The many what if’s we never get to see? (AU)

As her daemon fell to the floor, everything seemed to slow down. Falling on her knees, she wrapped her arms around him, her hands shaking as she was trying to hold his open wounded chest closed, but the blood loss didn't matter when it was the artefact that was missing. "Shh, shh," she tried hushing her daemon as he spoke his last words, her eyes filled with tears as he drew in his last breath. And that was wen the world lost all of its color. Buffy was just holding Baal, her tears running down her cheeks as she was sobbing. The zealots were yelling all around, but all she heard was static. When the artifact crumbled, it was as if there was a change in the former fenix. She stopped sobbing, letting go of her loved, placing a last kiss against his forehead before standing up. Her eyes started glowing, turning to face the son with the blood of his father on his hands.
"The sins of the father becomes the sins of his offspring," her voice rang, lifting her hand up, palm towards the young pureblood. A dark light spread from her palm, slithering across the room as if they were snakes out to hunt. The room went dark, only Buffy lighting up as the zealots started chanting, some crying out in fear of what they saw. She looked godly, but not in a beautiful way. Her skin was tearing, light spewing from every crack and as the dark lighted tentacles reached the pureblood they grabbed a hold of his ankles. The light would be excruciatingly painful.

"Amos," Saoirse whispered, her body weak as she felt the infection spreading within her faster than ever. She looked at her father before hurrying over to her brother, grabbing his hand in an attempt to pull him away with her. She was dying, she knew she was, but she would be damned if anything happened to him too. "You need to move," she pleaded, but it was too late as her mother had gripped the daemon by his feet.
Shaking the trybrid turned to look at her mother, but she wasn't her mother anymore. She was consumed by some otherworldly light and it was pure destruction. "Mommy, let him go," she tried pleading, but the former fenix did not even blink.

Saoirse was crying as he held her close. This was it, wasn't it? It was the last time she would feel his arms around her and she wouldn't even have a next life. Looking up at him, she felt her body turn weaker, but she refused to look away. "Ahuvi," she managed to whisper before she felt how gravity seemed to get a bigger hold of her. Her mother wasn't stopping, and she guessed that whatever had been left of her mother at that point was gone. "Ahu-" but she never got to finish saying it again, her eyes turning blank and empty as her heart stopped beating. The darkness having infested her too deeply, and it was no longer able to fight it. She would never get a real chance at a life, she would always be the result of a sad love story that ended before it truly began.

Buffy was no more, a new entity had taken over the shell of a body that was left. She didn't even blink as the trybrid died, no she was focused on draining the pureblood and making him suffer. She had been so busy that she hadn't even noticed people enter the room. Alyssa stood there, weak but ready to fight. She saw her son still clutching on to his sister, and without hesitation she threw herself at Buffy. The former fenix and empusa fought for a while before both collapsed. Alyssa had managed to kill the light, but the cost was severe; Buffy's body was deteriorating at a fast rate, the light incinerating the empusa on the spot as she got one last look at her son before she vanished in to the beyond.

Saoirse had left the mortal life behind, but she was not sure where she was. It wasn't before a familiar voice spoke to her that she felt herself wake up. Taking his hand she got to her feet, looking at her father. It really was her father now, wasn't it? She felt her eyes well up, feeling his arms around her as he finally held her close. She was sobbing, crying about everything that had happened, but the worst part was yet to come.
Maybe she had stood there for eternity, crying in to her father's chest and feeling him squeeze her like he always did when she felt sad. But somehow she started to calm down, her body - or whatever this was - shaking slightly. "I left him behind ... I promised I wouldn't," she whimpered, pulling her face away from her father's chest to look up at him. "Where are we?"

She looked confused as the mirror appeared, blinking as she saw Amos. He was badly hurt, still hugging her body close as he was crying in to her hair. "I can't watch him this way," she whispered, placing a hand on the mirror, but she couldn't even go through to soothe him. What good was it to be here when they could do nothing but watch the ones they had left behind. Her father had one mirror, but she had too and her other eyes glanced at the one where she saw Connor. He was barely batting an eye, even though she knew he would've felt the pain of her death. He was laying on some fancy couch with his head in someone's lap and ... She choose to look away, focus on Amos. "Mother died," she said, but she wasn't sure if what had died was even her mother. "She was strange after you died ... She wasn't her anymore." Saoirse didn't know if there was even an answer to all of this.

"Will he be happy again?" she asked, this time more hopeful. Amos deserved so much more than what they had been able to have, but she also felt jealous that she wouldn't get to be there with him. At least she could watch him, like her father had explained, but it still felt strange.
She knew the topic of her mother wasn't a pleasant one, but could she really hold something like this against her when it hadn't even been her? "Mom's strong and smart ... She can't be gone for real," she just muttered. No, she had experienced enough of her mother to know that she would come back one way or another. Turning her gaze back to the mirror of Amos, she just wished she could skip ahead, see him smile once more. "I know you thought what me and Amos had was weird, but we really did love each other," she said, thinking back to what he had said after everything with the summoner dying. How he had said he wanted to marry her, let them have a chance at life together.
One day a bright light emitted from Baal's mirror, and Buffy appeared once more. Her body was relatively normal, but still not a fenix. "Mom's back!" she yelled for her father, knowing he had given up on looking at the empty mirror a long time ago.

"I guess we'll see, but it is what I would have wanted for Buffy," he said, but it felt weird to talk about Buffy. Not when he didnt know what had happened to her and felt like he would never know. He just looked around the looking glass, unsure what it was he was looking for even if it was obvious. "I didnt think it was weird in the end. I believe I had accepted it, or rather the artifact had twisted my mind into not caring as much about it as my old self would have. But as your father, I only ever wanted you to be happy," he explained, sending her a small smile as he reached over to move some hair off her face. She looked so much like Buffy to him, but it was not making him sad.
He had been sitting in his own thoughts by the time Saoirse started yelling. He frowned a little and turned his head back to her, before he carefully got up and went to look. "Oh," he said a little surprised as he realized she was right. He carefully reached out to the mirror, knowing that touching it was pointless.

"Where did she go?" she mumbled quite surprised. She had been watching Amos' mirror every day, and for every week he at least seemed to be doing alright. Or perhaps rather surviving. She wasn't sure as he rarely spoke to anyone. Sometimes when he was sleeping she would sit by the mirror, tell him things that she knew he couldn't hear, but she hoped he did. She encouraged him to find love, to find happiness and perhaps even smile again. She told him how she missed him, how every day it was hard to just be and not have him to call on. She told him about Connor and what she had seen him be up to, although she didn't check in on him often, she did like to see her aunt once in a while.
"The world seems so scary," she noted as she looked at Buffy in her father's mirror. It was as if a veil had been drawn over the sky, the sun never really shining and it seemed as though the portal to the Abyssus was even more unstable. Perhaps even on the brink of collapsing.

Seeing her father pace back and forth wasn't something she had seen before, but she seemed to snap out of it and think it through at she looked at the reflection. "Well ... Uhm ... You had the other piece, but when Amos took it out, it crumbled," she said, going through the events she could remember. She shook her head, maybe she was being silly. "Maybe she doesn't remember? I mean, if half of her - you - is gone, then ... Then I guess anyone would be confused, right?" she tried to reason. It wasn't too bad of an idea, as looking at Buffy it was clear she didn't recognize much of what was going on. "Is there really nothing we can do to help her?"

Saoirse frowned as she just looked at her mother. It was clear the world was in a much worse state than where they had left it. She turned her gaze to look at Amos, touching the mirror gently. "You have a thought, father, tell me what it is," she finally said, because the silence was killing her. She could almost hear how the cogs in his mind were turning, but it was clear that he had at least thought of something. She looked at him, wanting to know everything. "If there's something we can do to help, then we should do it," she insisted.

Sitting down she wasn't sure what she was about to hear, but what he said next wasn't what she had expected. They could leave? She didn't really understand, but she listened. However the mention of her body being kept safe by Amos was rather surprising. She hadn't seen where it had gone, so ultimately she believed it was just decaying in the ground somewhere. He explained what the plan could be and she looked down. "But father ... That would mean that you..?" she said, but not really daring to say what would happen. If he couldn't come back here, then where would he go? And what if she failed? "What about mother? What good can I do?" she asked.

She felt her eyes well up a bit as he spelled it out for her. While Saoirse was not slow to understand, she often forgot what her parents saw in her every day. Perhaps it was just how it was always going to be. "But a lost soul ... Is that really what you want? I mean from here we can at least keep an eye on them," she said, though she knew that just looking at what they could've had would never be enough. Breathing out she stood back up, walking closer to her father and wrapping her arms around him in a warm hug. "If you want me to do this ... Then I'll do it," she promised him. It wasn't so much about her going on some journey, but rather having him go with her part of the way. She would have an end destination and he wouldn't.