The Last to Stand

By: Saitaina

This story takes place ten years after graduation.

The graveyard was eerily silent as I walked through it. Never had it been so quiet. I walked past the many graves of fallen friends and classmates, sighing softly as I read their names, remembering their faces. I had tried, tried to protect them and failed.

We stood together once…now they were all gone, killed by a lunatic. I paused at a grave. I never got to say I was sorry…for everything. I put her through a hell in my own way. I placed a rose on her grave and touched the headstone. Cold stone for someone so warm. I brushed away a tear that dared to fall after all these years. “Good-bye Willow.” I whispered.

I continued on, knowing I had to hurry. I passed my parents stones barley pausing, I would see them later, now was not the time. I caught sight of a stone with a British flag on it out of the corner of my eye. I walked over and smiled at the Latin words in place of the Modern English phrase “Requiescat in pace”, May he rest in peace. I laid a rose on his grave. “Fare thee well Rupert.”

I stopped next to his grave and smiled at the small, plain plaque of the one next to him. Janna. Simple, plain, much like the woman herself, but there was so much hidden in that name…she had a passion and a strength we had never really noticed at the time…but in the end the strength had failed her and she ran. Ironically, enough she had run strait into she was running from…the arms of death.

I continued on, wrapping my coat tighter around me. It grew cold as I ventured into the shade of the trees, or maybe it was the fact that these people died more violently in than the rest. I started picking up my pace, trying not to think of the hideous and grotesque ways so many of these people died. I quickened my pace more then tripped over a broken headstone. I was sent sprawling on a grave and landed with a grunt. I lifted my head to see who tripped me and smiled sadly. “Xander.” I whispered, then shivered as images of his bloody body filled my mind. I held my still queasy stomache as I remembered stumbling upon his headless body. Just his body…ending in a bloody stump…no head…never a head, not even at the end of my nightmares. Never, never. I mentaly slapped myself to stop my train of thought. I tried! I reminded myself…I tried to save him. I placed a rose on his head stone and kissed it.

I sighed and looked around searching for the last grave. I found it in the shade of a weeping willow tee. I kneeled at her grave and pushed a strand of hair out of my eyes. She was beauty defined, even when they found her body torn apart. I laid the last of my roses on her grave and touched the small heart that adorned her headstone. “I’m sorry Buffy…we tried.”

I stood shakily and took in the graveyard in one long, sweeping glance. In my years as... Watcher... I've buried... too many people. But these were the only I've truly loved.

“How touching…” A voice said from over my shoulder.

I spun around and stared at the girl that was once…at least for a short time, one of us. “Faith…”

“I knew I’d find you here…I wonder why.” She said softly.

“Because just like you I can’t forget.” I looked back at Buffy’s grave. “No matter how hard we try.”

Faith smiled. “I don’t want to forget…I like remembering…I like remembering how I tore Xander’s head off his body.”

I growled and lunged at her. Faith never had a chance to utter a sound, well, she uttered one…a gurgling sound as air bubbled up though her torn wind pipe. I stood back from her body and wiped my dagger on my jeans. I walked away from her. I didn’t scream, I didn’t cry. Why bother when no one can see or hear you.

I only smiled at the irony of it…that it was I, Cordilia that was the last to stand.

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