Buffy/Highlander crossover ficlet
Oct. 14th, 2004 09:27 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
sinanju.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
crossoverficA Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Highlander crossover.
Title: None (any ideas?)
Author: Sinanju (sinanju@pacifier.com)
Disclaimer: Not my characters, not my property. Just good, clean, non-commercial fun. No harm, no foul.
Rating: PG
Summary: Cordelia has a secret and she doesn't know what it is.
Spoilers: Buffy S3 finale
Feedback: Yes, please.
Notes: What if you died and then revived. Would you assume that you'd come back to life? Or think you got very lucky? And what if there were no one to tell you otherwise?
Everything was chaos. Vampires roared and bellowed, seizing and killing their prey. Students--and parents and faculty--ran, struggled, shrieked in the midday dark of the eclipse. Others fought, sometimes winning but too often dying.
Superhumanly powerful fingers dug into Cordelia's shoulder, producing a shriek of surprise, pain and fear. Terror, really. She clawed futilely at the hand gripping her, knowing that it was pointless. The vampire was vastly stronger than any human being. But she tried, a cool and distant part of her mind aware that not very long ago she'd have been hysterical and helpless.
Now she was merely helpless.
Fingers tangled in her hair, wrenching her head sideways, exposing her neck. Cordelia screamed again, anticipating the feel of sharp teeth ripping at her neck to open her carotid. At the same time, she raked the heel of her shoe down her attacker's shin and smashed his instep. The monster growled it's pain and twisted her head around painfully to meet its gaze.
"You'll pay for that," the vampire promised, its voice full of painful possibilities.
"Do you take Visa?"
The vampire was clearly as startled as Cordelia. She followed his gaze. Buffy stood within arm's reach, hands on hips. Cordelia had never been so glad to see her. "Buffy!"
"The Slayer," the vampire snarled. Cordelia saw the grin of anticipation spread across his face. Though his eyes never left Buffy, his next words were addressed to Cordelia. "You'll have to wait, darlin'."
An explosive movement by her captor propelled Cordelia at a wall. It happened faster than she could perceive; Cordelia hadn't even begun to raise her arms to cushion the impact when she slammed into the wall with killing force. The impact crushed the front of her skull. She died instantly, and fell to the floor in that peculiarly boneless fashion that only the dead can achieve.
Buffy dispatched the vampire and hesitated for an instant, looking at Cordelia. She wasn't moving. Buffy wasn't even sure she was breathing. But the Mayor had completed his transformation and only she could deal with him. There was no time to lose and Cordelia, if she lived, was as safe here as anywhere else in the turmoil.
Buffy turned away from Cordelia and ran toward the Mayor. The battle continued, swirling around Cordelia's body, one of far too many that day.
A hammerblow to the chest roused Cordelia, the first spastic contraction of a renewed heartbeat; a moment later the first desperate gulping breath burned like fire. Darkness shot through with sparks filled her vision, slowly receding. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears and throbbed in her fingertips--and a spike of pain jabbed her between the eyes with each beat.
Cordelia couldn't remember where she was, or why she hurt so. She thought she whimpered at the pain, but could hear nothing over the thundering in her ears. The fire in her lungs burned through her body, leaving behind a painful tingling of returning circulation that slowly faded.
Her heartbeat slowed and gentled as well, and her gasping breaths settled into a slow, regular rhythm. The thundering in her ears faded as well. Other details began to filter into her awareness. The rough, hard surface beneath her. The fading light of the sky overhead. Flashing red and blue lights, the ear-splitting honk of emergency vehicles arriving.
Cordelia gasped as the face of the vampire flashed before her mind's eye. She sat up abruptly and pressed a hand to protectively to her forehead, remembering how he'd thrown her against the wall of the school. A thrill of terror shivered through her now, one that she hadn't had time to experience when it happened. He could have killed me! she thought.
But she felt no blood on her forehead, no gashed flesh, no shifting of broken bone beneath the skin. It didn't even feel swollen, though it remained tender to the touch. And she still had a monster headache. Cordelia lowered her hand and sighed in relief. She'd survived graduation after all.
Then a horrible thought occurred to her. Unless--
Cordelia glanced around and then crawled over to a crucifix lying on the sidewalk nearby. She reached out for it, hesitated for a moment, then snatched it up. She sat with the crucifix clenched in her fist, eyes screwed shut in anticipation of pain. After a moment she opened her eyes again. No pain, no smoke curling up from her white-knuckled fist. She let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd held.
Thank God, Cordelia thought and dropped the crucifix. I did survive.
The sirens on the arriving firetrucks had gone silent. Moans and sobs rose all around Cordelia, filling the void. She looked around and her good mood evaporated.
Not everyone had been as lucky.
Bodies littered the school grounds. Some of them moving, but not all by any means. Cordelia recognized most of them, recognized too the parents or children or siblings who stood or sat or knelt over them, weeping. Others wandered around, shocked and drifting or searching for loved ones.
Firefighters in heavy turnout coats began spreading out, some carrying large first aid kits. Others were dragging hoses behind them--prompting Cordelia to turn and look and only now realize that Sunnydale High was a burning ruin and that the stench of scorched flesh hung thick in the air.
Oh yeah, Cordelia thought dully, The plan. She looked around again. No giant snake demons anywhere in sight.
"I guess the plan worked," she muttered. And then she began to cry.
* * *
The knock on the exam room door came as a huge relief. “Finally," Cordelia said, tossing aside the tattered People magazine she'd been idly perusing. "Come in."
The door opened and a doctor walked in. He was an elderly man, his hair white where he wasn't balding. Not at all the handsome, young, single doctor she'd idly hoped for.
“Hello, Miss Chase,” he said, “I'm Doctor Eggleston.” He didn't refer to her chart for her name, Cordelia noticed. Bonus points for bedside manner. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said as he washed his hands at the sink in the corner of the exam room. When he was done, he turned to face her.
"My nurse says you refused to specify a complaint. So tell me, young lady, what seems to be the problem?"
Now that the moment was here, Cordelia hesitated. Doctor Eggleston waited patiently. "I've been having...headaches. Not frequently. And they don't last long—-just a few minutes. But they're painful and...they're new. I didn't used to get them."
Doctor Eggleston nodded. "You said you don't have them often. About how frequently do they occur?"
"It's erratic. Once in back in Sunnydale. That was before I came to L.A. About six months ago now. Three or four times since then, until this month. I've been having them fairly often lately."
"So they've been getting more frequent?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
"Have you noticed any environmental triggers? Do you always get them at the same time of day, or the same places?"
"No...."
"You don't sound certain."
"I'm not. Usually they've occurred while I was out and about, walking or driving around the city, or at the mall. Lately, though, I've had a couple while I was at home or at work."
"I see. Well, let's just have a look at you, and then we'll see where we are."
Cordelia endured his exam with fair grace, all things considered. He did the thing with the light in the eyes she'd seen a million times on ER, checked her pulse and blood pressure, used a stethoscope to listen to her heart and lungs. She had a moment of amusement thinking about how he'd react if he tried that on Angel.
When he finished, Dr. Eggleston had more questions for her. "I don't see anything immediately obvious. Do you have any reason to suspect something serious?"
And there it was.
The question Cordy didn't want to answer, didn't want to think about. Brain damage.
"I... I was...assaulted back in Sunnydale." If you could call nearly becoming vampire chow a mere assault. "I was thrown against a brick wall and knocked out. I woke up with a headache, but otherwise I felt fine.
"The thing is--I never had these headaches before that happened."
Dr. Eggleston frowned and picked up her chart and flipped through it. "I didn't see anything about that in your medical record."
"That's because I didn't see a doctor."
"You didn't—-" Dr. Eggleston seemed to be at a loss for words.
Cordy briefly considered trying to explain the Sunnydale approach to life and near-death experiences, and how waking up with only a headache was generally regarded as a best-case scenario hardly worthy of a trip to the doctor's office. You just brushed yourself off, thanked the deity of your choice that your foolishness hadn't had worse consequences, and hurried home. It seemed so reaonable at the time, but under Dr. Eggleston's Giles-like gaze, Cordelia felt rather small and stupid.
“I felt fine,” Cordelia said, feeling the need to justify herself.
“But not now?”
“No,” Cordelia admitted. “Not now.”
Dr. Eggleston made a noncommital noise and a notation in her file. “I doubt you've anything to worry about. Nonetheless, I think I'll order some tests for you. X-rays, certainly. Then we'll see where we stand.”
Title: None (any ideas?)
Author: Sinanju (sinanju@pacifier.com)
Disclaimer: Not my characters, not my property. Just good, clean, non-commercial fun. No harm, no foul.
Rating: PG
Summary: Cordelia has a secret and she doesn't know what it is.
Spoilers: Buffy S3 finale
Feedback: Yes, please.
Notes: What if you died and then revived. Would you assume that you'd come back to life? Or think you got very lucky? And what if there were no one to tell you otherwise?
Sunnydale High School, Graduation Day, 1999
Everything was chaos. Vampires roared and bellowed, seizing and killing their prey. Students--and parents and faculty--ran, struggled, shrieked in the midday dark of the eclipse. Others fought, sometimes winning but too often dying.
Superhumanly powerful fingers dug into Cordelia's shoulder, producing a shriek of surprise, pain and fear. Terror, really. She clawed futilely at the hand gripping her, knowing that it was pointless. The vampire was vastly stronger than any human being. But she tried, a cool and distant part of her mind aware that not very long ago she'd have been hysterical and helpless.
Now she was merely helpless.
Fingers tangled in her hair, wrenching her head sideways, exposing her neck. Cordelia screamed again, anticipating the feel of sharp teeth ripping at her neck to open her carotid. At the same time, she raked the heel of her shoe down her attacker's shin and smashed his instep. The monster growled it's pain and twisted her head around painfully to meet its gaze.
"You'll pay for that," the vampire promised, its voice full of painful possibilities.
"Do you take Visa?"
The vampire was clearly as startled as Cordelia. She followed his gaze. Buffy stood within arm's reach, hands on hips. Cordelia had never been so glad to see her. "Buffy!"
"The Slayer," the vampire snarled. Cordelia saw the grin of anticipation spread across his face. Though his eyes never left Buffy, his next words were addressed to Cordelia. "You'll have to wait, darlin'."
An explosive movement by her captor propelled Cordelia at a wall. It happened faster than she could perceive; Cordelia hadn't even begun to raise her arms to cushion the impact when she slammed into the wall with killing force. The impact crushed the front of her skull. She died instantly, and fell to the floor in that peculiarly boneless fashion that only the dead can achieve.
Buffy dispatched the vampire and hesitated for an instant, looking at Cordelia. She wasn't moving. Buffy wasn't even sure she was breathing. But the Mayor had completed his transformation and only she could deal with him. There was no time to lose and Cordelia, if she lived, was as safe here as anywhere else in the turmoil.
Buffy turned away from Cordelia and ran toward the Mayor. The battle continued, swirling around Cordelia's body, one of far too many that day.
A hammerblow to the chest roused Cordelia, the first spastic contraction of a renewed heartbeat; a moment later the first desperate gulping breath burned like fire. Darkness shot through with sparks filled her vision, slowly receding. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears and throbbed in her fingertips--and a spike of pain jabbed her between the eyes with each beat.
Cordelia couldn't remember where she was, or why she hurt so. She thought she whimpered at the pain, but could hear nothing over the thundering in her ears. The fire in her lungs burned through her body, leaving behind a painful tingling of returning circulation that slowly faded.
Her heartbeat slowed and gentled as well, and her gasping breaths settled into a slow, regular rhythm. The thundering in her ears faded as well. Other details began to filter into her awareness. The rough, hard surface beneath her. The fading light of the sky overhead. Flashing red and blue lights, the ear-splitting honk of emergency vehicles arriving.
Cordelia gasped as the face of the vampire flashed before her mind's eye. She sat up abruptly and pressed a hand to protectively to her forehead, remembering how he'd thrown her against the wall of the school. A thrill of terror shivered through her now, one that she hadn't had time to experience when it happened. He could have killed me! she thought.
But she felt no blood on her forehead, no gashed flesh, no shifting of broken bone beneath the skin. It didn't even feel swollen, though it remained tender to the touch. And she still had a monster headache. Cordelia lowered her hand and sighed in relief. She'd survived graduation after all.
Then a horrible thought occurred to her. Unless--
Cordelia glanced around and then crawled over to a crucifix lying on the sidewalk nearby. She reached out for it, hesitated for a moment, then snatched it up. She sat with the crucifix clenched in her fist, eyes screwed shut in anticipation of pain. After a moment she opened her eyes again. No pain, no smoke curling up from her white-knuckled fist. She let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd held.
Thank God, Cordelia thought and dropped the crucifix. I did survive.
The sirens on the arriving firetrucks had gone silent. Moans and sobs rose all around Cordelia, filling the void. She looked around and her good mood evaporated.
Not everyone had been as lucky.
Bodies littered the school grounds. Some of them moving, but not all by any means. Cordelia recognized most of them, recognized too the parents or children or siblings who stood or sat or knelt over them, weeping. Others wandered around, shocked and drifting or searching for loved ones.
Firefighters in heavy turnout coats began spreading out, some carrying large first aid kits. Others were dragging hoses behind them--prompting Cordelia to turn and look and only now realize that Sunnydale High was a burning ruin and that the stench of scorched flesh hung thick in the air.
Oh yeah, Cordelia thought dully, The plan. She looked around again. No giant snake demons anywhere in sight.
"I guess the plan worked," she muttered. And then she began to cry.
Los Angeles, February 2000
The knock on the exam room door came as a huge relief. “Finally," Cordelia said, tossing aside the tattered People magazine she'd been idly perusing. "Come in."
The door opened and a doctor walked in. He was an elderly man, his hair white where he wasn't balding. Not at all the handsome, young, single doctor she'd idly hoped for.
“Hello, Miss Chase,” he said, “I'm Doctor Eggleston.” He didn't refer to her chart for her name, Cordelia noticed. Bonus points for bedside manner. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said as he washed his hands at the sink in the corner of the exam room. When he was done, he turned to face her.
"My nurse says you refused to specify a complaint. So tell me, young lady, what seems to be the problem?"
Now that the moment was here, Cordelia hesitated. Doctor Eggleston waited patiently. "I've been having...headaches. Not frequently. And they don't last long—-just a few minutes. But they're painful and...they're new. I didn't used to get them."
Doctor Eggleston nodded. "You said you don't have them often. About how frequently do they occur?"
"It's erratic. Once in back in Sunnydale. That was before I came to L.A. About six months ago now. Three or four times since then, until this month. I've been having them fairly often lately."
"So they've been getting more frequent?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
"Have you noticed any environmental triggers? Do you always get them at the same time of day, or the same places?"
"No...."
"You don't sound certain."
"I'm not. Usually they've occurred while I was out and about, walking or driving around the city, or at the mall. Lately, though, I've had a couple while I was at home or at work."
"I see. Well, let's just have a look at you, and then we'll see where we are."
Cordelia endured his exam with fair grace, all things considered. He did the thing with the light in the eyes she'd seen a million times on ER, checked her pulse and blood pressure, used a stethoscope to listen to her heart and lungs. She had a moment of amusement thinking about how he'd react if he tried that on Angel.
When he finished, Dr. Eggleston had more questions for her. "I don't see anything immediately obvious. Do you have any reason to suspect something serious?"
And there it was.
The question Cordy didn't want to answer, didn't want to think about. Brain damage.
"I... I was...assaulted back in Sunnydale." If you could call nearly becoming vampire chow a mere assault. "I was thrown against a brick wall and knocked out. I woke up with a headache, but otherwise I felt fine.
"The thing is--I never had these headaches before that happened."
Dr. Eggleston frowned and picked up her chart and flipped through it. "I didn't see anything about that in your medical record."
"That's because I didn't see a doctor."
"You didn't—-" Dr. Eggleston seemed to be at a loss for words.
Cordy briefly considered trying to explain the Sunnydale approach to life and near-death experiences, and how waking up with only a headache was generally regarded as a best-case scenario hardly worthy of a trip to the doctor's office. You just brushed yourself off, thanked the deity of your choice that your foolishness hadn't had worse consequences, and hurried home. It seemed so reaonable at the time, but under Dr. Eggleston's Giles-like gaze, Cordelia felt rather small and stupid.
“I felt fine,” Cordelia said, feeling the need to justify herself.
“But not now?”
“No,” Cordelia admitted. “Not now.”
Dr. Eggleston made a noncommital noise and a notation in her file. “I doubt you've anything to worry about. Nonetheless, I think I'll order some tests for you. X-rays, certainly. Then we'll see where we stand.”
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Date: 2005-12-16 08:34 am (UTC)