I am too old for this . . .too old for the fear and the nightmares.  Too old to watch children fight an unending battle against evil.   Way too old to watch my Slayer die.

Oh God.  I thought there was nothing more terrible than seeing her suspended within the portal’s energy field.  Then I saw her fall.  That is my Hell – never-ending, relentless, all-consuming – watching Buffy fall through the air.  I have only to close my eyes and the vision is before me, an endless repeating loop.  I don’t know whether it is a terrible thing or not to hope that she was dead long before the gate’s energy released its hold and earth’s gravity reclaimed her.

I want to curl up in a dark place for a while.  Would that be so bad?

But I can’t.  I am the adult here.  Bitter irony.  The police and EMT workers surging around us have no idea.  The age of my companions, these shell-shocked, grieving children around me, is measured not in years lived but in years survived.  In that, they are almost as old as I am.

I manage to nod convincing at the officer before me.  His eyes and mind are clouded by the Hellmouth’s influence.  He doesn’t see this place of desecration for what it is.  He sees only a tragic suicide; a girl having lost her mother only a few weeks earlier, taking her own life by leaping from the tower.  He never questions the tower and where it came from.  Never wonders at the smell of ozone that hangs over this place.  Never wonders at the escaped mental patients that even now sit huddled in small groups being cared for by the EMTs.  Fools.  All of them.

But I make the appropriate noises in the appropriate places and keep my fists balled tightly behind my back to keep from beating the condescending false smile of sympathy from his face.

Off to my side I can hear Willow murmuring quietly.  She has a tight grip on Spike’s arm, a hold she has maintained from the moment that the police and EMTs began to arrive.  I can see the strain on her knuckles as digs her fingers into him.  Tara, still dazed from her ordeal, is slumped at his feet, her body leaning heavily against his legs.  Gratitude flashes through me at their cunning in keeping Spike contained.  I have no doubt that chip or no chip, he’d kill this sanctimonious prat droning on in front of me, if those two weren’t blocking his path.  Come to think of it, I may just kill him myself.

“Yes, Officer Mitchell, I understand.  We will, of course, be available for questioning later if you have further need.  But really, I think I need to get the other children home now and check on the two taken to the hospital earlier.”

As simple as that, we are free, or more accurately, Willow, Tara and Spike are free.  My Hell still remains.  I have only to close my eyes.

I drive the three of them to my apartment rather their dorm.  This is no time for us to separate.  We have always drawn our strengths from each other.  That, at least, remains.

Pulling up to my door, I wait, making no move to shut off the car.

“Giles?”  There was no mistaking the questions in Willow’s voice.

I stay behind the wheel of the car and resist the urge to rest my head against the steering wheel.  I’m afraid if I do, I won’t raise it again and I can’t rest yet.   I can’t look at her.  It’s the coward’s way, the easy way.  But surely, I’m allowed this small thing?  When I speak, I speak to the windshield.  “It’s okay, Willow.  Take Tara and Spike inside.  I’m going to the hospital to check on the others.”

She’s silent beside me.  I wait for the demands to answer her or maybe to look at her.  She doesn’t do either, merely stares hard at me for a moment and then finally she nods her head in agreement.  That was the way they left my car – in silence.  Without a word, Spike climbed out and went around to her side to help Tara out of the car.  I watched them to make sure they entered my apartment safely.

I think I could find the way to Sunnydale Hospital in my sleep.  The emergency room staff knows my charges and I by name now.  That should have raised flags somewhere – an older man constantly in the company of younger children who are always hurt in some form or fashion; just one more thing in a long list of things that is never questioned in this godforsaken town.

They are waiting for me in our usually spot.  For a moment, I wonder if one day one of those tacky little brass plates will appear over ‘our’ chairs, reserving them for our use alone.  Anya, a large white bandage on her temple, is asleep in a chair sitting next to Xander, her head resting on his shoulder, one arm stretched across his body so that her hand can rest on Dawn’s hip.  Dawn is curled on Xander’s lap, his arms locked tight around her.  She too is asleep although from the way her eyes flicker wildly beneath her lids, it isn’t a restful sleep.  A shudder chases a chill down my spine as I contemplate the nightmares that await her in her dreams.

Xander, however, is very awake.  Even across the room, I can see the tension in his body.  He is on guard, even now.  Protecting those lives given into his care.  Seeing him there, eyes red-rimmed, but shoulders still unbowed, I feel a surge of pride.  Every man wishes at some point in his life for a son to carry his name, to carry his teachings.  Until this moment, I never thought I would have a son.   I discover to my amazement, that I was wrong.  For born to another he might have been, but this brave young man is mine.

I wonder if this legacy will be enough, but as I close my eyes, my Hell remains.
 

The drive back to my apartment is quiet.  The hospital has given Dawn something that keeps her asleep and never once from the hospital, to my car, and to the front door of my apartment does Xander release his grip on her.  I should feel guilty about that.  Dawn is my responsibility now.  Buffy . . . Buffy would have wanted that.  And I am ashamed of myself because right now . . . right now I can’t touch her.  Buffy was a part of her, the monks created this child out of my Buffy and I’m afraid that if I touch her, I will come apart.

Maybe Xander knows that.  Maybe that’s why he hadn’t given her up.  Maybe he understands.  I hope someone does, because God knows, I don’t.

+++++

They are asleep now and the house is silent.  I don’t sleep.  That will come later, when I can blur the vision of Buffy with enough alcohol to allow sleep to overtake me, but that small piece of oblivion isn’t for me yet.  Arrangements must be made.  Buffy . . . oh God.

Sinking down onto my bedroom floor, I bite down hard on the heel of my hand.  Now would not be the right time to scream.  I mustn’t frighten the others.  Mustn’t.

It is many minutes . . . a half-hour . . . an hour . . . I’m not sure anymore, before I can struggle up to my feet.  I am in control once again.  Control?  I have no control.  It’s an illusion of smoke and mirrors.  But it is an illusion I cling to now.

There are funeral arrangements that must be made.  Dawn must be cared for. I must return to England.  My Watcher Diaries of these past 5 years must be taken to the Great Library.  Her bravery and her courage and her commitment, all of it must be entered and recorded and remembered.  There are rituals that must be done, final rites that are mine only to perform.  My last official duty as a Slayer’s Watcher.
 

I creep downstairs and stand on the staircase to watch them.  I want to smile at the sight before me but it won’t come.  Smiling still hurts too much.  They have pushed my meager furniture against the walls to open a space in the middle of the floor.  It is now a jumbled pile of pillows, blankets and children, curled together like puppies.  They seek their strength together.  Old man that I am, I still know that I could crawl among them and they would open a space for me without hesitation.  But that would be too much like absolution.  I failed my Slayer.  Absolution is not mine to seek.

But there is a kind of peace in watching them sleep.  Xander is sprawled across two pillows, as unrestrained in sleep as he is awake.  Yet for all his reckless abandon, one hand is still clasped tight around one of Dawn’s hands.  And Anya, curled against Xander’s side with her head nestled snuggly in his shoulder.  She is our walking contradiction, tremendously old and yet at the same time, more naïve than Dawn.  There is however, no doubting her courage or loyalty or her love for Xander.  As strange of pair as they are, they are good for each other.

Even Tara, so hesitant to join our circle at first, has taken her place amongst the pillows and blankets.  This life we lead terrifies her the most and yet for Willow’s sake she controls her fear and stands her ground.  She almost paid with her sanity for that love and loyalty.  And Willow, who . . .

Willow is gone.  Where?  I search amongst the mounds of blankets, surely I’ve just missed her.  The fear doesn’t hit me until I noticed that Spike was gone as well.

Oh, God.

Have you ever had a moment of clarity so bright that it answers questions you didn’t even realize needed to be asked?  In that instant, I had such a revelation, pieces falling together to create a picture I didn’t know had been missing.  Now that the answer was before me, I couldn’t help but feel profoundly stupid for missing the obvious.

Yet another reason to acknowledge that my skills as a Watcher are sorely lacking.  Something else I have failed at.
 

I found them as I stepped around the corner of my apartment building and into the small grassed area my landlord liked to call a backyard.  Any doubts I’d had earlier were crushed.  My God, how could I have been so blind?

Willow was crying, her face pressed in Spike’s leather clad shoulder.  Spike had his arms wrapped around her, his cheek pressed against her temple as he cradled her head against him.  There was such . . .  tenderness in their embrace, a deep caring that even I could feel in the shadows which obscured me.  But this gentle intimacy was not the cause of my certainty of what I’d guessed.  No, that certainty was solely based on the circle of power that rippled out from them  . . . from Willow.

Stupid.  My missing this was beyond stupid.  How clear, indeed, is hindsight.  The signs were there.  She’d been antsy a few weeks ago, easily distracted.  I’d felt the power coming off her.  I’d know she was calling.  Known it!  But when nothing materialized, I’d just assumed that she’d called something small . . .  a cat, a dog, I’d even considered a wolf, especially with her connection to Oz.  But when nothing had materialized I’d let other concerns distract my attention.

It is astounding.  I haven’t heard of this happening in over a hundred years but it explains so much.

It explains her sudden jump in power.

She’d teleported a goddess against her wishes.

When we were on the run, when Buffy had gone catatonic, she’d taken command of the situation as if born to it.

She’d ordered Spike around and he’d accepted her direction without even the token resistance he normally offered Buffy.
 

She’d rescued Tara’s mind from Glory’s hold.

She’d telepathically communicated with Spike.

She has claimed him and he has accepted that claim.

I watch as the embrace before me slips from comfort to hunger.  It is a subtle shift in the shielding that encircles them.  I can feel Willow drawing power from him, power that is freely offered with no resistance on Spike’s part.  I can feel that too.

As he drops to his knees before her, I withdraw.  This is no place for me.  They are safe.   And it will fall to them, as the strongest, to protect the others now.

There was a time when that would have worried me, but not now.  They will do well by the others.  Of that I have no doubts, though anyone thinking I would trust the safety of others to a witch and her vampire familiar would surely think me mad.
 

 ~End~

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