Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
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"Are you okay?"

Xander blinked and turned startled eyes to the beautiful blonde currently running a soothing hand up and down his back. "Why wouldn't I be?" he asked curiously. A short distance away Cordy and the man, Neal Caffrey, stood closely together talking softly. It had been a long time since he'd seen her so… vulnerable with someone other than the Scoobies.

"I know how you feel about her… what she means to you; it must be hard, seein' her in someone else's arms," Tina tried to keep her insecurity out of her voice.

Xander wasn't The One Who Sees for nothing. His entire focus went onto her. "Tina, I love Cordy, I will always love Cordy… next to Willow, she was probably my first love, but that was the love of a teenage boy. What I feel for you… I would think by now you know how I feel about you," he told her, raising his hand to her face. She leaned into his caress. "This, what I feel for you, isn't going anywhere, Tina Armstrong. And Gods willing, neither am I. In the past I've wasted the opportunities I've been given, and I'm not wasting what I've been given with you. I love you, Tina. I don't want you to ever doubt that."

Tina couldn't stop the few tears that fell down her cheeks. "I do not know what I did to deserve you, Alexander Harris… but I love you right back. More than I ever thought possible. And one day, we are gonna have those babies, 'cuz there ain't no power in this world that's gonna part us." Then she gripped him to her into a kiss, reminding Xander why he liked aggressive women so much.

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She'd been expecting him. A small part of her had been avoiding him, but she knew eventually he'd find her.

"I was real glad to see you'd made it," he told her from the open doorway.

Elena Santos stopped cleaning her weapon, her hands tightening for a moment. She grimaced hoping she hadn't bent anything irrevocably with her new slayer strength. "Wouldn't have if it hadn't been for you," her voice was abrupt, and she hadn't meant for it to be, but she couldn't quite control it.

"You were stuck, I couldn't leave ya there," his voice was filled with confusion.

She almost snorted. He didn't get it. He didn't understand why she was upset. She stood and finally looked at him. "You should have left me there… I put myself there; it was up to me to get myself out of there! You died because you spent precious time saving my ass."

He shrugged. "Then I died making a decision that I was good with. That was my call."

Now she screamed, furious with him and herself, "But it wasn't mine! I got you killed! I got you killed, Stav, and I had to look at your friends, and know that they knew you died saving me. I wasn't even part of your unit then."

"Santos, we were at war, as soon as you joined us you were part of our unit. As soon as you were with us you were mine to save," he told her in a calm voice. "And now that I'm not dead, I'm gonna tell ya, you're a fine lookin' woman and I plan on bein' around a lot, and lettin' ya know it a lot. You gonna have a problem with that?"

Elena's mouth dropped open slightly, and a slight flush infused her cheeks. She found herself looking into vivid blue eyes, and whispering, "N..no…not at all."

"Good, I'll see you later, Elena," he flashed a grin and left her to finish cleaning her weapon.

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Michael Nantz didn't know how he found himself on the roof of the hotel with what seemed to be 'leaders' of their rescuers, and quite a few other survivors, but he and Kerns were here. After spending most of the day training, and some of it had been the most FUBARed training he'd ever partaken in, a majority of his unit and the others had split up to go into separate directions for some R and R.

The group was approaching a girl sprawled in a lawn chair, drinking a beer and occasionally firing a rifle at the creatures at the gates. He recognized her as the brunette who'd talked the blonde, Buffy into giving them a chance despite them being military. If he remembered correctly, her name was Faith.

A man with silver hair approached to his right, a tall darkhaired man walking with him. "Leroy Jethro Gibbs," the man introduced himself to Nantz. "I used to be with NCIS, this is Tony DiNozzo, one of my coworkers."

"Staff Sgt Michael Nantz."

"Lance Corporal Peter Kerns," Kerns added.

"Semper Fi," Gibbs grinned and got responding smiles from the men.

"Aw, did you all come up to visit little ol' me," Faith smirked as she took another head shot.

"Yes, oh, how we missed you so," Vi deadpanned with a roll of her eyes.

Faith laughed spinning to look at the group. "I trained you so good. So what's the what?"

"We're thinking we should start a daily cleanse of the creatures at the gates," Willow began. "What we're trying to decide now is how we should go about it."

"I have a question," Kerns asked. "Do the creatures just keep coming?"

"That's right, Soldier-boy," Vi responded. "We're pretty sure they're drawn to living entities. So, us being here, they keep finding us. Willow and the rest of the magic users are still doing their thing on locating, but in the meantime…"

"We're seeing droves of the bastards heading our way," Willow finished.

"Which is why we want to clear them out daily," Derek Morgan was following along, nodding.

"Makes sense, we get 'em cleared out, eventually they're all gone and the outbreak will be cleaned out as well," Burt Hummel entered the conversation.

"Sure, once we take out the Initiative bastards who have the virus," Faith sneered.

"We aren't going to worry about that aspect right now. We will have to, but right now, we want to make sure to keep our haven safe, and that means keeping the gates and surrounding areas clear," Willow was back.

"What are our options?" Nantz asked.

"Magic is always an option," Willow offered. "We can fry them off."

"We can also dispose of them with our wand magic," a tall, British man with long, platinum hair offered. "Or the house-elves can of course dispose of them."

"They would make good practice for those that are learning firearms," Nantz brought up. "After we're done you can burn them out. We're using the ammunition anyways."

"I like it," Faith approved.

"I too think the idea has merit," Giles agreed. "I know the slayers have an innate ability with weaponry, but it never hurts to practice, and I know there are a number of individuals wanting to practice on moving targets… er, deserving moving targets."

A tall, lanky youth's hand shot into the air. "I want to shoot more zombies."

The older, attractive woman next to Giles smacked the boy on the arm, "Yes, Finn, we know."

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Kevin Harris lay in bed holding Cherise to him tightly. They'd just made love, and a shudder rippled through his body as the thought that he could have lost her ran through his mind yet again.

"Stop it," she told him.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

"Don't be sorry, Kevin, just stop it. I'm right here. We're here together. Somehow, we're here together. If we had to be taken to a whole other reality, at least we were taken together. And Stav's here with us."

And with that, Kevin lost it. Tears began to shake his body, and he clutched her to him, not knowing why he was crying.

"Oh, Baby, I know, shhhh, he told me. Nick told me you lost him," tears streamed from Cherise's eyes as she could only imagine the horrors Kevin had gone through, losing his best friend, seeing his other friends and the civilians dying around him and not knowing if he'd see her again. "But we're both here with you. Nick is safe, and I'm safe, and you're safe. Well, we're as safe as we can be for the moment and the situation. And unless something's changed, I still want us to get married whenever we can. Our wedding party's going to change a bit," she laughed, and it drew a chuckle from him, which made her feel good.

"I can't wait to marry you, Cherise… I'm going to ask that Mr. Giles if he, or anyone here can do it for us. I'm sorry I lost it."

"You don't ever have to be sorry to show me how you feel," she told him with a frown. "I am with you for life."

"You're both my soulmates, ya know? You're the love of my life, and he's my brother…I thought I'd lost my brother, and I guess I just never got a chance to mourn him."

"Well, now you don't have to," Cherise leaned in and kissed him. "You've got your brother with you. You've got your marine family, and me, and I have a feeling that we're gonna have a whole new family with the people who rescued us… because they're the staying kind."

Kevin thought about her words and what he'd seen of the people who had come for them when they'd been shoved topside. They'd come for them, saved them even knowing they were military, even with their inherent dislike and distrust for the military… yeah, this group was the staying kind… they were the kind that Kevin Harris wouldn't mind calling family.

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Having decided that they would start the next day's firearm training on the roof, the majority of the group had disbanded leaving only a few stragglers.

Nantz watched as Faith took a deep draw of her beer and in another second took a shot hitting a creature directly between the eyes. "You're good."

She looked over at him lazily and shrugged. "It's almost cheating with the whole slayer package. Now if they'd let me out there with my Sai… then I could show ya some of my mad skills."

"Isn't that dangerous?'

She shrugged again. "That's what they say… which is why they won't let me out there. I can't get Angelspawn, but I can get dead and we frown upon that… not a good example for the kiddies," she smirked to soften her words.

"So you all save the world?"

"Pretty much," she agreed with a sigh. "Been doin' it a long time…well, I guess, I had time off when I was in prison, yo, but if you don't count the time when I was all evil like… I been doin' it a long time…"

Nantz heard the wealth of emotions in her voice, pain, bitterness, shame… salvation. "The slayer, Violet, was telling us the story about slayers… when were you Called?"

"I was fifteen," she murmured, losing herself in her thoughts. "Buffy had drowned and Xander performed CPR. She was only dead for like a minute, yo, but it was enough for Kendra to be Called. She didn't last long. This bitch vamp, Dru, killed her, and I was Called. And I was the worst kinda person to Call; wrong kinda background, wrong kinda upbringing. But that don't matter. None of that matters when you're Chosen. So, yeah, I've fucked up all over the place."

"You've obviously made up for whatever mistakes you've made, everyone here trusts you implicitly."

"They'll learn to trust you too. Just give it time. Military's done a number on us a few times in the past… hard to trust."

"We won't give you reason to doubt us," he assured her.

Faith tilted her head to the side in contemplation. "Strangely enough, I believe you."