CHAPTER THREE

“Guys, it worked.” Buffy said, excitedly, bursting into her mother’s sewing room where Wesley and Tara had performed the healing spell. “Oops.” She added, when she took in the scene before her.

Wesley and Tara were entwined in each other’s arms, on the floor in the centre of a protection circle. They had both been crying.

“It’s alright, Buffy,” Wesley said, extricating himself. “It’s not what it looks like; I’m really not Tara’s type.”

“No.” Tara agreed, with a shy laugh, “It’s just the healing spell was more powerful than we expected.”

“We find we have a lot in common.” Wesley said, “Family issues.”

“Oh.” Buffy said, realizing that they probably wouldn’t elaborate. “Mom’s better, you did a wonderful job. Thank you so much.”

“I’m glad to help.” Tara said, with a smile, “Magic, light or dark, always has consequences. Your mother’s mind must have fought very hard against the forgetting spell.”

“No more tumour, now?” Buffy asked, realizing that Tara sounded so much more confident than before.

“No more tumour.” Wesley confirmed. “For her, the forgetting spell never happened. You can go back to England and be with her.”

“What about you?” Buffy asked.

“To L.A., to begin with, to pick up my things from your mother’s friend. Afterwards, I don’t know.”

“Can I come to L.A. with you?” Tara asked, unexpectedly. “My f-family have told me this huge lie, my whole life and now… I don’t want to see them, not ‘til I‘ve had time to think. I’d be too easy for them to find, here in Sunnydale…”

“I would be happy to have you along.” Wesley said, with a very genuine smile.

* * * * *

EPILOGUE

The official story was terrorism, after days of media speculation; a large device intended for L.A., prematurely detonated. How else - everyone agreed - could a small unimportant town like Sunnydale end up as a desolate smoking crater with the total loss of the lives of its population?

Buffy knew better. The dreams had told her everything…

…She had been floating over Sunnydale, falling down and down and then she was fighting, a stake in one hand and a sword in the other; tendrils of her (Faith’s) dark hair whipping around in front of her eyes. She was below ground, in a brightly lit place full of prison cells, science, soldiers and demons. There was heat and blood and screaming and a pain in her (Faith’s) heart as she visualized what her Forrest had become - dead but walking; parts of him replaced with parts harvested from demons, his silky ebony skin dulled with death, his eyes... The inhuman-ness of what looked out of his still human eyes was far worse than what had been done to the rest of his body; even the replacement lower jaw and cranium... Her pain fuelled the fury that drove her fighting.

She knew what was supposed to have happened. Adam had had it all planned; maximum carnage, thanks to Faith The Vampire Slayer, no shortage of body parts for his army of abominations. She would not let that happen. Forrest didn’t know that she knew; his mumbling in his sleep about the failsafe, as his subconscious troubled him, had never been discussed. That meant that Adam didn’t know that she knew. That meant that she had a chance. She knew about the failsafe - she knew the codes - she didn’t know what would happen when the button was pushed - but she knew that it had to be done, no matter what…

White light.

Everything organic dissolved in the initial blast; the shock wave setting off a massive device in the exact centre of town. More shock waves. The ground rippling outwards, turbulence making softness from solid; buildings falling, people dying, Hell opening. The waves hit the edge of town in a vast circle and travel back. Nothing left alive. Nothing. No Thing.

* * * * *

Almost everyone Buffy cared about had left Sunnydale well before ‘The Event’ as the papers were calling it.

Wesley had called from L.A. to confirm that he, Tara and Dalton were all still as well as could be expected for a demon hunting knitwear designer and his friends. Wesley had fallen neatly into Joyce’s trap in L.A. - her friend had turned out to be a buyer for a fashion house who was willing to pay top money for quality knitwear.

Joyce herself called Buffy from London, where her small art gallery (with an apartment above, bought with money from the sales of her house and Spike’s properties in Sunnydale) would have a grand opening in a few weeks.

“Ben.” Joyce said, her tears evident in her voice.

“Ben from the hospital?” Buffy made a choking sound as she remembered. “He was so kind to me, when you went missing.”

“He was so patient, he’d listen to me while I tried to remember you and the life I should have had…”

“I feel so guilty,” Buffy said, “I was just so relieved that Willow, Xander and the others, weren‘t… I never even thought about all your friends, mom. The rest of Sunnydale.”

“So many good people… all gone…”

* * * * *

“You shouldn’t feel guilty, pet.” Spike said, later, when they were cuddled up in bed. “We both connected with Faith, in your Slayer dream; she did the only thing she could to save the world.”

“She didn’t know…”

“She knew that she would die, she knew that the base would go up and all the demon things would be ended. She didn’t know that all of Sunnydale was rigged to blow but she did know that if she didn’t act, that the whole world would be at risk.”

“What were the scientists thinking?” Buffy shuddered at the memory of the images she had seen in Faith’s head. Adam strutting around like Frankenstein’s monster but without the tragic sub-text; a human woman - obviously part of the science staff - dead but walking, hunched with the weight of a pumping machine on her back, chemicals in clear tubes circulating into her body in a semblance of blood.

“Never thought I’d say it but it was a good thing the military were involved. They made sure that the project could be terminated, quickly and cleanly, if it went wrong.”

“Cleanly.” Buffy echoed, remembering how it had felt for Faith, as her skin melted. Over in an instant but Buffy would never forget.

“They couldn’t risk the things getting out…”

“They’ve done this before?” Buffy asked, as she caught an image in Spike’s memory.

“Not this exact thing…” Spike squirmed as he realized what was coming.

“During the war… there was a submarine… Angel was there…”

“Yeah.”

“You were captured…” Buffy frowned as Spike tried to block the memory. “At a virgin blood party.” She started to laugh, then and Spike knew that she’d be alright.

“Really ugly virgins.” They both said, together and held each other as they both dissolved into fits of giggles.

THE END