Wow, I deeply appreciate how well-received this was! I won't lie, this is going to get dark. But if any of you are familiar with my other fanfictions, you'll all know that I cannot resist the urge to screw up a plot as much as possible. Oh, I have such awful things in store for this one. Again, goodness, thank you so very, very much, I really appreciate the feedback!

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Nathan isn't particularly sure where his life has gone to. He only knows that, seated casually at a desk with a slew of glass vials spread out before him, Nathan is still trying to adjust to this name. He thought it sounded clever, somehow dashing, when he woke up in the middle of a smoking crater and could only ask himself what was going on and why. None of it made any real sense to him, so he just did his best to try to work with what he had.

He'd watched one world go to shit. He wanted to do his best to hold this one together with his makeshift duct tape and band-aids.

So he built a life. It was a pitiful excuse for one, a rickety, horrible excuse for one, but it was a life, nonetheless. A man named Rotti Largo had taken pity on Rupert, wallowing in his infinite loss and guilt, and the subtly brilliant Englishman had taken on a career he never figured he could get the hang of. Chemistry…or was it physics? He didn't know; all he knew was that he had to get away from whatever memories he'd once had of Sunnydale (or Cleveland, had it been Cleveland?)

With him, the Watcher's Council died.

This future was one he didn't want to ever occur. It was worse than anything he or the Scoobies had ever dreamt up way back home. He paused for what felt like a lifetime and thought it up, conjured just what the word meant. 'Home'. Home had once been a warm cup of tea, a soft sofa and a few guiltily taped sitcoms with cheesy laugh-tracks that seemed to never end. In this future, there were no laugh-tracks. Giles only knew is life had become one big laugh-track.

The word 'Buffy' still brings a raw shock of pain to his heart, and rips forth a torrent of tears anew. He wishes he could take it all back, that everything could be fine again and he would wake up in his apartment filled with stuffy artifacts (ones he didn't like so very much, anymore) and pictures of old, dead memories.

He even thought about Jenny Calendar. Once or twice, her melodic voice would drift its way deceptively into his head. He'd ignore the fast-friends he was becoming with this supposed 'GeneCo' up-and-coming representative and remember before he felt himself becoming some sort of corporate slave.

Up from his desk, something catches his eye. Giles-Nathan's murky brown eyes (flecked with green, softer tones speckled lightly) turn shyly to attention. His new 'best friend' Rotti seems to have something in tow, and his eyebrows slip upward silently. Her hair is black. She's beautiful and slender, pale and faint.

This is Marni.