The slightly expanded and now reunited Scooby gang had laid full claim to their chosen table, and were gathered around, chatting animatedly as they caught up with each other.

"You look good!" Willow complimented Cordelia with a gesture. "We came to visit you after Sunnydale, and it was all hospitals and beepy monitors."

Cordy nodded sympathetically. "Fluorescent lights with my complexion? I can only imagine the nightmares."

"But now here you are! Talking, and upwardly mobile!" the redhead enthused with a grin.

Buffy glanced to Angel, her expression slightly guarded. "Big drama, huh? We only sort of got the phoned in, Cliffs Notes version."

"It wasn't that big," he dismissed with a shrug.

His attempted downplay fumbled at the 15-yard line when it ran full-force into the unfettered exuberance that was Cordelia. "Not that big! You have no flair for the dramatic."

Xander seemed amused. "Which is sorta ironic, all things considered."

Taking a moment to spare Angel a thoroughly disenchanted eye roll, Cordelia leaned toward her attentive audience. "So there I am, all comatose and everything? Angel's got Wolfram & Hart looking for something they can do to snap me out of it. Anything: demon blood, tribal ritual, crazy magic-flinging witches— No offense," she added to Willow and Tara before quickly moving on, "—but nothing! Which, you know, sort of weird, right? I mean here we've got a company that can almost literally move heaven and earth to get you whatever you want, but they can't fix one silly little coma?" Her incredulity was palpable.

Oz's focus shifted to Angel, his brow furrowed in thought. "Anything you want?"

"Within reason," the vampire clarified, sounding fairly nonchalant, "but ... yeah. Pretty much."

There was a brief moment of deep thought. "Otis Redding's guitar?"

"We'll talk later," Angel replied with a smirk.

Still thoroughly enamored with the sound of her own voice, Cordelia's tale continued to unfold. "So with the legal pool a complete bust, the guys decide to take it directly to the Powers, since you know how pretty much everything is all their fault? Fred and Wes manage to get everyone backstage passes and it turns out—"

The sharp sound of Angel clearing his throat cut through the discourse, and Cordelia's focus shifted. Angel said nothing, but there was an almost imperceptible shake of his head. Immediately catching on, she turned back to the others and clapped her hands together with a toothy smile.

"Long story short: huge battle, a negotiation or two, and here I am!" She spread her hands wide, presenting her undeniable hereness to all.

Buffy seemed less than fully satisfied with the recitation. "And that was the non-Cliff's Notes version?"

Leaning back in her chair, Cordelia crossed her legs and waved in Buffy's direction. "Well there's this teensy little non-disclosure agreement, so ... that's probably the best you'll get for the next couple hundred years."

"It's worse than the wait for Episode Three," noted Xander before regarding the individual seated across from him. "How about you, Oz Man? Heading up any new evil corporations lately?"

"Thought about it," Oz confessed, "but I couldn't handle the hours." He shrugged. "We're good. The pack's up in Oregon right now. Jemma's got family there."

Unnoticed, Willow had been observing Tara from the corner of her eye for some time. While the blonde was listening intently to the conversation, she hadn't uttered a single word. She sat hunched in her seat, shoulders tucked close and hands folded in her lap. Willow's 'unhappy girlfriend' alarms were screeching their warnings. It was time for decisive action.

"Y'know what's called for?" she suddenly announced, commanding full attention. "Much liquid refreshment!" Peering at the long table in the near distance, Willow reported, "Looks like they've got punch and ..." Bobbing and weaving from side to side, she did her best to see around the people milling nearby and get a clear view of the entire table. "... more punch. They probably don’t blood or anything, sorry Angel."

"That's okay," Angel replied with a smile. "Punch is fine."

"Cool then!" Willow hopped to her feet and glanced to Tara. "Wanna come give me a hand?"

"Oh, sure," Tara agreed, sliding her chair back and joining Willow on their quest to the refreshment table.

"How you doing?" Willow asked as they slowly made their way through the crowds.

"Me? I'm fine. Just, you know ... hanging out."

Willow looked at Tara with some concern. "You're feeling okay then?"

Tara nodded reassuringly. "Just fine."

"And everything's peachy?"

"The peachiest."

"Cuz I'm entirely not believing you."

The couple had arrived at the refreshment table and took their place in line. With an affectionate chuckle, Tara turned to Willow and smiled. "Sweetie, I promise, I'm fine. I'm not exactly a social butterfly, you know that."

"Well sure," agreed Willow, the still-screaming alarms compelling her to press onward, "but you're not usually all cocoony either."

"I'm just watching you guys," Tara attempted to explain. "Seeing you with Oz and Cordelia and Mr. Angel ... It's nice."

Willow narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "It's nice, but...?"

"But there's no but," laughed Tara. "It makes me happy that you had all these great friends in high school, that's all."

Casting a glance over her shoulder, Willow considered their table – sparsely inhabited and all but shunned. "'All these friends'?" she repeated doubtfully. "Not exactly the quantifier I'd pick."

Tara shared the image, but not the uncertainty. "It's relative, trust me."

Focusing on the blonde once more, Willow's expression became tinged with sadness. "It wasn't really that bad for you, was it?"

"Yeah," Tara replied honestly. "But- But what I told Xander is true, right? Stuff from that long ago ... None of it matters any more."

The redhead's mercurial features shifted again, finally settling on annoyance. "Still, when I think about what it must've been like for you back then," she grumbled darkly, "I just get so ... so ... Rrr!"

"Then see?" grinned Tara. "It was all worth it for Rrr-face."

Finally it was their turn at the punch bowl. A bespectacled blonde girl stood behind the bowl, manning her appointed station with great seriousness. She was rather plain, almost mousy, and every fiber of her being screamed, "I Was a Teenage Science Nerd". She watched Willow and Tara expectantly, the ladle in her hands poised at the ready.

"Seven, please," Willow requested.

The girl didn't move, however. Her eyes remained locked fast to Willow, and after a moment the redhead began to squirm self-consciously.

"Not for me!" she quickly added. "Well one is, but I'm not that thirsty. I mean, I'm sure it's really nummy and all, but I have friends too who are wanting, although I’m guessing one's just being polite since it's a little less plasma-y than his—"

Thankfully for everyone, the woman interrupted the babble before it could build up any real momentum. "Willow! Willow Rosenberg, it is you!"

Willow used the enthusiasm to slingshot herself from the gravitational pull of her own spiraling thoughts. "Yeah! It is! And you! You're ..." She clearly had no idea. "You!"

"Remember?" the woman zealously burbled. "We were lab buddies!"

She would've had better luck asking if Willow remembered what Adam and Eve had snacked on after the apple was all gone.

"Oh sure!" Willow convincingly lied. "In biology!"

"Chemistry!"

"Chemistry, right!"

With an expression of near-panic, Willow turned her wide eyes to Tara. Very covertly, Tara motioned to her chest where, if she were wearing one, the "HELLO MY NAME IS" sticker would be. Immediately Willow caught the tip, relieved to find a way out of her predicament without total embarrassment meltdown. She whipped her head back to the woman where, sure enough, she was proudly announcing to the world that her name was Jane Ryan.

"Jane!" Willow greeted.

Jane beamed ecstatically, thrilled to have been remembered. She began to pour out the drinks as she chatted happily. "It's so great to see you! I was hoping you'd come," she confessed as she set another cup of punch before the redhead. "I've thought about contacting you since Sunnydale went ... you know. Just to see if you were okay and stuff. But I didn't know where you'd gone!"

Willow's mouth opened then closed and she shared a confused glance with Tara at Jane's apparent interest. "Oh, well ... How thoughtful of you."

"I just thought it was such a shame that we lost touch," Jane continued, still pouring carefully. "We had so much fun back then, you know?"

"...totally. Wow. The fun was just ... really, really fun ..."

Setting another cup of punch in front of Willow, Jane seemed to notice Tara for the first time. "Hi!"

"Hi," returned Tara with a smile.

Still no closer to knowing whom the other blonde may be, Jane turned to Willow questioningly.

"Oh, sorry," Willow quickly apologized. She took Tara's hand and tugged her closer. "This is Tara, my girlfriend."

Shock registered on every one of Jane's features. The woman seemed frozen, unable to do more than gape at the two of them. The now-empty ladle dangled from her paralyzed hand.

Willow and Tara shared an amused "here we go again" look. "We're getting a lot of that tonight," Willow commiserated. In a monotone that suggested these were not the first time the words had been uttered in the past hour, she clearly stated, "Yes, I really said 'girlfriend'. Yes, I'm gay."

As though physically jerking herself out of her stunned stupor, Jane dragged her eyes away from her astounded appraisal of Tara. "Gay!' she echoed in a voice that was rather uncomfortably loud. "Oh, sure, just ... sort of a surprise!"

But the blonde woman seemed convinced to not let the unexpected affect her for long. Nodding to herself, she handed first one cup of punch to Willow and another to Tara. "Well I think that's just great," she said supportively. "You and ... Tara, was it?"

Tara's nod confirmed it, and she and Willow each took a sip of punch. Willow in particular looked cool as a proverbial cucumber. She wasn't fazed by any of this, no siree.

"And I really shouldn't be surprised," Jane continued, "what with all those rumors about you and Buffy Summers ..."

Willow's punch went everywhere.

Hannah was walking through Slayer Central, minding her own business when she nearly collided with a large stack of books, which had apparently sprouted legs and was walking straight toward her.

"Whoa, watch out," she cautioned lightly, thrusting her arms out to cushion any possible impact.

The feet came to a full stop. "Sorry! Sorry!" Dawn apologized profusely, her voice drifted up from behind the tower of volumes.

Lifting away half of the stack, Hannah unearthed Dawn and received a look of gratitude in return. "Whew! Thanks. I hate multiple trips.'

"Lazy like me, huh?" smirked the blonde, jostling her new armfuls into a comfortable position.

Dawn did her best to appear regal. "I prefer 'efficient'."

"Now you mention it, I do too." Hannah inclined her head down the hallway. "Are we library-bound?"

"Library-bound we are."

The two set off together, moving slowly but surely. Hannah's eyes drifted to the topmost book in her pile. A worn and ancient volume, it bore no title. But if it had, a good candidate would have been The Most Boring Book in the Whole Wide World, Volume 23.

Hannah's eyebrow twitched skeptically. "Doing some light reading?"

"These things? Please," scoffed Dawn. "I'd rather actually read my English lit homework." Indicating the books in her arms, she informed, "They're so boring, even the old Watcher's Council locked them away."

An honest answer, but one that hadn't made things any clearer for Hannah. "Then we are...?" she prompted.

"Bringing in the old new inventory. Stuff that's been sitting around for like ever."

The library doors were thankfully already open, and the duo easily made their way toward the nearest table to deposit their mutual burdens. Hannah rested her elbow on the nearest stack and turned to the teenager. "I must admit Dawn, I'm surprised. I would've thought you'd rather spend your evenings doing ..." Glancing around, Hannah tried to think of an appropriately more entertaining task. "Well, anything else, honestly."

"Buffy and the others are out of town for the weekend," replied Dawn, beginning to organize the large pile into smaller ones. "Sunnydale High reunion, it's this whole big thing. I didn't feel much like sitting at home alone, so I came here."

Hannah's eyes flicked from Dawn to the books and then back again, clearly feeling that a crucial detail remained elusive. "To ... sort books. Alone."

The teenager rolled her eyes, having perfected this expression of disgruntlement. "Yeah well, that wasn't actually supposed to happen." She slapped the book in her hand on the nearest pile a little more forcibly than was likely intended and grabbed for the next. "I thought, you know, Giles and I could hang or something. He could take me to the movies and then I'd listen to him complain about whatever we saw over ice cream afterwards. But he's busy, so ..."

Dawn shrugged like it wasn't anything important, but her wounded expression peeked through anyway, just for a moment.

"So I was already here," she continued, reaching for the topmost book in Hannah's leaning post and forcing the older woman to stand straight again, "and I figured I'd be useful! Maybe, you know ..." Dawn glanced to Hannah briefly, then focused on the text in her hands. She suddenly looked embarrassed and ten years younger. "If I did some of the stuff he says he has to do, it'd all be done faster and then he'd be around more."

Hannah's expression melted, but with a toss of her hair, Dawn suddenly aged to 18 again. "Besides, I like to catalog his books and stuff in this really bizarre way that he can't understand, and it's fun to see him try."

Indeed, Dawn's book sorting seemed to be dictated more by color than by content, and she returned to the task with renewed vigor.

"Well," announced Hannah after a moment of watching Dawn randomize the piles she'd already organized, "it just so happens that my plans for today didn't turn out quite like I expected either. Seems a shame – two fetching young women such as ourselves consigned to associate only with these musty things." Dawn's cataloging screeched to a halt and she looked to the smirking blonde. "So what do you say? Movies on me?"

"Really?" asked Dawn hopefully.

"I'll even promise to complain bitterly about the film after."

Dawn all but hopped in place. "Can we see the new Resident Evil?"

"Certainly," Hannah easily agreed. "It's guaranteed to bring about the maximum level of quality complaining."

The Wall of Remembrance was a rare spot in the convention hall that provided at least the illusion of quiet. Those who walked past held their tongues, as though speaking were somehow an affront; there was nothing so important to say that it could not have waited until they had cleared the unofficial "silent zone". Those visiting the wall either did so in small groups whispering in hushed tones, or they visited alone.

Like Xander Harris.

Xander's eye roamed the faces staring back at him. The smiling, happy faces of those who would never smile again. Many were unfamiliar, either never having been known to him or simply lost somewhere in the depths of memory. But as he skimmed, making sure to dwell at least a moment on every portrait, there would be the occasional one where his gaze would linger. Morgan Shay. Jack O'Toole. Theresa Klusmeyer. Jonathan Levinson. Jenny Calendar. Jesse McNally. Anya Jenkins.

It was to this last picture that Xander would always return. He might perhaps stray five to the left and three down, and then like a rubber band stretched to its limit, his eye would snap back to Anya.

It wasn't a flattering picture, though not that any of them could be described that way. It bore the same fuzziness that afflicted all the portraits, having been blown up to five or six times its actual size. And as for Anya herself, she seemed to have taken a personal dislike toward the camera or the cameraman. Quite possibly both. Her eyebrows were knitted together in an accusatory glare, and Anya looked tremendously insulted at being forced to partake in this bizarre photographic ritual. That probably wasn't far from the truth. But no matter how angry picture-Anya looked, Xander's lips still lifted in a smile whenever his gaze would find her again.

"It's not a very good picture."

Xander turned to see Cordelia standing at his shoulder, regarding Anya's image critically.

"Not that I really remember what she looks like," Cordy continued. "Mostly it's just a fuzzy outline with really good shoes. But this just seems sort of ... I don't know. Lifeless?"

"Cordelia Chase, Queen of Irony," Xander announced.

She ignored the sarcasm. "I'm just saying, it's a shame that this is the picture everyone will remember. Just a generic and not particularly flattering 8x10 on a wall of sad anonymity."

"Thanks for the pep talk!" exclaimed Xander with exaggerated cheer. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "I'm just gonna go slit my wrists in the corner now."

Cordelia rolled her eyes at the melodrama, but her tone was gentle. "I just mean ... I'm sorry she died." There was nothing caustic in her words, and she looked at Xander sincerely. "I know you and I never had a nice long conversation after I left Sunnydale, or even exchanged 'Hello's ... but Willow kept me up to date with stuff. She said you two seemed happy."

The rubber band tugged, and Xander found himself once more looking at Anya's fierce glare. "We were. For a while ... we were."

"Of course she also said she thought you'd been hit on the head too many times and it was screwing with your judgment ..."

"Can we back up to the part where you were doing a passable impression of a compassionate human being?"

The unofficial Wall of Remembrance silence reasserted itself for a long moment.

"Are you seeing anyone?" Cordelia finally asked without preamble.

Entirely disbelieving, Xander raised his eyebrows. "Are you offering?"

"Ew!"

"So I'll take that as a 'no' then?"

A brusque exhale was the immediate answer to that question. "Maybe you're affected by the ripe stench of nostalgia in the air, but me?" The convention hall was treated to a once-over of pure, undistilled Cordelia Grade disdain. "I'm mostly just reminded that leaving Sunnydale was the best thing I ever did."

"So you're just, what?" Xander snapped, beginning to lose his temper despite himself. "Passingly curious? Maybe looking to add to your repertoire of quick yet lethal jabs at my life?"

"No, you big dork, I'm worried about you!"

The blurted confession took Xander by surprise, becoming one of the few moments in his life where he was rendered completely speechless.

"I mean ... look at you!" she continued, waving her hand to vaguely encompass the totality that was Xander. "With the lonely and the no eye and the being a Watcher? What's that about?"

"Well Watcher-in-Training ..." he corrected meekly.

Cordelia continued as though he hadn't spoken. "You're a good man, Xander Harris, and you were a good boyfriend." Pausing to frown, she crossed her arms and added, "Up until the point where you cheated on me and I got punctured by rebar, anyway."

Xander squirmed at the memory, but Cordy wasn't stopping for his discomfort.

"You were sweet and funny and totally couldn't dress yourself – which I see is a habit you have yet to break—"

Xander looked ready to defend his suavity, if he could only get a word in.

"—but it was cute in a train wreck disaster sort of way. It's just ... you have a lot to offer someone and it's a crime against nature to let that all go to waste." Aggression ebbing away, Cordelia tilted her head to the side, her dark eyes boring into Xander. "I want you to be happy."

She turned to the framed photo of Anya.

"And so would she."

Touched by the sentiment, if not necessarily the delivery, Xander allowed himself a tiny smile, then also looked at Anya.

"You're right," he agreed. "It is a terrible picture."

Neither Xander nor Cordelia realized they were being watched.

Xander reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet as Cordelia stepped closer. Their heads stayed close together for a moment, both intently focused on something. Huddled as they were, it was impossible to see what. As the voyeur drew near, the grinning pair stepped away from the Wall of Remembrance, ready now to rejoin the reunion.

Something had changed on the Wall. Amidst the expanse of blurred and washed-out photos, a well-worn yet still vibrant snapshot now stood out – a spark of life among the dead. Mostly covering the image of Anya Jenkins, the snapshot depicted a slightly older blonde Anya looking thoroughly delighted as she sat on a couch, surrounded by birthday presents. The joy that shone in her eyes was second only to the love radiating from the dark-haired young man sitting next to her.

However the voyeur didn't spare the photograph even a glance. Instead, every ounce of focus was directed to the line of portraits nearby; the portraits labeled "Class Favorites". Fixated, the voyeur approached, lingering for a long moment on the row of smiling faces. Then with a flash of rage, a hand lashed out and tore the "Class Favorites" banner from the wall. Fingers working furiously to rip the banner to shreds, baleful eyes never wavered from the row of titles and names – including "Most Intelligent" Willow Rosenberg and "Class Protector" Buffy Summers.