DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters in this story. They belong to Joss Whedon, J.R.R. Tolkien, and their other respective owners.

A/N ABOUT THIS STORY: As you can tell, I've taken several scenes directly from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lord of the Rings, word-for-word in the dialogue. This is not to rip off any of the real writers because I respect their work and I am not a plagiarist. This is an artistic ploy to put the reader in the mindset of where they are and is essential to the story. The Buffy episodes used were episodes (6.1-2) "Bargaining, 1 and 2" written by Marti Noxon David Fury, (7.17) "Lies My Parents Told Me" written by David Fury Drew Goddard, (7.18) "Dirty Girls" written by Drew Goddard, (7.19) "Empty Places" written by Drew Z. Greenberg, (7.20) "Touched" written by Rebecca Rand Kirshner, (7.21) "End of Days" written by Jane Espenson Doug Petrie and (7.22) "Chosen" written by Joss Whedon. The Angel episode used was "Orpheus" written by Mere Smith. The movies used are, of course, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, written by Frances Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson, based on the books by J.R.R. Tolkien (if you didn't know that, you just suck).

2. Afterlife:

Sunlight poured through the grand halls of the Tower of Ecthelion as Buffy strolled idly, gazing at the paintings on the stone walls in wonder. She felt comfortable in her clothes: a long, blue, cotton skirt that hung to her ankles paired with a corset-like top of the same shade of blue. Despite her many attempts, she had so far failed to convey the pros of denim to the people of Middle Earth, but she figured with time, they would understand. She stopped at one painting in particular, the subject of which caught her eye.

A woman with long, dark hair stared out at Buffy with deep blue eyes that burned purity into her soul. Beauty filled her facial features and glittering eyes as delicate white flowers, as delicate as her tiny pale figure, dotted her dark mane. A crown of stars circled her head and she appeared – to Buffy's surprise – to be even more gorgeous than the city of Lothlórien itself. She was beauty.

"You've arrived," Buffy heard from behind her. She turned around to see a woman with dark hair standing behind her in a red gown with a silver crown upon her head. "Buffy," she smiled.

"Arwen," Buffy warmly grinned in return. "Nae saian luume.'" It has been too long.

Arwen's dark brow rose with a hint of surprise as she replied, "Cormamin lindua ele lle." My heart sings to see thee. "Mani nae lle umien?" What have you been doing?

Buffy shrugged simply, "Pugno." Fighting.

"Lle lakwenien?"Are you joking? Arwen asked.

Buffy shook her head, then smiled and replied, "Ta nae seasamin." It was my pleasure.

Arwen laughed as she replied, "Cormlle naa tanya tel'raa." Your heart is that of a lion.

"Sut naa amin umien?" How am I doing? Buffy asked with a worried, half-smile.
"Well," Arwen nodded, pleased. "I have heard that Gandalf has been teaching you Elfish."

"A lot easier than French," Buffy answered, as she looked back up at the painting. "Who is this?"

Arwen looked up at the piece of art and responded, "Her name was Luthien Tinuviel." Arwen blushed, remembering, "That is the name that Aragorn gave to me when we first met."

Buffy looked over at Arwen in confusion, "Usually guys didn't start calling me by different names until the third date—"

"It was nothing short of a compliment," Arwen answered with a laugh. "Luthien Tinuviel is considered to be the most beautiful being of any race in Middle Earth." Arwen stared at the painting as her smile faded a bit, "She was an elf who fell in love with a mortal man and gave up her immortality to be with him."

Buffy nodded, "Well that sounds like a 'happily ever after.'"

She looked over at Arwen who stared back at her without the same positivity that Buffy possessed. "All that is known is that she perished not long after her husband," Arwen answered, turning back to the painting.

"Oh," Buffy replied, realizing that she'd stepped into a pothole. "Well, that's not saying that… you know… all elves that choose the love of their lives over immortality will end up dying." She paused and then added, "Well, I guess they eventually will. But I mean... it'll be a happy death. I mean, not happy, but—"

"I understand," Arwen shook her head, trying to change the subject. She looked up at Buffy with a warm smile. "We thank you for risking your life for our kingdom." The two ladies began to walk towards the doors of the hall they were in.

"Hey," Buffy shrugged, "that's what I'm here for."

"Malia ten' vasa?" Care for some food? Arwen asked.

"Echedi nin veren," Please, Buffy replied. "Lle merna salk, Spangaer."

Arwen stopped and gazed at her in confusion, "You just said 'Do you want to dance, Bearded One?'"

Buffy's face fell flat, then nervously laughed, "Oh, yeah, well… Elfish thing's still a work in progress."

Buffy approached two stone doors guarded by several armed guards. As soon as they recognized her, they quickly stepped out of the way exclaiming, "My lady." She eyed them curiously, surprised by her special treatment as two other men pushed open the doors for Buffy and she entered the King's hall. Another smaller guard rushed up to her side with a scroll in hand.

Buffy turned to the little man and eyed him curiously as he opened the scroll and read aloud with a booming, regal voice, "King Elessar, King of Gondor, Telcontar, Lord of the White Tree…"

"Thank you," a slightly irritated, yet humble voice declared from the back of the hall, near the throne. "That will be all."

Buffy looked up at Aragorn with a caring smile on her face, "So… What's the what?"

"Aratoamin," he smiled, pleased as Buffy approached him and they hugged each other kindly. He wasn't overdressed in the clothes that one would expect of a King, but dressed in the clothes of a Ranger, with the White Tree of Gondor across his chest and the silver crown of the King on his head.

Buffy turned around to see Gandalf the White, clad in a white robe with his white staff in his hand, staring at her with sparkling blue eyes as he stood nearby with a smile on his face. "Buffy," he nodded reverently. "Your presence brings light to these halls."

"Gandalf," Buffy grinned, "always looking good."

"How was your journey?" Aragorn asked pleasantly.

"Longer than a Celine Dion concert," Buffy sighed, "but I've had longer." She looked around at the beautiful hall inside the Tower of Ecthelion with a smile, "I feel like I haven't been here in… ever."

"Not since Aragorn's coronation," Gandalf answered, "nearly two years ago."

"Two prosperous years," Aragorn replied, "thanks, in part, to you."

"Ah, geez," Buffy grinned, "you don't have to shower me with all these compliments." She shrugged, "But it's kinda nice. So, feel free to shower me anytime." They stared at her in silence as she responded, "Trust me. That sounded better in my head."

"On to business, now," Gandalf declared. "We've received word of an orc corpse in the Pelennor Fields."

"That would be my orc corpse," Buffy replied. "Caught him before he could catch a midnight kiddie meal."

"Children?" Aragorn asked with deep concern. "Are they safe?"

"They're okay," Buffy answered. "But here's another tidbit that should've been brought to my attention: orc blood and your laundry whites don't exactly mix."

"The orcs are becoming restless," Aragorn declared, pondering the subject.

"But they are few," Gandalf replied positively.

"Still," Aragorn paced, "we need a stronger defense. Especially on the eastern end near Mordor."

"Or what's left of it," Buffy replied, and then turned to Aragorn. "What about setting up a team to patrol the eastern end every night? With a captain to lead them… Faramir, maybe?"

"That is a possibility," Aragorn nodded, "but he currently is stationed in Ithilien."

"Eowyn probably wouldn't like that idea too much either," Buffy added with a grin. "I suppose I could do a little patrolling, but the Pelennor Fields isn't your standard everyday graveyard…" Aragorn and Gandalf glanced at each other, an idea coming to them, and then they turned to Buffy as she continued to babble. "I think you'd need someone—"

"Skilled in the matters of combat?" Gandalf suggested.

Buffy looked at him, "Yeah, and—"

"An effective leader strong enough to command an army?" Aragorn added.

"Well… yes, and—"

"Brilliant!" Gandalf exclaimed, staring at Buffy with shining eyes. "I imagine you would be the perfect choice." He turned to Aragorn, "Wouldn't you agree, Elessar?"

Aragorn gazing at her graciously as he nodded slightly, "I would."

"Wait," Buffy forced a smile through her nervousness, "you mean that I should be—"

"A captain," Aragorn nodded. "A commander of the Gondorian Army."

"Second in command to only one person," Gandalf declared proudly, "the King himself."

"Wow," Buffy stared almost blankly at the two men for several anxious seconds before she finally added, "Okay… Well, a-are you sure that… me… or, you know, I – that I'm ready to…" She let the words fade away and began again, "I've never done anything like this before."

Aragorn and Gandalf gazed at Buffy in confusion for several seconds. They turned to each other, then turned to Buffy as Aragorn asked, "But… haven't you?" Buffy smiled, but uncertainty could be seen in her green eyes. Aragorn let out a small laugh as he reminded her, "What about all of those years you were the Slayer in… what was the name of that town?"

"Sunnydale," Gandalf answered. Aragorn and Gandalf turned to Buffy to see her smile had faded completely. She stared with a stone face that showed a hint of despair in her eyes as she heard that word. Buffy swallowed hard and closed her eyes as the doors swung open suddenly, breaking her from her trance.

"King Elessar!" a Gondorian man ran into the hall with exclamation in his eyes and tone. "Aid must be sent to quickly to the West!"

Aragorn's lighthearted mood changed suddenly to seriousness, "What has happened?"

"That is not certain," the Knight declared gravely as he looked at Buffy. "But there is trouble in the Shire!" Buffy eyes widened with gravity as she turned to Aragorn and Gandalf suddenly.

"Come," Gandalf's voice boomed in the hall as he took Buffy by the arm, "our flight shall be faster than the Eagles of the Sky."

The meat is getting cold.

It's getting cold, Anya Jenkins said to herself as she sat in the Summers' dining room. The meat's getting cold. Her blonde curls hung down into her face as she stared down blankly at her dinner plate. She sat next to Xander Harris who had a blank and glazed over expression as he gazed at his meat, potatoes and peas and swallowed hard.

Anya gazed across the wooden dining room table to see Tara who stared around uncomfortably, looking to someone's anguished face, looking back at Willow, then turning back to another face, repeating this process several times. Next to her, Willow was quiet and very small as she gaped down at her dinner plate, and once again she was that helpless, long-haired sophomore that kept her head down when popular people passed by. Anya turned to the end of the table where Dawn sat, also zoned out, but with something in her eyes that scared even Anya.

Nothing.

Anya's eyes fell upon everyone at the table around her and she knew what was wrong. It was an inescapable realization that hadn't quite settled in with everybody. Anya looked up at the grandfather clock against the dining room wall: 7:43. Exactly eighty-four hours and twenty-nine minutes since she had died. She's gone, Anya thought. Why doesn't everyone understand that? She spent a few moments in quiet reflection as she remembered exactly what they had lost. She's gone, Anya repeated, feeling a bit sadder. She's gone.

She looked back over at her fiancé, Xander, to see him with a new understanding. This was much worse than losing Joyce. This was his best friend. Anya never really understood what was so special about Buffy. There was the whole Slayer aspect – but she didn't get what was special about Buffy just being Buffy. Anyanka had once hated the Slayer. She and her friends were responsible for the reduction of the once-great Vengeance demon to nothing more than a mere mortal. Now with Buffy gone, Anya had to admit that they needed her alive in Sunnydale.

But that would be impossible, she thought. She's really gone. How could the Scoobies continue to be the Scoobies without her? Anya looked over at Dawn, taking in the agony of the young girl's eyes. She was so young. She was nothing more than an infant compared to how long Anya had been in the world. But the little brat had seen more pain and loss than most of the whiny women that she'd granted wishes to in her Vengeance demon days.

And then there's Tara. Poor, lost, confused Tara. A year ago she really wasn't one of the Scoobies. Now she's a permanent member, but it's not quite in the way she'd expected. She's become something of a mother to Dawn, who lost hers in April of this year, and now she has to fill in for Buffy. They all have to fill in for Buffy, it seems. Those are big, steel-heeled boots to fill.

Willow. She hadn't said more than four words in the eighty-four hours and twenty-… now thirty minutes since they had found Buffy's lifeless body on top of a pile of broken concrete below the tower. Even today at Buffy's funeral she said absolutely nothing. She just stares. Thinks. Anya guessed that she was probably thinking that she could have done something to save her. And it was true, Willow being this powerful witch and all. She probably could've saved Buffy. That's something that they all were thinking in one way or another about now.

But Anya wanted to help. What could she say to make them feel better? Anya looked over at Xander, then Willow, then Tara, then finally Dawn.

"The meat's getting cold," Anya declared. The four pairs of eyes looked back over at Anya with a confused and almost irritated expression. Xander turned away from Anya, with a dash of embarrassment in his eyes, and looked at Willow, Tara and Dawn apologetically. "What?" Anya asked innocently, having noticed the expression. "I just thought I'd remind you because you're probably all thinking about Buffy."

Willow's eyes ripped away from what void she was staring at and she glared at Anya with raw harshness. Tara swallowed hard as she looked from her girlfriend and back to Anya several times before she meekly began, "Uh, um, you-you're right, Anya. I-I could warm the plates up if anybody wants me to?"

"Why can't you just be normal?" Dawn's voice bluntly broke in. Xander and Tara turned towards the 14-year-old who sat still with her eyes burning on Anya, overflowing with a mixture of grief and anger. Anya looked over at Dawn like a deer in the headlights as the teenage girl callously continued, "Why can't you be normal for once in your life?" Dawn glared at Anya, breathing heavily and deeply disturbed.

Xander, also unnerved, turned to Dawn and began softly, "Dawn, she didn't—"

"Do you even care that she's gone!" Dawn barked with a ferocious and urgent tone. "Do you understand that! Are you capable of understanding that! Or is it all just a… a thing! A stupid mortal thing that stupid mortals do!"

Xander tried again, "Dawn—"

Anya stared speechlessly at her as Dawn kept on shouting. She jumped out of her chair and burned her eyes into the ex-Vengeance demon, "What, do you think we're freaks or something? Well, you're a freak, too."

"That's enough!" Xander shouted, glaring at the teenager angrily while his fiancé quickly put her head down in shame.

"Why are you defending her, Xander?" Dawn hollered. "She doesn't even care!"

"That's not true, sweetie," Tara compassionately replied. "You're just tired. We're all tired—"

"Don't," Dawn's head whipped towards Tara as her eyes flashed with pure lividness. Tara was taken aback as she looked into Dawn's expression and heard her slow, vehement warning, "Don't you ever talk to me like that again." Dawn's eyes and voice glittered with rage, "You are not my mother and you never will be."

With the last sentence, Dawn could hold back tears no longer. She pulled away from the table and rushed up the stairs to her room, sobbing uncontrollably. Silence blanketed the rest of them for what seemed like an eternity and nothing could be heard except the ticking of the grandfather clock beside the table.

Xander looked over to see Anya, still with her head down, as silent tears rolled down her cheeks. He reached over and lovingly put a hand on her shoulder which she bravely rejected and with a nod, let him know that she was okay. Xander looked up to see Tara, still with a blank expression on her face as she inhaled lightly.

"I-I wasn't…" Tara began, but couldn't finish right away. She took another breath and whispered, "I wasn't trying to be..." The words faded away into nothingness.

"She didn't mean what she said," Xander shook his head. He stared down at the wooden grain of the table as his eyes followed several lines streaking the oak. "Long day," he breathed uncomfortably. The clock ticked at least fifteen more times before the silence was broken again.

"Is this what it's going to be like from now on?" Anya sniffed timidly, almost afraid to speak. When she saw that she had Tara and Xander's sympathetic attention, she continued quietly, "We're going to be at each other's throats just trying to… hang on?" Xander rubbed her shoulder as Anya looked up at him and asked fearfully, "What if we can't make it without her?"

"We can't," Willow declared point-blank. Tara, Xander and Anya turned to her as she stared down at the table with a crinkled brow and a grim face. Xander gazed at her worriedly; in all the time that he'd known her, he'd never seen an expression like that one on her face before. "The one thing that kept us together;" she explained, "the one thing that kept us alive; the one thing that makes us who we are… is Buffy. Buffy is our leader."

"'Was,'" Xander answered as he stared at her in confusion. "She… was our Slayer."

"And will be again," Willow replied with a flame of hope in her heart. The others watched her as she stood up at the table, towering over them like a king. Willow declared to them with resolve and finality, "We're gonna bring her back."