| Two By Two Hands of Blue by Thursday Next |
| Chapter #1 - Chapter 1: Power |
| Two by Two, Hands of Blue: Firefly Crossover A/N: What can I say, this idea got into my head screaming “write me!” and wouldn’t leave me alone! A crossover between Buffy and Firefly – how could I resist writing about my two favourite shows! Two for the price of one disclaimer: Joss owns the worlds and characters of both Buffy and Firefly, I don't. No copyright infringement is intended. Hopefully you won’t need to have seen Firefly to understand this, but if you haven’t seen it – why not?! Firefly rocks. This story takes place in the place of ‘Get It Done’ in Buffy and before ‘Heart of Gold’ in Firefly. Chapter One: Power It’s about power “What’s this?” Buffy Summers picked up the mysterious wooden box. Of course it would be mysterious; everything in Nikki Wood’s Slayer bag had some kind of mystical property. She guessed Slayers in the seventies didn’t carry round their make-up with them. These were things with a purpose, things which aided or even contained Slayer power, original power: dark, old, primal. Buffy began to open the box carefully. “Wait!” protested Willow. Willow Rosenberg, newly returned from the dark side of magical force and attuned to the spirit of the earth recognised dangerous magicks when she saw them. It was the smell. Like cinnamon, but darker. Bitter. “What?” Buffy wanted to know, her hand poised over the opening to the box as she looked at her friend curiously. “It’s just…we don’t know what’s in there!” “And we won’t, unless I open it!” Buffy pointed out with a hit of sarcasm. Willow swallowed nervously. “You should be careful, Buff. Haven’t you seen Hellraiser?” Xander chipped in, only half joking. Willow’s reaction to the box bothered him. “Thankfully, no,” Buffy told him. “Willow, ‘splainy?” “I just….I’m not sure about it Buffy, I can…sense dark power from it….” “Well that’s good, right? Power’s what we’re looking for, right, Buff? Slayer power goodness,” Xander said. “Absolutely,” Buffy said flatly, “We need all the power we can get if we’re going to have a chance in hell of defeating the First.” Willow and Xander exchanged worried looks. Buffy’s single mindedness in their cause of defeating the first evil was admirable, but a little scary. Not enough time had passed since the days of depressed-pulled-out-of-heaven Buffy for this emotionless determination to be anything but a cause for concern. Willow wondered about Buffy. The last time she had seen her laugh had been when they had been teasing each other about their dates. Now Robin Wood had gone from potential giver of smoochies to simply the son of a slayer and bearer of the Slayer bag, and Buffy had slipped back into being avoido-girl, the mission all that mattered. Willow wondered whether Giles’ little speech after Xander’s rescue that ill-fated date night had something to do with it. But it was more than that, more to Buffy’s curious and sudden retreat from emotion. There was a missing piece to the puzzle, and Willow couldn’t help wondering if that missing piece was Spike. Buffy never really spoke about him or their relationship, but could he be what Buffy was holding back from? Buffy traced a finger over the intricate pattern on the lid of the box, crisscrossing lines almost like hieroglyphs surrounding a carved blue sun. “I think maybe this is some kind of writing,” she said, “Where’s Giles?” “He’s out.” Xander told her, “Want me to call Dawn? She’s quite the language expert these days.” “Sure,” Buffy said, distracted. It seemed so familiar, somehow, this box, although she was pretty positive she had never seen it before. Perhaps it was a Slayer thing, she reflected, perhaps these Slayer things were familiar to her Slayer side. Was it possible, she wondered, to look at something and know absolutely that it belonged to you, was meant for you? Buffy blinked in surprise at the image that came unbidden into her mind following that last thought: Spike, standing at the foot of the stairs, the look in his eyes when he realised that she had come back from the grave. The first time she had really felt like she had come home. She shook her head to clear the image from her mind. “Junior watcher, reporting for duty!” Dawn announced as she bounded into the room, “Where’s this thingy that needs translating?” Wordlessly, Buffy handed her the box. “Hmm, this looks tricky, it’s a whole different alphabet. It’s not Ancient Sumerian anyhow…” Frowning, Dawn tilted the box to get a better look at the writing and it began to glow faintly. “Weird….Oh, it says that this box contains the source of Slayer power and should only be opened in the case of direst need, or the consequences may be fatal. Any Slayer prepared to use the power must be prepared to make a great sacrifice.” “Oh brilliant, like I haven’t made enough sacrifices…” Buffy muttered, “Well if battling the First Evil doesn’t count as direst need, I don’t know what does.” “And am I the only one wondering how Dawn can suddenly speak a language she didn’t even recognise two minutes ago?” Xander wondered aloud, raising his hand, perplexed. “Er…it changed to English. Or, no, no it didn’t change, but I could understand it. It was like the box told me the warning, rather than me reading it,” Dawn tried to explain. “I didn’t like it, Buffy, something tells me this is not going to be something simple and shiny that solves all our problems.” “The ‘something’ possibly being the words ‘dire’, ‘fatal’ and ‘sacrifice’?” Xander suggested. “Buff, are you sure….” Buffy’s only answer was to flip the catch on the box and open it. The assembled scoobies drew back warily, but nothing happened. “It’s empty,” Buffy said, voice tinged with disappointment, “There’s nothing here.” “It’s been taken,” Willow said confidently. “How could you know that?” Buffy asked. “I can feel the power of the magicks protecting the box. They aren’t a joke or a trick. There’s meant to be something here, something powerful. Instead there’s just…emptiness. A gap where the power should be.” Buffy nodded. “But this is Slayer power, and the inscription on the lid said it was very dangerous…who would just take it?” “I could do a locator spell, try to find it?” Willow suggested. Buffy hesitated. Willow, magic and this ancient power, missing ancient power, seemed like a risky combination. But they needed it; there was no doubt about that. She nodded, and Willow began lighting candles in preparation for the spell. Buffy thought again about the words of the warning – great sacrifice. What if that sacrifice meant a person, someone dear? What if it meant Willow? Was that a price she was willing to pay for this power? Before she had time to consider the implications, however, there was a sudden flash of blue light. A hole appeared, like the air in front of Willow had been torn in two, a curtain of blue light the opening into another place. Willow’s head was thrown back, her eyes glassy. “What the….” Xander gaped. “It’s in there.” Buffy said, “I have to get it.” “Buffy, no!” Dawn cried as Buffy prepared to jump through the narrowing rift. “Dawnie, I have to.” The familiar words echoed round the stillness of the room, sending chills down Buffy’s spine. “It’s not like this is my first inter dimensional portal, you know,” she joked weakly. Dawn glared at her. “You didn’t come back alive the last time,” she said accusingly. Once more, Buffy thought of the word ‘sacrifice’. Then without another word she jumped through the narrowing opening. “No!!” Dawn screamed and started after her sister. Xander pulled her back, holding her fast. “Dawn, you can’t,” he said, stroking her long dark hair soothingly, “Buffy’ll be fine, she knows what she’s doing. Willow will hold the portal open until she gets back, and she’ll probably just pick up the source and be back in five minutes, you’ll see.” “You don’t really believe that!” Dawn protested, “You can’t know that she’ll be ok!” “You can’t help her, Dawn, she wouldn’t want to put you in danger…” “What’s going on? You alright, bit?” Spike appeared in the doorway frowning at the assembled scoobies. “What the bloody hell is that?” he demanded, noticing the blue portal for the first time. “Where’s Buffy?” Dawn buried her head in Xander’s shoulder with a moan and Xander bit his lip, refusing to meet Spike’s eyes, which widened with horrified realisation. “She’s in there, isn’t she?” he said incredulously. “Of all the stupid, sodding…” He broke off as he realised the blue portal was shrinking at an alarming rate. “How exactly is she supposed to get back?” he demanded, but received no answer. “Oh for…” Without finishing his sentence, Spike took a step back and threw himself through the opening. Willow cried out in pain from the strain of holding the portal open. Xander looked over in time to see her collapse in a dead faint, a trickle of blood below her nose before the portal vanished in a flash, and Willow with it. *** Captain Malcolm Reynolds was in a bad mood. Not that this was an infrequent occurrence. Inara rolled her eyes as he stormed past her onto the bridge wishing he would relax just once in a while. “This had better be good, Wash,” he snarled at the pilot. “There’s something up ahead, some kind of…light,” he informed the captain, ignoring his bad temper, “Can’t say for sure what it is, maybe a wormhole…” “Fei-hua. No such thing. You’ve been listening to too many gorram old travellers’ tales.” But Mal was forced to reconsider when he looked out and saw the shimmering blue light in front of the ship flash even brighter. “The hell is that?” he pointed to a small dark shape which had appeared in front of the blue cloud of light. “Gos se!” Wash cursed, “It’s a person!” TBC |