A/N:
Thanks to my great beta DreamsofSpike.
Remember to review.

Disclaimer: I don't own the BtVS and AtS characters.

Title is from Green Day's "Wake me up when September ends".
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A medium-built man moved cautiously towards an empty table. His eyes were on the floor and he was shivering in fear. He stopped in front of the table and bowed low, nearly dropping the papers he clutched in one hand. He swallowed loudly and straightened up, but still kept his eyes on the floor.

Job was not exactly a smart man, but neither was he stupid. He had learned to never look upon his mistress, except when she told him to, and that had never happened. She didn’t like to have her employees’ eyes on her.

Employee wasn’t really the right word for what he was to her, however. No, he and the others were more like minions, Job thought, then quickly thought of something else. It was rumoured that his mistress could read minds, and having him think anything that might be possibly interpreted as negative against her would surely cause her to kill him.

Job was the ‘head minion’, so to speak. He was in charge of the others, and the one who had the most contact with their mistress, except maybe Mary who cared for the demon spawn.

Mary said she was just a girl, but normal kids did not have eyes like gold, nor did they speak like she did. Job was sure she was some sort of demon spawn, but he was wise enough to not voice these thoughts aloud. His mistress had some sort of ‘thing’ for the abomination, and she would surely have his head for saying anything bad about the kid.

“What do the reports say today, Job?” Her voice broke through his thoughts and he flushed slightly, yet at the same time swelling with something akin to joy. Even though he feared his mistress, he worshipped her as well.

“N…no…not much, Mistress,” he stuttered, fumbling with his papers.

The woman standing behind the dining table looked at him with hard, black eyes and raised a perfectly manicured brow. She was sorely tempted to kill him, but even as incompetent as he was, he was still the best of her servants. She sighed internally, and drummed her fingers on the back of a chair.

“Miss Baker went slaying with her watcher, but she killed only a few fledgling vampires. We are still missing some components to the ritual, but we’ll soon be ready,” Job said, fingers trembling. He bowed low, then retreated as quickly as he could without running.

Mahira stood still until the man had left the room. After the door had been closed she snarled and closed the hand she had resting on the back of a chair. It broke with a snap, but when she turned her hand around no splinters were embedded in her skin.

“Eshin,” she muttered and the chair was standing there intact. The incompetence of her servants angered her, made her blood boil for their deaths and her fingers itch to be buried in their brains.

She waved her hand and a small humanoid creature appeared in front of her, sprawled on the floor. Its skin had a blue hue, and ragged black hair hung in matted dreadlocks down its back. Lilac eyes regarded her with fear, and it began babbling in an unknown language.

Mahira looked at this with revulsion and curled her lip in disgust. She had not cared what she transported up from the cell in the basement, but now that she saw what it was, she nearly regretted it.

Its flabby feet were drawn up to its body, but the hands were clasped in front of it, as if pleading. The Juyan were from a dark dimension, one of countless ones she had visited. They were slaves to the Dark Warriors, humanoid creatures always fighting each other.

“Sucha, sucha…” it begged, spit seeping from its wide mouth.

Mahira sneered. The beast actually had the nerve to ask her, in the Dark Warriors’ language, for mercy. It was a word no Dark Warrior spoke except to taunt his opponents.

She bent low over the creature and buried four fingers in its chest, making it howl in pain. The whine was high pitched and she cursed, her other hand going to its mouth. She got a grip on the creature’s tongue and yanked, pulling the thing free and spraying the front of her dress with black blood. The Juyan gurgled, blood pooling in its mouth, before passing out.

“They’re no fun when they don’t feel the pain,” she said to herself, before finishing the creature by breaking its neck.

She turned and walked away from the beast, muttering a spell to clean herself. By the time she had turned back around, servants were on their knees and scrubbing the floors, removing the blood. She sneered at them, but paid them no more heed. They were beneath her concern.

She turned her thoughts to Job, her chief servant. He still lacked respect for her. Oh, he didn’t speak until spoken to, nor did he look at her, but he still did things like leaving before she had dismissed him. He seemed to think she should accept it, but she wouldn’t if he did it again.

Who did he think she was? Some simple human being, or maybe a witch from this dimension who liked to travel among other dimensions? If that was what he thought, he was sorely mistaken.

She had killed Fahir Deathpriest at the gates of Huar’no Kyan. She had flayed Jaxir Darkhand and his brother Ingix Blackstaff. She had defeated Uuon the Victorious and his army at the Mountain of Blood. She had even killed Glorificus and her ridiculous human host.

She was Mahira Godslayer.

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Giles went through his morning ritual at the book shop, busying himself with routine preparations before opening the shop in two hours. He had had a rough night, unable to sleep. Memories of the blonde slayer and how he had betrayed her had repeated in his head, making him toss and turn into the early hours.

Allowing himself to think about her would not make up for what he had done. Not that it seemed to matter whether or not he intended to think of her; he was constantly reminded of her everywhere he went.

After Buffy and her mate had left, Giles, Travers and the other men had fled to London, where they hoped no one had heard about their failure. They were not so lucky, and arrived to find that Travers had been demoted from his position as Head of the Council, and Giles and the others were under investigation.

The wet team had been sacked by the Council of Watchers and paid not to speak of what had happened to anyone.

Giles had been severely reprimanded, but they determined that he had only been acting on order, so he still got to remain a watcher. He was forced to stay in London for five years and tell the Council everything he had learned from both of the unique vampires. After that he left as fast as he could, vowing to never set foot inside the Council again unless forced to.

He had disliked the Council when he returned with Travers, yet they made him stay, both as punishment, and so that he could be present at the trial against Travers. The trial had been long, tiring and shocking. He had learned things about slayers, vampires and demons he never would have imagined.

Suffice it to say that that knowledge was the source of many of his sleepless nights.

It had ended with Travers being demoted to watcher and then exiled to his summer residence.

Not that he had gone silently.

He had raged and ranted, shouting and swearing. He had revealed things about others that made Giles pity them, and things that made him fear some others.

Now, Giles had lived in Sunnydale again for the last four years, keeping mainly to himself and some new acquaintances of his. He occasionally saw Xander or Willow and their partners, but he somewhat avoided Mrs. Summers, who still blamed him for her driving her daughter out of Sunnydale.

He usually agreed with her.

The last six months he had talked almost daily with the current Slayer and her watcher. Eileen seemed to be a good slayer, and Oscar Woodham was a great watcher. Before meeting, Giles had known of him, as the other watcher had been Head Boy and best in his year.

Even though they talked often, he couldn’t help but feel as if the other watcher regarded him as a disgrace. Of course, almost all the other watchers thought the same. He knew he was a disgrace; he had been since the others had learned of how he had betrayed his Slayer.

Some of the older watchers thought him to be a disgrace for being *caught* betraying his charge, while most of the younger ones only thought him so because he had betrayed her at all.

After Travers had been demoted, a new Head of the Council had been appointed. The young Helen Chambers was in charge of the Council of Watchers now, and many watchers thought her to be the best leader ever. It was widely known that she had grown up with little money, and many of the idealistic watchers applauded her for setting up a fund for each slayer.

Giles had to admit she was quite good.

Giles looked at his watch and his eyes widened. He went to the front of the shop and unlocked the door, then retreated behind the counter. Soon after the first few customers started coming through the door, Giles became too occupied to think about the Council and Buffy…at least for a little while.

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Timea sat playing with a doll, dragging a brush repeatedly through her black hair. She hummed while doing it, and was so concentrated on what she was doing that she didn’t hear her maid come in.

Mary stood watching the small girl play with her dolls, a faint smile on her lips. She could tell she was humming, but it was no lullaby she had ever heard before.

She knew what some of the other servants thought about the little girl, and she found it ridiculous. The girl was no demon spawn, nor a beast. She was a special little girl, who had experienced more than what those thrice her age had.

The little girl had stopped brushing the doll’s hair and was absentmindedly staring out into space, her eyes unfocused. She was lost in memories, reliving some part of her past.


“Marcus, take Timea and run. They are here!” a panicked voice said.

Timea could only make out a few of her features. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and a scar on her cheek.

Timea was lifted up and carried in a tight embrace, the man carrying her running and breathing heavily.

“Take it easy, darling, mommy will follow any minute,” the man said. He had brown hair and brown eyes; it was something Timea could clearly remember.

What happened next was all jumbled together.

“Come on, baby girl. Just us now. We gotta go,” her father said, and they continued running.

She knew her mother wasn’t with them any longer, and that she would never come back. Even though she was just a little girl, she knew more than most people could fathom.

“Daddy, I didn’t mean to be like this,” she said in a whisper, which made him stop and stare at her with shocked eyes.

“Don’t say that. You are our girl, we love you, no matter what you do,” he said harshly, before continuing running.

A little later they hid in a dingy motel room. Timea slept, while her father watched over them. He couldn’t sleep; he knew he would only see his dead wife.

When it was nearing dawn he awoke from sleeping against the wall. He cursed himself for falling asleep, then cursed again as he realized that he heard neither the traffic nor the usual city life. He quickly awoke Timea and they nearly had the bathroom window open when the door was opened with magic.

“Trying to hide the Key from me? You silly human, no one can defy Glorificus,” a woman said in an arrogant voice. She stepped through the room and grabbed Timea before her father could even react. She held the girl with one hand, and backhanded her father with the other. He impacted with the wall and slumped unconscious to the floor.

“Kill him,” she said as she turned away and left.


“Timea, dear, are you all right?” Mary said, rushing forward to the girl who now lay twitching on the floor. She had tears streaming from her eyes, but she made no sound.

“The Magnificent has fallen, yet the home is not safe,” she said in a calm voice, fixing her golden eyes on Mary. The woman drew her close, and began humming, hoping to stop her tears.

“But do not despair, hope is here,” Timea whispered, then drew back and smiled at Mary.

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“I can’t see how you’d think that. I mean, come on, it was a great movie,” a young, blonde woman said, her elbows on the table. She was leaning towards her companion, her cup of coffee forgotten. Her hazel eyes sparkled with fire and her mouth was set in a slight pout.

“Yeah, the movie was great an’ all that, but did we have to see it four times?” her companion asked, sighing. His blue eyes were filled with love for the woman sitting across the table from him, but at the moment he was a little frustrated. Bloody woman, sometimes he wondered if she was just there to torment him.

That was usually when she proved him wrong.

“Okay, end of discussion. Let’s talk about something else,” Buffy said, glancing down at the table. She noticed the Styrofoam cup she had forgotten, and she grinned in delight. She emptied it and set it back down, wondering if she should get another one.

“Wanna go say ‘hi’ to your mum and Alfredo now, or should we do that a bit later?” Spike asked her. She frowned, not sure what she wanted to do. She told him so and he smiled at her.
“How ‘bout we go after we’ve gotten you another cup of coffee?” he asked her, grinning when she nodded. He got up and went to the counter, ordering another one. He came back a few minutes later and set the cup down in front of her.

“Do you think Rebecca will be surprised when we show up?” Buffy asked, sipping her coffee. She was excited about the upcoming wedding, and couldn’t wait to see her stepfather and sister’s face when she and Spike showed up. Joyce had known they were coming back, but had promised not to say anything.

“You know, I never did find a dress that I wanted to wear for the wedding before we left,” Buffy mused out loud, making Spike groan. He rolled his eyes and sighed.

“Well, you can probably take your Mum with you tomorrow,” Spike said, hoping that his mate wouldn’t make him go to. He had clothes, and she knew it. She just liked to torment him.

“I so do not!” Buffy said huffily, having caught his private comment.

She scowled at him, then slapped him lightly on his shoulder. He pouted and rubbed the spot where she had smacked him. He wanted to laugh at the expression on her face but he didn’t, knowing that would just irritate her further. He liked to see her all flushed in anger, but he liked it more when she was laughing.

Which she wasn’t doing right now.

The scowl had faded from her face, instead she wore a shocked expression. Spike frowned, but then followed her gaze and saw what had surprised her.

Just outside, on the pavement, stood a woman, a child and a man. The woman was clearly of Hispanic descent, with brown eyes and black hair. The kid, a boy about two or three years old, had brown eyes and ruffled, brown hair. He was holding the hand of a man, who was clearly an older version of her once beloved friend Xander…and he was staring through the window, right at Buffy.