I know, I know, I haven’t written in you in forever but after ‘it’
happened everything changed. And do I mean everything. The kid, no, the innocent
girl that used to happily share everything with you was gone for good. But,
now as everything is changing again and I was packing away the last of my childhood
I found you, on the back of a shelf, collecting dust and decided that I would
do one last entry. One last time for old time’s sake and I would record
where everyone is now after ‘it’.
Don’t fret maybe one day when I take another turn in life I will find you again.
The ‘it’ I keep referring to was the last battle with the First. Not one of us came away unscathed (see more mature me uses bigger words) or unchanged. We did it. The First was sent away. Scurrying back to whatever hell it came from until it can find a reason or a way to come back. It changed us though, all of us, and we drifted apart, leaving the next battles for the new Slayer and the rest of the Potentials.
They stayed, all of them, the ones that survived anyway. Like Rona said, “We’ve been trained and we’ve seen too many things, how could we ever go back and live life acting like it never happened.” So, they stayed. Xander affectionately calls them “The Sunnydale All Girl Fighting Squad” headed up by Amanda, who is the new Slayer. And she is my new best friend. After all I have lived with her these past three years but, oops, I am getting ahead of myself.
Let me tell you about Giles and Anya. Giles went back to England like we all knew he would. His life was there but what surprised us was when Anya packed her bags and followed him. They sold the Magic Box here and she opened a new store there. She says she loves him. Not in the way she loved Xander. She says that she will never love someone that much again. And Giles loves her. They have this quiet love that blossomed from friendship and loneliness. They don’t even live together but yet, somehow, they are together all the time. You speak of one, you speak of the other.
Willow is next on my list. Once she found out that Kennedy wasn’t called she gave in to her feelings and desires to commit and now they live together. Kennedy is in college while Willow teaches at a small private high school in New York City. Willow said that it’s easy to get lost in the bustle there. Less time to think. Less time to remember. They came home last Christmas but it was kind of bad. There are too many ghosts and missing people for things to ever be really happy or to find real joy in the celebrations. Somehow even Willow and Xander have drifted apart. He cried when her plane took off and somehow he knew that he probably would never see her again.
I’m pretty much the only one that keeps in contact with everyone and makes sure that no one is forgotten. That the threads between us don’t unravel completely. Xander always tells me that’s my power. Holding the family together. We are the only ones left here in Sunnydale from the old gang. Even Andrew moved on. He works in Chicago for a big firm creating video games. The man makes buckets of money. And somehow every birthday, holiday and, hell, even President’s Day I get a check. He says someone has to be sharing the wealth.
Jonathan. We finally found his body and he is buried in the Sunnydale cemetery not far from Tara. The florist loves me when I come in to pick up flowers to lie on all the graves I visit, my mom, Tara, Jonathan, Molly and Faith and a few of the other Potentials that didn’t make it.
Faith was the willing sacrifice that set things right in the Slayer line again. She had changed so much when she came back and never once faltered about dying to save everyone else. Her death left room for Amanda to be called.
Principal Wood disappeared the night before the final battle, never to be seen again. I don’t think any of us really miss him.
Then there’s Xander. My Xander. We both knew that night after we found Amanda, when he gave me the talk about being special in my own way, that one day we would be together but we had to wait. Three years was long enough and when I graduated a week ago I told him that I was moving in with him. And he just shook his head yes. We’ve both been alone too long. It’s time to make a future for us.
I know you’re wondering about Buffy and Spike. I guess I was saving the hardest for last. They are both gone in their own ways but yet will always haunt me. Spike was fighting with the First on the altar it had built when it got the upper hand. We all froze below them as we saw the stake raised. I remember Buffy screaming ‘No’ and then that she loved him. We never knew if he heard the only declaration of love she ever made for him as we watched him turn to dust. It was the eeriest thing though, a burst of wind came and blew his dust around Buffy, almost like it was a final embrace, before disappearing.
In a way in that moment Buffy died too. She got through the rest of the battle and saw us home before she collapsed. There was never a tear shed though as she lay there so catatonic. Willow and I dressed her for the funerals and then she would come home to return to her room. Three weeks after it was over she came downstairs and left. At first we thought that maybe she was slowly coming back to us but the next morning we knew.
Buffy came downstairs with a duffel bag hanging over her shoulder. She kissed me and told me that she would always love me. Papers to the house and my guardianship were handed to Xander and then she left. She said that they had found a way to bring Darla back and she wouldn’t rest until she found a way to bring Spike back.
As she walked out the door I knew what my mom meant when she said in the end Buffy wouldn’t choose me. It’s okay though. If she stayed here, then she would have died, with no will to live without him. While she is out there she has hope that one day she will find a way. That one day she will be with him again.
I ended up staying with Amanda while I finished high school. And every once in a while I would get a post card from a foreign city saying hi or a phone call requesting that we wire money. And at least I know she is alive and still trying and that is all that counts.
Well, I need to go. It’s time for me to finish packing and time for me to start my new life with Xander.
Life is too precious to waste a second of it.
~~~~~~~~
December 24, 2007
Oh, my God, I told you that I would find you again when my life took a turn
again. I made Xander help me find you. It has taken us almost two hours and
thirty boxes of junk to sort through before we found you.
I guess you don’t really want to know that. I am so excited that I am practically jumping up and down, so I apologize for the messy writing. We got the phone call this afternoon. I was sitting there watching General Hospital and my pregnant belly grow even bigger when it rang. I picked it up figuring it was that guy trying to sell me aluminum siding again when I heard this British voice in my ear. I thought it was one of Giles’ friends but then I heard him call me Niblet.
I don’t know how she did it but she did. Oh, my gosh I have to go, Xander is yelling at me that we are going to be late. Their plane is scheduled to land in an hour. This is going to be the best Christmas ever; Buffy and Spike are coming home. Together.
