Replacement by sus

Author: sus
Summary: They were meant to be. The council thought they knew better than The Powers, as well as her friends. An enemy from the future changes the past.
Author's Note:
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Violence, Adult Language, Sexual Situations


Chapter 3: Replacement

 Joyce

It was just after noon, when Joyce Summers used her key to get into her house. She was so tired. It had been early in the morning when the trip home started, and a late evening so that she could be home a day earlier.

She looked over the house, everything looked as when she left it. No wild parties, you could count on Buffy to keep her word. She spotted a note on the fridge, telling that Buffy would be sleeping over at Willow’s, the note was not dated. Joyce sighed tired. Then I can get some sleep and shopping done before she gets home.

She then proceeded up the stairs, didn’t even unpack before she changed into her sleepwear. She didn’t notice the blinking light that announced that a new message was waiting to be heard.

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A couple of hours can do wonders. As she walked past the phone, she hit play and listened while she made coffee. What’s that and why hasn’t it been heard before? By Buffy. Joyce went and got the wireless, and a sheet of paper. Hmm, where is there a pen when you need one? She had to find a pen in her bag. She started the answering machine again. This time she wrote the number down that was stated.

"Dr. Donald."

"This is Joyce Summers! You have called me and asked me to call back," Joyce informed the person on the other end, getting nervous. She didn’t understand it, an unknown doctor had called her.

"Yes, I have! Just a moment, I need a file."

Joyce was not the slightest bit patient, as she normally would be. "But who...?" She heard the phone being put down.

It took several minutes before Dr. Donald was back on the phone. "I'm sorry to inform you that we have your daughter Buffy Summers hospitalized."

"What? That can’t be true. There is a note that says that she is at her friend's home." Joyce was panicking.

"Do you have anyone that can drive you to the hospital? Then we can have a talk, and you can see for yourself."

"I.. I’ll take a cab, I’ll be there as fast as I can." She hung up and dialed the cap company straight away. "A cap to 1630 Revello Drive. Hurry up, please." She grabbed her bag and her coat, putting it on while she walked out of the door. She had to rush back for her keys, then waited at the kerb for the cap.

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Joyce was asked to wait while they got Dr. Donald. More nervous by the minute, twisting and turning a handkerchief. Finally, he came. To Joyce, it seemed like an eternity. She got up to shake his hand.

"Mrs. Summers, good to finally meet you. As you properly can guess I'm Dr. Donald. Will you please come this way?" He held out his arm to a corridor.

They stopped at room 17. "Buffy," she breathed. Joyce rushed to the bed, taking one of Buffy’s hands between hers. "What has happened to her?" She kept looking at Buffy, while she talked with the doctor.

"The police said they got a call from a man that lives right next to the cemetery. He saw a young girl being attacked, by a large group of young men."

Joyce looked at him when she asked: "Why doesn’t she wake up and speak to me?"

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Summers! We doubt she’ll wake up. She was awake shortly when she was admitted. Enough to tell us her name, and that we shouldn't bother locating you, that you were out of the country on a buying trip." The doctor was sympathetic. He took a hold of her elbow as she seemed about to fall, got her seated in a chair.

"Why? Why won't she wake up?" she asked shaken.

"The witness told the police that they beat her with baseball bats. She is healed up. Even so, she doesn’t wake up. We have seen it before, maybe some damage that we can’t see. I’m sorry," Donald said.

She looked up, with a pleading look in her eyes. "Is there no hope at all?" Tears started to dribble down her cheeks.

"Sorry," the doctor said, while he glanced at his watch.

"Have the police at least caught the attackers?" she asked.

"I can’t answer that, you’ll have to ask the police. You have to excuse me, I have other patients who need me. You can visit your daughter whenever you like. If you have anymore questions, I'm on work all weekdays." He nodded to her on his way out.

Joyce sat down by her daughter's bedside for hours, then she went hunting for the doctor. In the following conversation, they talked about wonders, and the doctor had to agree that they did happen. Not often but you never knew, and Joyce had hope again. Buffy is strong, she doesn't give up so easily. Joyce repeated that over and over to herself in the following days.

Then came the day when the nurse told her that she needed to take a break. She went home, sat on a chair in the kitchen for an hour just staring at the coffee machine. She finally got up. Turned off the coffee machine and threw out the pot. The buying of a new pot, she wrote on her mental to-do list.

The first thing on that list was a shower and then trying to get some sleep. Sleep, she didn’t get, gave up on that after she had twisted and turned for almost two hours. Now, came a harder task: Nourishment. She was not hungry, but her body needed food. If I want to be there for Buffy, I need to eat, to be strong for her. With that she convinced herself to eat something.

Then an important thing. She needed to know what she could about what happened to her daughter. She called the police station. There she got another phone number, where she got to talk with a detective.

What he told her was: They got a call about a girl being attacked by a group of young men with baseball bats. They later found out that it was a large group from a baseball team. They had a confession from two of the attackers, and the names of the rest of them. Almost all were arrested, only three were still at large. As she asked how many they were, she got a shock! 16 they told her. And the last but most important question: Why?.. The detective told her that they got paid to attack her, take her out of action forever as they said.

Joyce didn’t understand it, why would somebody want to kill Buffy? Who had so much against her to pay somebody to do such a dreadful deed? She was grateful that soon all the guys were under lock and key. But if they didn’t catch the man behind it all, Buffy would always be in danger, and they would probably never get to know why.

Since Joyce still got to earn a keeping, she had to go to work. So she started the day with spending a couple of hours at the hospital before work, and all her evenings there talking to Buffy. Still hoping and praying that she would wake up.

Just a couple of days later she had to accept the situation a little more. She received a letter from the school, that Buffy had been absent too long without an excuse. Joyce had to make plans to visit the school the next day.

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It was in the middle of the afternoon, when Joyce arrived at the school after a hard day. Her new purchases had come in. She had used all day unpacking, and now she had to deal with the school. She didn’t want to. It made it all too real, taking a little of her hope away.

In the office, she asked to talk with principal Snyder. The secretary asked her to wait. Joyce knew that Snyder was in his office, she heard him make phone calls, every few minutes. He made her wait over half an hour. Maybe Buffy was right, that he was a little worm. As she sat and watched Snyder filling out the forms to report why Buffy might never join the school again, she could see that her daughter had been right! He was a worm, and more. He didn’t care that Buffy was in the hospital. He even seemed malicious.

As she finally came out of the office, she nearly walked into Willow. "Hey, Willow, how are you?"

"I'm okay, Mrs. Summers, I hope you are well too?"

"I am, Willow, thank you for your concern."

"May I ask you a question, Willow?"

"Of course, Mrs. Summers, any question. I'll answer if I can."

"Don’t take this the wrong way, but why haven’t you called too talk to Buffy for weeks? You are her best friend."

"I.. I...I’m," Willow stuttered.

"You know that Buffy is in the hospital, right?"

"What?"

"Yes, she has been there for weeks."

Willow grabbed Joyce's arm. "Come with me, please." Willow pulled Joyce to the library.

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"Giles..Giles where are you?" Willow yelled shrill.

"Lower your voice, Willow, I'm here, what’s so urgent?" He came out from his office.

"Mrs. Summers, what are you doing here?" Giles asked nervously. "Willow, maybe you should let go of Mrs. Summers’ arm!"

"Sorry, Mrs. Summers," she said embarrassed. "But could you tell Giles? What you just said to me."

"Why should I talk with Mr. Giles about you not calling Buffy anymore?"

"No, not that! That about Buffy being in the hospital."

"Oh, you mean to tell that Buffy is in the hospital. She has been for weeks."

Giles staggered backwards. If the counter hadn’t stopped him, he would have fallen on his ass. "You are seriously saying that Buffy is in the hospital?"

"Yes, I do, for weeks now."

Giles got himself together. He went to Joyce and led her to a chair at the table. "Why hasn't she called me?"

"I don’t understand. Why should she call you?" She looked at him, as if he was something disgusting.

"No, no, nothing like that."

Joyce looked doubtfully at him.

"Hi folks, how are you today?" Xander came bustling in through the doors. "What’s up? You all look so serious. Oh, Mrs. Summers."

"Sit down, Xander, and keep quiet, Buffy seems to be alive." He turned back to Joyce. "You see, it’s like this: Buffy is my slayer, I'm her watcher."

She had looked at him for a long time, when she asked: "What is a slayer? Or a watcher, for that matter?"

"You don’t know? Buffy hasn't talked about it with you?"

"I’m sorry, I don’t know what you are talking about? This is a mistake. I should go." She started to get up.

Willow laid a hand on her arm. "Please wait and listen to Giles. He’s telling the truth."

She sat down slowly and looked at them. From one to the other. They all looked seriously back at her.

She sat still, listing to the story they told her. About slayers and their watchers. About the things that go bump in the night, the demons and the Hellmouth they lived on. She started to cry silently, big fat tears running down her face.

"Why are you crying, Mrs. Summers?" Xander looked at her curiously. "Buffy is a good slayer, she will keep us all safe."

Giles placed a glass of water in front of her.

She took a sip. "When we lived in L.A, she told us that vampires were real, and that she was destined to kill them. It was when our marriage was at its worst. It’s no excuse. However, we believed that it was a cry for attention. When she kept it up, we had her committed to an institution." Her hand that held the glass shook. "An institution for the mentally ill." She wiped her eyes.

Xander and Willow looked at her with their mouths open.

"She never told us," Xander got out. She told us everything. We were her friends, why didn’t we know? He didn’t know that Willow was thinking the exact same sentences.

Giles coughed slightly." Mrs. Summers, may I ask you a question?"

"Joyce please. Yes, of course."

"Do you by any chance know why she hasn’t notified me? That she is in the hospital."

"Or me?" Willow interrupted. "I'm her best friend."

"We’re her best friends," Xander said hurt.

Joyce looked down. Collecting her thoughts before she answered. "She couldn’t have called you, even if she wanted to. You see, she is in a coma. She was only awake a short time to tell her data, and that I was on a buying trip. She told them that I would be all over Europe, so I could be anywhere, and then she lost consciousness. The doctor doesn't think that she will ever wake up again."

They just sat there looking at her. Doubting their ears.

Xander was the first that got the use of his voice back. "What happened to her?"

"I talked with the police, they told me that somebody had paid the most of a baseball team to take her out. Their words. They have the most of them in custody, and know the names of the rest. The only name they miss, is the name of the one behind it all, the one who paid them. What they got from the baseball players was that he wore a brown robe, they didn’t see his face because of the big hood." Joyce drank the rest of her water. So much talking made her mouth dry.

"Can we pay her a visit?" Giles asked sadly.

"Yes, sure, anytime." Joyce sent Giles a little smile. "Now I have to be going. Time to go and say goodnight to Buffy."

"Can we go with you, Mrs. Summers? To Buffy," Willow asked.

"Do you really have time now? What about school?"

"School is out for today."

"I’d like to accompany you, but I have a few things that I need to tie up." Giles took off his glasses, and looked a bit shy. "I’ll visit later tonight. Maybe I'll catch you before you leave?"

"That would be nice, Mr. Giles."

"Rupert, if you like." He started to get color in his cheeks.

"Rupert it is then." She smiled, a little shy smile. "Talk to you later." She nodded her head to goodbye.

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Willow and Xander rode with Joyce to the hospital. They didn’t talk on the way there. The atmosphere was thick. It didn’t get better when they arrived at their destination.

When they came to Buffy’s room, they stayed in the doorway, while Joyce sat down and took Buffy’s hand and greeted her. "I have company with me tonight, Willow and Xander are here to see you." She turned a little in the chair." Come closer and say hallo."

Willow slowly went closer. "Can she hear me?"

"The doctors doesn’t know, but I have read about people who woke up from a coma, and told that they heard their family talking to them." She looked down at Buffy, and kept stroking her hand while she talked with Willow.

Xander had silently walked up behind Willow. "She looks like she is sleeping. If you didn’t know better, you would think that she could wake up any minute."

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Later Giles visited Buffy. He and Joyce had a long private talk about Buffy, and her duties as the slayer.

In bed that night Joyce had a good cry. So many thoughts were running through her head, that she hardly slept that night. It was hard to accept it all. Demons existed and Buffy was the slayer. Destined to go out in the night and kill all that go bump in the night. She learned to carry a cross in her coat pocket for easy reach, to wear a necklace with a cross. Holy water and stakes in her bag.

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It was first the next day Giles remembered, that they had forgotten to tell Angel about Buffy.

Angel visited Buffy the same night. He stayed there for a couple of hours. He kept up his nightly visits for several weeks. However, after the new slayer came to town he didn’t stay there long. Then, came the time where he hardly visited and then stopped completely.

The same happened with Willow and Xander. After a while, they had other things to do with their time. They became close friends with the new slayer, Kendra.

Giles still visited, but never alone. He had become close to Joyce, and if he wanted to spend time with Joyce, he had to go along when she visited Buffy. As she did every evening.