Epilogue:
3 hours after the Hellmouth:
Joyce Summers left her car in front of the emergency entrance, keys in the ignition, engine still running, and all but flew through the throngs of injured and into the emergency bay. A siren squealed behind her. The crowds surged. People cried, moaned, screamed and called for help but she didn't hear them. Nothing mattered but getting inside.
"Where is my daughter?" She barked as she literally hit the front desk running. Bracing herself against the wood she leaned over it crying into the face of the first nurse she saw. "You have my daughter! Someone called me!" My baby...
"Excuse me." The nurse snapped. She had a clipboard in one hand, a stethoscope around her neck and a bunch of charts in her free hand. Sweat had plastered wisps of her long hair to her forehead and temples. She looked like a stiff breeze would topple her. "Look you will have to wait. I have a bunch of people here that have been waiting for hours already." She indicated the feral desk bound crowd that Joyce had just rammed through.
"But, look, my name is Joyce Summers and someone called me to say my daughter is here-" She appealed. My daughter who should be safe in bed. She should be home in bed. I should have made sure of it...
"Give the desk nurse your name and take a seat and someone will see you when they can." She dumped the charts in front of an equally exhausted looking male nurse who was sitting at a computer. She moved back toward a filing cabinet. "Please, take a seat."
"Can't you just tell me where she is? It will only take a second-"
"Look, Ms... Summers, I don't even have the time for a second here. I have two days worth of patients backed up and even if I wanted to I couldn't-"
"Then get me someone who can!" Joyce felt her voice rising into a shriek.
"... Mom?" The small voice was a chick's peep in the roaring of the crowd but the sound of it pierced Joyce's ears and heart as fiercely as a scream. Dawn! Joyce swivelled around, chest tight with relief, and swooped on her youngest.
"Dawn! Oh Dawnie." She hugged her daughter close and fierce and the tension of the last hour drained away in a violent rush that left her weak and heavy limbed. "Oh baby, you're ok. You're ok. I'm here now. Mommy's here." She was never going to get used to this. Never. Since Buffy had become the Slayer her trips to the hospital both for her eldest and for her friends had become distressingly commonplace. Buffy. Releasing Dawn to push her back Joyce looked into the pale dirty face. "Where's Buffy?"
"I don't know." Small faraway voice.
"She's not here?" Alarm crept back into Joyce's voice. If Dawn had been brought here then Buffy should be here. She should have brought Dawn. "How did you-"
"Giles brought me." Dawn said. "He carried Edward."
"Edward?" Oh thank god Mr Giles is here. The knowledge that Buffy had left Dawn in the older man's care was a profound relief. Her daughter must be out slaying things.
"Edward's gone down stairs." Her daughter continued and for the first time Joyce registered the huge eyes, the white face, and the tiny flat voice. Her breath caught in her throat. There were no signs of injury, but Joyce ran her hands over her daughter's head, face and everything she could see. No wound presented itself, which only increased her growing alarm. Where was the Watcher? He would never leave her daughter alone in this state. Not unless he-
"Where is Mr Giles honey?" She asked, drawing her youngest close again.
"The doctor says he has to stay for a while. He's over there." She pointed a filthy finger across the bay toward a bank of curtained exam rooms.
Oh no.
Joyce steered them both across the bay and Dawn pulled aside on of the curtains. The Watcher sat propped up against the raised head of the bed, filthy, bloody, ragged and as pale as Dawn. Paler perhaps. He was staring straight ahead, blind eyes seeing nothing, reacting to nothing. If she hadn't been able to see his chest rising and falling she would not have known he was alive. There was a fresh piece of gauze, spotted with blood, wrapped around one of his hands where it lay limply in his lap. Her mind raced from the battered man to her missing daughter. Oh my god, Buffy? Where was Buffy?
"M- Mr Giles? Rupert?" Joyce barely held herself back from lunging across the bed and shaking the Englishman. He looked so fragile, like he may break to pieces if she tried it. For his part, the Watcher did not react to her entreaty so Joyce moved closer, reaching out to touch his arm. His skin was cold, clammy. So different to - and her mind slipped her an image of the young candy-stoned Sid Vicious with the cigarette breath and burning hot touch - and the hood of a police car... "Rupert, where is Buffy?"
"Excuse me." A brusque voice suddenly spoke behind her. "You are not supposed to be back here. You will have to go back to the waiting area." A green gowned E.R. attendant pushed passed the Summers' and into the exam cubicle.
"Oh, no. No. You don't understand, this is my- my husband. Someone called me to say that he and my daughter were here."
"Oh, I see." The man's voice softened a fraction. "Well, I can tell you that both your husband and daughter are going to be fine. We will need to keep (he looked at the chart) Rupert in over night just to be on the safe side but your daughter can go home with you right now." He paused. "There was another man brought in with your family Mrs Giles. An Edward Frost. Do you know him?" At the sound of the name Dawn clung tighter to her mother's waist.
"Ah, no. No."
"I see." The attendant said. "Look, the police will be here soon and they will want to talk with your daughter."
"The police?"
"I know." The attendant smiled a tiny smile. "I know, usually this kind if thing doesn't rate a mention in Sunnydale. I mean, if the police had to deal with every case of random shock or spontaneous neck eruption they would have a permanent office here.
"Still, they want to talk to Dawn and they said they would be here in a few minutes. If you would return to the waiting area now I can move Rupert somewhere more comfortable. They should not be long."
"Right." Joyce said, letting herself be ushered out. Dawn clung to her now, a silent weight dragging at her as she moved. Oh my god, Mr Giles. Rupert. What had happened? Where was Buffy?
"Mrs S?" Xander's voice pierced her fog and she realised she had followed the attendant's instructions and was now sitting in a hard moulded plastic seat in the waiting area. A man with blood pouring from his head sat docilely to her right. Dawn was still clinging to her left side. She blinked and there he was, Xander, squatting in front of her and looking rumpled with his bed-hair sticking up at all angles. "Uh, Mrs S?"
"Xander." She breathed.
"Giles is upstairs: room 325." Willow now. "The doctor says he's going to be fine, but I- Xander, you should see his eyes." Joyce followed the sound of the young woman's hushed voice. She was standing by Xander, Tara close beside her radiating anxiety.
Silence.
"But, he- he has eyes." Anya spoke up, nervously. Such an odd girl, Joyce thought distantly. "That's good right?" No one answered.
"Where's Buffy?" Xander again. "Have you seen her?"
"No." Willow.
"M-maybe she's uh slaying whatever did this?" Tara said.
"Alone? I dunno Tara." Xander said. "Whatever managed to do that to Giles... I dunno."
"Maybe she's not alone." Anya again. "Maybe she's with Spike?"
"Oh great. Why do I find no comfort in that thought."
"...S-spike?" Dawn's small voice got everyone's attention. It also broke Joyce's stupor.
"Dawnie." She twisted to look at her youngest. Everyone tensed around her. "What about Spike, baby? What is it? What happened?" Dawn looked at her, then her eyes were filling with tears and whatever protective fugue she had been in broke down completely and she fell into her mother's arms sobbing.
"Oh god, you don't think-" Xander choked on his question..
"He wouldn't." Tara replied.
"He can't. He couldn't." Willow put in. "Could he?"
12 hours after the Hellmouth:
This was new, Toby thought as he sat on the high hill that over looked the graveyard and drank his cappuccino - low fat of course. Not the usual at all, and he knew what he was talking about too. He came here to drink his coffee every night on the way to his new club and never had he seen anything like this.
Never.
The moon was a thin sliver of pure white light shining dimly through a quilt of unlit cloud, so it was dark. In a gloomy way. Thick dirty shadows plumped up the tree tops and muddied up the understorey so that the tomb stones and paths at their clearest were reduced to light smears. Given all that, he had been expecting ten minutes of boredom - nothing but him and his chocolate dusted froth top. Certainly he had never expected anything like this.
Two shapes, pale and sleek, flitted between the trees, the tombs. In and out of his sight like cold darting fireflies. Very fast. For a moment it was all he could do to keep track of them and he strained his eyes against the dark night haze.
It wasn't unusual for there to be nightly activity in the Sunnydale necropolis: half hidden scurryings, short raucous rumbles, strange snarls and bitten off screams, giggling and silhouetted loners stalking and slinking through the shadows. It wasn't exactly fulfilling viewing, no plots, no resolution to the invisible shrieks or stone splitting cracks, but Toby liked it. He had always had a vivid imagination and it was fun to try to keep a rolling plot going as his ten minutes ticked by. Helped to keep the nicotine cravings at bay anyway.
It was unusual though, for there to be this kind of activity. There was a very personal, very open, battle going on below. The low night air lifted snatches of inarticulate growls and indistinct words up to his ears as the two white glowing forms slammed violently together, broke apart, skittered away, chased, darted, and collided again. Toby leaned forward on the stone wall. It was unmistakably a screaming mimi of a fight. The two forms merged again in an abrupt and sickening collision that made Toby wince and shake his head. Goddamn.
Then, before he realised what he was doing he had dumped his coffee onto the wall and slipped down to land heavily on the steep slope that lead directly down to the graveyard. And down to Sunnydale's own WWE combat zone. A high shriek sliced the air as the warring pair split apart again. Damn! This was so stupid. It was foolish and dangerous. His feet carried him down, from bush to bush, shadow to shadow. It was really dumb-ass. He was going to get his butt kicked for sure. Toby's hand crept into his coat pocket - shit, no cigarettes.
Closer.
Okay, so this was dumb, but he was just going to go down the hill and hide behind that big, leafy bush next to the wall and see what he could see. Just that far and no further. Damn, it was something he could tell the guys at the club later. Yup, for once they'd have more than till-raiding and shoddy accounting to mull over. Okay, just down to the bush and then he'd see what he could see. Sweat pimpled his forehead and upper lip.
Oh shit!
It was a guy and a girl. A tiny little girl and a skinny punk ass dude of the type Fat Lenny would automatically turn from the Club doors. The kind that was all lip and swagger, that dripped girls off his arms and still slimed after anything that passed him by. The kind with more money than sense and more front than was healthy. Toby's lip curled. Jesus, did these guys make nothing but trouble everywhere they went? And did he have to teach every single one of them a lesson personally?
The girl, blond matted hair tangled over half her face, was facing him. The guy was facing her, his torn up shirt hanging from his shoulders. Both were crouched forward, tense and moving around each other. There was blood on the girl's face. A split lip, a bloody nose, smeared and dirty across her cheek. Toby tensed, fists curling. No man worth a damn hit a girl. No man... But why wasn't she running? Why wasn't she screaming a blue fit for help?
And why did she have messed up knuckles?
Why was she snarling like that?
What the fuck was this? Some screwed up lower east side kink? He'd checked out the 'Dale before moving in a few weeks back and had seen the hawkers and streetwalkers down on the lower east. Fuck. Some of those deals had been really sick. Weird-ass shit that had no business in the US of fucking A, and certainly no place in the same city as his Club. His outfit was pure style: sexy girls, respectful guys, good smoky air and the kind of quality music that had Made that Travolta guy back in the 80's (now there was a decade with style). No way did he want to set up shop next to some fucking whips and chains Halloween shit. No way. He was a businessman, not a fucking sewer rat.
After Lenny had pointed out that torching the entire scene was definitely going to cause some serious bother and wasn't really practical anyway, Toby had agreed to set up as far to the west as was profitable. Far, far from the filth. Or so he had fooled himself into believing. Here was proof he was wrong. And here was proof that Lenny's live and let live policy was untenable. There was no live and let live with rabid animals. Just gotta get rid of them.
He could do that.
It would be fucking humane.
It would send a message too: stay on your fucking side of the fence and nobody need get hurt, but come any closer and... Well, Mr Glock would settle the challenge.
Toby reached into his pocket and pulled out his gun. He peered over the fence again. Punch and Judy were getting into it once more, and this close he could hear the impact of fist and boot. Woooo! Nice move there - even if he was a fuckin' kook, the guy sure could move. And growl like something out of a wildlife documentary. Judy ducked a swing and dug her small fist into the guy's gut so impossibly hard it snapped him closed like a clam and he was put on the ground. She sprang onto him. Jesus! That's gotta hurt.
Snarling, growling, cursing and grunting.
Punch rose up hard to connect foreheads with Judy and the girl retreated in a flurry of flailing limbs. They sprang apart again, both breathing hard. Both ragged, bleeding, dirty and sweaty and so fucking high it was amazing they weren't in orbit.
Drugs.
For the first time Toby thought: drugs. That PCP or crack stuff. They could have a sloth clocking up a four-minute mile. Had to be drugs. Filthy, crackhead kinky fucks. Well, that just sealed it!
Toby sank below the wall for a second and cracked the gun clip free. Snapped it back. Flicked off the safety. He licked his lower lip and blew out a healthy lungful of air, then crossed himself and glanced to heaven. Okay, set. He lunged up right; coming up passed the lip of the stone wall like a vengeful angel.
"All right you fuckin' kooks..." They were gone. Toby froze. Oh, this wasn't good. He stood still, licking at the sweat on his upper lip, and scanned the night. A growl. Off to the right and deeper into the murky dark so he allowed himself a relieved breath - then got mad. Oh, so they were gonna make him work for it were they? Fuckers. He hauled his belly over the wall and dropped inside. Sweat was running down his back and from both 'pits. Jesus! He was gonna stink by the time he made it to the Club.
Gun held out ready, Toby crunched his way over the leafy ground and toward the growling. Shadowy treetops closed over his head as he moved in deeper. Mother Mary, it was dark in here, but the growling led him on. It was getting louder too. Toby inched forward. Careful now. Fucking crackheads could go off like sweaty gelignite. Anytime, anywhere. Gotta be careful. Don't even sneeze. He snapped his head around 180, reassuring himself he was not a target himself. Just his quarry ahead of him, and getting closer. Where the fuck were they?
The copse of trees ended abruptly and the meagre moonlight lit up a new clearing. No sign of Punch or Judy amongst the graves there, but there was the growling. And a feminine cry, harsh and triumphant. There: by the new graves. Shit. Motherfuckers were rolling around clawing at each other again - had to be behind them stones. He went on, gun steady in his fist.
Oh, I do not fucking believe this! Toby pursed his lips. This had gone well beyond even the same planet as decent. He headed straight for the newly dug grave, irritation becoming righteous anger. Fouling each other up was one thing but to desecrate the future resting place of some poor SOB was just-
Toby looked into the grave. Jesus. No mistaking what they were up to now. The white glow of Judy's skin made her movements plain in the dark of the pit. Sick. It was psycho sick.
"Orright you fuckers." Toby bellowed into the grave. "You just get the fuck offa him and climb outa there. Don't you got no respect for noone?" The girl looked up then, with a fast snap of the head, and Toby got a goodly view of a blurry white face and wild, wild black hole eyes. She didn't stop moving. What the fuck did a guy have to do? He couldn't shoot them down there - no way to get the bodies out and make the waiting site all respectable again. "You deaf girl. Get your fucking ass up and out right now or I'll fucking start shooting!"
Then he got a glimpse of Punch.
"What the fuck?" That wasn't human. That couldn't be fucking human! Yellow, feral eyes and demonic visage, and bloody dog-fangs. It could have been a mask, but somehow Toby knew it wasn't. Punch growled and that wasn't a sound a man could make, even getting fucked by a crack whore like he was. And those eyes... They froze Toby to the spot and his guts turned to water. Hail Mary, mother of... He suddenly couldn't look away.
Words slid like icy hooks into his mind, holding him fast: blood, hungry, prey, fat and juicy prey, yeah, oh don't move, don't move, don't move, oh you don't wanna move pretty pretty, yeah, don't move. And then bloodied images of himself that made him tremble with horror lit up the inside of his skull. Oh my god... The rough words inside his head continued to croon - don't move, don't move - but they were suddenly made all the more horrifying by the fact that their rhythm matched Judy's. Oh sweet Jesus he was gonna die and he couldn't even look away. He was helpless: like a fly in a web. And Judy just kept on riding them all closer and closer to hell like it was a fucking race.
Hell.
Yep.
This was the Devil and Toby was going to hell. Kept aside for the afterglow: the Devil's cigarette. Aunt May always said that tobacco was Beelzebub's joy, and would bring him nothing but ruin. She told him and told him and he never once listened. Now he was finally trying to quit and the Devil had come early to claim his prize, and smoke his ass but good. Don't move, don't move. The irony was not lost on Toby, but he was shocked to hear his own sharp crackle of laughter.
Judy looked back up with a snap. Wide, wild eyes really seeing him for just a split second and she stopped. They stared at one another. Then Punch bucked up underneath her. She looked back down and slapped him in the face, smacking his head around on his skinny neck. The hold was broken and the release was like a punch in the gut, and for a moment Toby was too shocked to move. Then Punch snarled at Judy and she lunged downward again. Toby had a glimpse of her strong white hands pinning Punch's to the dark earth above his head before he ran.
Shit, he was never gonna smoke again. He was gonna go to church regular. Confession. Every Sunday. Twice. He was gonna do right. He was - a ferocious uber-roar suddenly torched the air behind him. The Lord is my Shepherd... Toby ran and didn't look back.
There was dust in her mouth. Yuck. How did she get dust in her mouth? Ergh. She tried to swallow and coughed. Oh dammit. She didn't want to move, not yet. Sleep. Sleep. Need water. Need sleep. She sighed out loud. No good. She was going to have to go get some water or lay awake all night coughing and then feel terrible in the morning.
She sat up and cracked open her eyes. It was dark. But not so dark that she couldn't - oh my god.
Oh my god.
Oh my god.
...
...
Spike. She was lying on Spike. Naked Spike. Bloody, dirty, dew misted and NAKED Spike. What - dew? DEW? Eyes wide she looked around herself. Wet soil under her knees, surrounding her, and above her the sky, made square in an earthen frame. Grave. She was in a grave! The dream grave. Help me. In the grave, in the graveyard, sleeping on top of a naked, dirty, blood smeared vampire. A vampire that she had just... OH FUC-!
5 days after the Hellmouth:
"He was Councillor Frost's boy, did you know that?"
"W-what?" Giles looked up from the newly polished marble of Anita's memorial at the sound of the voice. The last voice he would have expected to hear in this of all places, and if he hadn't been five near sleepless nights gone and nearly sick with exhaustion and grief he might have greeted that voice with all the bloody vengeance it deserved. As it was he managed one word followed by a stupid silence.
What could he say anyway? The Council had not responded to his railing accusations, nor helped him try to reach his traumatised Slayer (nor her equally wounded family), let alone been persuaded to hand over the missing Tilea diaries. He was beyond exhausted with them, he was utterly spent and no words could help him anymore.
"Mr Frost, Edward. Gillian's only child."
"Gillian Frost." Giles heard himself echo dumbly. Then – "Gillian Frost? You mean Gillian Smith?"
"She was a Smith, yes, before she married."
"But weren't you and she - "
"For a time." Knightly nodded, still staring at the memorial. "We, I, ended it some 20 years ago now. She married Frost a few months later. Damned shame really, and I only realised that once it was too late of course. Utterly too late. And then what was one to do?" He paused, prodding the end of his umbrella at a fallen leaf. The orange glow that suffused his form, rolled and boiled in tight anguished convulsions and Giles frowned. Then his eyes widened. Oh my god! "What was one to do then Rupert, except the honourable thing? The only thing."
"Edward was yours, wasn't he?" Giles butted in. Knightly did not reply. "I wondered how he got hold of the Watcher diaries. You gave them to him. And you let him persuade you into making him part of the goddamned Hellmouth Expedition. Oh dammit, Robert, why didn't you say anything? You bloody fool!"
"How could I?" Knightly's voice was suddenly fierce, harsh and rough, though spoken in a whispered rush of emotion. "How could I say anything Rupert? And what could I say? Hmm? What? It was all I could do to stop you, and… others, seeing it in me, or him.
"No," Knightly shook his head. "No, I made my decision long ago to remain silent. It was best for all concerned, not least Edward. My only concern now must be what to tell his mother. What in god's name do I tell her?" Knightly fell silent and Giles followed suit. Oh Christ Almighty.
"Did he suffer?" Knightly suddenly asked. "I've read the official report Rupert, but I am asking you, man to man: was it... did he... suffer?"
And what to say to that? Silence? That would be more telling than a thousand words, and more devastating. And yet the truth... It was all he had to give and all Frost, all Edward, all Robert's son, had ever asked for. Perhaps it was reward enough for the sacrifice the young man had made. Perhaps.
"Not for long." He said. For the first time he really looked at the other man, noting the deep grey lines carving through his lean face. Knightly was not looking at him, but the hurt screamed across Giles' senses. The soft orange glow of his aura was deep with a pain that could not be expressed; that must not be if the world was not to be laid waste by its horror. Giles swallowed a reactive surge of emotion. "I'm so sorry Robert." The other man's nod was barely perceptible.
"And... And was it how you described in your report?" Knightly's aura suddenly wrapped tight and tense around him and Giles knew what he wanted to hear. It was a relief that it was also the truth.
"It was. He saved someone whom is very important both to me and to the Slayer. We are both forever in his debt."
"I see." He said flatly, and Giles nodded: it wasn't much consolation for a young life lost. Knightly swallowed and for a moment neither of them spoke. Giles followed the Councillor's distant stare to Anita's memorial. Another friend laid to rest (please, let it be rest) before their time. Oh Jesus, would this never stop...
"I'm sorry about your friend Rupert. She was a fine, fine lady."
"You knew her?"
"Met her. Once, long ago." Knightly looked back at him. There was a light in his eyes that momentarily relieved the intense grief that shrouded him. "Only once and yet I have never forgotten her." Giles stared, suddenly consumed by a desperate need to know.
"When?"
"Long ago. After your return to the Council." He looked thoughtful for a moment and his aura rippled with a sudden conflict. It pulsed and tensed around him. "It was quite by accident really. I knew who she was of course-"
"- from the ball." Giles finished with a shake of his head. Anita had insisted upon making his return to grace a thing of note. Even resorting to physically pushing his arms into his dinner jacket and hiding his smokes. You'll thank me babe. One day you'll thank me and you'll understand. She left him that night. Not a word. Not a wave. Not a sign. After causing the room to ripple with curiosity just with her entrance, after continuing to make waves all night and taking him up on her crest and into respectability once more, she just vanished.
"The ball." Knightly nodded. "She was leaving, coming down the staircase like the devil had got her. She was moving so fast she tripped. Lucky I was there. I had just popped out for a smoke, you see, and managed to grab her before she fell too far. Or so I thought.
"Hadn't got her right side up before she was doubled over again. I thought she might have cracked a rib. Maybe winded herself. She hadn't."
"Why are you telling me this? Anita did not die now because she tripped 24 years ago."
"No, she didn't." Knightly looked across the ancient cemetery, seeming to look through the marble statue forest with its creeping cowling vines and invisible twittering birds. Beyond it all. Giles found himself following the man's gaze for the second time. And there, in the middle distance, someone was sitting on a park bench. Long legs stretched out in front of them. Someone else putting flowers by a stone plinth, and an elderly couple shuffling by. And beyond that - nothing... Giles looked back at Knightly. Peered at him. There was a strange relieved texture to the man's aura now. What-
"Stop looking at me Rupert, you'll learn nothing more here." The other man looked back at him and managed a faint smile. "I've made so many mistakes in my life, but the very worst one has been taken from me and I will never have the chance to rectify it. You don't have to carry that burden." Knightly looked across the grounds again and jerked his chin in the direction of the bench. "Go. Learn something. I think she would approve."
Anita? Approve? What- But his feet were carrying him as if in a thrall. Past his love's grave, over crackling undergrowth, underneath the coldly serene gaze of carved angels and through cold pools of oak-made shadow and on toward the bench. As he approached the figure sitting there resolved itself into a man. Tall and lean and wrapped in a mildly expensive grey long coat. His balled fists were jammed into the pockets and drawn tightly over his belly, protecting himself from the chill wind. He stood up. Giles' feet kept on moving until he was a few metres away. He stumbled to a halt, feet scraping over the gravel path. The man, young and dark haired, was waiting.
"He told you then, did he?" The voice held a familiar timbre.
"What?"
"Knightly? He told you and now you are here."
"I- I'm sorry?"
"My name is Thomas Snow. I'm your son."
5 days and 30 minutes after the Hellmouth:
A hesitant shadow slipped free from a grove of nearby trees and moved across the human lawn. Tree to tree, shadow-to-shadow, grave to grave. To grave. To the grave.
A pale hand, wrapped in gauze, reached out to touch the small carved rose that mantled the stone. Fingertips hovered over its topmost petal, but dropped away before making contact.
Then a dry whisper of a voice, barely distinguishable from the cold breeze that wove its icy fingers through the cemetery, spoke to the marble headstone, cracking and breaking on the last syllables: "Not really how I pictured it all to end Annie love."
Ethan looked down upon the memorial through bleak eyes. His gaze traced the hard carved contours and he swallowed. Such a small cold thing to mark the ending of a wildly free and passionate life. Such a little thing. A fresh well of hollow grief suddenly surged up from his guts. It rose like bile toward his throat, but froze through his chest, blocking his heart with ice. He gritted his teeth against the pain.
Oh god, how has it come to this?
Annie where are you?
"I know you aren't one much for revenge love," he tried his voice again, "but I want you to know that Rip- Rupert is going to try to kill me for this." He looked up, through the trees where his old friend had departed. His vision blurred, greying and then obliterating the scene. "And I just might let him. Once I'm done, once it's done, I think I just might let him."
The end