"So explain to me what's going to happen here, exactly," Grey said to the group when the ingredients were prepared. They were all seated in a circle in his parents' living room; the furniture had been pushed to walls. In the center lay a dark blue pillow, tiny and square, surrounded by candles.
"Well," Willow stretched the word out, wanting to hedge but not knowing how. He was going to throw a fit. "See, there are different ways to make the blade. The one you and I chose originally was easy, like your grandfather's. We would bind some magical energy to the handle, weave some defensive spells into it, and it would be just like your old one."
"But that's not what you're doing here."
"It is. Sort of," she said, looking around for help.
"The o-other way," Tara said, "is to … b-b-build a living blade."
"Living?" Grey was liking the sound of this less and less. Nobody answered his question.
"We'll tell him later," Elizabeth Grey said from the couch. She turned to her son and spoke in what Grey thought of as her 'auror' voice. "We're doing it; we think it's the best way, and there's a great deal at stake here. You have no choice in the matter."
"Yikes," Buffy whispered.
"Does that mean you won't explain?"
"You'll see," Jess said. "Are we ready?" Each head nodded in turn. "Give it to me." She held her hand out; Grey's father passed her a baton. Grey only caught a quick glimpse of silver and blue before she pulled it back. "Let's begin."
She snapped her fingers, and every light in the house went suddenly dark.
In the pitch blackness, Grey recognized Tara's soft voice chanting a low, droning chorus. The words seemed to blend together as power began to gather. Willow started chanting next, her higher voice distinct against Tara's lower one. His father joined in soon after, then Jess and his mother. When each of the voices had the same rhythm, a small white light appeared above the center.
The handle of his new lightsaber lay on the blue pillow. He had never seen it before tonight; one of his father's oldest friends made his living fashioning magical objects, and in the new light Grey could see that the blade was his handiwork. Like his grandfather's, the metal parts had been forged from steel, but this one had veins of blue running through the handle itself. Whether they were glass or stone, he couldn't tell.
The silver light grew slowly, losing its form to fuzzy indistinction as it settled in a ring just below their chins. Every face around the circle lit up ghost-like in the thick darkness. He and Buffy were the only ones not chanting, and the only ones looking around. All other eyes focused on his father, who watched the blade intently.
Streaks of blue light shot from the handle, forming patterns on the walls that whirled and spun; the flat glittered like a London dance club. Robert Grey pointed at Tara, who stopped chanting and picked up her wand. Grey could not hear the incantation, but Tara's eyes turned white and her hand trembled as she swished and flicked.
Then she went out of focus.
That was the only way Grey would ever be able to describe it. For a split-second, there seemed to be several images of Tara badly superimposed on one another. When they vanished, a tiny tendril of brilliant white shot from her wand into the lightsaber.
Once it disappeared, she resumed chanting, and Willow stopped. They went around the room, each touching the blade with a tendril of magic as they blurred. His father went last; when he completed his portion, he looked at Willow and raised an eyebrow. She ceased chanting once again, this time taking Buffy's hand in her own.
"Ready, Buff?" Grey heard Willow whisper. "You can back out…"
"I trust you, Will. Just carve me carefully – I don't want him to end up with a drumstick or something."
Willow smiled, placing her wand in the hand that was holding Buffy's. Once she finished arranging their fingers, they were effectively each holding the wand and each other's hand. Willow's incantations were inaudible, but Buffy gasped loudly as the magic emerged.
Ten seconds later, the chanting ended, the white light disappeared, and the room was again plunged into darkness.
Grey's father cast an illumination spell, revealing the group once again. Except for Grey, they all looked to have gone days without sleep.
"Ooh, that was fun," Buffy moaned.
"Grey," Willow rasped. Her voice sounded as if it had been dragged over stone. "Don't break this one, okay?"
"Are you guys alright?"
"Drained," Tara said, leaning over and running her fingers through her blonde hair.
"Last call's comin' early tonight," Jess groaned.
"Buffy, are you…"
"I'm okay, Grey. That magic just felt way, way funky."
"Try it," Willow implored him. "See if we did it."
Grey moved to the center of the circle, dropping to one knee and inspecting the hilt of his new lightsaber. The blue swirls were cool to the touch as he ran his fingers through the grooves.
"Sapphire," his father said. "Besides the color, it holds magical energy extremely well. Albus suggested it."
"Sapphire? This must have cost…"
"Don't worry about it." Through the fatigue, his father grinned. "Willow's right. Try it."
The entire room watched in a frozen tableau as he grasped it in his right hand, pointed it straight up, and ignited the blade.
Snap-Hiss.
The room glowed faintly blue.
He knelt there for a long time, feeling the magic and the power in the sword as it filtered into him. It thrummed, but not with the long, low bass note of his grandfather's lightsaber. This blade vibrated with the sound of human voices. He could feel them in his body as they spoke, the emotions passing over him in waves, other people's memories springing full-blown into his mind.
He was totally unprepared when the visions hit.
The lights were out. All of them. Moonlight crept in through the parted curtains, molding a soft edge onto the odd silence. The dorm should have been less quiet, should have been rowdy and raucous and bacchanalian, in fact. But it wasn't. It was deathly quiet.
As if his pain had silenced them all.
He felt the fear deep down in his soul. Fear of her. Fear of her leaving. He nearly drowned as it washed over him; if she went, he would he would have to stay, drowning. Dying.
Some part of him, a part he had never felt before, something foreign, welled up inside him. It would not drown, even when he did. It would survive. It would endure.
He would endure.
Someone knocked softly at the door. He rose from the chair and reached out for it, his hand soft and pale. Unfamiliar. Painted nails closed around the doorknob, and he opened it; Willow stood in the hallway, the candle in her hand setting her red hair ablaze.
"No candles? Well," she said, her voice tentative, "I brought one. It's extra flamey."
She glided into the room. He backed away, shoulders hunched, and took the candle. This would be pure pain, but he would endure.
"Tara," she said, her voice tentative, "I have to tell you…"
"N-no," he stuttered out, Tara's voice emerging from his lips, "I understand. You have to be with the person that you l-love."
"I am."
All the fear was swept away…
… and then returned. Harder. Stronger. Immediate.
The footfalls behind him revealed her before she spoke, the pages of the books slipping from his fingers unread. As boots scuffed tile, bile rose in his throat. He was too slow. They were all going to die – Buffy, Angel, Xander, Giles. Oz. Oz was going to die because he couldn't read fast enough…
"Check out the bookworm," the silky voice purred.
"Faith!" He turned, speaking aloud without even realizing it, stray strands of red hair tangling in his mouth. The dark-haired Slayer knelt down and spoke, leather pants creaking as she taunted him with her power.
"Faith, wait, I w-want to talk to you," he said when she finished. He sprang to his feet, the fur collar of his coat chafing his neck as it sucked up the nervous sweat pooling at the top of his back. He was going to die.
"Oh yeah, gimme the speech again. Please. Faith, we're your friends, we can help you, it's not too late."
He wanted to cower, to whimper, to run from her. But what good would it do? The foreign part rose up again, coursing through him like a split-second rush of fire. He would not die. Not like that. Not from her.
"It's way too late. You know, it didn't have to be this way. But you made your choice…"
And the fear faded back into the night…
… for only an instant. But when it returned, it was not alone. He knew fear. Fear could not harm him. He was a thing to be feared. Night after night: demons, vampires, friends old and new. All hunted him from the shadows, hoping, as they fought off their own fear, that they could frighten him into a mistake. They feared him, and he welcomed it.
But what gripped him now was not the fear he knew so intimately. What gripped him now was the one thing he knew even more intimately.
Death.
His hands were so cold, so weak. They wouldn't move. The pain … he thought he knew pain … thought he had felt pain when Angel had become a monster. But the monster could never hurt him. Not like the man could.
"… I tried to hope for the best, but," Willow was saying, doing her best to comfort him when they both knew she could not, "I'm sorry. It must be horrible." Sunlight from his window illuminated the crags of worry in her face.
"I think horrible is still coming. Right now it's worse. Right now, I'm just trying to keep from dying." The tears burned him as he fell into her embrace, the emptiness of Death overpowering him.
"Oh, Buffy…"
He felt Willow's reassuring hands on his head then, running through his long hair, trying to stave off fear that wasn't there. Nothing could fight Death. Not even him.
"I can't breathe, Will," he sobbed, heavy tears rolling from his eyes, "I feel like I can't breathe…"
Even as he said it, the foreign part rose again, a living thing this time. Strong. Angry. Resilient. He could breathe. He would suffer and rise again. He could fight Death. And he would…
… because he had a piece of her now. Of all of them. He could feel them, somehow, the pieces of their souls that lived in the blade bonded inextricably to his own.
The room swam back into focus, the entire circle staring at him wide-eyed as he knelt with the sword, the power of the visions leaving him trembling.
"What the fuck," he said when he had control again, "did you guys just do to me?"
