Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Shadowed Suspicion Chapter 12

[madimpossibledreamer]

Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: Josephine explains a little more and gets a few answers herself.
Word Count: 1247
Rating: K
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS.  READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

 

            Josephine, it seemed, had found herself completely at home in her new environment.  Buffy found her relaxing by a stream in the back, bare feet dangling in the cool water.  She was eating a peach messily, the juice getting all over her face and the clothes she'd borrowed (which she'd chosen after practically burrowing through the Slayer's closet with abandon), but judging by the grin on her face, she didn't really care.  Was she planning on doing the laundry?  Because otherwise, that would be rude.

            "Hey!" she waved energetically enough that she almost fell into the river, but appeared blissfully oblivious to that.  "Buffy, right?"

            The Slayer had been searching for Josephine this entire time, but now that she'd found her suddenly felt at a loss for words.  Weird, because being shy wasn't a trait in her personality.  "That's right."

            Josephine bit into the peach slowly, deliberately.  "So," she drawled, wiping the juice away with the back of her other hand, "...something happened with my son that scared him off.  Something that no one wants to talk about.  Am I right?"

            The goofy smile had lost its ridiculousness, the relaxed eyes sharpened.  The eyelids drooped a little lazily in the sunny summer afternoon, but the mind behind it was sharper than ever. 

            Buffy felt bold again, and sat down beside her.  "Well, I'm not sure exactly what went down, and those who know don't seem to be telling anyone.  Ordinarily I'd just pester Giles until he stopped being all secretive and British..."

            That brought back Josephine's amused grin, as well as a comment of "that's my girl!"  The reaction was somewhat jarring considering that the woman had a British accent too.  Then again, Buffy kept forgetting when she wasn't talking that this was either her homeland or she was very good at accents, since she didn't seem either stuffy or bookish, and the Slayer couldn't imagine her wearing tweed either.

            The Slayer finished her thought: "...but with the way they're acting...they think there's something huge going down, and if they haven't told me about it yet they've decided I don't need to know about it yet, or even that it's better I don't know about it.  There's always the possibility of shapeshifting demons, of course."

            That earned a small squeeze of Josephine's hand, as well as a more wistful smile than she'd given so far.  "It's rare that I run into people with lives as weird as mine.  It's enough to almost make me feel at home again," she explained.  "Though demons are kinda new."

            Buffy blinked a little.  "But...you didn't say anything about the vampire thing..."

            "That's because vampires are old hat."  Josephine finished off the peach and threw the seed into the river, glaring at it as if it was a monster responsible for the agony and deaths of thousands.  "Unfortunately.  Nasty buggers."

            "Maybe it's a Hellmouth thing."  Buffy speculated, getting a shrug in return.  Of course, she'd run into demons elsewhere, but definitely not in the same concentrations.  She could see why someone would miss them elsewhere, if they weren't looking for them.

            "I only vaguely remember that, so I can't really comment," Josephine admitted.

            Buffy found herself staring at the redhead.  "What...does that mean, exactly?"

            One of Josephine's hands clenched involuntarily, though she'd tried to hide it at her side.  "Could be either the spell or the alcohol, or probably both, but my memories of all that are kinda fuzzy.  Of being Jessica Harris, I mean.  Then again, I was an entirely different freaking person, so I shouldn't really be surprised.  I mean, some aspects, like the marriage, are better left unremembered, but still...I missed seeing my son grow up.  That's kind of sad.  Even though I didn't have or want a son when I was twenty.  And maybe I can relate to him better now."  She sighed.  "Ah, well, time spent angsting is time wasted making yourself unnecessarily sad, I say!"

            Buffy sighed, then got slapped over the back of the head.  If she hadn't been a Slayer, that would've really hurt.  "Stop!  Angsting!"

            "Sorry, I..."  she breathed deeply, taking care not to sigh again.  "There...ahm, seems to be some confusion as to whether we were in an alien-body-snatcher Twilight Zone episode."  She didn't feel comfortable saying any more, but luckily Josephine seemed to understand that.

            "I see.  So some pretty wacky things went down, and it's kind of an internal thing."  She smoothly went into the next sentence.  "Did Xander...it feels weird saying that—did he suspect that, or...?"

            "No, he was more obsessed about—"  Buffy stopped midsentence, realizing that she'd almost been tricked into revealing more information.  Well, technically, she had been tricked into revealing something, at least.

            The fiery fighter's jaw clenched, and she couldn't meet the Slayer's eyes.  "Well...I'm glad that there was at least one person who didn't automatically condemn him.  Whatever happened to the benefit of the doubt, I wonder.  Though if they do happen to be right and something thought it would be fun to masquerade as my son..."  The dark grin on her face completed her sentence better than any words could have.  Buffy frowned.  Something was nagging at her.

            "Still, it's probably my fault, anyway."  Buffy frowned and opened her mouth, but before she could even ask Josephine was continuing.  "After the spell got released, suddenly his mother wasn't just a nobody anymore.  I mean, his entire biology just...rearranged, I guess.  Which explains something I was wondering about—is he the son of Jessica, or Josephine?  Given that Jessica gave birth to him, but technically Jessica doesn't even exist, and..."  She caught the oncoming case of crosseyed confusion coming over her listener and stopped.  "I thought maybe I'd show up and have to explain Jessica was never coming back, instead of the much more confusing version I'll have to give him.  Instead, he really is a Joestar, he's really mine, but he's not here.  Not that I'd stop being responsible, but...I just can't articulate it properly!"

            She wasn't Joyce, Buffy thought with a pang.  She genuinely cared, that was obvious.  And maybe Buffy wouldn't react very well if she'd woken up twenty years in the future or thereabouts and realized that she had a grown kid during that time.  But she was also...complicated.  Kind of like Cordelia, only not a snide popular girl.  Cordy was nice to hang out with.  Sometimes.  But Buffy got the same problematic 'I'm not sure how to feel about this person' confused feeling being around Josephine that she got hanging around with 'Queen Cordy'.  The lady wasn't hostile, but she was a woman on a mission, and wasn't above using manipulation to try to achieve her goal.  And it wasn't as if she meant harm—as far as Buffy could tell, all she meant was good, for all of them, but still...the way she was going about it wasn't sitting right.  Then again, most of the situation wasn't sitting right in general.

            Maybe the problem was that she wasn't acting like a mom, just a relative.  They didn't always see eye to eye, but Buffy would like to think she had a special connection with Joyce.

            "Well, I think I should go look for my son tonight.  Fancy looking with me?" Josephine asked, stretching then bouncing to her feet.  Keeping an eye on the woman was a pretty good idea, and the mystery and secrets were beginning to drive Buffy crazy, so she nodded with a smile.