Chapter One Hundred and Twenty Three

What if Oz wasn't a werewolf?

A/N ok this episode is going to be slightly different. There will no introductions, just three chapters of what ifs. The events might be given context, they might not. You might just have to work it out. But these three are situations that may have happened if one detail was changed. Kind of like S3E11 of Angel - the Cordy!verse. I really considered giving Xander one arm, then I realised they already did that with Wesley.

Los Angeles, a world away - January 2006

Buffy rolled out of bed. Her feet hitting the boring beige of the carpet. There was a sickly smell coming from somewhere, and her nightstand was still sticky from last week's orange juice accident. She groaned at the empty apartment and shrugged her way to the kitchen. It was morning enough but she still shivered over the linoleum as she boiled the kettle. Coffee would be good. Coffee would be necessary if she was going to get through the day. The scar on her arm was proof enough of that. Tara would be here soon.

It took her two hours to find the right clothes, this skirt was too short, that shirt was ripped down one side. Nothing appropriate. Nothing proper. Every piece of clothing she owned was either too small or had the battle scars of her formative years. A fire or two had layered a permanent smoke-smell into a few of them too. She settled on a black two piece, a pencil skirt and blouse that would've suited her mother. Dawn would've liked that.

There was a knock at the door. "Come in," Buffy said slowly, and Tara entered cautiously. She was wearing something similar, a long black skirt with a green cardigan. She looked like herself. Buffy just looked like a poor copy. "Don't say it, I look like a mess."

Tara approached her softly and rested a kind hand on her shoulder as they looked into Buffy's full length mirror. "No you don't look like a mess. You look how anyone would look on the anniversary of her sister's death." She smiled grimly and walked into the kitchen, Buffy following. She made them some tea and forced the ex-slayer to take a bite of something. "If you don't eat anything I'll have to call Xander," she threatened as she munched on a cookie.

"When's the ceremony?" Buffy asked just so they could talk about anything else.

"Noon, which means we have a whole-" Tara checked her watch, "37 minutes before we have to leave." She took another bite of her cookie - they were chocolate chip and a personal weakness of hers. She often over ate when she was anxious, and today was a big day. Today Buffy would need her more than ever. It was worse knowing that her mother's memorial was in just under a month too. Five years now. At least Dawn had some sort of grave they could leave flowers, Buffy's mom's grave was destroyed along with the whole of Sunnydale when they destroyed the First. Nothing had been the same since then, not since Dawn, not since Willow.

There was a bunch of a flowers laying on the table, Tara had picked out daffodils that had bloomed early. Ever since the magic had gone haywire, things like this had started happening. The warm weather came in patches, then there'd be a cold stretch. It had even snowed last month. Tara had been working on a way to fix it, her and a small group of coven witches from UC Sunnydale were still in touch and holding weekly meetings in order to discuss options. Buffy wasn't hopeful though. She didn't want magic back the way it was. Magic had ruined her life. It had driven her best friend off a cliff from which she could never recover. Then said best friend had joined forces with the First Evil and killed her sister. She'd been forced to kill the only corporeal thing left in the room. And the magic died along with her.

"These'll be nice," Buffy said, stroking one of the petals. She stared at the brilliant yellow of them. The colours eventually blurring together as she tried to inhale as much caffeine as possible so that she would be slightly immune to the thick emotion of the day. Caffeine made her alert, made her think about how hyper and energetic she could be when she tried. It made her remember the old version of herself.

"Yeah," Tara said mindlessly as she meandered over to the window. Peaking through the blinds gave her a perfect view of the street outside. There was a van parked on the sidewalk but the person sitting in the driver's seat was taking his time getting out. Tara sent him a quick message and the small man tipped out of the vehicle. She'd called for reinforcements, apparently it was going to be harder to get Buffy out of the apartment than she'd originally thought.

When the doorbell rang Buffy almost jumped, then she took a sip of her coffee and went back to doodling on the back of an envelope. Oz gave Tara a hug and then went over to the table to comfort Buffy. He didn't say anything. He didn't think there was anything he could say. He thought part of this might be his fault, but it had been years since he truly blamed himself for Willow's downward spiral.

"Xander says he'll meet us there, he just has to go and pick up Giles from the airport." Tara said putting down the phone. Their group had condensed somewhat in the last few years, it was just her, Buffy and the boys now. It worked, but not like it used to. After Willow and Oz decided to work it out, she'd just kind of, hung around. By the time Willow went off the rails there was very little they could do to bring her back. There was nothing good left inside her. She was a shell of darkness, so full of pumping black energy that she couldn't be saved. Tara didn't know her all too well, now there was nothing to know.

"Ok, I'm ready to go." Buffy announced, toughening herself up. She slipped on her jacket and made for the door. Tara looked at Oz seriously and then followed Buffy down the hallway.

Xander waited patiently by the door of his truck for Giles to come out of the bathroom. He whistled and bided his time as he stared at the second hand ticking around his watch. Time moved too slowly now. He had a scar on his hand as testament to that. The ridges of his knuckles were recently bruised, another bout with his hotel room wall. There were enough patched holes in that place that he wouldn't be surprised if there was a family of small rodents nesting in the insulation.

What's taking him so long? Xander thought to himself as he piled back into the front seat of his pickup. There was something hard and crunchy buried into the seat, and the dashboard smelt of overbaked beer. The door swung open again once Giles came back from the bathroom, he used his arms to swing himself into the seat once he'd stowed his crutches away on the backseat.

"Hey hop-a-long," Xander started, twisting his keys into the ignition.

Giles gave him a long, hard stare. "Drive Harris." He said bluntly, gazing only out the window on the way to the cemetery. "I didn't ask for this you know, I didn't ask you to come and pick me up." His voice was gruff and hardly used. He sounded worn down. Old and tired.

"Tara wouldn't let me leave you here to make your own way. Believe me I didn't volunteer for this." He pointed at the man derogatorily and then pulled the cigarette out from behind his ear. He lit it when he hit the next stop sign and the smoke curled out of the top inch of open window. He snarled and laughed over nothing in particular - his eye was itching, a side effect of the patch.

Everyone was waiting for them when they arrived. Xander parked the truck on the side of the road, bumping over the curb. He couldn't even be bothered to lock it. "Are you coming?" He asked Giles before yanking open his door and thrusting his crutches at him. Xander's attitude was one of the reasons Giles had even moved away. He blamed himself enough for Dawn's death, he didn't need Xander's conscious on him too. Xander cared about very little now, without Willow, without Dawn and without Anya, he had shrivelled into a husk of his former self.

He pulled Buffy into a hug and let her crumple into his chest, that's when she began to cry. Oz rushed over to help Giles out of the truck, his reach just a little too short to haul him by the shoulders. The grave was small, the flowers overwhelming the grassed over earth. Everyone looking down at the letters of Dawn's name etched into the headstone, Tara began to read. The poem was a short one, one Buffy hadn't heard since the funeral because she hadn't the heart to think about it. Tara had picked it out. Tara had picked everything out. She was the one in charge now, the one assigned to Buffy's care, the one who was responsible when she couldn't get out of bed in the morning.

Some mornings were tougher than others, but sometimes Oz helped and it was easer. Xander was too complicated now. He couldn't handle Buffy's delicate mood swings and a world where the slayer couldn't get out of bed. He'd gone completely the other way, he avoided his problems by living in his van half the time and Angel's hotel the other half. Not that Angel Investigations needed a roadie.

Oz had remembered to bring a chair for Giles which he now took. He stared down at the soil along with everyone else. His eyesight deteriorating with every year he kept on trying. So many spells gone wrong it was robbing him. But his leg took up most of his energies now. "How you holding up?" Oz would ask him later, man to man. Giles would tell him the truth about his phantom limb pain and then brush it off with a joke about how he got half-priced shoes now. But the nightmares were what he was really hiding, he didn't want to see Tara's face fall when he told her they weren't going away. That ever since the magic went wrong he couldn't sleep through the night anymore.

He saw himself thrown - like he really was - over the rubble. He saw Buffy and Faith's best efforts to haul him into the back of the school bus. He saw the energy draining from them, them becoming zombies, their lives wasting away because they tried to save him. The battle had been furious. His leg was broken in so many places that no amount of healing magic could save it. He's walked on one foot ever since.

"Would anyone like to share anything else about Dawn?" Tara piped up, trying to keep her spirits up and down. The tears would come in later when she opened the box beneath her bed. No amount of wine would take the edge off looking at those photographs.

"She was the best of us," Giles said.

"She didn't deserve this," Xander said between gritted teeth. Grounding the butt of his cigarette into the grass. "She should still be here. This is his fault." He pointed at Giles, who didn't look up. Buffy gripped his arm a little tighter and then stepped forward. She picked up one of the flowers from the graveside and begun to pluck the petals over the stone.

"May she be with mom now. She's not alone, they can be together. She's not alone." She repeated quietly to herself, as if that final act of reassurance would help her in some small way.