Slayers are everywhere now. So the call from a doctor in the know, who tells you they have a slayer down shouldn't send your heart racing like this. You shouldn't brandish a vein and offer your blood only to have it turned down.

She's too far gone isn't a sentence that's supposed to apply for slayers. You still haven't seen her, and she could easily be one of the fresh faced college girls you've seen around, stalking the graveyards. Maybe you just like being the hero.

After all, when were you the hero before?

Almost hero. The second place getter. The runner up, if Miss Slayer should fail to perform her duties…

But she always performs. That's how you know it couldn't be her.

A gurney is pushed past. You look up slowly, not sure you want to know. A flash of blonde hair. But Giles isn't here. If it were her, he would be here, holding his glasses, comforting her friends. They aren't here either. You aren't sure how you feel. Outside, a clock chimes.

Ten minutes and counting.

You'd been dancing, laughing, drinking. It's New Years Eve. But you asked the hospital to call you if they ever picked up a slayer, and so they did. Of course it was for her sake. You never could talk to her, stay in contact for long enough to know if she was ever injured, so you were sneaky, you took precautions.

Five minutes and counting.

You're still slightly drunk, and suddenly very glad you turned down that guy in the corridor near the rest rooms. Still no-one comes, no-one waits outside this girls' room but you. Lab coated figures emerge, glance at you and start to walk away.

"That girl." You call out.

The doctor turns. "Are you a relative?"

"I don't know her. What is her name?"

"No I.D. sorry."

"Can I see her?"

You aren't sure why you're bothering, it can't be her, she'd never lie alone in a hospital, with you the only one hassling to see her. And even if it was her, what would you care? The only time you cared about her was when you were still in your teens, still a kid looking for friends.

The doctor nods, and ushers you into the room, leaving you alone.

You don't look straight at her. Fighting by her side in the last battle on the Hellmouth- you cared for her then. You cared, or you wouldn't have followed her out when her friends sent her away. A strange kind of empathy possessed you as your roles reversed for real. A sick feeling of triumph comes over you momentarily.

You died, and I didn't.

Then you look at her face.

As the bells start to ring and the clock strikes midnight, as fireworks light up the sky outside her hospital window, you look at her face and it's not Buffy.

You sigh loudly. Disappointed? Relieved? At least the guilty feeling that your momentary feeling of triumph brought on is gone. She's just a girl, with blonde hair spread over her pillow, a hospital gown clinging to her almost skeletal frame.

Track marks on her left arm. A bracelet made of wire on her wrist. A wooden cross around her neck, one end sharpened into a point.

Anonymous.

She was no-one, but they were linked.

You stay with her as the fireworks crash and wheel and explode in rainbow spirals and purple rain.

Outside, the sun shines, the morning is blue and fresh. It's the first morning of a new year. You are young and living. You keep your memory of that night alive as you skirt the drug dealers, the pimps and prostitutes, and head for home.

A belated happy new year as I finally return from my holiday, and back into writing mode. Anything you'd like me to update:)