Edward:
We stand in rank in the old Franklin area, facing the government building where Whistler said we would find Jackie. In an instant I take in the grand colonnade and the marble facings, and the ugly red Wall slicing it in two. The Wall separates civilisation from the wasteland beyond, and does so effectively. It is impossible to see beyond it, and it would appear solid except for the swirling surface and the fact that it passes through old buildings and even abandoned vehicles like a hot knife through butter.
Matt and Buffy simultaneously let out a long whistle. Neither of them has seen the Wall before. It's not something that people like to look at, and only the true dregs of our society live anywhere near it. Buffy is standing wedged between Matt and Angel, and all at once I'm reminded that, regardless of what she calls herself now, she is still Matt's little sister. I'd hate for any of them to get hurt.
"Impressive, isn't it?" asks Kass from my side. She is twisting a stake between her hands, the only sign of her nervousness. She wanted to leave this life, and she wanted to take Jackie with her but she refused. Now she has been forced back to it to kill her only daughter. I can't imagine what she must be thinking right now.
"Edward, whatever happened to your helper girl?" she asks a short time later. "I didn't see her back at the shop." I hang my head for just a moment.
"Isabelle… died recently. Vampires."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I know you cared for her." I let the statement stand before replying.
"She couldn't compare to you Kass… she couldn't."
It's said, and Kass is looking at me with some undecipherable expression, but we don't have the time for it now. If we survive, then I pray we can talk further. If not, at least I've said so much.
"So," I say loudly, fixing my weapons in their places, "are we going in or not?"
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Jackie:
I want to kill! But this spell will give me peace, I know it. Only death can satisfy me, and only this ritual can bring about death on a large enough scale. The Wall passes directly through this room, and already I can feel the bonds holding it together weakening. Only one more step is required to pull it down.
I savour the feeling of the knife in my flesh as I cut open the palm of my hand, and watch the blood dribble out before wiping it on the angry red force field before me. The Wall seems to recoil at my touch, and the movement of its surface quickens. As I watch, the red colour seems to leech away, and where I placed my hand a transparent patch grows in size. I can see the crumbling ruins of this same building on the other side, weathered away to nothing. The great desert stretches out into the distance. Soon, the entire planet will be as barren as that waste, and then I shall be finally content.
"Jackie!" I turn languidly and look as the 'good guys' come to stop me. They're too late of course. They don't know how to stop it, and even if they did they wouldn't allow it. They are cowards, all of them.
I stop. Matt is with them. I wish he could know my suffering. If I could show him, I would. But he never can. He is not a vampire… and he is not a Slayer. I can never make him understand what I have become.
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Matt:
As we run into the old council room where Jackie has her ritual space set up, I call out her name.
"Jackie!" I know there's desperation in my voice, but I don't care. This creature used to be the person I loved. There has to be something of her left. She turns away from the Wall, which looks even more unsightly in here, and gives us all one long look. And then, ever so slowly, she raises her hand and licks up a line of blood from her palm. She looks at me the entire time, and I have to suppress a shiver.
"Jackie, don't do this," pleads Kass, but Jackie only smiles, baring her fangs.
"It's already done," she half laughs and half hisses, then leaps into our midst.
She strikes out in all directions at once, a kick sending me flying into a wall. As her hands flash past I can see her knife-like nails. I can feel the wind knocked out of me, but I look up quickly to see Buffy, Angel and Jericho, who are all still standing, attack her.
Jackie is faster than anything I've ever seen, evading every blow. She swings out and gives Angel a nasty cut across the face, then ducks around Jericho's swords before grabbing his wrist and twisting his own blade into his stomach. Jericho topples over, and I can feel him hit the ground even from here. I look past him at the Wall. There is a hole in it now, growing fast. It's almost half the size of the room, and I can see the moonlight on the other side - all buildings on the far side the Wall have long since succumbed to age.
When I look back at Jackie, she is fighting against my sister. It pains me to see the two women I love most in the world fighting like that. Jackie slashes Eve across the belly, and I wince with her. Jackie pulls her close and punches her in the face. Even from my prone position I can see her blood spurting out. I try to lift myself up. I have to help her.
"Poor sweet Eve," I hear Jackie say, delivering another punch. "You can't hope to defeat me." And another punch about the head. "If I was a vampire, perhaps even a Slayer, you might have had a chance, but I am something you've never seen before. I am something there has never been before." Jericho is on his feet again, but the wound in his torso is all too obvious, and he seems unable to stand upright. Of course it couldn't kill him, as a vampire. I watch, surprised, as Kass has raised herself to her feet and is quietly approaching Jackie from behind with her stake poised.
"We can stop you," Jericho tells her. "I made you." Jackie looks at him for a moment, before her hand darts out and grabs him around the neck. She hurls Eve in the direction of the entrance, then spins and throws Jericho into Kass, who tries to scream as his great weight lands on top of her.
"Mother, please," mocks Jackie. Kass' stake flies out of her hands, and is now lying just a foot away from me. I reach out for it, my hands closing on it. It has to be me that finishes it, I understand. I'm the only one she'll let finish it.
By the time I'm on my feet, only Angel is still standing, caught in conflict with Jackie in the very centre of the chamber. Edward and Buffy are lying unconscious on opposite sides of the room, and Kass is trying to stem the bleeding from Jericho's many wounds.
I take a step forward, and Angel grabs hold of both of Jackie's wrists. Another step and Angel delivers a blow with his head that makes Jackie blink furiously for a minute. I ready the stake, and Angel wraps Jackie in a bear hug holding her tight as I approach. She spins in his grip, but can't free herself. And then she sees me. The fangs disappear, and I am looking into her true eyes once again.
"Don't make me do this," I plead. "Just undo what you've done. We can make you better, I promise!"
"No you can't!" she screams at me. "I don't have a choice! I need to be at peace! I can't stand it any more!" I lift the stake, but I can't kill her like this. I still love her.
"Do it," demands Angel, struggling to keep her arms pinned to her sides as she twists and turns, and I could swear I almost saw the words mirrored on her own lips. I try again, but the stake is shaking in my hands now. I place it over her heart, but can't bring myself to push. Everyone is awake now. Everyone is watching. "Do it."
"I…" But I don't get a chance. Jackie roars, breaking free of Angel's grasp and throwing him to the ground, and before I can react she has grabbed my arm and pulled me towards her. I want to let go of the stake, but she won't let me until it has pierced her heart.
When it is done, and the wooden stake is in her chest, she smiles at me again. As her skin turns to ash, she leans forward and kisses me and whispers, "Thank you." And then her vampire body explodes with a terrible wail, and she is gone. I've never before seen a vampire die like that, but Jackie was no ordinary vampire, as I well know.
The stake clatters on the floor.
"It's… over," I say, to the world in general.
"No it isn't," says Edward. We all look at him, kneeling by the ritual space by the deteriorating Wall. He is reading through some scrolls that Jackie left there, presumably detailing the magic. "I'm having trouble thinking clearly at the moment," he tells us, "but I think to fix it, we need her blood. We need to patch up the hole with her blood."
"But… she's gone. We can't use her blood."
"I'll do it." I turn again, this time towards Kass, who is kneeling with Jericho's head on her lap, stroking his cheek. Buffy looks horrified, and I remember from Spike's stories a similar sacrifice she was forced to make. "She was my daughter. My blood was in her." Jericho pushes himself to his feet.
"No, I'll do it," he says. "My blood was in her too, and hers in mine."
"But you've been bleeding so much."
"I've got less to lose, then. Besides," he looks Kass in the eyes, "you should go on living. That's not a choice I ever had."
"Are you sure?" asks Angel, and Jericho says he is. Angel leads him over to the Wall, as Edward explains what must be done. Something about herbs and… I'm not sure. All I can think about is that Jackie's death means that another of us must die, and it doesn't seem fair.
I go over to Kass to comfort her, and Buffy joins me. The three of us look on as Angel cuts open Jericho's palm, and Edward sprinkles something over the wound. A brief incantation, and suddenly a stream of blood flies out of the wound, hovering in the space where the Wall used to be. More and more blood is sucked out, and I watch in abject horror as Jericho's flesh withers away, and his eyes rot in his skull, and I can see his bones through his skin. Eventually, the blood fills the space where the hole once was, and instantly it becomes the Wall again, and it is impossible to see that there was any hole there. Only Jericho looks different.
Jericho's body lies on the floor, a virtual skeleton. Angel kneels over him, then recoils suddenly as Jericho twists on the ground and gasps for air. Everyone else is equally surprised.
"I was sure that was going to kill him," mutters Buffy from my side. Nobody takes their eyes off him.
And then I walk over. He must not suffer like this. I take the knife from Angel's hand and draw it quickly across my wrist, and then I place my wrist on Jericho's mouth. The change is startling. The blood vessels show clearly under his skin, pressed against the skeleton, and I can see my own blood passing through them.
In a short while, Angel pulls me back. Jericho is not himself again, but I don't protest. Angel takes the knife from my hand and makes a similar incision on himself, and feeds Jericho yet more blood from his own wrist. A minute later, Edward does the same… and Buffy after him… and Kass…
We can't let Jericho die now. He just saved the world.
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Whistler:
"Whistler…" Willow's raspy voice brings me out of my reverie. I can only assume that she knows as well as I do what has happened. I move over to the seat next to her bed and take her hand in mine. It isn't fair, really, that some of us get to be immortal and others don't. Not that Willow didn't lead a good life - she led one of the best.
For almost a thousand years she did everything in her power to help those in need and in danger. It was a lonely life for her. Her magic eventually isolated her from everyone. She had a few romances, some of them even lasted decades, but they all came to an end. The other person either could not accept Willow's slowed aging or died in a tragic and pointless way. I remember one of the more tolerant, Rowena, who was killed in the End of Days. Willow never forgave herself for letting her die. Willow never really forgave herself for letting anyone die - she knew power over death, and she was forced to not use it for the safety of herself and the world.
I came to love her. I still do, although not romantically. She is now the Earth's great mother, and though I am older than her, I do not feel it. She cares for everything that exists with motherly affection, and has a wisdom that I have seen only in celestials and infernals - the Powers That Be.
"Whistler… the Earth is safe, the Slayer line strong again. I knew they could do it."
"Hush now. Save your strength."
"I have no strength left. But I do not need it any more. I have completed my work. The Slayers will continue, and a new line shall begin. The Earth will heal its wounds, and things will become better again. The cycle continues. But my life does not."
"No, don't go, Willow. Fight it. You can make it through this."
"No, Whistler. I am ready to accept this as my fate. There will be no more rejuvenation, no more fighting for me. Just peace." I cannot help but shed a tear. "Do not cry, Whistler. It is for you to guide them now. Their future is with you. I trust that you will make me proud. Goodbye, my dear old friend." And with her final words, her grip relaxes and the breath leaves her body. She is gone.
I will do as she wishes. I will guide them to their destiny. I will do my best to live up to Willow's expectations. After all, watching was starting to get boring.
Well, we've reached the end of my long story. I sincerely hope you've enjoyed the journey as much as I have. I'd like to thank everyone who stuck with it til the end, and I'd especially like to thank all those who felt strongly enough about it to leave a review. It's really appreciated, guys!
Remember, even in the future, life... and the fight... goes on.