spikes_heart | Time Drabbles For open_on_sunday 12/05/04

This week's challenge is Time.

Cross posted to

open_on_sunday and my regular journal.

BtVS – All encompassing – Joyce

Mother-Daughter Time

Most girls her age are thinking about boys and clothes. They’ve packed away their dolls and toys and set their sights on the future. Graduation, marriage, and children. Fourteen year old Joyce is no exception in her hopes for the future, but she refuses to part with her favorite doll; a blonde-haired, green-eyed cherub she calls Buffy.

The doll was a gift from her mother for her fifth birthday and the passage of time only deepens Joyce’s fantasies of a daughter to love and protect. Her Buffy.

She presses a kiss to the doll’s forehead and settles down to sleep.

~*~

The hospital ceiling passes before her eyes one tile at a time as Joyce is wheeled down the corridor for brain surgery. Just a few more feet and she can drop the calm façade she’s holding onto.

This time she’s not so sure she’ll make it. Her only regret is losing out on time with her daughters. Everyone thinks that Buffy’s so strong, but Joyce knows her baby still needs her. And Dawnie… no matter how she came into their lives, needs her more.

A final wave of her fingers and the closing doors block the girls from her view.

~*~

For a spirit supposed to be calm and ethereal, Joyce is frantic. Watching over her daughters she’s filled with a deep sense of foreboding. Buffy’s latest paramour is not what he seems. The energy radiating from the man cuddling her eldest is sinister and dark as he smiles, and he brings out a fierce protectiveness in Joyce.

What can she do to protect her babies? She’ll turn to the one man that’s come through time after time. Stretching out her senses, she locates the slight energy reading of her favorite vampire. He’s in trouble. Please… let her be in time.

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