FIC: Echoes (7/7)

see part one for disclaimer/pairing info

---

Epilogue

It's been said that time heals all wounds and, like all cliches, this one has its own grain of truth. No matter how badly something hurts, given enough time, the pain will go away. This is not to say that one ever forgets or that an old wound can't once in awhile cause an unexpected twinge; but for the most part, eventually, life goes on.

Giles moved in with Buffy after the funeral so that they could raise Bobbie together. No one knew when they first began sharing a bed, but they finally married when the little one was three, shortly after Xander and Anya's second son was born. They had one child together, a son with Buffy's eyes and Giles's height. They named him William.

Xander and Anya married three months after Willow was buried. They had three sons: Alexander William, Steven James, and Giles Thomas. Alex became a doctor, Stevie joined the Marine Corps, and Little Giles became a pro football player.

Tara stayed at the Academy, teaching magick and occasionally other subjects as well. She never did get involved with anyone. I think she lost heart after Willow died. I always knew she carried a torch for Willow, but I never really realized how strong it was until after Will was gone.

Anya's was the first death after Willow. Little Giles was twenty-two, playing for Notre Dame, when the cancer got her. It was a real shock to all of us; six months after her diagnosis, she was gone.

Giles went next, at the ripe age of eighty-four. None of us were surprised when Buffy followed him less than four months later. After Willow's death, he was what kept Buffy going. We buried her between them and with every honor we could think of to give her. She was fifty-six.

Xander was ninety-two and blind when he finally slipped away. He died at home, in bed, surrounded by his three children, seven grandchildren, and even one great-grandson. When we buried the last Scooby, they were all laid together finally, in death as they were in life.

I stood before their graves after Xander's funeral with Bobbie Dee Giles Cavanaugh, who looked exactly like Willow except for Giles's dark hair, and she asked me what I was thinking. "I don't really know," I told her. "You know, when I first became a vampire, it never really occurred to me that being immortal meant I was going to outlive all of them. Of course, back then, we were all gonna live forever."

Bobbie Dee, whose oldest son was getting ready to graduate from high school, laughed. "I know that feeling," she told me. "It seems like you're immortal when you're twenty-five."

I nodded. I looked up into the brilliant blue sky. "It looked just like this on the day we buried your mother," I told her suddenly, wondering why I was saying it. "You were all of six days old and Giles was holding you because Buffy was crying too hard. The entire Academy came, you know. Siobhan, who was one of the Slayers at the time, got a Catholic priest to come and do the service. The girls all sang 'Amazing Grace.' They practiced so hard because they wanted it to be perfect and beautiful. And it was. It just never really occurred to anyone until afterward that Willow was Jewish."

Bobbie Dee burst out laughing. "Oh, no."

I nodded. "Oh, yes. It was a beautiful Christian burial. Her parents would have been horrified." I paused and shook my head. "I think they were in Cancun."

Bobbie Dee shook her head. "Say no more." She knew her grandparents well.

I hugged her. "You should go," I told her. "They'll be looking for you."

She nodded and kissed my cheek. "I love you, Dakota. I'll call next week, okay?"

I nodded and watched her walk away, then turned my attention to the headstones before me.

Rupert Giles

1951-2035

Devoted Father, Husband and Friend

Buffy Anne Summers Giles

1981-2036

Lover, Protector, Mother, Sister, Friend

Willow Rosenberg Summers

1981-2006

Heart, Soul, Light and Life

Anya Jenkins Harris

1981-2034

Beloved Mother and Wife

Cherished Friend

Alexander L Harris

1981-2073

Beloved Father and Friend

The Last Scooby

I wept, standing there alone at their graves, for them and for myself. And then she was there with me, wrapping her arms around me, sharing my grief. At last we put our pain away together, and I looked into her eyes. "I love you, Faith."

"I love you, too, babe," she told me with a kiss.

I looked down at the row of headstones again and thought of the small cemetery on the Academy grounds where several Slayers and Partners were buried. Janna and Dawn were both buried there, as well as Kate, Kerry, Siobhan and Ebony. There was a memorial stone there for Tara, whose ashes we had scattered at the henge up the river, at her request, as well as other stones for those lost in the line of duty whose bodies we had been unable to retrieve. And soon there would be another memorial as well. "Did you bring the box?" She handed me a cigar box and I began to fill it with a bit of earth from each grave.

When I was done, we turned and left. I haven't been back. Faith has, a few times, but I can't bring myself to go. Too much of my heart is buried in Restfield Cemetery.

Sometimes it makes me sad to think that only Faith and I remember things that happened back then. It makes me sadder still to think of the many things that only I remember. I am the only person walking this planet today who knows what the first rays of the sun looked like when they fell across Buffy's face at dawn. Nobody besides me knows how it felt to hold Willow at night. I'm the only one who remembers the sounds they made, the texture of their skin, the way they smelled.

I love Faith. I always will. But there are times when I would give up every second of the eternity I'll share with her for one opportunity to see Buffy and Willow again.

Sometimes I think I do. Once in a great while, a particularly apt Slayer will come into the Academy, and she'll have that way about her that Buffy had, or one of the Partners will have red hair and an extraordinary talent for magick. But I know that those echoes of the past are just that: echoes.

I miss them.

I miss them so much.

---THE END---

~~Rainne

******
Buffy: Oh! When I had psychic power, I heard my mother think
that you were like a stevedore during sex... Do you want me to continue?
Giles: Actually, I beg you to stop.
Buffy: What's a stevedore?
--"Who Are You?"--Buffy ep 4x16--
******

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