And Then There Was Light

Title: And Then There Was Light
Timeline: Set mid-dive in The Gift
Disclaimer: If these characters were mine, do you really think I'd be writing fanfic?
A/N: Okay, this isn't my original idea for the challenge (and I will get around to writing that one sometime this week) but this idea jumped out at me last night and I just had to write it. The dream sequence is not a dream sequence in the traditional sense, but I think it counts just as much as Willow's vision of the future in Bill's fic!

As ever, this is unbeta'd so all mistakes are my own!

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

There's a saying, a time-honoured cliché, that when death is upon you, your life is flashed before your eyes, like a private cinema screening for you alone to see. But at that moment in time, as Buffy was suspended halfway between top and bottom – in a situation like this, exactly what she was between the top and bottom of made not the slightest bit of difference – if she had been asked what she could see, her answer would have been simple: a blinding light. Not the blinding light of her impending entrance to a better place, but the blinding light that was one of the less unfortunate effects of the portal. No, the rapid replaying of the important moments in Buffy's life to date was not seen by her eyes. She would not even have called them memories; they were more than that. In the instant it took for her to fall from sky-high to a crumpled heap among the rubble, she *felt* split-second events, that had lasted a lot longer in reality and would have taken minutes to tell, or even think about. More than seeing, or hearing, or smelling; she was there. As she started to fall from the tower, she was whisked away to a pretty, suburban house in Los Angeles.

* * *

A five-year-old Buffy, long blonde hair pulled back into immaculate plaits, each tied with a hair tie adorned with a pink flower, mourns the smashed glass of a once-beautiful snowglobe that has just fallen from her chubby little-girl hands. Glitter dusts the floor around her feet like icing sugar, the broken fragments of delicate glass are scattered hazardously on the soft cream-coloured carpet of her parents' bedroom. Bending down, she picks up the little figure of an ice-skater and brushes off the glitter, which is now sticking to it because of the water that has rapidly soaked into the carpet. She has always loved this particular ornament, is it the very embodiment of her hopes and dreams; the tiny dark-haired girl, despite the destruction of her little bubble of existence, is still determinedly skating, one leg held out behind her in a low arabesque. One day, Buffy is going to skate like her. When she's finished school and is old enough to skate properly, she too is going to glide with one leg raised behind her, glitter-like snow swirling around her. Her mother has always loved this ornament too – it was a Christmas present from Buffy herself two years ago, though bought and wrapped by her father, Buffy was the one who picked it out. And this is why she is afraid to tell her mother what she has done. Her mother will be angry that she has been playing with the things in her room. She considers leaving the snowglobe there, going out into the garden to play with her new skipping rope and looking surprised when her mother asks her if she broke the ornament. But something inside tells her to be brave, to go to her mother and say she's sorry. Cradling the little ice-skater in her hand, she leaves the room and calls out for her.

Flick, flick, flick. The images continue to whirr through her mind. Fast-forward ten years and a High School girl sits on the steps outside to wait for her ride home. A man approaches her and her life is shaken up beyond belief. She struggles to accept her life as Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Her parents can't understand the strange occurrences that their daughter is unable to explain. Her new destiny changes Buffy; the empty-headed Homecoming Queen is no more; she has grown up and deals with death and terror on a daily basis.

Whizzing through tears and arguments, hurtling towards a new school, a new life. Or that's what she thinks. But she can't escape from who she is, and she can't escape from the evil she must fight. New friends, friends who understand, friends who can help. Fragments of days and shards of battles are played at double speed. A kaleidoscope of demons and choices, laughter and cries spins a colourful pattern inside her mind.

Pause. Play. A weary young woman comes home to find her mother lying on the sofa, as still as a wax model. Everything happens in slow motion. It takes an hour to cross from the door to the sofa, and a whole lifetime passes before the paramedics arrive. The little girl with plaits resurfaces for one last goodbye.

The young woman is more tired than ever; she should be gliding around a frozen lake with icing-sugar-snow dancing around her, instead she spends her nights in a cemetery, waiting for something to kill. Her sister is in danger and the thought of losing her beloved Dawn sickens her. She makes a choice; the choice makes itself for her. It is obvious. Everything is clear. And so she says goodbye one final time and turns to meet the end.

* * *

The movie came to a finish. She had seen everything there was to see. She was nearing the ground then, though she did not look down to see it. She held her head high until the very last and closed her eyes.

And then there was light.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

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