DISCLAIMER: So not mine. I'm a seriously in debt college student - do I look like the crackhead that owns them? The only ones I do own are Ripper (you'll understand later) Cassa, Jon, Dave Murphy and Trinidad Peters.
SPOILERS: Pretty much everything is fair game.
SUMMARY: Fifty years in the future, a budding reporter gets the interview of a lifetime with the hero of the Demon Wars.
FEEDBACK: Yes! Oh Yes! Yes! Yes!
DISTRIBUTION: Ask and it shall be given.

Trinidad Peters pulled her shoulder bag more fully onto her shoulder as she entered her boss's office and faced the older gentlemen, one of the first reporters to pull the journalism business back together after the Wars in 2005. "You wanted to see me Chief?"

Dave Murphy nodded and gestured for the younger reporter to take a seat. "I have a very important project for you. We're giving you a big break here, Trini, so be careful."

"Of course, Chief. Thank you very much for this chance." Trinidad pulled her shoulder length red hair into a loose ponytail, and pulled out her notebook. "But may I ask what I'm working on?"

"A biography piece to be played worldwide in less than a month for the 30th anniversary of the end of the Wars."

Trini cocked an eyebrow at the subject material. "A biography piece? On who? The fighters? Some top brass?"

Dave nodded. "The person is a little of both actually. One of the first, if not THE first fighter, who ended up commanding the ragtag army that accomplished what the most highly decorated failed at."

"You're not talking about.."

Dave smiled, nodded. "Ms. Buffy Summers herself."

"I thought she had been living in seclusion for the past thirty years. Half the time we weren't sure if she was still alive. She just disappeared after the final battle."

"You're right about that, but it seems Ms. Summers is somewhat of a fan of yours. She contacted the network a few days ago, telling us that she would give us the exclusive, if you would do the interview."

Trini's face broke open in a pleased smile. "This is fantastic! When will I get to meet her?"

"In about three days," replied Dave, lifting up a thick binder and handing it to her. "You and the technicians will be flown to a nearby airport, and then driven to her home on Friday. That gives you two days to go through the information that research was able to find on her. Most of it is on the war years, as most information on everybody was wiped clean during the War. Ms. Summers has graciously offered to let you and the others to stay in her home while doing the interview."

Trinidad nodded in that she knew this as she took the research from her boss and held it to her chest. Standing up, she headed to leave, but paused at the door. "Chief, do you know why she suddenly decided to give this interview?"

"That's something you're going to have to ask Ms. Summers."

****

Trinidad peered out the window of the one of two Jeeps that had picked her and the four person team sent with her to do the interview as it wound its way down the country road. One either side of the road was a deep endless forest of trees, and the road they were on was little more than a dirt path.

"Ms. Summers' house is just up ahead," spoke the driver, a young man who couldn't be more than twenty.

Trini's gaze pulled from the side window to look out the front, gasping at the home just ahead. It was a large log and stone cabin, set in a green clearing. The dirt road melted into the gravel driveway that formed a semicircle in front of the house. It looked like a nice, cozy getaway. The two car caravan slowed to a stop in front of the steps leading up to the wraparound porch, where a slim figure stood slightly in the shadows that fell even in the bright sun. Beside her, in a protective position was a rather large dog.

Trinidad and the others stepped out of the Jeep, and she headed up the stairs while the others went to take care of the equipment. "Trinidad Peters. Is Ms. Summers here?"

The slim woman gave a soft laugh, and stepped from the shadows. "I am Buffy Summers, Ms. Peters. I'm glad you were able to come," she said, extending a thin hand. "What do you say to a small tour around Hellmouth Haven?"

Trini tried to hide her shock, both at the Buffy Summers in front of her, as well as the name of her home. Ms. Summers picked up at her look though, and the corners of her lips turned up in smile. "It's all right, Ms. Peters. I am both well aware of my looks, as well as the unusual name I have given my home. Shall we?"

Trini could only nod and follow the older woman's lead. She waited quietly, taking the opportunity to study her hostess as she spoke with the young couple that had driven the two Jeeps.

The research she had been given had not prepared her for any of what she was to soon find out. Most of it had been facts on her fighting ability, and the battle wins she had scored during the Wars. But face to face with the elder woman, she had a hard time believing all that she had read. She'd known that Buffy Summers was in her late fifties, having been only 24 when the Wars had started, a year away from 60 as her birthday had been declared a worldwide holiday after the end of the Wars. She was a slender, diminutive figure, the thin frame clothed in a well worn pair of jeans and a man's sweater that all but swallowed up her body, making her seem even more frail than she looked. Her long hair was a dark blonde, streaks of gray framing a still quite beautiful face, disavowing the thin scar that bisected a corner of her lips, and the visible crows feet that lined hazel eyes. Her eyes were the oldest part of her, telling the story of a woman that had seen far too much in too short of a life.

"Are you coming Ms. Peters?" questioned Ms. Summers, and Trinidad realized that her conversation with the two drivers had ended, and she was standing, the dog beside her, awaiting for Trinidad to join her.

Hurrying down the steps, Trinidad fell into step beside the older woman. "You're dog is quite obedient," commented Trini, as the two circled around the grounds.

"Ripper is at that. He's a good comfort to me in my years," answered Buffy, absently stroking the thick fur of her companion. "I do not have many friends left nowadays."

"The two drivers that brought us up here; do they work for you?

"Cassa and Jon? You could say that. They do most of the work around here, but its more of cooperation between us. They take care of the Haven and keep me company, and I well, supply their needs."

They entered the back door of the cabin, and Trini looked around as Buffy led the way into a large, bright room. "May I ask why you decided to move out here, Ms. Summers?" asked Trinidad, looking around the room.

"As opposed to capitalizing on my heroics and running for office or something of that nature?" asked Buffy with a laugh, as she settled into one of the winged back chairs that was set on either side of the wide floor to ceiling window that faced the west. "I was never built for the spotlight I'm afraid. It just wasn't in my programming. And after so many years of being the one that people looked toward for leadership, I cherished the quiet of living a simple life out here."

Trinidad focused her attention on the room. One section of a wall was a built in bookcase that went from the floor to the high ceiling, the shelves overflowing with thick,musty tomes. An overstuffed couch faced the huge fireplace, set on a thick Oriental rug. The entire room had a homey feel to it, filled with what seemed to be cherished memories, from the delicate statue in its glass case, to the dangerous looking weapons mounted on the walls. Picture frames sat on the mantle and hung on walls, and sat on tables beside what looked like scrapbooks and portfolios.

"You seem to have a lot of friends in these photos. Do you have visitors often?" asked Trini, studying the many pictures.

The sad voice of her host surprised and saddened her. "I'm afraid not. You're the first I've had up here since I moved into the Haven thirty years ago." Buffy gave her a grim smile. "Don't look so surprised my dear. It happens when you live to be my age."

"No one?"

Buffy gave a small shake of her head, twisting a silver ring on her finger. "Things like this also happen when you fight a war alongside your closest friends. All those young happy people you see in those pictures died fighting in the Demon Wars."

Trinidad sat in the chair facing the older woman, reaching across the space to place a hand on top of hers. "I'm so sorry."

Buffy lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "It happened a long time ago, don't feel so sorry for me. We all expected it at to happen at one time. We'd been fighting demons and vampires for almost 10 years before the fight went worldwide."

"Ten years?" her surprise was unable to be hidden.

Buffy nodded. "Your research didn't tell you that, did it? I fought for fifteen years against those things before I was finally able to live a normal life. Of course, I had no one to really share it with." Buffy paused, looking out into the distance. "But then, I never expected to live longer than them, let alone survive the battle."

"What do you mean?"

Buffy sighed, and then turned back to her, her hazel eyes glinting with what looked like mischief. "I'm not getting any younger, no matter how I may look. So this is why I asked you here. To hear the story of my life.

"Everyone knows by now that demons and vampires, and all that sort of evil really did exist for thousands of years. That the myths and legends weren't really myths and legends; that all those stories passed down through the ages really existed."

Trinidad leaned back into the chair, recognizing the beginnings of a story. Only this story was true.

"A friend told me how it began. Contrary to popular mythology the world did not begin as a paradise. For thousands of years, demons ran the Earth, until they were sent back to their demon dimension to make way for man. The last demon to leave mixed his blood with that of a human, and the first vampire was born. What remained of the demons were certain vestiges: magicks, demons, and vampires. But you knew this already."

Buffy paused as Trinidad nodded. Everyone knew that demons were very real things, wiped from this plane of existance 30 years ago in the last battle of the Demon Wars. "What most don't know is something just as old. For as long as there have been vampires, there has been the Slayer. In every generation there is a Chosen One. The one girl in all the world with the strength and skill to find them where they gather and stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their numbers. She is the Vampire Slayer. Trained by her Watcher, the person with the knowledge to help train and guide the Slayer, she is to fight alone against the dark of night.

"I found out once that the average life span of a Slayer was around one to two years," she said, her fingers once again playing with the single ring she wore. "I was Called in 1996 during my sophomore year of high school."

"You're the Slayer?" said Trinidad, doing some quick math. "But that would mean."

"That I have outlived all other Slayers, yes, serving for 45 years. A fact, I'm told, I should be quite proud of." Buffy shrugged, as if it meant nothing to her. "All it ever brought me was heartache though, even though it lead me to the most loyal and treasured friends a person could ever have.

"Before I was called I lived in Los Angeles, living the life of any other spoiled cheerleader. I had no aspirations other than to 'marry Christian Slater and die', as I told my first Watcher. It wouldn't work out that way, because it was my fate, my destiny and there was no way in hell that I was going to be able to escape it."

"Did you try to? Escape it I mean?"

"Many times. The longest I went was about 3 months, but we'll get to that." Buffy paused, tilting her head to look at the reporter. "My first real battle was against a very powerful vampire lord called Lothos. He murdered my first Watcher and ended up crashing a dance at my high school, which forced me to set it on fire. You must remember that no one really believed in vampires. Most who encountered a vampire or a demon usually ended up denying what they saw. So I was labeled a deliquent and expelled from school. My parents had just gotten a divorce, and my mom and I moved to a quiet little town called Sunnydale."

Trinidad gasped, recognizing the name of the California town. Sunnydale had been the sight of many of the more vicious battles during the War. "You lived in Sunnydale?"

Buffy smiled. "Yup. Good ole' SunnyHell. Not that I had a clue what I was about to fall into. I'd decided I would retire. It wasn't that I was going to have fluffy bunny feelings for the vampires or anything. I just didn't want to get way extracurricular. Those were my feelings until the drained body was found in the girls locker room." Buffy shrugged. "I was told by Rupert Giles, the school librarian, and my new Watcher, that Sunnydale was located on something the Spanish settlers had called Boca del Inferno."

Trinidad reached back to her high school Spanish classes. "Mouth of Hell?"

"Or lovingly referred to as Hellmouth. It was a mystical convergence that sort of acted as a magnet for all things evil. Like a demon's version of Disney World. Meaning my nights were spent fighting vampires and demons, and stopping any prophesized apocolypses. I'd faced multiple end of the world type deals before the Demon Wars. The Wars were on just a more world wide and much grander scale.

"I don't want to bore you with the smaller instances. People don't want to hear about my daily fights; they lived enough of it. And frankly, not much of it could compare to what I saw during the Wars."

"Then what do you want to talk about?"

"The people. My friends. The ones who made an impact on my life. Slayers, by tradition, were always supposed to work alone. No family, no friends. Their only tie was to their watcher, who frankly was supposed to do nothing but train and teach. I pretty much broke every single tradition that was ever written in the Slayer Handbook.

"I had a tight group of friends. They called themselves the Slayerettes. I would have died without them. We added and lost some over the years, but for the most part it was four of us: Me, Giles, Xander and Willow. Giles was pretty much the father of the group. Xander, well, Xander was Xander. Willow did research; she was a hacker, and more than once the computer skills saved my butt. They'd found out about me being the Slayer, and they insisted on helping out."

"Were there others?"

"Oh yes. Cordelia, Ms. Calendar, Oz, Doyle, Wesley, Kendra, Riley, Faith, Spike, and Angel. They weren't always helping at the same times, but they all helped out."

"You said you broke tradition? Other than having friends, what did you do?"

"I died once. Drowned. Thereby activating the Chosen Two."

"You mean another Slayer was called?"

"I knew I liked you. You catch on quick. Yup. The first one called was Kendra, who died and then that brought on Faith. What else did I do? I quit the Council of Watchers, and fell in love with a vampire.

"Don't look so shocked. Yes I know it sounds strange, but Angel was different." Buffy paused. "You know, maybe I'd better start with how everything began."

****

"I say all this not because I want the recognition. I could care less. But I want people to know that there were people out there who were regular people, who had strength and courage. I look forward to seeing them all again."

The screen faded to black, and the sober face of Trinidad Peters played over televisions worldwide. "It was my great pleasure to meet Ms. Summers and interview her, in what was to be her first and consequently, last interview. I am sorry to say that shortly after this was shot, Ms. Summers died quietly in her sleep at Hellmouth Haven. I am sure that she, and her friends, will be remembered, not only for their heroic deeds during the War, but also for the lives that they sacrificed long before we were aware of what was going on. Thank you, and goodnight."

The screen faded once again to black, this time with Buffy Summers' name above the names of all those who fought alongside her.

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