"You're lying," Buffy whispered.
"No," the frizzy-haired woman said. "I suppose this is all terribly strange --"
"What's strange is why you would tell me a story like this. Where am I? What are you trying to pull?" Buffy pulled away from the woman's outstretched hand, slid off the table and clutched the sheet more tightly around her. "What IS this?"
She looked wildly around the room -- other people were standing around, all of them in loose, simple clothing in white or gray. The room was large, antiseptic and blank. The other four girls were are staring at her now; she could see her own panic reflected in their eyes, but none of them rose to stand with her.
"Miss Summers -- do try to stay calm." Buffy wheeled toward the voice she heard and saw an older man in the corner of the room. He was wearing a white robe, slumping down in a high-backed chair, like an exhausted emperor collapsed upon his throne. He had thick black hair, silvery at the temples, and a rich, resonant voice. "You will understand everything soon --"
"I don't want to understand whatever story you've got," Buffy said. "I'm not listening to this any more."
She ran toward the doors -- elevator doors, they looked like, but she couldn't see a button to push. "Buffy! I mean -- Miss Summers! Please!" the frizzy-haired woman called.
Buffy ignored her. Okay, they thought this door could hold her in? They didn't know much about Slayers, then. She let the sheet drop -- what the hell, they'd seen her already -- put her shaking hands to the crack between the doors, and pulled open with all her might. Her strength hadn't returned fully, but she was close enough. Sparks flew, and she heard an odd rattling within the walls as the doors opened.
Footsteps were pounding up behind her now, but the deep-voiced man called, "No -- let her go. Let her see --"
And for some reason, that scared her worse than anything else.
Buffy grabbed up the sheet and began running blindly down the hallway -- a hallway as white and as blank as the room she had left. It smelled -- old. Like abandoned buildings she sometimes scouted for vampires. She looked around for anything: a window, a phone, a computer screen, a human being, oh, God, anything --
The only sounds were of her bare feet thumping along the hard, slick floor and of her ragged breathing. As soon as Buffy realized this, she started to cry out. "Hello? Is someone there? Is anyone there?"
At the end of the hallway was another door, and Buffy increased her speed. Surely, beyond that, would be a way out. She tucked the sheet around her, ready to pry that door open too -- but it slid apart easily as she came close. Buffy saw a window looking out on a dark city night. Thank God, thank God, she thought, I can yell for somebody through that, I can jump through it if I have to, it's just glass, I'll heal, and what gets more attention than a naked woman in the street?
She ran up to the glass, ready to begin hammering on it -- then froze.
Buffy was looking down on a city like no other she had ever seen. Wherever they were, they were high -- higher than any skyscraper she'd ever been in. And the city - the buildings were all linked together, with crosswalks and wings that were hundreds of feet above the ground. But most of the buildings were black -- no lights, nothing. She realized that some of the silver lines running through the city were tracks of some kind, but no trains or monorails were moving along them. It was a city not even half alive.
And when she looked down, way down, she could just make out this one old-timey vaguely familiar building with a clock tower --
Big Ben.
She staggered back from the window, let her hands drop. Buffy stood there for a long moment, trying to come up with an explanation, anything besides --
For a few long moments Buffy remained still, trying to catch her breath, gather what was left of her sense. She couldn't think about it -- couldn't think at all. She could only feel the sweat between her toes, see her reflection on the glass, hear the footsteps behind her --
Buffy whirled around to see the frizzy-haired woman, who was standing next to and half-supporting the black-haired man. "Don't come near me," Buffy said, her palm out.
They froze. After a moment, the black-haired man said, in his steely voice, "I cannot imagine what you must think of me at this moment. But, whatever else you may think, rest assured that I am at least not such a fool as to believe that I could keep a Slayer prisoner against her will."
Some of the tension knotting between Buffy's shoulders relaxed, but only very slightly. She pulled the sheet a little more securely around herself. "Who are you?"
The frizzy-haired woman brightened, with the air of someone who, after a long confusion, finally knows what to say. "I'm Frances Keeling," she said. "And this is Aaron Markwith."
"A pleasure, Buffy," Markwith said.
"Wish I could say the same," Buffy said. "You know, the names are nice, but that's not really what I was going for with the whole introduction thing."
"I am a senior member of the Council of Watchers," Markwith said. "And Frances is to be your new Watcher."
"I have a Watcher," Buffy said, her voice small. "Rupert Giles."
Frances' face clouded over again, and Markwith sighed gently. He turned to Frances. "I should check on the others. Speak to Buffy, and bring her back when she's ready."
"Of course, sir."
"That's gonna be a while," Buffy called after him with as much defiance as she could muster, but he seemed to pay her no further mind. Frances stepped a little closer, and Buffy jerked back.
"Oh -- I don't mean to frighten you. I'm sure this is so overwhelming."
"Yeah, you feel my pain," Buffy said. "Where's Giles?"
"Buffy, what I told you before is true," Frances said, with a schoolmarmish insistence. "You must believe me. This is the year 2353, and this is a very different world from the one you knew. You'll be happy to know, I've studied all the biographical information we had on you; it's a little sketchier than the other girls, but I think I've learned enough about your time to help you adjust."
The words clattered by Buffy, so much noise. Only the date stood out, stark and cold. 2353. She tried to speak, tried to think of words, but she could only repeat, in an even shakier voice, "But where's Giles?"
Frances drew herself up. "Everyone you knew in your former life is dead, Buffy. You must accept that."
Dead. She knew well how stark and unforgiving a word that was, had thought she knew the limits of how hard it could hit. But now --
Hope stirred deep within her for a moment, the faintest swirl of warmth in an ocean of cold. She whispered, "Wait -- everybody? Absolutely everybody?"
"Everybody," Frances said firmly.
And oh, God, how badly Buffy wanted to say, but not Angel. Angel is a vampire, and he could still be here, still be the same.
But Frances was standing there, all formal gravity and solemnness, with her biographical information and her Watcher's chill. And Buffy knew she couldn't bear to here that cold voice recite the facts from her file. Whatever she said, it would mean that Angel was gone -- and she hadn't just said Angel, she'd said "everybody," and that meant once she'd finished telling her how Angel had ended, she'd tell Buffy about everyone else, too.
That Giles and Willow and Xander and everybody she ever knew, everybody she ever loved, were all gone, erased, like chalk marks on a blackboard --
Buffy quailed from that thought, from the others that were swelling within her, and tried to concentrate on Frances. "Why am I here?"
Frances smiled. "Now, that's a good question to be asking. Come along, then. Let's join the others. Markwith will explain everything."
***
As Buffy and Frances walked back into the white room, the other girls all wheeled around to face her. The coppery-skinned woman she'd heard before spoke first. "Is it true, what they say?"
"I think it must be," Buffy said, her voice faint even to her own ears.
The coppery-skinned woman said something that might have been a prayer or a curse in a language Buffy did not know. She had her sheet pulled tightly around her, even covering her hair.
"Yes, it's true," Markwith said. "This is the year 2353. You are at the present home of the Council of Watchers. And you have all been brought here to help humanity in its latest, most dire time of crisis. The world is in danger. And we need the Slayers."
Another of the girls, a beautiful Asian woman with short hair who hadn't bothered to drape herself with the sheet, turned toward him then. "Don't you have a Slayer of your own? One dies, another is called?"
"We do have a Slayer, a fine warrior, and I hope you will all meet her soon," Markwith continued. He was walking slowly around the perimeter of the room, and all of them had to crane their heads to their eyes on him. "But, as the past century and a half has made clear, the situation has gone beyond the control of any one Slayer, no matter how skilled."
Control. When were we ever in control? Buffy thought numbly.
Markwith paused at a circle of burnt-down candles and exotic-smelling ashes, and he knelt to pick up a charred sphere -- no, an oddly-shaped skull, Buffy realized. "If we ever find a colony of Jenta demons, perhaps we could raise even more Slayers. God knows we need all the help we can get. But the Council only came upon one demon, and that supplied us with the materials we needed to raise five Slayers. And we chose the five of you."
He looked first at the beautiful Asian woman. "Xiaoting, who protected Beijing for eight years and survived two Ascensions in the late 22rd century." Xiaoting held her head a little higher as he spoke.
He then turned to the coppery-skinned woman, "Noor, who fought for five years and turned back an invasion of ancient demigods from Saudi Arabia in the early 22nd century." Noor frowned and tugged her sheet a little more tightly around her.
Markwith looked straight at Buffy then, startling her with the intensity of his pale blue eyes. "Buffy, who managed to control the hordes of vampires and demons that sought out a Hellmouth in California for five years in the late 20th century."
"And 21st," Buffy said, Everyone turned at her and stared, and she felt a little stupid for even saying it. But she continued, "It was the 21st century when I --"
After her pause had gone on long enough, Markwith went on as though she had said nothing. "Agatha, who defeated one of history's most fearsome master vampires during her seven years of service in Bath in the mid 19th century." A statuesque woman with white-blond hair and even paler skin, who had her sheet tugged around her almost as tightly as Noor did, simply nodded, confirming his words.
"And finally, Sumiko," Markwith said, looking at another Asian woman, this one tinier and more delicate, who was staring at him somewhat blankly, "who traveled within Japan during the late 18th century, defeating vampires and demons for an unprecedented -- and as yet unmatched -- fourteen years." Sumiko did not react to his words at all, but simply brushed her waist-length hair away from her face.
"You are, each of you, an exemplary Slayer. I say that as one who has studied all the millennia of Slayer lore; that is, I do not say it lightly. Together, I think there is no telling what you might become. I hope no less than that you will become humanity's salvation."
No pressure, Buffy thought in a daze.
"From what are we to save humanity?" said the blonde woman -- Agatha, Buffy reminded herself. Agatha was speaking very determinedly, as though trying to convince herself of the subject's reality and importance. "Has some dark god or hellbeast arisen --"
"Would that it were so simple," Markwith said. "Though the story is quite an involved one -- a tragic history I know you all must eventually learn -- the end result is easy enough to describe. Humanity's numbers are diminished, and the vampires' numbers have risen. They are --" he hesitated for a moment, then said, "They are winning."
Frances chimed in. "Throughout most of your lives, there might have been, oh, one vampire per every 50,000 humans."
"Not in Sunnydale," Buffy muttered.
Frances shot her a look, but went on. "Today, the number is closer to one vampire per 100 humans."
"Impossible," Xiaoting breathed. Agatha made the sign of the cross. Noor frowned even more, which would have seemed impossible just moments ago. Sumiko didn't react at all.
"You, of all people, must not despair," Markwith said, smiling slightly at them. "You are our warriors. You are our best hope. We will train you again, teach you modern weapons, modern methods. Teach you about this century. And then reveal you to a world that will be eager to believe in you. And, I pray, to a Council that will be ready to receive you."
"Reveal us to the world," Buffy said absently. "So everybody knows about Slayers now? Guess that makes sense, what with everybody knowing about vampires now --"
"That's exactly right, Buffy," Frances said, in a voice that could have been either encouraging or condescending. "When the struggle became too fierce to conceal, the Council thought it necessary to let people know that they did have a fighter on their side."
"You said, you prayed the Council would be ready to receive us," Noor said sharply. "What did you mean?"
Markwith hesitated -- and Buffy somehow already knew he was a man not used to hesitating. "Well. When the Jenta demon turned up, I raised the question before the Council of performing this spell. There was dissent, discussion, debate; they're still going on about it. Would still be going on about it 50 years from now, if I left matters at that."
"You disobeyed the Council?" Agatha asked, shocked.
"Let's say I simply didn't ask," Markwith said. Agatha looked at him disapprovingly, as did Xiaoting. Noor's frown didn't change. Sumiko didn't react. Buffy, on the other hand, felt a brief, unwilling flash of liking for Markwith.
"Enough discussion for one day," Markwith said. "You must all be overwhelmed and exhausted. We have quarters for you -- a bit cramped, as of yet, though after the Council at large has learned about you, I have no doubt we'll be able to find something more appropriate to your station. Something within the Council Keep itself."
One of the white-clad people in the room -- a slender man who looked to be in his 30s and stood next to Sumiko -- hesitantly raised his hand. "I think we may have one small problem," he said.
"And what's that?" Markwith said.
The man looked over at Sumiko. Sumiko said "Koko wa doko?"
Markwith and the slender man stared at each other for a moment, and then looked back at Sumiko. She said "Atashi wa dare?"
The slender man clasped his hands in front of him. "I've read her Watcher's letters to the Council through and through. He said her lessons in English were coming along spectacularly well."
Sumiko asked, "Dare ka, Nihongo ga dekimasu ka?"
"Affectionate Watchers have -- on occasion -- been known to exaggerate their Slayers' skills due to, ah, understandable pride --" Markwith said slowly.
Sumiko looked at them all, and Buffy realized that what she had taken for lack of reaction was, in fact, a very controlled kind of panic.
"Well, just get a translator," Buffy said. Everyone stared over at her. "Just find somebody who speaks Japanese. God, she's got to be freaking out."
Frances mouthed the words "freaking out?" in obvious puzzlement. One of the other Watchers shrugged.
"I should like that very much, Buffy," Markwith said. "But in this century, Japanese is all but a dead language. Perhaps there's a scholar somewhere -- well, we'll look."
"And in the meantime?" Sumiko's Watcher said.
"In the meantime, we do for her what we do for all the others," Markwith said. "Give them a chance to rest."
**********
They were all in one room, five little twin beds laid out as though they were in an army dormitory. Maybe they were, Buffy thought. Each of them was given some of the shapeless clothing, pillows and blankets, and reassurance that they'd be seen to in the morning. Agatha was a little confused as to how they were meant to dress without the assistance of maids, but otherwise, they were all fairly quiet until the Watchers left.
As soon as the doors slid shut, though, they all looked at each other blankly. Buffy knew she was in shock; from the looks of the others, she wasn't alone. "This is so very strange," Agatha said in a quavering voice. She was huddled on the foot of her bed, unwilling to drop her sheet in order to change into her new clothes.
"I do not trust this Markwith," Noor said. "He should not have kept this secret from the Council."
"True," Xiaoting said. Her sheet was already abandoned on the floor as she held up her new garments to examine them, one by one. "But he's raised me from the dead, and the more I think about it, the less I'm inclined to worry about the details."
"This can't be happening," Buffy said. She ran her hands through her hair, bunched them into fists as she pulled at her own scalp. "I mean, it can't. Death is my gift! I took the gift! So I get to be dead now! The First Slayer told me that."
"The who?" Agatha said.
"The First Slayer! You guys -- you've seen her too, right? The original Slayer of them all, the very first called and chosen and all that jazz? Kinda has this whole Rasta, no-woman-no-cry thing going on?"
"Do you understand anything she is saying?" Noor asked.
"Not much," Xiaoting said. "Are you saying you had a vision or something?"
"Yes, exactly," Buffy said, trying hard not to be exasperated with the only people in the world who could possibly understand her. "My Watcher and my friends and I, one time we did this spell to link their powers with mine, and that totally pissed the First Slayer off, and she tried to kill us all in our dreams --"
Buffy looked at her audience and realized that they all appeared to be appalled. "This not ringing any bells?"
"I do not disrespect the source of my powers," Noor said. Agatha and Xiaoting nodded. Sumiko was the only one who didn't look horrified, but as she just looked scared and confused, this was not much help.
"Forget it," Buffy said shortly.
They all sat in silence for a couple of moments. Then Xiaoting broke the silence."What do you think the world is like?" she said hesitantly. "With that many vampires?"
They were all quiet for a few minutes. "I'm certain it's nothing I ever wanted to see," Agatha finally said.
"It's something we were not meant to see," Noor said firmly. "I tell you now, this is wrong."
"Well, of course it's wrong," Xiaoting said, and for the first time her bright voice threatened to crack. "The last thing I remember -- my Watcher had died, and I was dying with her, and I thought that it was only right we go together. Side by side. As we had lived. And I am here without her --" Her voice trailed off for a moment. Then she cleared her throat and said, more steadily, "I know it's wrong. But what can we do about it now?"
"Nothing," Agatha said. "Nothing at all."
They were all quiet again. Sumiko, ironically, ended the conversation by tugging on one of the sleepshirts -- at least, Buffy thought it was a sleepshirt; hard to tell -- and getting into her bed. After a brief pause, the others did the same. As Buffy lay down, Xiaoting said, "Lights."
The lights went off, leaving them in darkness. "At least that's still the same," Xiaoting muttered.
Buffy clutched her pillow. Now, at last, with nothing happening around her, she was going to have to think about it --
Giles is dead, she thought. Angel is dead.
Either one of those facts ought to kill her, she thought. Impossible, that she could go on in a world without either of them, much less both of them -- the two men who had taken care of her, taught her, supported her. The man she thought of as her father. The only man she had ever truly loved. Both gone now. Dust and ashes.
Willow is dead, she thought. Xander is dead.
They weren't ever going to come to her house laughing and joking again. Weren't ever going to call her up for love advice, as though there were anybody else in the world less able to give it --
Dawn -- is Dawn dead? Could Dawn die? What happened to her? Buffy thought. Whatever happens to people like her has happened, I guess. I -- I hope she was happy --
Tears began to prick at her eyes, but Buffy couldn't stop herself from adding to the list.
Tara was dead. Anya was dead. Riley was dead. Oz. Cordelia.Wesley. Graham. Jonathan. God, the guy at Subway, the one who remembered she didn't like cheese on her turkey sandwich, that guy was dead. Her professors at school. Julia Roberts. The mailman. All gone, erased, like names on a blackboard.
I'm the one who's supposed to be dead, she thought. I let it happen. I was ready. I chose to go, but I'm still here, and they're all gone, all of them, even --
My mom. Mom's dead.
It was that last thought -- the one she'd had the most time to understand -- that finally got her. Buffy turned her face into her pillow and began to cry.
Through her own sobs she could hear the others weeping.
*