Three years later
Xander was playing with Will. Or maybe Will was playing with Xander, it was difficult to tell. Will would run around the house as fast as a three-year-old was able, and Xander would run after him, promising to tickle him when he was caught, which only made Will scream and run faster.
Xander was getting very tired. Whenever he stopped to catch his breath, Will would come and poke his knees until he stood up and started running again.
Buffy watched this amusing occurrence from the living room, where she sat, curled up, reading another book. She’d run into a few pretty weird demons last night, and she wanted to find out where they were from.
Will tripped and fell onto the soft carpet and looked up at his mom, surprised, trying to decide whether to cry or not. Xander scooped him up and threw him into the air, tossing him lightly onto the sofa and tickling him. Will plumb forgot to cry and started laughing up a storm. Xander stopped and sat down beside his son. “This kid’s a whirling dervish,” he told his wife breathlessly.
“I see that,” she responded, laughing. Will laughed similarly. He could talk, but he was one of those kids who didn’t like to; he preferred to listen and take in as much as possible. Buffy stared at her son fondly and then returned to her book.
Xander watched her. The last rays of sun were bouncing off her golden hair, making her look like an angel. She wrinkled her brow in confusion and turned the book upside-down, trying to figure out if that was one of the demons she’d run into. She looked perfect to him. She always had. Sixteen years had passed since they’d first met. They were now both in their thirties, and she seemed to become more beautiful with age. It had taken a little while, but Xander fully realized that he was the happiest he could ever have become. He couldn’t have married Anya because, as much as he loved her and still did love her, she wasn’t… her. She wasn’t Buffy. And Buffy was. So Xander was happy.
He looked over at Will, who, in all the excitement, was flopped over on the couch and asleep. Xander smiled, righted his son so he was sleeping more peacefully on the couch. He put a small blanket over him, walked over to Buffy, picked up the book she was reading and threw it aside. She was about to protest, but he silenced such words with a passionate kiss. She responded well. Then she realized he was crying.
“What? What’s wrong?” she whispered.
“I love you so much, Buffy. You’ve made me the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. I’m the happiest I could ever have been. I wouldn’t have changed anything ever because this is perfect. If I died tomorrow…” his voice hitched and he just kissed her again. She stood up and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tight as he stroked her hair.
“I couldn’t have asked for a better anything, Xander,” she whispered back. They stayed that way for a long while, in each other’s arms, just taking in the moment of loving each other and their sleeping son on the sofa.
The doorbell rang.
Buffy pulled away and kissed Xander, wiping her own tears off her face. They kissed for a long time before the doorbell rang again and Buffy remembered why she’d pulled away from the embrace in the first place. “Don’t go anywhere, mister,” she whispered. “I’m not done with you yet.”
She opened the door and stared at her sister’s swollen face, three figures down at a car that wasn’t hers running up toward the house.
“Dawn,” Buffy said in surprise. “God, what happened to your face?”
“Rae’s dead,” she whispered. “Faith’s dead.”
***
“An ascension,” Buffy repeated. “Here. In Cleveland.”
“Right,” Pete confirmed.
Buffy blinked and rose from the table. “They really like me, don’t they?” She swore and punched a wall, which gave way easily.
“Buffy, don’t worry,” Willow told her. “We’ll figure it out. We did last time.”
“Yeah. Last time we had a whole bunch of dynamite and a secret weapon. Giles was here. Angel was here. We had over a thousand students on our side. It’s drastically different this time.”
“Yeah, Buff. This time we’ve got three Slayers, a vampire who’s better than Angel on all accounts, two qualified Watchers and a powerful witch. We’ve given Giles a call and left a message,” Xander provided. “We’ve done all we can.”
“And how, exactly, are we going to kill this thing without dynamite?”
“We’ll figure it out,” Wood said quietly. He wasn’t letting himself mourn Rae’s loss until after the danger was over. His Slayer was also killed in the same battle against the Ascension demons, the same kind that had come after Buffy the night before.
Buffy, though trying to be sympathetic, stared at Wood. “Robin, we can’t just say that. This thing is happening soon, and we can’t just sit around and say that we’ll figure it out. We actually do have to figure it out.”
“And I think the first step to doing that is calming down,” Pete suggested quietly. A silence fell for a few minutes. Buffy sat back down.
“Xander, Willow, Dawn… refresh my memory. Where did we get all those explosives last time?”
“Hey, don’t ask me. I was just a floating ball of energy at that point.”
“I think I used my army training,” Xander said.
“Well, there goes that option,” Buffy said.
“Wait, wait. I wasn’t finished,” Xander protested. “There’s a job site I’m overseeing for the construction of a major apartment building, but the ground is uneven. Like, seriously uneven. We got a bunch of dynamite in today. It’s set to go off for eleven tomorrow morning. I can’t change it, and I can’t move it. But we’ve got some more if that batch is a dud; I can set it up, and it’ll explode with the rest. That’s all I can do, but I swear; it’s a hell of a lot more powerful than the stuff we had when we made the Mayor toast.”
“But we don’t know when this is going to happen.”
“Tomorrow,” Dawn said quietly, looking up from the book she was studying intently. “The timing of the demons, the things they said in their language, the lunar cycle… it all fits. It should, by all accounts, happen tomorrow.”
Buffy looked up at her sister. “Wow, Dawn. Good work. Does it say what time?”
Dawn shook her head. “It says, as the moon sets.”
Pete and Buffy swore simultaneously. “That’s a long time to fight,” Buffy said.
“It takes me out of the game, too.”
“No, it’s not. A long time, I mean,” Kat, Dawn’s Slayer, interjected. “I’m… kind of in love with the study of the lunar cycle, and the moon sets tomorrow morning at ten twenty-six. It’s sort of a weird day.”
Buffy nodded and smiled in relief. “Also, ascensions can only occur during solar eclipses, so you’re good for probably the first twenty minutes of the battle.”
Pete smiled, but then frowned. “Eclipses take that long?”
“Only the ones that people are ascending in,” Xander provided. Something occurred to Buffy and she took Xander’s hand. “Xander, I’m going to need you in this fight, but I don’t need you yet. I want you to take Will, and get him the hell out of town.”
“Where?” Xander asked, understanding.
Wood cleared his throat. “Remember Vi, the Slayer?”
Xander nodded. “Quite well. She was yelling at people on the bus. It was scary.”
“Last I knew, she lived in Akron, just south of here. I’m sure she’d be happy to look after Will for you.”
Both Buffy and Xander looked at Wood and said “thank you” simultaneously. Xander squeezed Buffy’s hand, whispered an “I love you” into her ear and packed a small bag for Will, picking up his still-sleeping form and started to walk out the door.
“Take care,” Buffy called after him.
He nodded and smiled and his perfect wife. “I will. You too, okay?”
Kennedy nodded. “So, we’ve got ourselves a plan. Did I correctly hear something about a blow-torch?” she asked.
***
Dawn walked through the hall to get back into the living room. Pete was standing in the shadows, waiting for her. She jumped. “Geez, Pete. You think it’s funny when I do that, don’t you?” she asked him playfully, stepping forward and kissing him deeply. He answered, but pulled back after a second and looked at her with painful eyes.
“Dawn, there’s something… we have to talk about.”
Dawn didn’t like the look in his eyes. She decided to ignore it. “Sorry, Pete. I’m busy. Looking for a specific book, the… something chronicles. The Soporific Chronicles? No, that can’t be right…”
“I’m leaving after the ascension.”
Dawn whipped her head around to stare at her seven-year boyfriend. “What?”
“You’re probably the best thing that ever happened to me. I’ve never loved anything this much before, and more than anything I want to have children with you so your beauty continues in the world.”
Dawn tearfully shook her head. “No… no… you’re joking.”
“But I can’t give you that. We can’t get married, I can’t see you in the sunlight, and we can’t have kids. I know how much you want them, Dawn…”
“But I want you more,” she interrupted.
“Yes. Now. But you’re young. You’re twenty-seven. You’re gorgeous. You’re at the peak of your career and your life and your beauty and you’re spending most of your time sitting in the dark with a vampire.”
“Pete, I love you. That’s all there is.”
“But that’s not all there could be. I’ve made up my mind, Dawnie. I love you too much to let you squander your life away for me. That’s not how it works. I’m never going to find anyone near as amazing as you. You have to know that. But you’re too important…”
Dawn’s tears turned into quiet sobs. “Pete…”
The vampire started crying, too. “I’m sorry, Dawn. I’m so sorry,” he said through his light British accent and left the house, grabbing his duster and striding away.
Buffy heard her sister’s tears and hurried into the living room. “Dawn, what is it? What’s wrong?”
“He’s just like Angel,” she muttered, crying in her sister’s arms. “He’s leaving after the ascension for the same stupid reason.”
Buffy smiled grimly. “If Angel hadn’t left me, I wouldn’t be here with a man whom I love completely and a son that is everything I ever wanted. But it hurts, Dawn. I remember.”
“I’m not sure I can…” she managed before dissolving completely, clinging to Buffy as though she was the only thing standing between her and dying.
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