Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Authors Note; Just a quick inspiration that I needed to get out of my system.

She tucked and rolled as she hit the ground, sheathing her weapon and cracking her back, while keeping one eye out on her surroundings.

She couldn't believe she was actually here.

There was a certain smell in the air, one she'd recognize anywhere. She'd never thought of Sunnydale as having any kind of particular scent, but now that she was back after so long it was almost overwhelming in its potency.

Carrying the famous red scythe on her back, covered as best as possible by her brown leather duster, she felt more confident than ever; as she usually did with this weapon around. She still remembered the first time she had to hand it over to Faith; it had not felt right, though she had kept that to herself.

It didn't take her long to figure out exactly where she was - mere two blocks from the Magic Box - though it would take a little while longer to find out when she was. The only assurance she had now was that it was before the town was destroyed in 2003 and that wasn't saying much.

For all she knew, it was before her and her mother had even moved here.

Let's hope not, though.

She moved silently through the shadows, thankful for the darkness of the night, like a blanket over her presence. It wasn't long until she made it to the still-intact high school, which gave her a little more knowledge, though not much. There really was only one choice left.

Revello Drive stared at her with invisible glowing eyes, her mind remembering all that had happened in this home she had lived such a small part of her life in, and yet so big.

Pushing away the tears she made her way down to number 1630.

The lights were on and she slipped closer to look in through the large picture window that led into the living room. Her sigh of obvious relief was relatively silent, when she spotted herself and her mother sitting on the couch.

Though that still didn't tell her when it was.

Until she saw the cupcake with a candle in it, sitting on the table in front of the two women.

My seventeenth birthday.

Shaking her head at returning to such a busy and emotional time, she brushed it all away and carried on with why she was here. Not only was there no time to think about it, but it was also something she had long since moved past.

She was over it; over Angel, more specifically.

She stood up and pressed her body against the side of the house, peering in through the window at her younger self who sat and watched movies with her mother, trying not to break down in tears. Successfully keeping herself from rolling her eyes, she stuck her hand in her pocket and closed it around what lay inside.

Bringing the clover powder out, she concentrated her mind, kept her eyes locked on the other her, and then blew the handful in that direction. It passed through the window and instantly entered Buffy through her nostrils and mouth; she never noticed a thing.

The older Slayer then focused on exactly what she wanted the powder to do.

It was called Erulescent Emerald and had only one, powerful effect; to cause the person under its spell to think of one thing, and only one thing. With Willow's help, they had managed to somewhat alter it, turn it into dreams instead of thoughts and then geared it towards the caster, in this case Buffy.

Basically, what that meant, was that Buffy could control what dreams the spellbound person would have. In the case of the girl on the other side of the window, she made sure that from now on until the day she admitted how she felt, this Buffy would have nothing but dreams of her soulmate.

Spike.

Some of the dreams would be this older Buffy's memories, some would be fantasies she'd had since his death in the Hellmouth; all of them would be more than enough to get the girl away from thoughts of Angel and back to where they should be.

Or so she hoped.

Knowing the task was done, she stepped away from the window and moved back into the shadows.

She still had work to do.

The fact that it was past midnight, but long before dawn, meant that the factory was full of so-called life as well. From what she could tell, Angelus and Drusilla were out feeding, leaving most if not all of the minions behind.

And the one she sought.

Walking around the side of the building, she tracked down the correct room from both memory and her Slayer senses. There were no windows, so she had to rely only on what she felt. Once she was sure that he was actually there, she centered herself, brought out the powder and blew.

It took a while, but she finally sensed that it had hit its target and then began the concentrating.

She thought of everything she could, every positive memory she had of her Vampire, from the almost-date when they were tracking the undead, to the heart rendering speech he'd given her in the abondened house, and everything in between.

The only things she left out were things that may leave him with the notion of wanting to stay away from her, such as the beating he took from her outside of the police station and the incident that almost happened in her bathroom.

It may seem unfair to keep him from his own doings, but as none of it had actually happened yet she could convince herself that it was okay to keep him in the dark on some things.

Finally pleased that he had gotten all he possibly could for her, she slipped back into the shadows.

And on to the next one.

As the night wore on, Buffy felt like she had been to every part of Sunnydale and back; thankful that she never ran out of powder.

She went by the Harris home and filled Xander's head with memories of all of the times he had gone behind her back, kicked her from her home, kept secrets, all for her 'own good'.

She went by the Rosenberg home and filled Willow's head with memories of all of the times that she had let the magic get out of control, from the Will Be Done spell to trying to kill all of her friends and ending the world.

She went by Giles' apartment and filled her Watcher's head with memories of his abandonments, both physically and his betrayal with Wood during their last year, not to mention his downward spiral into a mirror image of Travers after taking over as Head of Council.

She went by the Chase home and filled Cordelia's head with memories, courtesy of both Angel and Charles Gunn, of all of the times where she had been a willing participant in doing actual good, of having compassion for innocent strangers, of fighting evil and just how right that felt.

And finally she returned to her own home, after her younger self had gone to bed, crying herself to sleep no doubt, and caught her mother shutting off the lights in the kitchen. She stared at her, healthy and happy, and then did something that hadn't actually been planned.

She blew powder on her.

Focusing on her own emotional memories, from childhood to adult years, from telling her mother about being the Slayer, to finding her dead on the couch, to how horribly she didn't manage to move on from her death until she herself had died; everything was transmitted to the older woman, for her to dream of when sleep came.

And as quickly and silently as she had arrived, she was gone, back into the night, back to the park... back through the portal.

Leaving only one thing behind.

Hope for the future.

Authors Note; This very short OS brings up a lot of possibilities; feel free to borrow it as a potential prologue for a future fic :D

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