( RIPOSTE ][ A Watchergirls Archive )

__Do Not Go Gentle__
By B'cat

“Rupert!” Anita had a solid grip on her lover’s burning face, all her weight on his prone form, and every bit of power that she had focussed on him, but it did not seem to be enough. His churning, thrashing aura was streaked with a cancerous, gangrenous, blackness that was spreading its sickly tentacles faster and faster. She was losing him. Losing him to the power of the Slay, to the Hellmouth and its corruption.  He suddenly bucked up underneath her, roaring something filthy. “RUPERT STOP FIGHTING ME!” She cried out in desperation, struggling to stay atop. If he heard her he did not react to her plea, but instead grabbed at her forearms and slid his hands downward to grab at her wrists, to pull her away.

Oh no you don’t – hear me. Hear me baby, hear me.

Annie had never been shy about her abilities; never shrank from them, or tried to hide their degree, but equally she had never tried to actively seek out their true extent – not like this. Not to attack, not in an effort to enforce her will like the Slayer wielded her sword, her stake. She had never had cause, until now, but now she didn’t know if she had enough left in her to make the attempt. Rupert snarled, and his grip on her wrists suddenly became crushing. She couldn’t hold on for long.

It was now or never.

Always wanted to know how the Slay felt for you Ru. Always wanted you to let me in, let me learn about it. Guess now I’m going to. Forgive me.

Heart hammering in her chest, head light with a fresh burst of adrenaline, Anita found out the hazel eyes she knew so well. Met their wild ferocity without flinching, saw the madness churning in their in their depths, and without hesitation dove in.

Power.

Rage.

Hunger.

It was a whirling frenzy of ecstasy, fury, colour and heat that scalded and tore at her; shredded at her protective shields with an energy, a single minded purpose, that was terrifying. This Thing, this Calling, though it was part of this man that loved her also wanted her dead. Intruder, it spoke to her in its own unique language of heat and rage, intruder; get rid of it, kill it. Slay it. Slay. Slayer. Slayer? Where is my Slayer? WHERE IS SHE? WHERE! The roaring demands pierced her in a thousand places. Sharp slices against her skin, her innards, her soul. In her mind she saw blood, her blood, billowing out in plumes of red; trailing out and into the churning whirlpool. Until all the world was described in shades of scarlet. She heard his laugh, sharply cut like a hyena around a kill. And she screamed.

Oh god, what have I done? RUPERT!

There was no reply, but she felt him all around her: a menacing, circling predator that had suddenly smelled her weakness where poor blinded-Rupert had not. But now, corrupted by the Hellmouth this Watcher had lost his discrimination and weakness was weakness and an easier kill – demon prey or no. He was going to kill, to Slay, and there was nothing she could do about it. She was outmatched and they both knew it.

But then what of this man she loved?

If he survived this and she did not, and at his hand? What then? She knew the answer to that without even thinking and she could not bear it. But she also could not stop it from happening. He was too strong, too crazed and too filled with something that spoke no language she could contend with, for her to reach him now.

She had failed.

But the yawning depth of that failure ran far deeper than that, and far deeper than Rupert would ever know, for she had also failed to find the courage to tell him the most important thing of all: why she had come to Sunnydale. And in so doing, she had not explained to him why she had emerged at last from the binding shadows that had kept and preserved her from the cruelty of time; and why, knowing that in surfacing this would be her final journey, she had taken it anyway because she could wait no longer to go to him.

He would never know any of this, because she had not told him and she would not be there to correct him when he blamed himself for what this foul place was about to be responsible for; despite the fact that it would merely be responsible for reducing her time with him by hours, not years. That, perhaps in reality even the Hellmouth was going to be less responsible for her death than the poisonous, cancerous mass, for many years kept from spreading through the talent of her sisters, that was once again spreading through her body.

But, he would never know unless …

* * * * *

“Why are you trying to kill yourself?” Her hand grasps his chin so tightly that he cannot force his aching head back to the floor. He does try though, which gives her heart, until he realises it’s too late, and instead opens his eyes to glare blearily upward –

“Fuck off Annie and leave me alone.” His voice sounds like ashes, and the fine scarlet fog of his aura has become arterial-dark, boiling and writhing around her hand, her wrist. The pain of its touch burns her, but to make her point she keeps her grip tight on his chin.

“No.” She says. And waits for the inevitable. After all, she has come here for a fight and knows just how to get one. His bloodshot, red-rimmed eyes open fully for the first time and the bleak glare warms into real anger. Here it comes.

“Go. Away.”

“No.” She says again and watches the aura sizzle. Then, with a sound somewhere between a choke and a growl he suddenly moves, whisky-heavy limbs coming up to slap at her clutching hand, and then braces himself so that he is suddenly up on his knees.

“That’s better, now I can talk to you properly. Face to face.”

“I don’t want to talk. I want to be left alone. What part of that concept don’t you understand?” He wobbles backwards to sit on his heels. One hand wipes at his face, then across his filthy shirt. He looks dazed, but she is not fooled. This was how he looked after it had happened and he had still been capable of knocking Ethan’s teeth loose when the man had suggested disposing of the body in the Thames. “I don’t want to talk to anyone about anything. There’s nothing to say!”

“I think there is. I think that there is a hell of a lot to say, to talk about-”

“Annie, don’t.”

“Don’t? Don’t what? Don’t mention it and it will all go away, is that what this is all about? Stick your head in a bottle and everything will go back to the way it was before-”

“No!” He says, explosively and heaves to his feet.

“Really? Because that’s how it looks from here.” He ignores her, staggers to the other side of the room, and starts rummaging through the empties that are stacked all over the sink. The clink of bottles is loud in the silence. She waits for him to respond, trying to find any changes in the dark red swirling fog that smudges him head to toe, but the aura remains unchanged. So instead, she looks at the man and feels her fierce resolve begin to waver.

He looks terrible. It has been a mere handful of days since Gerald died, hideously and at their hands. All of them trying and failing to bring him back, before having to resort to murder to defend themselves from Eyghon, his possessor (poor Gerald). Only a few days since the death and already Rupert looks halfway there himself. He hasn’t shaved, or changed clothes, and he reeks of whisky and sweat. And tears. Poor Rupert too.

Pity on all of us. All of us damned, through and through.

Pity on us all…

Then she sees his shoulders shaking in tiny tremors and starts to relax. His aura pulses with so much emotion she can read nothing except the raw size of it. Its a good sign, and faster than she’d hoped, but its one that tears at her too, so she hurries across the room and slips her arms around him from behind. Rests her cheek against his back. “Oh Rupert-”

“NO!”   The explosive shattering of glass is shocking, as is his sudden explosion of movement. He pushes away from the sink, sending her sprawling onto her back on the floor, winded. Before she can recover herself he is upon her, all of his weight pinning her to the ground. His hands land around her throat, but not squeezing.   Not yet. Oh god…

“I SAID NO! NO, no, no, no, no, no, NO!” He’s roaring, spitting in her face, less than an inch from her, aura churning, thrashing and she realises with horror that what she had taken for tears had been anger; a rage that had so utterly consumed him that he had shaken from it. And now- “Why won’t you leave me alone. God damn it! Don’t you know…”

“Rupert,” she interrupts, knowing full well that she does not have a moment to lose. “I do know. I do. You think this was all your fault, but it wasn’t. Gerald knew what he was doing as well as any of us. It wasn’t your fault. I know you feel it was - ” He interrupts her with a sudden hard bark of laughter and she freezes.

“Fault?” His face is twisted in a laugh that boarders on the hysterical. “This is not about fault. Who cares about fucking fault? We’re all of us right royally damned for what we did, but fault?” He laughs again and his aura ripples in shudders, discordant tears and jagged reefs of blood and ochre run through it, tearing at her and terrifying her.

“Rupert.” Her voice is husky and weak, conscious as she is of his hands not quite pressing over her throat, but it refocusses his attention. He stares down at her.

“Get out.” He says it flatly, as devoid of feeling as he had been full of it mere seconds ago. His aura is suddenly still and calm. She doesn’t move. Neither does he. This is it, the eye of the storm, she can feel it. Whichever way this is to go, what happens next will decide it. She only hopes her dice are lucky…

“No.” She says once again and he stares at her. She stares back. “No.” She says it again, willing all of her determination, all of her love, into that one word. Kill me or let me up, Ru, but either way I am not leaving this room without you. They stare at each other and she waits.

“If it’s not about fault, then tell me what it is about.” She says after a minute of nothing. He continues to stare, still on top of her, hands still locked around her throat. Had he even heard her? She looks deeper into his eyes and wonders if he is seeing her at all in this moment.

“All right, if you want to talk then answer me this question: if I kill you, right here and now, will I enjoy it?

“I enjoyed Gerald, so would I also enjoy you?” He frames the statement in a question, but she doesn’t answer because he isn’t really asking.   “I don’t think I would, but then I didn’t imagine that I’d get such a high from old Gerry either. Until I heard his neck snap that is. Wasn’t all that much fun you see, until then, but when those bones crunched and he just seized up like he was having a fit, did you see it? It was beautiful. I can’t remember ever having gotten so hot over anything before in my entire life. All I could think about was doing it again, and again and again.” He stops then, and she can feel the effects the memory is having on him; sees his aura flare and flash as she has only ever seen it when he has been rambling around the city blitzing Nests with Ethan and Co. She can see the hatred that stains it too, stabbing cruelly into the heart of him.

And the realisation hits her like a frigid blast of air.

“Rupert.” She carefully brings her hands up to frame his face. “Ru, its all right.” She kisses his lips. “Its all ok. Listen to me now, listen.” But he isn’t, he’s shaking his head. “You asked me a question, Ru, so hear my answer. Would you enjoy killing me? Do I really need to answer that?

“Look at yourself. Now. Look at what you’re doing to yourself: is this the behaviour of a man who enjoys killing like you say you do.

“Ru, you are not responsible for what you carry inside you, your Heritage.”

“I- I can control it-”

“Can you, could anyone entirely control it? Has any other? You say this isn’t about fault and you are right, but that includes you too. Shush, no, it does – let me show you. Tell me what you saw, what you felt, when we were raising Eyghon?” She watches him squeeze his eyes shut. He says nothing for a long time, but then it all comes out in a wash of shame.

“I felt, alive.” His voice is so hushed she almost can’t hear him. Self-hatred drips from every forced word. “I wanted the rush of the possession, but I also wanted to take it on. I wanted to hunt it down, regardless of who it had hold of and…” He trails off and stops.

“You told me once, that you were different Ru. You’ve told me bits and pieces since, and I’ve seen you when you and the others have gone to play chicken with all sorts of nasty beasts. I’ve seen you pull Ethan out of Nests he might have died in. And yes, I’ve seen you kill, Ru. I’ve seen you kill vampires, demons and the like, but I know that you would never harm a person, let alone a friend, like that. Not for a thrill.

“Remember the Walk of Death Ru? Remember that night? You could have done as you wished to me that night and I couldn’t have stopped you, but you stopped yourself. Didn’t you.

“You didn’t want to kill Gerald either, Ru, you were after Eyghon, you know you were. No one could have saved Gerry, but you did stop Eyghon from taking the rest of us. You saved our lives.”

“No, I-”

“Shush, you know I’m right. Use that Oxford brain of yours.”

“Oh no Annie. Oh no. What have we done? What’s happening, what’s happening?” His hands disappear from around her throat and suddenly she has her arms full of the man she knows.   His tears seep straight through her shirt.

What was happening? What was happening was the ending. The end of the world. He had to go back. He had to or next time it would be worse, for him, for everyone. He had to return and reclaim what he had lost, take back his birthright, and in it find his purpose and his salvation.

She only wished it was that simple for the rest of them. She only wished she could stay with him…

* * * * *

“TILEA!” Giles came out of the roaring red gale in an explosive rush. He burst free, senses still ringing and blood still boiling with the gorgeous brilliance of the Slay, back into the ‘real’ world, and screamed. The shocking grief of the transition was too much to hold inside.

His head was pounding too, ears ringing, heart racing, and soul shaking with the shock of his expulsion back into the tunnel: this disgusting, smothering, foul-tasting, dull and insipid burrow of dank earth. He wanted to be sick. Just roll over and heave-to, but he was so weak he just lay their taking in large, fast lungfuls of tepid air and baring his teeth at the ripe decay of the mortality that surrounded him once again. Yes, he could still smell the sharp, clean stink of vampire and the death that came with it, but the flaming pleasure of its presence was fast collapsing in on itself, disappearing into the blackhole void inside him. So he just lay there, reeling, and dumb with shock.

But the low feelings did not last and slowly he was back, really back, once again.

What an unbelievable dream that had been. Possibly the most shamefully exhilarating experience he had had in years, and so insanely real he was going to be feeling it for days. And there was at least one person nearby who would have seen him have it. Oh bloody hell, how embarrassing. Ah well, at least he hadn’t dreamed her into it. Nodding off like an old man was going to be hard enough to live down without those knowing, teasing looks haunting him all the way back out of the tunnels.

Perhaps, hopefully, in the raucous chatter going on all around him she had missed it…

But Tilea, why had he called for Tilea when he had been dreaming of the Slay? Why think of Tilea when he was- Oh god, Tilea! It all came back with a rush. Ethan’s smirk, the Muttune’t, Spike and Dawn, racing through the tunnels, Buffy, Annie and Frost. FROST! Frost. That was it! So, there was more recorded from Tilea’s venture than he had been told by the Council. They did have at least some of the written records of the below ground search, which meant that the hapless detective had made it out alive. He had returned to the Council too, and they knew far more than they had let on. It made no sense why they had withheld it all, damn them, but their boy-soldier had unwittingly brought it all down here anyway. And now Giles was going to have it, all of it, every last detail. At last.

The Watcher took a few moments to curse himself though. He was an idiot not to have registered Frost’s blather earlier, before the muttune’t had arrived. They perhaps could have avoided all this unpleasantness and he could be, at this minute, booking a flight home to punch Knightly’s lights out. Oh, you really are getting old Ripper, my son.

Now, where was that stupid boy?

Giles heaved himself up onto his elbow and rolled over straight into a soft shape. Ah ha, so he was not the only one to have age catching up with him. He pushed up to peer over Annie’s shoulder and into her sleeping face. Caught out! Ha ha! Caught-

Annie wasn’t sleeping. Her eyes were open, staring across the tunnel, but she wasn’t awake either. Oh my god. Annie wasn’t sleeping. She wasn’t awake. Not asleep, not awake. Not asleep, not awake. Not asleep, not awake. Not asleep, not awake-

“Mr Giles!”

This is not happening.

“MR GILES. SIR!”

Not asleep, not awake.

She was unconscious. He had seen people out cold, staring like that, before. He had. He had. Many times before. Not uncommon. Not asleep, not awake.   His dumb eyes just couldn’t see it like he usually could. That was all. He reached out a hand to touch her lips, feel for her steady breath, but stopped when he saw the blood: a tiny smear of red on her lower lip and a little more on her teeth, from where she must have bitten herself. Tiny little bead of blood for such a wound. Tiny. As if the blood had not the means by which to flow and –

“Oh god, Annie.” Somehow he was on his knees. Somehow he had taken her quiet face in his hands. Somehow he had found his voice. “Oh no, no, no, no. Oh god, no. Please don’t die, don’t die, not like this… Not like this-” Annie, can you hear me? Annie? What’s happened? Say something love, I can’t hear you. I can’t see. Help me.   He stared, but could not find her. Help me, I don’t understand.

Oh no. No, no, no, no- “Annie!” This is not happening. Wake up Annie, and tell me what to do!

“MR GILES! SIR, PLEASE - ” Edward’s shrill cry suddenly, inexplicably, registered. And with it, the rest of the world poured back into the silence, filling it, not with the loud chatter he had supposed, but with the sounds of violence. He looked up.

Edward Frost, ruffled and bloodied, stood between Buffy and Dawn, facing down the former with nothing but his pencil, whilst the latter lay dazed on the ground behind him. The young would-be councillor had the tiny instrument in a slashing grip in one hand, whilst the other made strange karate motions at the Slayer (who was gathering to spring, muscles tensing). It was in point of fact, the most utterly ridiculous sight Giles had ever seen in his entire life, but it suddenly took his total attention. I can do this, I know what’s to be done here, and I can fix this.

“BUFFY SUMMERS!” He rose to his full height as he called across the narrow space, putting all his strength into the command. She whirled around instantly, but that was where her response ended. Oh dear god. His charge, or what was left of her, was wild with a raw dark energy that was almost unrecognisable, such was its degree. The Slay. This was it. Fuelled by the Hellmouth, its intensity, its totality, was simply terrifying – and he froze. How the hell did this happen? Ethan-

“What the fucking hell is going on!” Spike suddenly bellowed and Giles jumped, startled. His surprise was all the incentive the Slayer appeared to need, for she came at him so hard and so fast he was thrown into the tunnel wall, slamming into it so that all the air was knocked from his lungs. He went down. She sprang again. This time landing over his chest, straddling him in an uncanny repeat of Spike’s bedchamber, not much more than a week ago. She snarled, green eyes almost black. He imagined that this was much how her aura must appear, and despaired.

“Buffy!” He wheezed, completely stunned and unable to move, let alone put up even a token resistance or find the capacity to reach out and save her. Her hands, curled into the talons he had felt before, went straight for his neck.

“Buffy!” Dawn. The young girl’s shriek was piercing, but did nothing to stop her sister’s determined efforts to kill him. There was nothing called Buffy here anymore, he realised, and there was nothing to be gained by appealing to that name. This was The Slayer, but this was also wrong. This was The Hellmouth’s Slayer, not the World’s, not Sunnydale’s and certainly not his. This Slayer had no sister, no family, no Watcher, and no discretion. Then she squeezed down and he was choking.

“Spike.” Dawn again, her voice echoing tinnily in his ears. Somehow he found the strength to raise his hands to his neck and grab at the crushing grip locked there. Blackness tinged the edges of his vision. “Do something! SPIKE!” Suddenly there was a commotion, a thrashing above him and he thought he heard Buffy scream, but it might have been the cool dark rushing roar that was suddenly filling his ears.

Black. Quiet.

Annie?

Then suddenly there was air. Beautiful, stale, fetid air. It poured and rushed into his mouth in a sweet violent flood. Not thinking further than that, he desperately sucked it down. And now voices. Screaming, yelling voices, and the scraping, rushing, thumping aural carnage of total panic crashed into his senses, tearing the quiet apart once again. He coughed, and tried to roll over, but suddenly she was back, and they slammed together again right beside Annie. Not an inch away from her. But the Slayer did not even turn nor glance aside. Which meant that she knew what was there, which meant that-

“Oh my god, what have you done?” His voice crackled through bruised vocal cords. No. Buffy had… He, they, had…? No, not that, never that… But he knew. He knew what had happened and he couldn’t look away. His dream had been no dream after all. The beautiful terror that he had burst from had been real. He remembered. He remembered, and he went mad with it.

* * * * *

Dawn had her back to the wall when Buffy finally threw Spike aside and went back after Giles. She had a fast grip on a jutting piece of it too, clamped on so hard she could not feel her fingertips. Panic and terror had frozen her there and she could not move. Annie, Annie was dead. Dead, like in for real and total. Lying there, twisted onto her side and staring at the wall. Not moving dead. And who had done this thing? Buffy? Giles? Either option was too much to think about and couldn’t be real. It just couldn’t be.

Then Giles said something to Buffy, where they lay twisted together on the ground, and they both froze, but only for a moment and then the Watcher roared. Just like totally screamed, bellowed and tore the air apart, filling the cramped tunnel with such unimaginable grief and rage that Dawn found herself joining in. She felt burst open, torn apart and broken.

“Dawn!” It was Spike. Coming to her aid once again. Bastard! Too late, too late. You did this, you started it! You shouldn’t have hit Eddie! She flailed out at him, felt her fists connect with cool flesh, then concrete strong arms grabbed at her, pinning her fast. She shut her eyes and screamed again, struggling for all she was worth. “Dawn, stop it!

“Here, you, take her out of here!” Spike yelled above the din. She opened her eyes to see that creepy guy, Ethan, standing white faced by the far wall, near where they had entered. He was staring at Annie, not moving, face as pale as Spike’s and eyes as black as if the vampire had punched. “You! ETHAN!” Spike called out again. She heard Buffy and Giles screaming and fighting behind the vampire’s back. She struggled harder. “ETHAN! You fucking prick, look at me! For fuck’s sake!” And then Ethan was obeying. He did not move, though. And he looked as strange as he had when Buffy, Spike and Giles had first started fighting, but this time the puzzle pieces fit together in Dawn’s mind with a sickening snap.

“YOU!”   She screamed across the tunnel. “YOU DID THIS! WHAT DID YOU DO TO THEM? WHAT DID YOU DO?” Spike froze, no longer trying to hold her to him, but before she could get out from his arms he was pushing her away, back into the wall and in to Eddie. She looked up in time to see him looking down at her, really looking at her for the first time in what seemed forever, and then vamping out, the liquid shift from human to demon happening so violently it looked painful. Eddie started against her, his hands clamping down upon her shoulders.

“Fix it.” Spike turned to Ethan, his voice, rasping through his fangs, sounding as inhuman as a snake’s. His lips peeled back over diamond sharp fangs. “Fix it you fuck!”   Ethan doesn’t move and the Watcher and Slayer are shredding each other, and Annie is still dead. He’s not going to help them, she can see it.

“Kill him!” Dawn called out, commanding her vampire. “Spike, if he won’t help us then kill him and break the spell.” Spike rumbled and it sounds like vampire for “yesssss!”

But then Ethan was moving after all, his hands were fluttering around in front of him and his lips were moving. She couldn’t hear what he was saying above the din, but her threat had worked so-

Spike suddenly shook his head - abrupt and violent, like a dog with water in his ears. He jerked as if stung. And then he was looking at Buffy and Giles, where they had moved across the tunnel. They too started, as if shocked. Then Spike growled and Dawn looked back to see him looking at her. As if she was lunch.

“Ethan!” She called out, but he was already on his way out of the tunnel. Spike turned back. Oh my god. “Spike. Spike, what are you doing?” But she already knew and it was already too late. He sprang forward.

Straight into Eddie. The little guy was suddenly there, in front of her, rushing up to meet vampire-Spike halfway. “RUN!” He called out to her. “RUN, RUN!” But she couldn’t, there was a wall of rock behind her, Spike to her right and Buffy and Giles to her left. She was blocked in, nowhere to go. All she could do was watch.

Eddie was no match for Spike, but he landed one good solid punch to the vampire’s nose before Spike pinned him still. Dawn couldn’t tear her eyes away. She’d seen it all before, in those African lion documentaries, but it was all so much worse when it was happening for real, right there in front of her. Eddie struggled, but it did no good.

But then Buffy! The Slayer, coming in, straight and true at last; so fast was all a blur as she wrested Eddie free from Spike, sending him sprawling onto the ground to lie next to Annie. Then Buffy and Spike picked up from where they had left off: fighting. Really fighting, with vampire speed and strength so that she couldn’t see a thing but a blur of colour and noise and whirlwind movement. And again there was nothing she could do but cower against the wall.

Help me!

Then they were gone. Just like that. One moment, they were in front of her, and then next they were tumbling and thrashing out of the tunnel and were gone. Dawn sank to her knees. Shaking.

Buffy?

Gone. She was gone. Gone.

The tunnel was silent. She was alone.

No, wait a minute-

Eddie! Oh god, Eddie. Dawn crawled, clawed, her way across the sandy floor to where he lay curled next to Annie. Where Annie still lay, but now looking at Eddie with her direct nowhere stare, as if she meant to take him where she herself had gone. A terrified, hopeless, sob burst from Dawn’s lips, but she persisted and crawled over the little guy’s body to look into his face. Blood. Everywhere, from his chin to his shoulder. She couldn’t see the wounds in the dark like this, even with the light from the discarded flashlights, so he could be dead-

He coughed.

“Eddie!” Dawn heard, rather than felt, herself speak. “Oh thank you, thank you. You’re not dead. You’re not dead.” He wasn’t dead. That was good. Focus on that. He wasn’t dead. Now, she had to make sure he stayed that way. Giles. She needed Giles. Then she needed to get out of here, and then to a hospital. She could do- Oh help, Giles! “Giles!” She called out. Nothing. No, wait, there by the far wall there was an ex-librarian shaped lump. Scrambling to her feet she raced across the space, landing and skidding on her knees. Wait a minute, no. She stopped, inches from grabbing onto his jacket. This was crazy Giles; crazy, frog-in-a-blender Giles that Ethan had put a spell on. If he woke up who’s to say he wouldn’t eat her like Spike tried to? Indecision made her hands hover for a moment, but then Eddie coughed again and she knew what she had to do.

“Giles, oh please wake up. Please wake up! Help!”

“I’m awake. What’s going on?” Giles suddenly spoke as he sat up from his slump. He sounded weirdly flat, but he sounded like Giles, and that would do more than fine right now.

“Buffy’s gone and Eddie’s been hurt. I need your help to get him out of here.”

“Buffy? Eddie? Frost? Oh. Alright then. Certainly.” But the Watcher did not move to get up. He just looked around and frowned. OK, so this wasn’t going to be so easy. She pulled on his arm.

“Uh, Giles: little help.”

“Oh, right, right. Of course.” And he was getting up, using her (crushingly) as a prop, but he was moving. She pushed him back against the wall.   He put a hand to a battered cheek and his fingers came away smudged red. He was clearly even more confused at this as his forehead suddenly creased even more deeply.

“OK, are you going to stay up?” Maybe Buffy had hit him in the head?

“Hmm.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Dawn gave him another shove and stepped back. “Eddie’s over here, come on.”

“Right.” Giles said, but this time he sounded more like Giles. “How bad is it?

“I don’t know, but he’s still breath- Where are you going?”

“Where’s the Slayer?” Giles was frowning again, but this time the expression was darker, more intense. He looked around, and Dawn looked at him; there was a weird light in his eyes and since when did he refer to Buffy as The Slayer? The hair stood up on her arms.

“Uh, she’s gone uh home. Yeah. Uh, home. She… She told me that we need to take Eddie back and she’d meet us there.” The instinctive lie came out in a stuttering babble. There was something seriously wrong here. “Uh, Giles?”

“She’s not here, but she was.” He cocked his head, ignoring her. “And a vampire. Ah! Yes.” He suddenly grinned, lips tight, eyes glowing, and started out of the tunnel. Dawn started, alarmed. Oh no, she wasn’t going to get left alone down here. NO WAY!

“NO!”   Without thinking Dawn lunged after the Watcher, grabbing at his arm. His skin felt so cold. “Giles, don’t go! You can’t go! You can’t leave me here.” He stopped and turned back. Looked down at her, dazed and bewildered once more.

“Dawn?” OK, back to Mr Space-y, but at least he wasn’t trying to leave. She pulled on his arm until he started walking back to Eddie, then she rushed to gather up Spike’s forgotten duster.

“OK, just come back here and… And, we can use Spike’s coat to - Where are you going?” This time she did not even hesitate, but grabbed him immediately. And again he stopped trying to leave. She let go, his focus went with it. She grabbed his arm again and he looked at her. Hokay, even more weirdness, but this was one she didn’t have time to puzzle over. There were issues of possessed garden gnomes, evil magic guys and crazy vampires and Slayers ready to jump back out at them from the shadows, and she knew that every second wasted was another that brought one or all of those issues back into their faces.

Dawn grabbed Giles’ hand and steered him back over to Eddie and Anita. She pulled him down to sit with her, and without letting go of his hand, she pulled at Spike’s coat, but it was almost impossible to maneuver it, let alone try to twist-and-throw it over Eddie’s shivering body with only one hand. But that was all she had, so she strained and twisted and pulled and cursed. Oh come on!

And Eddie? She could hear him making little wet coughing sounds. Just keep on doing that, she encouraged, just hang on and we will get you out of here.

“Giles, I need you to-” But he was gone again, this time staring at Anita. Anita. How were they going to get her out of here as well? She watched Giles as he sat there, just looking, as if the woman were an interesting painting hanging in a gallery. He didn’t try to touch her. “W-we can’t take her as well as Eddie you know, Giles. I’m sorry, I-”

“Yes, I know. Its alright.” The Watcher’s voice was still that weird flat tone, but his mild compliance was suddenly more devastating than if he had shouted her down with denials and accusations. Dawn felt fresh tears fill her eyes. No. No, she couldn’t stand this.

“W-we can,” And Dawn found herself frantically looking around the tunnel, for something, anything that she could use so that she could take back her words. Anything. But there was nothing. “I don’t know, but we could, maybe, uh-”

Giles wasn’t listening to her though. He was reaching into his pants pocket. She watched the filthy bloody knuckles disappear, watched the pocket material writhe as he felt around for something. She watched the shape of his fist form under the cloth, and then he was pulling something out. Putting it to his lips he kissed it. It was some weird little stone, with something drawn on it. And, was that- did it have its own vibrating ring tone or something? It seemed to buzz in his fingers. Then he pressed it to his forehead, muttered something, and reached over to fold one of Annie’s hands around it. “Here Annie. For you.” He said. I can always find you if you have it with you.” Dawn stared at the closed fist. The Watcher leaned in and kissed Annie on the lips.

“Dawn.” This time it was Giles who prompted her. There was a clearer look in his eye this time and she almost fell over with relief. Giles was back, he was back and she had never ever been so anxious to be told what to do in her entire life. “We have to go.”

* * * * *

Dawn did not realise that they were free from the underground labyrinth until she ran into the tree that suddenly appeared in front of her. She smashed into its broad trunk, and fell hard onto the dewy grass at its base. Edward, still so heavy on her shoulder, was dragged down with her, falling limply to the ground. Giles staggered on by himself for a few feet as if he didn’t realise what had happened, but then she heard him go down too: a soft thump in the dark. His ragged breathing sounded raw and wet. He did not come back to find them, and Dawn dug her fingers into the damp soil and tried not to burst into tears – again.

They were free.

They were back in the world at last.

Oh god…

She pulled her bruised body free from Eddie’s dead weight and looked back at the tomb. The broken doorway, like a yawning mouth, gaped back at her: so quiet now. No gibbering goblins were chasing them this time (although she could have sworn she had seen a glimmer of eyes watching their stumbling journey). A lump of tears, of grief and terror and anger, surged up to close her throat; her stomach filled with ice and stone. How could it look like that after everything that had happened – that it had done to them? How dare it look like that! She bit down on the rising sob, refusing to let it enjoy the sight of any more suffering.

Buffy where are you?

“Mmph.”

“Eddie!” Dawn started. She reached around the limp body and hooked her hands over his shoulder, feeling the wet ragged tears in his jacket, and pulled him onto his back. In the darkness, the blood looked like black coffee stains. There was a lot of spilt coffee. Dark lines ran from his nose to his chin, and from his eyes like tears. She didn’t need to be a doctor to know that this was really, really bad. “Eddie? Eddie?” She gave a little shake of his shoulders. Not you too, not you too. “Giles, help me! Giles!” No answer. “GILES PLEASE HELP ME!” Oh god, oh god, oh god. Her hands rose up of their own accord to hover over Eddie’s face, fluttering there like butterflies. He looked so broken up she was afraid to touch him. “What do I do? I don’t know what to do? Somebody help me! I don’t know what to do! Buffy? BUFFY!” She screamed as loud as she could, but no one called back, no one came to help, not even Giles. She was abandoned for real this time, and Eddie was dying right in front of her. “I- I’m going to get help.” She said to him. Giles was just around the tree, so, like no problem, right? Giles would fix it. He would know what to do. Yeah, that’s why he isn’t right here doing it… Oh god. “J-just don’t d- go anywhere, ok?”

“W-what ha-” The English guy’s eyes flicked open.

“Eddie?” Dawn responded without thinking, reaching out to frame his face in her hands, as she leaned over him. “Eddie?” She saw his eyes roll in her direction, wobble and settle, and her heart started to race anew in her chest, thumping painfully against her ribs. “Eddie? Say something, please. What do I do?” There was no reply, but Giles’ breathing and the wet wheeze that she now realised, to her horror, was coming from Eddie. Oh no, please no. “I’m going to get help, ok?”

“No-o, don’t…!” The Englishman started, and suddenly convulsed, head bouncing against the ground, and she felt the skin under her hands flood with warm liquid. She recoiled, to horrified even to think. More not-coffee bubbled up from his mouth, from his nose. His breath gurgled horribly in his throat and Dawn thought her heart was going to explode with terror.

Then he stopped moving.

So did she. She froze, although the adrenaline icing her belly, her limbs, told her to run, run, run. Run away to where this wasn’t happening. Back to where Mom would be waiting, arms crossed as she sat on the couch. Waiting to tell her off for staying out late, sending her to her warm, dry and safe bed where she could be happily grounded for life. Anywhere but deep dark holes where horrifying creatures sat waiting for her, where evil wizards were waiting to send her sister insane and take her friends from her. And anywhere but where this kind, cute, dweeby guy that had fought to save her life, was losing the battle for his own. Anywhere but here…

Eddie suddenly inhaled again. A big drawn out, wet sounding wheeze that started somewhere around his boots and opened his mouth wide. The whites of his eyes showed her that he was looking at the stars. The cold, uncaring stars that swayed in and out of sight through the branches above them. She looked up too, then back at his face. He looked like a ghost already: skin so transparent and pale under the moonlight that even she could see that he was already fading away. That last effort to make her stay had taken everything he had left and she knew there was no use in running for help. And she couldn’t leave him here to stare at the lonely stars until....

Dawn found her hands miraculously steady as she touched his face again. She turned it slightly, slippery as it was with blood, until he was looking at her. He blinked slowly, the movement looking heavy and stiff.

“It’s ok, I’m not going anywhere.” She felt her face crease into a small warm smile, though her insides still felt icy. “I’m here.”   He didn’t react. Could he even see or hear her anymore? He had asked her not to leave, he didn’t want to be alone, but if he didn’t know she was there.... “Eddie?” She asked, leaning in close. “Can you hear me?” This close she could smell the blood that was glistening in the moonlight, and see the wounds that had messed up his throat. Spike’s wounds. His breathing was getting fainter, wetter.   Eddie.   Tears leaked free from her eyes then, despite her best efforts, and she watched as they dripped onto his face, mixing with the blood. She watched him blink as they hit. Dawn started. He had felt that! Eddie! Without thinking, she lunged closer and pressed her lips to his. The blood covering his mouth felt disgusting, but she didn’t pull back, instead she willed with all her strength for him to know that she was there – that someone was there. Feel me here with you, I’m here, you’re not alone, not alone, thank you for looking after me, thank you for saving my life, thank you for trying to save Giles’ friend, thankyou for everything, I’m here with you, you aren’t alone. Eddie’s breath rattled horribly, but his lips did not move, he did not so much as twitch.   He couldn’t feel her - it was too late even for that. The excruciating pain of that knowing tore at her more viciously than even the calling of the Hellmouth in her ‘dream’. She pulled back; suddenly trembling so hard she could barely stay up on her knees.

I’m so sorry, so sorry, so sorry. Too late, too late.

But no, wait-

Eddie’s pale fingers were reaching up to touch his lips. A look of wonder passed over his face, his lips curved into a smile, and he was suddenly reaching out to her. Dawn grasped the icy hands and held on, pressing them to her face.

“Eddie?” Dawn’s whisper caught in her throat.

“I can see you!” The awed whisper slipped from his lips, away into the breeze; and Edward Frost followed after them, gliding away into the dark.

* * * * *

Epilogue:

3 hours after the Hellmouth:

Joyce Summers left her car in front of the emergency entrance, keys in the ignition, engine still running, and all but flew through the throngs of injured and into the emergency bay. A siren squealed behind her. The crowds surged. People cried, moaned, screamed and called for help but she didn’t hear them. Nothing mattered but getting inside.

“Where is my daughter?” She barked as she literally hit the front desk running. Bracing herself against the wood she leaned over it crying into the face of the first nurse she saw. “You have my daughter! Someone called me!” My baby....

“Excuse me.” The nurse snapped. She had a clipboard in one hand, a stethoscope around her neck and a bunch of charts in her free hand. Sweat had plastered wisps of her long hair to her forehead and temples. She looked like a stiff breeze would topple her. “Look you will have to wait. I have a bunch of people here that have been waiting for hours already.” She indicated the feral desk bound crowd that Joyce had just rammed through.

“But, look, my name is Joyce Summers and someone called me to say my daughter is here-” She appealed. My daughter who should be safe in bed. She should be home in bed. I should have made sure of it...

“Give the desk nurse your name and take a seat and someone will see you when they can.” She dumped the charts in front of an equally exhausted looking male nurse who was sitting at a computer. She moved back toward a filing cabinet. “Please, take a seat.”

“Can’t you just tell me where she is? It will only take a second-”

“Look, Ms... Summers, I don’t even have the time for a second here. I have two days worth of patients backed up and even if I wanted to I couldn’t-”

“Then get me someone who can!” Joyce felt her voice rising into a shriek.

“... Mom?” The small voice was a chick’s peep in the roaring of the crowd but the sound of it pierced Joyce’s ears and heart as fiercely as a scream. Dawn! Joyce swivelled around, chest tight with relief, and swooped on her youngest.

“Dawn! Oh Dawnie.” She hugged her daughter close and fierce and the tension of the last hour drained away in a violent rush that left her weak and heavy limbed. “Oh baby, you’re ok. You’re ok. I’m here now. Mommy’s here.” She was never going to get used to this. Never. Since Buffy had become the Slayer her trips to the hospital both for her eldest and for her friends had become distressingly commonplace. Buffy. Releasing Dawn to push her back Joyce looked into the pale dirty face. “Where’s Buffy?”

“I don’t know.” Small faraway voice.

“She’s not here?” Alarm crept back into Joyce’s voice. If Dawn had been brought here then Buffy should be here. She should have brought Dawn. “How did you-”

“Giles brought me.” Dawn said. “He carried Edward.”

“Edward?” Oh thank god Mr Giles is here. The knowledge that Buffy had left Dawn in the older man’s care was a profound relief. Her daughter must be out slaying things.

“Edward’s gone down stairs.” Her daughter continued and for the first time Joyce registered the huge eyes, the white face, and the tiny flat voice. Her breath caught in her throat. There were no signs of injury, but Joyce ran her hands over her daughter’s head, face and everything she could see. No wound presented itself, which only increased her growing alarm. Where was the Watcher? He would never leave her daughter alone in this state. Not unless he-

“Where is Mr Giles honey?” She asked, drawing her youngest close again.

“The doctor says he has to stay for a while. He’s over there.” She pointed a filthy finger across the bay toward a bank of curtained exam rooms.

Oh no.

Joyce steered them both across the bay and Dawn pulled aside on of the curtains. The Watcher sat propped up against the raised head of the bed, filthy, bloody, ragged and as pale as Dawn. Paler perhaps. He was staring straight ahead, blind eyes seeing nothing, reacting to nothing. If she hadn’t been able to see his chest rising and falling she would not have known he was alive. There was a fresh piece of gauze, spotted with blood, wrapped around one of his hands where it lay limply in his lap. Her mind raced from the battered man to her missing daughter. Oh my god, Buffy? Where was Buffy?

“M- Mr Giles? Rupert?” Joyce barely held herself back from lunging across the bed and shaking the Englishman. He looked so fragile, like he may break to pieces if she tried it. For his part, the Watcher did not react to her entreaty so Joyce moved closer, reaching out to touch his arm. His skin was cold, clammy. So different to - and her mind slipped her an image of the young candy-stoned Sid Vicious with the cigarette breath and burning hot touch - and the hood of a police car... “Rupert, where is Buffy?”

“Excuse me.” A brusque voice suddenly spoke behind her. “You are not supposed to be back here. You will have to go back to the waiting area.” A green gowned E.R. attendant pushed passed the Summers’ and into the exam cubicle.

“Oh, no. No. You don’t understand, this is my- my husband. Someone called me to say that he and my daughter were here.”

“Oh, I see.” The man’s voice softened a fraction. “Well, I can tell you that both your husband and daughter are going to be fine. We will need to keep (he looked at the chart) Rupert in over night just to be on the safe side but your daughter can go home with you right now.” He paused. “There was another man brought in with your family Mrs Giles. An Edward Frost. Do you know him?” At the sound of the name Dawn clung tighter to her mother’s waist.

“Ah, no. No.”

“I see.” The attendant said. “Look, the police will be here soon and they will want to talk with your daughter.”

“The police?”

“I know.” The attendant smiled a tiny smile. “I know, usually this kind if thing doesn’t rate a mention in Sunnydale. I mean, if the police had to deal with every case of random shock or spontaneous neck eruption they would have a permanent office here.

“Still, they want to talk to Dawn and they said they would be here in a few minutes. If you would return to the waiting area now I can move Rupert somewhere more comfortable. They should not be long.”

“Right.” Joyce said, letting herself be ushered out. Dawn clung to her now, a silent weight dragging at her as she moved. Oh my god, Mr Giles. Rupert. What had happened? Where was Buffy?

“Mrs S?” Xander’s voice pierced her fog and she realised she had followed the attendant’s instructions and was now sitting in a hard moulded plastic seat in the waiting area. A man with blood pouring from his head sat docilely to her right. Dawn was still clinging to her left side. She blinked and there he was, Xander, squatting in front of her and looking rumpled with his bed-hair sticking up at all angles. “Uh, Mrs S?”

“Xander.” She breathed.

“Giles is upstairs: room 325.” Willow now. “The doctor says he’s going to be fine, but I- Xander, you should see his eyes.” Joyce followed the sound of the young woman’s hushed voice. She was standing by Xander, Tara close beside her radiating anxiety.

Silence.

“But, he- he has eyes.” Anya spoke up, nervously. Such an odd girl, Joyce thought distantly. “That’s good right?”   No one answered.

“Where’s Buffy?” Xander again. “Have you seen her?”

“No.” Willow.

“M-maybe she’s uh slaying whatever did this?” Tara said.

“Alone? I dunno Tara.” Xander said. “Whatever managed to do that to Giles... I dunno.”

“Maybe she’s not alone.” Anya again. “Maybe she’s with Spike?”

“Oh great. Why do I find no comfort in that thought.”

“...S-spike?” Dawn’s small voice got everyone’s attention. It also broke Joyce’s stupor.

“Dawnie.” She twisted to look at her youngest. Everyone tensed around her. “What about Spike, baby? What is it? What happened?” Dawn looked at her, then her eyes were filling with tears and whatever protective fugue she had been in broke down completely and she fell into her mother’s arms sobbing.

“Oh god, you don’t think-” Xander choked on his question..

“He wouldn’t.” Tara replied.

“He can’t. He couldn’t.” Willow put in. “Could he?”

* * * * *

12 hours after the Hellmouth:

This was new, Toby thought as he sat on the high hill that over looked the graveyard and drank his cappuccino - low fat of course. Not the usual at all, and he knew what he was talking about too. He came here to drink his coffee every night on the way to oversee, to manage, his new club, and never had he seen anything like this.

Never.

The moon was a thin sliver of pure white light shining dimly through a quilt of unlit cloud, so it was dark. In a gloomy way. Thick dirty shadows plumped up the tree tops and muddied up the understorey so that the tomb stones and paths at their clearest were reduced to light smears. Given all that, he had been expecting ten minutes of boredom - nothing but him and his chocolate dusted froth top. Certainly he had never expected anything like this.

Two shapes, pale and sleek, flitted between the trees, the tombs. In and out of his sight like cold darting fireflies. Very fast. For a moment it was all he could do to keep track of them and he strained his eyes against the dark night haze. What was this?

It wasn’t unusual for there to be nightly activity in the Sunnydale necropolis: half hidden scurryings, short raucous rumbles, strange snarls and bitten off screams, giggling and silhouetted loners stalking and slinking through the shadows. It wasn’t exactly fulfilling viewing, no plots, no resolution to the invisible shrieks or stone splitting cracks, but Toby liked it. He had always had a vivid imagination and it was fun to try to keep a rolling plot going as his ten minutes ticked by. Helped to keep the nicotine cravings at bay anyway.

It was unusual though, for there to be this kind of activity. There was a very personal, very open, battle going on below. The low night air lifted snatches of inarticulate growls and indistinct words up to his ears as the two white glowing forms slammed violently together, broke apart, skittered away, chased, darted, and collided again. Toby leaned forward on the stone wall. It was unmistakably a screaming mimi of a fight. The two forms merged again in an abrupt and sickening collision that made Toby wince and shake his head. Goddamn.

Then, before he realised what he was doing he had dumped his coffee onto the wall and slipped down to land heavily on the steep slope that lead directly down to the graveyard. And down to Sunnydale’s own WWE combat zone. A high shriek sliced the air as the warring pair split apart again. Damn! This was so stupid. It was foolish and dangerous. His feet carried him down, from bush to bush, shadow to shadow. It was really dumb-ass. He was going to get his butt kicked for sure. Toby’s hand crept into his coat pocket - shit, no cigarettes.

Closer.

Okay, so this was dumb, but he was just going to go down the hill and hide behind that big, leafy bush next to the wall and see what he could see. Just that far and no further. Damn, it was something he could tell the guys at the club later. Yup, for once they’d have more than till-raiding and shoddy accounting to mull over. Okay, just down to the bush and then he’d see what he could see. Sweat pimpled his forehead and upper lip.

Oh shit!

It was a guy and a girl. A tiny little girl and a skinny punk ass dude of the type Fat Lenny would automatically turn from the Club doors. The kind that was all lip and swagger, that dripped girls off his arms and still slimed after anything that passed him by. The kind with more money than sense and more front than was healthy. Toby’s lip curled. Jesus, did these guys make nothing but trouble everywhere they went? And did he have to teach every single one of them a lesson personally?

The girl, blond matted hair tangled over half her face, was facing him. The guy was facing her, his torn up shirt hanging from his shoulders. Both were crouched forward, tense and moving around each other. There was blood on the girl’s face. A split lip, a bloody nose, smeared and dirty across her cheek. Toby tensed, fists curling. No man worth a damn hit a girl. No man... But why wasn’t she running? Why wasn’t she screaming a blue fit for help?

And why did she have messed up knuckles?

Why was she snarling like that?

What the fuck was this? Some screwed up lower east side kink? He’d checked out the ‘Dale before moving in a few weeks back and had seen the hawkers and streetwalkers down on the lower east. Fuck. Some of those deals had been really sick. Weird-ass shit that had no business in the US of fucking A, and certainly no place in the same city as his Club. His outfit was pure style: sexy girls, respectful guys, good smoky air and the kind of quality music that had Made that Travolta guy back in the 80’s (now there was a decade with style). No way did he want to set up shop next to some fucking whips and chains Halloween shit. No way. He was a businessman, not a fucking sewer rat.

After Lenny had pointed out that torching the entire scene was definitely going to cause some serious bother and wasn’t really practical anyway, Toby had agreed to set up as far to the west as was profitable. Far, far from the filth. Or so he had fooled himself into believing. Here was proof he was wrong. And here was proof that Lenny’s live and let live policy was untenable. There was no live and let live with rabid animals. Just gotta get rid of them.

He could do that.

It would be fucking humane.

It would send a message too: stay on your fucking side of the fence and nobody need get hurt, but come any closer and.... Well, Mr Glock would settle the challenge.

Toby reached into his pocket and pulled out his gun. He peered over the fence again. Punch and Judy were getting into it once more, and this close he could hear the impact of fist and boot. Woooo! Nice move there - even if he was a fuckin’ kook, the guy sure could move. And growl like something out of a wildlife documentary. Judy ducked a swing and dug her small fist into the guy’s gut so impossibly hard it snapped him closed like a clam and he was put on the ground. She sprang onto him. Jesus! That’s gotta hurt.

Snarling, growling, cursing and grunting.

Punch rose up hard to connect foreheads with Judy and the girl retreated in a flurry of flailing limbs. They sprang apart again, both breathing hard. Both ragged, bleeding, dirty and sweaty and so fucking high it was amazing they weren’t in orbit.

Drugs.

For the first time Toby thought: drugs. That PCP or crack stuff. They could have a sloth clocking up a four-minute mile. Had to be drugs. Filthy, crackhead kinky fucks. Well, that just sealed it!

Toby sank below the wall for a second and cracked the gun clip free. Snapped it back. Flicked off the safety. He licked his lower lip and blew out a healthy lungful of air, then crossed himself and glanced to heaven. Okay, set. He lunged up right; coming up passed the lip of the stone wall like a vengeful angel.

“All right you fuckin’ kooks...” They were gone. Toby froze. Oh, this wasn’t good. He stood still, licking at the sweat on his upper lip, and scanned the night. A growl. Off to the right and deeper into the murky dark so he allowed himself a relieved breath - then got mad. Oh, so they were gonna make him work for it were they? Fuckers. He hauled his belly over the wall and dropped inside. Sweat was running down his back and from both ‘pits. Jesus! He was gonna stink by the time he made it to the Club.

Gun held out ready, Toby crunched his way over the leafy ground and toward the growling.  Shadowy treetops closed over his head as he moved in deeper. Mother Mary, it was dark in here, but the growling led him on. It was getting louder too. Toby inched forward. Careful now. Fucking crackheads could go off like sweaty gelignite. Anytime, anywhere. Gotta be careful. Don’t even sneeze. He snapped his head around 180, reassuring himself he was not a target himself. Just his quarry ahead of him, and getting closer. Where the fuck were they?

The copse of trees ended abruptly and the meagre moonlight lit up a new clearing. No sign of Punch or Judy amongst the graves there, but there was the growling. And a feminine cry, harsh and triumphant. There: by the new graves. Shit. Motherfuckers were rolling around clawing at each other again - had to be behind them stones. He went on, gun steady in his fist.

Oh, I do not fucking believe this! Toby pursed his lips. This had gone well beyond even the same planet as decent. He headed straight for the newly dug grave, irritation becoming righteous anger. Fouling each other up was one thing but to desecrate the future resting place of some poor SOB was just-

Toby looked into the grave. Jesus. No mistaking what they were up to now.   The white glow of Judy’s skin made her movements plain in the dark of the pit. Sick. It was psycho sick.

“Orright you fuckers.” Toby bellowed into the grave. “You just get the fuck offa him and climb outa there. Don’t you got no respect for noone?” The girl looked up then, with a fast snap of the head, and Toby got a goodly view of a blurry white face and wild, wild black hole eyes. She didn’t stop moving. What the fuck did a guy have to do? He couldn’t shoot them down there - no way to get the bodies out and make the waiting site all respectable again. “You deaf girl. Get your fucking ass up and out right now or I’ll fucking start shooting!”

Then he got a glimpse of Punch.

“What the fuck?” That wasn’t human. That couldn’t be fucking human! Yellow, feral eyes and demonic visage, and bloody dog-fangs. It could have been a mask, but somehow Toby knew it wasn’t. Punch growled and that wasn’t a sound a man could make, even getting fucked by a crack whore like he was. And those eyes... They froze Toby to the spot and his guts turned to water. Hail Mary, mother of... He suddenly couldn’t look away.

Words slid like icy hooks into his mind, holding him fast: blood, hungry, prey, fat and juicy prey, yeah, oh don’t move, don’t move, don’t move, oh you don’t wanna move pretty pretty, yeah, don’t move. And then bloodied images of himself that made him tremble with horror lit up the inside of his skull. Oh my god... The rough words inside his head continued to croon - don’t move, don’t move - but they were suddenly made all the more horrifying by the fact that their rhythm matched Judy’s. Oh sweet Jesus he was gonna die and he couldn’t even look away. He was helpless: like a fly in a web. And Judy just kept on riding them all closer and closer to hell like it was a fucking race.

Hell.

Yep.

This was the Devil and Toby was going to hell. Kept aside for the afterglow: the Devil’s cigarette. Aunt May always said that tobacco was Beelzebub’s joy, and would bring him nothing but ruin. She told him and told him and he never once listened. Now he was finally trying to quit and the Devil had come early to claim his prize, and smoke his ass but good. Don’t move, don’t move. The irony was not lost on Toby, but he was shocked to hear his own sharp crackle of laughter.

Judy looked back up with a snap. Wide, wild eyes really seeing him for just a split second and she stopped.   They stared at one another. Then Punch bucked up underneath her.   She looked back down and slapped him in the face, smacking his head around on his skinny neck. The hold was broken and the release was like a punch in the gut, and for a moment Toby was too shocked to move. Then Punch snarled at Judy and she lunged downward again. Toby had a glimpse of her strong white hands pinning Punch’s to the dark earth above his head before he ran.

Shit, he was never gonna smoke again. He was gonna go to church regular. Confession. Every Sunday. Twice. He was gonna do right. He was - a ferocious uber-roar suddenly torched the air behind him. The Lord is my Shepherd.... Toby ran and didn’t look back.

* * * * *

There was dust in her mouth. Yuck. How did she get dust in her mouth? Ergh. She tried to swallow and coughed.   Oh dammit. She didn’t want to move, not yet. Sleep. Sleep. Need water. Need sleep. She sighed out loud. No good. She was going to have to go get some water or lay awake all night coughing and then feel terrible in the morning.

She sat up and cracked open her eyes. It was dark. But not so dark that she couldn‘t - oh my god.

Oh my god.

Oh my god.

Spike. She was lying on Spike. Naked Spike. Bloody, dirty, dew misted and NAKED Spike. What - dew? DEW? Eyes wide she looked around herself. Wet soil under her knees, surrounding her, and above her the sky, made square in an earthen frame. Grave. She was in a grave! The dream grave. Help me. In the grave, in the graveyard, sleeping on top of a naked, dirty, blood smeared vampire. A vampire that she had just.... OH FUC-!

* * * * *

5 days after the Hellmouth:

“He was Councillor Frost’s boy, did you know that?”

“W-what?” Giles looked up from the newly polished marble of Anita’s memorial at the sound of the voice. The last voice he would have expected to hear in this of all places, and if he hadn’t been five near sleepless nights gone and nearly sick with exhaustion and grief he might have greeted that voice with all the bloody vengeance it deserved. As it was he managed one word followed by a stupid silence.

What could he say anyway? The Council had not responded to his railing accusations, nor helped him try to reach his traumatised Slayer (nor her equally wounded family), let alone been persuaded to hand over the missing Tilea diaries. He was beyond exhausted with them, he was utterly spent and no words could help him anymore.

“Mr Frost, Edward. Gillian’s only child.”

“Gillian Frost.” Giles heard himself echo dumbly. Then – “Gillian Frost? You mean Gillian Smith?”

“She was a Smith, yes, before she married.”

“But weren’t you and she - ”

“For a time.” Knightly nodded, still staring at the memorial. “We, I, ended it some 20 years ago now. She married Frost a few months later. Damned shame really, and I only realised that once it was too late of course. Utterly too late. And then what was one to do?” He paused, prodding the end of his umbrella at a fallen leaf. The orange glow that suffused his form, rolled and boiled in tight anguished convulsions and Giles frowned. Then his eyes widened. Oh my god! “What was one to do then Rupert, except the honourable thing? The only thing.”

“Edward was yours, wasn’t he?” Giles butted in.   Knightly did not reply. “I wondered how he got hold of the Watcher diaries. You gave them to him. And you let him persuade you into making him part of the goddamned Hellmouth Expedition. Oh dammit, Robert, why didn’t you say anything? You bloody fool!”

“How could I?” Knightly’s voice was suddenly fierce, harsh and rough, though spoken in a whispered rush of emotion. “How could I say anything Rupert? And what could I say? Hmm? What? It was all I could do to stop you, and… others, seeing it in me, or him.

“No,” Knightly shook his head. “No, I made my decision long ago to remain silent. It was best for all concerned, not least Edward. My only concern now must be what to tell his mother. What in god’s name do I tell her?” Knightly fell silent and Giles followed suit. Oh Christ Almighty.

“Did he suffer?” Knightly suddenly asked. “I’ve read the official report Rupert, but I am asking you, man to man: was it...   did he... suffer?”

And what to say to that? Silence? That would be more telling than a thousand words, and more devastating. And yet the truth... It was all he had to give and all Frost, all Edward, all Robert’s son, had ever asked for. Perhaps it was reward enough for the sacrifice the young man had made. Perhaps.

“Not for long.” He said. For the first time he really looked at the other man, noting the deep grey lines carving through his lean face. Knightly was not looking at him, but the hurt screamed across Giles’ senses. The soft orange glow of his aura was deep with a pain that could not be expressed; that must not be if the world was not to be laid waste by its horror. Giles swallowed a reactive surge of emotion. “I’m so sorry Robert.” The other man’s nod was barely perceptible.

“And.... And was it how you described in your report?” Knightly’s aura suddenly wrapped tight and tense around him and Giles knew what he wanted to hear. It was a relief that it was also the truth.

“It was. He saved someone whom is very important both to me and to the Slayer. We are both forever in his debt.”

“I see.” He said flatly, and Giles nodded: it wasn’t much consolation for a young life lost. Knightly swallowed and for a moment neither of them spoke. Giles followed the Councillor’s distant stare to Anita’s memorial. Another friend laid to rest (please, let it be rest) before their time. Oh Jesus, would this never stop...

“I’m sorry about your friend Rupert. She was a fine, fine lady.”

“You knew her?”

“Met her. Once, long ago.” Knightly looked back at him. There was a light in his eyes that momentarily relieved the intense grief that shrouded him.   “Only once and yet I have never forgotten her.” Giles stared, suddenly consumed by a desperate need to know.

“When?”

“Long ago. After your return to the Council.” He looked thoughtful for a moment and his aura rippled with a sudden conflict. It pulsed and tensed around him. “It was quite by accident really. I knew who she was of course-”

“- from the ball.” Giles finished with a shake of his head. Anita had insisted upon making his return to grace a thing of note. Even resorting to physically pushing his arms into his dinner jacket and hiding his smokes. You’ll thank me babe. One day you’ll thank me and you’ll understand. She left him that night. Not a word. Not a wave. Not a sign. After causing the room to ripple with curiosity just with her entrance, after continuing to make waves all night and taking him up on her crest and into respectability once more, she just vanished.

“The ball.” Knightly nodded. “She was leaving, coming down the staircase like the devil had got her. She was moving so fast she tripped. Lucky I was there. I had just popped out for a smoke, you see, and managed to grab her before she fell too far. Or so I thought.

“Hadn’t got her right side up before she was doubled over again. I thought she might have cracked a rib. Maybe winded herself. She hadn’t.”

“Why are you telling me this? Anita did not die now because she tripped 24 years ago.”

“No, she didn’t.” Knightly looked across the ancient cemetery, seeming to look through the marble statue forest with its creeping cowling vines and invisible twittering birds. Beyond it all. Giles found himself following the man’s gaze for the second time. And there, in the middle distance, someone was sitting on a park bench. Long legs stretched out in front of them. Someone else putting flowers by a stone plinth, and an elderly couple shuffling by. And beyond that - nothing... Giles looked back at Knightly. Peered at him. There was a strange relieved texture to the man’s aura now. What-

“Stop looking at me Rupert, you’ll learn nothing more here.” The other man looked back at him and managed a faint smile. “I’ve made so many mistakes in my life, but the very worst one has been taken from me and I will never have the chance to rectify it. You don’t have to carry that burden.” Knightly looked across the grounds again and jerked his chin in the direction of the bench. “Go. Learn something. I think she would approve.”

Anita? Approve? What- But his feet were carrying him as if in a thrall. Past his love’s grave, over crackling undergrowth, underneath the coldly serene gaze of carved angels and through cold pools of oak-made shadow and on toward the bench. As he approached the figure sitting there resolved itself into a man. Tall and lean and wrapped in a mildly expensive grey long coat. His balled fists were jammed into the pockets and drawn tightly over his belly, protecting himself from the chill wind. He stood up. Giles’ feet kept on moving until he was a few metres away. He stumbled to a halt, feet scraping over the gravel path. The man, young and dark haired, was waiting.

“He told you then, did he?” The voice held a familiar timbre.

“What?”

“Knightly? He told you and now you are here.”

“I- I’m sorry?”

“My name is Thomas Snow. I’m your son.”

* * * * *

5 days and 30 minutes after the Hellmouth:

A hesitant shadow slipped free from a grove of nearby trees and moved across the human lawn. Tree to tree, shadow-to-shadow, grave to grave. To grave. To the grave.

A pale hand, wrapped in gauze, reached out to touch the small carved rose that mantled the stone. Fingertips hovered over its topmost petal, but dropped away before making contact.

Then a dry whisper of a voice, barely distinguishable from the cold breeze that wove its icy fingers through the cemetery, spoke to the marble headstone, cracking and breaking on the last syllables: “Not really how I pictured it all to end Annie love.”

Ethan looked down upon the memorial through bleak eyes. His gaze traced the hard carved contours and he swallowed.   Such a small cold thing to mark the ending of a wildly free and passionate life. Such a little thing. A fresh well of hollow grief suddenly surged up from his guts. It rose like bile toward his throat, but froze through his chest, blocking his heart with ice. He gritted his teeth against the pain.

Oh god, how has it come to this?

Annie where are you?

“I know you aren’t one much for revenge love,” he tried his voice again, “but I want you to know that Rip- Rupert is going to try to kill me for this.” He looked up, through the trees where his old friend had departed. His vision blurred, greying and then obliterating the scene.   “And I just might let him. Once I’m done, once it’s done, I think I just might let him.”

* * *