Against the grain of dystopic claims

Not the thoughts your actions entertain

And you have proved to be

A real human being and a real hero – College

Chapter 39

When he looked at Buffy, William felt fear uncurl from the center of his stomach; it was a cold thing, with long tentacles. In all they’d faced, he’d never seen her look quite like this. Head down, one arm gripping his shoulder for support. Even worse than the expression of horror on her face, she appeared … weak.

“Buffy? Darling?”

A breeze tangled her hair, but she made no move to pull it away from her eyes. Her gaze remained downcast.

“Buffy? Surely finding out the ‘white demons’ are really humans is good news, of a sort. It’s better than supernatural enemies, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s really not.” Without further elaboration, she walked over to sit upon a large boulder that jutted from the hillside. The Chinese men, Tang included, watched them, their eyes bright with interest.

William moved to stand awkwardly by her side. He placed a tentative hand on her shoulder. “Talk to me, love. Tell me what’s going on. I rather need to know.”

“It’s bad news for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is that I can’t kill humans. I mean, sure physically I’m able to kill them, but I don’t want to and the slayer’s not supposed to.” She worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “William, it’s even worse than that.”

“How so?”

“We’ve been set up – all of us. This is the event the council warned us about.”

“The council? When did they warn us?”

“The Council of Watchers. Well, you wouldn’t remember it, William. They warned Oscar and I in a telegram.”

William could only shake his head, absolutely lost.

“When you were missing. When Dru and her cowboy took you. They said they were taking you to the opening of the Hellmouth, so Oscar telegrammed the council. Asked them how Hellmouths were opened.”

She looked at him, her face pale and drawn. “They said that demonic activity couldn’t open it. That only human evil would do. Something big. An atrocity.”

“And you think the atrocity is going to be…?”

Buffy responded by looking over his shoulder, to the four worried men watching them.

“Everything’s ready. It’s on the brink. And all these people are ripe for the slaughter,” Buffy mumbled, staring past him, her face white as curdled milk. “I don’t know how to fight what’s coming at them. Vampires, I could handle. Demons, no problem. But dozens of pissed off pioneer-types? I’m out of my depth, William.”

William tugged on his hair and settled down beside her on the rock. Not knowing what else to do, he reached out to hold her hand. He felt a surge of relief when she greeted the gesture with a tight, slightly painful, squeeze.

“But we’re not completely lost, are we, love? For starters, we both agree that we must do something,” he said. “If we can’t take them on directly, what are our other options?”

“You got me. Try reasoning with them? Because reasoning with a mob – that’s something that’s worked for me exactly never.” She paused, her worried gaze still on the ground. Something moved behind her eyes, the spark of an idea, and she gripped his hand even tighter. “For me. Reasoning with mobs has never worked for me. But it’s worked for you.”

“For me?” he repeated numbly.

“In Rock Springs! When we were facing the mob, they were loaded with torches and guns and ready to kill. You talked over half of them into leaving without a punch - with just your words.” She tucked her windblown hair behind her ear and looked at him steadily.

“Well, I think you overestimate my … that is to say, I hardly think that I …” he coughed. Before he could form a proper rebuttal to her notion, he looked into her hopeful eyes. Her earlier weakness was fading, if only slightly, and the confident woman was beginning to reemerge. One look at her, and his objections caught in his throat and entirely different words formed in their place.

“Yes. A capital idea, Buffy.” He swallowed. In Rock Springs he hadn’t had a moment to think about talking down a mob before he’d gone ahead and tried it. He found that having the luxury to contemplate the action made his head swim and his stomach clench quite painfully. However, since fainting dead away didn’t seem like much of a confidence builder, he took a deep breath and found a smile for her instead.

“To town.” William pushed away from the stone and walked toward the carriage with what he hoped was a confident stride. “Gentlemen.” He nodded as he passed the confused Chinese men, who gave uncertain bows in return.

“We’re going to talk to the … bakguai,” Buffy explained to Tang as she passed. “We’ll be back soon. Hopefully with good news.”

When William reached the phaeton, he assisted Buffy into her seat; she had the good grace to accept with a smile. He untied the rig, climbed into the vehicle and with a tsk and a shake of the reins; they were on their way back to Sunnydale.

They returned to town without conversation, each lost in their own thoughts. When they’d passed through town earlier, the crowds were all within the same block, either at city hall or the church. City hall was now largely abandoned, so William pulled the carriage nearer to the church which, judging by the number of horses and buggies tied up in front, was still brimming with occupants.

Buffy leapt down from the carriage while he tied the horse to the rail. Joining their arms together, they walked up to the entrance of the church and slipped inside. Since the building was crowded to the bursting point, there was no choice but to remain standing in the tightly packed rear of the church.

The wooden structure was nothing like the churches in England. No stained glass nor gilded art for this place. Its floors were bare and walls unadorned. The only remotely decorative item in the church was an enormous rough-hewn cross which had been crudely nailed to the wall behind the stage at the front.

Everyone in the congregation was paying close attention to the preacher, who boomed at them from the raised platform. When he strode across the stage, his lanky limbs swinging widely, he reminded William of a market trader shilling his dodgy wares in Covent Garden.

“In the time of MOSES, when the children of Israel were in the wilderness and were led astray with the golden calf, did God say ‘Oh, that’s all right. I don’t mind heathen gods in your midst.’? DID he?”

“No,” several voices in the crowd responded in unison.

“When GOD commanded ABRAHAM kill his only son, did Abraham slink away, too timid to darken his hands with BLOOD?”

“No.”

“Now take your bibles, and read along with me from God’s holy word,” the preacher called. He drew out words for emphasis, adding an extra syllable. ‘Bible’ became ‘buy-a-bull.’ ‘God’ became ‘Gah-odd.’

“And the Lord spake, in First Samuel chapter thirteen, verse three. ‘Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass’.”

“What did the people say to this?” the man gave his rapt congregants a questioning glare. “Did they say, ‘No lord, we don’t want to get our hands dirty?’ No, they did not. Did they say, “Lord, you can’t really mean that’? No, they did not. They OBEYED their lord, and they slew the heathens.”

“Exodus tells us, “I, the lord thy God am a jealous God.’ Do you WANT to anger GOD?” The preacher cast an accusing glare toward the back of the church.

“No!” The crowd replied, much louder this time.

“And what happens to those who allow INFIDELS and HEATHENS to remain in their midst? The very verse in Exodus goes on to tell you, plain as day. It says he shall ‘visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that HATE me.”

The preacher shook his head in disgust before pointing an accusing finger toward the back of the church. “Do you hate GOD?”

“No,” the crowd chanted, working themselves into a proper level of agitation.

“Do you WANT god to have to punish your children, your children’s children, because you stubbornly refused his commands to rid this community of those who worship false gods? Who mock our true GOD with their HEATHEN ways?”

“No,” the crowd roared. A fervent few at the front sprang to their feet.

“And yet among you, there remain those who insist they know better than God almighty. Who cling to finding another way, a way without bloodshed. Do YOU dare to put yourself above God? Above his commands?”

“NO.”

“And what of those wolves in sheep’s clothing who work amongst his flock? Those who work to turn you AGAINST his commands are surely no better than the HEATHENS on the hill!”

At that, the preacher swung his gaze toward where the Pratts stood. The old man’s face was flushed and he was panting heavily. If William didn’t know better, he’d swear the man was in the very flush of sexual arousal. William placed a protective arm around Buffy and met the old man’s gaze, unintimidated.

“If OUTSIDERS come into our midst and think to speak AGAINST God’s holy word, against God himself, will we sit idly by?”

“NO!” A few heads tuned to see the cause of the leader’s glare, their eyes sparkling with interest.

A sanctimonious smile snaked across the preacher’s face. Still keeping his eyes locked on them, he nodded, folding his hands piously on his chest. A moment of silence spun out while the peculiar stare-down continued.

It was a horrible opening, but it was likely the only one that William was going to get. He had to try, at least. Instead of feeling butterflies in his stomach, he felt like a murder of crows were inside his belly, flapping and struggling to escape. He opened up his mouth, desperately trying to think of the reasonable thing to say, when …

“GET OUT.” The pastor screamed as he pointed a bony finger at William and Buffy. It was so bizarre, so completely unexpected that Buffy immediately burst into laughter.

“GET OUT OF GOD’S HOUSE!” As he continued to scream, the old man stepped toward them. The congregation had all turned to face them at this point, their former curious stares giving way to malevolent ones.

“Buffy, I believe we need to depart.” William worked hard to keep the panic from his voice.

Without hesitation she whirled around, and they burst through the doorway just a few feet away. William slammed the door shut and they scurried down the church steps. The bright sun and wide street suddenly seemed welcoming and friendly. Instinctively, they turned, waiting for the crowd that might spill out after them, but the door didn’t budge.

Buffy let out a shaky breath. “Holy shit!”

“I quite fear that the crowd would have done anything he’d asked of them, including tear us apart,” William said.

“That was way too ‘Children of the Corn’ for me.”

They reached the carriage and William coughed and reached up to stroke the mare’s nose, more to settle his nerves than to reassure the horse who was quite oblivious.

“Any idea what we should do now?” she asked.

William gestured toward City Hall, a few hundred yards down the street. “Perhaps if we tried reasoning with a smaller group. Someone official. I’m certain that once we discuss our concerns with the town fathers, they would be eager to take precautions.”

“I wouldn’t hold my breath. Sunnydale has a long history of deadbeat dads where that’s concerned.”

City hall was a rather ambitious building for a town of such modest size. Made of dark red brick and two stories high, it stood in sharp contrast to the rest of town which considered of mostly wooden, single story structures.

As they turned onto the boardwalk leading up to the building, Buffy gave a slight start and she shuddered.

“What is it?”

“Not sure,” she said. Her eyes flickered along the windows of the building. “Something is here though. Something big, bad.”

“Shall we leave, dear?” He stopped dead in his tracks and gave her a questioning look.

“It’s better to know your enemy,” she replied. “Besides, it looks like whatever it is – is coming to us.”

He followed her gaze to see several men spilling out of the doorway. They were large and wearing six-guns on their hips, which wasn’t an odd sight in the west. What was unusual about it was that these men all had their hands resting on their gun belts, ready to draw.

The last man out of the door was an affable looking, brown-haired man wearing a neat western suit with a bolo tie. Though he was the only unarmed man in the group, he was clearly the leader, as the half dozen larger men immediately flanked him as he started down the boardwalk toward William and Buffy. He greeted them with a pleasant smile.

“You,” was all Buffy said. Her voice was low and furious.

Upon hearing her strange declaration, the man remained unperturbed. If anything, his grin widened. He stopped a few feet from them and extended his right hand.

“I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure. Mayor Richard Wilkins, at your service.”

“More than a hundred years ago?” Buffy glared at the man. “You were here from the start? I knew you were old but …”

The mayor gave a shrug and turned from her. “And you must be William. We heard you’d be visiting our little town.”

“You heard?” William echoed numbly. “How could you have possibly heard?”

The mayor giggled and looked back at Buffy. “I have a great many friends. I believe some of them may even be mutual acquaintances of ours.”

“This is pointless,” Buffy said. “Let’s go, William. There’s even less hope trying to reason with this guy than there was with the insanos in the church.”

She turned and moved toward the street at surprising speed. Before William could join her, the mayor gripped his hand. His touch was cold and firm – steel encased in flesh.

“Forgive my brusqueness, but sometimes a direct request is most effective. You must know that if you stay, you’re quite damned.” The mayor’s tone was pleasant, conversational.

As he tightened his grip on William’s hand, his congenial smile remained firmly in place. “The only purpose you’ll serve is that your blood will open the Hellmouth a few moments quicker. Take a friendly word of advice and leave. Go. Get out of town.”

William wrenched his hand from the man’s grip and followed his wife down the boardwalk.

“You’re going to lose,” the mayor called after them. “It’s not a question of winning, only of how long you’ll last. It’s not just the townspeople, you know. We are legion. Dru and her army join us as well. You remember Dru, don’t you?”

Before he reached the carriage, Buffy was seated and holding the reins. Looking angry and confused, she was moving them side to side, apparently trying to encourage the horse to back out into the street. The confused mare blinked at William wearily. Gripping the harness, he guided the horse away from the rail, then climbed in beside Buffy. She handed the reins to him, her expression dark.

“Dru? And she’s bringing friends?” Buffy shook her head. “As if things needed to get worse.”

He tried to think of something encouraging to say regarding Dru, but came up with nothing, Perhaps the best thing would be to change the subject entirely.

“You knew that man?” he asked.

“Yeah. He was mayor back when I was a teenager and a really bad man. I just had no idea he’d been here for that long.”

“Please tell me that when you knew him before you … how do you say? Kicked his ass.”

A smile flickered across her face and he felt a twinge of pride at being able to coax it from her lips, even in the midst of all this.

“I did, William. My friends and I blew him the hell up along with Sunnydale High – right where the Chinese are now.”

“The Hellmouth?”

“Yeah.”

They reached the end of the street and he pulled back on the reins; the carriage shuddered to a halt. To their right lay the path out of town, to their left, the mine.

“So. which way do we turn, William?”

A moment spun out; he remained, unmoving, at the intersection. The mare turned her head to the side, curious about the hold up, then shook her harness impatiently.

“This is, perhaps, a most unusual time to tell you this, yet again, but … I love you, Buffy.”

She nodded at him, not needing to respond with words, tears filling her eyes.

He continued. “One of the many reasons that I love you is because I know what you want to do, but you have the grace to ask me all the same. And because I know it matters so much to you, I’ll tell you again, I couldn’t agree with you more.”

He pulled on the reins and guided the carriage to the left. They traveled down the road wordlessly until the hill and the rickety shacks that constituted Chinatown came into view.

“It’s not hopeless, you know,” he said.

“It’s not?”

“If we can’t talk the aggressors into backing down, perhaps we could reason with the Chinese men. Talk them into …”

“Running away?”

“Precisely.”

It wasn’t the best plan, and certainly nothing that Admiral Lord Nelson would have approved of – but if it worked, if it saved lives, wasn’t that the main thing?

“Sure, William. Let’s try that. It beats anything I can come up with.” Buffy gave him a watery smile. The lack of confidence in her voice was far from inspiring.

As he tied the horse to the fence post, the sky began to darken quite dramatically. It was much more profound and eerie than a simple cloudy day. He was reminded of the time when he was a lad on holiday in Spain and his father had taken him out during a solar eclipse. Except, as a boy the eclipse didn’t bring such a sense of foreboding.

And that wasn’t all; accompanying the strange darkness was a strange kind of vertigo, as if the world had somehow tilted itself, ever so slightly. Just enough to keep a person off balance, it felt like something unpleasant and cold slid across the back of his neck. As Buffy approached the first cluster of shacks, he strayed behind and surreptitiously checked his pocket watch. It read four in the afternoon.

Buffy gave the sky a worried glance, then strode to the first little shack. “Hello? We’re back, guys. Tang?”

She rapped hard on the metal once roof, but there was no response.

“Knock, knock.” She bent back the sheet of metal that served as a door and peeked inside. After a moment she stepped back and shook her head at William.

“They’ve gone?” William stepped over to the next house in the line; it too was empty.

An overwhelming sense of relief swept through him. Even without intervention, the men somehow knew to leave this place before the battle began - a miracle by his reckoning. With the men gone, there could be no slaughter, no Hellmouth opening and no need for them to remain in this awful, damned place.

He turned to Buffy, expecting to see her face lit with relief. Instead, she was looking at the top of the hill, her mouth a grim line. Her expression doused the flame of hope that William had been fanning.

“They went up. To the ‘Heaven’s Gate’ thing that Tang talked about. They went up to wait for the bad guys right on top of the Hellmouth. Like dinner, sitting on a plate.”

She readjusted the strap of her weapon satchel, and started up the path that led to the top of the hill. William followed behind, determined not to be alarmed by the increasingly darkening sky and what that might mean.

By the time he’d reached the hilltop, William was winded, his breath coming in ragged pants. Since the hill plateaued, if left room at the top for the seventy or so men who crowded together there. In the center it seemed to have a slight indentation, like the crater of a defunct volcano, only on a very small scale.

The men gathered there greeted William and Buffy with expression of undisguised fear.

“Tang?” Buffy shouted over the sea of ponytailed men. Clever girl to let them know she was on their side. When there was no response, she called his name again.

“Tang Ao?” A small man at Buffy’s elbow asked with a bow.

“Yes. Tang Ao! Do you know where he is?”

The man gestured toward the densely packed center of the group and stepped aside.

Buffy shouldered her way through the crowd and William followed closely behind.

In the center a small cluster of men gathered around a large, upright stone. Though William was dimly aware that Tang was one of the men at the base of the stone, he was transfixed by the large boulder and what lay before it.

The rock was composed of the typical grey stone that seemed typical of the region. This stone, however, had been carved with odd markings. Three long slashes had been cut into the face: two upright and a crossbeam connecting them. It resembled a primitive gate, with two sides and a roof. Heaven’s Gate. The carvings were old and weathered and had a slight – there was no other word for it – gleam about them. A slight blue glow, which he supposed might be a trick of the strangely darkening sky.

Just beneath the large stone lay a kind of basin. Grey rock that was shaped into a very large bowl, capable, he supposed, of holding fifty gallons or more. Strange markings decorated the bottom of the bowl. It wasn’t Chinese writing – he could tell that much. The writing was old and somehow seemed primitive.

Tang had noticed their arrival and stepped toward them. A group of three older men that he’d been speaking with trailed along behind Tang. The men gave he and Buffy baneful glares.

“What’s going on? Why’d you leave your houses?” Buffy cut straight to business, as was her way.

“Is time.” Tang pointed upwards, toward where the sun should have been evident.

“Time for what?” William asked.

“The gate opens,” Tang said. “Heaven’s Gate. We come when the gate opens.”

“Tang, I know you guys believe this gate-thing is good, but – trust me – it’s not what you think it is.”

Tang’s only response was to blink at her, passively.

William took a step toward the young man. “I know this sounds unlikely, Tang, and I know you have little reason to believe me – but this hilltop is unsafe.”

“Not safe?”

“Yes! The least safe place you could possibly be, to be honest. Come with us. Away from here.”

“You wish all of us to leave our place? Follow you?”

Buffy nodded enthusiastically.

One of the old men standing beside Tang spoke to him and Tang responded rapidly for a few moments. They held a short conversation, with the older men clearly asking Tang a series of questions and Tang giving terse answers in response. William nervously looked over his shoulder, aware of how quickly time was running out.

Turning back towards William at last, Tang bowed and said, “No.”

“You mustn’t! Please, let me explain …” But the young man had already turned his back.

In her frustration, Buffy reached out to touch Tang’s shoulder. He flinched, then spun around and flashed a challenging glare.

“We will not move from this place. Here we stand. Bakguai need to go. You,” he pointed at both William and Buffy, “move from this place. Go. Go away.” He turned his back to them and continued his conversation with the older men.

Buffy wove through the throng and William followed in her wake. She stopped at the edge of the hill where she stared out at the line of madrona trees that lay scattered just beyond Chinatown.

“We can’t blame them,” William said as he eased up behind her. “We’re strangers. They wouldn’t be inclined to listen to us.”

“Why is it that the only damn thing everyone agrees on is that they all want us to get out of town?”

He tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Perhaps that’s precisely the reason why we need to stay. To find another way.”

A tear spilled down her cheek. “You know, under your polite shell, you’re really kind of bad-ass. How’d that happen?”

“I think you already know.” He kissed her forehead tenderly.

When he reluctantly pulled away, he felt the discomforting feeling of being stared at. A few dozen Chinese men had clustered near them and were giving them, as Buffy would say, ‘the stink eye.’ Tang stood at the forefront with folded arms.

“You go now.” Tang’s tone was firm, even angry.

Buffy looked down the hill, then stumbled backward a step. “We can’t.”

“Go,” Tang repeated.

Buffy spun to face the younger man. “No. I mean we really can’t. Look.” She gestured toward the road.

Even through the strangely darkened sky, he could see them. Townspeople. They were massing up the road, filling the lanes and spilling out toward the fences. There had to be three to four hundred of them and they were all teeming toward the hill.

When the men on the hilltop spotted them, they responded, not with a cry of alarm, but with a hushed whisper, a frantic buzzing which swept over the hilltop like a breeze. The men stared down the slope, transfixed by the oncoming crowd, their expressions an odd mix of horror and fascination.

While the men were frantically chattering amongst themselves, Buffy pulled William to the side.

“My slayer sense just jumped off the charts William. It’s not just people that are arriving. The vamps are showing up. About two dozen of them, I think.”

William looked down the hill. He couldn’t see much further than the writhing mass of humanity that was rapidly forming a ring around the base of the hill.

Buffy had yanked open her weapon satchel and was tossing weapons to the ground in frustration. “God dammit. These weapons are useless. Even if I killed every one of Dru’s vamps, it wouldn’t matter. A few hundred humans are going to charge the hill and I can’t stop them. There’s going to be a slaughter, either way and you can damn well bet that the vamps won’t care if the blood is from China or Sunnydale. Either way, there’ll be more than enough of the stuff to open the Hellmouth.”

“So, even if we could win, we’d lose.”

“The way it’s set up, yeah. No matter which side ‘wins,’ there isn’t a way to stop the opening.”

She handed him a stake and took one herself. When they looked over the edge of the hill they could see that it was completely surrounded by townspeople several layers deep. Now that they were close, William was surprised to see so many women and children among their numbers. They were armed as well, even the little ones. Not with guns, as he’d come to expect in the west, but with sharp things: knives, hatchets, spears. Items designed to spill blood.

At the forefront stood the mayor, who was engaged in animated conversation with the preacher. Mayor Wilkins seemed to sense them, glanced up the hill and gave them a jaunty wave and a grin.

As William watched the masses swarm around the base of the hill, he felt overwhelmed with an odd feeling of familiarity. Looking down at the figures swarming around the base of the hill, it came to him in a flash.

The dream.

He’d endured the same dream – nightmare, really – since she’d had her memory taken, half a world away on board The Adriatic. He’d seen the two of them, standing on a hilltop, while white figures swarmed toward them. He and Buffy facing their destiny. Their doom.

With sudden clarity he realized it hadn’t been a dream at all. It had been a glimpse into their ending.

“Heaven’s Gate,” Tang called from behind him. “It will protect us.”

“No,” Buffy replied mournfully. “It won’t. This thing isn’t your salvation, Tang. It’s your damnation. I just wish I could explain it to you.”

As it turned out, no explanation was necessary. They followed Tang toward the center stone just as the crowd began to surge away from the thing. The old men that Tang had been speaking with earlier scrambled past them as well, one of the men whimpering quietly to himself as he passed. When William looked around for Tang, he wasn’t to be found; lost in the increasingly frantic crowd.

Once they drew closer to the stone, it was easy to see why the men had scattered. Where the ‘gate’ had been giving off a dull glow earlier, it now shone with a bright blue light. The slashes in the stone’s surface had connected and a glowing doorway appeared. It snapped and sparked with dark energy.

Something was powering the doorway. Whether it was feeding off hate or fear, it was impossible to tell and ultimately, it didn’t really matter. Whatever it was repulsed him, made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. Resisting every instinct within him to flee, he continued to step toward the pulsing stone, Buffy at his side.

A voice cried out in Chinese, then another joined it. The sounds were quickly followed by a low rumbling of voices. Buffy looked at him in panic. They both what the sounds likely meant. The mob below had begun to ascend the hill.

“So do we do nothing? Do we fight them?” Buffy asked.

“No. We … find a way to fight where the battle is not.”

“I’m not sure I know how to do that. At the end of epic battles, you and I always tended to end up … well, dying. If death is my gift, it’s the gift that keeps giving. Why does it always seem to come down to blood?”

A thought came to him, a flash of inspiration and he blurted it out before he could consider it for long. “If this thing, this doorway, is designed to feed off the blood of a massacre, what would happen if we fed it something else?”

“Like what?”

“What would happen if we fed it sacrificial blood, freely given. If instead of feeding off of hate, we offered it … love?”

“If we offered it us?”

He nodded, solemnly.

“It’s almost like when I jumped through the portal to save Dawn. Except then, it might have been the fall that killed me. Here – we just don’t know what’s on the other side.”

“From your experience, what might be?” He had to ask.

“It could be another dimension or another time within this dimension. It might be nothingness. To be honest, William, it might be hell. But no matter what it is, I have to believe that our feeding it the opposite of what it’s supposed to eat is going to mess it up big time.”

He wanted to hold her, kiss her one last time, tell her what the whole thing had meant to him and how she’d transformed his being. But the sounds of the coming mob were growing closer and there was far too much to say to know how to begin.

She looked at him, tears running freely down her face. “I guess there’s one way to find out. You with me in this? Our last big adventure?”

Tenderly, he swept her tears away with his thumbs and nodded at her, smiling. “Always. In sickness and in health and at Hellmouths. I am yours.”

And, simple as that, with hands clasped tightly, they stepped through the doorway.

-The End-

No blinding light

Or tunnels to gates of white

Just our hands clasped so tight

Waiting for the hint of a spark …

Death Cab for Cutie

Author’s note: On to the epilogue.