Disclaimer: All characters belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy (With the
Exception of a few that I have created.)
Author's note: This is the story that takes place twenty years after Sunnydale was destroyed. No alternate reality, basically stays true to what happened in "Chosen".
London, England
She walks through the GraveYard, her gray hair flowing in the harsh winds of this foreign atmosphere. Sure she has traveled all around the world over the last twenty years, but this place she has tried to stay away from due to it reminding her of her true calling. That's why she left America years back, she chose a normal life and she paid for it. Only in the last couple of months has she realized that she wasn't living a normal life, she was living a life of seclusion. She hasn't had very many friends over the past fifteen years, she didn't chose not to be a slayer, she chose to be dead again. But it just seemed like even thought she wasn't the only slayer anymore that she was called as long as she stayed with her friends. She would keep trying to leave, but they just tried pulling her in. First it was just to restart the Watchers council, than it was to train more slayers, than she was battling vampires again. No matter which way she tried, she was still THE SLAYER.
Buffy Summers slowly walks around the graveyard, checking the tombstones for a certain name, a name the means a lot to her. This is not something new to her, in fact, she has had to do this many times over the course of the last few years. So many names come to mind, Jesse, Jenny, Kendra, her mom, herself, Tara, Jonothan, Anya, Rona, Riley and her biological father. She has outlived them all, even though she was not supposed to, her destiny was to actually die at an early age. But oddly enough, she outlived those she was sworn to protect and it eats her up inside. That's another issue she has had to deal with over the last few days, she is now the oldest slayer ever. She guesses she is now in the watcher's councils record books for that, if they have records. But now she is coming the realization that she may never die due to a question that nobody ever asked. What happens if a slayer is not slain in battle? The answer is simple, they don't, she can feel it in her bones. While most are supposed to get weaker with age, she actually gets stronger. Buffy Summers is never going to die.
While thinking this through, she stops dead in tracks, she finds the headstone she's looking for. But it's not really a head stone, it's more like a shrine. As she walks closer, she thinks that if anybody deserved a shrine it was this man. She begins reading the words and bursts into tears once she is done reading the passage written on the shrine. She hasn't cried like this in this years, ever since her mom died actually, but who can blame her this is the man she only truly loved. Not in the way most people think, she never had any sexual feelings for this man. Although, she did have a father, that man wasn't there for her the way that her watcher was, he didn't teach her the way her watcher did. She goes down on her knees as she mourns her real father. Head bowed down the tears pour onto the very soggy grass as the words on the shrine ring through her head.
RUPERT GILES 1951-2023 HE WATCHED OVER ALL OF MANKIND A FATHER TO US ALL THE MAN WHO MADE HEROES
She knows that each saying written by each member of her family, even though she knows that her family has grown since she has left, these three are the core. Her two sisters and her brother, and Giles was like a father to them. In the beginning, he would point and tell them what to do and she would lead them through the darkness. Each time, she thought she would lose one of them, but each time family over came all odds. But apparently, those odds can't last forever, at least not for her mentor. She thinks back to the last time she saw him, about fifteen years ago, that day she told him and her friends to stay out of her life, and they did. She hasn't seen them since, not only did she miss his funeral a few days ago, she missed her sisters wedding, the other sister's promotion as a goddess and her brother's in the Watcher's Council. This remorse grows deeper and deeper the more she thinks about Giles. But before she can go any deeper into the dark place she realizes that there is someone behind her.
"You know" The older man that stands behind her begins. "In his last words, he mentions you."
She turns around to see a face she misses dearly, although much older and bald, it's still the same old face. Xander Harris still has that charming cute smile he had when they were teens, and although he still wears a patch over one his eye, the one left shines brighter than ever. She stands up still sobbing and the two look each other, they have no clue what to say. Instead of saying anything right off the bat she rushes to his arms and continues to cry. He pats her head, not knowing what else to do, both are filled with happiness that they are together again, but remorse due to the death of their father. They stay that way for a minute or two, then release and they are back to staring each other in the face once more.
"So," Buffy begins as she wipes the tears from her eyes, then she flashes that old, but still beautiful smile. "What am I supposed to say, Xander? I've been away so long."
"I don't really think now is the time to bring back past emotional issues, Buff. You left we cried, then moved on. Right now, I'm just happy to see you again, wish it was under better circumstances. But still good to have you back."
"Sorry I missed the funeral, I only got word of his death a few days back." With saying that, she bursts back into tears. Xander reaches over and puts his hand on her shoulder. "I'm so sorry that I have missed the last fifteen years, I'm sorry that I missed out on everything." She didn't think that her emotions would come out so quickly. She embraces him once more as he strokes her hair.
" You know if circumstances weren't so grim, I could probably think of many sarcastic things to say. But before he died, he told me not to hate you. That if you ever came back, to let you back into not only my life but the rest of the family. That's a promise I plan to keep." He let's his embrace go once more as they have another moment of silence.
She twirls her now fading blonde hair as she tries to make small talk, she wants to avoid the real question she has. " So the Watcher's Council is all yours now?"
"Yeah," a brief boyish smirk returns to his face. " He left to me in his will, I'm still in disbelief that he would trust a man who dated a vengeance demon, a praying mantis, an inca mummy girl, and was a love slave to Dracula the watcher's council. I'm just as shocked as when he made me Vi's official watcher after the first hellmouth was destroyed. Now I'm in charge of the whole operation, it's a very different experience. But now that 'You're the one who sees thing' comment that Caleb made all those years back makes a lot more sense nowadays."
"Well," She smiles at how humble Xander has become over the years, he has grown up so much and she missed all of that. " You are the perfect man for the job, you've been watching my back from day one." She pauses again, trying to avoid the question that she has again. "How's Dawn been?"
"Happy, very happy. Ends up that she has the same taste in men that you do."
A curious look appears on her face as he says this. "What's that supposed to mean?"
" Maybe you'll find out one of these days." He pauses and looks back at her with a very unsure look on his face. "She's been a watcher for the last seven years, poor girl had to learn the risk of this job the hard way."
"What risk would that be?"
"Responsibility, a hard thing I had to learn. Her first slayer died within two weeks, she was very broken over it. Her second one took Faith's path, we had to send Kennedy to take her out. That made her almost suicidal, she really could have used you during those days. But fortunately, her third slayer is still around very obedient and she met a guy she really loves."
"Please tell me it's not Andrew"
Xander chuckles just a little bit as she asks this. "No, like I said, he closely resembles someone you know very well and it's not Andrew or anyone from the Troika for that matter."
Again, she asks a small talk question to avoid the real one on her mind. " How's Willow doing?"
Xander now looks complex at this question. "Godlike, I really don't get to see her much anymore. She came down for his funeral and we caught up on old times but that's as far as it goes."
"What did she become?"
"Remember that old lady that you ran into when you were inquiring about the scythe?"
"Wait, she has become one of those? That must be really boring for her."
"It is, but it's what she was called for. She kind of had to or she wouldn't have been doing her full potential."
"I guess your right, but wouldn't she get lonely." Xander gives a remorseful look to her.
"I think after awhile she wanted to be alone, after her first boyfriend left, her first girl friend died, and her second girlfriend realized that the whole lesbian thing was just a phase she was going through. And you were gone, she wanted to be away from people who would hurt her."
"Oh," She looks very upset with this revelation. "What about your love life?"
" Married twice actually."
"Really," a warm smile crosses her face as he says this. "What happened there?"
"My first wife, Sandra, left because she couldn't handle the fact that I was training underage girls to fight evil as a living. She just didn't trust me as much as I trusted her, apparently I shouldn't have. I caught her making out with a sloth demon." He has a bright smile on his face trying to hide the pain.
Buffy looks very upset with this other revelation from Xander. "Who was the second wife?"
"Clem" A very amused and confused look appears on her face, she laughs a little bit. " It was a spell that Andrew cast, imagine trying to carry that over the threshhold, couldn't lift anything ever since."
Both burst into laughter as he goes over this hilarious past event. Once they are done laughing, Buffy decides it's time to get to the real question she has in mind. "Xander, I hate to ask this, but how did his body look in the casket during the funeral?"
Xander's face turns from a huge smile to a frown very quickly. "Buffy there was no body for the funeral."
She becomes terrified at where this is going. " So then he was cremated?"
Xander has a problem getting this last part out because it sounds very sarcastic, but it's the truth. "In a way, yes."
Her fear has been realized once he says this, she knows what happened to Giles. "Oh god no, who sired him? I'll dust them."
Xander begins to explain with a very blank expression on his face. " I don't know, I came right after he was attacked. He said his last words as a human, didn't say what vampire did it to him, just talked about the Scoobs mostly. It was a very sad experience for us to see him turn into a vampire like that. Didn't last long because I dusted him right away."
Tears begin trickling down her eyes once more. "Xander, I'm so sorry, if anyone had to do it, it should have been me."
"No,"She is shocked once Xander goes to his knees and begins to ball into tears. "It shouldn't have been anyone of us. This shouldn't have happened to him, of all of us, he deserved a natural death, not this tragedy. Everyday, he put his life on the line just to teach others the way of battling the forces of darkness. All of that, just to be turned into darkness. It's not fair, Buffy."
Buffy kneels down and begins massaging Xanders back in a comforting fashion. "I know," More tears stream down and onto Xander's shoulder. "What have you done to find out what bastard did this to him? I mean The Watcher's Council must have done something to look into this, right?"
Still crying he looks back up at Buffy. "I've tried, but most of the council's attention has been focused on the L.A situation."
Buffy is once again confused, she hasn't watched the news or read the newspapers, so she has no clue what has been happening around the world. "What happened in Los Angelos?"
Author's note: This is the story that takes place twenty years after Sunnydale was destroyed. No alternate reality, basically stays true to what happened in "Chosen".
London, England
She walks through the GraveYard, her gray hair flowing in the harsh winds of this foreign atmosphere. Sure she has traveled all around the world over the last twenty years, but this place she has tried to stay away from due to it reminding her of her true calling. That's why she left America years back, she chose a normal life and she paid for it. Only in the last couple of months has she realized that she wasn't living a normal life, she was living a life of seclusion. She hasn't had very many friends over the past fifteen years, she didn't chose not to be a slayer, she chose to be dead again. But it just seemed like even thought she wasn't the only slayer anymore that she was called as long as she stayed with her friends. She would keep trying to leave, but they just tried pulling her in. First it was just to restart the Watchers council, than it was to train more slayers, than she was battling vampires again. No matter which way she tried, she was still THE SLAYER.
Buffy Summers slowly walks around the graveyard, checking the tombstones for a certain name, a name the means a lot to her. This is not something new to her, in fact, she has had to do this many times over the course of the last few years. So many names come to mind, Jesse, Jenny, Kendra, her mom, herself, Tara, Jonothan, Anya, Rona, Riley and her biological father. She has outlived them all, even though she was not supposed to, her destiny was to actually die at an early age. But oddly enough, she outlived those she was sworn to protect and it eats her up inside. That's another issue she has had to deal with over the last few days, she is now the oldest slayer ever. She guesses she is now in the watcher's councils record books for that, if they have records. But now she is coming the realization that she may never die due to a question that nobody ever asked. What happens if a slayer is not slain in battle? The answer is simple, they don't, she can feel it in her bones. While most are supposed to get weaker with age, she actually gets stronger. Buffy Summers is never going to die.
While thinking this through, she stops dead in tracks, she finds the headstone she's looking for. But it's not really a head stone, it's more like a shrine. As she walks closer, she thinks that if anybody deserved a shrine it was this man. She begins reading the words and bursts into tears once she is done reading the passage written on the shrine. She hasn't cried like this in this years, ever since her mom died actually, but who can blame her this is the man she only truly loved. Not in the way most people think, she never had any sexual feelings for this man. Although, she did have a father, that man wasn't there for her the way that her watcher was, he didn't teach her the way her watcher did. She goes down on her knees as she mourns her real father. Head bowed down the tears pour onto the very soggy grass as the words on the shrine ring through her head.
RUPERT GILES 1951-2023 HE WATCHED OVER ALL OF MANKIND A FATHER TO US ALL THE MAN WHO MADE HEROES
She knows that each saying written by each member of her family, even though she knows that her family has grown since she has left, these three are the core. Her two sisters and her brother, and Giles was like a father to them. In the beginning, he would point and tell them what to do and she would lead them through the darkness. Each time, she thought she would lose one of them, but each time family over came all odds. But apparently, those odds can't last forever, at least not for her mentor. She thinks back to the last time she saw him, about fifteen years ago, that day she told him and her friends to stay out of her life, and they did. She hasn't seen them since, not only did she miss his funeral a few days ago, she missed her sisters wedding, the other sister's promotion as a goddess and her brother's in the Watcher's Council. This remorse grows deeper and deeper the more she thinks about Giles. But before she can go any deeper into the dark place she realizes that there is someone behind her.
"You know" The older man that stands behind her begins. "In his last words, he mentions you."
She turns around to see a face she misses dearly, although much older and bald, it's still the same old face. Xander Harris still has that charming cute smile he had when they were teens, and although he still wears a patch over one his eye, the one left shines brighter than ever. She stands up still sobbing and the two look each other, they have no clue what to say. Instead of saying anything right off the bat she rushes to his arms and continues to cry. He pats her head, not knowing what else to do, both are filled with happiness that they are together again, but remorse due to the death of their father. They stay that way for a minute or two, then release and they are back to staring each other in the face once more.
"So," Buffy begins as she wipes the tears from her eyes, then she flashes that old, but still beautiful smile. "What am I supposed to say, Xander? I've been away so long."
"I don't really think now is the time to bring back past emotional issues, Buff. You left we cried, then moved on. Right now, I'm just happy to see you again, wish it was under better circumstances. But still good to have you back."
"Sorry I missed the funeral, I only got word of his death a few days back." With saying that, she bursts back into tears. Xander reaches over and puts his hand on her shoulder. "I'm so sorry that I have missed the last fifteen years, I'm sorry that I missed out on everything." She didn't think that her emotions would come out so quickly. She embraces him once more as he strokes her hair.
" You know if circumstances weren't so grim, I could probably think of many sarcastic things to say. But before he died, he told me not to hate you. That if you ever came back, to let you back into not only my life but the rest of the family. That's a promise I plan to keep." He let's his embrace go once more as they have another moment of silence.
She twirls her now fading blonde hair as she tries to make small talk, she wants to avoid the real question she has. " So the Watcher's Council is all yours now?"
"Yeah," a brief boyish smirk returns to his face. " He left to me in his will, I'm still in disbelief that he would trust a man who dated a vengeance demon, a praying mantis, an inca mummy girl, and was a love slave to Dracula the watcher's council. I'm just as shocked as when he made me Vi's official watcher after the first hellmouth was destroyed. Now I'm in charge of the whole operation, it's a very different experience. But now that 'You're the one who sees thing' comment that Caleb made all those years back makes a lot more sense nowadays."
"Well," She smiles at how humble Xander has become over the years, he has grown up so much and she missed all of that. " You are the perfect man for the job, you've been watching my back from day one." She pauses again, trying to avoid the question that she has again. "How's Dawn been?"
"Happy, very happy. Ends up that she has the same taste in men that you do."
A curious look appears on her face as he says this. "What's that supposed to mean?"
" Maybe you'll find out one of these days." He pauses and looks back at her with a very unsure look on his face. "She's been a watcher for the last seven years, poor girl had to learn the risk of this job the hard way."
"What risk would that be?"
"Responsibility, a hard thing I had to learn. Her first slayer died within two weeks, she was very broken over it. Her second one took Faith's path, we had to send Kennedy to take her out. That made her almost suicidal, she really could have used you during those days. But fortunately, her third slayer is still around very obedient and she met a guy she really loves."
"Please tell me it's not Andrew"
Xander chuckles just a little bit as she asks this. "No, like I said, he closely resembles someone you know very well and it's not Andrew or anyone from the Troika for that matter."
Again, she asks a small talk question to avoid the real one on her mind. " How's Willow doing?"
Xander now looks complex at this question. "Godlike, I really don't get to see her much anymore. She came down for his funeral and we caught up on old times but that's as far as it goes."
"What did she become?"
"Remember that old lady that you ran into when you were inquiring about the scythe?"
"Wait, she has become one of those? That must be really boring for her."
"It is, but it's what she was called for. She kind of had to or she wouldn't have been doing her full potential."
"I guess your right, but wouldn't she get lonely." Xander gives a remorseful look to her.
"I think after awhile she wanted to be alone, after her first boyfriend left, her first girl friend died, and her second girlfriend realized that the whole lesbian thing was just a phase she was going through. And you were gone, she wanted to be away from people who would hurt her."
"Oh," She looks very upset with this revelation. "What about your love life?"
" Married twice actually."
"Really," a warm smile crosses her face as he says this. "What happened there?"
"My first wife, Sandra, left because she couldn't handle the fact that I was training underage girls to fight evil as a living. She just didn't trust me as much as I trusted her, apparently I shouldn't have. I caught her making out with a sloth demon." He has a bright smile on his face trying to hide the pain.
Buffy looks very upset with this other revelation from Xander. "Who was the second wife?"
"Clem" A very amused and confused look appears on her face, she laughs a little bit. " It was a spell that Andrew cast, imagine trying to carry that over the threshhold, couldn't lift anything ever since."
Both burst into laughter as he goes over this hilarious past event. Once they are done laughing, Buffy decides it's time to get to the real question she has in mind. "Xander, I hate to ask this, but how did his body look in the casket during the funeral?"
Xander's face turns from a huge smile to a frown very quickly. "Buffy there was no body for the funeral."
She becomes terrified at where this is going. " So then he was cremated?"
Xander has a problem getting this last part out because it sounds very sarcastic, but it's the truth. "In a way, yes."
Her fear has been realized once he says this, she knows what happened to Giles. "Oh god no, who sired him? I'll dust them."
Xander begins to explain with a very blank expression on his face. " I don't know, I came right after he was attacked. He said his last words as a human, didn't say what vampire did it to him, just talked about the Scoobs mostly. It was a very sad experience for us to see him turn into a vampire like that. Didn't last long because I dusted him right away."
Tears begin trickling down her eyes once more. "Xander, I'm so sorry, if anyone had to do it, it should have been me."
"No,"She is shocked once Xander goes to his knees and begins to ball into tears. "It shouldn't have been anyone of us. This shouldn't have happened to him, of all of us, he deserved a natural death, not this tragedy. Everyday, he put his life on the line just to teach others the way of battling the forces of darkness. All of that, just to be turned into darkness. It's not fair, Buffy."
Buffy kneels down and begins massaging Xanders back in a comforting fashion. "I know," More tears stream down and onto Xander's shoulder. "What have you done to find out what bastard did this to him? I mean The Watcher's Council must have done something to look into this, right?"
Still crying he looks back up at Buffy. "I've tried, but most of the council's attention has been focused on the L.A situation."
Buffy is once again confused, she hasn't watched the news or read the newspapers, so she has no clue what has been happening around the world. "What happened in Los Angelos?"