Rewind:
Prologue
Author: Clarity
Disclaimer: Joss. Is. GOD. I just try to interpret his works.
Summary: To stop the First, Buffy, Faith, Giles, Xander, and Willow join forces--and take Sunnydale all the way back to the beginning.
Rating: PG ATM
Spoilers: Everything. Goes AU after 'Dirty Girls'
Author’s Notes: None. That's a first.
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“Okay...does everybody have their tapes finished?” Willow asked nervously of the
group gathered around the living room. Unanimous nods came from the assembled
friends.
“I...I suppose we should say something profound, but I...I haven’t the faintest idea what,”
Giles admitted.
“How ‘bout ‘rah, rah, go, team’?” Faith asked facetiously. “Look, Red, can we just get
this show over with? We give you the tapes, you do your mojo, they get zapped back in
time, and suddenly the whole universe is different. We got it.”
“Faith...” Buffy started, then trailed off with a shake of her head. “You know, would it
kill you to take something seriously for once?”
“Look, B. Way I see it, this goes down, I don’t exist any more anyway. Who gives a
damn what happens now if it doesn’t count for shit?”
“That doesn’t mea-”
“Hey. Girls.” Xander’s quiet voice stopped the slayers’ argument mid-word. It was
definitely a killer case of irony, the former zeppo had reflected earlier: Caleb had gone for
his eyes because he was the one who saw things, and for some reason that was what it
took to get everyone to finally look at him. He wondered if his younger self would
appreciate the joke.
“Look. We’re about to do this thing. This incredibly big, world-saving, history-
changing thing, just the five of us. And when we’re done, well, there’s not going to be a
five of us. We’re back to being a handful of random people with no real clue what we’re
about to throw ourselves into, and without each other to lean on. Suddenly...suddenly
we’re not going to know Buffy’s favorite color, or...or Giles’ secret, evil past, or Faith’s
real last name, or the square root of 841-”
“29,” Willow said automatically. “Plus, I...sorta knew that then.”
“Okay, some of us aren’t going to know the square root of 841 anymore,” Xander
allowed. “Look, that’s not the point. The point is...” He paused for a moment, trying to
gather his thoughts. “The point is, we’ve known each other for a long time. And there’ve
been times we’ve...well, to put it bluntly, hated each other’s guts, or tried to strangle one
another, or, you know, tried to end the world. And there’ve been times when we’ve
laughed so hard we cried, or just hung out, or even, once in a great, great while, done the
‘one moment of perfect happiness’ thing. Generally followed by more hating of guts and
attempted murder, but still. There’s been a lot. And when we do this, well, all that’s
gonna just be...gone. And call me crazy, but personally, I think just...deleting seven years
worth of really great times and really hellish times deserves sort of a moment. You
know? It...it hurts, to know that in another few minutes I’m going to wake up and I’m not
going to remember...you know, loving you guys. Which I do. Despite all of the hell and
the bad stuff that happened, even with all of the regrets, you’re my friends, and I love you,
and it’s the one part of the last seven years that I could never regret. So...you know, even
if Giles can’t come up with something all serious and profound, can we maybe not spend
the last few minutes we actually remember knowing each other, fighting?”
All was silent for a moment, until, with a strangled sobbing sound, Willow bodily flung
herself into the arms of her oldest friend. A bare second later, Buffy joined the embrace,
holding tightly to the two people in the world she trusted more than anyone. Giles hung
back, looking slightly awkward, until Xander’s chuckle came from the middle of the
hug.
“G-man, for once in your life, forget being all proper and British and admit you’re part of
this screwed-up little family too.” And while the watcher would have vehemently denied
it, had anyone questioned him, someone with an angle to see might have noticed a single
tear in the corner of his eye as he wrapped his arms around the three, now-grown, that he
had come to think of as surrogate children.
“Faith?” Buffy asked/offered, almost timidly, lifting her head to lock eyes with the
brunette. The younger slayer broke the gaze first, looking down to the side.
“I...I dunno, B, I’m just-”
“You’re part of this, Faith. Get over here.” And there was no arguing with Xander like
this, so, not unwillingly, Faith awkwardly wrapped herself around the tight knot of
people, simply sharing in the last moment they’d ever really know together.
“So Giles, are you going to say something profound?” Willow prompted after they’d
broken apart. The Watcher shook his head.
“I think it’s all been said. So all that’s left, I suppose, is to...well, as Faith said, ‘get this
show over with’.”
“Right,” Buffy agreed, swiping fiercely at her eyes. “Right. I...look, everything Xander
said goes double for me, okay? Can we just do this?”
“Ah, awkward and heartfelt,” Xander teased. “But yeah, she’s right. Wills?”
With a last, tearful smile at her four friends, even the oddly-silent Faith, Willow picked
up her own two videotapes and moved into the middle of the open circle of the others.
“Okay...um, Buffy, a little closer to Giles. Like that. Hold out your videotapes,
and...well, let’s get this over with, huh?” Closing her eyes, the witch began to chant.
Slowly, but with implacable sureness, power began to coalesce in the room. Willow
fairly well crackled with it, every hair rising up as though from invisible static electricity.
It began to glow, first in a halo around the red-haired witch, then reaching out with a
golden light to the four points of her circle. Tendrils of magick, of pure magickal power,
curled delicately round the videotapes before suddenly clamping down, grasping tightly
with a thin skin directly over the tapes outer cases. And still Willow chanted.
The light glowed brighter and brighter, the power building until it wasn’t just Willow
who appeared static-charged, but every person in the room. Power, pure and primal,
began to whirl, to spin around the circle, reaching through and connecting the five.
Deeply rooted, springing up from some inner source, it reached further still into the inner
reaches of each person’s being, locking in on every essence with incredible force. The
kind of power involved in this spell would burn Willow out for good, unquestionably, but
so long as it worked it wouldn’t matter. So she kept chanting, and the power, fused as it
was with each of her subjects, flared once in an unbelievable supernova. For one
burning, blinding moment, all five of the magick-filled beings were merged into a single,
inseparable soul, while their chanting reached a fever pitch. For one moment, this single
being held in its self the power to do anything.
An instant later, it was gone.
In January of 1997, five people slumbered more-or-less peacefully, three in Sunnydale,
one in LA, one in Boston. At the exact same point in time, all five were awakened
suddenly by the weight of two ordinary-looking VHS tapes, materializing atop them from
pure ether. The only thing that distinguished the tapes from one another were the labels,
all inked in the neatest printing of the person now looking at them with everything ranged
from curiosity to suspicion to downright fear. Ten different names, first and last, five of
them followed by the brusque imperative:
Play me. NOW.
So, bemused, five people crept out of bed in predawn darkness to stumble towards five
VCR’s, and more-or-less simultaneously insert five video tapes, each bearing their own
name. And five people watched in astonishment as their own, oddly changed, faces
appeared on their television screens.
Meanwhile, in the innermost temple sanctum of an ancient monastery of the most
out-of-the-way backreaches of the Czech Republic, a glowing green light suddenly ceased
to hang in midair. At the exact same instant as the ten videotapes came to be, said green
light transformed into a brunette girl of about 16, very surprised and entirely naked. A
moment later, she was also very bruised, as she dropped the six feet to the stone
floor.
Looking around her, Dawn Summers bit her bottom lip. “Oh-oh.”
NEXT
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