Final Gift For maharet83
Title: The Noise of Thunder
Rating: PG-13 for apocalypse :)
Summary: Buffy/Sarah Connor Chronicles Crossover. After Judgement Day Buffy, her friends and the slayers try to survive.
I'm so sorry this was late, I hope you like.
And I heard as it were the noise of thunder. Revelation 6:1
The tunnels stink. It’s not the acrid smell of ash and burning that fills the outside world. It is instead the old familiar smell of the not that recently dead. Faith is waiting inside with the dogs. They haven’t reacted to the two kids who stare at her with solemn eyes so she’s pretty sure they’re not demon or metal. She still douses them with a little water. She’s not sure if water that contaminated can really be called holy. It still does the job and it’s not like they’re going to waste anything even remotely drinkable on this.
The kids don’t react as the water slides along their skin leaving a trail through the grime. And their simple re-con mission suddenly becomes much harder. Her eyes meet Faith’s and she knows in that moment they are thinking the same thing. They’ll never make it back to the others intact if they have to drag two shell-shocked kids along with them. Then Xander pushes past her holding out his canteen to the little girl. He starts talking, asking a hundred questions that never get a response and she knows that the decision is made.
Buffy takes her guilt and pushes it down, saves it up. Later she will pull it out to wallow in. She will berate herself and hate herself because for one second she considered leaving these kids behind. It’s an even greater sin now when she’s not sure that there are that many people left. She feels like it’s her job to keep the whole human race alive. It has been for a very long time.
**********
As it turns out signs of the apocalypse are pretty universal. Robot or demon the warnings are all the same. That’s why they end up in Cleveland expecting to find demons trying to open a hellmouth and get Judgement Day instead. They survive, not intact but they survive.
In the beginning they stay around the heartlands. Survivors trickle in telling tales of burning and metal. Buffy knows they’re not equipped to fight these things. Their scrounging efforts start to include guns and ammunition. She puts Xander in charge of weapons training. He loves it, calls it getting his Nick Fury on. Sometimes she thinks she’ll never get used to the guns. They’re too technical, too mechanical, too far from what it means to be a slayer. She is used to her weapon being an extension of herself something wielded and controlled by the extension and contraction of her muscles. She is used to fights being up close and personal. Faith says there is something to the sniper rifles, some skill, some control but she doesn’t see it herself.
They move through ghost towns gathering anything useful from abandoned malls and houses. There are vampires and demons everywhere. Some are unsure of the new world order, unhappy in a hell that’s not of their own making. Some revel in the chaos, feasting on unsuspecting survivors too afraid of metal to care about demons. They take shelter in small colonies of survivors in towns too small for Skynet to pay attention to yet. The metal comes eventually, they keep moving and they survive.
A year after Judgement Day they lose Rona to a pack of vampires. She isn’t the first they lose, she’s not even the first that hurts but she is the first that was with them in Sunnydale and Buffy thinks that should mean something. It does mean something. They lose other girls, some to metal, some to demons. They even lose some to other survivors, girls who feel it is there duty to stay in the towns and keep them safe. What else are slayers for? Buffy can’t argue with that.
They collect people too, people looking for the resistance, people just looking for a fight and girls, girls who are faster, stronger...better. Many of them move on eventually, some seeking John Connor and the resistance, some are just too afraid to stay.
Five years after Judgement Day Buffy thinks that she’s gotten used to the way things are now, that she’s adapted. Then they find a town in Nebraska that’s being controlled by vampires. For weeks afterwards every time she closes her eyes she sees the cages that the vamps were keeping their breeding stock in. It turns her stomach every time. Six years after Judgement Day they return to the settlement where they left Vi. It’s been ransacked and torn to pieces by metal. She thinks she should be inured to these things by now but she’s not. It breaks her heart all over again.
Willow becomes tech girl again. She gets things running and keeps them that way. Buffy doesn’t ask how she does it, if it’s technical and mechanical savvy or magic. She doesn’t want to know. There is a voice on the radio, when Willow gets it working. He knows a lot about what’s happening. He knows how to fight the robots. He talks about the burgeoning resistance as if it’s already an established thing, a certainty. She feels some kinship with this voice, with this John Connor. Sometimes she feels more connected to his disembodied voice than to anyone in her life. Maybe it just feels good to know that there is someone else out there fighting too.
They lose 12 girls when Skynet develops infiltrators. They lose 10 to a T-800 and 2 to the paranoia of other survivors who see Slayer strength and think metal. She can only wonder what took Skynet so long. Why did it take an all-powerful computer years to do what Warren Mears was doing in a basement in Sunnydale. It reminds her that there is a metal version of her out there somewhere. It feels like an even bigger violation now.
She celebrates her 40th birthday in an abandoned barn in Montana with Willow, Xander, Faith and what may be the last bottle of vodka in the continental US. She is older than she ever thought she would get to be. She feels weary and scarred, somethings even a slayer’s healing can’t fix, and there are fewer and fewer places that they can rest.
They get drunk and slightly maudlin.
“I never thought I’d ever be feeling nostalgic for a good, old demon apocalypse,” Xander says. “Demons did those things right, no messing around, just open the hellmouth and bring hell to earth.”
“Okay, I’m cutting you off,” Faith tells him with a laugh, “and I’m drinking your share.”
“Well I never thought I’d be feeling nostalgic for birthday parties where I got an arm in a box,” Buffy says.
“Yeah, everyday is a Buffy birthday now,” Willow says.
They talk about the things they miss. They don’t play the nostalgia game too often but even drunk they know better than to bring up people. That absence is too big, too vast to even bear thinking about. But Buffy does think about it. She wonders who else is left out there. They left Dawn and Giles in London. Sometimes she likes to think they’re fighting the good fight in England. Sometimes she thinks they probably died on Judgement day, hit in London quick and mostly painless. She doesn’t know which version she prefers. When she first heard the rumours about a resistance in California, before she knew about Connor, she thought maybe it was Angel and Spike. She knows that if they’re out there they’re fighting. She hopes that she will see them, just once before, well just before. The next morning they start moving south, if the others question it they don’t mention it to her.
**********
They commander the tunnels. It’s as good a base as they’re going to find. Faith goes back for the others, bringing them in slowly in small groups under the cover of darkness. Buffy and Xander move the bodies to the far end of the tunnels, later when they go on patrols they will take them out and give them to the fires.
The kids fix themselves to Xander; they follow him around, helping him train the girls, cleaning the guns with him in the evening. Xander decides they look alike and starts calling them Luke and Leia. They don’t complain and pretty soon everyone is doing it. He tells them stories that begin, “long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away.” Buffy doesn’t know which hurts her heart more watching him with the kids or the look on Faith’s face as she watches him with them.
Two weeks after they find the tunnels a gang of vamps break in through the west entrance. They’re starving and half-crazed, too hungry to put up much of a fight, too vicious not to cause some serious damage. It’s another week and a half before their first sight of metal. They meet their first resistance company two days later. They bring them home, feed them and share war stories. Buffy’s people want to hear about the legend, John Connor. The resistance fighters want to hear about the rest of the country and they want to talk about Connor’s metal. Buffy can tell they’re uncomfortable with the situation. Willow finds the whole thing fascinating and asks too many questions about how Connor does the reprogramming. Xander finds it hilarious. Buffy doesn’t understand why until later when he and Faith laugh about good robots and robots with souls. The resistance company head out after dark to complete their mission. Buffy knows it won’t be the last they see of the resistance.
Connor’s envoy turns up 5 days later. His name is Derek Reese. Buffy’s seen his type before. He’s a soldier who grew up after Judgement Day. He thinks he knows everything about fighting and the evil in the world. She watches the way he eyes her people greedily. He’s fighting a war and she’s got an army all ready for him to send out to die. He sees only the war, only the metal. She tries to explain to him that there are other things to fight. She wants to tell him that she’s a Slayer, to tell him what that means but she’s not sure if it means anything anymore.
“It’s all the same war,” she tells him but she’s not sure that he understands.
They compromise. She agrees to go with him and meet Connor. She gets blindfolded until they get to the resistance base. After that a girl takes her to Connor. She’s pretty, young and carries herself with a slight stiffness that screams metal to Buffy’s senses. The girl directs her through a door and a familiar voice says, “Buffy Summers.”
“John Connor knows my name, should I be grateful?”
He smiles. “Oh I’ve heard all about you.”
Buffy isn’t sure what exactly that means.
“So,” he says, “how would you like to stop Judgement Day?”
Rating: PG-13 for apocalypse :)
Summary: Buffy/Sarah Connor Chronicles Crossover. After Judgement Day Buffy, her friends and the slayers try to survive.
I'm so sorry this was late, I hope you like.
And I heard as it were the noise of thunder. Revelation 6:1
The tunnels stink. It’s not the acrid smell of ash and burning that fills the outside world. It is instead the old familiar smell of the not that recently dead. Faith is waiting inside with the dogs. They haven’t reacted to the two kids who stare at her with solemn eyes so she’s pretty sure they’re not demon or metal. She still douses them with a little water. She’s not sure if water that contaminated can really be called holy. It still does the job and it’s not like they’re going to waste anything even remotely drinkable on this.
The kids don’t react as the water slides along their skin leaving a trail through the grime. And their simple re-con mission suddenly becomes much harder. Her eyes meet Faith’s and she knows in that moment they are thinking the same thing. They’ll never make it back to the others intact if they have to drag two shell-shocked kids along with them. Then Xander pushes past her holding out his canteen to the little girl. He starts talking, asking a hundred questions that never get a response and she knows that the decision is made.
Buffy takes her guilt and pushes it down, saves it up. Later she will pull it out to wallow in. She will berate herself and hate herself because for one second she considered leaving these kids behind. It’s an even greater sin now when she’s not sure that there are that many people left. She feels like it’s her job to keep the whole human race alive. It has been for a very long time.
**********
As it turns out signs of the apocalypse are pretty universal. Robot or demon the warnings are all the same. That’s why they end up in Cleveland expecting to find demons trying to open a hellmouth and get Judgement Day instead. They survive, not intact but they survive.
In the beginning they stay around the heartlands. Survivors trickle in telling tales of burning and metal. Buffy knows they’re not equipped to fight these things. Their scrounging efforts start to include guns and ammunition. She puts Xander in charge of weapons training. He loves it, calls it getting his Nick Fury on. Sometimes she thinks she’ll never get used to the guns. They’re too technical, too mechanical, too far from what it means to be a slayer. She is used to her weapon being an extension of herself something wielded and controlled by the extension and contraction of her muscles. She is used to fights being up close and personal. Faith says there is something to the sniper rifles, some skill, some control but she doesn’t see it herself.
They move through ghost towns gathering anything useful from abandoned malls and houses. There are vampires and demons everywhere. Some are unsure of the new world order, unhappy in a hell that’s not of their own making. Some revel in the chaos, feasting on unsuspecting survivors too afraid of metal to care about demons. They take shelter in small colonies of survivors in towns too small for Skynet to pay attention to yet. The metal comes eventually, they keep moving and they survive.
A year after Judgement Day they lose Rona to a pack of vampires. She isn’t the first they lose, she’s not even the first that hurts but she is the first that was with them in Sunnydale and Buffy thinks that should mean something. It does mean something. They lose other girls, some to metal, some to demons. They even lose some to other survivors, girls who feel it is there duty to stay in the towns and keep them safe. What else are slayers for? Buffy can’t argue with that.
They collect people too, people looking for the resistance, people just looking for a fight and girls, girls who are faster, stronger...better. Many of them move on eventually, some seeking John Connor and the resistance, some are just too afraid to stay.
Five years after Judgement Day Buffy thinks that she’s gotten used to the way things are now, that she’s adapted. Then they find a town in Nebraska that’s being controlled by vampires. For weeks afterwards every time she closes her eyes she sees the cages that the vamps were keeping their breeding stock in. It turns her stomach every time. Six years after Judgement Day they return to the settlement where they left Vi. It’s been ransacked and torn to pieces by metal. She thinks she should be inured to these things by now but she’s not. It breaks her heart all over again.
Willow becomes tech girl again. She gets things running and keeps them that way. Buffy doesn’t ask how she does it, if it’s technical and mechanical savvy or magic. She doesn’t want to know. There is a voice on the radio, when Willow gets it working. He knows a lot about what’s happening. He knows how to fight the robots. He talks about the burgeoning resistance as if it’s already an established thing, a certainty. She feels some kinship with this voice, with this John Connor. Sometimes she feels more connected to his disembodied voice than to anyone in her life. Maybe it just feels good to know that there is someone else out there fighting too.
They lose 12 girls when Skynet develops infiltrators. They lose 10 to a T-800 and 2 to the paranoia of other survivors who see Slayer strength and think metal. She can only wonder what took Skynet so long. Why did it take an all-powerful computer years to do what Warren Mears was doing in a basement in Sunnydale. It reminds her that there is a metal version of her out there somewhere. It feels like an even bigger violation now.
She celebrates her 40th birthday in an abandoned barn in Montana with Willow, Xander, Faith and what may be the last bottle of vodka in the continental US. She is older than she ever thought she would get to be. She feels weary and scarred, somethings even a slayer’s healing can’t fix, and there are fewer and fewer places that they can rest.
They get drunk and slightly maudlin.
“I never thought I’d ever be feeling nostalgic for a good, old demon apocalypse,” Xander says. “Demons did those things right, no messing around, just open the hellmouth and bring hell to earth.”
“Okay, I’m cutting you off,” Faith tells him with a laugh, “and I’m drinking your share.”
“Well I never thought I’d be feeling nostalgic for birthday parties where I got an arm in a box,” Buffy says.
“Yeah, everyday is a Buffy birthday now,” Willow says.
They talk about the things they miss. They don’t play the nostalgia game too often but even drunk they know better than to bring up people. That absence is too big, too vast to even bear thinking about. But Buffy does think about it. She wonders who else is left out there. They left Dawn and Giles in London. Sometimes she likes to think they’re fighting the good fight in England. Sometimes she thinks they probably died on Judgement day, hit in London quick and mostly painless. She doesn’t know which version she prefers. When she first heard the rumours about a resistance in California, before she knew about Connor, she thought maybe it was Angel and Spike. She knows that if they’re out there they’re fighting. She hopes that she will see them, just once before, well just before. The next morning they start moving south, if the others question it they don’t mention it to her.
**********
They commander the tunnels. It’s as good a base as they’re going to find. Faith goes back for the others, bringing them in slowly in small groups under the cover of darkness. Buffy and Xander move the bodies to the far end of the tunnels, later when they go on patrols they will take them out and give them to the fires.
The kids fix themselves to Xander; they follow him around, helping him train the girls, cleaning the guns with him in the evening. Xander decides they look alike and starts calling them Luke and Leia. They don’t complain and pretty soon everyone is doing it. He tells them stories that begin, “long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away.” Buffy doesn’t know which hurts her heart more watching him with the kids or the look on Faith’s face as she watches him with them.
Two weeks after they find the tunnels a gang of vamps break in through the west entrance. They’re starving and half-crazed, too hungry to put up much of a fight, too vicious not to cause some serious damage. It’s another week and a half before their first sight of metal. They meet their first resistance company two days later. They bring them home, feed them and share war stories. Buffy’s people want to hear about the legend, John Connor. The resistance fighters want to hear about the rest of the country and they want to talk about Connor’s metal. Buffy can tell they’re uncomfortable with the situation. Willow finds the whole thing fascinating and asks too many questions about how Connor does the reprogramming. Xander finds it hilarious. Buffy doesn’t understand why until later when he and Faith laugh about good robots and robots with souls. The resistance company head out after dark to complete their mission. Buffy knows it won’t be the last they see of the resistance.
Connor’s envoy turns up 5 days later. His name is Derek Reese. Buffy’s seen his type before. He’s a soldier who grew up after Judgement Day. He thinks he knows everything about fighting and the evil in the world. She watches the way he eyes her people greedily. He’s fighting a war and she’s got an army all ready for him to send out to die. He sees only the war, only the metal. She tries to explain to him that there are other things to fight. She wants to tell him that she’s a Slayer, to tell him what that means but she’s not sure if it means anything anymore.
“It’s all the same war,” she tells him but she’s not sure that he understands.
They compromise. She agrees to go with him and meet Connor. She gets blindfolded until they get to the resistance base. After that a girl takes her to Connor. She’s pretty, young and carries herself with a slight stiffness that screams metal to Buffy’s senses. The girl directs her through a door and a familiar voice says, “Buffy Summers.”
“John Connor knows my name, should I be grateful?”
He smiles. “Oh I’ve heard all about you.”
Buffy isn’t sure what exactly that means.
“So,” he says, “how would you like to stop Judgement Day?”