Disclaimer: I own all of the BtVS episodes…in my handy little 40-disc The Chosen Collection box set. Oh- But…this is talking about copyright and infringement isn’t it? Yeahhh—in that case—I own nothing. All recognized characters belong to Mutant Enemy, Fox and the creators of the show.

Author's Note: I just want to give a big THANKS to my praise-worthy beta, Rebecca, for making sense of all of my crazy-psycho-babble. You're the best, Bec!

More Than A Myth

Chapter One - Catalyst

“Tell me a story, Mommy.”

Joyce smiled down at her small daughter, a twinkle of merriment shining in her eyes. “And what story would you like to hear, my sweet little girl?”

The six-year-old scrunched up her face in contemplation, absentmindedly looping one dainty finger around her long golden plait. “I like…the one about the brave princess and her pale knight.”

Joyce gave Buffy a longsuffering look—but the ghost of a smile that still traced her lips ruined it. “Don’t you want to hear another story, sweetheart? I told you that story last night…and the night before…and the night before that.”

Buffy immediately turned on her pout face. She had learned early on that no grown up could resist it. “But it’s my favorite.” She looked up at her Mommy through her long lashes, the image of perfect innocence. “I promise to go to sleep straight after.”

Joyce arched a brow in amusement. “So it’s either this story…or there will be no sleeping for you tonight, is that it?”

The small girl nodded, completely serious.

Joyce sighed, as if put upon. “Oh, all right. I guess I can tell you about the brave princess and her pale knight one more time. But, tomorrow night it’s Cinderella for you, missy.”

Buffy nodded vigorously, excited to have gotten her way. “Story time! Story time!”

“Okay, okay. Get under your covers and I’ll tell you the story.”

Obediently getting under her purple duvet, with yellow moons and stars embroidered on it, the six-year-old wiggled around, sighing in contentment when she was satisfied with her position.

Her mother retook her seat on the side of the bed, leaning over to give Buffy a peck on the tip of her nose, getting a giggle in response.

“Let’s see…” Joyce stared down at Buffy, pretending to be deep in thought.

“I’m just…having some trouble remembering how it goes. It’s almost been a whole twenty-four hours since I last told it, after all.” She pondered silently for a moment, and then abruptly looked up, a light bulb practically materializing above her head. “I know! Why don’t you tell the beginning and then I’ll take over once I remember.”

Joyce said this knowing full well that her daughter’s passionate nature would come forth and that the little girl would end up taking over telling the entire story.

Buffy nodded her ascent eagerly, a bright, dimpled smile gracing her features. Then, she immediately launched into her favorite, and most well known, story.

“Once upon a time, in a far away land…lived the beautifullest princess in the whole world. But this princess was not like any other. No! She was special. She didn’t live in a castle or- or a cottage in the forest…she lived in Suburbia!” Buffy said this last part with awe, her young mind not understanding the real, dull sense of the word. “And this Suburbia was known as one of the sunniest places ever…maybe even in existence.”

Joyce raised her eyebrows at Buffy’s sharp memory and the dramatic flare with which she told the story.

“And the princess loved the sun!” Buffy broke her narrator persona and added as an aside, “I like it when it’s sunny too, Mommy.” And then jumped back in, as only a child’s inattentive mind could. “So the princess would play in the sun all day and go home as the, um…ducks-“

“Dusk, honey.”

“As the dusk came to take the day away.”

The blonde child pushed herself up on her elbows to better lean into her mother. In a conspiratorial stage whisper, Buffy hedged on, “Because Suburbia had a bad, bad secret.”

She reached up and cupped both sides of her mother’s face, her eyes wide and luminous. Joyce couldn’t stop the affectionate grin from taking over her face and Buffy gently shook her mother’s head from side to side with her child-sized hands. “No, it’s not funny. It’s the opposable-“

“Opposite.”

“It’s the opposite… After the sun went down each night in Suburbia, the princess and everybody else had to go inside and be bored.

Off of her mother’s questioning look, Buffy explained, “’Cause there’s nuthin’ to do in the house ‘cept play board games.”

“Ah.”

“But the princess couldn’t stand playing stinky board games all the time, so she went outside during the night…and it was like a whole new world!”

Buffy let go of Joyce’s face and lay back on her pillow, a quizzical look creasing her fair brow. “But not like in Aladdin…there weren’t any genies and magic carpets… There were.” Here she gave a dramatic pause. “Monsters.”

Joyce gave an appropriate gasp.

“They had big, pointy teeth and yellow eyes.”

“Like the Big Bad Wolf?” Joyce asked fearfully.

Buffy, who was now fully immersed in her narrative role, gave her mother an ominous look. “No—worse. They were…vampires.”

“Oh, how dreadful! What happened to the princess?”

“Well, the princess was brave and wasn’t going to be scared by the vampires, so she went out to the park and danced under the stars and moon…after swinging on the swing-set, because it was her favorite.”

Joyce nodded as if this was common knowledge.

“So the princess was dancing under the moon, wondering if it was really made out of cheese, when a huge group of vampires jumped out at her and started being really mean!”

“Oh, poor princess, what did she do?”

“Nothing! Are you kidding me?! Vampires are big meanies with cooties! That’s why they wear red lipstick and slobber it all over your neck!”

“So, are you saying she got slobbered on?”

Buffy sighed in exasperation. “No, Mommy, the pale knight comes to save her before that, ‘member?”

“Oh yes, I’m sorry, honey, please continue.”

“Okay…so one of the vampires grabs her by her pink princess dress and is about to slobber red lipstick all over her neck; so she screams, ‘HELP! HELP!’”

Joyce winced at Buffy’s shrill volume.

“And the pale knight comes to her rescue! He played a game of pick-up-sticks with the vampires and he won—so they went POOF! And they all disappeared like magic.”

Joyce sighed in relief and put a hand to her heart. “Oh, good. I was worried about what would happen there, for a minute.”

“The princess was so happy that she didn’t get slobbered on, that she asked the pale knight if he would like to join her to dance. And he said yes; because the brave princess was the most beautifullest thing he had ever seen.”

“Did they live happily ever after, sweetie?” It was asked out of propriety; Joyce already knew the answer was yes.

Buffy breathed in a huge gulp of air, ready to explain, when she suddenly stopped. She seemed to deflate before Joyce’s eyes, her green eyes dimming as they flickered in fresh pain.

“No.”

“No?” Joyce asked, concerned, hoping Buffy wouldn’t have yet another relapse

The six-year-old shook her head from side to side, a solemn look that was much too mature, marring her youthful features.

“Buffy? Why didn’t they live happily ever after? What went wrong?” Joyce winced inwardly at her own words, knowing they had hit far too close to home.

The little girl snuggled into her covers, closing herself off.

“The pale knight was different from the brave princess. He could never go out and play in the sunshine with her. So he left her.”

“Buff-“

“I’m sleepy, Mommy. Goodnight.”

“Wait, sweetie-“

“Can you please turn off the light? Mr. Gordo can’t sleep with it on.”

Joyce's shoulders slumped in defeat, and then she stood. She was halfway to the light switch when she heard her child’s teary voice.

“Why did Daddy leave?”

Joyce turned back around and quickly strode over to the now bereft little girl.

“It’s…complicated, honey.”

Buffy was not content with this vague, adult response that she kept getting every time she asked. Joyce continued, before she could interrupt.

“But know that he will always love you, no matter what. We both do. You’re our little angel.”

Buffy, still not soothed by her mother’s explanation, burrowed deeper into her covers and murmured, “G’night Mommy.”

Joyce lent over to brush a kiss on Buffy’s forehead—the only part of her face still visible above the blanket. After not receiving a sweet, sloppy kiss on her cheek, as was their nightly ritual, Joyce gave one last sad, lingering look to her daughter before leaving the room. Joyce’s ‘I love you, Buffy’ was a low, reverent whisper, left unheard by the grieving young girl.

..::~*~::..

“Oh. My God. What. A. Freak.”

High pitched, hyena-like cackles and a few “you’re so bad’s” carried throughout the cafeteria.

Sitting at the next table, seventeen-year-old Buffy Summers knew the laughing girls were intentionally drawing everyone’s attention in a practiced exercise to further humiliate whoever their victim of the day was. She hunched her shoulders, wanting to remain out of their radar.

Someone shushed the first speaker. “Gawd, Christine that is so harsh of you. Her mom just, like, died a few months ago.”

Buffy’s breath caught in her throat. They were talking about her. She listened on, even though she knew nothing good could come of it.

The table behind her went unbearably quiet, and she just knew that everybody was glaring at the girl who dared to accuse ‘Pristine Christine’ of insensitivity. In an attempt to save her status, the Barbie clone stuttered, “B-but I mean—I t-totally get what you’re saying, Christine. She is such a freak.”

Seemingly satisfied by the girl’s simpering, Christine continued. “Of course I feel bad that her mom died but come on people! There is, without a doubt, something seriously wrong with her. She totally flipped a one-eighty from sane to,” Christine stopped to think of a word. “…not sane.”

“I know,” a new voice answered. “The way she just…keeps to herself all the time…never talking to anybody. It’s just weird.”

“And her hair. Oh my gawd, she really needs to get a clue. She’s got almost a whole two inches of root showing. It’s called touch-up, hun,” some other unknown voice piped in.

Another smattering of guileless laughter followed, while Buffy’s right hand unintentionally strayed up to her hair.

“And those clothes! Please tell me you’ve noticed those clothes. I realize that it’s appropriate to wear dark clothing during the mourning period—but there is just a point when enough is enough,” said the girl who had gotten on Christine’s bad side. Clearly, she was making up for her blunder.

Buffy listened on as the group behind her continued to discuss her rail-thin frame and make-up free face. Staring sightlessly at her food, Buffy clenched her fists in her lap.

It was Christine’s next gleeful statement that made her see red.

“I heard that she was so inconsolable after it happened, that her absentee father had to dump her in a clinic where she sat in a padded room for like a month. No doubt he just wanted some time alone with his latest flavor of the week and couldn’t be bothered with some teenaged nutcase.”

Without thinking, Buffy launched herself out of her chair, bearing down on the gaggle of heartless girls in fury. Before she knew what she was doing, she found herself staring down at Christine, who lay sprawled on the floor. Christine’s ice blue eyes were wide in stunned shock and one manicured hand was dabbing at her busted lip.

“You…bitch.”

Buffy stared icily at the angry teenager. “If I’m a bitch…what the hell does that make you? Lucifer?”

Christine gawked for a few seconds, unable to think of anything cruel enough to say. “You… You are…so- You’re just an antisocial freak!” Gaining her wits about her, Christine stood up and smoothed her clothing back into place, ending with a flip of her platinum blonde hair. “Where’d you learn your people skills, Buffy? Charles Manson?”

Buffy snorted. “Funny…I was just about to ask you the same thing.”

Christine opened her mouth to retort when Buffy cut her off.

“You know? You’re the biggest hypocrite I have ever met. You prance around here acting like you’re the second coming, with your nose high in the air and treating everyone around you like shit, victimizing innocent bystanders that haven’t done a single thing to deserve it. Yet you have the nerve to tell me I’m a social delinquent? Everyone hates you!” Buffy stopped to catch her breath, while a spark of feeling resonated throughout her being for the first time since her mother’s death. “They may not say it openly, but every time you say a hateful word you gain an enemy.” Buffy gave a cold smile, aiming for cutting. “In fact, if you keep up the great pace, I’m sure the entire student body should loath you by senior year.”

Christine’s eyes darted around the room. Everywhere, she could see the silent faces of her peers, looking at her as if she were a once precious jewel that, now, when looked at under closer scrutiny, was really nothing more than an insignificant fragment of colored glass.

She could not let that happen.

Wiping again at her bleeding mouth, she managed a pained smile when her saw the fast moving campus supervisors making their way through the crowd of students. Christine knew that Buffy couldn’t see the supervisors coming because her back was turned to them.

“…You should be thankful that I knocked you on your ass. Your humungous ego would have managed it sooner of later… And you know what they say, the fatter your head the harder you fal-“

Buffy stiffened when Christine suddenly burst into unpleasantly loud sobs.

She didn’t think she could penetrate Christine’s conscience that easily…

Suddenly, she was slammed down into the table from behind, her arms restrained behind her back while an authoritative voice spoke into a static-filled walkie-talkie, “Yeah, we’re gonna need the campus police here. Looks like a cat fight. Got a girl crying with a split lip and the other girl still going off on her.”

Ohhh, this is so not of the good, was the only coherent thought Buffy could manage before she was escorted by the campus police to the principal’s office.

..::~*~::..

“Expelled. You managed to get expelled in your first week back at school from your reprieve.” Hank Summers repeated for the umpteenth time. “God, Buffy, I just-“ He sighed and raised his hands to rub at his temples. “I don’t know what to do with you. This is just…too much.”

Buffy kept her eyes in her lap, clasping and unclasping her hands.

If there was one thing that Buffy could compliment Christine Bennett on, it was her acting abilities. Her little help-me-that-freaky-quiet-girl-verbally-and-physically-assaulted-me-for-no-reason! performance worked like a charm on the principal. The next thing she knew, she had been tossed out of school like yesterday’s computer club fliers and told that she wouldn’t—under any circumstances—be allowed on the Hemery High School’s premises ever again.

Of course, it hadn’t helped that none of the witnesses could attest to hearing Christine or any of her cronies directly say Buffy’s name—so Buffy had had no evidence to suggest that Christine had been specifically provoking her.

Damn technicalities, Buffy thought irritably.

“I just don’t feel that anything is getting through to you. I don’t know how to.” Hank struggled with his next words, as if saying them would solidify his status as an unfit parent. “I don’t know how to help you. I don’t know what it is that you need. The therapy didn’t work…and the time off from school…and then when I thought that maybe all you needed was to go back to school, to get back into the swing of things, that didn’t work either.”

Buffy looked up from her hands, feelings of family loyalty bubbling up to make her say, “I-I’m sure it would’ve worked. I just- Christine said some things that- I just snapped. She made me so…angry. I couldn’t,” Unable to get the correct verbiage, she looked back down to her hands, “I couldn’t control it.”

Hank sighed again, this time rubbing at the bald spot on the back of his head that was ever-increasing—much to his dismay. “I think that maybe what you need is to get out of the city.” Buffy’s head whipped up at this. “That L.A. may not be the best place for you right now.”

Now that Buffy was giving him her full attention, he faltered, looking down as he continued so he wouldn’t lose his nerve. “I’ve talked with your Great Aunt Agatha. And I think—well, we think—that it would be in your best interest if I moved you down to Sunnydale to live with her.”

The room grew quiet, and the only sound that could be heard was the gurgling water of Hank’s expensive plug-in rock fountain. Which was situated on his expensive entertainment system. In his expensive penthouse apartment. Which was filled with tacky, yet expensive, things that every bachelor going through his mid-life-crisis could possibly need.

Great Aunt Agatha. Sunnydale. Buffy tried to remember ever having met a Great Aunt Agatha from Sunnydale, but couldn’t for the life of her summon up the image of any such woman.

The name rang a bell. She remembered her mom having mentioned an ‘Aunt Aggie’ every once in a great while. So that meant she was from her mother’s side of the family.

Buffy let out a disbelieving breath as a vague memory began to surface of the one time she had met this Great Aunt Agatha.

It was at her mother’s funeral service—which was probably why Buffy barely remembered her—she didn’t remember much about the actual funeral. It had been so…unreal. But she did remember that a hellish, old woman had been set against burying Joyce in L.A.. She’d said that ‘Joyce’s rightful resting place is in Restfield Cemetery.’ In Sunnydale.

At the time it had been enough to snap Buffy out of her daze to witness an unusual looking man with attention-getting bleach blond hair and a long black leather coat—like the ones from The Matrix—escort the distraught old woman out of the line of fire that she had created and into a seat to watch the proceeding service.

Her attention on them had been brief at best and she could not rectify any discerning facial features of the old woman. She just remembered that this Great Aunt Agatha was…well, old…and stout.

But when Buffy had been in a better state of mind—about a month after her mother’s passing, when she had finally gotten past her denial that it was all just some horrendous nightmare, or a really sick, not-funny-in-the-least-practical-joke—she had briefly wondered about the woman. Well, really about the woman’s conviction.

Why had she wanted to take her mother’s body to some ho-dunk town that Joyce herself had never mentioned before?

Buffy’s mom had never seemed to want to talk about her past or the place where she had grown up. In fact, if Buffy wasn’t mistaken, Sunnydale had always seemed like a sore spot for Joyce. Buffy had never had the heart to push her mom for the information.

So if this old woman named Great Aunt Agatha, and this town called Sunnydale, had made her mother feel ill-at-ease…then she wanted nothing whatsoever to do with them.

Her father had other ideas it seemed.

“It could be just what you need. A small, wholesome town. Away from all of the smog and traffic and hoodlums. Don’t you think so?”

Buffy blinked at Hank. He sounded like a door-to-door salesman – insincere and desperate.

“Um, no… I’m thinking it’s not. What I need, that is. I haven’t even really met the woman. You can’t really expect me to move in with her.”

Buffy made sure to keep eye contact with Hank. She’d learned that when dealing with her father, intimidation tactics were most successful. He looked uncomfortable, like he knew that a confrontation would be inevitable, but had been hoping that he wouldn’t have to deal with it.

Wouldn’t have to deal with it.

Couldn’t be bothered.

A flash of Christine’s cruel words came unbidden to her mind.

“…No doubt he just wanted some time alone with his latest flavor of the week and couldn’t be bothered with some teenaged nutcase.”

Those words had been the catalyst that had set Buffy off. And they had set her off because she was so afraid that they might be true.

Buffy looked down at her lap again. Blocking out Hank’s response, she closed herself off. Just as she had learned, ironically, to do at the age of six because of this man. There, in the quiet place inside, she silently made up her mind.

She would let this man, whom she no longer thought of as her father, take her to Sunnydale. She’d check the place out, meet the old bitty, and then take the money that she had been hoarding since the age of ten and go out and make it on her own.

“Okay, Dad.” She suddenly found she had to force herself to address him as such.

Hank blinked. “What?”

She hesitated for a second, and then forced herself to answer with a bright, sunny smile. “I’ll move in with Great Aunt Agatha.”

Hank cocked his head back in surprise. “Oh, well, okay. Um, I’ll just…go call her and let her know that you said yes.”

He gave her a reassuring smile—that for the most part just looked like good ol’ plain relief—and she in return gave him a shooing motion that really meant ‘You go right on ahead and do that, you self-serving bastard.’

When Hank was out of the room, Buffy dropped the smile and slumped into the leather sofa.

“Sunnydale… Home sweet home?” She gave a disbelieving snort. “Yeah, right.”

TBC