Chapter 2: The Confession - Part 1
The grandfather clock chimed three times, its deep brass notes echoing through the house like a funeral bell. Joyce hadn't moved from her chair, hadn't broken eye contact with her daughter, and Buffy realized with sinking dread that her mother wasn't going to let this pass. Not tonight. Maybe not ever.
"She knows. God, she knows, and she's going to have me committed or send me away or—" Buffy's thoughts spiraled while she tried to read her mother's expression. Joyce's face revealed nothing, carved from marble and shadows, waiting with the infinite patience of mothers who'd caught their children in lies too big to ignore.
"It's not what it looks like," Buffy began, the words tumbling out before she could stop them. "I mean, it is, but it's not dangerous. Not for you. I can explain everything."
Joyce reached for the journal, flipping it open to a random page. Her voice was steady as she read aloud:
"November 2nd - Close call with a Mohra demon near the docks. Regenerative capabilities exceeded expectations. Note: Bring bigger weapons next time. Also, figure out how to get demon blood out of leather jacket without Mom noticing."
She looked up from the page.
"A Mohra demon, Buffy?"
"It's... it's like a game! Role-playing. You know, like Dungeons and Dragons, except we act it out in real locations for authenticity." The lie tasted like ash in her mouth, but desperation drove her forward. "The weapons are props. Really expensive props, but still fake. And the holy water is just regular water. We're method actors."
Joyce flipped another page.
"October 28th - Vampire nest in the warehouse district. Seven hostiles, all eliminated. Jenny Calendar helped with research on pack hunting behaviors. Giles insists we're dealing with a new bloodline, possibly connected to the Master's expanding influence."
She fixed Buffy with a stare that could have melted steel.
"Method acting. In abandoned warehouses. At 3 AM. With people I've never met."
"The drama club is really committed," Buffy said weakly. "We're preparing for a big production. Regional competition. Very hush-hush because other schools might steal our ideas."
"Buffy Anne Summers." Joyce's voice dropped to the tone she'd used when Buffy was seven and had been caught lying about breaking the neighbor's window. "You're describing our town like a war zone. These aren't metaphors about high school social dynamics. And this?"
She held up the wooden stake, its sharpened tip catching the lamplight.
"This is a weapon. A real weapon, designed to kill. Stop lying to me and tell me what's happening to my daughter."
"She's not buying any of it." Panic clawed at Buffy's chest. "Think, Summers. There has to be something she'll believe. Anything that isn't the truth."
"Okay, fine. It's not drama club. It's... it's a cult thing. But not a bad cult! A good cult. Anti-cult cult. We pretend to be in a vampire cult to infiltrate real vampire cults and expose them to the authorities. Like undercover work. For my college applications. Community service with a law enforcement angle."
Joyce stared at her daughter, and Buffy watched something shift in her mother's expression. Not acceptance—something harder. Disappointment.
"Buffy, I have been patient. I have been understanding. I moved us to a new town after Los Angeles, started over in a place where nobody knew about the fire or the expulsion or any of the other chaos that followed us here. I gave you space to heal, to find yourself, to become whatever you needed to become."
Joyce's voice never rose above conversational level, but each word hit like a physical blow.
"But I will not sit in my living room at three in the morning listening to my daughter lie to my face about weapons and violence and activities that could get her killed. You are sixteen years old. You are my child. And you will tell me the truth. Now."
The careful control in her mother's voice broke something inside Buffy. All the months of secrecy, of carrying this burden alone, of watching her mother worry and wonder why her daughter had changed—it crashed over her like a wave. Tears she'd been holding back for half a year finally spilled over.
"I'm the Slayer, Mom." The words came out broken, desperate. "I was chosen. I'm the only one. I have to fight them."
"Fight who?" Joyce leaned forward, the journal forgotten in her lap.
"Vampires. Demons. Things that hunt people in the dark. I'm the only thing standing between Sunnydale and—" Buffy's voice cracked. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I couldn't tell you. I wanted to, every single day, but Giles said parents make it worse, make it complicated, and I was so scared you'd think I was crazy or try to stop me or—"
"Buffy, stop." Joyce raised a hand. "Slow down. Start from the beginning. Who is Giles?"
"My Watcher. My trainer. The man who's been teaching me to fight monsters while you thought I was in remedial math."
"He's my... advisor. For this whole thing. And before you ask, yes, the vampires are real, and yes, I have superpowers, and no, I didn't choose this life. It chose me. The night we moved here, I was called. That's what they call it. Called to be the Slayer."
Buffy shrugged out of her leather jacket, wincing as the torn shoulder caught her injury. Joyce gasped at the sight of her daughter's arms—a constellation of bruises in various stages of healing, from fresh purple blooms to faded yellow shadows.
"This is what fighting monsters looks like, Mom. Every night. Sometimes twice a night if things get really bad. And I heal fast—faster than normal people—but not fast enough to hide everything."
Joyce stared at the evidence written across her daughter's skin. These weren't the marks of clumsiness or teenage roughhousing. They were battle scars, precise and purposeful, the kind inflicted by something that meant to do serious harm.
"My baby has been going to war every night while I slept upstairs, oblivious."
The rational part of Joyce's mind screamed that this was impossible. Vampires were movie monsters. Demons existed in folklore and horror novels. Her daughter was either having a psychotic break or had fallen victim to some elaborate criminal organization that convinced children they were fighting supernatural evil.
But the mother in her, the part that had worried for months about Buffy's changes, looked at her daughter and saw truth. The hypervigilance, the way Buffy scanned every room for exits, how she'd flinched at loud noises and unexpected movements. The injuries she'd explained as sports accidents or simple clumsiness. The exhaustion that no amount of teenage sleep could cure.
"The fire in LA," Joyce whispered. "You were fighting... one of them?"
Buffy nodded miserably.
"My first vampire. I burned down the gym trying to stop him and his friends from killing the students at the Spring Fling. That's why I got expelled. Hard to explain that you were saving people when nobody believes monsters are real."
Joyce felt the ground shift beneath everything she thought she knew about reality. Her daughter wasn't describing teenage rebellion or elaborate fantasy. She was confessing to a war Joyce had never known was being fought, a burden no sixteen-year-old should carry alone.
"If this is real—if vampires and demons actually exist—then my daughter has been protecting not just herself but everyone in this town. While I worried about her grades and her social life."
She studied Buffy's face in the lamplight, searching for signs of delusion or deception. Instead, she saw exhaustion that went bone-deep, responsibility that had aged her daughter years beyond her chronological age, and an isolation that made Joyce's heart ache. This wasn't the expression of someone lost in fantasy. This was the look of a soldier who'd been fighting a war nobody else could see.
"You should call a psychiatrist," Buffy said quietly. "Or the police. Or both. That's what any sane parent would do. Have me evaluated, maybe committed somewhere safe where I can't hurt myself or anyone else with these crazy stories about monsters."
Joyce considered her daughter's words, then looked down at the journal in her lap. Page after page of meticulous records, detailed observations, tactical notes written in the careful hand of someone documenting reality, not fantasy. The weapons spread across her coffee table weren't toys or props—they were tools, worn smooth by use.
"I don't fully believe yet. I can't. But I can't quite disbelieve either. Not when I look at her and see a warrior wearing my little girl's face."
Joyce stood abruptly, and Buffy flinched as if expecting a blow.
"I need..." Joyce's voice trembled for the first time all night. "I need you to stay here. We'll continue this after I've had coffee and you've slept."
Her tone was carefully controlled, but Buffy heard something underneath that might have been either acceptance or the calm before a storm. Her mother could be planning to call doctors or authorities, could be processing the confession as either truth or the ravings of a disturbed teenager.
Buffy pulled her knees up to her chest, making herself small on the couch, surrounded by the evidence of her secret life spread across the coffee table like an accusation. Whatever her mother decided, whatever happened next, the lies were finally over. For better or worse, the truth was out.
Joyce disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Buffy alone with the weapons and the journal and the terrible uncertainty of not knowing whether she'd just saved or destroyed the most important relationship in her life.
Note:
Please give good reviews and power stones itrings more people and more people means more chapters?
My Patreon is all about exploring 'What If' timelines, and you can get instant access to chapters far ahead of the public release.
Choose your journey:
Timeline Viewer ($6): Get 10 chapters of early access + 5 new chapters weekly.
Timeline Explorer ($9): Jump 15-20 chapters ahead of everyone.
Timeline Keeper ($15): Get Instant Access to chapters the moment I finish writing them. No more waiting.
Read the raw, unfiltered story as it unfolds. Your support makes this possible!
👉 Find it all at patreon.com/Whatif0