craterdweller

Fandom: BTVS
Title: Thin Ice
Prompt(s): Skating, Leverage, the president
Pairings: Gen
Characters: Joyce Summers, Buffy Summers, Hank Summers
Word Count: 594
Notes: Pre-Series. Joyce tries to help Buffy get interested in skating again. Domestic discord between Hank and Joyce. No violence but there is some implications of blame for Buffy's behavior problems. I don't think it's enough for a trigger warning, but thought I'd mention just to be safe.

Joyce Summers hung up the phone and sighed with relief. Despite her personal issues with her husband, Hank, he came through this time for his daughter. She shook her head. Buffy was such a contradiction. Up until a few months ago she seemed a happy, well-adjusted girl. True, her grades could have been better, but Joyce suspected that was more due to Buffy not applying herself. Buffy could be frighteningly focused sometimes, almost to the point of obsession. Like her figure skating. She’d drag Hank to the ice show every year on her birthday, despite his trying to convince her that she was too old for such things. She’d turn her pout on him and he’d cave. The two would come home with rosy cheeks and armfuls of programs and souvenirs. She’d been competing since she was seven and more than one Olympic scout had attended Buffy’s competitions. But her interest in skating waned about the same time as her good spirits. At first they chalked it up to her sudden interest in boys. But then she started hanging around with the wrong crowd.

Joyce looked up at the ceiling. Buffy was in her room sulking after being suspended for fighting. Again. Her principal had warned Hank that one more incident and they would have no choice but to expel her. Hank had come home furious and Buffy had stormed up to her room crying. When Joyce had suggested he call his friend that was the president of the skating committee, Hank had turned his anger on her. Not physically. Hank never struck her. But his words had stung just as much. He’d all but blamed Joyce, saying that if she had been firmer with Buffy, they wouldn’t be in this position. He’d protested that getting her a tryout with one of his clients was akin to rewarding her for her recent bad behavior. But Joyce had finally convinced him when she’d mentioned that she knew that he hadn’t been working late every night for the last three months. Her marriage was all but over, but maybe, just maybe she could save her daughter. She knocked perfunctually before opening the bedroom door.

“Go away. I told you, I’m not hungry.” Buffy flopped onto her other side so that she was facing away from her mother.

“Buffy, you need to get up and get dressed.”

“Why? I’m grounded for like, ever.”

Joyce blew out a frustrated breath. She loved her daughter but when she got to feeling sorry for herself, she tried Joyce’s patience.

“Your father got you a skating tryout. We have to meet Mr. Sterling at the ice rink at three o’clock.”

“What’s the point? It’s not like you guys are going to let me go to the Olympics anyway. Dad, told me on my last birthday that I was getting too old for such childish dreams.”

Joyce closed her eyes and cursed Hank under her breath. “Well Mr. Sterling is the president of the committee and a client of your father’s firm. If he wasn’t serious about letting you go then he wouldn’t have asked Mr. Sterling to watch you skate.”

Buffy bit her lip and then moved to get her skating outfit from the closet. She held up a red one and a purple one. “Which one?”

“The red, I think.” Joyce turned to leave to allow Buffy some privacy as she dressed but was almost knocked over by her daughter’s exuberant hug.

“Thanks, Mom. For not giving up on me.”

She ruffled Buffy’s hair. “You just knock them dead, pumpkin.”