Author’s Notes: A big thank you once again to Kar and to all my readers. I’m posting the last two chapters. It has been quite a ride. Thank you all so much. Credit for the poem go to Kahlil Gibran.

In our twentieth installment there is continuing fallout.

Chapter Twenty: Fix It

Buffy stared at the chunks of Warren in front of her and felt simultaneously disgusted and pleased. She knew that she should be horrified or feel sorry for Warren or something. Something other than being glad he was dead. There should be something in her head other than a voice reminding her that the thing in pieces before her had torn out her heart.

“Oh, goddess,” Willow sagged against the wall as Buffy staggered forward to grab the axe. She felt drawn to it, as though it were hers.

"Willow, we should..." As the words came out of her mouth Buffy realized that, actually she had no idea what they should do. She didn't want Willow's life to be over because of this. At the same time, Willow obviously needed help or discipline or... she wished Giles was there.

"It didn't change anything," Willow wept. "I'm so stupid. I thought it would, I don't know... but it didn't do anything. Xander is still dead."

Buffy used the scythe-thingy as a cane and hobbled over to Willow. She slung her good arm around her friend. "I know."

Willow shook her head. "There has to be a way to fix it."

Buffy felt a sickening sense of deja-vu. "No, Willow, that's a bad, bad idea."

"Not what I did for you," Willow interrupted. She drew herself up and faced Buffy down. "I have a better idea this time."

And then *blink* she was no longer under Buffy's arm. She tumbled forward and cursed. Whatever Willow was planning, Buffy had to stop it.

"Police! Freeze!"

Oh, super.

Buffy needed a plan. This was the Sunnydale PD after all. Not exactly the brainiest detectives here. She just needed something convincing.

She grabbed at her bloody arm. "Oh, thank God you're here! He was going to kill me!"

Fighting against the growing agony her wound was causing, she spun a tale of shooting, kidnapping, and self-defense. She could tell some of them weren't buying it, but then one whispered something in another's ear and she could clearly make out one word: slayer.

Suddenly they were all agree to believe that she'd been the one who left blood all over the kitchen counter, and a neighbor had seen a black van fleeing the scene. It was close enough to the truth that they could believe it. It was less of a stretch than gangs on PCP after all.

"We'll need to take that into evidence," one of the officers said, gesturing to indicate her axe.

Buffy felt a pang as she handed it over. "Okay," she allowed. "But I'm going to need that back."


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Dawn had just finished locking up when Willow popped into the center shop. "Gah!"

"Sorry Dawnie," Willow muttered as she rushed past her and started ransacking the shelves for herbs.

"Hey!" Dawn objected.

"Just keep out of the way," Willow snapped. "I've got work to do."

"What are you doing?" she demanded, flinching as Willow tossed a canister over her shoulder.

"I'm going to fix it."

Dawn felt a frission of hope but tamped it down. "Fix what, Willow? You can't... you can't make Xander alive again."

Willow sighed. "I know," she sighed. "So I'm going to make it so it didn't happen." Dawn felt pinned by Willow's gaze. "I was there, Dawnie. I could have stopped him. This time I will."

"You can... you can do that?" Dawn tried to sort out the terror and hope that Willow's words had inspired.

"Guess we're about to find out," Willow announced cheerfully. She assembled the ingredients on the table and one of the books on the wall thwapped down beside the assorted herbs. Willow carried the heavy clock from Anya's desk and placed it next to the book.

Dawn's curiosity got the better of her and she stepped slowly to the table. She watched as Willow crumbled leaves to release their pungent scents and lit a trio of candles. Then the chanting began and Dawn felt the floor under her feet shift.

"I invoke thee, Saturn, father of time. Hear my plea..."

Dawn felt the words wash over her as Willow alternated between English and Latin. The floor underneath her was beginning to shift. So much power, she mused. With Xander gone, she was the only one left who didn't know what it was like to be full of such fantastic potential.

Everyone gave Willow a hard time about her spells going wonky but that wasn't really what happened. If anything her spells worked too well. When she cast that her ‘Will Be Done’, her every whim had been played out. She'd tried to sprinkle a little forgetfulness and had wiped out all their memories. If anyone could make time run backward, it was Willow.

And now, stuck inside the swirling darkness with Willow, Dawn watched as something subtle played over the witch's face. Was it... smoothing out? Was her hair changing?

Dawn felt a tingling in her fingers and toes. It reminded her of the sensation the champagne at the wedding had given her, all fizzy and weightless. Her limbs began to feel hollow.

Then a sudden horror hit her.

The spell wasn't making her feel fizzy, the spell was turning her into fizz. She was dissipating. Willow was going too far, like always.

"Willow, you have to stop! You're going too far back!"

But Willow didn't seem to hear her. "...audite meus placitum... Cronos, hear my plea..."

Have to stop her Dawn told herself frantically, trying to figure out how the hell she was going to accomplish that.

Willow turned her face to the ceiling and lifted her arms. "Sinus vicis ut meus mos! So mote it--"

Dawn panted as the fizzing sensation left her arms and the room stopped swirling with fog. She dropped the chair she'd bashed across the back of Willow's skull and touched her finger lightly to the witch's neck. Once she was sure Willow was going to be okay, she pushed her slack body into a chair and limped to the desk.

"9-1-1. Please state the nature of your emergency."

"What day is it?"

"It's Tuesday. Miss--"

"The date, I need the date."

"It's May 21st, 2002. Is this a prank?"

"No, no prank. I'm sorry."

"Then what is the nature of the emergency."

Dawn gulped. "My friend. She hit her head pretty hard. I just want to make sure she's going to be okay." She looked at the picture of Xander and Anya in their wedding finery on the desk.

"Otherwise everything is normal."


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"To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die..."

Willow could barely bring herself to lift her head off Buffy's shoulder. Through the curtain of her friend's hair she could see Dawn and Tara holding up Anya. Giles and Joyce stood nearby, both starting intently at the headstone. The Harrises looked sour and sad on opposite sides of the grave from one another.

The grave.

Xander's grave. Alexander LaVelle Harris. Beloved husband, son, friend. Hero.

When the reverend stopped, Willow realized it was her turn. She stood, still gripping Buffy's hand for support. Buffy, who hadn't turned her in, who had been willing to send herself to prison but not her friend. But, who had called in Giles, who would be taking her back to England for counseling. Willow wasn't entirely sure she wanted the Council's counseling, but everyone agreed she needed help. Even if they all understood her motives. And seemed in a twisted way almost proud of her.

Excepting Tara. She caught the other witch's eye and felt fresh tears at the disappointment she saw there. Buffy's grip on her hand tightened and Willow realized they were waiting for her. She pulled the note card from her pocket, but she didn't need it. She'd committed the words to memory.

"I have passed a mountain peak and my soul is soaring in the Firmament of complete and unbound freedom;

I am far, far away, my companions, and the clouds are
hiding the hills from my eyes.

The valleys are becoming flooded with an ocean of silence, and the Hands of oblivion are engulfing the roads and the houses;

The prairies and fields are disappearing behind a white specter that looks like the spring cloud, yellow as the candlelight and red as the twilight.

The songs of the waves and the humans of the streams
are scattered, and the voices of the throngs reduced to silence; And I can hear naught but the music of Eternity in exact harmony with the spirit's desires.

I am cloaked in full whiteness;

I am in comfort; I am in peace."

She turned back and saw Buffy's face lifted up, the sunlight glinting off her tears. "Yes," she affirmed with the utter conviction of one who had been there. "Yes he is."

Willow knew any moment she was going to be unintelligible. Before the tears completely closed her throat, she managed to whisper in her friend's ear, "Then we'll leave him in peace."


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