The world was ending, but in Sunnydale, when wasn’t there an apocalypse?

But this? This was it.

Buffy wanted to cry, but she wouldn’t, even as she looked out over the portal, knowing that this was the apocalypse for her. For her, this was the end. She would die to save her sister, to save her friends, to save the world, and how could she be bitter about that? She said goodbye to Dawn and tried to let her know how much she loved her… but it seemed cruel that there wasn’t time for more.

She bolted towards the portal, half afraid she’d lose her nerve, and the tower shifted beneath her feet. She wouldn’t fall instead she would jump, swan dive to her death. This was her gift. This was all she had left. Death. The end. She loved them all so much, and this was her gift to them.

She  jumped.

*

On the other side of the country, a slight pale wisp of a girl lay in a hospital bed in long term care.  The room was quiet and empty apart from the three others like her.  There were no visitors, no doctors or any nurses around. It was late and there were no worries about these patients. They were sleeping, had been for a very long time, and would continue to sleep.

And yet…

Life surged into her, for the first time in over four years. Something was housed there now, something that had been missing for a long time. The body twitched, an involuntary reaction to imbued force as the spark began to permeate.  

The mind kick started and she felt like she had dived into darkness. She was falling and there was nothing around her, nothing to hold onto. She kept falling, falling, deeper into the darkness. She could see her hands out in front of her, but nothing else. Sinking, sinking. Nothing.

A flutter of noise and the constant beep, beep, beep of a machine.

A flash, and then, nothing.

*

It was barely 6 AM and the Watcher’s Council was buzzing with activity, men and women rushing back and forth and Kensington wondered, not for the first time, what he had gotten into. Growing up he had thought of the Watcher’s Council as the stronghold against evil, fighting the good fight.

He used to think the Council could do no wrong. How naive. Some of the decisions that were made here chilled him to his bones, and that was to say nothing of the discussions that revolved around slayers. Most Watchers never even met a Chosen One, let alone done anything to help the girls once they’d been called. And a new one had been called.

Buffy Summers was dead. At 9:17 PM Pacific Time she had died while closing a portal to a hell dimension.

Kensington could hear Travers yelling through the thick wooden door to his office, “Find the new one, and find her now! I want all the witches on this!”

Two Watchers raced out of his office, just as quick as you please, brushing past him without a glance.

“KENSINGTON! In here with my tea.”

Travers was angry and  yet gleeful, almost downright giddy at the thought of Buffy Summers’ death. He had never liked the girl, hadn’t liked she was some blond Californian girl with a mind of her own, and he most assuredly had not liked it when she had quit the Council.

Kensington had rather appreciated how the slayer had gotten under his boss’ skin. Buffy was better than her predecessor, Faith Lehane, now that girl had been quite insane, and had ended up in prison. Poor Miss Summers, dead at 20 after spending 5 years as the slayer. She had lasted longer than most of the girls, except, of course, the aforementioned Faith.

He set down Travers’ tea tray gently, “Is there anything else I can get you, sir?” He knew his place here, he knew how to treat this man so as not to get on his bad side, it was just one of the many things he’d not expected to have to learn. God, when had he started this kowtowing?

“Get me the coven from Cleveland on the phone. I need to find our tool before anyone else does.”

Kensington nodded, “Very good, sir. I’ll have them on the phone  in just a moment.”

Tool. Tool indeed.

*

Another waste. How could he possibly raise the Watcher’s Council to greatness when these were the tools he was given? Travers settled back into his chair and wondered what he was being punished for. The Powers must have a morbid sense of humor to do this to him. This girl was the same bad blood as the last slayer.

There was a knock at his door, and then a face, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce.

“Come in boy, I haven’t all day,” Travers ordered when the man didn’t say anything. Wyndam-Pryce was a waste, just like the new slayer, why had they asked him to come back to the council? For the life of him, Travers could not remember.

“I’m sending you to the United States to fetch the new slayer.”

The man shifted uncomfortably, “Me?” His voice was more of a squeak. Travers felt badly for his father, to be saddled with this for a son. No matter, he had his uses.

“She’s outside of Philadelphia. Her father has already signed parental rights over to us, you just need to get her and bring her back.”

“Ah. Wonderful. I shall make plans right away.” So eager, so malleable. “Am I to be her Watcher then?”

“If you’d like, though I should warn you, this might not be an easy task. The girl is in a coma,” he said, handing over the file they’d started on her.

Wesley faltered then, “Sir?”

“Go get her and bring her back.”

He would let the junior Wyndam-Pryce deal with this situation for now, and when he failed... well, there were always other options.

*

Wesley checked his watch again. It had been just over 24 hours since Buffy had died. Buffy who had been his slayer once upon a time. Slayers died all the time. Some lasted hours, some weeks, some months, but very few of them lasted years and Buffy had lived five years as the chosen one.

Still, it was hard, losing someone you knew. ‘Even if they were petulant slayers,’ he smiled at the thought. He wouldn’t cry, couldn’t cry. He wasn’t some nancy boy. He was a Watcher, and he was lucky to be assigned to a second slayer, even if she was a coma patient.

Wesley paced in the waiting room. The nurses had been unwilling to let him into see the girl, Eleanor Anne Adams. “Family only,” they had said. He had tried to impress upon them that he was family to no avail. He had shoved the paperwork showing he was her legal guardian at them and they had finally sent him to the waiting room with the promise of a doctor coming to speak to him.

He stole another glance at his watch. How long did they indeed to keep him waiting? Wesley was anxious and impatient. But really, what was the rush? That thought deflated him and he sank into one of the chairs in the waiting room and closed his eyes. It really didn’t matter how hard you tried, sometimes the things you wanted and hoped for would always be out of reach. He closed his eyes, his internal clock was all muddled, maybe if he just rested his eyes...

“Mr. Wyndam-Pryce?”

Wesley jumped from the chair and had to adjust his glasses that had fallen askew. A man in a white coat held a clipboard and it took him a moment to realize that he must have fallen asleep while waiting. It had been an exhausting day.

“Uh, yes. You must be one of the doctors assigned to Eleanor?”

The man nodded, “I’m Dr. Rice. I understand you’re a family member?”

“Yes, I’m her uncle. Eleanor’s father has given me custody. I wanted to see her and speak with someone about transferring her.” Wesley handed over the custody documents to the doctor who frowned at them.

“This is highly irregular. Why would he do this?” Dr. Rice asked as he flipped through the papers.

“I’m sure you can understand that this is a private and delicate matter. It was decided that perhaps Eleanor needed to be placed with someone else.”

The doctor raised an eyebrow at that. Reading between the lines, he surmised that this uncle must have been on the mother’s side. Perhaps there had been some sort of a custody battle for the girl. The father never came to visit anyway. Dr. Rice could only remember seeing the man twice in the past four year. He paid the bills, but he left his daughter her to waste away without so much a visit at holidays. He had found it surprising and troubling.  

Perhaps this uncle would do a better job, the girl needed someone who cared, “Even so, I don’t believe it’s a good idea to move Eleanor. Which hospital are you thinking about moving her to? Saint Mary’s is one of the highest rated hospitals in the greater Philadelphia area, I doubt you’ll find better care for your niece elsewhere.”

“The plan is to take her back to England with me.”

Dr. Rice frowned, “Let’s go see Eleanor and we can discuss what is best for her.”

Wesley nodded and followed the doctor down the hall. The walls were white and sterile and the place was uncomfortably quiet. They entered a room  at the end of the hall, and Dr. Rice walked to the back right corner where the girl lay.

Wesley’s first thought was that Eleanor was impossibly thin. She would have been a pretty girl once upon a time with chestnut brown hair and delicate facial features, but now, she looked worn and tired, old and young at the same time. Even if she woke, what kind of slayer could she be? Wesley sank into the chair beside her and took her hand. He trembled and took his glasses off to wipe at his eyes. Poor broken girl. A shell of what she was and would have been.

Dr. Rice coughed and Wesley remembered he wasn’t alone. He placed his glasses back on and looked up at the man.

“Be honest with me, what’s the likelihood that she’ll wake up?”

“The unfortunate reality is that a longer a person is in a coma, the less likely they are to regain consciousness. I’m not telling you that there’s no hope, but, you need to have realistic expectations. You need to be ready to provide long term care for her.”

Wesley nodded and stroked the back of the girl’s hand with his thumb. Why would the Powers make this girl a slayer? Surely they had a plan of some sort. Why choose a girl who was just a sitting duck? Like this, she would make a quick and easy kill for an enterprising vampire.

“Purely anecdotal, but it does seem like patients who have visitors are more likely to regain consciousness. Eleanor hasn’t had many visits in her time. I understand that the accident that placed her here also killed her mother?”

“My sister died in the car accident,” Wesley said and closed his eyes. This was not his niece. It was not his sister who died, and yet, in this moment, it all felt real: the loss, the pain. The story was a lie, but the tears were real. Poor broken girl. What use was it? His slayers always ended up like this, it had to be a bad sign to start their relationship in this way, it didn’t bode well. Nothing in his life seemed to go the way he expected it, or wanted it. Was he crying for himself or her?

The doctor shuffled, feeling like an intruder, “Your paperwork will need to be verified by the hospital administrators, especially if you are serious about moving Eleanor, which I do recommend against. She’s stable here, moving her could cause complications.”

With a deep breath, Wesley said, “I want Eleanor with me, and I cannot stay here.”

“I’ll get started on the paperwork then. We’ll need to make contact with the hospital you’ve chosen in England so we can get Eleanor’s information passed along. This is all going to take some time, maybe even weeks,” he warned.

Wesley reached into his pocket and removed a business card, “I’m staying nearby until this is all gets sorted. I’ll leave when Eleanor leaves.”

The doctor nodded, “We’ll be in touch. In the meantime I’ll let the nurses know you can come and go as you please during visiting hours.”

“Thank you.” Dr. Rice smiled at the man. It was good to see that someone cared, even if it was a strange English uncle.

The doctor left then, leaving Wesley with Eleanor.

He tucked stray hair behind her ears, “Eleanor, I’m Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. You don’t know me, but I’m going to take care of you from now on. We’re going to go to England and hopefully there are some people there who can help you wake up. You need to wake up.”

Wesley felt the tears on his face, “You have to wake up. Travers won’t abide there being two unusable slayers.” He squeezed the girl’s hand. If only sheer force of will made things happen, but that wasn’t the way the world-

The heart rate monitor, which had been beeping steadily in the background, now pulsed. A racing heart.

*

Light flickered and danced on the surface, like a beautifully choreographed dance. Colors and shapes distorted, fell apart and came back together, she had fallen apart too, but now she was back together, just different.

She could hear muffled talking, but she was too deep to hear what they were saying. She was deep below the surface of a vast ocean, and something heavy seemed to be keeping her down. She wasn’t supposed to be here, she needed to reach the surface. If she stayed here, she would drown, drown in the never ending darkness. The threat of being trapped here suddenly felt real, and she pushed towards the light with everything she had.

As she reached the surface, the talking became clearer and she heard two words, unusable slayer. Such a strange thing to hear. The words make no sense, and at the same time, they scared her. The words scared her more than drowning in the darkness. The surface, that place she had been fighting so hard to reach, now seemed dangerous.  She let go, and began to sink into darkness. The light and sounds got fuzzier. Maybe it was safer in the darkness?

Slayer. Me. Unusable me? She laughed at herself. She was unusable. All used up. Unusable-girl.

“Is that me?” she asked herself. Everything felt fuzzy and disconnected to her. All around her she can feel loose ends, and as much as she wanted to grab hold of them, she was too tired, to scared.

She let go, and sank.

*

Wesley sat in the chair beside Eleanor’s bed reading aloud. He had chosen Jane Austen. First there had been Sense and Sensibility, then Emma, and now he was on Pride and Prejudice. He had little knowledge of what an 17-year-old girl would like… or should Eleanor think herself 13 when she woke up? When she woke. Wesley was hopefully, but the spark of hope that he had seen the first time when her heart monitor had raced had not been repeated.

Wesley had taken to spending most of his days here. He read to Eleanor off and on. It made him feel like he was doing something, even if he wasn’t. It was odd how much he had taken to the girl and he wondered if this was how Giles had felt about Buffy.

Marking his place, Wesley closed the book and rubbed his eyes. This whole ordeal was wearisome, and the daily calls with Travers were painful. He wondered how much of what the man said were empty threats, and how much of it were promises. Just last night he had told Wesley, “Wake her up or we’ll need to make sure a new slayer is called.”

Even now, the conversation sent chills down his back. Yes, they needed a slayer to battle the darkness, but what were they if they went around killing helpless girls?

He set the book aside and took one of Eleanor’s hands into his own, “I will do my best to protect you, Eleanor. But I can do that much better if you wake up.”

There was a small tremor then...the smallest of movements. Had it been involuntary? Had she heard him?

“Eleanor?”

Nothing.

“Eleanor, wake up.”

Nothing. It was just his wishful imagination.

Perhaps he needed a night away from the hospital.

*

Wesley was willing to concede that he might be paranoid, but he remembered the joke that just because you’re paranoid didn’t mean that no one was after you. So when he decided to make a phone call to a… well, not old friend, more of an old ally, he did it from a payphone some distance from both the hotel and hospital.

The phone rang three times before someone answered.

“‘lo?”

“Giles?”

“May I ask who is calling?”

“Wesley. Uh, Wyndam-Pryce.”

There was a small snort, “I don’t know that many Wesleys. What can I do for you? Are you in the States? I thought you were in England at headquarters.”

“I, uh, how?”

“Caller ID.”

“Ah. Well, I’m actually on assignment in Pennsylvania at the moment. I was rather hoping you might be able to help, a little research.”

There was a moment of silence, “Isn’t that something you’d call the Council for?”

Wesley cleared his throat, “I need someone outside the Council, I’m afraid. I’m probably being ridiculous, but I cannot shake the feeling that going to them is the wrong course of action.”

“Go on then.”

“I’m sorry to bring this up, knowing… uh… you see…” he stammered.

“Out with it,” Giles ordered.

“Well, yes. I’ve been assigned to the new slayer but she’s in a coma, she’s been in a coma for the past four years and Travers… I’m not sure how much he says is… He’s…”

“He’s made some suggestion about the next course of action if she doesn’t wake up?” Giles voice held no hint of surprise. Was this why he had left the Watcher’s Council?

“Uh, yes.”

Wesley heard Giles take a deep breath and in his mind’s eye, he could imagine the other man wiping his glasses in frustration as was his habit to do.

“I’ll see what I can do on my end. I can pull texts from the Magic Box to see if there is anything. I’m due to leave for England tomorrow. If you give me a call back at this time tomorrow I can fill you in on whatever I find. Otherwise I’ll have to contact you once I land.”

“I’d be grateful for whatever help you can offer. I hadn’t realized you were returning to England… Are you also returning to the Council?”

“I am, but I’m no spy for Travers. I do not believe he and I will ever see eye-to-eye, especially in light of recent events.”

“I’m sorry Giles, about...Buffy. I should have said that right away. I know how much you cared about her.”

“Yes, well,” there was a long pause and then, “Call me at this number same time tomorrow.”

*

Giles set the phone back down and nursed his scotch. He was going to be telling the gang tomorrow that he was leaving, well, in a roundabout manner. He had written his goodbye note, and he’d leave it for them to find. He didn’t want to say goodbye. Not again. They knew he was leaving, had been planning to leave for quite some time.

Moreover, he wasn’t much help anyway. Last night’s debacle had shown him that. The big vampire had nearly throttled him and if it hadn’t been for Spike…

Ah, Spike. Though Giles would never admit it out loud, he had noticed quite a change from him over the summer. He had thought vampires incapable of feelings, but perhaps… his grief seemed real enough. Perhaps his love for Buffy had been real as well.

He had told the gang earlier that they needed the world and underworld to believe that Buffy was alive and well, that they needed the Buffy Bot to do a better job. Spike had said that the bot would never be exactly the same. Tara had added that the only real Buffy was Buffy. It was true, Buffy Bot could never replace Buffy. For now at least, the ‘bot kept the most of the demons in check, not unlike how stories of Santa encouraged children to behave. It was painful, looking at the imposter, but necessary.

Truth be told, Spike wasn’t the only one who got ‘the creeps’ from the bot. Perhaps… perhaps the new slayer, if she woke up, could… Well, not replace Buffy, but at least she could keep the Hellmouth under control.