Epilogue

Anthony Masen woke with a startled snort. He gasped slightly and blinked into the flashing light of the television. A commercial advertising toothpaste displayed a brightly smiling woman. He must have fallen asleep in his recliner, as he did most nights. He sat upright and groaned as his entire body creaked with his movement.

He told his Telly to switch off and then he brought his recliner down. He took a deep breath as he prepared to hoist himself from his chair. His woolen socks made purchase on the carpet below his feet and he held onto the arms of his chair with all his quivering strength as he tried to master gravity and make his extensive frame stand.

He felt as taut and rickety as an ancient, withered tree, ready to be felled in the next storm. Once, he had been young and strong, but the long intermediary years had sapped him of his former vitality. He could not begrudge those years. They had been full and he did not take for granted the gift of life he had been given. He just felt, more and more acutely, that his days were far more numerous than necessary.

"Buffy?" He called and he glanced around the empty room. He expected to hear her clattering around in the kitchen or her gentle snores emanating from the bedroom. He had been so sure he had heard her, just before he woke. He blinked again as he tried to clear his mind of the cobwebs of his dreams. No voice answered and he tried to remember what had woken him.

No. Not Buffy. He thought to himself.

Something whispered into his thoughts, like the lingering notes of a song after the bow has left the strings of a cello or the fragrance of a freshly baked pie that has been shut away in the oven. It had been something familiar and yet long-forgotten. He had heard a voice, but one he had not heard of in decades.

"Darling?" he called out, unsure quite why he did or how he even remembered the name she had told him to call her.

It must have been another dream, he realized. His sleeping mind often tumbled into vivid dreams, especially as his steps slowed and he spent more and more of his days asleep. This one, though, felt different. He thought he saw Buffy, heard her, and yet it was not exactly her, or not as he remembered her. It was as if it were a dream, from so many years ago, buried in the fog of time. It made him think of bright lights and metallic tables and a whir of machines.

He wasn't sure why his mind had conjured her now, so many years later. He allowed his mind to wander back through his decades to where it first began, a slight sadness creeping through him at the thought of her. It was rarely he thought back to the beginning of his life and even more unusual to think about the woman who had raised him before Buffy. Still, the mind was a strange catacomb of old memories and at times old ghosts chose to haunt his bouts of unconscious ramblings.

Well, it was time to sleep – and not in his recliner.

"Buffy?" He called out a second time. He waited to see her familiar face turn a corner and laugh at him for falling asleep in that chair again.

"Gravity is stronger in that spot," she would say as she helped him stand, pretending to groan with the effort. Then, she'd reward him with a peck on the lips and a slap on the back. She'd leave off whatever project she was doing and they'd make their way to their bedroom together.

When she didn't answer, he gave an unsteady glance around the room. Dirty socks were piled on the floor by his recliner. She hated it when he forgot to take his socks to the laundry bin. He'd have to remember to do that, once he got out of his chair. He glanced into the kitchen. The unwashed dishes were piled high. She never left the dishes in the sink, so she must be out.

Then he noticed the open window and felt the draft of night air wafting in. He never left the window open, not since the day Buffy had found a bird flying through their flat. Toppled on its side near the window lay a vase with a single sunflower, its petals slightly wilted.

Then, he remembered. In a burst of acute clarity, he gripped the arms of his chair even harder. Of course, Buffy didn't answer. Buffy wasn't here to help him out of his chair. Not anymore. Her loss made gravity press on him all the heavier and he felt the absence of her worn, wrinkled hand even more after waking from a sleep filled with dreams of her. It made sleep call ever more fervently to him, knowing he would be rewarded with images of his wife – her laughter, her warmth, her hand on his arm.

He gasped at the sudden searing pain that wracked through him, as if waking to discover a limb had been amputated. Twenty years had passed since her last heart beat and still he felt it as if it were yesterday. Unconsciously, he ran his shaking hand over the ring he still wore. The design which had once been engraved in his ring had worn off and now it shown a smooth, pale gold.

Since the day she slipped it on his finger, he had refused to remove it.

"Do you know how long I waited for this ring?" he had teased. "I would be a fool to let it out of sight now that I've finally got it on my finger."

She had laughed at him and then kissed him with a passion that nearly made his toes curl and he had remembered all over again why he had waited so long for that woman.

And she had been worth it. Worth every tear, every heartbreak, every lonely night. Those nearly thirty years they spent together had been the best of his entire life… yet they now cast a long shadow on the lingering years spent without her.

It took three tries and a loud groan before he managed to pry himself from his favorite chair. He realized he still wore the clothes from the day before. He fixed the belt buckle on his khaki trousers and smoothed out his green and grey checkered polo shirt. A drop of sauce from his beef gravy marred the chest. He sighed. Buffy always warned him when he ate gravy and still he always spilled. It would leave a stain and she hated stains.

He shuffled his way across the room, neglecting his socks on the floor in a tumbled heap. He pushed his thick, black-rimmed glasses up on his nose and then he peered out the window. He tried to remember opening it. His memory must be worse than he thought because he could not, for the life of him, remember. He glanced down at the busy London streets below before closing the window. He set the flower vase right and delicately stroked one cheerful petal.

Every Saturday, Buffy placed a fresh sunflower on that windowsill. Sometimes she chose a red one, sometimes yellow, sometimes black, but inevitably, she always placed a solitary sunflower there.

"Why?" he asked one time, when he failed to see her shift from this pattern.

She shrugged. "I like it," she answered and her eyes overflowed with warmth.

It was one of those things that was just Buffy – like how she constantly tripped over the coffee table or talked in her sleep without knowing she was doing it. He loved her for it, as much when she had silver hair as when it was entirely chocolate brown.

He kept up the tradition in her honor. Every Saturday, he bought a new sunflower and placed it in her case. It was another way he could keep her nearby.

He reached down into the sink and began to wash off the dishes. They must have been from breakfast since he always ate his dinners at Buffy's restaurant, well, what used to be Buffy's restaurant. It had changed hands three times since, but he still thought of it as hers.

She had built that restaurant from the ground up, slowly expanding her catering business until it became a settled establishment.

"We don't need the money. You make enough for both of us," she told him, a wide grin on her face. "I'm doing this because I love it!"

Perhaps, it was never a five-star establishment, but it was homey and comfortable and well-loved in the side of London it was nestled in. She chose a location close to the her beloved children's center. Any leftover food went directly to the home and any residents of the home received free meals, no questions asked. She also hired more than one of her workers from the many family members who frequented the home. As if that wasn't enough, the majority of her proceeds she donated back to the home.

It was that great, big, beautiful heart of hers that he had always adored. She tried to hide it between layers of cardboard sarcasm and arms-length distance, but he could see through her. It was that precious heart that stopped beating long before he was ready to release her. How could he ever be prepared for her loss? There was no way he would ever be ready, but it had all been so sudden, so quick.

After that awful day when her precious heart stopped beating, Anthony had to sell it. The new owner had been a longtime friend of Buffy and he kept the décor in her honor, chuckling that it was just "so Buffy" that he couldn't bring himself to change anything.

Anthony had to agree. Now, twenty years later the restaurant still thrived and despite the change in ownership, the décor remained the same. The walls were covered in movie posters and memorabilia. Most unique of all was the banquet hall filled entirely with antique vampire slaying artifacts. This collection had been a borderline obsession for her and she acquired trinkets every time they traveled the world. From silver bullets to crosses and holy water, she filled the entire hall with her strange little collection. When any of her patrons asked her about it, she shrugged and explained, "You never know when they might come in handy."

"Do they actually work?" Anthony asked her once.

"Don't be stupid. Of course, they don't," she said. And that was that. He didn't doubt she'd tested each and every one of them and he figured she was probably one of the leading human authorities on vampires. Still, he didn't really want to hear how many vampire slaying techniques she had actually tried in real life and so he let the subject lie.

It was just one of those things that was just so very Buffy. Just like the half price Bloody Marys she gave out on Christmas Eve or the model of Bran Castle she made out of gingerbread and placed in the entrance to the restaurant on Christmas day.

That was another reason he went to her restaurant every day, even now that it was no longer hers. He could feel her there, still, even thought she was no longer physically there. He sat at the same booth as he had done every day when she was still the one in charge of the place, the one closest to the front entrance and near the kitchen door. It was the place he could most easily see her face light up at each patron who came or went and he could bask in her delighted glow.

She never got much better as talking about her feelings but he had long ago learned that when she wanted to tell him she loved him, then she cooked for him. She only cooked for those she loved and when that perfectly browned crème brulee turned up on the counter just as he came home from work, he knew it was her way to telling him.

Those years with her had been full. Interweaving the lives of two fiercely stubborn and passionately solitary individuals had been fraught with conflict. Their arguments had been volatile, but each knew the agony -the wide, gaping wound- of life without the other. They much preferred to tolerate the idiosyncrasies of the other than accept the alternative and so they figured out a means to get along.

Twenty-nine years was plenty of time to integrate themselves into each other's lives. If Anthony thought he had loved Buffy before, well, the woman he married was a far cry from the one who first taught him how to use a fork and change his socks. That woman had been young, vivacious, and breath-takingly beautiful. However, she had been as closed off to him as a banker's vault and as hesitant as a cat in a bath. No, the woman he eventually married, he was delighted to discover, was as warm and welcoming as a hearth fire on a winter's day.

It had been strange – this new version of Buffy who looked up to him, respected him, and treated him as an equal. He felt himself grow five feet taller and as if he were a king each time she looked at him or praised him for his decisions. She was no longer a statue on a pedestal, clod and distant and far-removed from him. No, she stood on his level, eye-to-eye, and embraced him with her whole heart. Like the best of vinegars and the finest of wines, the intermediary years had tempered and aged her and made the flavors settle into something truly vibrant.

He showed her his affection in his own way - entirely lacking in ovens and blow torches, but just as subtle and full of sincerity.

He would never forget the sound of her uncontrolled laughter the day he rented a car and took her to the countryside.

"What are we doing here?" She had asked.

"My wife has long harbored a secret wish to milk a cow. I intend to see this wish fulfilled."

"You are not serious. Wait, did you find my notebook?"

He grinned and withdrew the battered blue book from below his seat. "I intend to make sure you fulfill each and every goal you have yet to accomplish."

She arched her eyebrow and gave him a dubious expression. "All of them?"

"As many as we can."

It was not long after that Buffy was introduced to the amused farmer who was more than happy to teach her how to milk a cow. Her delight when the a spurt of milk drenched him or Buffy's expression when she first felt the udder were moments he would never forget.

While he wished he could say they fulfilled it all, it simply wasn't possible. There was always more than a lifetime could fill, especially when Buffy took it into her mind to find even more outlandish and impossible tasks to write in her notebook, just to see if he could make it happen.

"The North Pole?" He had asked, that one day. "You want to take a dog sled to the North Pole?"

She laughed and wrapped a scarf around her neck. "Yep."

"I'll do my best."

They never did make it to the North Pole, but they did travel extensively, though more often for Anthony's work than for Buffy's bucket list. They circled the globe repeatedly, granting Buffy all the adventures she could hope for. Anthony was surprised to find that even Buffy had her limits.

"You would love Italy!" Anthony insisted. "It's amazing!"

She shook her head adamantly and her face got that hardened, stubborn look. It was the one he was all too familiar with and he knew she would not change her mind, no matter what he did.

"I'm not going to Italy. I won't do it. How about Greece instead?"

"Fine," he agreed, reluctantly. They had enjoyed their trip to Greece and he never brought up Italy again.

After her passing, he tried to continue on, but truthfully, part of him was buried alongside his wife.

After Buffy died, well, he understood Edward Masen more than he ever had before. He was glad he never learned the secret of cloning in its entirety. How could he stand by Buffy's grave each week and not be tempted? If he knew the secret, how could he ever accept another day without her by his side?

If Edward Masen, a nearly immortal being, loved a mortal one, and had to watch her die, over and over again, then of course he would move heaven and earth to resurrect her. It was a romantic notion- the solitary demigod who so loved his fragile mate that he spent eternity constantly bringing her back to life. Yet, he only succeeded in watching her die and having to start the process all over again. To love her for each and every lifetime was a tragedy Anthony could not comprehend.

"He didn't love them and he had a much too eager hand in their deaths," Buffy argued back.

Anthony wondered at their creator. He was a contradiction. He was an enigma. He was unsettling familiar. For all that Anthony had never met the man, his words still echoed in his mind.

Dear Anthony,

It does not feel correct to term you my son nor by brother. No, indeed, you are myself and instead I will write this letter thus – as the reincarnation of my soul, as the chance for me to finally live – in the life and in the life hereafter – you are the culmination of all the very best parts of myself. You are blessedly and gloriously human, untainted by the demonic elements that cling to my depraved being. Already, you have reached a maturation that I failed to attend and you have opportunities before you that my own foolishness prevented me from ever accomplishing. In this way you are my superior and ever will be.

As such, I implore you to live. Live long. Live well. In each night's rest, sleep knowing such repose is a gift of God. In each pang of hunger and mode of contentment, embrace the fullness of your mortality. In each shifting phase of your life, the inevitable progress to old age and entropy, do not decry it but embrace in it the gift that it is. For, in all the centuries I have lived, you have what I never could attain. Eternal youth and strength grant naught but purgatory and a damnation of one perpetually dead among the living.

For each life I have stolen, you have the opportunity to save a thousand more. For each soul I am guilty of, you can sow healing and extended breaths. In this, you are my salvation.

In exchange, I grant you the one gift I have to bestow: the perfect companion. As Frankenstein's monster once cried to his creator, "I am alone and miserable; man will not associate with me; but one as deformed and horrible as myself would not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the same species and have the same defects. This being you must create…It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another."

You are not the only misplaced being, the only resurrected soul. Take care of her. Treasure her, while you can. Do not tarry or be the fool that I was. No, you are made for each other and meant for each other in a way no other pair have ever been before.

Sincerely,

Edward Masen

Anthony never showed that letter (or any of the others) to Buffy. He summarized it, but he never let her see it in its entirety. She never asked to. Still, he kept the typed page- along with the small box which had been enclosed within.

The small box carrying two distinct adult molars.

ooooooo

A pair of cold hands dug through the frozen ground of the London cemetery. No shovel was required but only the cruel fingernails that could bite through the earth as easily as if it were butter. The caskets were opened and emptied of their contents, placed in a metal box, then reburied again, as if nothing had ever happened. Perhaps, people wondered at the disturbed grass the next day, but not enough to investigate it further. No, to any outsider, it was as if the caskets remained full and their incumbents resting peacefully within.

However, the two corpses were exhumed and taken on another journey, to end their days were it had all first begun. There, in the Bourkou region of Chad, their bodies were carried and interned into the tunneled earth below the sands.

"Welcome home," cooed a smooth, velvety voice. Delicate fingers trailed a path along the bones and rotting flesh, as if in a caress. "You thought you escaped, didn't you? You thought you would never see me again? You left without a second glance or a second thought. I'm afraid you are trapped with me now. Forever."

They were placed in boxes, side-by-side each other, in a vault deep underground. Soon, they would be resurrected and forced to live, to breathe, to die all over again.

And again.

And again.

"Welcome to Neverland," the new mistress whispered and then she threw back her head and laughed.

~The End~