Title: Wishful Thinking
Fandom: BtVS
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Buffy.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 300
Spoilers: Set after Becoming Part 2.
Summary: Buffy wishes she could turn back time and undo her mistakes.
Written For: Challenge 363: Amnesty, using Challenge 7: Do-Over.
Disclaimer: I don’t own BtVS, or the characters.
A/N: Triple drabble.



It’s stupid, and Buffy knows it; time can’t be rewound, or reset. What’s done is done, the past can’t be changed, and yet she can’t help wishing she could go back and do things differently.

Maybe if she hadn’t dawdled on her way to her final confrontation with Angelus she could have fended him off until Willow’s spell worked, or killed him before he woke Acathla, or… No, better to go back a bit further than that, maybe then she could avoid the fight with her mom.

If she’d killed Angelus back at the mall, when she’d had the chance instead of letting him get away… Yeah, that would’ve been better, except Ms Calendar would still be dead, along with so many other people. So maybe if she’d killed him that first night, when he’d come to the school and threatened Willow…

But she’d been too confused then, hadn’t had all the facts, hadn’t truly understood what had happened to Angel. Maybe she should go back further still, to the night when she and Angel had escaped the Judge’s clutches. If she hadn’t slept with him that night, the last few weeks wouldn’t have happened, or at least would’ve happened differently. Right?

Or maybe not. Even if she hadn’t slept with him that night, it was bound to happened at some point, the next week, or the next month… They’d both been ready to take the logical next step in their relationship. Unless, of course, Ms Calendar had succeeded in splitting them up.

If Ms Calendar had just told them the truth from the start, would that have made a difference? Possibly, but Buffy will never know for sure.

Just as well then that turning back time isn’t possible. Maybe changing the past would make things worse instead of better.


The End