Title:
All That Heaven Will Allow
Chapter
Title: Chapter Four- Through The Rabbit Hole
Author:
Restive Nature
Disclaimer:
I do not own the rights
to BtVS. They belong to Whedon & Mutant Enemy. I also do not own
the rights to Charmed. They belong to the WB. No infringement is
intended and this fiction is for private enjoyment only.
Rating:
PG-13
Genre:
Crossover
Type:
Angst, Action, Humor
Pairing:
canon pairings in both shows
Summary:
Slayer dreams and Whitelighter-Witch hybrid powers collide when the
veil between worlds come close to collapsing. Can baby Wyatt survive
life on the Hellmouth?
Spoilers/
Time line: Season 4 (after “Harsh Light Of Day”) of Buffy and
Season 6 (after “Forget Me... Not”) Of Charmed.
Feedback:
Always welcome!
Distribution:
Ask first please.
A/N:
This was one of my contributions started for NaNoWriMo 2012. The
story was by no means completed in that month and I am looking
forward to continuing it.
A/N2:
There is a definite time difference between these two worlds and the
seasons that I am using. This will hopefully, be explained within the
fiction itself.
All That
Heaven Will Allow
Chapter
Four
Through
The Rabbit Hole
Buffy's
foot was making a continuous tapping motion and it was not intended.
But every so often, someone who was working in the living room of
Giles' apartment would throw her a glance and then look down at her
foot and she'd realize that she was doing it again and stop. Until
the thoughts that were swirling around her mind, the incessant
forward motion of the clock hanging on Giles' wall, the sounds of a
desperate mother crying out in her mind, would just wind her up again
and the tapping, the fingers clenching, the pacing, it would all
start up again.
There
was one thing that she hadn't shared with the others. Something that
she'd told none of them. Whenever they spoke, it was about the
caverns, the caves. They had skated past it a few times, a few close
calls. There was one cavern, the biggest of all, the one that she was
infinitely more familiar with than all the others. Even though she'd
never had the pleasure, if one wanted to laughingly call it that.
And
it wasn't to the lair of the Master that she was referring. She had
believed, even during the Slayer dream itself, that she was in the
Hellmouth with that child. It had that feeling to it, the one she had
noticed every time she had been standing atop it in high school. The
walls were familiar in that way of knowing something on a level that
went beyond physical and mental. She knew this place in her bones.
And she knew, just as surely, that should she mention going into the
Hellmouth itself, she'd be met with arguments, protests and worst of
all, time wasting lectures about why that was so not a good idea.
She
knew, better than any of them, with the slight possible exception of
Giles, about why that was a bad idea. The thought had her nauseous,
terrified and remembering what had come out of that thing before. But
what she also hadn't told the others was that she had done some
research of her own, in an effort to better understand what the
phenomena was. It was literally a mouth of hell. A large opening
leading to hell. But from what she understood, it didn't just sit
there, under the library of the high school she had destroyed, with
help at the end of the year, at Graduation ceremonies.
No,
it was a series of caverns and passages that evil traveled from hell,
to get close to the mouth, so that it could get out. It wasn't like a
door that one just opened and walked through. As she understood, and
she knew Giles must know this too, perhaps Anya as well, since she
had been recently evil, that a Hellmouth, when it began, was nowhere
near the size that it was now. Hellmouths grew, as more and more evil
was drawn to it, from either side. And this one had had hundreds of
years to grow, but it still wasn't at the surface. If it were, there
would be activity constantly at the actual entrance, and not just
what they saw maybe once or twice a year.
That
wasn't to say that it wasn't incredibly dangerous. It was and she
knew that. And she also understood that going into what everyone else
thought of as the Hellmouth was more like going into a nasty mouth,
traveling down the esophagus and then reaching the more
dangerous stomach, like an acid lined danger ride of constant
vigilance against the evil coming at you from all sides.
She
swallowed heavily at the analogy she had created for herself. She
wasn't actually thinking of going that far. For some reason, and she
couldn't say why, other than gut instinct, she didn't think she'd
have to. This baby, this child wasn't going to be in the Hell part of
the Hellmouth itself, but somewhere close to it. Underground and
alone, probably defenseless. She didn't know why this child was more
important than anyone else, but it was. And if she didn't save him,
she didn't know who else would. She could only, in her worst
nightmares, imagine what could happen to him if something evil found
him. A Vampire would just suck him dry. Giles had literally, an
entire library devoted to the worse things.
“I
have to go,” she announced suddenly, into the quiet murmurs of the
room. Once again, she had drawn everyone's attention and not in a
good way. Giles had stilled completely, a look of dread on his face,
while everyone else just looked confused. So it was to him that she
addressed herself. “Giles, I... I know where the baby is going to
be.”
He
slowly removed his lenses from his face and carefully set them on the
map of the surrounding area that he had been marking while the others
had been combing through his apartment for spell ingredients
available and working the wording of the locating spell. “Into the
Hellmouth?” he announced quietly and there were stunned gasps from
the others. But they wisely held their tongues, to hear what their
mentor, their father figure had to say about this. Naturally he would
be the one to talk sense into the suddenly senseless Buffy. He sighed
heavily. “I was afraid of this,” he murmured before glancing up
again at her.
“I
know I'm right Giles,” Buffy stressed. “It makes sense, from what
Anya was saying.”
“I
didn't say that,” the blond ex-demon interrupted and quickly looked
to the only one of them that she cared to impress. Xander however,
was watching his friend. “I never said that she should go into the
Hellmouth.”
“I
know that Anya,” Buffy spoke heavily. “It's about what you said.
A nexus. And other dimensions.” She turned back to Giles. “No one
knows about a baby that can teleport itself. Nothing about it. You'd
think that'd be big news somewhere. That'd be a kind of power that
demons would kill for. Somewhere, someone,” she stressed, “would
have heard something about that. But we don't. No one has. Which
makes me think...”
“That
this child is coming from another dimension,” Giles nodded. “And
the Hellmouth would be the most likely conduit for such travel.”
“But...
but how do we know that this kid isn't evil already then?” Willow
stammered out. “We don't know anything about it.”
“I
know Wills,” Buffy tried to soothe, a little on edge as she felt,
literally could feel time slipping through her hands. “I can't
explain how... he just didn't feel it. He was scared. He needed me.”
“He?”
Xander repeated, picking up of course on that one tidbit of
information that truly, didn't mean anything. “A magical boy that
can zip and zoom all over the Hellmouth at will, needs your help
Buff?”
“It's
not like that Xander!” she snapped and then tried to calm, center
herself. “It's not like that,” she repeated. “I know that I
can't explain it properly because I don't totally understand myself.
All I know is that I have to go with my gut. It's what's kept me,
kept you guys alive.”
“Which
we appreciate,” Oz nodded. “I'm with Buffy.”
“Thank
you,” she offered quietly, with just a little surprise. Oz
shrugged, his face gentle and understanding.
“There's
something about instinct that you just can't ignore,” he reminded
them, not only speaking from his observations of the world around
them, but from personal experience as well. Having been bitten by a
juvenile werewolf, his cousin, when they were still in high school,
Oz had been forced to get in touch with the more primal aspect of his
own self.
“But
going into the Hellmouth,” Willow protested and Buffy began shaking
her head.
“Not
really, no,” she tried to placate her friends. “The caverns
there,” she clarified. “The passage way to the Hellmouth”
“Oh,
well why didn't you say so,” Anya cried out, looking relieved.
“That's different,” she chuckled and then realized that some of
the others were looking at her with that look that told her she had
once again spoken too far ahead of their understanding. “There's...”
she began, but at Giles clearing his throat, she ceased. “Never
mind.”
“I
can't say I'm pleased about this,” Giles told his Slayer, standing
now to approach her, “but it's what I feared as well since you
first described your dream to me. We need to plan... but I have no
idea how, once you've gone in, to get you back out.”
“Anya?”
Buffy turned to the blond once more. “You've got more experience
with these things. Is there a... a spell or something that would
bring me back? With the baby?”
“I
can think of six off hand,” Anya answered promptly and honestly. “I
assume you want me to discount the ones where it doesn't matter if
you're dead?”
“Ahn,
please, we want her alive,” Xander snarked gently. “Because down
the road, alive Buffy means alive us.”
“Right,”
Anya nodded enthusiastically now, a pleasure infusing her from
helping in a productive way. “We can't use the inter-dimensional
retrieval because she'll be in our dimension, but there are several
that are good. Just tweak the right words.”
“Okay,”
Buffy heaved a huge sigh of relief. “Then here's what we're going
to do. I'm going to the Hellmouth Will, you and Oz get the
ingredients we need for the spells. Perform the locater spell that
Anya gave you about the nexuses. Nexusi?” she asked quickly of her
mentor who shook his head with a slight repressed mirth. Buffy moved
on from the momentary word quirk hiccup she had experienced and
continued planning her battle. “Once you have definite confirmation
that it's the Hellmouth, then you can work with Anya to get a spell
ready to call me back, in case I can't find another way back. Giles,
you-!”
“I'll
be there,” her watcher announced in a tone that left one with
little desire to argue. “With you, should anything be gathering at
this child's coming.”
“Then
maybe some extra help would be handy,” Xander piped up. He glanced
between his best friend and the female that seemed to want to be his
girlfriend for lack of a better term. “No offense, but I'm not good
with the magicky stuff. Not great with the hand to hand, but at least
I'd be a distraction.” He glanced up at his other best friend, “to
the other guys. A distraction to them. Not to get in your way Buffy.”
“All
right,” Buffy nodded. “That's it. Let's go!”
AtHwA~AtHwA
“What
was it?” Phoebe demanded urgently of her sister who was pacing
around her nephew's room. She was trying to keep an eye on Piper,
revive Paige and wrap her mind around the news that after just having
averted one crisis induced by her magically inclined nephew, they
were right into another. But instead of the Cleaners, those of the
neutral party, whose job it was to clean up magical messes, it was a
more mundane variety.
“I
don't know!' Piper snapped again. “I didn't get a good look at it.
It was standing over Wyatt. It hurt Paige. Oh God,” she moaned,
whirling to stare at her sister. “We just got him back. I can't go
through this again.”
“I
know, honey,” Phoebe tried to soothe. With her empathy running at
full tilt, she knew just how badly this was affecting her sister.
“Try calling Leo again. I'll go scry for Wyatt,” she decided,
falling back to a routine trick to find what a witch was looking for.
She dashed to the boys dresser to grab a small lovey that had been
with him in his playpen. She would need something that he had
touched, to direct the spell. Her mind was racing ahead to the things
she would need, what she could try to do to retrieve her nephew.
Piper
didn't bother to nod at her sister's assertion, just looked upward
and nearly screamed. “Leo! Get your ass down here. Wyatt is gone! I
don't...” the words choked, swelling in her throat as she tried to
make sense of how this could happen again and so soon. Didn't they
deserve even some sort of small reprieve?
She
felt her knees start to buckle even as the familiar sound predicting
Leo's arrival chimed in her senses. His strong arms caught her, as
obviously confused, he exclaimed softly.
“Piper?
What-?”
His
voice was joined by Paige's groan as luckily, the redhead seemed to
come back to the land of the conscious. “Wyatt?” the third living
sister groaned out and it was enough that the tears that Piper had
been fighting burst forth.
How
could she explain to her lover, her husband and the father of her
son, that she had lost Wyatt?
Again?
Chapter Five- The Breach
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