NOVEMBER 10, 2028- NEW HOPE CEMETERY

Joni patrolled this cemetery last. Ever since she lost her Daddy, the nightly duty of patrol had lost its sparkle. Perhaps it was because she knew her Daddy wouldn’t be lurking amidst the mausoleums, his eyes glinting with pride, waiting to give her pointers he, and she, knew she didn’t need.

She was so much like her Mom. Her Daddy kept telling her that. For her, he said, slaying was like breathing.

If that was true, why did her chest hurt so much?

He even had a tombstone. He was just dust, like all the vamps she’d ever dusted. He didn’t need a marker, there was nothing to bury. When the end finally came, the sight had filled her with horror. One second, her Daddy was lying on his bed, his face a mask of pain, and the next, he’d dissolved into nothing but ash. All of the sudden he wasn’t there anymore.

It had all happened so quietly. Joni felt certain there would be some kind of noise. This was her Daddy, after all. But there wasn’t. He just left.

No, he didn’t need a stone. But he had one. Her Mom insisted on it. He wasn’t just any vampire, he was her husband, and he deserved some kind of acknowledgement.

As she walked closer to the part of the grounds that she dreaded, a fog seemed to roll in. It enveloped the whole graveyard, and made it difficult to see.

Joni squinted to see through it, and what she saw made her blood boil. Someone was there. She felt like screaming. But something stopped her.

There was something familiar about the man bent over her Daddy’s stone. The man that knelt there was lean and angular. Even under the ankle-length duster he wore to protect him from the early November chill, she could see he was lithe like a dancer.

But what made her heart skip a beat, was the white hair that cut through the blinding fog.

It was like something out of a dream. Or, maybe it was a nightmare, like something from her childhood. Before she was conscious of it, her feet were carrying her toward the thing that couldn’t be. The sound of her heartbeat rushed in her ears. It kept perfect time with her footsteps and the word was out of her mouth before she could stop it, “Daddy!”

Joni held her breath as the man turned toward the sound of her voice, and she was shocked to see her Daddy’s blue eyes meet hers. It was her Daddy. It was. And he was so real.

Then she blinked, and the magic ended. And it was Homer standing there taking care of her Daddy, just like he promised.

“Joni?” Homer asked, “What are you doing here this time of night?”

She lightly fingered the stake in her pocket as she watched the older man stand with difficulty. He stretched his muscles slowly, wincing as they protested, sending pain in response to his commands.

Joni smiled. Sometimes when she was a little girl she would play pretend and imagine what her Daddy would have looked like if he were allowed to grow old. And Homer looked just like that.

Joni could hear his bones creaking as he stood and she knew why she was here. She was here to protect men like him from evil things because he couldn’t protect himself. She shrugged in answer to his question, “Habit?”

There was something in the way he smiled that sang through her blood, “You don’t sound very convinced, little one.”

“Well I…” she stopped speaking when she saw him grimace in pain, and her heart seized. The empty feeling kept her still even though every nerve in her screamed at her to help him, “Are you all right?” she asked.

“Yes,” he assured her, “It’s just these old bones. Sometimes I feel older than I look. Is everything all right with you?” he glanced at the green patch in front of them. It had been solid green for weeks, and he was concerned. The marigolds had stopped. And he missed them, very much. “Is your mother well?”

She lowered her head, “No. She hasn’t been the same since…” she turned her eyes slowly to the stone.

Homer nodded, “I understand. When my Elisabeth left,” he mused, “I was never the same again. It was like all the light went out of my world and I knew I’d spent the rest of my days in shadow.”

“It’s like that for my Mom, too. It’s like she’s living in a constant eclipse,” she looked at Homer with a questioning face, “Have you ever seen an eclipse?”

He smiled a sad smile, “Yes. I’ve seen a few.”

“Well, for her, it’s like that. All the light’s gone,” Joni stifled a sob, “I don’t even think she remembers how to breathe. She’s so lost, and my Daddy wouldn’t want that for her. I know he wouldn’t. How do I help her?”

The plea in her eyes made him want to scream. But he had made a promise, “Tell me,” he said.
*****************************

DECEMBER 2, 2027-NEW ENGLAND

He’d brought them here so that she could see the colors. When she had her sight back, the first thing he wanted her to see was the color of the change of seasons. And she did. She saw brilliant oranges, fiery reds, blazing gold, cool greens and soothing white. She saw everything with new eyes.

Maybe that was because of the joy he took in watching her live again. Everything he did made her feel more alive, like she couldn’t breathe without him.

And now the light was dimming. Slowly, slowly down to dark. Now her world was greying out.

The grey light of morning was slipping through the window, but Buffy didn’t notice. She knew that these were her final hours with him. She didn’t know how she knew but she did.

She also knew that the Slayers owed their very lives to him. Again.

In the history books, the name William Alistair Dustin would go down with the likes of Jonas Salk. “Lace” had been eradicated due to the vaccine he’d developed. William the Bloody had, in the end, saved more Slayers than he ever killed.

Buffy cursed herself a thousand times for not listening to the Shadow Men all those years ago. If she had, then maybe Spike wouldn’t be lying in that room now, in so much pain it physically hurt her to watch him struggle. And he wouldn’t be struggling now, if it hadn’t been for her brilliant stratagem.

An army of Slayers; what a brilliant idea that was. If only she’d known. She would have saved him so much pain.

Spike always told her that she had a bit of a demon in her. He said that was what made her a good Slayer. And now thanks to him it was true.

Thanks to Spike, all of the Slayers had a bit of a demon in them. The demon was the key to the virus. It was what kept her alive.

And in return, she was killing him.

He once told her she was a little bit in love with death. He’d recognized it before she did because he was too.

Joni watched her mother shiver in the grey light that seeped through the haze of death that hung over the house. Daddy and she had tried so hard to make this a place of life and color. And they had.

As she went through the photographs of her mind’s eye, everything was saturated with such vibrant color. The life and laughter that she grew up with was so bright that the world outside paled in comparison. Her Daddy had done his best to make a world for her. A world full of the things he couldn’t have.

And now she wondered what would happen to that world once he left. Would it be dimmer, somehow? This house already was.

Joni slipped silently in beside her mother, and took her hand. Joni wasn’t even sure she had noticed. Her eyes never left the grey mist of fog that seemed to hang over the house now. She just stared out into space, her voice was stilted and raw, “He wanted you to have everything, Joni. He wanted you to have the best.”

“I did Mom,” she said in a hushed tone, “I had the best. I still do. I have the best, Mom. I have you,” her eyes bobbed on a sea of unshed tears, her Daddy wouldn’t want her tears, “And I still have Daddy.”

Joni could see the pain in her eyes as Buffy looked at her, “He was right, Joni. They all go by so fast, and it’s really not enough.”

“What isn’t, Mom?”

“The years. It’s not enough. We’ve been married a little longer than you’ve been alive Joni,” Buffy heaved a heavy sigh as tears rolled down her face, “Nearly twenty-three years, and it still isn’t enough. “Twenty-three years,” she shook her head in a wash of memories, “and in love much longer than that,” she slowly wiped the tears away, “Although you’d never know it from the way I treated him,” her eyes sparkled with a far away light, “I think I loved him the minute I s-saw him.”

“Daddy’s still here, Mom. You can still tell him,” she nodded toward his sickroom, “Daddy still loves you,” she choked back a sob, “Tell him, Mommy. Give him a reason. Please, he needs it!”

Her eyes widened with fright, “No Joni, I can’t go in there!” Buffy’s breath came in strangled gasps, “I can’t watch. Oh, God,” she gulped, “I can feel it. But, I can’t watch.”

Joni tried to keep the anger she felt in check. She had to remember that her Mom loved him too. This was just as hard, maybe harder for her Mom than it was for her, “But Mom, when you were sick, Daddy never left you. I was little, but I remember. He never left your side. He never left you alone.”

“I know,” Buffy sniffed, “I remember. But,” she could no longer hold the sob back, “your Father’s always been stronger than me.”

Her Mother’s weakness hurt Jonina in a place she didn’t know could hurt, “I understand, Mommy,” she lied, “I’ll go,” she said as she slipped into his room to say goodbye.
**********************

OCTOBER 17, 2005

Angel opened his eyes and everything hurt. To the people in the hospital, the confrontation in the stairwell may have looked like nothing more than a heated argument. The pain in Angel’s body however, said that it was something more.

Spike was giving him a warning. He loved that child. And he loved Buffy. He was putting Angel on notice. Nothing, not even the fires of Hell, would keep him from protecting the people he chose to think of as his family.

Because of that, people were going to die.
*******************

Spike was still trying to shake off the feeling of disgust that shrouded him after his encounter with Angel when he entered the Jennings Street complex.

It didn’t take long for his senses to tell him that something was wrong. They screamed at him as he raced to find Buffy, calling her name as he navigated swiftly through the twists and turns.

When he got to the point his heart led him to, he dropped to his knees in horror. Buffy was unconscious on the floor, the telephone receiver three feet away.

His mind raced. The first thought that flashed across his mind was Joyce. He’d known that Joyce had died quickly, of a brain aneurysm. She had died, and no amount of speed could have saved her.

If it had been anyone but Buffy lying there, his vampire senses would have picked up the steady pulse. But Spike’s brain had gone into sensory overload.

He took in the paleness of her face, and his world narrowed to the tiny rhythmic movement of the skin of her neck. The blood rushed up and back again to make its presence known, and he sighed with relief.

He didn’t sense any other injuries. She’d fainted.

When she moaned, he grabbed her up and held her tight, touching her face lightly as he sighed, “Oh bloody Hell, Love, if I weren’t already, oh God, you make a bloke’s heart stop, you do, what with the tricks you pull!”
****************************************

IN THE INTERREGNUM-HOME OFFICE

Holland took a deep breath. With a risk as big as this one was, failure was a possibility. He just hated broaching the subject with the Senior Partners.

He addressed the sea of charcoal suits, “Well gentlemen, it seems our carefully laid apocalypse, the one we’ve been working for eons to accomplish may have been scuttled by one little girl. It’s unfortunate. It may be time to bring out ‘Plan B.’ It is a touch more heavy-handed, but it gets the job done.”