***
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into
the past.
The Great Gatsby
***
An hour before hand.
Sunnydale graveyard

The new Slayer easily blocked the fatal blow, throwing her left hook
into action and she went for the face, only to be stopped by her
attackers spin kick to her stomach.

"Shiii.." The Slayer grimaced, doubling over. She threw a hostile grin
towards Giles, her watcher, standing in the safety of the shadows. "I
guess it's bad form to ask you for suggestions?" She hissed, punching
the vampire in the face, twice, then knocking him against a headstone.
Giles disapprovingly stepped forward. "I..uh, I told Buffy and now I'll
tell you. Expediency is most important. Kill, then move on."

The slayers eyes never left Giles, as she staked the vampire rogue and
dusted herself off. "To your approval, Sire?" She asked somewhat
exasperated at being ordered to do something.

Giles regarded her cautiously. Things had swiveled so quickly, that he
was at a loss what to say or even do. Of all the Slayers he could have
picked, this one was no where near the list.. or even the hint of a
list. Giles shook his head, he'd lost two since his arrival. Kendra who
had been with them for such a short time and then Buffy... disappeared
with or without Angel, for almost 6months now.

"Better, but not quite there yet..." he chided, taking note of the tone.
"I think we should retire. I want you to work on your precise spin
kicks..."

The slayer stopped, hands on hips glaring at the bespecaled man in front
of her. "What?! What is *wrong* with my precise spin kicks?!" she dared
him to speak.

"Nothing really..." Giving his ward a reproachful look over his
shoulder, "only, possibly... they're not so precise as more spinny"

The Slayer huffed derisively. "Haven't you seen Xena, Warrior Princess?
She spins like that and kicks out a whole army of Roman soldiers..."

The Watcher stopped what he was doing and calmly met his prodigies
heated gaze. "That is fantasy. This is real life, don't forget that.
Buffy understood that mostly."

Her eyes narrowed. More angry at his persistence to holding her up to
the departing Slayer, Buffy, than the quibble going on there. She didn't
want or need to be Slayer. She was quite happily being Sunnydales most
unattainable love goddess. But when Kendra died, she was awoken to it.
And since Buffy did the AWOL thing, she was it... to all, except Giles.

And as he had reluctantly taught her, she had reluctantly learnt. She
didn't know how to put into words what she felt, but it was stronger and
more real than anything she had felt before, or would feel again. Her
whole life changed, she changed and she so much wanted the one person,
besides the slayerettes, to say "well done". Giles remained, maddeningly
silent.

Her dark brown eyes touched stubborn dark eyes, and that voice inside
her closed tightly. She couldn't let him know how much he had hurt her
with his distance, with his disbelief.

"Fine! You want another Slayer? Go find your precious Buffy! I'm outta
here..." With that, she started to walk away.

"Wait!," Giles called after her, regretting the increase of tension
between them lately, but still unable to stop it. "Wait," He shifted
nervously from foot to foot, trying to figure his own careful reaction
to the girls obvious accusation. "Look," he amended. "I, I know that
things have changed, and the mantle has been placed..."

She closed her eyes briefly.

"...on," he continued, nervously cleaning his glasses. ".. the shoulders
of all of us, feeling the way we do. But that doesn't mean that.."

".. that we should let feelings over take us." She opened her eyes and
sighed. "Our duty is to those we serve, not emotions that serve only
us."

Giles inspected his student squarely. She was a fast learner, and a
fantastic fighter given her self-absorbed and somewhat fantastic life
before hand. With the changes in the Slayerettes, the upheavals, and the
mourning he still went through with Jenny, it had never been as much as
hers. He couldn't deny she had changed most of all.

Yet he couldn't say it to her.. it felt, somehow unfaithful to Buffy. He
shook his head. When the Watchers asked him to look after her... he saw
her more as a blunder in the ranks of the blessed, a inconvenience and a
weight around their collective necks. He recalled well, how he had done
everything in his power to renounce her ability. Of all the things he
thought she would be, it had been unfounded and proved wrong. For the
woman she had been, was nothing near the Slayer she turned out to be. He
looked at her now, and felt his insides disquiet. She looked at him
like... like a father. He wasn't a father, not to Buffy and not to her
now. He couldn't bear to loose another.

He didn't know how else to do it, but to push her away. To keep her at a
distance, as he was supposed to with Buffy but he didn't. He loved Buffy
and she was probably dead. He loved Jenny, and her grave was not far
from where they stood. Pushing her away, would save them both.

"I'll make you a deal. Only one going ever." He looked with hooded eyes
in her direction, and she nodded, curious to the offer.

"You give me the hours you watch Xena, to practice the accurate way the
moves she uses, are used in real life, and I'll let you fight the way
you want... with a few exceptions of course."

She looked at him levelly. This was the first inch he had given since
her training. Something was better than nothing, and she stuck her hand
out to seal the deal.

The action was instinctive, as soon as they had clasped hands.. an
electric pulse shot through both of them. Giles shut his eyes briefly
knowing he was going to let her in whether he wanted to or not. He
opened his eyes, seeing the girl Buffy had been not so long ago.
Insecure, frightened and for all the balderdash she hung up to dry as
armor, she was just like the girl he now beheld. Giles saw Jenny in his
minds eye, smiling back at him.. and instinctively placing the other
hand on hers, his eyes spoke volumes, even though he couldn't say it to
her.

Suddenly the sky exploded into a 10 second holocaust, night made day by
the dilation of fire and smoke. Giles and the Slayer hit the dirt, their
arms entangled. "What the hell..!!!!" she screamed, awe struck by the
explosion.

Giles hastily picked himself and her up. "I.. I'm not sure. But it's
coming from the direction Angels house is in. I think we better
investigate... after all, you *are* the Slayer."

She shook off the dirt and grinned. "Yes, Sir!" And with that, they both
ran to meet the devastation head on.

Cordelia, the Vampire Slayer was home.

***
It begins where it ends.
A nightmare borne of deepest fears - coming to me, unguarded.
***
Sunnydale High School Library
7am.

She dreamed; dragging herself back from the unconscious world. She could
feel the methodical world swim slowly towards her, but not fast enough
for the visions to cease. She was exhausted.

So much had changed. Yet of all the changes, hers remained the same. Willow Rosenberg
was barely out of the wheelchair, but still not up to par on the vampire
slaying thing. So Cordy took on, what she couldn't. And Willow took on
the research and hacking while her body healed. Cordelia. In Buffys
absence, duty still remained and she was at the forefront of it. A
dramatic turn, something they all struggled with.

Buffy was still missing after months of searching. Only a brief and
mysterious phone call to cling to, that she wasn't dead somewhere. They
still searched, but so far nothing. Giles had lost Jenny, and still
mourned for the woman he so loved. Oz had disappeared with his band
after a horrendous fight with her parents and with her, over her
discovery of powerful Wicca ability. Spike and Drusilla had left
Sunnydale. Xander hid more and more from her, although he and Cordelia
seemed more close. And then there was Angel. She bowed her head and
wept.

It was as if her tears, triggered something in the nightmare and it
began to drag her down faster and faster. Out of all this chaos, madness
and emptiness - a small, lone voice called out to her, from the astral
plain she had placed him into.

"Willow, I believe in you." Angels voice touched her heart. "...and I
always will." A glimmer of hope. It was all she needed.

All darkness fell, but for the shadow she knew as Angel, and another
that plagued her, since her Wiccan abilities manifested into something
stronger. This ghost was the only one that came between her restoring
Angel to the world of the living. Her promise to get Angel back had
driven her from the wheel chair frame. She never saw the identity or
called the shadow by name... until now.

Before long Willow broke the unseen astral surface and launched herself forward
into reality, capapulted the dawns early light. The nameless shadow, emerging into the
physical.. her vengence shown in glorious detail. "Nooooooo!!"

Willow scrambled across the room and crashed out of the doors. Her long
sweeping dressing gown flowing behind her as she ran. The
mansion and the sword, essential to success, was in danger of being lost
forever. Even as she battled to make her legs go faster, the faint smell
of smoke filled her lungs. Fear was like a hand over her soul, the
fingers curled like claws, tight and inescapable.

The streets folded out, revealing more of the destruction. Nothing was
left but the burning skeleton. The cops and fire trucks had gone now,
only a few stragglers stayed behind. She hurried over and searched the
stone it had been embedded in. Nothing... the fire couldn't have done
this much damage or destroy a sword? Without the
sword - she couldn't do the spell. She knew who took it. Willow
let the book slip from her hand, as her dreams went, literally, up in
smoke.

his voice soothed in her mind. Willow stood
still, listening.

Willow turned on her heel, the image of an abandoned church in her mind,
carved like stone. Quickly walking away from the sea of ashes falling
over the roadway, she knew where she could find resurrection.

Tonight, Slayers were not the only ones with destinys to follow.

***
Later that same day.
Midnight, on the cusp of a new day in the light of a hunters moon.

Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. The rain ceased its temporary war, the
clouds parting to reveal the scene playing out beneath the heavens.

A circle of candles, the signs of the elements drawn upon the burnt
earth, where the Gothic mansion once stood. Willow stood in the center,
calling up the spirits of her brethren. Small smarks of light, ghostly
and magically emerged from the dancing flames and rose on a pillar of
smokey light around her. She spoke the words like a
prayer, over and over, until she rose up against a battalion of stars.
The sword emerged into the spill of moonlight between the dark rolling
clouds above... the earth seemed to still, in horrific glory. As she
held her hands up, the sword spun in a wide circle, the candle sparks
drawing to the sword like a moth to the flame. Faster and faster, the
sword swung in round circles. Moon light struck it like an arrow, faster
until it was a blur of light. Beneath her, its mirror twin was reflected
in the black ashen earth, and a vortex opened up like the mighty jaws of
a nocturnal dragon.

Willow found herself floating above a tornado's abyss. Lightening
lashed, raising up from its black swirling depths. Something else, even
worse than the vision, slithered upwards like an invisible python,
coiling about her feet, legs and waist. Persistent horror thwarted any
escape, dragging her, screaming, downward.

Drawing the force inside her, her eyes opened to reveal two orbs of
white light. The earth shuddered as she summoned the vampire to her.
"Come dark, come light.. bring forth the vampire soul tonight!" Suddenly
the maelstrom pulsed sending a barrage of thorns into the air. Some
hunch made her duck. Reacting instinctively, she began to twist out of
the way... and one of the sharp poisoness barbs hit. Her shoulder
exploded with pain. The momentum of her attempt to avoid the volley of
spears made her fall backward, her impact with the earth a hard one.

Grimacing with the maddening agony, she rolled to her back and gripped
the barb in both hands and pulled the offending spear from her shoulder.
"GODDESS!", she screamed, the pain working its way through her body. She
rolled to her side, throwing the barb somewhere in the ruins.

"Willow!!!!!!!!"

Willow fought the dizziness and scrambled to the edge of the abyss.
Angels dark eyes starred back at her, his face contorted in pain. Her
joy was momentarily overthrown by the menacing sound of the sword
slowing down, and the vortex reflected below mimicking the action.

"Angel! We have to get you out!," she screamed above the howling screams
echoed as the vortex close. "Take my hand.. take it!!"

Angel reached up, his body extended for last salvation. "Just a
little_bit_closer_" she breathed, the vortex closing around him every
second. "REACH!!"

Skin touched skin. As if nature revolted against the aberrant rebirth,
the dark ruins spontaneously caught on fire around them. The pyre
reigniting to burn out the evil. Willow didn't hesitate, bracing
herself, she pulled with all her might and Angel was lifted up by the
backwash of closure, to crash down on top of her... the black whirlpool
closing forever behind him. There was silence - ghastly and whole.

With an effort, green mortal eyes opened to stare exhilarated into
familiar *soulful* vampire ones. She was speechless, he the same. The
fire throwing a specter of colors across the entangled two. Hecate, the
Greek Goddess of Night, the goddess of the dark nights when the moon is
hidden, patroness of witches and ghosts, was there with them in
celebration. Nothing so strong as love - for it was the only thing that
lasted beyond the grave. In the end, that celebration was quickly taken
from them.

"Angel?," Willow croaked through the pain, "has the sword fallen yet?"
Angel flipped over on his back, causing Willow to cry out. Angel saw
only the blade as it speed downward... a hand emerging from the night
beside him and catch it before it severed his head from his shoulders.

The disembodied hand was given form and shape, as she stepped forward
into the light of the flames that continued to rage. The same blue eyes,
the blond hair and unmistakable attitude. Both Willow and Angel could
have been forgiven, for thinking that hell was not over quite just yet.
Buffy brought the blade to his neck and smiled sadly. Bitterly.

"Back so soon, lover?"
***
End part two.