Chapter Text
Buffy felt numb as she walked toward Stiles and Lydia. The cut on her hand stung a little.
She wasn't sure why the demon had set out to kill Stiles, but there had been no real fight in it, just an acceptance of death. She thought about power: who had it and who didn't. Why anyone or anything would want to kill Stiles right in front of her and Lydia.
The first Slayer had been given abilities against her will, but she survived for as long as she could. Long enough to produce an heir, who produced more of her own. The Slayer line spread as the world grew. To her. To Faith. To women who never became Slayers at all, and their children.
Like Renee and Stiles.
Buffy thought about a day when she decided to sacrifice herself to save the sister that had never really been hers to begin with. They shared blood, even though it was only through some kind of spell that had created Dawn.
By the time she reached the two high-schoolers, she knew what she had to do. She reached into her pocket with her bleeding hand and pulled the cloth bag out, then loosened the drawstring and shook the crystal out into her palm. The light purple looked darker, stained in her own blood. She knelt down on the other side of Stiles and pressed the crystal against one of the slashes in his skin, refusing to look at his face. She didn't want to see the sightless eyes of someone she hadn't saved in time.
"What are you doing?" Lydia demanded, snapping out of her daze.
"I'm fixing it." Buffy lifted the crystal and turned it over in her hands, then snapped it in half.
The world around her faded.