TITLE: We'd Have Tea (1/1)
AUTHOR: eva
E-MAIL: lllwickedchildlll@yahoo.com
SUMMARY:Joyce's POV. This story takes place in the future. Enjoy.
SPOILERS: no spoilers in this story
RATING: G
DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters in this story.
FEEDBACK: I enjoy reading feedback so send me some.
NOTES/DEDICATION: This is just a Joyce POV years in the future. And I guess I
dedicate this story to my own mommy whom I love.



______________ ___ __


We'd have tea sometimes.

It was strange. Buffy never had a love for tea before but I guess that's what
age does to a person. I wasn't exactly fond of tea myself when I was young many
years ago. It was too bitter for me. But now I drink it on a regular basis with
my daughter while talking about years that had gone by too quickly, recent news,
the weather... Anything that crossed our minds.

Earlier this evening, she had come for the usual visit we had every day. I'm
serious; never missed one day, not one. I keep track. Anyway, she came over and
we sat down in the worn, fading couch that we sat in everyday and talked,
sometimes over ice cream, or black coffee. But we usually had tea.

My head is completely gray and silver now; I stopped dying my hair a long time
ago, preferring to age gracefully unlike most women who drown themselves in
powder and rouge. I was always different like that. I knew deep wrinkles lined
my elderly face and my hands trembled too much. But that was expected from a
woman as old as me. I knew my back was hunched over a little and my hands were
gnarled from arthritis. I knew this because I can see myself in the mirror
everyday. But Buffy swears up and down that I am as beautiful as the day I
turned twenty. I say the same to Buffy, who doesn't have a reflection, but I
know I am telling the gospel truth. She hasn't changed from the day she turned
twenty, literally. She will always be my little girl, my child, her lovely pale
face forever frozen in time.

On our birthdays, we'd go out and celebrate at a different restaurant every year
and if we found a good one- restaurants, I mean- we'd go there twice. But never
more than two times; it was a rule. We had thought about keeping one restaurant
as a permanent place for our birthday rendezvous, but seeing two women walk into
a restaurant twice a year, one aging while the other did not, well, that would
have roused suspicion.

This year, for my ninety-eighth birthday, she took me to a quaint little
restaurant in France called... Oh, I forgot the name, but it was wonderful. We
laughed and giggled like the young girls we were not. I’d marvel sometimes at
the fact that I can still walk at age ninety-eight. Maybe because of that girl’s
spell. What was her name? Talia? Tammy? Something like that. Age does that to a
mind.

On my birthday, she bought a small chocolate cake, perfect for us because I
didn’t eat much now and Buffy, well, she isn’t particularly fond of solid food.
That day was different from all the days before because we discussed things we
never talked about before. Like her unlife. She confessed how scared she was of
being alone when I’m gone and sobbed softly into my frail shoulder. I had
stroked her golden hair with my gnarled fingers, soothing her with words that
fell from my thin lips. We must have gotten a couple strange looks that day from
other people in the restaurant. But who cares, I’m a mother. And it hurt me to
see my baby cry.

When she calmed, I told her to go find Angel and stay with him; maybe even find
a cure for his curse. Or maybe Spike. He and Buffy had been so close before he
left after Buffy regained her soul with the spell Willow developed, blaming
himself for not protecting her. I’ve always like him. And he’s always loved my
daughter. I told her to forget me and go find them and be happy. She just smiled
at me, innocence combining with the flecks of light in her hazel-green eyes, her
composure fully regained, and told me she had an eternity to find them; forever.
She told me she was happy just being with me. Because our time together will
never compare to eternity.

Of course this made me happy. We both cried. It was a birthday drenched with
tears but filled with euphoria and understanding.

Today, I brought out the sixteen albums I keep in the closet and we laughed and
wept and reminisced over each page. A great majority of the albums are filled
with pictures Buffy had taken of me. I guess she wanted as many memories of me
as possible. We both enjoy looking at the earlier albums more, though.

There are pages full of pictures of her friends, the Scooby Gang as she fondly
recalled. We even have some pictures of Spike even though he had been reluctant
to take them. But Buffy had gotten him to let her take them. She had a way with
Spike that no one could even begin to touch.

There was one picture Buffy especially loves. It was a photograph Giles had
taken of them when they were in high school. Willow, Xander, and Buffy had gone
out to celebrate the defeat of some demon or other and happiness was apparent in
their youthful eyes, void of all the horror that would come later on. It was a
moment of joy and hope and love captured between the clear plastic sheets of a
miscellaneous album. Xander and Willow’s deaths were hard on my baby girl. And
Gile’s death had nearly crushed her. He had been like a father to her. I know
she still misses them even now. But I will not dwell on the past.

When I found out that Buffy was a slayer, that she could die and vanish form my
life at any moment and I’d never see her again, I went ballistic. It was
unacceptable; parents are not supposed to outlive their children. But it was my
fate to. Now the tables are turned and I was going to die before her. A little
part of me, a very minute part, is secretly and selfishly glad that I did not
have to go through the pain of losing my baby girl. But a larger part of me
grieves because she has to feel the pain. And as a mother, my priority is to
protect her from this misery. But I can’t stop nature no matter how hard I try,
no matter how hard I love her. I knew what it feels like to lose a mother. It
was an end of the world, heart and mind shattering experience and I would rather
die then have her face it. How ironic.

And now I lay my gray head on the pillow, tired, old bones creaking like the
springs in my bed, hoping to fall asleep quickly so tomorrow would come faster,
so I could see Buffy again. But I knew full well that I may not live to see
tomorrow, that Buffy might find me lifeless next morning. That the pain might
come earlier then I predicted.

But I also knew that I may live another day, maybe another week, a month, a
year. There was always that chance. And maybe we’d talk again, my Buffy and I;
we’d have tea.

end