Willow snaked her arm round her husband’s waist. "Rupert, this is Miss Travers, she has a proposition for us." Her husband’s body stiffened at the name, even after all this time the Travers name stirred hostile feelings. Then the young woman smiled and Rupert relaxed.

She was young perhaps thirty, with titian hair and complexion dusted with freckles beneath her vivid blue eyes. "It’s a pleasure to meet you both. My name is Stella and I’m here to ask a favour." She wasted no time in settling herself at the kitchen table, idly tying her hair back she slid a pencil into the knot, as she accepted a mug of tea from Willow. "I’d like to invite you, Mrs. Giles, to write a computer simulation for us. A simulation of a Slayer to teach other Slayer’s, I think you know who I’m talking about." Stella looked earnestly from Willow to Giles and waited for their reaction.

Their hands clasped together and shared tears formed in their eyes, they had never told anyone of their involvement with Buffy. Giles was the only Watcher in his extended family, but they had bred Slayers.

"I’m out of practice." Willow stated quietly, and then her eyes flitted past the woman with the piercing blue eyes and her shoulders began to shake as her tears cascaded down her face. She thought to have left such feelings far behind her.

With a flourish, Stella withdrew a small holographic device from her copious leather bag and set it on the tabletop. "This is what we have so far." She flicked a switch and Buffy stood in miniature on a small stand.

At Rupert’s gasp, Willow glanced at the hologram and smiled. Buffy smiled back.

"Hi, Will’s, b.b.bad things are coming and they need us…Again." The figure smiled and jerked round. "I c.c.can’t move like I should. I’m all here, honest. Just a little cr.cr.cracked." She grinned.

Willow sighed. "Timings wrong." She turned the dial on the device and the image faded. "How soon do you need her?"

Stella stared at the device; no one was supposed to know how to turn that off. Out of practice, indeed! "Um, as soon as possible, bad things are coming."

"There’s been no contraindication in the Chronicles." Giles took out his palmtop and scanned the text. He could feel Stella’s eyes upon him and practised his impish grin once more. "Really, Miss Travers, just because my binding’s a bit tattered, it doesn’t mean my pages are loose or missing."

Willow laughed and kissed her husband’s cheek. Rupert enjoyed shaking people up.

Stella Travers sighed and shook her head, she’d been warned that these two were sharp witted and strong willed. You had to be to have survived living on a Hellmouth for five years beyond the call of duty after the Slayer had died. These two extraordinary mortals had taken on a few more apocalypses before a new Slayer arrived to relieve them and still they had lingered before finally moving on to begin a new life in England and build a dynasty.

"Would you like to stay to dinner?" Willow invited. "We often need a spare pair of hands…"

Crashing came from the computer room. "Ah, the beasts have been disturbed!" Rupert commented dryly. "Brace yourself, Travers, you’re about to meet the grandchildren."

All at once, the kitchen was full of small hungry people all clamouring for snacks before dinner. Stella flattened herself to the wall and watched as the two seniors organised a feast and then silence reigned.

Willow blew out a sigh of relief and shared a look with her husband, two sets of green eyes twinkled and they said at the same time. "Our little herd of Xander’s."

Later that night in bed, Willow snuggled in Rupert’s embrace. The house was quiet and dark. Both were awake lost in their thoughts.

"You want to do it, don’t you?" Rupert whispered, then kissed his lover’s soft skin. He felt her nod and smiled in the darkness. "I’ll go and make the tea while you dust down your laptop. And then after," He added quickly, "We’ll play."

He limped into the kitchen and filled the kettle. Through the window, he spied the moonlight glinting on his silver tipped wooden stake protruding from the trunk of an ancient Hawthorne. It was the site of Spike’s dusting some ten years past. Giles didn’t escape unscathed from the encounter; a broken pelvis and a smashed kneecap were the price he paid in defence of his home.

He loaded the tea things onto the tray and took the lot upstairs. Willow sat up in bed supported by cushions and smiled at his entrance, her glasses perched on the end of her nose as she drew out sheaves of paper and pictures from a box on the bed. Her laptop was buried beneath, carefully preserved. She took it out and gently stroked its case re-acquainting herself with an old friend.

"Oh thank you Rupert. I’ll write the program on here, test it on the demigod and launch the hologram. Can you find the scanner? We have to give Buffy a change of outfits; I know she wouldn’t be caught dead in the same outfit twice!"

"Nice to hear you babble again, darling" He handed Willow her tea, hooked up the scanner, looked through the photos and found one of the Hallow’een frat party. He scanned that one first… for the hell of it!

It popped up on the screen and felt his wife sigh, "We were so young!"

"You all kept me young, and fit, and exasperated and terrified!" Rupert laughed. "It was the best time of my life."

They exchanged glances, and set aside their teacups. Willow shifted over to his body and stroked his chest as slowly his breathing increased and the programming was forgotten, for a while.

End of part 2

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