AN: Hi, guys. See, I'm not dead! Here's the final backstory chapter for Chosen. Next time, the good stuff. Enjoy! See you next time :)

Naomi

We sit atop the watch tower and as the sun slowly sets, Emily tells me all about the early adulthood of the Scooby Gang. I learn how Willow and Buffy went on to attend UC Sunnydale, where their psychology professor was an insane government scientist who created a demon-human-machine hybrid called Adam. Unshockingly, Adam went rogue, killed the professor, broke out of captivity, and tried to create an Aryan race of hybrid monsters.

All the while, in non-slayery news, Buffy fell for a guy named Riley who seemed normal and wonderful but turned out to be working for the psycho psych professor. They were part of a top secret military branch that fought and experimented on "sub-terrestrials", also known as... demons. Riley didn't know about Adam, though, he thought he was protecting people. Buffy and Riley worked for a while, but in the end, they crashed and burned.

And while Buffy was falling for Riley, Willow was getting deeper into her Wiccan ways, and on that journey, she discovered Tara.

Emily's eyes illuminate as she tells me how Willow and Tara fell in love. It's as if it wasn't them falling in love at all, but her.

"You really care for Willow, don't you?" I ask her. She flashes me a sad smile and nods.

"Willow's my best friend." she says, "I couldn't have chosen someone better for Tara." I frown, confused. Emily catches on.

"Tara was my cousin. We were close. Really close." she explains. I quickly noticed the use of the past tense, and the tears building up in her eyes.

"What ha-" Emily flashed me a warning look. A look that said 'please don't ask me that question'. I nod, curtly. "A story for another time, then." she smiles at me, gratefully and goes on with Buffy's story.

I learn that the next big bad the gang went up against was a centuries old Hell god called Glory who wanted to open a portal to return to her dimension. Which sounded harmless until Emily explained that opening the portal would spill all of Hell out onto the Earth.

Also, the key to opening the portal was Buffy's sister, Dawn... literally. Dawn's existence was created by monks who were entrusted with protecting the key to portal. But when Glory found the key they had to hide it again; they made it human and sent it to Buffy. Poof! Little key-sister.

I chuckle and shake my head. Everything I know about reality has been completely uprooted. From the corner of my eye, I catch Emily yawning.

"Tired of story time?" I ask. She shrugs.

"It's a really long story." she defends.

"So how about we just hit the key points to finish up." I suggest.

"Ok, lets see. Spike falls in love with Buffy. They have an unusual and disturbing affair. Eventually Buffy comes to her senses and Spike hires a teenage genius to make a robot Buffy."

I stare at her slack jawed and Emily giggles.

"You did ask for the short version." she says.

"The short version doesn't make sense." I complain.

"I'm not sure that part would make sense even if I gave you the long version." she insists.

"Suit yourself, then." I shrug, "What's next?" She stares at me, smiling, and suddenly I feel self conscious. I look down at my hands, trying to ignore the heat rising in my cheeks. Finally she decides to speak again.

"Umm.. So Glory captures Dawn and plans to use her to open the portal." I look back up so she knows I'm listening. Her cheeks are red, too, I notice. My heart skips a beat. "So she put Dawn at the top of a huge tower and uses her blood to open the portal. But the portal won't close until the blood stops flowing."

I frown, that would mean she had to die. Dawn is very much alive! It's kind of hard to miss her. Emily catches my confusion.

"The monks who created Dawn knew what they were doing. They knew if Buffy had love for the key, she would protect it with her life. They used Buffy to make Dawn. Dawn's blood is Buffy's blood."

"She sacrificed herself." I say, knowing it's true, though still confused. Buffy, too, is very much alive. Emily nods.

"After that the gang used Spike's Buffy-bot so that the demon's wouldn't know the slayer was dead. But they also thought Buffy was trapped in a Hell dimension, because she sacrificed herself by jumping into the portal." The penny drops.

"So they brought her back. How?" I ask.

"Willow." she says, as if it's obvious, though, maybe it should've been.

"The only problem," Emily adds, "is that Buffy wasn't trapped in a Hell dimension. She went where all heroes go." A bitter bile rises in my mouth.

"Heaven is real." I say, she nods, "Buffy was there." she nods, sadly, again, "And her friends pulled her out."

"She clawed her way out of her own grave." Emily tells me the horrible truth. I fight the urge to vomit.

"The affair with Spike actually happened after all of this. Everything beforehand was just Spikes twisted fantasy." Emily adds. I chuckle, dryly.

"It makes a little bit more sense now." I deadpan. If I'd been ripped out of heaven, I'd probably be grasping at anything that made me feel something.

"After that the story gets a bit harder to tell." Emily admits.

"You don't have to." I say, even though I'd really like to know. Emily shakes her head and takes a deep breath.

"Some idiots from Buffy's highschool wanted to be supervillians. They spent a lot of time fucking with Buffy. All they managed to do, though, was get Tara killed." Anger clouds Emily's eyes for a moment, she shakes it off, "Willow went nuts, of course. She almost destroyed the world. Xander stopped her. After that Willow went away for a while to try and get in touch with light magic. To find herself again."

My heart breaks for Emily, as well as Willow. I can tell, both of them are something special.

"What happened next?" I ask and Emily smiles.

"You're looking at it. Some supreme evil decided they wanted to create a Hell on Earth. The gang thought the world was really done for, that they had finally met their match, But then Buffy had an idea."

"What if there was more than just two slayers." I say, knowing where this is going.

"Bingo!" Emily says, "so Willow does a crazy spell with our scythe, I'll show you that, later- and poof, we all wake up! They slayers Buffy had already found helped her destroy the Hellmouth. Sunnydale is now a giant crater. Spike actually did the most work there, though." I cock an eyebrow and Emily laughs.

"That's part of the long story. Short version, Spike's on our side, now." I throw my hands up in an elaborate gesture. I've officially decided. Nothing is impossible.

"So now theyre all just looking for more slayers?" I ask, Emily nods.

"And fighting whatever crawls its way out of the Earth." she says.

"Were you there? When they destroyed the Hellmouth, I mean." Emily shakes her head.

"They found me just after, well, actually, I found them. I called Willow in a panic after I put my sister Katie in the hospital over her stealing my bra." I snort out a laugh, but then, a thought strikes me.

"You've known them since before you were a slayer. All of them. This is different for you than the rest of us. You've been around since Adam." Emily nods.

"They're my family. My real one has some...issues. The Scoobies were Tara's family, she wanted me to have that, too." A tear streaks down Emily's face.

"I wish I had gotten to meet her." I say, "Something tells me she would've been a good friend to me. I haven't had many of those." I say wistfully, finding myself appreciating the life of someone I never knew. Emily smiles.

"She would have." she says, and gets to her feet, "Well, now that I've shared far too much for us being total strangers," she holds out her hand, "lets go see how much weirder our new friendship can get." I let out a genuine laugh and take her hand.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Emily

"Buffy!" I shout when I spot her, leaving Naomi standing in the castle cooridor as I run to meet her. I stop in front of her and Naomi is beside me a second later. After I release Buffy from a hug that makes me feel like I'm home, again. I catch her staring at Naomi.

"So she was worthy, huh?" Buffy asks with a smile and I look at Naomi who is wearing the same expression she did when I told her about Buffy's resurrection.

"Buffy, this is Naomi." I introduce them and Naomi seems to remember herself and smiles.

"Lovely to finally meet you." She says, respectfully. Buffy smiles.

"I get one of two looks when I meet new recruits." she says, "The look of those who have heard my story, and those who haven't."

Naomi looks nervous, now, as if she feels intrusive. "I-" she starts, and Buffy cuts her off with a hug.

"You don't even know how much good you're gonna do here, yet," she says, and glances at me for a moment, she smiles. "but I do. Welcome to the family." And with that, Buffy kisses my cheek and walks away. I roll my eyes, though the smile doesn't leave my face.

"She's friendly." Naomi says, looking uncomfortable.

"She's intuitive." I correct, and as we make our way down the hall, back to our room, I can't stop thinking about how Naomi's being here has caused a shift in me. I've seen this happen before. To Tara. This girl could be the death of me. But if I've learned anything from Tara, it's that it's gonna be worth it.