?Oh,? said Xander. ?Wanna play catch??

?Not really, no.?

Oh, bwah! I'm really interested to see where you go with this.

Xander had joked that it should be called “Rupert Giles’s home for Gifted Youngsters,” but Giles hadn’t gotten the joke.

Bwah!

“Your children, huh?”

“After a fashion, I suppose,” said Giles casually, as if it were no great revelation.

Sniff. I love this. There was never enough interaction between Giles and Xander, imo.

“It’s all in the knife work,” said Buffy, decapitating one of her enemies and then impaling the other on the leg of an expensive looking table.

“Any good cook’ll tell you that.”

Heh. Verra good. And suddenly reminding me of The Long Kiss Goodnight when Geena Davis thinks maybe she was a chef... but maybe not.

“What the Hell was that about,” asked Faith.

needs question mark.

Also, love the Giles/Xander bit at the end. Perfect blend of pathos and joke.

Plei, where is that challenge? Is it over? Can I play?

Victor, I love it.

“What the Hell was that about,” asked Faith.

Needs a question mark, I think, and

“The boy, the witch, the Slayer.” They’ll all be ours soon.”

has one set of speech marks too many.

More, please. I like your Xander and your Giles is great. And I like your Faith, too.

Plei, where is that challenge? Is it over? Can I play?

It's in Doyle's LJ. I'll find a link.

[link]

Question marks and extraneous quotes fixed.

For a guy who corrects punctuation and spelling for a living, it's amazing how well the typo gnomes infiltrate my own writing.

Thanks, PMM. I have a couple Memento Mori's.

Did she ever touch this shirt? These shoes? You don't know. You wish, hope, that there's something left, something not in the dustbowl that is now Sunnydale, that her fingers had paused over, that you can touch and feel her through.

Her body's gone. The things she loved are gone. Her favourite earrings. The skirt she hated but would never give away.

No marker, no sign for others to know this is where she lay in death, no epitaph for strangers to read and wonder at.

There's nothing left that she touched. Except you and the people you stand beside.

***********

You open the box and run your fingers along the worn wood. Once upon a time you'd wondered about meeting another slayer. Someone that would make you feel less of a freak.

It hadn't worked. Even though it hadn't kept her alive, she'd been the real slayer. She'd been the one studying, training, respecting, been the Council's wet dream.

Maybe whoever follows you will be better than you are. Less wild, less stubborn, more like slayers are supposed to be.

You put Mr. Pointy in your pocket and wonder when you'll be able to hold it without hearing her voice.

The Resurrection Gambit

Part Four: In Retrospect

China, 2023: Wesley stared deep into his Scotch, as if the bottom of the glass could divine their fortunes, could give them some indication that they were on the right path. Of course, thought Dawn, Wesley had long ago lost faith in prophecies.

Dawn scanned her comrades. Xander and Wesley were ill at ease, impatient to begin their work, but knew there was no going until sunrise. Spike seemed pensive, lost in thought.

Once, she and Spike had been close. Now, she couldn’t claim to know him. Oh, she trusted him, she knew they could depend on him when the chips were down, but he’d taken to keeping his own council, the burden of his soul often weighing impossibly on him. Dawn often wondered how it was he didn’t snap. Then she looked hard at him, and in her heart she knew. Beneath the violence and bravado, the pain he’d brought upon himself and others, was a man who never wanted to see anyone suffer like he did. Like those he harmed did.

“Twenty years,” thought Dawn, “and he's nowhere near balancing the scales.”

Spike could sense the tension at the table, the awkwardness that fell like a shadow when Xander had paused his story.

“Hard to believe we thought it was just business as bloody usual,” said Spike. “Guess we never knew what usual was.”

“Angel did,” said Wesley. “I think, in his heart, he always knew what was coming.”

Part Five: Power Shift

Los Angeles, 2003: Angel shed the corporate uniform, the Armani suit and neck tie, in favor of black jeans, a black T-shirt and his leather duster. He passed in silence through the halls to the elevator, emerging on the roof of the Wolfram & Hart building. He looked out at his city, at the lights that flickered against the moonless sky. He saw each light as a soul, as something flaring and beautiful then, eventually, gone.

He would save every one of them if he could. And every single day was a failure, because he could never, ever do that.

A chill flashed down Angel’s spine, and his head jolted upright, nearly wrenching his neck. He wanted to scream, to run, to jump off the building to the safety of oblivion. But he held his ground.

Before him strode an inhumanly beautiful man, walking on air. With each step, sparks lit beneath his feet. The man’s skin was porcelain. His hair vivid gold. His eyes were diamonds. A human would think this was an angel. Angel knew better.

“I am the Juris,” said the man. “You are charged with crimes against our kind. Prepare to be judged.” Its voice was Chopin’s Nocturnes. It was so beautiful that Angel nearly cried.

The older vampires get, the more they take on animalistic forms. The Juris was a vampire so old, so evil, that it had taken on the form of the Earth’s most vicious animal, man.

“What’s my crime?” said Angel, doing his best to remain cool.

“You are charged with the destruction of the order of Aurelius, the destruction of countless of our kind.”

“You left out a few unpaid parking tickets.”

“Silence,” said the Juris. It had barely raised its voice, but somehow the sound of that word shattered glass in surrounding buildings.

“Do you comprehend the depths of rage it takes to summon me?” said the Juris, as Angel steadied himself against the onslaught of its voice. “The loathing and fear? There has been a shift in power, Angelus. War is coming. Everything that was meant to be yours shall be stripped from you.”

Armed Wolfram & Hart security forces suddenly stormed the rooftop. Angel turned his head as they appeared, then quickly returned his attention to the Juris, but it was gone.

“Too late,” he whispered under his breath. “Much too late.”