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notworthyOfficially, this is for this, but since there's been no call for a master list, and this has been sitting on my computer for a while now- well, here you go.
Home, Or Ten Things That Never Happened to Buffy Summers (The TARDIS Edition)
PG-13ish, 2,943 words
BtVS/Dr. Who crossover- Buffy, Rose, Jack, Doctor, some Buffy/Rose
I.
“Is she going to be alright?”
“Think so. She’s healing fast- faster than what I’ve seen any human do so…”
“Is she then? Human?”
“According to the TARDIS she is. A little more evolved than most of you apes, but from Earth all the same.”
“Huh. She’s pretty.”
Buffy opened her eyes at the tolerant sighs. At first, she had been worried by the British accents, but none of them had the clipped, professional, yet cruel sounding tone that the Watchers did. That meant that she was safe, at least for the moment.
“She’s awake! Wasn’t expecting that anytime soon.”
“Where am I?” Buffy asked, wincing at the pain in her back. She hadn’t thought that she had fallen that hard.
“You’re on the TARDIS,” the man replied, helping her sit up.
“TARDIS?” she repeated.
“Time and Relative Dimension in Space. She’s my ship.”
“A spaceship?” Buffy frowned. How had she landed on a spaceship? Maybe it had something to do with the portal that Glory had opened.
At the very least, it explained the conversation they had on if she was human or not. And if they had to be aliens, well, at least they were good looking aliens.
“Yep. She travels in time and space,” he said proudly.
“Oh. Cause I definitely missed that the first time,” she shot back, “So, who are you three?”
“This is Rose Tyler, and Captain Jack Harkness. I’m the Doctor.”
The Doctor? That sounded vaguely familiar- like Giles had mentioned him once, or that she had seen his name while doing research about some demon or another.
Oh god, Giles.
“Let them be, kid,” a voice whispered around her mind- it sounded suspiciously like Whistler, and that was almost enough to make her ignore it, “This is another gift- The Powers thought that you might like this one a tad better than death.”
“Do you want us to take you home?” the Doctor asked, as if he had heard.
“No,” Buffy said, after a moment’s pause, “Can I come with you? Even just for a little while?”
Rose glanced at the Doctor, and smiled, “It would be nice to have another female on board.”
“And she is pretty,” Jack added helpfully, to which Rose only rolled her eyes.
“The last time someone,” the added emphasis made Buffy assume that it was Rose, “Decided one of my companions based on a pretty face, we ended up with Adam.”
“And Jack,” she said gently, “Let’s go for two out of three.”
The Doctor turned to look at Buffy, who just stared back. She knew that he was evaluating her, but before she could figure out for what, he had smiled a manic grin.
Behind him, Rose and Jack shared a high five.
II.
Buffy laughed as the Doctor closed the door behind him, gasping for breath. Outside, she could still hear the low groan of the plant, and that sent her into another fit of giggles. Rose was biting her lip, clearly trying not to let the Doctor see, but she took one look at Buffy, and burst into laughter too.
“Never figured that you’d run from commitment, Doctor. A love that true?” Jack said, grinning.
“I guess only plants can be attracted to those big ears of yours,” Buffy added, which made Rose only laugh harder, and the Doctor glare at her.
“Funny, the three of you,” he said dryly, moving around the console.
“Don’t worry. One day you’ll move up and won’t be forced to date plants anymore,” Rose said.
The Doctor pointedly ignored them.
Buffy and Jack shared a look, before mimicking the groan of the plant still outside the TARDIS, before the three of them burst into giggles again.
The Doctor swore under his breath, but didn’t miss the beeping of his beloved ship. It seemed that the TARDIS was having a laugh at him too.
III.
“And turn,” Rose said, twirling Buffy around.
For once, it was just the two of them in the TARDIS- both the Doctor and Jack had gone to find a certain part for the ship. It was some techno babble that went right over the girls’ head, and they opted to stay in.
After exploring the ship- as best as they could, since they always seemed to end right back in the console room- Rose had suggested dancing. When Buffy had admitted that she didn’t know how, not the type of dancing that Rose had in mind- Rose had insisted on it.
Rose pulled her in close again, humming the song softly. Buffy sighed and rested her head on Rose’s shoulder. It was rare that she had a dancing partner that was her height, and rarer still for said partner to be soft and curvy, in a way Buffy hadn’t been since she was getting into high school. It was nice, she decided, if a little odd.
“See? I told you that you would learn quickly,” Rose said.
“Yeah,” Buffy whispered, looking at their joined hands. They were so tiny…
Rose pulled back, forcing Buffy to lift her head up. She looked strangely thoughtful, and before Buffy could ask her why, Rose had kissed her.
Oh. Buffy vaguely remembered Jack mentioning using dancing as a metaphor for sex once, but she hadn’t thought that was what Rose meant. Instead of making Rose stop though, she pulled her closer, one of her hands moving to Rose’s cheek.
“When you said you wanted another female on board Rose, I hadn’t thought you meant it for this.”
The two pulled apart, casting an almost guilty look at the Doctor, who was only smiling at them. “Don’t let Jack see you- you’ll never hear the end of it.”
“We won’t hear the end of it from you,” Rose pointed out,
“Probably not,” he agreed cheerfully, “But you will for now. Jack got himself into a bit of trouble with the locals, and the police only negotiate with women.”
Buffy blinked. “How do you even pick these planets?”
The Doctor merely shrugged, and held out his hand to Rose, who took it at once. Buffy didn’t let any of her emotions show on her face, but she was curious. Had the kiss been a fluke- something that Rose was forgetting about already? Maybe she had read too much into it-
“Well, are you coming?” The Doctor sounded irritable, and it took Buffy a moment to realize that the Doctor was holding his hand out to her as well.
“Yeah,” she said, and slid her hand into his.
IV.
She asked him to go with her- Rose would have asked too many questions that she wasn’t sure if she had the strength to answer, and the Doctor…
Well, sometimes, the Doctor was a bit too alien for her. He just wouldn’t understand, even though she knew that he could. He didn’t do domestic, he claimed, and Buffy figured that going with her to visit her ex-lover’s future grave filed under domestic.
That had left Jack. Although he hadn’t been her first choice, he was proving to be the best one. He had been silent the entire time since they entered the cemetery. She had just lead against him, reading the headstone. A beloved friend, father. Angel had been a dad?
“What I can’t figure out,” Jack said finally, “Is how a girl like you ended up knowing the Scourge of Europe, enough to want to see where he’s buried.”
“It’s a long story. A long, complicated story full of love and teenage angst. It’s kind of boring,” she replied, “I think I came here to let him go.”
“Did you?”
“I think so,” she admitted, smiling. “You would have liked him. Tall, dark, handsome, brooding, and slightly self-righteous…”
“Oh, I would have loved him,” Jack grinned and stood. “Come on. They’ll wonder here we went. And what happened to the drinks. If I’m lucky, you and Rose will get drunk enough to kiss each other for me too.”
Buffy knew that her mouth was wide open, but Jack was already walking away from her. She waited until he was out of sight before she turned her head to look back at the headstone. Nearly two hundred years after she first met him, Angel had finally died, and that was alright.
V.
Buffy walked into the kitchen, but stopped in the doorway to watch them. Rose was leaning against the Doctor, but her feet were propped up in Jack’s lap. They were silent, content to drink their tea. Not for the first time, Buffy felt like she was intruding on them. She wondered that if she hadn’t been there, would the three of them be lovers or something less than that, but beyond it all the same.
She knew she didn’t fit in with them, but they were the closest thing to a family she had right now. And since they seemed to be in no hurry to throw her out of an airlock, she was going to stay.
Especially when Rose tilted her head back to smile brightly. “There’s a cup on the counter for you.”
Buffy gave her a grateful smile and grabbed it. When she took a sip, she nearly cried. The last person who had made a cup of tea for her exactly the way she liked it was it was Giles- too much sugar and not enough milk.
“Buffy?” Jack questioned, but she shook her head.
She belonged, and that was more than enough.
“It’s nothing. So, where are we going next?”
VI.
After the handcuffs closed around her wrists with a click, Buffy decided it just wouldn’t be traveling with the Doctor if one of them didn’t get imprisoned.
Pity that it was all of them this time.
She sat down on the floor next to Rose, ignoring the way the rocks dug into her thighs. Jack had taken a seat on the other side of Rose, and the three of them just watched as the Doctor paced around the room. After a few minutes of that, her neck began to ache.
“He has no idea on how to get us out of here,” Rose finally said.
“Probably not,” Jack agreed.
“None at all,” Buffy added, and pulled the handcuffs apart.
The other three just looked at her, their mouths slightly open. She reached into the Doctor’s pocket, grateful that the guards hadn’t thought to search them. She smiled when she saw that the sonic screwdriver was the first thing that she had pulled out.
“How did you do that?” Jack managed to ask.
“A girl’s got to have her secrets.”
A few more seconds of staring and Buffy rolled her eyes. “I’ll explain when we get home. Until then, we have to get out of here. Any ideas?”
VII.
Buffy just stared at the cell phone that the Doctor had just kind of shoved into her hands. “In case you want to talk to them,” he had said, and then just left. It could call anywhere, any time, Rose had explained later. That meant she could call the gang- call Dawn- and let them know that she was alive. She could tell them that they didn’t need to worry about her.
One phone call though, and they would expect her to come home. The entire universe, and nearly all of time waiting for her, or she could go back to Sunnydale. It was an obvious choice, but she felt so guilty for not wanting to go back. How could she explain it to any of them though, that she hadn’t really been happy until she was on the TARDIS?
Rose opened the door to Buffy’s room, a bright smile on her face. “Are you coming?”
She didn’t explain, because none of them would understand. She wouldn’t call. Buffy put the phone into her pocket and stood. If she was going to leave the TARDIS it would be of her own choice.
“Yeah,” she said, and took Rose’s hand in her own. “Where are we?”
“A planet with four suns, and monkey people. The Doctor promised a fantastic view.”
No, Buffy wouldn’t miss any of it for the world.
VIII.
“A world full of vampires? Are you shitting me?” Buffy said, not bothering to watch her language.
“Not just vampires- vampire bears,” Jack corrected, and the three of them shared a bewildered look.
“Yep! The current leader is a friend of mine, actually,” the Doctor said, grinning widely.
“Why? You give him free Time Lord blood every two years?” Buffy shot back.
“Well, if you all want, you can stay in the TARDIS,” the Doctor muttered, and turned and left.
“Oh, this will only end in tears,” Buffy said, but followed him anyway.
***
Buffy kicked the teddy bear vampire off of Rose. Funny, the Doctor had failed to mention that they were stuffed bears, and like most vampires, hated vampire slayers with a passion.
Suffice to say, the Teddy Bear Vampire Leader and the Doctor were no longer good friends. She would have felt bad for ruining that friendship if the thing hadn’t tried to kill her.
She staked one with ease, satisfied that they burst into dust like her vampires. Cleaning the dust up was a pain, but it was easier than trying to get rid of the blood stains and even deader bodies.
“Next time, I get to choose where we go,” Jack said, and while the Doctor glared at him, Buffy agreed.
IX.
At fist, she thought she had been imagining it. That soft tug of magic was trying to pull her in another direction. She had just ignored it and gone on with the day.
The second time was stronger, and she knew without a doubt, that it was Willow and the others trying to bring her back home.
She spent the early morning- what passed as early morning, in the TARDIS- with the Doctor, sitting at the kitchen table with him. The tea in her right hand was warm, and so was his hand, and she didn’t want to think that this was the last time that she would ever see him. Instead, he talked about companions before them, about the Time War. On some level, Buffy knew that he would never talk about them if he hadn’t known that she was leaving.
Buffy tightened her grip on his hand, and tried not to cry.
***
She spent the afternoon with Jack. They were mostly silent- she and Jack never seemed to need to fill the silences with words. He just let her lean against him, both arms around his stomach. In that respect, he was different than any man she had ever met.
He was just different, and told him as much.
“Is that good?” he asked, his brow furrowing as he tried to figure out what she meant by that.
“Good enough,” she whispered, smiling. She moved in closer to him, and closed her eyes.
***
The night was spent with Rose. Buffy touched every part of flushed skin that she could, her mouth pressed against Rose’s. Rose was breathless under her, and beautiful, and Buffy could have wept for loss chances. They should have done this earlier, and by the way that Rose’s eyes were bright with unshed tears, she agreed.
“Love you,” Buffy whispered, and meant it.
***
The next morning, she was gone.
X.
"Yeah, Buffy. What are we gonna do now?" Dawn asked.
Buffy smiled, and opened her mouth to answer, when the wind suddenly became stronger, and a sound echoed around them. The new Slayers were automatically on alert, but Buffy knew if it had been an actual threat, none of them would do any good in another fight. She wouldn’t be any use either, but she knew what it was.
Her smile grew so wide that her face began to hurt.
When the TARDIS appeared, not three feet away from where the bus was parked, she could have cried. She was pretty sure that she was, but it didn’t matter.
The door opened, and the Doctor- not the one she knew, but she could tell; the manic grin, his eyes, he was the Doctor all the same- came out.
“Did I mention that it travels in space?” he asked,
“And time!” both Rose and Jack cried out in unison from inside the ship.
“Once or twice, yeah,” she said.
“Rose wanted to see the birth of a solar system. You’re welcome to come, if you like.”
Buffy turned to Dawn, and kissed her forehead. “I love you, but-“
“Just go. And call this time, okay?” Dawn said, smiling slightly. Buffy was suddenly glad that Dawn had made her tell every detail of her life on the TARDIS- everything from the planets to Rose- but she hadn’t expected Dawn to want to let her go. Buffy hugged her sister tightly, knowing that this wasn’t a goodbye. Eventually, she’d leave the TARDIS, but it wasn’t today.
“You can’t just go!” Willow protested, “There’s the slayers, and Cleveland!”
“There’s so much out there, Will. I can’t stay- I want to go see it. I’ve been to a planet ruled by teddy bear vampires, captured on Mars five billion years in the future. I’ve seen and done so many things, but it isn’t enough,” Buffy said softly.
“I don’t want you to leave,” Willow whispered.
“I’ll call. And visit, I promise. Might even be sometime soon for you all,” Buffy said, and looked back at the TARDIS. The Doctor was gone, but the door was still wide open.
Buffy smiled, and then she ran.
Home, Or Ten Things That Never Happened to Buffy Summers (The TARDIS Edition)
PG-13ish, 2,943 words
BtVS/Dr. Who crossover- Buffy, Rose, Jack, Doctor, some Buffy/Rose
I.
“Is she going to be alright?”
“Think so. She’s healing fast- faster than what I’ve seen any human do so…”
“Is she then? Human?”
“According to the TARDIS she is. A little more evolved than most of you apes, but from Earth all the same.”
“Huh. She’s pretty.”
Buffy opened her eyes at the tolerant sighs. At first, she had been worried by the British accents, but none of them had the clipped, professional, yet cruel sounding tone that the Watchers did. That meant that she was safe, at least for the moment.
“She’s awake! Wasn’t expecting that anytime soon.”
“Where am I?” Buffy asked, wincing at the pain in her back. She hadn’t thought that she had fallen that hard.
“You’re on the TARDIS,” the man replied, helping her sit up.
“TARDIS?” she repeated.
“Time and Relative Dimension in Space. She’s my ship.”
“A spaceship?” Buffy frowned. How had she landed on a spaceship? Maybe it had something to do with the portal that Glory had opened.
At the very least, it explained the conversation they had on if she was human or not. And if they had to be aliens, well, at least they were good looking aliens.
“Yep. She travels in time and space,” he said proudly.
“Oh. Cause I definitely missed that the first time,” she shot back, “So, who are you three?”
“This is Rose Tyler, and Captain Jack Harkness. I’m the Doctor.”
The Doctor? That sounded vaguely familiar- like Giles had mentioned him once, or that she had seen his name while doing research about some demon or another.
Oh god, Giles.
“Let them be, kid,” a voice whispered around her mind- it sounded suspiciously like Whistler, and that was almost enough to make her ignore it, “This is another gift- The Powers thought that you might like this one a tad better than death.”
“Do you want us to take you home?” the Doctor asked, as if he had heard.
“No,” Buffy said, after a moment’s pause, “Can I come with you? Even just for a little while?”
Rose glanced at the Doctor, and smiled, “It would be nice to have another female on board.”
“And she is pretty,” Jack added helpfully, to which Rose only rolled her eyes.
“The last time someone,” the added emphasis made Buffy assume that it was Rose, “Decided one of my companions based on a pretty face, we ended up with Adam.”
“And Jack,” she said gently, “Let’s go for two out of three.”
The Doctor turned to look at Buffy, who just stared back. She knew that he was evaluating her, but before she could figure out for what, he had smiled a manic grin.
Behind him, Rose and Jack shared a high five.
II.
Buffy laughed as the Doctor closed the door behind him, gasping for breath. Outside, she could still hear the low groan of the plant, and that sent her into another fit of giggles. Rose was biting her lip, clearly trying not to let the Doctor see, but she took one look at Buffy, and burst into laughter too.
“Never figured that you’d run from commitment, Doctor. A love that true?” Jack said, grinning.
“I guess only plants can be attracted to those big ears of yours,” Buffy added, which made Rose only laugh harder, and the Doctor glare at her.
“Funny, the three of you,” he said dryly, moving around the console.
“Don’t worry. One day you’ll move up and won’t be forced to date plants anymore,” Rose said.
The Doctor pointedly ignored them.
Buffy and Jack shared a look, before mimicking the groan of the plant still outside the TARDIS, before the three of them burst into giggles again.
The Doctor swore under his breath, but didn’t miss the beeping of his beloved ship. It seemed that the TARDIS was having a laugh at him too.
III.
“And turn,” Rose said, twirling Buffy around.
For once, it was just the two of them in the TARDIS- both the Doctor and Jack had gone to find a certain part for the ship. It was some techno babble that went right over the girls’ head, and they opted to stay in.
After exploring the ship- as best as they could, since they always seemed to end right back in the console room- Rose had suggested dancing. When Buffy had admitted that she didn’t know how, not the type of dancing that Rose had in mind- Rose had insisted on it.
Rose pulled her in close again, humming the song softly. Buffy sighed and rested her head on Rose’s shoulder. It was rare that she had a dancing partner that was her height, and rarer still for said partner to be soft and curvy, in a way Buffy hadn’t been since she was getting into high school. It was nice, she decided, if a little odd.
“See? I told you that you would learn quickly,” Rose said.
“Yeah,” Buffy whispered, looking at their joined hands. They were so tiny…
Rose pulled back, forcing Buffy to lift her head up. She looked strangely thoughtful, and before Buffy could ask her why, Rose had kissed her.
Oh. Buffy vaguely remembered Jack mentioning using dancing as a metaphor for sex once, but she hadn’t thought that was what Rose meant. Instead of making Rose stop though, she pulled her closer, one of her hands moving to Rose’s cheek.
“When you said you wanted another female on board Rose, I hadn’t thought you meant it for this.”
The two pulled apart, casting an almost guilty look at the Doctor, who was only smiling at them. “Don’t let Jack see you- you’ll never hear the end of it.”
“We won’t hear the end of it from you,” Rose pointed out,
“Probably not,” he agreed cheerfully, “But you will for now. Jack got himself into a bit of trouble with the locals, and the police only negotiate with women.”
Buffy blinked. “How do you even pick these planets?”
The Doctor merely shrugged, and held out his hand to Rose, who took it at once. Buffy didn’t let any of her emotions show on her face, but she was curious. Had the kiss been a fluke- something that Rose was forgetting about already? Maybe she had read too much into it-
“Well, are you coming?” The Doctor sounded irritable, and it took Buffy a moment to realize that the Doctor was holding his hand out to her as well.
“Yeah,” she said, and slid her hand into his.
IV.
She asked him to go with her- Rose would have asked too many questions that she wasn’t sure if she had the strength to answer, and the Doctor…
Well, sometimes, the Doctor was a bit too alien for her. He just wouldn’t understand, even though she knew that he could. He didn’t do domestic, he claimed, and Buffy figured that going with her to visit her ex-lover’s future grave filed under domestic.
That had left Jack. Although he hadn’t been her first choice, he was proving to be the best one. He had been silent the entire time since they entered the cemetery. She had just lead against him, reading the headstone. A beloved friend, father. Angel had been a dad?
“What I can’t figure out,” Jack said finally, “Is how a girl like you ended up knowing the Scourge of Europe, enough to want to see where he’s buried.”
“It’s a long story. A long, complicated story full of love and teenage angst. It’s kind of boring,” she replied, “I think I came here to let him go.”
“Did you?”
“I think so,” she admitted, smiling. “You would have liked him. Tall, dark, handsome, brooding, and slightly self-righteous…”
“Oh, I would have loved him,” Jack grinned and stood. “Come on. They’ll wonder here we went. And what happened to the drinks. If I’m lucky, you and Rose will get drunk enough to kiss each other for me too.”
Buffy knew that her mouth was wide open, but Jack was already walking away from her. She waited until he was out of sight before she turned her head to look back at the headstone. Nearly two hundred years after she first met him, Angel had finally died, and that was alright.
V.
Buffy walked into the kitchen, but stopped in the doorway to watch them. Rose was leaning against the Doctor, but her feet were propped up in Jack’s lap. They were silent, content to drink their tea. Not for the first time, Buffy felt like she was intruding on them. She wondered that if she hadn’t been there, would the three of them be lovers or something less than that, but beyond it all the same.
She knew she didn’t fit in with them, but they were the closest thing to a family she had right now. And since they seemed to be in no hurry to throw her out of an airlock, she was going to stay.
Especially when Rose tilted her head back to smile brightly. “There’s a cup on the counter for you.”
Buffy gave her a grateful smile and grabbed it. When she took a sip, she nearly cried. The last person who had made a cup of tea for her exactly the way she liked it was it was Giles- too much sugar and not enough milk.
“Buffy?” Jack questioned, but she shook her head.
She belonged, and that was more than enough.
“It’s nothing. So, where are we going next?”
VI.
After the handcuffs closed around her wrists with a click, Buffy decided it just wouldn’t be traveling with the Doctor if one of them didn’t get imprisoned.
Pity that it was all of them this time.
She sat down on the floor next to Rose, ignoring the way the rocks dug into her thighs. Jack had taken a seat on the other side of Rose, and the three of them just watched as the Doctor paced around the room. After a few minutes of that, her neck began to ache.
“He has no idea on how to get us out of here,” Rose finally said.
“Probably not,” Jack agreed.
“None at all,” Buffy added, and pulled the handcuffs apart.
The other three just looked at her, their mouths slightly open. She reached into the Doctor’s pocket, grateful that the guards hadn’t thought to search them. She smiled when she saw that the sonic screwdriver was the first thing that she had pulled out.
“How did you do that?” Jack managed to ask.
“A girl’s got to have her secrets.”
A few more seconds of staring and Buffy rolled her eyes. “I’ll explain when we get home. Until then, we have to get out of here. Any ideas?”
VII.
Buffy just stared at the cell phone that the Doctor had just kind of shoved into her hands. “In case you want to talk to them,” he had said, and then just left. It could call anywhere, any time, Rose had explained later. That meant she could call the gang- call Dawn- and let them know that she was alive. She could tell them that they didn’t need to worry about her.
One phone call though, and they would expect her to come home. The entire universe, and nearly all of time waiting for her, or she could go back to Sunnydale. It was an obvious choice, but she felt so guilty for not wanting to go back. How could she explain it to any of them though, that she hadn’t really been happy until she was on the TARDIS?
Rose opened the door to Buffy’s room, a bright smile on her face. “Are you coming?”
She didn’t explain, because none of them would understand. She wouldn’t call. Buffy put the phone into her pocket and stood. If she was going to leave the TARDIS it would be of her own choice.
“Yeah,” she said, and took Rose’s hand in her own. “Where are we?”
“A planet with four suns, and monkey people. The Doctor promised a fantastic view.”
No, Buffy wouldn’t miss any of it for the world.
VIII.
“A world full of vampires? Are you shitting me?” Buffy said, not bothering to watch her language.
“Not just vampires- vampire bears,” Jack corrected, and the three of them shared a bewildered look.
“Yep! The current leader is a friend of mine, actually,” the Doctor said, grinning widely.
“Why? You give him free Time Lord blood every two years?” Buffy shot back.
“Well, if you all want, you can stay in the TARDIS,” the Doctor muttered, and turned and left.
“Oh, this will only end in tears,” Buffy said, but followed him anyway.
Buffy kicked the teddy bear vampire off of Rose. Funny, the Doctor had failed to mention that they were stuffed bears, and like most vampires, hated vampire slayers with a passion.
Suffice to say, the Teddy Bear Vampire Leader and the Doctor were no longer good friends. She would have felt bad for ruining that friendship if the thing hadn’t tried to kill her.
She staked one with ease, satisfied that they burst into dust like her vampires. Cleaning the dust up was a pain, but it was easier than trying to get rid of the blood stains and even deader bodies.
“Next time, I get to choose where we go,” Jack said, and while the Doctor glared at him, Buffy agreed.
IX.
At fist, she thought she had been imagining it. That soft tug of magic was trying to pull her in another direction. She had just ignored it and gone on with the day.
The second time was stronger, and she knew without a doubt, that it was Willow and the others trying to bring her back home.
She spent the early morning- what passed as early morning, in the TARDIS- with the Doctor, sitting at the kitchen table with him. The tea in her right hand was warm, and so was his hand, and she didn’t want to think that this was the last time that she would ever see him. Instead, he talked about companions before them, about the Time War. On some level, Buffy knew that he would never talk about them if he hadn’t known that she was leaving.
Buffy tightened her grip on his hand, and tried not to cry.
***
She spent the afternoon with Jack. They were mostly silent- she and Jack never seemed to need to fill the silences with words. He just let her lean against him, both arms around his stomach. In that respect, he was different than any man she had ever met.
He was just different, and told him as much.
“Is that good?” he asked, his brow furrowing as he tried to figure out what she meant by that.
“Good enough,” she whispered, smiling. She moved in closer to him, and closed her eyes.
***
The night was spent with Rose. Buffy touched every part of flushed skin that she could, her mouth pressed against Rose’s. Rose was breathless under her, and beautiful, and Buffy could have wept for loss chances. They should have done this earlier, and by the way that Rose’s eyes were bright with unshed tears, she agreed.
“Love you,” Buffy whispered, and meant it.
***
The next morning, she was gone.
X.
"Yeah, Buffy. What are we gonna do now?" Dawn asked.
Buffy smiled, and opened her mouth to answer, when the wind suddenly became stronger, and a sound echoed around them. The new Slayers were automatically on alert, but Buffy knew if it had been an actual threat, none of them would do any good in another fight. She wouldn’t be any use either, but she knew what it was.
Her smile grew so wide that her face began to hurt.
When the TARDIS appeared, not three feet away from where the bus was parked, she could have cried. She was pretty sure that she was, but it didn’t matter.
The door opened, and the Doctor- not the one she knew, but she could tell; the manic grin, his eyes, he was the Doctor all the same- came out.
“Did I mention that it travels in space?” he asked,
“And time!” both Rose and Jack cried out in unison from inside the ship.
“Once or twice, yeah,” she said.
“Rose wanted to see the birth of a solar system. You’re welcome to come, if you like.”
Buffy turned to Dawn, and kissed her forehead. “I love you, but-“
“Just go. And call this time, okay?” Dawn said, smiling slightly. Buffy was suddenly glad that Dawn had made her tell every detail of her life on the TARDIS- everything from the planets to Rose- but she hadn’t expected Dawn to want to let her go. Buffy hugged her sister tightly, knowing that this wasn’t a goodbye. Eventually, she’d leave the TARDIS, but it wasn’t today.
“You can’t just go!” Willow protested, “There’s the slayers, and Cleveland!”
“There’s so much out there, Will. I can’t stay- I want to go see it. I’ve been to a planet ruled by teddy bear vampires, captured on Mars five billion years in the future. I’ve seen and done so many things, but it isn’t enough,” Buffy said softly.
“I don’t want you to leave,” Willow whispered.
“I’ll call. And visit, I promise. Might even be sometime soon for you all,” Buffy said, and looked back at the TARDIS. The Doctor was gone, but the door was still wide open.
Buffy smiled, and then she ran.
