I thought that I said it, but as it turns out, I realized that the cacophony that I foresaw my vocal chords making, didn't apply. As it turns out, I was knocked out again. Suprise there, Giles, another good show...
Or a very bad one that I had missed and now, as I try to adjust to the light wherever it is that I am, I hear voices, but only very mutedly because the searing pain ripping throughout my cranium made even moving one of my fingers the equivalent of trying to prevent an insurmountable apocalypse.
I believed that I heard the voice of Anya, if not mistaken, but once more, I had to check the facilities before I attempted to move because I felt like I had broken every bone in my body.
Turning over, which sent an assault of mind-numbing pain through me, I realized that from my vantage point, I was staring into the very dead body of Xander. Suddenly, I wished that I was the one who had died. I was opposed to this operation, but Buffy and her unmutable affection for both of the vampires forced her into this suicidal operation and now, everything resoundingly rushed into my head...
Los Angeles. A big if not one of the biggest of battles ever. All of my slayers from all over the globe. Buffy. Willow. Xander and Xander dead right in front of mye eyes. Also there were Anya and Andrew, which while I felt immense fgrief over Xander...seing them gave me hope that most of us had survived, though if that were the case, where was everyone?
"Dear Lord, please tell me that almost everyone survived..."
Anya and Andrew looked at me in unison and at least on Andrew's face, I saw unmistakable relief. Anya on the other hand, might have been grief-stricken over Xander to the point where nothing else mattered...nothing else had form...nothing else was real.
"Please tell me that Xander is our only casualty." Even saying that brought the reality of grief, along with my various physical pains, to the forefront.
"He's really gone? Please tell me this is all a dream. Xander can't die. He had so much more to live for."
Suave is something that I had developed and I don't think that anybody that knew me could deny it, but this was one of those times when I wanted to hide, to not face reality, to get away from the world.
I'm not proud of this, but having dragged my boss into the hotel and after seeing all of the dead slayers...girls that I had worked with, friends...brave girls...I was filled with the feeling that this beyond me.
I looked down at Xander after Anya's understandable statement and was filled with a void, like an episode of Voyager when they reached the outer limits of the galaxy and nothing was there...and knew that no comforting words would escape my mouth for Anya's benefit.
While I struggled for words, I noticed movement from my right peripheral and then heard the unmistakable voice of Giles.
"Dear Lord, please tell me that almost everyone survived..."
I looked at Anya and then at Xander and my smile at seeing Giles faded away, though don't get me wrong...I am so glad to see him not dead.
"Please tell me that Xander is our only casualty."
Lost for words even worse then I had been when attempting to offer solace to Anya, I looked away from Giles to her, hoping that she could answer him.
"Dear Lord, please tell me that almost everyone survived..."
My heart almost jumped out of my chest when I heard Giles speak. This isn't real. This can't be real. The First did this to us. Came to us with the image of our friends or loved ones.
"Please tell me that Xander is our only casualty."
Giles pushed the knife deeper into my heart. "How do we know it's you? You could be The First." I knew he couldn't be The First. He touched Xander's arm. But, I still had a right to question Giles. "And, why would you be alive? Why couldn't Xander be alive? It's nice to know how much you care about Xander?" I got up off the floor. The tears spilled out of my eyes.
"Xander's dead. Willow's dead. A bunch of Slayers are dead, and some injured. Happy, now?" I couldn't believe he wondered if Xander was our only casualty. Like, his life meant nothing. "This wouldn't have happened if we didn't listen to your horny Slayer. She's the one that brought us all here. If it wasn't for her, Xander, Willow, and those Slayers would still be alive." I paced back and forth on the floor.
"My beady-eyes is gone. Well, ex, anyway." I knelt down by Xanders body. I slapped his face. "Wake up! Giles woke up, why can't you wake up?" I slapped his cold face, again.
I looked up at Giles. "How are you alive? You were not breathing. I checked your pulse." Giles was brought back from somewhere. I will interrogate him, until he wishes to answer me.
Oh. It's all that I could think after Andrew's pointed silence spoke volumes about the depth of the loss that we had incurred on this fateful evening, where again...I was opposed to being here.
The stark reality of the gravity of the situation settled in and I found that my various major aches and pains and injuries didn't really mean anything anymore. While I needed to get to a hospital, assuredly, it no longer mattered and I found that with alarm, concern and downright trepidating fright over who might be gone and who might still be alive...that I could move rather stealthily at the moment and fully well intended to once I determined the wherabouts of the injured and of the...the worse off then that.
"How do we know it's you? You could be The First."
Anya's rather idiotic remark could be fully attributed to the fact that Xander was dead in front of her and if things weren't so bloody dire, I might have commented upon how the First wasn't a player in things right now and hadn't been since Sunnydale.
"And, why would you be alive? Why couldn't Xander be alive? It's nice to know how much you care about Xander?"
I fully cared that Xander's light had been extingusihed, but there were others. "I do care about Xander and already miss him, Anya, but I have to consider everyone before I let myself grieve.
"Xander's dead. Willow's dead. A bunch of Slayers are dead, and some injured. Happy, now?"
I was so wrought with a sudden nausea that Anya's come again, go again lack of tact made me want to throttle her and take out my grief upon her, but of course, I would never do this. She is hurting.
"This wouldn't have happened if we didn't listen to your horny Slayer. She's the one that brought us all here. If it wasn't for her, Xander, Willow, and those Slayers would still be alive."
This was a point of contention that Anya knew that I agreed with her upon and yet, she still had to bring it up.
"Wake up! Giles woke up, why can't you wake up?"
I didn't have the heart nor the inclination to attempt to stop Anya from something so blatantly impossible. Xander was clearly gone and there would be no bringing him back though I sincerely with every fiber of my being hoped that Anya's efforts paid off and that he would suddenly awake, sore but still alive. Willow was dead and many of the slayers. It was too much to comprehend and I found that I wanted to see the dead and make sure that they were dead before I reacted or did anything.
"How are you alive? You were not breathing. I checked your pulse."
I may have been technically dead. It was a possibility and when I had awoken, I certainly felt as though I had been, but this was not the time to get hypotthetical or analytical about my plight. Right now, I needed to talk to Andrew, who was probably less effusive with debilitating sorrow then was Anya.
I looked at him. "Andrew, we must gather all of the dead to make certain that they are dead. We owe it to them to give them proper burials if they are. But more paramount then that at the moment, I need to know who actaully survived."
I couldn't believe that this had all happened and that those vile words had just escaped my lips.
Anya and Giles basically had an argument and I wanted to scream for them to stop, but so much death around us was a new one for me and I didn't know what to say or how to act. The jovial Andrew that had become a watcher and a suave man had left the building and all that I wanted right now was to wake up back in England and have it be yesterday with plans for vampiric studies and some training with some of the younger slayers. I wanted that day to become groundhog day, you know, with Bill Murray and have today be impossible to happen unless I got it right and if I did, today wouldn't have been the wya that it was because I would have talked everyone, including Buffy and Faith out of going because I knew that Xander and Willow and Vi and Chao Ahn and so many other girls would be dead and there's no way that we could let that happen and even Buffy in her insistence to help Angel and Spike...would realize that it was so totally wrong to come to Los Angeles on this day...
I came out of my reverie, wished that I hadn't, even though seeing Giles alive after we thought that he was dead too was cool, and heard Anya ask Giles how he was alive because she checked his pulse and I had checked his pulse and he didn't have one before. Now, he did and he had touched Xander, which meant that he wasn't the first, who incidentally, hadn't tried to do anything to any of us since we closed the hellmouth in Sunnydale.
Strangely, Giles didn't answer, but it really wasn't so strange when I thought about it because Giles was like the guru to us all, except maybe to like Buffy, Faith, Kennedy and Willow, because he's so smart and is our leader...so he was probably totally worried about who was dead and alive because unlike me and Anya, he hadn't seen anything what with the being all knocked out and stuff until five minutes ago.
"Andrew, we must gather all of the dead to make certain that they are dead. We owe it to them to give them proper burials if they are. But more paramount then that at the moment, I need to know who actually survived."
I panicked. I felt like Giles would attack me or something considering the gravity of the situation and it scared me. I didn't want to do anything but shrivel away and hide, but I knew that he would think less of me if I couldn't answer him.
"Buffy and Faith survived. I think they're still fighting. Melissa and Kennedy survived. Dawnster was so kickass and she survived. Oh yeah, Principal Wood lived, though he doesn't look good and there's some really hot blonde who seems to be a slayer, even though none of us knew about her. She's hear with her boyfriend. Buffy was with Spike, Dawn was with Angel's son the last I checked. Melissa went after some army guy...isn't his name Riley?..."
I started to yammer because I'm really nervous, so I calmed down and then said nothing, wondering if Giles wanted more information or if I had already given him too much...
I thought that I said it, but as it turns out, I realized that the cacophony that I foresaw my vocal chords making, didn't apply. As it turns out, I was knocked out again. Suprise there, Giles, another good show...
Or a very bad one that I had missed and now, as I try to adjust to the light wherever it is that I am, I hear voices, but only very mutedly because the searing pain ripping throughout my cranium made even moving one of my fingers the equivalent of trying to prevent an insurmountable apocalypse.
I believed that I heard the voice of Anya, if not mistaken, but once more, I had to check the facilities before I attempted to move because I felt like I had broken every bone in my body.
Turning over, which sent an assault of mind-numbing pain through me, I realized that from my vantage point, I was staring into the very dead body of Xander. Suddenly, I wished that I was the one who had died. I was opposed to this operation, but Buffy and her unmutable affection for both of the vampires forced her into this suicidal operation and now, everything resoundingly rushed into my head...
Los Angeles. A big if not one of the biggest of battles ever. All of my slayers from all over the globe. Buffy. Willow. Xander and Xander dead right in front of mye eyes. Also there were Anya and Andrew, which while I felt immense fgrief over Xander...seing them gave me hope that most of us had survived, though if that were the case, where was everyone?
"Dear Lord, please tell me that almost everyone survived..."
Anya and Andrew looked at me in unison and at least on Andrew's face, I saw unmistakable relief. Anya on the other hand, might have been grief-stricken over Xander to the point where nothing else mattered...nothing else had form...nothing else was real.
"Please tell me that Xander is our only casualty." Even saying that brought the reality of grief, along with my various physical pains, to the forefront.
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Suave is something that I had developed and I don't think that anybody that knew me could deny it, but this was one of those times when I wanted to hide, to not face reality, to get away from the world.
I'm not proud of this, but having dragged my boss into the hotel and after seeing all of the dead slayers...girls that I had worked with, friends...brave girls...I was filled with the feeling that this beyond me.
I looked down at Xander after Anya's understandable statement and was filled with a void, like an episode of Voyager when they reached the outer limits of the galaxy and nothing was there...and knew that no comforting words would escape my mouth for Anya's benefit.
While I struggled for words, I noticed movement from my right peripheral and then heard the unmistakable voice of Giles.
"Dear Lord, please tell me that almost everyone survived..."
I looked at Anya and then at Xander and my smile at seeing Giles faded away, though don't get me wrong...I am so glad to see him not dead.
"Please tell me that Xander is our only casualty."
Lost for words even worse then I had been when attempting to offer solace to Anya, I looked away from Giles to her, hoping that she could answer him.
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My heart almost jumped out of my chest when I heard Giles speak. This isn't real. This can't be real. The First did this to us. Came to us with the image of our friends or loved ones.
"Please tell me that Xander is our only casualty."
Giles pushed the knife deeper into my heart. "How do we know it's you? You could be The First." I knew he couldn't be The First. He touched Xander's arm. But, I still had a right to question Giles. "And, why would you be alive? Why couldn't Xander be alive? It's nice to know how much you care about Xander?" I got up off the floor. The tears spilled out of my eyes.
"Xander's dead. Willow's dead. A bunch of Slayers are dead, and some injured. Happy, now?" I couldn't believe he wondered if Xander was our only casualty. Like, his life meant nothing. "This wouldn't have happened if we didn't listen to your horny Slayer. She's the one that brought us all here. If it wasn't for her, Xander, Willow, and those Slayers would still be alive." I paced back and forth on the floor.
"My beady-eyes is gone. Well, ex, anyway." I knelt down by Xanders body. I slapped his face. "Wake up! Giles woke up, why can't you wake up?" I slapped his cold face, again.
I looked up at Giles. "How are you alive? You were not breathing. I checked your pulse." Giles was brought back from somewhere. I will interrogate him, until he wishes to answer me.
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The stark reality of the gravity of the situation settled in and I found that my various major aches and pains and injuries didn't really mean anything anymore. While I needed to get to a hospital, assuredly, it no longer mattered and I found that with alarm, concern and downright trepidating fright over who might be gone and who might still be alive...that I could move rather stealthily at the moment and fully well intended to once I determined the wherabouts of the injured and of the...the worse off then that.
"How do we know it's you? You could be The First."
Anya's rather idiotic remark could be fully attributed to the fact that Xander was dead in front of her and if things weren't so bloody dire, I might have commented upon how the First wasn't a player in things right now and hadn't been since Sunnydale.
"And, why would you be alive? Why couldn't Xander be alive? It's nice to know how much you care about Xander?"
I fully cared that Xander's light had been extingusihed, but there were others. "I do care about Xander and already miss him, Anya, but I have to consider everyone before I let myself grieve.
"Xander's dead. Willow's dead. A bunch of Slayers are dead, and some injured. Happy, now?"
I was so wrought with a sudden nausea that Anya's come again, go again lack of tact made me want to throttle her and take out my grief upon her, but of course, I would never do this. She is hurting.
"This wouldn't have happened if we didn't listen to your horny Slayer. She's the one that brought us all here. If it wasn't for her, Xander, Willow, and those Slayers would still be alive."
This was a point of contention that Anya knew that I agreed with her upon and yet, she still had to bring it up.
"Wake up! Giles woke up, why can't you wake up?"
I didn't have the heart nor the inclination to attempt to stop Anya from something so blatantly impossible. Xander was clearly gone and there would be no bringing him back though I sincerely with every fiber of my being hoped that Anya's efforts paid off and that he would suddenly awake, sore but still alive. Willow was dead and many of the slayers. It was too much to comprehend and I found that I wanted to see the dead and make sure that they were dead before I reacted or did anything.
"How are you alive? You were not breathing. I checked your pulse."
I may have been technically dead. It was a possibility and when I had awoken, I certainly felt as though I had been, but this was not the time to get hypotthetical or analytical about my plight. Right now, I needed to talk to Andrew, who was probably less effusive with debilitating sorrow then was Anya.
I looked at him. "Andrew, we must gather all of the dead to make certain that they are dead. We owe it to them to give them proper burials if they are. But more paramount then that at the moment, I need to know who actaully survived."
I couldn't believe that this had all happened and that those vile words had just escaped my lips.
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I came out of my reverie, wished that I hadn't, even though seeing Giles alive after we thought that he was dead too was cool, and heard Anya ask Giles how he was alive because she checked his pulse and I had checked his pulse and he didn't have one before. Now, he did and he had touched Xander, which meant that he wasn't the first, who incidentally, hadn't tried to do anything to any of us since we closed the hellmouth in Sunnydale.
Strangely, Giles didn't answer, but it really wasn't so strange when I thought about it because Giles was like the guru to us all, except maybe to like Buffy, Faith, Kennedy and Willow, because he's so smart and is our leader...so he was probably totally worried about who was dead and alive because unlike me and Anya, he hadn't seen anything what with the being all knocked out and stuff until five minutes ago.
"Andrew, we must gather all of the dead to make certain that they are dead. We owe it to them to give them proper burials if they are. But more paramount then that at the moment, I need to know who actually survived."
I panicked. I felt like Giles would attack me or something considering the gravity of the situation and it scared me. I didn't want to do anything but shrivel away and hide, but I knew that he would think less of me if I couldn't answer him.
"Buffy and Faith survived. I think they're still fighting. Melissa and Kennedy survived. Dawnster was so kickass and she survived. Oh yeah, Principal Wood lived, though he doesn't look good and there's some really hot blonde who seems to be a slayer, even though none of us knew about her. She's hear with her boyfriend. Buffy was with Spike, Dawn was with Angel's son the last I checked. Melissa went after some army guy...isn't his name Riley?..."
I started to yammer because I'm really nervous, so I calmed down and then said nothing, wondering if Giles wanted more information or if I had already given him too much...
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