"They're all waiting inside," Buffy whispered to Dawn. "Tomorrow's the big day and we've got a lot to go over, so maybe head back in?"
Dawn turned to her. "I want to tell Xander."
Dawn," Buffy said in a low voice that had a definite edge of frustrated impatience to it, we've been over this … tomorrow, we're going to have hopefully hundreds of people, a lot of whom don't like us very much, gathering at a football stadium. We can't risk a fiance blow-up between now and then."
"Andrew is dead," Dawn said. "Any of us could be next, including me. If something goes wrong, I don't want Xander to be left with the memory that I lied to him."
Buffy took Dawn's hands. "If we tell him, he'll try to stop you. We don't have time for this."
"Not enough time," Dawn said with a shake of her head. "There's never enough time."
"Now you sound like me," Buffy said as she forced a grin.
Dawn couldn't help but smile in response. "You know, I'm still not used to you looking younger than me," she said with a rueful snort. "I'm trying not to let the jealousy eat me alive."
"Shaving some years off my face wasn't worth what we lost," Buffy said as she reached out and gave Dawn a hug. "Not even close."
Dawn stared at her with sad eyes, nodded, then finally said, "I told you on your birthday that I wouldn't kill for you and that I sure as hell wouldn't die for you … well, I got the killing part out of the way, so maybe let's try not to let the dying part happen, too?"
Buffy hugged Dawn hard enough that her sister began to urgently pat her on the back.
"Too tight, Buffy," Dawn squeaked.
"Right," Buffy said as she stepped back. "You ready to get back in there?"
Dawn glanced towards the closed sliding patio door, hesitated a second, then asked, "Remember what I said before, sis, about doing what you have to do, and I'm not the priority, and all of that?"
Buffy grimaced and nodded. "Yeah, what was going on with you that day?"
"That isn't important," Dawn said, "what's important is that you know I'd really prefer not to die."
"I'm not going to let that happen," Buffy assured her. "By the way, I noticed the ring … very nice."
Dawn held up her left hand and smiled while a simple, but large, round stone set in a white-gold band sparkled in the evening light. "I hope you don't mind that Xander and I spared an hour or so to rush off to the mall."
"Hey," Buffy said as she hugged her sister again, "you deserve it."
. . . . . . . . .
"The apocalytes have their fliers, they know where they're setting up in the stadium, and they've learned the pack of lies they're going to give everyone to get them to recite the spell." Willow announced as she gazed around Xander's living room. "They've promised they'll be there …" she held out her hand and crossed her fingers, "but we'll see."
Buffy turned towards Giles. "And the spell? Everything is set?"
Giles glanced at Willow for a moment, then cleared his throat, removed his glasses, and set them on the coffee table. "We've practiced as much as we can, given the realities of the scope involved, and we're as ready as we're going to be."
Buffy waited for Willow's nod of agreement before she gestured towards Angel. "Angel's not going to help with the First, instead he's going to watch your backs."
"What?" Willow asked. "Why?"
"Call it a hunch," Buffy replied. "You and Giles are going to be busy with the spell and you won't be able to keep an eye out for someone to try to take advantage of your being distracted. Angel will handle that."
Giles extended a hand, "Buffy, every contribution towards defeating the First might be essential."
"Something happens to either of you, we all die," Buffy said with a shake of her head. "Angel stays back."
Willow and Giles glanced at each other for a few seconds and then voiced their agreement.
"Collen and I spent most of the day spreading weapons around the stadium," Connor said. "Barrels of swords, buckets of knives, bushels of spears … everything we could buy from stores or borrow from Xander over the past week."
"Don't worry about returning any of it," Dawn said in a cheery, but firm voice as she leaned towards Xander and rubbed his knee, "we don't need an armory in our house."
Xander glanced at Dawn and grimaced. "Yeah, I should probably cut back on all the weapons."
Grunts of agreements were heard and nods of approval were seen around the room.
"I had a thought," Colleen announced in a hesitant manner as she raised her hand. "Shouldn't we, you know, check on all the people we recruited and make sure they're actually coming?"
"Wouldn't that make us seem needy?" Angel asked.
Xander chuckled for a moment. "Needy? I think we're well past worrying about our street cred."
"If the end of the world didn't convince them, a phone call or reminder-portal isn't going to convince them, either," Buffy replied. "Whoever comes, come, and then we go after the First with whatever strength we can muster."
"And if none of them show?" Giles asked.
Buffy narrowed her eyes at him. "We wing it."
"I have something you may want to consider, if things don't go as planned," Fred volunteered in a soft, hesitant voice, "if I'm allowed to say anything, I mean."
"Of course you are," Angel announced in a loud, strident voice.
"Well," Fred said, "if we have a hiccup with Buffy's plan …"
Buffy crossed her arms and glared at Fred. "A hiccup?"
"Or, any problem, really," Fred continued, "I've been reading through Willow's spell books, which she was kind enough to loan me and which I'm super grateful about. As I understand it, the First will grow exponentially, devouring worlds as it expands, but we can buy time by portaling ahead of it."
Giles stared at Fred with a troubled expression. "Escape the First by hopping dimensions? That might buy us time, but to what end?"
"To figure out something new?" Fred suggested as she glanced around the room. "Also, to not die."
"Fred," Buffy said, and although she kept her tone even and calm there was an obvious hint of irritation lurking behind it, "the idea is to focus on saving Creation, not saving our own asses."
Fred glanced over at Willow and murmured, "I'm doing it again, aren't I?"
"Just try to keep the Old One instincts locked away," Willow whispered in return.
"That's it, then," Buffy said as she stood so that everyone could see her. "Tomorrow morning, we meet at the stadium, we hope everyone shows up, and we teach the First that being all-powerful doesn't mean very much if the other side is willing to break the rules."
"I used to love it when she did the whole coach-on-the-day-of-the-big-game pep talks," Colleen murmured to Connor, "but now I just feel scared."
"We're all scared," Buffy informed Colleen. "And we should be scared … we should be frightened out of our goddamned minds." Her voice rose and she straightened to every inch of height she could muster. "The First could have chosen any form it wanted, and it picked Angelus for a reason. It knows that Angelus made our lives a living hell, it knew the pain that his appearance would cause, and the fact that the First came to us as Angelus tells us everything we need to know about its intentions. We're alive because it has let us live, and it let us live because it wants us to suffer. It will destroy world after world, but I think it's going to keep us alive to torment us forever." The room felt cold and still as she paused for a few seconds to let her words sink in. "An eternity of suffering at the hands of the source of all evil … that's what's at stake."
"These pep talks definitely didn't use to be so terrifying," Colleen whispered to Connor.
"Take the day," Buffy continued, "do whatever you have to do to get ready. Kiss who you gotta kiss, practice what you gotta practice, because when the sun rises tomorrow, we need to focus on saving the world again … wait, I need to fix my phrasing. Not the world, all the worlds, everywhere. This is our one shot."
The eight of them ate dinner together, they spoke both about the day to come and any other topic of conversation that came to mind, and while Buffy did her best to engage with the only friends and family she had left, over and over again she found her attention being drawn to Dawn. If she lost tomorrow, they all died … but even if she won, there was no guarantee that her sister would survive.
The painful truth, however, was that there was no other way.
. . . . . . . . .
Rinsing the dishes and putting them in the dishwasher seemed like the most profound waste of time possible, but Xander and Dawn silently cleaned up after dinner anyway. Eventually, when the tableware was put away, the downstairs lights turned off, and the chinese takeout containers discarded into the overstuffed trash can, Dawn turned the corner towards the stairs to find Xander waiting for her.
"Hey," she said as she nudged at his shoulder. "Want to leave me some room to get by you?"
"Why are you going with us tomorrow?" Xander asked. "What aren't you telling me?"
It killed her to lie to Xander, but Buffy was right … they didn't have time to convince him, and that's assuming he even could be convinced.
"Every little bit helps," she reminded Xander. "And I'm going to contribute what I can, how I can. It's not like I'm going to be fighting … not that any of us will be fighting, actually."
His left eye glimmered a sullen red in the dim light of their house, but she couldn't tell whether or not it was glowing or merely the light reflecting off it.
"Are you angry?" she finally asked.
"Would it matter if I was?" he asked as he turned away and began climbing the stairs. "Would it matter if I told you that I wanted you to stay home?"
"Of course it matters," she replied as she followed him up the stairs. "I'm still going to be there for my sister, but it matters, Xander."
He paused and turned back towards her. "It sounds like your mind is made up. I'm going to go shower and try to fight back the urge to keep drinking until I forget what's happening tomorrow."
She rubbed a finger along his arm. "Mind if I join you?"
That seemed to improve his mood. He grinned at her, leaned over and kissed her cheek, and replied, "Absolutely."
He turned to go, she began to follow, and then she remembered that Buffy had left something rather important for her outside.
"I'll be right there," she said. "Gotta grab something from downstairs."
"Don't be long," Xander called out as he vanished into the upstairs hallway.
Feeling very much like a sneaking, lying teenager, she hurried downstairs, slipped on a pair of flip-flops, and opened the front door. The night air was cold and she regretted not grabbing a jacket, but then again, a jacket was what she was on her way to grab. Eager to get back inside and into the shower with Xander, she cut straight across the grass until she reached the curb adjacent to where she'd parked her car. She opened the back door, found her jacket, and zipped open the front right pocket to make sure that the envelope Buffy had given her was still tucked safely inside.
After she'd confirmed the envelope was there, she zipped the pocket closed and slipped the jacket over her shoulders.
"I wanted you to know that by the time you met her, she was different from what she'd been like when I was growing up," a low, rumbling voice said from somewhere behind her. "She did good, too, for a lot of years."
Dawn whirled around and pressed her back against her car.
Joshua.
"Who?" she asked. Her heart was racing, her breath was catching in her throat, and her front door … which represented safety from vampires … might as well have been on the other side of the planet.
"My mother," Joshua continued. "She was a slayer, she helped people … but she trusted the wrong men. They lied to her for years. She had to take care of me, she had no one to help her, and she was taken advantage of. I realize that now."
"What happened to your mother wasn't right," Dawn said, as she tried to imagine what Buffy would do.
Probably say something quippy and then kill the bad guy.
Some spark of courage flared within her, and she continued, "But here's some tough-to-swallow pills, a lot of people have it rough and they don't end up doing the kinds of things your mom did."
Joshua's coat was tattered and torn, he looked as though he hadn't showered in weeks, and ash and old, dried blood smeared his face. He watched her, saying nothing, and Dawn found herself wondering if maybe Giles's and Willow's wards on her house reached to the front lawn.
"Stop inching," Joshua snapped at her.
"What?" she asked.
"I can see you inching away from me," he growled as he squared his stance towards her. "Stop that."
She forced her feet to remain still as she replied, "I'm scared. Can you blame me?"
He considered the question for a moment, then shrugged. "I understand why you're frightened, but I'm not here for revenge. You killed my mom, but it wasn't your fault. Not really. You were kidnapped, you wanted to escape … I understand."
"If not revenge, then why are you here?"
He ignored the question and asked, "What does it feel like to be rid of it?"
Can we maybe pick a topic?
"Rid of what, exactly?" she asked.
"The magic … the power," he explained. "Whatever you had, whatever Ethan Rayne wanted to use you for, it's gone now, right? What does it feel like?"
"I don't miss it, I can tell you that," she admitted. He kept staring at her as if he wanted a further explanation, and from deep within her memory she recalled something that Buffy had told her once a long time ago. "Joshua, the people who desire power are the ones who shouldn't have it. For anyone that wants to do the right thing, power is nothing except a burden."
He flinched at her words. It was barely perceptible, but she saw it. He gestured towards her house. "Go ahead," he said. "I won't stop you."
She hesitantly side-stepped towards home, then turned and began to walk, and finally broke into a run. The heat of her breath escaped her nostrils and mouth as she sprinted to the front door, hastily worked the knob, and swung it open. The cold air crept into the house while she scurried inside, slammed the door shut behind her, and locked it.
Briefly, she considered whether she should tell Xander what had just happened.
If I tell him, he's going to call Buffy, and the rest of maybe our last night together is going to be spent psychoanalyzing what's going on in an insane slayer-vampire's head. I'm already lying to the man I love, so what's one more secret?
With utmost care she hung her jacket in the closet across from the front door and then proceeded up the stairs. When she heard the sound of the shower it calmed her almost immediately.
. . . . . . . . .
"Thanks for the ride," Willow said as Giles stepped out of the car and gave her a hug. Fred had already proceeded inside, and the street felt very quiet and lonely as they stared at one another.
"Even splitting the strain of the spell between the two of those, this is going to be difficult," Giles reminded her. "We won't be able to hold it for long … not without our brains shutting down, or worse."
Willow rubbed his arm. "I know, Giles, we've been over this. More importantly, Buffy knows, too."
"Tomorrow then?" Giles asked with a sad, wan smile.
Willow forced a responsive smile to her lips. "Tomorrow."
. . . . . . . . .
Willow knocked on the door to the guest bedroom Fred had been using.
"Just cleaning up a few things in here," Fred replied.
Willow rolled her eyes and sighed. "Fred, I'm not an idiot and I'm not blind. I know what you've been up to, so how about you open the door so that we can talk?"
There was a moment of silence, then the door swung open. The bed was covered with journals, and the ones that were flipped open were filled with hand-written notes. Candles of rather unusual origins were gathered in neat piles, and esoteric mystical ingredients with exotic properties were stacked on top of the dresser.
When Willow spotted a small ziploc bag within which sat a small clump of blonde hair her suspicions were confirmed.
She's actually going to do it. The worst part is, I don't think I can blame her.
"Are you sure about this, Fred?" Willow asked. "You have friends here, people who will miss you."
Fred's eyes narrowed and Willow imagined that she was considering what lie to tell, but then the young woman's form relaxed and she slumped forward.
"I'm sure," she said with a nod. "There's nothing here for me, not anymore."
"But what about the other Fred?" Willow reminded her. "How is this fair to her?"
Fred's responsive smile had a bit of mischievous charm to it that Willow imagined was what she had always looked like … once upon a time. "The timelines split after I was sent to Pylea. There's no Winifred Burkle in that reality, but my parents are there. To them, I've been missing for years. They must be worried sick beyond belief."
Wesley will be there, too … don't think I don't realize that, Fred.
"When will you go?"
"Oh, after, of course," Fred assured her. "I'll be here to help defeat the First … assuming Buffy's right about everything."
"Are you going to tell anyone that you're leaving?" Willow asked. "Are you going to tell Angel?"
Fred shook her head. "No, and I would appreciate you keeping this between us."
"Well," Willow said, "we've got bigger fish to fry at the moment. Afterwards, though, assuming there is an afterwards, I'm going to have to tell them the truth."
Fred's nodded, then said, "I was hoping you could give everyone a message after I'm gone."
"Sure."
Fred stepped nearer, and though she was a young woman of diminutive stature, Willow felt a near-overwhelming desire to back away. "Once I've left," Fred said to her, "tell them that I'm not coming back … and also that I don't want them to come look for me." She blinked her large brown eyes and smiled her lopsided grin, but that didn't lessen Willow's desire to leave the room.
Was that a request or a warning?
"I'll tell them," Willow promised, "but are you sure you can cast a spell like that by yourself? That kind of power, Fred, it takes years of training, and even then it's not exactly easy."
Fred smiled again, and this time it felt like more of her old genuine charm lay behind the expression. "I'll be fine." She tapped the side of her head. "Illyria knows what to do, and I've found her to be very cooperative as of late."
A cold chill ran down Willow's spine as Fred cheerfully smiled while discussing the living being trapped inside her psyche.
"Okay then," Willow said as she backed out of the room.
Fred didn't wait for her to entirely leave before she turned back to packing.
As she walked down the hallway to her room, Willow realized the oddest thing … she would breathe easier once Winifred Burkle, or whatever she was now, found a different dimension to call home.
She closed her bedroom door, slid into bed, and video-called Oz. For how ever many hours she could keep her eyes open, she wanted to talk to her husband and look at her sleeping daughter. It might be her last chance.
. . . . . . . . .
"That tickles," Buffy squealed with a giggle while Angel rubbed his thumb along the curve of her neck. "What are you doing?"
The heat of his naked body pressed against her, even after she'd grown used to his being alive, still thrilled her.
"This is the first time that I've realized that your scar is gone," Angel said as he kissed her on the neck. "I'm glad."
She'd acquired so many scars over the years that it took her a moment to realize which one he was referring to. "Oh," she said. "The one from where you bit me … when you needed my blood to cure you from that Dementor Morpheus poison?"
"Interfector Mortis," Angel murmured in response. "And yes, that would be the scar I'm talking about. I think it took me a while to spot the change because I trained my eyes not to see it."
She snuggled closer to him and closed her eyes. "All the scars, the ones on my skin, anyway, from after I was sixteen are gone. A clean slate for my epidermis, so to speak."
He laughed and kissed her neck again where the bite mark used to be. "I felt so guilty, Buffy. I guess I still feel guilty, for that and for so many other things."
"Stop that," she scolded him. "We're not thinking about any of that stuff tonight." She laughed for a moment, then asked, "Maybe you could nibble me just enough to give me a new mark, maybe that would get your mind off moping and brooding?"
"How can you joke about something like this?" His eyes looked dark and sad when she opened her own eyes and stared at him. "I hurt you, Buffy."
She twisted in his arms so that she was facing him. "I can joke about it for the same reason that the night before we try to save all of Creation, we intend on using most of our precious minutes doing the horizontal mamba. If we don't joke about this stuff, if we don't take the time to be human, we'll go insane. Or at least I will."
He laid a hand on her cheek, smiled, and said, "I love you."
"I know," she said as she leaned forward and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. "Since you're in the talkative, contemplative mood, there's something I wanted to chat about."
"What?" he asked with a curious expression.
"You're alive, I'm alive and back in my twenties again, and we've just been going through the motions as if you were still a cursed vampire. Assuming we survive tomorrow, there are some things about our life I want to talk about. Things that maybe I want to talk to you about changing."
He propped his head up on his elbow and looked down at her. "What things?"
"Big things," she said. "But let's survive first."
Angel settled back down on the pillow and stared into her eyes. "There's something about your plan you're not telling me."
Shit.
She didn't bother trying to lie. Not only did she not have the stomach to lie to Angel, but she didn't really want to.
"When did you start to suspect?"
He sighed and replied, "I've known from the beginning. I hoped that I wouldn't have to ask, that you'd decide to trust me, but you don't, do you?"
"It's not that I don't trust you," she assured him.
"What is it then?"
She searched for the right words, then finally admitted, "It's not just my secret to tell."
Angel tried to sit up in bed and in response she reached out and coaxed him back down next to her. His voice was filled with concern when he asked, "Buffy … what are you going to do?"
"Like I just said, it's not my secret to tell."
Angel's face stiffened into a frown, his brow furrowed, and he began to turn away from her … which she very much did not want.
"Angel, don't pout," she murmured as she draped an arm over his side and ran her fingers along his shaved chest.
"I'm not pouting," he replied.
She stroked her fingers along the broad plane of his chest and let her fingernails trail along the edge of one of his nipples. "Or brood, or mope, or sulk. This may be our last night together."
He rolled back over to her. She could tell he was still disappointed, but he was also Angel, and she was very naked. Her not wearing any clothes usually had a pleasant effect on his disposition.
"I suppose we shouldn't waste the night," he said as he pressed himself against her and kissed her long and deeply.
When the kiss broke off, her eyes drifted to a nearby dresser. "Could you do me a favor?"
"Sure," he replied with a smile. "I was hoping to do you several."
"Could you turn Mr. Gordo around?"
Angel chuckled as he pulled back the blankets, stood, and walked over to where the stuffed pig from her childhood sat. She very much enjoyed the sight of his muscled, well-shaped butt as he walked, and she enjoyed even more the sight of his arousal jutting from his crotch when he turned around.
Let's put that to good use while the evening is still young.
"While you're up," she said in what she hoped sounded like a seductive purr, "could you grab that one box from the closet?"
Angel's eyes widened in response to her question. "Really? That box? I thought you'd probably never trust me like that again … you're sure?"
"I forgave you and I trust you," she reminded him. "More importantly, I absolutely need to let go of everything for a while."
He leaned over the bed, kissed her forehead, then near-scrambled towards the closet. An instant later he'd thrown open the door and was loudly rummaging through their belongings.
Well, he's certainly eager.
. . . . . . . . .
The sound of soft jazz filled the downstairs of the house while Giles and Olivia held each other and swayed with gentle movements in time to the music.
"You are the most amazing woman," Giles said as he leaned back to stare at her face. The silver had crept into her hair and lines were etched in the corners of her face, but she was as beautiful now as on the day they had met. "I should make time more often to tell you that I love you."
She pulled him back towards her and laid her head on his chest. "Don't just tell me, Rupert," she whispered. "Show me."
He kissed the top of her head and then led her by the hand up the stairs and into their bedroom.
. . . . . . . . .
"You're not like any woman I've ever met," Connor said as he wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"Slayer stamina," Colleen said as she arched her back like a cat and sensuously crept across the bed until she was crouched next to him. She kissed him on the lips and ran a hand down his chest. "I'm going to grab us a couple beers, and by the time we finish them, I expect you to be ready for a repeat performance."
Connor's eyes were a bit wild-eyed when he nodded in response.
"And then afterwards, we're going to watch The Notebook."
He blinked in surprise. "I'm sorry, what?"
"It's my favorite movie," Colleen explained. "You'll love it."
He shrugged and said, "Whatever you want."
"That's the spirit," she said with a smile.
. . . . . . . . .
"Can't you feel it, Cordy," the First asked as it smiled with Angelus's face at her. "The walls are breaking down everywhere, including here. Soon, not even the Power that protects the Powers will be able to keep you safe."
Cordelia felt trapped within the construct of the house she'd created as the First stared at her. It had the form of a man, and she recognized Angel's features, but reality shifted and cracked around it while spiderwebs of darkness snapped along the surface of its skin.
The First continued, "I'll add you to my collection, the souls that I keep alive in my creation. You'll be there a long time with all your friends. In fact, I suspect I'll never get tired of having you around."
"You can't be here," Cordelia said. "This isn't possible."
The First smiled, and the blackness within its jaws felt like the end of everything. "Yet here I am."
A bright white light shone in the corner of the space, far brighter than anything Cordelia had ever seen before, and a warm, comforting feeling of safety swept over her. The First didn't shy away from the light, but neither did it continue advancing towards her.
"Soon," it whispered. A ripple of darkness shuddered and then it was gone.
The light vanished, but Cordelia stared in its direction with grateful eyes and said, "Thanks for having my back."