To Err is Human Part 2 - see part one for disclaimers
~~~~
Darkness.
It surrounds him.
Warm and comforting.
Quiet.
Contemplative.
Soothing.
Then the nightmares start.
Flashes of memory interspersed with feelings of guilt, terror and helplessness. Rage and fear fight for equal footing in his emotions. Images of bodies, bloody and torn assault his mind. Darkness rears up and claws at the tattered remnants of his soul
//Et ne nos inducas in temptationem, sed libera nos a malo,//
//For thine is the Kingdom…//
Dead friends.
Dead lovers.
Dead dreams.
//Funny,// Wolf thinks. // Thought that the 'This is Your Life' thing was supposed to be happen BEFORE I died. //
As a scene plays through his consciousness Wolf reaches out and stops the instant replay of his life and watches as the scenes slowly unfold. // Here, // he thinks // This is the point in my life where I can point and say "Here is where it all started to go downhill." This was the beginning of the end. //
~~~~
Detroit, MI July, 2001
RRRRIIIIINNNNNGGGG
RRRRIIIIINNNNNGGGG
RRRRIIII…
In the darkness of the predawn light a man rolls off the futon mattress in the corner of the loft apartment and stumbles across the room to the old style rotary phone by the door. Picking it up the man answers in a sleepy voice "Yeah?"
{It's Xander.} The man jerks at the voice and rub his eyes.
{Hey.} he says in a cautious tone. It's obvious he was not expecting a phone call from this individual.
(Look man, I know we haven't been on the best of terms since… well, anyway we need your help, man. Buffy…} Xander breaks off with a hitch in his voice. {Buffy's dead.}
{Damn.} When he heard Xander's voice on the phone this wasn't the expected conversation. {How?}
Xander explains the whole fiasco with Glory, Dawn and the portal. {Look man, can I get you to come down and help us out? I know that there are some unresolved issues here, but we really need some help. The usual die down with the undead and demon communities during the summer didn't happen. We are all strung out and hurting.}
After a few seconds of thought, and a quick glance around the empty apartment, the man replies {Yeah, I can be there in four days.}
{Thanks, Oz.}
~~~~
Sunnydale, CA March, 2002
Staring down at the body his friend, Oz waited for the feelings to hit him. Waited for the tears, the anger, the remorse. But they didn't come. He was numb inside. To many people dead it to little a time, he thought. To many people he knew, cared about, loved.
The cult of vampires had been in town for a little over a month and he and the other Slayerettes had run into them on numerous occasions. They had figured that the cult was not a serious threat, or at least not one that was out of the ordinary. That was before the Spring Equinox, which was when the cult had swung into full gear and had gone ahead with their plan to open the Hellmouth. All the skirmishes up until then had been to cover the kidnappings. The spell they were going to use was a marvel in its simplicity. Simply kill 300 or more people to feed the spell and the overwhelming life energy would burst the seals kept on the Hellmouth. Easy, simple and deadly.
They had been too late to stop the spell, but Willow, Giles and Tara had had a backup plan to redirect the energy away from the Hellmouth, by releasing it up into the atmosphere rather then down into the Hellmouth. They had been safe from the backlash caused by their spell inside their circle. He had been safe from the spells energy due to the amulet that the girls had wiped up. Xander on the other hand…
Xander had lost his amulet during the battle and hadn't noticed it's loss. The unleashed life energies had fried his synapses and caused his blood vessels to explode. Xander has blood leaking from his very pores. So very much blood. The smell of burnt hair is overwhelming in the ruined library.
In the background he hears Willow and Tara weeping while Giles tries to comfort them.
Staring up into the darkness, gazing at the stars far, far above. Oz lets silent tears fall from his eyes as he realizes that there was another friend he was not going to be able to say goodbye to.
~~~~
Sunnydale, CA August 2003
Oz wonders if he is becoming used to this. Used to the loss of the ones he cares about. Used to the mind numbing sorrow of knowing he could have stopped it if he had been faster, better, stronger, smarter…
Dawns' body lies upon the alter. Her cooling blood pooling in the bowl at the foot of the table. She was 18 today, Oz thought. Senior in high school and already accepted to Oxford. Giles' old school connections got her a spot. She was going to get out of all this in just a few months. Just a few more…
Giles is lying in the corner, his body broken in so many places that the young man has trouble following his limbs from start to finish. His still warm heart is sitting atop a platter near Dawn's head. A part of the ritual, maybe. Or maybe just a reminder of the power of the demon that had taken them. The demon that was going to use Dawn's energy to open a portal; where to, they had never found out. And now it really didn't matter.
The unnamed demons corpse lays in pieces upon the floor of the cavern. His prowess in battle had been no match for a werewolf in full rage. Oz just sits naked on the floor of the cavern staring at Dawn's face rocking back and forth, his arms wrapped around his knees. Waiting for Willow and Tara to find him.
She only had a few more months to go, Oz thought. Just a few more…
~~~~
Los Angeles, CA October, 2004
The pale grey gravestone seems to stare back at the young man, silently reproachful.
Cordelia Chase
1981 – 2004
Beloved Daughter and Friend
A spark of hope in a world of darkness.
Over the last three years the LA team and the Sunnydale one had come to rely on each other more and more. He and the others had been surprised in the changes that had occurred in Cordy and Wes. Both had grown up and Oz had been proud to call them friends. He had gone to a few of her auditions and the three plays that she had stared in. She definitely had talent, just no real luck it seems. She had come to a few of his gigs, too. They had become close, not in the romantic way. But they had become very good friends. His lack of a need to fill silence with empty words had appealed to her innate sense of always telling the truth, tact be damned.
Now most of the LA team was dead. Wes's body had been flown home to England to be buried in his families plot. Angel's remains, what little is left of a vampire after it has had a wooden stake run through its heart, is in an urn next to Buffy's tombstone.
And Cordy, she was buried here in Los Angeles next to her father. No one knows where her mother is.
Wolfram & Hart had sent assassins after Angel. The assassins had kidnapped Wes and Cordelia and held them hostage in exchange for Angel. When Angel had gone to give himself up, the assassins had killed Wes and Cordy and then staked Angel.
Gunn was the one who had gotten in touch with Oz. After telling Oz what had happened, Spike and Oz had gone down to LA to fulfil a little retribution. They hunted down the assassins and send back pieces to Wolfram & Hart, and after finding the last of them in Florida they had blown the offices of Wolfram & Hart off the face of the planet with some of the ordinace that Oz had found in Xander's storage unit. Seems he had taken more then the rocket launcher during the Judge incident.
None of the three had ever been implicated in the bombing or the deaths. And the viciousness of the retribution had kept the underworld population under control for the last few months. Basically no one had wanted to piss any of the Slayerettes off.
Oz was here in LA paying his respects and saying goodbye to Cordy, the Hellmouth is finally closed, seemingly on its own, and LA is under control, Gunn and Spike are taking care of it. There are too many bad memories here. Since the Hellmouth is closed there is no reason to stay in that damned town any longer and the Council had contacted Willow and had asked if she would look into a problem in Chicago for them.
~~~~
Chicago, IL January 2005
The young redhead is standing in the main lobby of the Hilton. Numbly shaking his head as he looks at the slaughter that surrounds him. The slaughter that he is responsible for. The deaths of over 250 people. He doesn't know what started it, he only knows how it finished. For the first time in 4 years the young man wished that he had not gained control over the wolf. If it was still linked to the moon the massacre that surrounds him would not have happened. //But they would still be dead.//
Collapsing to his knees next to two bodies that were less savaged then the others. Oz gently strokes the hair back from a pale face that he had hoped to know for the rest of his life. Had hoped that one day she would return the love he had so foolishly squandered. Now it is to late. Avoiding looking at the other bodies surrounding him, Oz gets to his feet and for the first time realized that he was not naked. The change usually rips the clothes that he was wearing beyond repair. This time it seems he made the cloths shift with him.
Filing that thought away in his "To think about later." File, Oz hears sirens in the distance.
The slaughter of 278 people in the lobby of the Chicago Hilton took less then 3 minutes. From the enraged shouts of the mob as they attacked the two wiccans to the final scream for mercy as the last man had his spine ripped out by the claws of a mythical beast that he had not believed existed just a few minutes before.
Shaking himself out Oz turns one last time to the bodies of his former lover and her girlfriend. With tears falling down his face the young werewolf says his goodbyes to the life that he had hoped for and then walked out the front doors of the hotel just seconds before the first squad car arrived.