Willow knelt down with the batch of fresh flowers towards the grave. It smelt of the fresh dew of a summer morning in California < Great, a nice day at a cemetery, How utterly Sunnydale! >. She brushed the face of the grave marker, and found a small pebble and put it atop the stone. There were only two others, both were from Wil’s previous visits. Her gaze locked on the words:
Ozwald Hardee
1976-1999
A Friend who’s journey was cut well short of the goal
< Damn you Oz, why you? It wasn’t fair, It just wasn’t fair! > Willow began to feel the tears stream down her cheeks, and she tried to shake them off, barely succeeding.
Suddenly, Willow heard the muffled footsteps of someone walking in the grass behind her. < It’s daytime, so it couldn’t be a vamp...but in Sunnydale, there’s all sorts of daytime horrors too. > She whirled around with the speed and finesse of someone with her fitness and practice.
The figure she saw standing before her was a dark-haired, sheepish looking young man, with the same smart-assed looking smirk he’d always possessed for as long as she’d known him. Somehow, through it all, he was the one, unchanging constant in a chaotic world. < Xander >.
“Buffy told me I’d find you here..she saw the fresh flowers. Said you left early this morning, Why did you tell her you were going out for your morning run? We would have come along. It’s not good to mourn alone, Wil, trust me.” Xander then walked over, as if to put his arm around his old friend.
Willow drew in a deep breath < Now or never... > “Xander!” Willow pulled away from Xander with a start, her gray PT uniform rippling in the light morning breeze, “Xander, I can’t rely on you or Buffy anymore like when we were kids. I’m sorry, but I had to do this alone, without your help, or Buffy’s. I need to put closure on what happened to Oz, to Sunnydale...”
“To us!?” Xander interrupted
“Maybe so.” Willow replied “Maybe I need to realize that what happened in Sunnydale is the past. A past I need to break with. I’m not running away, Xander, I’m walking away. I have had it with assorted creatures of the night mistaking us for a free meal, innocents like Oz here getting caught in the crossfire and us always waiting for the cavalry, aka Buffy, to save our asses! I’ve had it Xander, my other chance for happiness is Barry and the army. And the first person who asks me to give them up is going to find out about just what Uncle Sam’s Travel Club taught me!” Willow began to notice the edge that crept into her voice..< Jesus. Why am I so damn angry? >
Xander struggled for the words ”Um, uh..look, I don’t wanna hurt you Wil, I never did. But, I’m scared for you in the army. I just, I don’t want you dead, like Cordy or Ms. Calendar...”
Willow finished “Or Oz?”
Xander seconded “Or Oz.” Xander exhaled audibly, “Look Wil, the army, is this what you want, what you really want? I wanna know, you owe me that much. And I wanna hear you say it.”
Willow responded with more confidence and certainty than she had ever done before in her 22 years. She simple said “Yes” But it was a yes backed by an unshakable conviction and devotion to duty. She was never more sure of anything in her life.
Xander saw this new found conviction and strength in a light that he had never seen radiate from her eyes before. < She has changed, for the better I think. > Xander scratched his temple absent-mindedly, searching for the words..but he choked up, for the first time in his life, Alexander Lavelle Harris was at a loss for words. So, he simply did what came natural to him..he changed the subject. “Uh, Ok, so Wil, wanna go get a iced cappachino, we can pick up Buffy on the way, I gotta leave town in a few hours anyhow.” he quipped.
Willow giggled “Sure Xander, let’s go have that cappachino” and gestured to Xander to lead off towards his Camary.
La Coeur, Sunnydale, 2200hrs, two days later
Rupert Giles was never more nervous in his life < Dear god, how the hell does one actually accomplish this? Buffy said for me to “act natural, heh, easy for her to say! >
He fingered the ring in his pocket ever more nervously Giles spied Joyce out of the corner of his eye returning to the table, looking elegant in her long, navy blue evening dress. < Here goes nothing! > Giles’s mind screamed.
Joyce sat down with a grace of a woman who was a quiet and self-assured...and knew it. Her beauty radiated through the room, and made Giles realize just how damn lucky he truly was.
Her hazel eyes sparkled, she leaned over the table, holding her head contemplatively in her hands. “So, what’s on the mind of the sexiest English Librarian I know?”
Giles nervously removed his glasses and began to clean them, clearing his throat as he did. Then, with a flourish, he replaced them, and neatly folded his hankie, but he did not replace it into his pocket. Giles then rose and made his way towards the right side of the table, whereupon he kneeled, placing the hankie under the bent knee. He took Joyce’s left hand into his. “Joyce, what I have to say, I have never been more serious about in my entire life. Look, I am not good...with...with romance, but, since meeting you, I have been able to become so, well, comfortable in just being me, as well as coming to love a very special woman who means the world to me. What I am trying to say is this: Would you, Joyce Summers, do me, Rupert Giles, the honor of becoming my wife? Will you marry me? I love you Joyce, and I want to be yours forever.”
Joyce’s jaw dropped like a stone. Her free hand went to her mouth. < What do I say? > one corner of her mind screamed. < Yes! you twit! > another answered. Joyce grabbed Giles and hugged him tight. “Of course I will! Yes!” she screamed. Her face was beaming, she was radiant.
The rest of the restaurant, noticing the proceedings, rose as one and began to applaud the happy couple, as Giles, managing to get free, slowly and deftly slipped the 10 karat diamond ring onto Joyce’s left hand.
There was only one thing left to do. “Check, please” Giles bellowed.
2 HOURS LATER, Founder’s Park
Giles and Joyce had been walking for hours, simply basking in the glow of the newly engaged. It was a wonderful feeling.
Joyce was still admiring the ring, making plans all the while. “Sweetie? Where should we hold the ceremony?”
Giles shrugged “I don’t know, your home perhaps?”
Joyce smiled “That’s great, I like that honey!” she slipped her arm around Giles, and drew in closer, as a way of warding off the chill of the night air
Sadly, neither of them noticed a pale, blond stranger or his brunette lover in the shadows, their hearts as black as the night that engulfed their presence.
Spike grinned an evil grin that was truely terrible to behold “Tonight, Slayer.” he muttered coldly “Tonight the game begins again, and this time, I will win it all, and I will leave you a broken mess who will beg me to kill you.”
Spike followed the happy couple down the path through the park. < Almost time now > he gronned evily. < I am going to make the Slayer pay for making me leave, for corrupting my Dru with her damn Angel. Ah yes, she'll pay very dearly indeed! >. Spike could almost taste the sweet smell of revenge on his lips and was certainly willing to wait a few moments longer to make it all worthwhile.
Giles and Joyce were making their way through the park, laughing up a storm and paying very little heed to their surroundings, it would prove to be a sad, and fatal mistake. In a blur of motion in front of them, Drucilla appeared, in "game face", as if by magig, fangs bared, her eyes cat-like slits appearing green, then red by some trick of light. She could almost be taken as smiling.
Giles reacted quickly "Oh dear, Joyce, GET BEHIND ME!" as he shoved Joyce out of the direct path of Drucilla, and in one motion, grabbing a fallen treebranch that looked like it had the consistancy of a 2 x 4. He and Drucilla circled, she lunged first, attempting to take Giles legs out from under him, but Giles was faster, and he swung upwards catching Dru full in the face with the branch, sending her sprawling backwards. It was then he heard a blood-curdling scream, he turned, and the sight was one that Giles, in the few minutes he had remaining to him, would have sworn were his worst.
Spike had cornered Joyce and in a flash, had grabbed her, and had begun to suck her dry, mercifully, Joyce had screamed, and passed out, but not before, in an act of panicked desperation, shoving a stake through Spike's left forearm. Giles turned, and ran towards Spike, stake raised in a fatal arc meant to connect with Spike's black heart, but, it was to no avail, Dru was on Giles in seconds, Giles having forgot the first rule he taught his own Slayer, "Never turn your back on an active vampire". It was a mistake that cost Rupert Giles his life. Spike and Dru, after they were done, shared a laugh, then left, as it was getting light soon.
The light would soon discover the bodies of a Watcher, and a Slayer's Mother. And a simple note, "Now, we play again."
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