Don't overthink it, Victor. Parts is parts; we'll like it no matter how many there are.

Thanks, and I'm not. It'll be what it's going to be. Rocking rapidly to the conclusion, though.

I've only caught the last 2 or 3 parts and it's sucked me right in. Good stuff.

Again, thanks. I'm at the stage where I'm wondering if this is going to end the way I thought it was.

My last big one was forty parts, or ok, thirty nine. Not that there's anything wrong with that. And I think yours is better, Victor. Let's see how long I can go to not write about Kay for "hair".

Whedonesque has a link to a place where they talk about Faith's full name:

We reported here , that Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy are going to create a surname.

Faith Lehane is her name, revealed in the upcoming Watcher Sourcebook.

"Lehane" is the official surname for upcoming novels, comics and whatever may come.

And Joss posted this comment about it (at Whedonesque):

There was this role playing game or something. They said she hadda have a last name for her so I chose Lehane 'cause I wanted something southie, just as you thought. So if you hate the name. oops.

And it's Rogue Waladarsky. In full.

joss | January 02, 01:23 CET

It doesn't quite feel right to me, but I think that's just 'cause it's new. (But, you know Joss got it from Mystic River.)

Do you say it Luh-hane, which would be my impulse? I ask b/c Whedonesque posts give Lyon as an alternate spelling.

I think it's perfect. She is such a Lehane character(he may be kidding in fact) Ooh, scary darkfic bunnies...if only that was writing that paid, but alas...

erika!! McNulty/Faith

Uh, I don't even smoke and I want a cigarrette now. Pretty, impulsive, amoral, nominal good guys with a tendency to get some and get gone...what were we talking about? If anyone would read that who doesn't live in my body, I might write it.

Do it, babe. You know I'd read it.

Part Thirty-seven: After the sky falls

The world ended with slack-jawed gazes up at a contracting sky. As one, the monsters surrounding them laid down their weapons as the heavens above them unraveled. Gunn, dying from his wounds but still standing, leaned against a wall, teeth gritted. Spike lit a cigarette, his eyes never leaving the descending sky. Angel stood taciturn, his fists unclenching as the sky fell, and Oz felt the beast within him whimpering in fear, but he held it down.

Oz watched them all, waiting for death, and marveled at their resoluteness. He blinked, and the world had unraveled into nothing.

And when he opened his eyes again, they were standing on the shore of an ocean, the waves gently lolling onto sand, the sun shining. Angel and Spike reflexively tried to hide from the sun, before realizing they weren’t burning.

“Is … is this heaven?” asked Gunn, staring down at his torso, his wounds healed.

“Close enough,” said a tall, dark woman walking slowly toward them down the beach. “It is an aspect of what is to come for all of us, man and monster alike.”

Angel and Gunn stiffened at the sight of the woman. Oz couldn’t understand why. She was beautiful, light refracting through stained glass, she was…

“Jasmine,” said Angel, spitting the words through gritted teeth.

“Angel,” she said. “Charles. It’s good to see you both again. And William, Daniel, welcome.”

“What is this, Jasmine,” said Angel. “Some sort of revenge? Saving us from Wolfram & Hart so you can finish us off yourself?”

The woman didn’t seem the least bit upset by Angel’s vitriol, thought Oz. Her arms remained at her side, and her smile seemed genuine, if slightly sad.

“I’m not here as an enemy, Angel,” she said. “I never was. Mistaken, perhaps, but I honestly came to Earth to help.”

“You didn’t”

“I know that now,” she said, and the aura of sadness surrounding her seemed to grow. “Like I said, I was mistaken. I’m here to help now.” “You expect us to just trust you?” said Gunn. “After everything you did?”

“No,” said Jasmine, “but my assistance has been sought on your behalf, and I am granting it.”

“By who?” asked Gunn, visibly irritated.

“By me,” said a low, lilting tone. They turned as one, and saw Wesley standing behind them, flanked by Buffy, Riley and Sam.

“Wes,” said Angel. “You’re alive.”

“Sorry, Angel,” said Wesley, stepping toward him. “I’m not. I just came back to do this one thing.”

“Buffy,” said Spike, tentatively stepping toward her. “What are you doing here. With him?” Riley glared at the vampire, but said nothing.

“We were on our way to rescue you people,” said Buffy, her arms now folded as she looked from Spike to Angel and back. “The three of us. When we were intercepted by Jasmine.”

“I wasn’t certain I could pull you four out of the singularity,” said Jasmine, “letting them enter may well have cost all of you your lives.”

“But going in to retrieve Angel and crew was your idea,” said Oz, trying to piece it all together. “Why did you…”

“It wasn’t my idea, Daniel,” said Wesley. “I’ve not spoken to you in years. Not since I left Sunnydale.”

“Then who?”

“We’ve all been played, Oz,” said Buffy. “He tried to lead us all to our deaths.”

“Who?”

“The First.”

I have a perverse muse. She's been watching the bad pay-per-view movies, obviously.

Spike gazed off in wonder. "It's every fucking dream come true. Literally."

Xander was still looking for the catch. "It's ridiculous."

"So?"

The two of them had bunked down in the Basement of Doom as usual, Xander in the sofa bed and Spike in the uneasy chair, though Spike had managed to whine his way to an untied rest with a minimum of effort. They'd done their typical "Good night, Spike" "Shut it, whelp, I'm trying to sleep" routine, and all seemed well.

Until they'd found themselves blinking in confusion and staring around at a large, Medieval-style hall filled with women. Lots of women. All sorts of women. All *colors* of women--and that meant colors of the rainbow, not the earth tones of, well, Earth. Nearly naked women. And they were all looking at Spike and Xander. And smiling.

Xander was waiting for the feeding frenzy to begin when one of them stepped forward. Her skin was a lovely orange sherbet color, and her hair was fire engine red. A Willow-voice in the back of Xander's head commented on the obvious mammalian heritage and humanoid characteristics. Those characteristics were ornamented by several long, delicate chains draped here and there, and nothing else.

She held her arms open wide, displaying her heritage to great effect. "Welcome, Earthmen!"

"Huh?" Xander said. Spike was too busy wiping drool off his chin.

"We brought you from your world to ours so that you can help us save our race from extinction."

Xander held up a hand. "You're not going to tell me that all your men are sterile and you shipped us two in to help repopulate your world, are you?"

She blinked cherry-orange ripple eyes at him. "Oh, you heard?"

Xander cocked his head in disbelief, then looked around again, looking for the cameras. "Rod Serling *is* dead, isn't he?"

Spike finally stepped up, grinning that "I could make Mother Teresa, Melissa Etheridge, and Pat Robertson, too, if I wanted to, change their minds" grin. Xander glared at him.

"Oh, like you're going to be a lot of help at repopulating a world, fangless."

Spike quickly put a hand over Xander's mouth. "Ignore him, ma'am," he told the lady. "We're both deeply honored."

"Oh, wonderful!" She turned back to the assembled women and began speaking in a language that wasn't English. The women cheered and clapped delightedly.

"This is so wrong," Xander said, shaking his head. "It's some sort of trick."

Spike was gazing at the rear view of the woman who had greeted them. "That's not make-up, whelp. That's all her, from her apricot toenails to her tiny, little tangerine nipples."

"If you make one remark about peaches--"

"Xander, there are two hundred women out there who want to fuck us! Why are you arguing?"

"Even if you assume for one milli-second that this is in any way real, it's the Twilight Zone! This cannot end well!"

"It's not the Twilight Zone, it's 'Hell Comes to Frogtown.' It's Castle Anthrax, with the eight score young blondes and brunettes, all between sixteen and nineteen-and-a-half, cut off in this castle with no one to protect them." Spike was definitely on a roll. "Oooh, it is a lonely life: bathing, dressing, undressing, making exciting underwear--"

"Spike! Or, it's that episode of Futurama!"

"The one with the planet of women?"

"Yes! And the skeletons of men with smashed pelvises!"

Spike grinned. "And the smiles on their skulls, yeah."

"They were still dead!"

"Well, that was supposed to be punishment. Death by Snoo-Snoo." He bounced on his toes. "Might be too much for a fragile human like you, but I don't think I'll have any problem. I'll think of you fondly when you're gone."

Xander leaned closer. "And after I've had my heart attack and they find out nobody's getting pregnant off of you?"

"It could work," Spike protested. "They're not human."

"Yeah, right. (continued...)