ANs: Buffy's last season 5 speech to Dawn is quoted in this text. Although I've really tried not to 'borrow' show lines, it's so beautiful that I felt compelled to use it. Again, all disclaimers apply. As I've said, I didn't write that particular speech, I've just adjusted it slightly to work in this context. Also, the spacing in ff.net's doc manager is screwy and I can't get the editor to work properly. But if you read carefully and pay attention to the dates, you should be able to get the gist. Personal responses next chapter, which should be later today or early tomorrow. And then I'm taking a day off and a huge nap. Hugs! sita:)
From the Meltdown to the Apocalypse
1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale, CA
March 6, 2001 7AM
Buffy woke to the sound of Dawn crying for the third time since they had fallen asleep. She had been sleeping in Dawn's room for almost a week, since the night Dawn had tried to raise their mother from the dead. Dawn slept still, and Buffy was moved by her sister's ability to mourn ceaselessly, even through her dreams. Reaching over, she wiped her sister's tears from her cheeks and pulled her close, but Dawn groaned and rolled away.
Buffy was almost back to sleep when she heard the phone ringing downstairs. She struggled out of bed and into the hall. Tripping over the stairs in a downward motion, she heard Xander answer the phone. Due to the incessant calls from her mom's friends and distant relations, Willow had unplugged the phones upstairs a few days before. In a daze of sleep deprivation, Buffy forgot that they were still there. Although, she acknowledged to herself later post-coffee, as her eyes had been closed until she reached the foot of the stairs, she probably wouldn't have been able to match up the plug to the outlet anyway.
She had also forgotten that Xander and Giles were coming over early to help move the boxes of her mother's things to the attic.
As she moved from the bottom step to the floor, she heard Xander saying, "This house is in mourning, man, so very not the time." And then the conversation was over.
Buffy crossed the foyer into the kitchen. When Xander saw her, he stammered, "Uh, hey Buff!"
"Who was that?" Buffy asked sleepily, rubbing her eyes.
Giles handed her a cup of coffee, and Xander continued to stammer, "Uh... that was... just a salesman. No big. So... do you want to take Dawnie to the Espresso Pump or something while we do this?"
Buffy nodded dejectedly, "Yeah... maybe I'll ask Willow and Tara to come, too."
1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale, CA
March 13, 2001 2PM
Giles brought groceries in through the back door of the Summers' home just as the phone started to ring. Deciding to let the machine get it, he opened the refrigerator and began filling in the depleted produce.
After the tone, a familiar voice spoke, "Buffy, it's me. I heard about your mom. I don't want to bother you, but if you need anything, I'm here."
Stunned by the intrusion into his thoughts, Giles hesitated. With Joyce's death so fresh, and Buffy's hesitation about returning to active training, any distraction at this point would give his Slayer an excuse not to face the future without her mother. She might even want to take another holiday to New York, Giles thought. Buffy needed to focus if she was to have any chance whatsoever of protecting Dawn against Glory. Giles knew that Buffy still loved Logan, and that she was hurt that he had never called after the incident that hastened her return to Sunnydale. Logan also had sounded sincere in his desire to help her, but there would be plenty of time for patching up their romance later.
After making that executive decision, Giles did the only thing a responsible Watcher could. He pressed the machine's play button and then the delete.
1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale, CA
April 15, 2001 9PM
Xander, Anya and Dawn were in the dining room playing Monopoly, waiting for Buffy to return from slaying. Anya, drunk with impending victory, picked up another hotel and added it to her collection on Park Place. Xander and Dawn looked at each other and moaned dramatically. There would be no living with Anya for the rest of the week. Her love of money was renowned, but her painful and prolonged capacity to gloat was legendary.
Just as the phone started to ring, Xander selected the Chance card condemning him to jail. Dawn started to stand up, but Xander waved his hand at her.
"Not to worry, Dawn, I'll get it. I'm not going anywhere for a while anyway." he said as he headed toward the kitchen. Over his shoulder, he heard Anya call out to him. She was offering to sell him her 'Get Out of Jail Free Card' for $500.
Dawn grimaced her disapproval and mumbled, "$500 isn't free." Then she shrugged and picked up the dice to roll.
A few minutes later, the girls heard Xander yelling in the kitchen. As she walked in, Dawn heard him say, "Look, if she hasn't called you, take the hint. Leave her alone." Then he slammed down the phone.
"So who was that? Spike doesn't usually call," Dawn asked.
"It was that jerk, Logan. Guy needs to move on," Xander scoffed.
Dawn nodded, understanding Xander's outrage perfectly. "He cut her back to bits! You guys saw... He's been calling here for weeks, like he's trying to get her to get back together with him. I just delete the messages. Like Buffy's really up for another round with the clawed wonder."
Giles' apartment, Sunnydale, CA
May 23, 2001 9PM
Giles heard the phone ringing, but he couldn't get up. He'd been drunk for almost twelve hours. When his machine answered the call, he heard a worried Charles Xavier on the other end.
"Giles, are you there? I fear something terrible has happened to Buffy. I can't locate her with Cerebro, and Logan..."
Giles rolled over with serious objections to Charles' intrusion cleaving to his dehydrated tongue. In the moment, he didn't care to face reality, and he definitely didn't care about Logan or any of his trifling issues.
"Oh what is it, Charles?" he snapped drunkenly.
Professor Xavier was taken aback. He certainly wasn't used to being spoken to in such a rude manner, especially by someone he considered a friend. And so he focused his energy, reached out to Giles' mind, and pulled from him the worst news imaginable.
"Dear God," Xavier sighed, "She's dead. No wonder Logan's taken to his room and won't come out. He's licking his wounds... but how could he have known..."
Giles sat up slowly and wiped the dried and fresh tears from his eyes. He'd barely heard what Charles had said, and he really didn't care to.
"Yes," Giles sighed impatiently, "As are we, Charles. She sacrificed herself for Dawn. She sacrificed herself for us all."
Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters
June 8, 2001 1PM
Rupert Giles wanted to be anywhere but where he was. No, that wasn't quite true. He wanted to be home in England mourning Buffy with a bottle of old Scotch or in Sunnydale mourning Buffy with his friends. The last place he wanted to be was in Westchester, NY, standing outside Logan's bedroom door. But Logan had shut himself away in a full-out pout, and Charles Xavier didn't know the meaning of 'Good God, man, leave me in peace'.
Knowing full well that Logan would never open the door for him if he had not done so for Charles, with a shaking hand Giles reached out and took possession of the knob. Turning it quickly, he pulled the door open and stepped into the wolf's lair. The room was torn apart. Not a single piece of furniture stood unbroken, all of the upholstery fabric was lacerated into a thousand tiny pieces that littered the floor. Bright light poured in through broken windows, the drapes and shutters had been pulled down and shredded, and Giles noticed that the floor and all of the walls were scored in dozens of places by Logan's claws.
Giles began to slowly back away, until the huddled lump under the ripped cover on the floor moved. "So she's dead..." muttered the lump.
Giles cleared his throat nervously, "Yes, she went toe-to-toe with a hell goddess and won. But it was too late..."
"The portal... yeah, I've seen it in nightmares..."
Giles stepped closer and began to sit down on the edge of Logan's torn mattress.
"Giles, stay the hell away from me!"
Giles sighed, "Logan, we did the best we could to protect, and then to save Dawn. Buffy made the decision to sacrifice her life in place of her sister's... I thought you might like to hear Buffy's last words... I've brought them just in case..."
For a long time, Logan said nothing. As Giles turned to leave, he heard a low hiss from beneath the tattered blanked, "Tell me."
Turning around, Giles fumbled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket. As he unfolded it, he began to speak. "I asked Dawn to write this down for me. She remembered it verbatim..." Pausing for a moment, Giles cleared his throat again, as tears burned behind his eyes, "Buffy said... 'Dawn, listen to me. Listen. I love you. I will always love you. This is the work that I have to do. Tell Giles I figured it out and I'm ok. Give my love to our friends and family. Tell Logan that I love and forgive him. Dawn, you have to take care of them now. You have to take care of each other. You have to be strong. Dawn, the hardest thing you have to do in this world is to live in it. Be brave. Live. For me.'"
Hesitating for a moment, Giles took a deep breath. He had been so blind. He'd never thought to research what Buffy's death would do to Logan or vice versa, before they actually mated. He assumed that if one died, then the spell would be broken for the remaining mate. He would conduct further research when he got home... "Logan, if you'll allow us to... you can come to Sunnydale and mourn with us. We can help each other through this."
Logan's bedraggled form slowly rose until he was standing. His claws snapped out and he snarled, "I've had a stomach full of your help, Giles! If not for your help, Buffy would be alive. We would be together. We were headed that way on our own. Buffy and I would have made love last summer and she would have been locked to my side, sealed, unable to leave me. I need your help like a huge gaping hole in the head!"
Giles blanched at Logan's venom for a scant second, and then walked toward the door. Stopping before he walked out, Giles looked back. "Logan, she knew what she was doing. She willingly dove into a... portal to... hell. If you think that any amount of pain or anxiety caused by a separation from you would have kept her from attempting to rescue Dawn and to save this sorry world, then you never knew her at all."
Sunnydale Westside Cemetery
July 31, 2001 a little after sunrise
Willow and Dawn slowly ambled toward Buffy's grave. They really didn't want to be there. Both had been to see her several times since her death, but neither young woman wanted to talk about it.
They had heard rumors, passed along by Spike, about a vagrant who wept and slept next to Buffy's grave. The rumors said that this man was a virtual endless fountain of blood and gave it up to the local vampire population without a fight, as long as the vampires didn't inadvertently step on or disrupt the grave. However, all were warned that this man had claws. A slow and ugly death was given to any who tested his resolve when it came to reverence for the burial site.
Although Spike had never seen him there, everyone at the Summers' house that night knew who the vagrant was; and Willow and Dawn had offered to go and try to talk to him the next day.
But when they arrived, Logan wasn't there.
Approaching from behind, they found that the area surrounding Buffy's grave was covered in multi-colored rose petals. When they looked closer, they saw that scrawling words were scratched into the marble over the entire back of her headstone.
Dawn couldn't believe her eyes. "My God. He did... all this. He must have really loved her... but if he did, how could he have..."
Willow muttered, "It must have really been an accident, just like Buffy said."
Kneeling down, raw tears for Buffy fell from Willow's eyes. "What do you think Buffy would have thought if she'd seen this? She'd have been so touched." Her hand shook slightly as she ran her fingers over the rough marks and whispered the words, "Loneliness. Beauty. Love. Pride. Fear. Regret. Injustice. Anger. Emptiness. Longing. Sorrow. Despair. Lost."
Dawn began to cry as well, but then she shook her head and stepped forward as if she were trying to shake off her tears. As she did, she noticed more writing, and pointed it out to Willow. Along the four inch edge between the back and the front, from the left hand side, along the top, and down the right of the burial marker, he had written, "Where is she? Where am I? Where is our home? Not here under this rock or any other monument."
Finally, walking around to stand beside Buffy's buried body, Willow and Dawn read the front. Although they said nothing at the time, both young women were captivated and confused. Only two new, deeply scratched words appeared in the empty space between the stonemason's heavy engravings. The headstone still read 'Buffy Anne Summers 1981-2001' at the top and 'She saved the world a lot' at the bottom. But beneath the words Willow, Xander, Giles, and Dawn had selected, 'Beloved Sister Devoted Friend', Logan had added his own sentiment, 'Precious Wife'.
(end chapter)