Sunnydale, California, 22 Years Later

            "Giles?" Dawn asked sheepishly. Giles snapped abruptly out of his memories and turned to see her sad little face. Her eyes were enormous. There were shadows beneath them. She held a cardboard box in her hands.

            "Where do I put this?" she asked.

            "I'll take it," he said, and took the burden from her hands. He placed the box carefully onto a pile of its siblings, which waited, Babel-like, by the door. His flat was nearly down to the bare walls. All of his things, ready for storage or shipping. Only his bed and his dining table lingered among the half-filled boxes. It was the end of an era. The end of a life. And Giles looked at his Slayer's---his former Slayer's---little sister, and he felt nothing, felt numb.

            Dawn stood in the midst of the debris, hands stuffed into her pockets, helpless, useless. She glanced at the objects that were scattered across the table. Idly, she picked one up. "Is this you?" she asked.

            Giles knew just which photograph she must be holding. It would have to be that one, the very one he'd been staring at himself. "Yes," he said.

            "Who's the girl with you?"

            "That's...um...." Giles began, but as he did Spike came stampeding down the stairs from the loft.

            "All cleaned out up there," he said.

            Giles looked at him wearily and said nothing.

            "You're welcome," Spike snorted, and turned to Dawn. "Whatcha got there, Bit?" he asked, and plucked the picture from her hand. He looked at it.

            "Well, well, Rupert," he chuckled. "Who's the bird? Or can't you say in front of the Nibblet?"

            "Hey," Dawn protested.

            Giles snatched the picture from Spike's hand and tossed it back onto the table, surprised that he could feel something after all: fury. Him and his mad tart of a girlfriend.... He pushed past them into the kitchen.

            "She looks familiar," Spike continued. "Do I know her?"

            "You do," Giles growled. Spike's eyebrows shot up at his tone. Giles whirled and, over the tops of his spectacles, glared hard at him. "Oxford. Would have been '78 or '79." He added coldly, "Her name was Jack."

            Spike's smarmy grin disappeared, and, if it were possible, his face grew even paler. "Oh," he said quietly. "You, uh...knew her, then."

            Giles turned away and busied himself with the teakettle. "My father was her Watcher," he said. "I knew her. Very well."

            Dawn looked, wide-eyed, from one man to the other. "She was---was a Slayer?" she stammered. "Spike, you didn't---"

            "No," Spike insisted. "I didn't. Giles, it wasn't me."

            "I know," Giles choked. The terrible hole inside was yawning, yawning.... "You were hardly the half of it," he said, and dropped the kettle into the sink. His eyes burned. He moved swiftly for the door, muttering, "Excuse me...."

            Dawn watched her sister's Watcher hurry out the door and jumped a little as it slammed behind him. In the prickly silence that followed, she searched around the minefield of her head for something to say. Finally, she said, "He's...done this before."

            "I don't expect that makes it easier," Spike observed quietly, and picked up the picture again. Dawn came up beside him and, leaning close, cheek brushing his shoulder for cold comfort, looked at the photo in his hand.

            "She's pretty," she said.

            "Yeah."

            "She looks a little like---" she began, and caught herself. Spike reached up and stroked her hair absently, as if to say it was all right, which, of course, it wasn't. He continued to stare at the picture, brow furrowed, chewing the inside of his cheek thoughtfully. Dawn watched him for a while, then asked, "What is it?"

            Spike glanced at Dawn, then at the door through which Giles had departed. His frown deepened. "I don't..." he began, then turned to the picture again. "I don't think that's why I remember her...."