TITLE: Forsaken-The return 3 AUTHOR: STEPHEN HOWE
E-MAIL: sh01@bigpond.com.au
FEEDBACK: Sure.
DISTRIBUTION: Ask and ye shall receive!
DISCLAIMER: All characters belong to Joss! He created everything! The Forsaken belong to Sony Movies and I'm only borrowing them PG-15 to R. Set in season 5.B/X eventually( Is there any other?) Giles is Buffy's watcher Dawn is still around. SUNNYDALE GENERAL. Buffy slumped into a chair before the doctor even told them a thing she says. " I've lost him again!" The Doctor tells Mrs. Harris. " I'm so very sorry. The wound was serious but not life threatening but..." " No! " Willow says. " He was talking to us.. Making jokes about the Va... Mugger! He was more worried about Buffy." " There was a blood clot that separated from the wound. We missed it. It ahh made it's way to the brain and caused a cerebral blockage that stopped the blood from getting to the brain. He died quickly and without pain. I'm so sorry." Mr. Harris snorts. " I hope you don't think I'm paying for your failure? I ain't payin' to bury the little prick either you can..." Mr Harris slumped to the floor and Giles began rubbing his bruised knuckles. The gang saw some of the old 'Ripper' in his eyes as he told him. " You wont pay for a thing Harris. We will pay for everything and you will stay as far away from him, and us, if you know what's good for you!" Harris blusters and tries to get up but Giles glares at him as he makes a fist. " Oh please get up so i can knock your ass back to the ground!" Mrs. Harris stood up and pulled on her wedding ring till it slipped off." I only stayed with you so our son could have a last name. I put up with your crap for 21 years but no more Frank NO MORE!" She flung the ring at him and marched into her son's room. Mr. Harris was about to say something smart assed but one look from Giles stilled it. Tara was holding Willow while Dawn hugged Buffy as they made their way into his room. Buffy walked, zombie like, over to his bed and opened the sheet gripping his hand. " Wait for me again Alexandr`e. Perhaps next time we will have better luck." She finally broke down and cried over his still form as Dawn and the others tried to consol each other. HOSPITAL MORGUE-3 HOURS LATER. The orderly pushed the body bag into the morgue and slid the body into the refrigerated draw then handed the paper work to the attendant." Harris, Alexander. L." He looked around. " Not many in here tonight Frank?" Frank shrugged. " The fewer the better if you ask me. " He reads the report then quickly looks up to him. " He was 'mugged' anything I should worry about?" " Nah this guy died of a brain haemorrhage in bed." The orderly began to walk out. " If there were anything to worry about they would have cremated the guy ASAP." Frank breathed a sigh of relief then went back to studying his books. After a couple of hours he lent back and stretched before standing up and walking over to the coffee machine. As he began to pour the cup he heard a muffled sound coming from the storage units. Xander woke up in a dark and cold place. " Well at least this ain't hot that means I'm not in hell!" He pushed against the material covering him and found he could easily part the thick cotton shroud. His hands felt against the hard cold surface of the small room. " What the hell? Did they put me in a filling cabinet or something?" He knew it would be useless but he kicked out at the metal door at his feet. The morgue attendant moved towards the bank of draws the cross extended just like they told him when the door flew off the drawer that they had just placed the Harris guy in. Frank jumped back and he felt for the alarm button located against the wall as the drawer slid open and the body sat up on it. Xander ripped the covering from him and asked. " What the hell are you guys trying to do? Scare me to death?" He hops off the drawer and notices how cold it is. " Yikes!" He grabs the cloth and wraps it around himself. " Where the hells my clothes?" Before the attendant could reach the button he froze in place and a shaft of white light enveloped Xander and he slowly vanished. SUMMER'S RESIDENCE. Buffy is curled up on her bed with a picture of Xander clutched to her chest. Giles slowly closes her door and creeps back down the stairs. " She's sleeping now. Hopefully the rest will do her good." Dawn asks. " What did you guy's run into last night?" She looks into Giles's eyes and begs him." Please tell me how he...You know." Willow pulled away from Tara and wiped her eyes. " This creature had knocked Buffy away...." While Willow went through the last minutes of the fight Giles recovered the book from his inside pocket and began to read it again. Willow had finished telling Dawn of Xander's last stand and Dawn asked her. " What did he mean he had a power?" Tara choked back her tears as she explained. " The power he had was his choice... His choice to give up his life so Buffy wouldn't give up hers for him. It was his gift to us." Dawn was angry at him. " So he did it to play the hero! So he would have a house full of women crying over him!" Willow was angry as she held Dawns hand tightly in hers. " His was not a vain or glory seeking sacrifice he did it out of love! He loved her, and us, more than he loved his own life. If there is a God out there I pray that Xander's in his arms being welcomed to a kinder, safer place." Giles placed the book down and moved to the kitchen to make a cup of tea and as he did so the book fell to the floor. Dawn went to pick it up and it glowed with a holy light causing the three females to cry out in shock. Giles came running in and moved the book away from Dawn but as he did he noticed the empty pages at the back of the book were now full of words. Giles replaced his glasses. " Good Lord!" The three looked at Giles and he told them." Listen to this it's written in the same hand as the rest of the diary so it must be Michele's watcher... It has been almost a year since the chosen one died and I have just received word that her beloved has fallen in the holy war to free our Lord's birthplace. He did not care for life after her death so I can only pray they are together again in our lords bosom... It has been several months and , through my contacts at the Watcher's Council, I have heard some terrible news. When Antioch was finally taken the survivors told the tale of eight knights that sold their soul to the devil in return for life immortal and the heart breaking news is that Alexandr`e was sacrificed to seal the deal. The locals tell the tale of seeing Abbados prowling the field of death and giving the eight the choice that they jumped at. Shortly after, the villagers tried to bury the fallen knights to stop the stench from spreading to their village. At the spot where they saw Alexandr`e murdered there was nothing but a white imprint of his body that to this day nothing grows." Giles reads the rest to himself then tells them." It appears the legend goes that for months after villagers, and crusaders both were taken by a pack of wild beasts until one was taken captive and sent to France for examination. The beast turned out to be one of the eight knights and he was.. Tortured to reveal his tale of shunning the light and needing to feed on the blood of innocents to survive. Any wound they dealt him was found to be healed by the next day. They thought nothing could kill it so they sent for Michele's watcher who tried everything he knew to kill it in revenge for what the creature had done to his 'child's' beloved." He holds the book open on one of the last pages, where there is an engraving of two people." He dedicates his life to avenging his two charges deaths. Now who do these two look like?" Dawn's eyes grow wide. " Why it's Buffy and Xander!" Willow looks up to Buffy's room as she hears her moving about. " That explains why Xander was so drawn to her but how come she wasn't drawn to him till recently?" END OF 3
