at her.
Buffy laughed. She set her drink down and wrapped her arms around him, pressing her face close against his. Their lips met briefly and the tips of her fingers softly caressed the black piece of round leather. For those few moments, Buffy marveled that her December empty feeling was nowhere to be found.
For the next two hours, laughter rang amidst the sunlight in the apartment. Willow rattled on with story after story as Buffy and Xander listened from the sofa.
"I kept a diary, you know," she answered to Buffy's question as to how she could remember what seemed like day to day high school events so clearly. Once again, Cordelia didn't know her brain from her bustline, Buffy thought with a smile.
"Where's Tara?" Buffy asked nervously as she glanced towards the door.
"She had to do some overtime at the lab today," Willow answered, oblivious to the tone in her friend's voice, "Mixing up new medicines, finding cures, saving the world and all. She says 'Hi' and sends her love."
Buffy nodded.
"Tell Tara I still love her even if she stole my Willow away from me!" Xander exclaimed as he turned to Buffy, "Too bad you couldn't have made it to Vermont! What a party even for me being on a 'diet.'" Xander clinked the ice cubes in his third glass of ginger ale.
"Oh, Buffy, I wish you could've come," Willow said sincerely.
"Too many auditions," Buffy gave her excuse for what seemed like the dozenth time, "It sounded fabulous. Even Cordelia said she had a blast."
Xander gagged on his ginger ale. For a second, Buffy thought the drink was going to run out his nose.
"The guys were all over her like flies on honey!" Willow laughed.
"I would have put it a little more bluntly!" Xander quipped. Buffy grinned evilly back at him as she imagined Cordelia Chase in all her glory.
"So," Buffy continued, changing the subject, "How's the construction business?"
"Great!" Xander relished the opportunity to talk about himself, "We're so busy, I gotta turn jobs away. Which reminds me, I have to split in a couple minutes to meet a client about their plans for refurbing Sunnydale Towers."
"You got the Towers job!?" Willow exclaimed, "That's incredible!"
"Wow," Buffy said sincerely as she studied his muscular arms, "You look great since . . . " She stopped in mid sentence realizing she might be crossing into forbidden territory.
"It's okay, Buff," Xander continued lightly. "Anya hasn't killed me yet. In fact, we're still on speaking terms. It's been a year and a half since I dumped her at the altar . . . and I've lost weight!"
Xander patted his flat abdominals.
"Lot's of exercise on the job sites. No more sauce," he swished his ginger ale around the ice cubes again.
Buffy, her brow furrowed with concern, stared at Xander. He wanted to look away and pop off another joke, but Buffy still had that special way with him that always made him spill his guts.
"You're right," he said looking down, "It was pretty rough. I still don't know how I could've done that to her."
Buffy waited patiently for Xander to continue.
"But during those last six months, she changed," he said forcing himself to dredge up the painful memories and offer them to Buffy, "She wasn't my feisty old Anya anymore. It was like she knew things were gonna happen the way they did, and she just gave up."
"You wouldn't recognize her now, Buffy," Willow added, "She's like . . . mellow!"
"I never could figure out what happened to her. Not like with you, Buffy. That I understand," Xander grinned sheepishly, "I said the three dirty words."
Buffy cracked a thin painful smile.
"And whose fault was that . . ." she said tenderly repeating Cordelia's observation.
The room was quiet for just a moment.
"Shit, I'm gonna be late!" Xander suddenly glanced at his wristwatch, "As much as I'd like to continue this trip through high school happy times, I can't afford to blow off this client."
He stood to leave but before he could reach the door, Buffy was lightly on her feet and at his side. She wrapped her arms around him one more time like she remembered doing on the steps of Sunnydale Hospital years ago.
Xander held her gently.
"Kendel, you're still a hottie, you know," he quipped.
"I'd like not to be such a stranger," she replied.
"Me, too."
"Go on," Buffy said releasing him, "And don't blow it!"
Before he turned away to leave, Buffy suddenly planted a mild but firm kick in his backside.
"Ow! What the hell was that for?!" he exclaimed, "I thought I was making progress here!"
"Cordelia says 'hi,'" Buffy smirked.
Willow and Buffy sat sipping black coffee after Xander left.
"Buffy," Willow said slowly, "I checked all my journals after you called. I got no guy like you described."
"You sure, Will?"
"Positive," Willow replied, "I wrote down everything, even the day and hour you and Xander . . ."
"Okay, Willow," Buffy interrupted raising her hand, "I believe you."
"I mean, I would have remembered somebody like that," Willow said.
Buffy shook her head.
"Sorry to bug you with this," Buffy said, "But it's like a piece of my life is missing and there's this big empty space."
"Or maybe," Willow added slowly, "The piece doesn't fit at all . . . 'cause it's not meant to . . . since things have changed."
"I don't get it," Buffy replied, puzzled.
"You know who might," Willow nodded to herself, "Anya . . ."
"You're kidding! Does she still think she's like . . ."
"A Vengeance Demon?" Willow completed the sentence, "She doesn't just think it, she believes it! But she and Mr. Giles became real close after he got sick. He left her the Magic Shoppe and all. She's just weird enough to be able to figure it out."
"I don't know, Will," Buffy muttered, shaking her head as she wondered how she could approach Xander's ex-fiance.
"It'll be okay. Like I said she's gotten all mellow, especially since Mr. Giles died. Although she's still rude to browsers."
"I never went to the funeral," Buffy said softly after a minute of silence. She looked over at Willow.
"I did. There's not much to tell," Willow answered as best she could, "It was just a little graveside ceremony. He had no relatives. Some English fraternal organization he belonged to, some Watchers or something, paid for the plot and casket."
"I wanted to come," Buffy said, "But by the time I heard, everything was already over. I never even knew he had cancer."
"Neither did he. They didn't find it until he had the CAT scan after the Magic Shoppe ceiling fell on him during the earthquake."
"I never would have graduated without him," Buffy smiled fondly, "He tutored me and all, protected me from that weasel Snyder. My Mom was so grateful, she wanted to marry him!"
Willow grinned from ear to ear.
"What was real sweet was Anya found a plot close to Ms. Calendar's. I don't think he ever got over her murder."
"So Anya's still a Vengeance Demon?" Buffy asked, "She's not going to try and sell me the whole store?" .
"Nah. Just spin by the Shoppe," Willow nodded reassuringly, "I'm sure she'll be happy to see you. I'll call her and let her know you're coming. I already told her you were going to be in town."
"Give me about an hour, Will," Buffy replied, "I have a stop to make first."
* * * * * *
Buffy paused on the green lawn that rolled gently amidst the trees and monuments down the hillside. She had left the bulk of the flowers she brought at the top of the hill by her mother's plot. She saved one white rose and placed it here in front of the modest stone that read "Rupert Giles."
She couldn't understand why the aching was so intense now. Mr. Giles was only the librarian and her after school tutor. His peculiar English habits and accent were the object of constant teasing and jokes. He was also petrified of computers.
Standing in the sunshine, Buffy remembered how he stuttered and used to clean his glasses, fussing with them ferociously when he was nervous. She suddenly realized that the wetness was streaming uncontrollably down her cheeks in the late afternoon sun. She couldn't understand why.
* * * * * * * *
"I made my baby say goodbye . . .
I'm so hard to handle.
I'm selfish and I'm sad.
Now I've gone and lost
The best baby that I ever had.
Oh, I wish I had a river
I could skate away on."
"You sure you don't want some of the weasel warts?" Anya asked sharply, "I've got a sale on jarred sacrificial components this week."
"No thank you," Buffy replied as she struggled to hide the faintest hint of a cringe.
"So, Willow says you're looking for somebody," Anya said as she paraded behind the cash register.
"Yeah," Buffy replied hesitantly.
"But he doesn't exist," Anya continued.
"That's what everybody is telling me. That it's all in my head."
"They're wrong you know," Anya said as she busily dusted the counter and cash register with a well used feather duster.
"About what?" Buffy scowled.
"About it being in your head," Anya replied.
Buffy waited for her to say more.
"It did all exist once," Anya said.
"What do you mean?"
"How much time you got, Buffy?" Anya asked.
"As long as it takes," she answered firmly.
Anya sighed.
"His name, . . . was Angel."
For the next hour, Anya told the story and Buffy listened in rapt attention. It didn't matter whether she believed what she heard or not. Rather it was the breadth and expanse of the tale that drew her in. She also felt the aching intensity grow with each passing minute.
"Giles wondered how long it would be before you began to sense it," Anya mused.
"He knew?" Buffy asked surprised.
"No more than you, through dreams, and bits and pieces of deja vu. I helped him put it all together in his last months. Xander too, although he never believed any of it."
"But how do you know . . .?"
"I'm a Vengeance Demon!" Anya grinned as she tossed her long blond hair, "I'm fifteen hundred years old. I was here . . . before the change."
"So . . . I saved the world . . ." Buffy muttered.
"A lot!" Anya smiled nodding.
"And now I'm just a soap actress," Buffy said ironically.
"I think there's a little more to it than that," Anya tried to reassure her.
"And Angel saved me . . . by changing the world."
"No," Anya corrected her, "By changing Time. You were going to die in Rome. He couldn't accept that. So he gave up his world . . . to give you a new one."
"Even though I had abandoned him," Buffy said heavily.
"It's gotta be pretty powerful if something can take on Time itself!"
"I still don't remember him." Buffy glanced down at the floor. She sighed deeply.
"Perfectly understandable," Anya said while refilling a bowl of small rough-hewn quartz crystals, "That world only survives now in wisps, events that ceased to exist or changed drastically with only a few minor details still intact. That's the deja vu."
"The dreams . . ." Buffy said leaving the full thought unspoken.
Anya nodded.
"Giles called them 'Time Shadows.' He thought you might experience them pretty intensely."
"Then the dreams, and all the strange feelings . . . Tara . . .?" Buffy asked, her brow furrowed with concern.
"Time Shadows," Anya nodded, "At the prom when you and Xander were driving back from the Sunnydale Motel and ran headlong into the gang drive-by?"
"He saved me . . . and lost his eye."
"In Rome," Anya said gently looking down, "It was different. There was no one there that time. You were in the car alone."
Buffy gasped.
"Then on . . . on Prom Night?"
"A Time Shadow? Yep! Rome blended with the day Xander saved you in the Master's Chamber," Anya answered, "A little confused and messed up but that's the way they survive . . . kinda distorted in fragments."
Buffy was silent as her thoughts returned to the moments she spent on the hillside in the Sunnydale Cemetery earlier that afternoon.
"Does it ever go away? The Emptiness?" she finally asked.
"If you want it to," Anya smiled as if her statement were the most obvious in the world," It's a void from the other time. You just have to fill it in this time. Find a new light and the shadow fades away."
"How do I do that?" Buffy asked her voice trembling slightly, "How do I find something to replace that kind of sacrifice, that kind of love . . .?"
Anya placed her hand on Buffy's shoulder.
"By accepting the love you've been given and the sacrifices that have been made for you in this world," she answered clearly, "Angel wanted you not only to live but to be happy. You now have a second chance. . . I do, too. And I'm grateful."
Buffy stared at this strange new Anya whom she knew and at the same time didn't recognize.
"You died in the other time, too . . ." Buffy whispered.
"Follow the Time Shadow, Buffy," Anya grinned, "Follow it to the love it represents here."
* * * * * * *
"I wish I had a river so long,
I could teach my feet to
fly . . .
Oh, I wish I had a river
I could skate away on."
"Buffy, you gotta be kidding," Xander exclaimed into his apartment phone as he scratched his head, "It's nearly ten p.m."
"And you're doing, like, what? It'll be fun! Come on!" Buffy's voice bubbled over her cell, "I'll meet you there in fifteen minutes!"
A half hour later Buffy struggled with the laces on the pair of rental ice skates from the nearly empty Sunnydale Rink.
"They gotta be a lot tighter than that, Buff," Xander said as he pulled the laces up firmly on her skates, "If they're the slightest bit loose, your ankles will flop all over the place."
"Wow!" she exclaimed as the laces tightened against her thin socks, "That's good enough. Let's go!"
Buffy jumped to her feet and hobbled across the carpeted floor towards the rink.
"Just what brought this on?" Xander asked as they both stepped out onto the ice.
"If you want to go ice skating," Buffy spoke loudly to be heard over the piped in disco music, "This is SC and the only place in two hundred miles!"
"I guess," Xander scratched his head again.
They skated slowly out into the dozen other couples drifting gently around the oval rink. For a moment, both were wobbly on their feet. Then the forward motion of skating caught them up in the rhythm, one foot precisely placed in front of the other in a familiar pattern.
Buffy reached out and took Xander's hand in hers.
"Let's go faster," she said, her voice laced with excitement. He gripped her hand firmly as both swept around the rink at an accelerating rate of speed. Xander slipped in close by her side and slid his arm firmly around Buffy's waist. She did the same with him.
"Faster, Xander, let's go faster!"
He tightened his grip on her waist. Their skates hissed in unison as they swept across the slippery glistening surface.
"Faster! . . . Faster!"
Suddenly Buffy stumbled. Xander instantly sensed her loss of rhythm and balance. As her feet began to tumble out from beneath her, he clamped his arm in a vice like grip around her waist and held her, speeding, above the ice.
Quickly Buffy regained her balance and her feet instantly swept into place gaining control of her and Xander's forward motion. Buffy turned to Xander and silently mouthed the words, "thank you."
"I'll always be there to catch you, Buffy," he said out loud. Buffy felt her feet flying now across the ice. "Faster!" her soul whispered and she knew Xander heard her.
"Faster!" she cried out loud.
The Time Shadow scattered before them.
Xander pressed his cheek against hers. She finally had him firmly by her side in the only world she had left. She also knew he would be there when she awoke to the bright sunlight in the morning.
pax,
Petronius
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