Wait…tomorrow?
Giles' brain felt like it was swimming in molasses. His mouth kept opening and closing in a pathetic imitation of a beached fish, as he tried to wrap his mind around everything the Herald had just said. Buffy and the rest of the gang were looking to him to clarify things, it was his established role—dammit, Rupert, think!
"So, let me get this straight," he began slowly. "Our existence—and all others, everywhere—is just a…a hobby the Powers That Be have come up with to keep themselves from being bored. And we're no longer interesting enough to them, so they've decided to eliminate all…all life and all existence everywhere, and start the universe—universes, sorry—over from the beginning…tomorrow." He looked to the Herald for confirmation and received an encouraging nod. "But, because Buffy is their Chosen One, they've sent you to…to forewarn her of this impending…end." He broke off abruptly, removing his glasses and rubbing them vigorously with his handkerchief, obviously deep in thought.
"Wait," Willow broke in. Her voice sounded very small, and quavered in the sudden silence. "If the Powers are the ones doing the whole…Annealing thingy, they can't mean for Buffy to stop it—'cause…well, that'd just be silly! So why the warning? Why just the Slayer, and not everybody?"
The Herald shrugged. "It's really just a courtesy, I guess. The Powers made her—made her what she is, I mean, as the Slayer, their mortal right Hand—and they seem to think it'd be kinda rude to just…unmake her without even a 'by-your-leave.' Everybody else, they'll just sort of…stop. But I guess maybe they want the Slayer to know what's coming…let her meet the end with her eyes open, y'know?" He shrugged again. "I'm not the one who makes the big decisions, babe, I'm just the messenger."
Dawn's voice was quiet, but firm. "What's going to happen to us, to all the mortals, when…?" she trailed off, her meaning clear.
Maybe it was Buffy's imagination, but Harry's eyes seemed to soften somewhat as he turned to meet her little sister's frank gaze. His voice was still cheery. "The same thing that'll happen to everything else, hon. All the dimensions and the stuff in them are…well, kind of like those little game pieces in Monopoly—the car, and the hat, and the boot, and all? And the Annealing is like the end of one game and starting another. Only in this game, all the pieces are made out of bits of the Powers. I mean, when you're the only thing around, what do you have to build stuff out of, but yourself? So…it's like, you're playing the boot, and Buffy's the car. When your game's over, the boot and the car still exist, right? But the meaning they had during the game—the thing that said, 'the boot represents Dawn'—is gone. And if William, there, decides to be the boot in the next game, it doesn't change the fact that you're still Dawn, does it?" He smiled reassuringly. "When the Annealing comes, all the little bits of the Powers that make up you and your friends and all the mortal beings and all their realities, they go back to the Powers—but just 'cause the substance is gone, doesn't mean that they stop being who or what they are, 'cause even now, you're just being what you are—a little smidgen of the Powers that happens to have the essence of a Dawn—only, with mortal memories. You'll still be you. You'll just be…a puzzle piece fitted back into the puzzle, instead of laying all by itself on the table."
Dawn nodded seriously at the long, convoluted explanation. She didn't look any less petrified.
Buffy turned enormous eyes on her Watcher. "Giles, what…" She wasn't even sure where to begin. "How can we be sure this guy's for real? I mean, he's talking about another apocalypse—god knows we've seen more than enough of those—but this time it's for real, and we're supposed to be okay with this?!? Are we just supposed to take all this on faith??"
A small explosion of giggles suddenly erupted from Xander's direction. Everyone turned to him with identical 'what-the-hell-is-your-problem!' looks, but he only giggled harder. "Oh, come on—this isn't just a little bit funny? I mean, 'it's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine'?" They all rolled their eyes at that, although Dawn cracked a bit of a smile.
Giles cleared his throat. "Yes, well…inappropriate pop culture references aside, Buffy makes an excellent point. What evidence can you offer us in support of this—this story of yours?" He stared at the Herald with nearly unalloyed British skepticism…the really aloof kind.
Harry looked a bit contrite. "Well, there's lots of things I could do…but what kind of hard proof do you think would convince you? I could tell you some of your most private secrets that you've never told anybody…but any half-decent warlock with an Eye of Horus could do the same." He ticked off each possibility on his fingers. "I could ask the Powers to change your reality for a moment—reverse gravity or turn the sky pink—but how would you know that wasn't some kind of mass hallucination or something? I mean, I may be an Elemental, but there's only so much…"
"Hold on—you're an Elemental?" Willow squeaked.
"Well, yeah," Harry replied, as if it should be obvious. "Just a minor one, but I came from the Powers, didn't I?"
Willow turned to Giles excitedly. "I can do it, Giles—see if he's really an Elemental, I mean! There's a spell in one of the really old texts…something about an 'ethereal thread' that temporarily ties a minor Elemental—not one of the actual Powers—into a particular dimension…it's the only way they can stay, and not get 'rejected' by reality, so to speak. There's a spell to detect the thread, and I can do it!" she declared, delighted with herself.
Giles closed his eyes. "Willow…this is not—"
But she wouldn't let him finish. "Look, I know you don't like the way I do magic," she interrupted angrily. "But this is important! We need to know what we're dealing with—if the world really is about to end…" she trailed off, dismayed by what they were discussing. "…and I think this is the only way we can know for sure," she finished plaintively.
Giles rubbed the bridge of his nose again, and sighed. "Fine." His frustration
was evident in his voice. "You're right, we need to know." He eyed her
seriously. "But I don't like it, and I don't want you taking any
unnecessary risks! Understand?"
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
"Whoa."
There was a long silence.
"I mean, really…" Deep breath. "Whoa."
Buffy nodded slowly. "You said it, Xander."
Xander was just not digesting this information well. "But, well…Will, are you sure the spell went right? You actually saw the thready-thing? It wasn't just some…cosmic lint, or something?"
The red-headed witch sighed and reassured her oldest friend, for the seventeenth time, "Yes, Xander, I'm sure. The spell worked fine—and it was there, all stringy-looking and rainbow-sparkly… He's for real—an Elemental."
Harry was gone—not as in 'poof', but as in 'walked-out-the-door.' With the Scoobies still reeling from the proof provided by Willow's detection spell, he had said something about enjoying a few "mortal pleasures" before they stopped existing…no one had really been paying attention to him anymore. Spike had taken him aside for a quick and quiet word, and then their celestial visitor had waved a cheery farewell, promising to return the next morning, in time to see them through the Annealing.
The silence was deafening. For a while, Spike had remained in the shop, absentmindedly pacing up and down, and the sweeping swish of his duster whirling around his legs at every turn had been the only sound. Then Anya had accused him of wearing a hole in the floorboards, and he'd silently ducked into the shop's cellar, and out through the sewers.
None of them could meet the others' eyes. They all just sat, drowning in the silence beneath the terrible weight of their own thoughts, eyes gazing sightlessly into the distance. What was there to say? Yesterday had been a day like any other…and then the sun rose. For the second-to-last time. Today, all the hopes they had cherished, the dreams they had fought for, and the plans they had laid…had turned suddenly to ashes. The end of everything was coming…and for once, there was nothing they could do.
"Carpe diem."
Seven pairs of eyes blinked at the quiet voice, as if waking from a restless sleep.
Dawn voiced their shared thought. "Huh?"
"Carpe diem!" Buffy repeated, with greater certainty. She turned to Willow. "Don't you remember? You told me that, the day…the day you and Oz got together! And I told you the same thing—only, without the Latin—that first night we hung together at the Bronze!"
Willow blinked slowly. "Carpe diem…I remember," she said with a sad smile. "'Seize the day.'"
Buffy nodded, her excitement growing. "C'mon, you guys!" She addressed the whole group. "Think about it! So, the world is ending—okay…not the best news. But do you really want to spend our last hours of life moping about it? Or do you want to really dig into what we've got, before it's gone?"
She watched as the fire began to grow in their eyes. "And…well, when the Annealing happens, we're all going to be with the Powers." Her eyes grew faintly misty as she went on, "I've been there, guys. And I've got to tell you…going to a place like that is not something to be whining about!"
It was nearly magical, to watch some of the clutching despair drain from their eyes. Xander's shoulders straightened, Dawn's chin rose, and Willow even tried a tentative smile—though Giles still wore a pensive frown, and Anya's eyes remained bleak. They were all still hesitant to accept the alien concept of a friendly apocalypse—and who could blame them? Humanity had been bred from the law of the jungle, and no amount of mere conversation could completely drown the deep-seated mortal fear of plunging into nothing…it was the same fear of the almost-man who first nourished a small bonfire at the mouth of a cave and watched the red-gold light flare against the eyes of the predator in the dark beyond…knowing that his life was tied to the flame, and that to extinguish one was to doom the other. How much more terrifying, then, to realize in the core of your being that the next sunrise will spell the end for not just one light, or one life…but all life, across the planet and all the way to the silent reaches beyond the farthest star…all light, snuffed in an instant of divine whim…
No, that wasn't something to be shrugged off with a few words of wisdom.
After all, the Chosen One reminded herself, it's not like they know what's after. If they only knew—if I could show them—the peace, the beauty…god, I wish I could explain, so they wouldn't have to be so afraid…
But soon they would see—of that, she was sure. Certainly they could see how, in a way, it would be almost a relief, to be freed of the responsibility they'd grown so dismally accustomed to…the weight of the world, and the saving of it, time and time again, was a burden suddenly lifted from their too-frail human shoulders. This apocalypse would demand of them no last-minute revelations, no eleventh-hour heroics, no long hours walking the razor's edge that outlined the Mouth of Hell. Nothing but a quiet night, a final dawn, and then a bright forever day…
They would see. They would follow her lead, and she would show them everything…
"Now," Buffy went on with a Cheshire cat grin, "what do you say we all spend some time having as much fun as mortally possible, and we can meet up later at the Bronze for one last group bash?" Her grin widened at the enthusiastic cheers that met her suggestion. "Alright, then!"
The gang broke up into smaller clumps and began to trickle toward the door, the earlier strained silence now replaced by a cheerful babble of talk and laughter. Xander and Anya were obviously on their way home to engage in Anya's second-favorite activity—after counting her money, of course. Giles quickly made up his mind that the end of the world would be a sufficiently engrossing research topic to keep him occupied until it actually came to pass.
Buffy took Dawn and Willow aside. "If you two are okay with it, I'd really like to spend some quality time with both of you…will you wait for me a minute while I talk to Giles?"
"Hey, no problem, Buffy!" Willow replied. "You guys are the closest thing I've got to family…there's nobody else I'd want to hang with while the world's ending."
Buffy smiled and went to pull Giles' nose out of the first of many dusty books, so she missed the brief look of pain that flitted across her best friend's face.
Dawn, however, was quick to notice. With a glance at her sister's retreating
back, she addressed the red-head at her side. "Um, Willow? Could I talk
to you for a minute…?"
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~