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Author's Chapter Notes:
A vanishing point is the point at which something disappears or ceases to exist. Please review.
Willow was having some trouble tracking Joni without being seen. Joni was a creature of habit. Just like her father had been. She was out the door for her nightly patrols precisely at dusk and she was back just before the first blush of sunlight. Impeccable timing. Like a Swiss watch. It wasn't that Willow didn't know where Jonina was; she did, at all times. It was just that Willow wasn't seventeen anymore. She wasn't the one fueled by grief and anger and loss, at least not now. There had been a time in her life when that would have described her to a tee. And because Willow knew what it was like to feel that, because she knew what it was to be that destructive, she feared what Joni would do.

And before he died, Spike had that exact same fear. That was why he'd made Willow promise him that Joni would never find out. Willow promised that she would watch out for Joni and keep her safe. And that was why she was out here, a woman well passed the age where staying out all night is any kind of fun, crouching in the cold and trying not to be seen by a girl who could smell the wind change directions before it even had the chance to think about changing.

Joni had somehow doubled back and Willow was heaving breaths trying to keep her in sight. She heaved a few breaths, hissing, "Did you have to train her so well, Spike? I'm getting way too old for this," she looked up at the canopy of stars twinkling above her, "And I know what happened to both you and Buffy is kind of my fault," she winced as her lungs burned trying to supply the air that she needed to keep up with her niece, "Okay, so it is my fault. But Buffy could have let me in on the fact that you were her ace in the hole, literally. Then we might not have done that spell. But who knew you were gonna go all hero? And then a few years latter, 'Wunderkind' of yours comes down from the planet Krypton, and everything goes kerboom?" she took a moment to catch her breath and to try and sort through her latest babble. She only did this kind of thing when she was worried, "And I've been talking to Andrew way too much," she looked at the blinking starlight, "haven't I? Sorry. Back in surveillance mode now."
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This was like playing hide- and- go- seek for Joni. But, unfortunately it wasn't nearly as much fun playing cat and mouse with her aunt as it had been with her Daddy. If she didn't have an objective, she would have slowed down so that aunt Willow could catch her. But she couldn't do that tonight. This was too important. And it was her only chance. She didn't care about the consequences, she really didn't.
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She had tried to tell her Daddy that she was ready. She tried to remind him that she was the same age Mom was when she became the Slayer. And that he had taught her everything he knew about fighting.

He just smiled, pleased with her confidence in both his ability to impart wisdom and appreciating her own surety, "Yes, Joni I know you're strong. But the Watcher seems to think that you are key to an as yet unknown apocalypse. And George, she's a smart one. I'm obliged to take her at her word."

"But Daddy," she begged, "You're not as strong as before. You can't do what you used to do. If you go out there a bus could hit you. I have to protect you now. That's my job now, Daddy. I'm the Slayer."

He'd just rolled his eyes at her, "Thank you for reminding me that this humanity thing doesn't come with a warranty," he sighed, looking at her with eyes that seemed to see past her, "I thought I wouldn't need one. Certainly never thought I would regret snatching the brass ring from Angelus's claws. But, you see, I've never had a daughter before, and I never thought I could love anyone more than I loved," he cleared his throat, overcome with emotion, "love your Mum. But, it seems I was wrong."

"Daddy don't..."

"You see, this prize? It comes with a catch. Limited shelf life; and there's no telling how far away the use by date is. So it seems that I've just proven the old adage. You do always want what you haven't got. I need time, but it seems that I'm running short, so I have to make you as strong as you can be so that you can fly without me, Dove. Because, some day the world's going to need you, just as much as I do, and you have to be ready to fight."

The only way Joni could express what she felt for her Daddy at that moment was to hug him. There were no words big enough to show him what he meant to her.

Joni neared the clearing in the park. There was the gazebo, just where they said it was. It looked just like her mind thought it would when it drew pictures of it from the bedtime stories they used to tell her. It was like stepping into her very, own real life, fairy tale. Only when she was a baby they didn't tell her that her own Mom and Daddy were the prince and princess.

She didn't find that out until much later, when the fairy tale took her Daddy and Mom away.

Joni approached the gazebo with all the ingredients she needed for the spell. It had been tough trying to sneak the things she needed past her aunt Willow, but she'd done it. Aunt Willow had spent months trying to talk her out of this. She tried to tell her it was wrong, that there were better ways, healthier ways to deal with the pain of losing someone you loved. But she knew her aunt was a hypocrite. Her aunt wasn't one who went through pain very well. Aunt Willow knocked pain down and stomped on its face. Then when she caught up with the person who'd caused her pain, the person who'd killed the one she had loved, she skinned him alive.

But, she didn't stop there. No, she had to kill the world.

Joni didn't want to kill the world. She just wanted to see her Daddy again. Really see him. Maybe then the pain and the hurting she'd been feeling for two years would ease some.

She sat in the small circle of candles and started to pray, "Nepthys, grant a daughter passage from the is to what has been. Grant the way that the grief will cease and loved ones passed will be present once more. I offer myself a supplicant to you. Please grant me passage."

Just as the wind started to pick up, she saw a vortex open up in front of her. It was composed of green and blue light, swirling together and meeting at a point where nothing existed. Beyond that point where the two met, there was nothing. That was the point where two times became one, where there was no past and no future, only one way. That was the vanishing point. Beyond that point, her Daddy still existed, even if she did not. But without her Mom and Daddy she felt she could not exist.

So, just as she heard her aunt's anguished pleas for her to turn around, for her to stop, she stepped forward and let the light swirl around her and pull her inward. She let it guide her to the vanishing point.

As Willow watched Joni disappear in the light, she sobbed, her voice barely distinguishable from the great, howling wind, "God, Spike, I'm sorry!" she cried, knowing that she had failed to do the one thing he had begged her to do.





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