BtVS Fic: Coming To Terms

[bk_forever]

Title: Coming To Terms

Fandom: BtVS

Author: badly_knitted

Characters: Joyce, mentions Buffy

Rating: G

Spoilers: Season 2?

Summary: Joyce tries to come to terms with Buffy’s job as the Slayer

Word Count: 543

Written For: mirrored_illusion’s prompt ‘BtVS, Joyce, coming to terms with her daughter's destiny’ at fic_promptly

Disclaimer: I don’t own BTVS, or the characters. They belong to Joss Whedon.

"Have you tried not being the slayer?" Joyce winces inside even as she hears the words come out of her mouth. She doesn’t understand any of this. Everything she thought she knew about the world she lives in has been turned on its head. Vampires and demons aren’t myths and folklore, they’re real and they’re here in peaceful Sunnydale.

If that wasn’t bad enough, her daughter, her little girl, is the person responsible for killing them, and goes out every night doing just that. It explains the blood she sometimes finds on Buffy’s clothes, the rips and the tears. It explains her daughter’s cuts and bruises; it even explains why she heals from everything so fast. But it scares Joyce to the depths of her soul.

How can it be right that one young girl should carry the safety of the world on her shoulders? She wants to find whoever’s responsible and give them a piece of her mind. Killing demons is no job for a teenager. Buffy has her schoolwork to do, boys to date and parties to attend. How is she ever supposed to get her grades up enough to apply to a good college if she’s out slaying every night?

Joyce has so many questions. Is it her fault Buffy’s the slayer? Was it something she did or didn't do while she was pregnant? Could she have prevented this terrible burden being handed to her child? Buffy says no, it’s her destiny and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. But what would happen if Buffy quit? Who would slay the vampires then? Some other girl whose parents have no idea of what’s out there stalking the night?

She wants to tell Buffy it’s too dangerous, that she doesn’t want her only child going out every night, risking her life for strangers, but deep down she knows she can’t. Because it’s not just strangers whose lives would be in danger, it’s Buffy’s school friends, their parents and teachers, the people who come into Joyce’s gallery, their neighbours and even Joyce herself. How many people might die if she tries to keep Buffy from doing whatever it is that she does when she ‘slays’?

There’s no way she’ll ever get used to this, never knowing when Buffy goes out whether she’ll come home injured, or worse, not come home at all. But she wants to be a good mother, to be supportive, so she makes sure Buffy has suitable clothes for slaying, sees that she wraps up warmly when the nights are chilly, provides snacks so her daughter, the slayer, can keep her strength up while out on patrol. She asks the questions she can bear to hear the answers to, tries to learn as much as she can about what Buffy does, makes sure she has a good dinner before she leaves the house. When Buffy’’s getting ready to go out on patrol, Joyce tells her daughter to be careful and not to stay out too late, checks she has her keys, and leaves the porch light on.

And every night, after Buffy has left and the house is quiet, Joyce does the only other thing she can think of; she prays that her little girl will come home safely.

The End

Comments

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

Joyce fic! I appreciate the specificity about the things she CAN do: dinner, snacks, keys, suitable clothes. The worry about what she can't, well, that had to take a while for her to figure out, poor woman.

[bk_forever]

The parenting books never mentioned anything about Slayers or how a mother is supposed to deal with that kind of situation, so Joyce is trying to make it up as she goes along. The practical side of things she can handle, that's fairly straightforward common sense, which Joyce DOES have even if it sometimes doesn't seem that way. The worry is something she'll just have to live with, that feeling of helplessness is the worst part. She's doing all she can, but it'll never feel like enough and her fear for Buffy will never go away.

Thank you, I'm glad you liked it.

[rbfvid.livejournal.com]

Joyce tells her daughter to be careful and not to stay out too late, checks she has her keys, and leaves the porch light on.
This is just breaking my heart...
(I mean - great job!)

[killing-kurare.livejournal.com]

Wow, that was very emotional. I think you captured the different stages of Joyce very well.
She denied, she tried to defy, but in the end she accepts and even supports Buffy.
And I really liked the worry and the love that sipped through the words all time. It is really heartbreaking ... for me at least, but I always get overly emotional when it comes to mother/daughter relationships xD

It was short but all said, and I enjoyed reading very, very much <3

[bk_forever]

They're the practical things Joyce can do, but she's helpless to protect her little girl. i can't imagine how that would feel.

Thank you!

[bk_forever]

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

I think Joyce was very well-acted, a bit scatterbrained but still a very caring mother who wanted what was best for her daughter. Learning that she's the mother of the Slayer, just pulled the rug out from under her and she struggled to find a way of coping. She does what practical things she can to help, but when it comes to the actual Slaying, Buffy has to go it more or less alone and Joyce recognises that her daughter is capable of doing so.

I find when I write, especially for a prompt, the pieces find their own length. When everything's said that needs to be, there's no point trying to add more. There's also a limited amount of time during Contest Week (which this was written for), where the aim is to fill as many prompts as possible in a week, so a lot of what I wrote then was quite short. Maybe I'll write some longer pieces once I have the chance to re-familiarise myself with the series, who knows? Right now, short pieces are about all I can manage, but I don't mind; they can still pack a punch and I was especially pleased with the way this one came out.

[killing-kurare.livejournal.com]

I prefer short pieces because you can read them inbetween other things :) So yay, the length for me personally was perfect ^^

[timelordshines.livejournal.com]

Good insight into Joyce's character

[bk_forever]

Thank you! I was quite pleased with how this turned out, especially as I've never been a mother.

[bk_forever]

I'm glad =)

My other BtVS pieces are short too, I think there are 4 or 5 to post, in between all my other fandom fics and drabbles. I seem to be writing in four fandoms and I have no idea how that happened...