Well, it started with the cats...
I was asked to pinch-hit for Post-Apocalyptic Multifandom Ficathon, and this is what I produced.
Thanks to googlebrat for her wonderful support doing this, and the other people for their support - they should know who they are!
Title: Well, it started with the cats...
Author: DistractoGirl
Recipient: Originalpuck
Fandom: Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Just Season 1-7.
Rating: Er, it's not very violent, but it has death and zombies. So 15 ish?
Pairing: Not much but, Xander/Andrew.
Request: Request 5 - Andrew-centric, zombies, slash, and preferably nothing from Angel the Series or the Eighth Season (since I'm not familiar with them). Andrew thought Buffy could handle anything. He was wrong. Post-Apocolyptic, please.
Summary: Magical Super Zombies take over the world. Andrew and Xander have to deal with it, shortly after everything that happened to stop the First from taking over.
Well, it started with the cats.
Apparently there are hundreds of ways to make a zombie. There are at least a dozen masks that when donned can cause you to become king or queen of the zombies - at least four of which had been on ebay in the month before the outbreak. According to Willow and her wonderfully helpful research monkeys there are more than fifty different spells for raising the dead. Each with a more or less zombie-like appearance depending on how more or less you follow the instructions. Then of course there are the government zombies, those that are created because of toxic waste. Nobody expected that the cause of zombies would be a simple dose of flu. It was a rogue strain of cat-flu that had caused it, back when nobody was aware of how much magic could cause flu to mutate. It spread like wildfire though the previously evacuated magical population of Sunnydale. And then moved on to the ordinary population, not that there were many of them to start with. The post-crater building project that some of the survivors of Spike's jewellery explosion had put together had meant that everyone evacuated from Sunnydale were living in ridiculously cramped conditions. There weren't that many of them, but they still managed to create an epic amount of panic when people had died from the flu. They all left. The core people who had been with Buffy at the end stayed, because there are some things they just couldn't do. They should've realised that the flu would be carried by the evacuating people, and suddenly all those long lost relatives turning up in different states were distributing a friendly little present from the feral cats around The Crater. Then they died. By the time those left at the Crater were fighting off the first of the resurrections, whose sole purpose was to infect those who were still alive with the disease, people were dying all over the country. Sunnydale was once again ground zero for The Apocalypse. This time there wasn't a solution. Magic made it worse, and was draining their already meagre magical supplies. Even the standby of old movies and computer games didn't work, chopping their heads off just lead to headless zombies. Destroying their heads just lead to what Dawn called "Brain soup with a crunchy topping". Even the cache of weapons that they found left in The Initiative's second secret base in Sunnydale - doors broken open by the giant explosion of doom - were absolutely no use, unless you counted the fact that the zombies could no longer lurch after you if their legs and arms were in a different place to their body. They could still pass on the virus though, which meant that even if they did dismember all the reanimated corpses of people they had been living with for the last few months, they'd have to start keeping them all in one place. And that would attract animals that would make the disease spread even more.
Andrew and those others who had managed to fend off the virus quickly deduced that the reason for this was an overexposure to magic. The fact that those people who had been involved with the Scooby Gang for longer than a year were always at risk of being transformed into a demon, or a rat, or a ghost or just plain possessed by any number of spirits, lost souls, mutated steroids or malevolent magic, meant that they were less likely to succumb to a magically mutated virus, and more likely to avoid becoming super-zombies. Unfortunately that wasn't entirely true for everyone. The massive outpouring of magic that dragged the slayer-ness out of Buffy into the others had drained her natural resistance to magic and also caused her immune system to go into overdrive a few days later. She was one of the first people to be overcome by the flu. When she realised she was dying she'd sought out Andrew and his video camera. She'd left a message for all the slayers she'd just created. Andrew felt privileged to have been the first person to see the message, since by that point even her slayer strength was waning she just couldn't manage alone, so he had to hold the camera. She'd put on an exceptionally strong face in front of the troops but she apparently felt that she could trust Andrew to keep a secret. The recording started in the middle of a sentence, because she told him she wanted him to record but didn't tell him when. He only realised that he was supposed to be recording a second too late, but he knew that the first sentence didn't change the meaning and where it did start was pure Buffy.
"... and you just tell him that. Anyway, I can't believe I'm dying of cat-flu. Who dies of cat-flu? Dawn, do me a favour and make sure that everyone knows about the times I died and it wasn't because of cat-flu. Great thought though, that I'll be back again, since I just can't help but come back from the dead. How many times would this make it now guys? Anyway. That's not the point of this. You are recording this right?" At this point in the video Andrew had to stop and point out the little red light on the front of the camera, showing that it was recording.
"Of course, it is recording, I'm just wigging out that I'm going to say all this stuff and make one more big speech and have no one hear it because the batteries ran out or something. Will says that I'm going to survive this, but she's just sayin' that, because I know she thinks that if I know that I'm going to die of cat-flu I will stop acting like the leader or something. I can't stop acting like a leader, but I know you need a new one. But it's not up to me. It's up to you guys. There are loads of things you have to do though. The flu, you've got to stop it, because it's a killer and it's our responsibility just as much as the other things that come out of the Hellmouth. I know you'll do it, you have to - to save the world again." Most of these sentences were punctuated by the wheezing sigh-like coughs that characterised this particular strain of flu. But she carried on, listing those places in Sunnydale that they would find useful and who would be best to help from their resources to combat the flu. Andrew thought it was lucky that she never found out exactly how she'd be coming back this time, and that she didn't have to face the fact that once she'd been overcome by the virus, several others that they relied on fell quickly under it's influence too. They lost Robin and several of the now slayers that had been in Sunnydale since the very beginning of the First's attempts to wipe out the line. The day they realised that the flu reanimated it's victims was the scariest, and caused even more chaos than there had been before when they'd just lost their leader and their friends. Buffy's prediction that she'd come back to life had become a terrifying moment of clairvoyancy in a way that they hoped Buffy had never imagined. At least they could console themselves that it was obvious that the person they knew as Buffy was not in there, and it was just a body that was walking. It made it a small amount easier to attempt to stop the attack they amassed but it was still a very traumatic time. Especially since they couldn't stop them, just hold them back for a while. It was also the day that Andrew realised that his heroes were still just people. Magically strong and super people, but still people. He was saddened to realise that those people couldn't do everything.
Surprisingly to everyone but Andrew, Xander had been the one to organise and lead the remaining people, including the slayers who had stayed at the Hellmouth with Buffy 'just in case' after the First has been defeated. Nobody expected Xander, who had hung back because of his slight disability recently, to turn into the sort of leader they needed in the face of the reanimated corpses of their friends. Since the losses of the last battle they'd faced Xander's personality had changed. He was still himself, but there was a harshness, an ability to tell people exactly what was important and what wasn't. As soon as they'd realised the corpses were unstoppable Xander had been the one to pluck a solution from nowhere. The concrete bunker that they had emptied of weapons belonging to the initiative was airtight. And easily sealed. All they had to do was lead the zombies down there. Unfortunately they needed bait, and nobody was volunteering to put themselves directly in the way of zombie death.
"Delightful though it would be to be torn to bits by the rabid remains of everyone I've spent time training with, Xander, I highly doubt that there's anyone willing to sacrifice themselves just so you can show us all that your plan actually is the best." The words 'Thank You Very Much' could quite easily have been tacked onto the end of Sabrina's scathing retort when Xander outlined his plan to the remaining new slayers. She was the most vocal against the plan but by no means the only one who had shown a negative reaction to someone they knew possibly joining the ranks of the undead. Andrew watched as Xander pulled himself up and addressed the problem by pointing out the obvious.
"We're all going to die. There's no actual question about that. The question is, do we die because we didn't try anything, or do we die because we do what we're best at and actually try to save the world again. Because if we don't try and save the world again we might as well get out there and start shuffling now because we're not going to survive this without actually trying. And hey, positive outcome, maybe we'll even manage to survive this whole thing and then we can high five each other because we tried and succeeded. Well, you can high five each other, I'd probably miss. What do you think of my plan now?"
The new slayers were silenced by this. Andrew looked around the room, in awe of Xander's skill with people. It wasn't charm as such because charm was generally making people feel like the only one in the world, it was personality glue. It was his personality coming out into the room and glueing the people there into a team. He was the heart. Always the heart of the team. One time when Andrew and Xander had been sharing a lonely night by the light of the camp fire, they had got to talking about old times. Andrew had haltingly told Xander how scared he'd been when bad things has happened when he was part of The Trio. They'd talked about it before, but not about the emotions, the things behind the events, nothing about how Andrew felt about the two men he spent his life with for those months. Once he'd finished he realised that his voice was hoarse, he must have been talking for ages. Xander must have realised this and started talking about how he had found out he was the heart of the team that took down Adam. That was another long story, but long afterwards it would make Andrew realise that he'd been accepted. He also later realised that that was the time that he thought that he could possibly admit that occasionally he could have feelings for another man.
Maybe that was why, when Xander was going over the plan again and explaining exactly how safe the bait would be, Andrew stood up and said he'd do it. It came out quietly, and he wasn't even sure Xander had heard him, despite the fact that he had been looking straight at him when he said it. There was a brief pause when nobody seemed to say anything, although what he'd just said passed between the surrounding people like a feather on the wind. The look on Xander's face became a mixture of shock, respect and something that Andrew could not identify no matter how much he considered it.
"I'll do it. I don't know if I can, but I'll try." He said now that he had the full attention of the room.
And that was how he came to be running through the remains of Sunnydale with zombies on his tail, who when it came down to it could move quite quickly for lurching dead people, but that may have been the magical influence in the virus. He was alone, with only one way of contacting the good guys, and that was only once he'd run out of all other options. There wasn't time for that now as he felt his breath start to catch in his throat and his legs started to object to the exercise he was putting them through. His foot his some rubble, and for a second he wobbled, thinking that he was going to fail and that oh, god, this was the end, they were going to catch him. However, seconds later he was on firm ground and his breath was coming smoother again. A female voice in his head, almost gone before he noticed it, said "that should help, now, do us proud." Willow. Miles away now, because she couldn't risk getting the flu, even though she was probably least at risk of succumbing to it, the idea of all the magic she had access too strengthening the virus would make it impossible to fight. She had said she'd look in on them occasionally, and perhaps spare a little magic, but Andrew hadn't realised that she'd been talking about doing it by remote. What ever she had done,he found himself slowing down slightly to look over his shoulder to ensure that the rabble behind him were keeping up. He kept going, checking ever so often that the zombies weren't letting their tasty magic imbued snack get away from them, and finally spotted the entrance to the compound. This would be the tricky bit. Getting in was easy for him - all he really needed to do was fall down the stairs into the giant concrete bunker. The bad guys on the other hand - he'd found if he referred to them as zombies too often his brain stopped being terrified and started laughing at the idea of magical cat-flu-zombies - were stupid. They'd probably not find the door so easily, although his now magical scent trail should be lighting up in what passed for their eyes, so they should follow. Once Andrew was inside with at least half the zombies he had to use his final bit of magic, to send up a flare. Then the others would attempt to corral the remaining zombies into the bunker while Andrew followed the complex route of staircases, elevator shafts and abandoned labs in order to get back to the door and out before they locked and barricaded the area. He ran down a corridor, realising that if he were to get at least half of the zombies inside then he couldn't just stand around watching them come in, he had to keep them moving. He turned left, and left again, knowing that these corridors all lead back in to what he had come to think of as the great hall. He turned left the third time and skidded to a halt on his dusty and worn shoes. That certainly looked like more than half the zombies. He activated the magical flare with the pre-decided word - in this case a string of Sanskrit words that sounded vaguely like 'cuddle the fuzzy kittens' but he didn't have time to wonder about that - and watched as magical fire engulfed the building. It wasn't burning anything, it was just a projection of purple flames, but it worked very well as a way to ensure the zombies moved around and as a signal for the good guys.
He ran through the nearest door with a symbol that suggested stairs, and threw himself up the stairs that were a little way beyond. He got to the top and stopped. There were four different corridors stretching in front of him, and none of them seemed like the right way to go. He closed his eyes and ran down the nearest, opening them just beyond the entrance to ensure he didn't break his neck.
"You are in a maze of twisty little passages all alike. It is dark."
It was funny the things that came into your head when you're running for your life. He remembered playing text only games when he was part of the trio, and wished like anything that he could find something as easy as a teleport command to get out of these passages. He remembered that there should be a elevator shaft away to the right with a ladder inside, and that he had about five minutes before the doors were shut forever. He went down the next right turn he could, tripping in his haste of an abandoned pile of papers and standing in a puddle of partially-dried yellow demon blood. He wasn't interested in what the initiative had been doing down here, although he had to wonder why the blood was still so fresh. He had no time to stop and look, and it wasn't as if he was about to mourn the loss of one demon. Recent days had proved that Sunnydale didn't have any demons left, they had gone to ground in fear of the virus just as much as the humans. It was rare for them to even see a demon now.
He reached the elevator, and dragged the access door open. As he scrambled up the ladder thinking that he was already too late he heard voices, those of Xander directing the slayers, and that of Dawn ensuring that anyone getting injured got out of the way and checked over as soon as she could manage it. He reached the top of the ladder, and ran through a lab reaching the door just in time to see Xander attacking the last of the zombies with an axe. They didn't like using the rifles they had - they didn't do any good and the bullets didn't lose much velocity going through zombie flesh so the ricochets could go anywhere. Especially if they clipped bone. Andrew ran forwards and Xander grabbed his arm.
"Well done, you made it. Now lets get out of here."
So they did. And they all went home and lived happily ever after. At least, that's what Andrew had hoped to hear once the doors to the compound were barricaded shut, and they'd made it back to their camp alive. It wasn't that simple though. It never is.
"Ok, guys here's the situation so far. We've contained the problem for us, but Willow and the other slayers have reported exactly what Buffy, and the rest of us, had feared. The virus has travelled with the initial people who left us and has now taken hold of many people all over the country. We have a responsibility to stop the virus from spreading any further. Fortunately the government has realised this and has closed our borders. Unfortunately they have yet to realise what's coming. We do know the zombies are apparently less forceful the further away they are from the Hellmouth, but that just says that the magic remnants from the Hellmouth is what's keeping them going. This means we can't use magic to stop them. As we also know, we can't use regular weapons to stop them either. So. Does anyone have a single idea that isn't 'burn the country' since that's the only thing that I can come up with right now. Anyone got a non-magical non-weapon that is capable of stopping marauding zombies, hidden about their person?"
Xander's speeches always ended on a joke. Or at least an attempt at a joke, which always made those who were listening go away with a smile, even though the world was falling down around their ears. Later that evening when they were alone in their tent, Xander confessed that he wasn't sure that his jokes were going to keep working. And that he was unsure that they were going to save the world this time. Andrew tried to cheer him up, feeling helpless he said,
"What we really need, is a magical vaccine. Something that combats the virus, and protects against it coming back." He mused, basically following his thoughts aloud. "And then we need something that can freeze the bad guys that have already developed in their tracks. Wait. That's it!?"
Ten minutes later, Andrew and Xander were frantically explaining to Dawn and the others exactly what Andrew had come up with. It wasn't a total solution, since it wouldn't stop the virus, but it would stop the zombies. They wouldn't need much, most of the supplies were right there in the things they had managed to take from the weapons bunker. Andrew was finally grateful that he'd dragged the folder full of the Trio's original plans with him all this time. It meant that he didn't have to come up with a new design for the freeze ray. He was amazed by the fact that he hadn't thought about it before. They needed something that stopped the bad guys in their tracks, and that was what the freeze ray would do. They were worried about what would happen if the zombies were to defrost, but Willow - via a long distance psychic link which felt like you had tiny creatures whispering in your ears - had told them that instead of the original power source for the freeze ray they could use a magical one which would not only create a stronger freeze - making it possible to freeze several hundred 'things' before needing a brief recharge - but also it was cause it to be a magical freeze with only one possibility of defrosting. Willow wouldn't be Willow if she didn't build in a fail-safe to the gun in case someone accidentally froze one of the good guys.
As soon as Willow had told Andrew the magical recipe to made the power source, the remaining fighters were put to work assembling the freeze-guns. Andrew worked hard on the power source, knowing one slip could cause the death of everyone in the area. He was making the magic equivalent of a small nuclear reactor for each of the guns. They were rather more stable than some reactors, but still quite dangerous to mess around with. Which is why Andrew believed himself alone when he was talking to himself about how Buffy would've saved the day earlier, and how she wouldn't have allowed the virus to spread so far.
"She did, Andrew. She was still alive when the slayers started leaving, and she knew there was a possibility that they were spreading the flu, but she didn't realise it was a killer until after that. She's not to blame any more than you are. If these guns work, you'll have saved the day for the moment, and Buffy wouldn't have been able to do that, she wouldn't have known about the freeze gun. It wouldn't have occurred to her to just stop them, because Buffy was a fighter and would have tried to destroy them. You're not a fighter, and you're doing your best to save the day. Buffy couldn't do everything, even though you thought she could. She was amazing, but she was just one person. Buffy needed people like you and me behind her so that she could be amazing. And she'll rest in peace knowing that you're continuing to do exactly what you do so well."
Xander stopped talking and smiled at Andrew before leaving him alone with even more thoughts than he had before. He carried on making the power sources in a much calmer and positive frame of mind. From that moment everything seemed to move at the speed of light. The manufacture and testing of the guns went amazingly quickly once they got the hang of firing them, especially since they had around fifty guinea pigs locked up underground. A few quick modifications of the guns once they realised that they were freezing the zombies too fast, which made them susceptible to shattering. A situation which could cause a fast spread of the disease because shards of the zombies could travel a lot further and get into tiny places. They had just fixed that problem and were celebrating when Xander came in.
"We have a problem. Several of the slayers have come down with symptoms. We need to isolate them, and we need that vaccine. The freeze guns aren't going to save the day if we can't stop the virus from spreading." Everyone who had been idly wondering what they would do now that they'd saved the world again slumped. They knew that finding an vaccine wasn't going to be their job. All they could do was hold back the hordes until Willow came up with the goods. So they did.
As always a team that worked on the Hellmouth didn't have time to anything but fight, so they fought. It was slow going, they needed to make sure they froze anyone and everyone who had died from the virus, not just those who had already been animated. Sometimes it was just a case of visiting the funeral homes and breaking into the coffins to add an icy surprise to the dead body after they were ready for burial, but sometimes they were dealing with bodies that had already been buried, or they had to cope with bands of the zombies which had reanimated and joined together to get near to humans to spread the virus. All the while reports were coming in from other slayers and Willow who were sending them to the next place, the place with the next highest number of infections, the next highest number of deaths. Each time they got those reports they were told that the vaccine was still in the testing stage. Obviously that wasn't going to save the people who were already infected. And that was rapidly becoming a number bigger than the number of people who were not infected. There were a few freak incidents of people surviving the virus, but mostly, if you got the virus, you died.
The slayers who had caught it lasted a little longer than the ordinary victims of the virus, what with their slayer strength and the stubborn ability to face danger and just keep going. Andrew wondered if they'd all always had that, or if something had happened when Willow had shared out the slayer-ness with them, and they'd got some of Buffy's more useful personality traits too. The problem with them lasting longer was that it meant that they suffered longer. The wheezing-sigh coughs got worse and it often looked like one or more of the slayers were trying to cough up a furball. It would've been half amusing if it hadn't been for the fact that slayers dying was just another heartbreaking sign of the end of the world.
The news by now was terrible and getting worse by the second. Willow was holed up somewhere unable to leave because she had a germ free environment and everyone agreed that her leaving the area could make matters infinitely worse. As long as she was alive, and there were even a few people surviving the flu, then maybe they'd be able to find a cure. Or a vaccine for the people who still hadn't caught the virus. Those people who were paranoid enough that when they heard possible deadly virus on the news they locked themselves in hermetically sealed basements and ate their tinned food and watched world go to hell. The only other people who were currently surviving were those who were outside of the cities, who had their very own type of isolation from the virus simply because they hadn't been in touch with another human being. Soon they wouldn't safe. Xander and the other were freezing the zombies on the Hellmouth to prevent the spread, but they couldn't get away from the Hellmouth to help the rest of the country, because they didn't have enough people, and every time they tried to move they found more masses of zombies grouping together.
As the hope faded for finding a cure the remaining people in Sunnydale took refuge in the comfort they could give each other. They'd keep fighting, but it was looking less and less hopeful, and even though they were still fighting they weren't making any progress. Every time they thought they'd managed to stop the onslaught of the zombies, more would come from behind them. And since they had to be careful not to hem themselves in with frozen zombies. The crater where they'd started living was beginning to look like an army of frozen warriors. It was obvious from the way that the zombies kept coming that the magic that was keeping them alive was also calling them to the Hellmouth. On the plus side, that meant that the people who weren't capable of fighting were not being attacked by the zombies, because all of the dead were headed towards the Hellmouth, but it also meant that there could be no end to the zombies turning up at the Hellmouth. At least, no end, until the entire population of the country had been infected.
And that was exactly what was happening. Every time they got reports from the few people who were still alive to keep in contact they found that there were more dead people, more zombies, and less and less hope of a cure. Willow was still getting in contact from time to time, generally by psychic link, and the news she had to share wasn't good. She was attempting to make a cure or a vaccine, but the magical part of the virus was causing it to mutate at an amazingly fast rate, meaning that even if they could cure the original strain, they'd be nowhere curing it, because only the original people who had be infected, and who were therefore dead, had that strain. The rest of the people who had the virus who hadn't yet died were currently suffering from something completely different.
The now small band of twenty people left on the Hellmouth were making plans to leave. They didn't really have anywhere to go. As far as they knew, they were the only people left. The last reports they'd had from anyone had told them that the whole world was infected, and that nobody knew what to do. They were throwing all their resources at the virus and they couldn't beat it. However, for the past week they hadn't had any reports from anyone. Willow might still be working on the cure, or she might be dead. They might well be the last people on earth to still not have caught the flu. Andrew, Xander, Dawn, several high school students who had tagged along after Dawn who they just couldn't get rid of, and the remaining slayers, were left alone, except for the extremely undead guys. Dawn tended to stay with the high school students more and more, since she wanted to stay with those people who made the whole situation seem slightly more normal - it wasn't, but they made her feel like a normal teenager. The slayers tended to stick together too, because they had a magical bond because of they way they had gained their calling. This left Andrew and Xander, who shared a tent anyway when they had time off guarding the group from zombie attacks, so they got to spend a lot of time together.
Over the weeks of trekking across country, attempting to find food that was still stored correctly and sealed so they could be sure it wasn't infected, avoiding or freezing the zombies that attacked, Andrew and Xander got closer than they ever had been before. The group divided into two in order to keep watch at night to ensure that they were never too close to a virus bearing body. Both groups had two shifts a day, one in the light, one in the dark. The fact that the rest of the world was gone meant that they didn't have a problem getting supplies, but they had to ensure that any supplies they did manage to find weren't in danger of having been infected with the virus. Initially it was enough to keep moving. To keep themselves from getting infected. There was one thought that was left in the back of their minds though. They had to get lucky every time they moved, every time they froze more zombies they needed to make sure they'd got them all because if they didn't one tiny virus could kill them all.
It would only take a tiny mistake for all of those humans left in the world to be wiped out.
They just kept moving, and tried not to think about it.
Thanks to googlebrat for her wonderful support doing this, and the other people for their support - they should know who they are!
Title: Well, it started with the cats...
Author: DistractoGirl
Recipient: Originalpuck
Fandom: Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Just Season 1-7.
Rating: Er, it's not very violent, but it has death and zombies. So 15 ish?
Pairing: Not much but, Xander/Andrew.
Request: Request 5 - Andrew-centric, zombies, slash, and preferably nothing from Angel the Series or the Eighth Season (since I'm not familiar with them). Andrew thought Buffy could handle anything. He was wrong. Post-Apocolyptic, please.
Summary: Magical Super Zombies take over the world. Andrew and Xander have to deal with it, shortly after everything that happened to stop the First from taking over.
Well, it started with the cats.
Apparently there are hundreds of ways to make a zombie. There are at least a dozen masks that when donned can cause you to become king or queen of the zombies - at least four of which had been on ebay in the month before the outbreak. According to Willow and her wonderfully helpful research monkeys there are more than fifty different spells for raising the dead. Each with a more or less zombie-like appearance depending on how more or less you follow the instructions. Then of course there are the government zombies, those that are created because of toxic waste. Nobody expected that the cause of zombies would be a simple dose of flu. It was a rogue strain of cat-flu that had caused it, back when nobody was aware of how much magic could cause flu to mutate. It spread like wildfire though the previously evacuated magical population of Sunnydale. And then moved on to the ordinary population, not that there were many of them to start with. The post-crater building project that some of the survivors of Spike's jewellery explosion had put together had meant that everyone evacuated from Sunnydale were living in ridiculously cramped conditions. There weren't that many of them, but they still managed to create an epic amount of panic when people had died from the flu. They all left. The core people who had been with Buffy at the end stayed, because there are some things they just couldn't do. They should've realised that the flu would be carried by the evacuating people, and suddenly all those long lost relatives turning up in different states were distributing a friendly little present from the feral cats around The Crater. Then they died. By the time those left at the Crater were fighting off the first of the resurrections, whose sole purpose was to infect those who were still alive with the disease, people were dying all over the country. Sunnydale was once again ground zero for The Apocalypse. This time there wasn't a solution. Magic made it worse, and was draining their already meagre magical supplies. Even the standby of old movies and computer games didn't work, chopping their heads off just lead to headless zombies. Destroying their heads just lead to what Dawn called "Brain soup with a crunchy topping". Even the cache of weapons that they found left in The Initiative's second secret base in Sunnydale - doors broken open by the giant explosion of doom - were absolutely no use, unless you counted the fact that the zombies could no longer lurch after you if their legs and arms were in a different place to their body. They could still pass on the virus though, which meant that even if they did dismember all the reanimated corpses of people they had been living with for the last few months, they'd have to start keeping them all in one place. And that would attract animals that would make the disease spread even more.
Andrew and those others who had managed to fend off the virus quickly deduced that the reason for this was an overexposure to magic. The fact that those people who had been involved with the Scooby Gang for longer than a year were always at risk of being transformed into a demon, or a rat, or a ghost or just plain possessed by any number of spirits, lost souls, mutated steroids or malevolent magic, meant that they were less likely to succumb to a magically mutated virus, and more likely to avoid becoming super-zombies. Unfortunately that wasn't entirely true for everyone. The massive outpouring of magic that dragged the slayer-ness out of Buffy into the others had drained her natural resistance to magic and also caused her immune system to go into overdrive a few days later. She was one of the first people to be overcome by the flu. When she realised she was dying she'd sought out Andrew and his video camera. She'd left a message for all the slayers she'd just created. Andrew felt privileged to have been the first person to see the message, since by that point even her slayer strength was waning she just couldn't manage alone, so he had to hold the camera. She'd put on an exceptionally strong face in front of the troops but she apparently felt that she could trust Andrew to keep a secret. The recording started in the middle of a sentence, because she told him she wanted him to record but didn't tell him when. He only realised that he was supposed to be recording a second too late, but he knew that the first sentence didn't change the meaning and where it did start was pure Buffy.
"... and you just tell him that. Anyway, I can't believe I'm dying of cat-flu. Who dies of cat-flu? Dawn, do me a favour and make sure that everyone knows about the times I died and it wasn't because of cat-flu. Great thought though, that I'll be back again, since I just can't help but come back from the dead. How many times would this make it now guys? Anyway. That's not the point of this. You are recording this right?" At this point in the video Andrew had to stop and point out the little red light on the front of the camera, showing that it was recording.
"Of course, it is recording, I'm just wigging out that I'm going to say all this stuff and make one more big speech and have no one hear it because the batteries ran out or something. Will says that I'm going to survive this, but she's just sayin' that, because I know she thinks that if I know that I'm going to die of cat-flu I will stop acting like the leader or something. I can't stop acting like a leader, but I know you need a new one. But it's not up to me. It's up to you guys. There are loads of things you have to do though. The flu, you've got to stop it, because it's a killer and it's our responsibility just as much as the other things that come out of the Hellmouth. I know you'll do it, you have to - to save the world again." Most of these sentences were punctuated by the wheezing sigh-like coughs that characterised this particular strain of flu. But she carried on, listing those places in Sunnydale that they would find useful and who would be best to help from their resources to combat the flu. Andrew thought it was lucky that she never found out exactly how she'd be coming back this time, and that she didn't have to face the fact that once she'd been overcome by the virus, several others that they relied on fell quickly under it's influence too. They lost Robin and several of the now slayers that had been in Sunnydale since the very beginning of the First's attempts to wipe out the line. The day they realised that the flu reanimated it's victims was the scariest, and caused even more chaos than there had been before when they'd just lost their leader and their friends. Buffy's prediction that she'd come back to life had become a terrifying moment of clairvoyancy in a way that they hoped Buffy had never imagined. At least they could console themselves that it was obvious that the person they knew as Buffy was not in there, and it was just a body that was walking. It made it a small amount easier to attempt to stop the attack they amassed but it was still a very traumatic time. Especially since they couldn't stop them, just hold them back for a while. It was also the day that Andrew realised that his heroes were still just people. Magically strong and super people, but still people. He was saddened to realise that those people couldn't do everything.
Surprisingly to everyone but Andrew, Xander had been the one to organise and lead the remaining people, including the slayers who had stayed at the Hellmouth with Buffy 'just in case' after the First has been defeated. Nobody expected Xander, who had hung back because of his slight disability recently, to turn into the sort of leader they needed in the face of the reanimated corpses of their friends. Since the losses of the last battle they'd faced Xander's personality had changed. He was still himself, but there was a harshness, an ability to tell people exactly what was important and what wasn't. As soon as they'd realised the corpses were unstoppable Xander had been the one to pluck a solution from nowhere. The concrete bunker that they had emptied of weapons belonging to the initiative was airtight. And easily sealed. All they had to do was lead the zombies down there. Unfortunately they needed bait, and nobody was volunteering to put themselves directly in the way of zombie death.
"Delightful though it would be to be torn to bits by the rabid remains of everyone I've spent time training with, Xander, I highly doubt that there's anyone willing to sacrifice themselves just so you can show us all that your plan actually is the best." The words 'Thank You Very Much' could quite easily have been tacked onto the end of Sabrina's scathing retort when Xander outlined his plan to the remaining new slayers. She was the most vocal against the plan but by no means the only one who had shown a negative reaction to someone they knew possibly joining the ranks of the undead. Andrew watched as Xander pulled himself up and addressed the problem by pointing out the obvious.
"We're all going to die. There's no actual question about that. The question is, do we die because we didn't try anything, or do we die because we do what we're best at and actually try to save the world again. Because if we don't try and save the world again we might as well get out there and start shuffling now because we're not going to survive this without actually trying. And hey, positive outcome, maybe we'll even manage to survive this whole thing and then we can high five each other because we tried and succeeded. Well, you can high five each other, I'd probably miss. What do you think of my plan now?"
The new slayers were silenced by this. Andrew looked around the room, in awe of Xander's skill with people. It wasn't charm as such because charm was generally making people feel like the only one in the world, it was personality glue. It was his personality coming out into the room and glueing the people there into a team. He was the heart. Always the heart of the team. One time when Andrew and Xander had been sharing a lonely night by the light of the camp fire, they had got to talking about old times. Andrew had haltingly told Xander how scared he'd been when bad things has happened when he was part of The Trio. They'd talked about it before, but not about the emotions, the things behind the events, nothing about how Andrew felt about the two men he spent his life with for those months. Once he'd finished he realised that his voice was hoarse, he must have been talking for ages. Xander must have realised this and started talking about how he had found out he was the heart of the team that took down Adam. That was another long story, but long afterwards it would make Andrew realise that he'd been accepted. He also later realised that that was the time that he thought that he could possibly admit that occasionally he could have feelings for another man.
Maybe that was why, when Xander was going over the plan again and explaining exactly how safe the bait would be, Andrew stood up and said he'd do it. It came out quietly, and he wasn't even sure Xander had heard him, despite the fact that he had been looking straight at him when he said it. There was a brief pause when nobody seemed to say anything, although what he'd just said passed between the surrounding people like a feather on the wind. The look on Xander's face became a mixture of shock, respect and something that Andrew could not identify no matter how much he considered it.
"I'll do it. I don't know if I can, but I'll try." He said now that he had the full attention of the room.
And that was how he came to be running through the remains of Sunnydale with zombies on his tail, who when it came down to it could move quite quickly for lurching dead people, but that may have been the magical influence in the virus. He was alone, with only one way of contacting the good guys, and that was only once he'd run out of all other options. There wasn't time for that now as he felt his breath start to catch in his throat and his legs started to object to the exercise he was putting them through. His foot his some rubble, and for a second he wobbled, thinking that he was going to fail and that oh, god, this was the end, they were going to catch him. However, seconds later he was on firm ground and his breath was coming smoother again. A female voice in his head, almost gone before he noticed it, said "that should help, now, do us proud." Willow. Miles away now, because she couldn't risk getting the flu, even though she was probably least at risk of succumbing to it, the idea of all the magic she had access too strengthening the virus would make it impossible to fight. She had said she'd look in on them occasionally, and perhaps spare a little magic, but Andrew hadn't realised that she'd been talking about doing it by remote. What ever she had done,he found himself slowing down slightly to look over his shoulder to ensure that the rabble behind him were keeping up. He kept going, checking ever so often that the zombies weren't letting their tasty magic imbued snack get away from them, and finally spotted the entrance to the compound. This would be the tricky bit. Getting in was easy for him - all he really needed to do was fall down the stairs into the giant concrete bunker. The bad guys on the other hand - he'd found if he referred to them as zombies too often his brain stopped being terrified and started laughing at the idea of magical cat-flu-zombies - were stupid. They'd probably not find the door so easily, although his now magical scent trail should be lighting up in what passed for their eyes, so they should follow. Once Andrew was inside with at least half the zombies he had to use his final bit of magic, to send up a flare. Then the others would attempt to corral the remaining zombies into the bunker while Andrew followed the complex route of staircases, elevator shafts and abandoned labs in order to get back to the door and out before they locked and barricaded the area. He ran down a corridor, realising that if he were to get at least half of the zombies inside then he couldn't just stand around watching them come in, he had to keep them moving. He turned left, and left again, knowing that these corridors all lead back in to what he had come to think of as the great hall. He turned left the third time and skidded to a halt on his dusty and worn shoes. That certainly looked like more than half the zombies. He activated the magical flare with the pre-decided word - in this case a string of Sanskrit words that sounded vaguely like 'cuddle the fuzzy kittens' but he didn't have time to wonder about that - and watched as magical fire engulfed the building. It wasn't burning anything, it was just a projection of purple flames, but it worked very well as a way to ensure the zombies moved around and as a signal for the good guys.
He ran through the nearest door with a symbol that suggested stairs, and threw himself up the stairs that were a little way beyond. He got to the top and stopped. There were four different corridors stretching in front of him, and none of them seemed like the right way to go. He closed his eyes and ran down the nearest, opening them just beyond the entrance to ensure he didn't break his neck.
"You are in a maze of twisty little passages all alike. It is dark."
It was funny the things that came into your head when you're running for your life. He remembered playing text only games when he was part of the trio, and wished like anything that he could find something as easy as a teleport command to get out of these passages. He remembered that there should be a elevator shaft away to the right with a ladder inside, and that he had about five minutes before the doors were shut forever. He went down the next right turn he could, tripping in his haste of an abandoned pile of papers and standing in a puddle of partially-dried yellow demon blood. He wasn't interested in what the initiative had been doing down here, although he had to wonder why the blood was still so fresh. He had no time to stop and look, and it wasn't as if he was about to mourn the loss of one demon. Recent days had proved that Sunnydale didn't have any demons left, they had gone to ground in fear of the virus just as much as the humans. It was rare for them to even see a demon now.
He reached the elevator, and dragged the access door open. As he scrambled up the ladder thinking that he was already too late he heard voices, those of Xander directing the slayers, and that of Dawn ensuring that anyone getting injured got out of the way and checked over as soon as she could manage it. He reached the top of the ladder, and ran through a lab reaching the door just in time to see Xander attacking the last of the zombies with an axe. They didn't like using the rifles they had - they didn't do any good and the bullets didn't lose much velocity going through zombie flesh so the ricochets could go anywhere. Especially if they clipped bone. Andrew ran forwards and Xander grabbed his arm.
"Well done, you made it. Now lets get out of here."
So they did. And they all went home and lived happily ever after. At least, that's what Andrew had hoped to hear once the doors to the compound were barricaded shut, and they'd made it back to their camp alive. It wasn't that simple though. It never is.
"Ok, guys here's the situation so far. We've contained the problem for us, but Willow and the other slayers have reported exactly what Buffy, and the rest of us, had feared. The virus has travelled with the initial people who left us and has now taken hold of many people all over the country. We have a responsibility to stop the virus from spreading any further. Fortunately the government has realised this and has closed our borders. Unfortunately they have yet to realise what's coming. We do know the zombies are apparently less forceful the further away they are from the Hellmouth, but that just says that the magic remnants from the Hellmouth is what's keeping them going. This means we can't use magic to stop them. As we also know, we can't use regular weapons to stop them either. So. Does anyone have a single idea that isn't 'burn the country' since that's the only thing that I can come up with right now. Anyone got a non-magical non-weapon that is capable of stopping marauding zombies, hidden about their person?"
Xander's speeches always ended on a joke. Or at least an attempt at a joke, which always made those who were listening go away with a smile, even though the world was falling down around their ears. Later that evening when they were alone in their tent, Xander confessed that he wasn't sure that his jokes were going to keep working. And that he was unsure that they were going to save the world this time. Andrew tried to cheer him up, feeling helpless he said,
"What we really need, is a magical vaccine. Something that combats the virus, and protects against it coming back." He mused, basically following his thoughts aloud. "And then we need something that can freeze the bad guys that have already developed in their tracks. Wait. That's it!?"
Ten minutes later, Andrew and Xander were frantically explaining to Dawn and the others exactly what Andrew had come up with. It wasn't a total solution, since it wouldn't stop the virus, but it would stop the zombies. They wouldn't need much, most of the supplies were right there in the things they had managed to take from the weapons bunker. Andrew was finally grateful that he'd dragged the folder full of the Trio's original plans with him all this time. It meant that he didn't have to come up with a new design for the freeze ray. He was amazed by the fact that he hadn't thought about it before. They needed something that stopped the bad guys in their tracks, and that was what the freeze ray would do. They were worried about what would happen if the zombies were to defrost, but Willow - via a long distance psychic link which felt like you had tiny creatures whispering in your ears - had told them that instead of the original power source for the freeze ray they could use a magical one which would not only create a stronger freeze - making it possible to freeze several hundred 'things' before needing a brief recharge - but also it was cause it to be a magical freeze with only one possibility of defrosting. Willow wouldn't be Willow if she didn't build in a fail-safe to the gun in case someone accidentally froze one of the good guys.
As soon as Willow had told Andrew the magical recipe to made the power source, the remaining fighters were put to work assembling the freeze-guns. Andrew worked hard on the power source, knowing one slip could cause the death of everyone in the area. He was making the magic equivalent of a small nuclear reactor for each of the guns. They were rather more stable than some reactors, but still quite dangerous to mess around with. Which is why Andrew believed himself alone when he was talking to himself about how Buffy would've saved the day earlier, and how she wouldn't have allowed the virus to spread so far.
"She did, Andrew. She was still alive when the slayers started leaving, and she knew there was a possibility that they were spreading the flu, but she didn't realise it was a killer until after that. She's not to blame any more than you are. If these guns work, you'll have saved the day for the moment, and Buffy wouldn't have been able to do that, she wouldn't have known about the freeze gun. It wouldn't have occurred to her to just stop them, because Buffy was a fighter and would have tried to destroy them. You're not a fighter, and you're doing your best to save the day. Buffy couldn't do everything, even though you thought she could. She was amazing, but she was just one person. Buffy needed people like you and me behind her so that she could be amazing. And she'll rest in peace knowing that you're continuing to do exactly what you do so well."
Xander stopped talking and smiled at Andrew before leaving him alone with even more thoughts than he had before. He carried on making the power sources in a much calmer and positive frame of mind. From that moment everything seemed to move at the speed of light. The manufacture and testing of the guns went amazingly quickly once they got the hang of firing them, especially since they had around fifty guinea pigs locked up underground. A few quick modifications of the guns once they realised that they were freezing the zombies too fast, which made them susceptible to shattering. A situation which could cause a fast spread of the disease because shards of the zombies could travel a lot further and get into tiny places. They had just fixed that problem and were celebrating when Xander came in.
"We have a problem. Several of the slayers have come down with symptoms. We need to isolate them, and we need that vaccine. The freeze guns aren't going to save the day if we can't stop the virus from spreading." Everyone who had been idly wondering what they would do now that they'd saved the world again slumped. They knew that finding an vaccine wasn't going to be their job. All they could do was hold back the hordes until Willow came up with the goods. So they did.
As always a team that worked on the Hellmouth didn't have time to anything but fight, so they fought. It was slow going, they needed to make sure they froze anyone and everyone who had died from the virus, not just those who had already been animated. Sometimes it was just a case of visiting the funeral homes and breaking into the coffins to add an icy surprise to the dead body after they were ready for burial, but sometimes they were dealing with bodies that had already been buried, or they had to cope with bands of the zombies which had reanimated and joined together to get near to humans to spread the virus. All the while reports were coming in from other slayers and Willow who were sending them to the next place, the place with the next highest number of infections, the next highest number of deaths. Each time they got those reports they were told that the vaccine was still in the testing stage. Obviously that wasn't going to save the people who were already infected. And that was rapidly becoming a number bigger than the number of people who were not infected. There were a few freak incidents of people surviving the virus, but mostly, if you got the virus, you died.
The slayers who had caught it lasted a little longer than the ordinary victims of the virus, what with their slayer strength and the stubborn ability to face danger and just keep going. Andrew wondered if they'd all always had that, or if something had happened when Willow had shared out the slayer-ness with them, and they'd got some of Buffy's more useful personality traits too. The problem with them lasting longer was that it meant that they suffered longer. The wheezing-sigh coughs got worse and it often looked like one or more of the slayers were trying to cough up a furball. It would've been half amusing if it hadn't been for the fact that slayers dying was just another heartbreaking sign of the end of the world.
The news by now was terrible and getting worse by the second. Willow was holed up somewhere unable to leave because she had a germ free environment and everyone agreed that her leaving the area could make matters infinitely worse. As long as she was alive, and there were even a few people surviving the flu, then maybe they'd be able to find a cure. Or a vaccine for the people who still hadn't caught the virus. Those people who were paranoid enough that when they heard possible deadly virus on the news they locked themselves in hermetically sealed basements and ate their tinned food and watched world go to hell. The only other people who were currently surviving were those who were outside of the cities, who had their very own type of isolation from the virus simply because they hadn't been in touch with another human being. Soon they wouldn't safe. Xander and the other were freezing the zombies on the Hellmouth to prevent the spread, but they couldn't get away from the Hellmouth to help the rest of the country, because they didn't have enough people, and every time they tried to move they found more masses of zombies grouping together.
As the hope faded for finding a cure the remaining people in Sunnydale took refuge in the comfort they could give each other. They'd keep fighting, but it was looking less and less hopeful, and even though they were still fighting they weren't making any progress. Every time they thought they'd managed to stop the onslaught of the zombies, more would come from behind them. And since they had to be careful not to hem themselves in with frozen zombies. The crater where they'd started living was beginning to look like an army of frozen warriors. It was obvious from the way that the zombies kept coming that the magic that was keeping them alive was also calling them to the Hellmouth. On the plus side, that meant that the people who weren't capable of fighting were not being attacked by the zombies, because all of the dead were headed towards the Hellmouth, but it also meant that there could be no end to the zombies turning up at the Hellmouth. At least, no end, until the entire population of the country had been infected.
And that was exactly what was happening. Every time they got reports from the few people who were still alive to keep in contact they found that there were more dead people, more zombies, and less and less hope of a cure. Willow was still getting in contact from time to time, generally by psychic link, and the news she had to share wasn't good. She was attempting to make a cure or a vaccine, but the magical part of the virus was causing it to mutate at an amazingly fast rate, meaning that even if they could cure the original strain, they'd be nowhere curing it, because only the original people who had be infected, and who were therefore dead, had that strain. The rest of the people who had the virus who hadn't yet died were currently suffering from something completely different.
The now small band of twenty people left on the Hellmouth were making plans to leave. They didn't really have anywhere to go. As far as they knew, they were the only people left. The last reports they'd had from anyone had told them that the whole world was infected, and that nobody knew what to do. They were throwing all their resources at the virus and they couldn't beat it. However, for the past week they hadn't had any reports from anyone. Willow might still be working on the cure, or she might be dead. They might well be the last people on earth to still not have caught the flu. Andrew, Xander, Dawn, several high school students who had tagged along after Dawn who they just couldn't get rid of, and the remaining slayers, were left alone, except for the extremely undead guys. Dawn tended to stay with the high school students more and more, since she wanted to stay with those people who made the whole situation seem slightly more normal - it wasn't, but they made her feel like a normal teenager. The slayers tended to stick together too, because they had a magical bond because of they way they had gained their calling. This left Andrew and Xander, who shared a tent anyway when they had time off guarding the group from zombie attacks, so they got to spend a lot of time together.
Over the weeks of trekking across country, attempting to find food that was still stored correctly and sealed so they could be sure it wasn't infected, avoiding or freezing the zombies that attacked, Andrew and Xander got closer than they ever had been before. The group divided into two in order to keep watch at night to ensure that they were never too close to a virus bearing body. Both groups had two shifts a day, one in the light, one in the dark. The fact that the rest of the world was gone meant that they didn't have a problem getting supplies, but they had to ensure that any supplies they did manage to find weren't in danger of having been infected with the virus. Initially it was enough to keep moving. To keep themselves from getting infected. There was one thought that was left in the back of their minds though. They had to get lucky every time they moved, every time they froze more zombies they needed to make sure they'd got them all because if they didn't one tiny virus could kill them all.
It would only take a tiny mistake for all of those humans left in the world to be wiped out.
They just kept moving, and tried not to think about it.