Buffy was starving. She got up from the couch where she was watching a very interesting show on aquatic mammals (who new that whales were mammals?), she couldn’t pause the show since she’d had to give up her TiVo a few months previously. But it was better than watching her credit card debt grow. She hopped up and ran to the pantry, no kitchen since there was just one big undifferentiated main room where most of her living occurred. It always felt too strange to hang out alone in her room when she had the whole house to be lonely in. It was a commercial break and she had two minutes max to find herself something to munch on. She jerked the pantry doors open only to find some canned goods, there was no way she was about to eat cold black eyed peas. She waltzed very quick like over to the fridge but opened it only to find the situation there was equally as dire.
She would have to leave the house if she wanted food. The prospect was not at all appetizing, what with the however many feet of snow that was falling outside. Buffy did not like this snowy weather at all, she was a summer girl. Hell, her last name was even Summers. She was tank tops and ripped jeans, she was the girl who before moving to Cleaveland had only an adorable yet not exactly warm pea coat to offer her protection from the elements. She’d only experienced snow one other time in her life, and she was pretty certain that was magical snow because it hadn’t actually been all that cold. Or maybe it was just being with Angel that had made it warm. Either way this snow wasn’t nearly as pleasant as Sunnydale snow had been. She felt her face crunching up into a frown and she walked heavily and disappointedly over to the tv and turned it off manually, she’d lost the remote ages ago. Dawn would have helped her find it if she’d been there. She would have found it in no time flat, she always had a way of thinking of things that just never occurred to Buffy when it came to finding stuff. Dawn was much more observant in that way. In most ways really, which was probably why she was so much better at school and stuff than Buffy had been.
With a heavy heart she pulled on the parka she’d bought when it first started getting cold. It weighed her down and restricted her movement; definitely not something she’d ever be able to fight with ease in. If she ever actually got to fight again that is. She couldn’t even think about the media debacle without getting angry so she just didn’t. Instead she searched around her apartment for her purse and some cash. Found a couple of bucks under the couch and a twenty in her bedside table. It was better to pay for things in cash, especially groceries. She’d already maxed out one credit card and definitely didn’t need to bring any more financial problems to her plate. Maybe she should change her name, change her face, run away from it all. Run away from Buffy Summers. Maybe then she could save the world in peace.
But she wouldn’t ever do that, she knew it. She couldn’t bring herself to leave this life behind. Despite all her troubles she loved it all too much. She loved her people and that was enough to keep her there. Finally she had all the things she’d need for a quick run to the grocery store. She walked down and out of the apartment complex, the cold outside felt like a slap across the face but she braved it and marched on to her car. A green little VW Bug, very cute and very her. She started the engine and let it idle a little so she could turn the heat on. You were supposed to do that right? She really didn’t have much of an idea about how to drive in the snow, but she’d be alright. She backed out of the parking place a little jerkily, the fact that she had barely passed the driving test was showing through quite obviously. Lucky for her, everyone was inside because of the weather and the reporters had realized she didn’t do anything interesting anymore and stopped coming around her place. Thank the gods for that one.
She sputtered along down the road in her car, the heat all the way up. Winter was not kind to her at all, it sucked the life out of her like she’d never experienced before. She missed the sun, she missed summer and sitting out on the beach, she missed green grass and picnic tables; she missed Sunnydale. Even the name sounded inviting. But Sunnydale was a hole in the ground now, she kept forgetting that. She popped on the radio and the car filled with the jolly sounds of Christmas music. Maybe she was a Scrooge but she really wasn’t in the mood. She looked away from the road and down to the dial that tuned the radio, scanning through and trying to find a station that wasn’t spreading sickeningly jolly holiday cheer. Where was a 90s rewind station when you needed one?
So focused on her radio she didn’t notice as she sped past a “WATCH FOR ICE ON BRIDGE” sign. The next thing she knew her car was slipping and sliding along a bridge covered in ice, she looked up and away from her tuner grabbing the wheel with both hands, knuckles white from gripping for dear life. She pushed on the gas pedal with all her might, and tried her best to veer left away from the edge of the bridge. Did these tires have no traction? It was called traction right? Her breathing increased as she tried to force the car away from the railing, but the wheel broke off in her hands and she found she found the car bursting through, her foot still pressing down on the pedal. The vehicle went sailing through the air. Her stomach was in her throat and she was going to die. She was going to die in a car crash. Of all the ways a slayer could die, a car crash would be the way she met her final rest. And there would be no coming back from that one, no magic involved in a collision. Her life didn’t flash before her eyes, it hadn’t the two times before either. No, she was dying and very much there for it.
But then she didn’t die. No fire, no explosion, no ice cold water surrounding her as she broke through the surface of a frozen lake. Her car landed a few yards off from the water with a thud, her landing padded by mountains of snow. She was alive, she knew because her heart was pounding so hard it would have burst out of her rib cage if it could have. She was safe? She was safe. She tried to tell herself to calm down, to stop hyperventilating (where had she learned such a big word anyways?) but her mind wasn’t controlling her body anymore. She would have turned off the Christmas music if she wasn’t so lightheaded. She recognized Jingle Bells through the haze that was her mind. She did what she could, still not able to breathe normally, pushing down on the gas pedal to try and get out of there. The wheels were spinning, she could hear them, but she wasn’t going anywhere. Spinning, spinning, spinning.
The horse was lean and lank
Misfortune seemed his lot
We got into a drifted bank
And then we got upsot
This Is A Test 