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Enter the Reaper

© Macboru

Sunnydale, Ca.
Sunnydale Fairgrounds 2030, Saturday (Local)

Mac Cuhill signed off on his e-mail to Mackenzie, and prepared for the evening’s activities. Gathering his sword and slipping into a long overcoat, he stepped out into the night.

He drove to Sunnydale’s fairgrounds and left his car to patrol the perimeter on foot. The fairgrounds had that typically run-down appearance commonplace to abandoned fairgrounds throughout the U.S. Litter stirred by the breeze danced across the dark, cracked tarmac. A sumac tree leaned perilously against the perimeter fence.

‘What a dreadful looking place this is,’ he thought to himself. Perfect for the sort of encounter his kind occasionally engaged in – the very sort he hoped for tonight.

Out of the shadows to his left, a young man approached him with a dazed look on his face. Mac Cuhill tensed. The boy, looking to be about sixteen, was coming straight at him as Mac Cuhill slipped his hand under his coat. He paused as the sound of the boy’s sobbing reached him. Mac Cuhill cursed softly under his breath as his hand re-emerged from under his coat and he hurried to the boy. He had to get the youth away before his expected company arrived.

“C’mon, lad,” he spoke softly, reaching to grasp the boy by his shoulder. “This is no place for you tonight.”

Suddenly the boy’s countenance morphed into the most hellish thing Mac Cuhill had ever seen. He swore in a guttural-sounding Gaelic and tried to throw the boy away as he – it – swarmed up his outstretched arm.

Mac Cuhill set his feet in a wide, balanced stance as the thing’s claws ripped at his throat. Gathering his *chi*, Mac Cuhill hurled the thing half-a-dozen yards from him. As he stumbled back, he grasped at his torn throat with his left hand and fumbled for his sword with his right. Suddenly, another thing slammed into him from behind, throwing him to the ground. As he felt it’s jaws clamp down on his neck, Mac Cuhill went berserk.

Reaching up over his shoulder, Mac Cuhill grabbed the thing on his back by the scruff of its neck and jerked it straight over his head. Simultaneously, he twirled his body through all three axis of motion, tossing the creature away, pulling his sword and scuttling backward as he spun and whirled through the air, landing on his feet.

Taking one good look at the two beasts as they rushed him, Mac Cuhill instinctually seized upon an axiom from his days with the Fianna Fail – when outnumbered, *attack*. Mac Cuhill’s blade was a fan of death as it whirled through the air and he charged at his attackers. Each of his attackers howled in rage and pain as they lost an arm apiece. He quickly silenced one by decapitating it.

With a *POOF*, the headless creature turned to dust. Both Mac Cuhill and the remaining creature froze with shock. Mac Cuhill recovered first. With a scream, he lunged at the remaining beast and hacked away its sole remaining arm as the beast threw it up in a pointless attempt defend itself. A moment later, the second creature was also a quickly- settling pile of dust.

Mac Cuhill collapsed to his knees, bleeding profusely from the wounds at his neck. He struggled to regain his feet as he felt the approach of the one he’d intended to meet and battle this night.

“Well, well,” he heard. “What*ever* happened to you, Mac Cuhill?” queried the newcomer. Mac Cuhill could only gasp in rage at the desperate turn in circumstances. “No matter,” said his new – and fresh – opponent as he raised his own sword high in the air.

“There can be only one.”

Scene 1
Quebec City, Quebec
145 Chevalier
1000, Monday (Local)

Mac. Found Polovsky. Sunnydale, Ca. Regards, Finn.

Mackenzie O’Byrne read the e-mail with a settling sense of dread. If Finn hadn’t found the time to e-mail a follow-up in – Mac consulted his watch and did a few quick mental calculations – nearly 36 hours... He hung his head low for a few moments.

When either of them knew a fight was coming, they sent both a before and after message to the other. While this allowed at least the possibility of vengeance, the primary reason was more subtle. Neither the teacher nor the student would ever have to wonder what had become of the other.

Finn Mac Cuhill was dead.

Mackenzie O’Byrne got up and began to pack.

Scene 2
Sunnydale, Ca.
Sunnydale High School
0800, Monday (Local)

Buffy walked into the library and greeted her friends. Noticing Giles huddled with a newspaper in his office she arched an eyebrow at Willow in silent query.

“Don’t ask me,” Willow shrugged. “Giles has been Mystery Guy since we got here.”

Giles finally emerged from his office looking glum. After solemnly shaking his head at the gathered friends he asked, “Buffy, were you near the fairgrounds Saturday night?”

“No. Why?”

“Because of this,” he replied and tossed his paper on the table.

Whatever this was certainly seemed to give Giles the wiggins. The front page screamed about a headless body being found with a sword at the fairgrounds. Apparently a ‘freakish lightning storm’ had attracted the attention of a patrolling deputy to the site.

“I’m afraid they might be here,” said Giles. “Who are *they*, Giles?” asked Buffy.

“I’m going to tell you about something I’d hoped would never come up, Buffy. Wait a moment.” With that Giles turned and disappeared into his office, emerging moments later with an old book. He took it out to the table the gang was seated at, sat down and took a deep breath.

Opening the book he looked up at his former students with a somewhat worried expression. “There are legends that might explain our headless friend. I’ve never personally believed them to be true, but...”

“Something you don’t believe?” queried Willow.

Turning to look at each of the Slayerettes, trying to impart to them the gravity of the situation, Giles finally nodded.

“G-man, we already deal with all the wicked minions. Lighten up,” joked Xander.

“Yeah, Giles. Get to the meat,” tossed in Buffy. Giles hesitated a moment more before finally looking down and beginning to read from the book.

“From the dawn of time they come, moving silently down through the centuries. Struggling to reach the time of the Gathering, when those few who remain shall battle to the last. No one has ever known they are among us... ” Giles set the book aside and closed it.

Buffy was on the verge of a serious wiggins. “Who Giles? Who is among us?” she demanded.

“Immortals,” answered Giles.

Scene 3
Sunnydale, Ca.
Sunnydale High School
1000, Monday (Local)

“Immortals?” echoed Xander.

“Some kind of vampire?” asked Willow. “Worse?”

“No. Humans. Well...sort of, anyway. The legends speak of warriors battling each other through eternity. I believe one was killed here in Sunnydale Saturday night-”

“Whoa!” interrupted Xander. “I thought you said immortal? Killed how?”

“I don’t know for certain. Presumably by decapitation, given the condition of the body at the fairgrounds. What I do know from my reading is that they hunt each other in order to kill one another,” answered the Watcher.

“But why, Giles?” asked Buffy.

“In order to gain something called a ‘Quickening’.”

“Quickening?” prompted Willow.

“All their knowledge and power. Their soul, in a manner of speaking.” Giles adjusted his glasses. “When only a few immortals are left, legend has it that they will feel an irresistible pull to one location. There they will battle until only one remains. This is the ‘Gathering’. The sole remaining immortal wins the ‘Prize’. What that is, no one is certain. At the very least, the last immortal will have all the knowledge and power of all the immortals who have ever lived.

“Enough power to rule humanity forever,” he finished.

“How do we stop it?” asked Buffy.

Giles looked shocked. “I’m not sure we can. Dealing with one might be possible, but ending their struggle entirely? Buffy – children – if these creatures exist, then they have been warriors for centuries. Possible millennia. Constantly fighting other immortals to the death. To survive in this kind of eternal hunt, one would have to be a warrior of consummate skill and cunning.”

Buffy looked non-plussed at this. “Giles, we’ve battled vampires, demons, werewolves-”

“It is not the same thing, Buffy. Believe me!” Giles took a deep breath. “If this has been going on since the beginning of man, then they’re not only skilled warriors, but chameleons as well. In a way, it’s surprising that they and the vampires haven’t intermingled. I pray that they don’t. If one of them were evil enough to turn even a small number of vampires to his cause. Or, worse, became a vampire himself...”

“What Giles?” asked Buffy quietly.

“Just imagine a vampire that knew how to fight with the experience of centuries worth of battles, Buffy. Not terrorizing humans. Not being hunted by Slayers. Battles against men and women honed to fight warriors as warriors!”

“Tell me you have some good news, G-man,” pleaded Xander.

“Yeah, Giles. Tell me they aren’t coming here,” asked Buffy.

Giles blew out his cheeks. “If I’m right about the man at the fairgrounds, then two already have. Let us hope the survivor has moved on.”

Scene 1
Denver, Co.
Amoco on I-70
2130, Tuesday (Local)

Mac finished filling the gas tank of his truck and stretched his arms over his head. In about a day he’d reach Sunnydale. Then – vengeance! More than merely a teacher, Mac Cuhill had been very much a father to the young immortal.

Blood for blood, a rule as old as mankind. For once in his life Mac was appreciating a rule – and fully intended to enforce it.

Scene 2
Sunnydale, Ca.
Sunnydale Park
2230, Tuesday (Local)

Buffy staked the vampire and watched it turn to dust. Only the one tonight – things were pretty slow. She considered how that was likely to change in the next couple of days. Immortal warriors didn’t strike her as a good thing. She wasn’t sure of her ability to handle a supernatural warrior.

Vampires were bad enough.

Willow had hacked into the coroner’s database. The authorities believed that an animal had gnawed on the victim. Buffy had seen the pictures and knew that the late immortal – if that was in fact what he was – had been the victim of a vampire.

Two of them, if the coroner was right about the number of ‘animals’ involved. In a way, Buffy was glad the immortal was dead. She was positively wiggins about the idea of having to take on a vampire ‘warrior’. She gathered up Xander and decided to call it a night. She had the bad feeling that she’d need all the rest she could get in the next couple of days.

“Penny,” said Xander.

“Oh, you know. Vampires, immortal warriors, mid-terms. Usual stuff,” she replied with a grin.

“I think Giles may have the wrong idea about this,” Xander said suddenly. Buffy arched a delicate eyebrow at him. “Just think,” he continued. “Immortality. Could be a plus. Never grow old. No blood drinking requirements.”

Buffy pondered his train of thought. “That we know of.”

Scene 3
Los Angeles, Ca.
Holiday Inn on I-5
0830. Wednesday (Local)

Mac pulled into the Holiday Inn and turned off his engine. ‘Four hours rest,’ he ordered himself. He’d be in Sunnydale that evening. To be effective, he’d need to be rested. A quick breakfast was followed by a shower before Mac crashed. By ten a.m. He was fast asleep. By three, he was up and moving again.

At four-thirty Mac pulled into Sunnydale and looked around. ‘Cheerful looking place,’ he thought. Thinking of Finn, he grimaced. “I am become death...” he said softly.

Shortly, he found a motel and checked in, cleaned up, and received directions to a local restaurant. He ate his supper slowly as glanced through a local paper. Finding a contact number, he pulled out his cell phone and called up the paper’s front desk.

In short order he was talking to a gopher at the paper. “Yes, sir. There was a freak lightning storm out at the fairgrounds Saturday night. A murder victim was found there the next day.”

Mac gritted his teeth. “Thanks. Oh, by the way,” he continued casually, “what was the victim’s name?”

“Vic’s ID said Finn Bonet.” Mac grimaced – Bonet was Finn’s current identity.

“Thanks again.” Hanging up the phone, Mac got up, paid his bill and asked directions to the coroner’s office. Arriving shortly thereafter, he was made to wait until an assistant M.E. Was able to see him.

Everything seemed to be blurring at the edges and Mac couldn’t have recalled the next half hour with any degree of certainty.

And then he was staring down at Finn’s dead body.

“What the hell happened to him?” asked Mac as his eyes probed the wounds around his neck.

“I don’t know quite how to put this Mr. O’Byrne...”

“Bluntly.”

The M.E. Looked a bit shocked at that. “You do know the man, then?” he asked.

“His name is – was – Finn Bonet. He’s a retired investment banker.

We’ve been friends for... a long time.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. O’Byrne. He was attacked by at least two wild animals.

We’re not sure what. Then he was... Well you see for yourself,” finished the M.E. “Did he have any family?”

“No. He was an orphan. Never married.” Mac straightened suddenly. “Thank you,” he said, before turning and departing quickly. The sight of Finn’s mutilated corpse infuriated him. It was time to hunt.

Scene 1
Sunnydale, Ca.
Sunnydale Motor Lodge
1900, Wednesday (Local)

Mac returned to his room at the Sunnydale Motor Lodge, quickly dropped his bags on the bed and showered. Once the grime from several days travel was washed away, he slipped into bed. As he lay waiting for sleep, his mind drifted back over his life. Thoughts of Finn made the rage bubble in his chest.

After all that time hunting Polovsky, just to be brought down by...whatever the hell had attacked him. Mac was familiar with all kinds of different injuries, but the nature of Finn’s wounds puzzled him. He’d heard once of someone that used dogs to bring down his intended victims, but whatever had hit Finn was no dog.

Besides, Finn had never mentioned Polovsky using any kind of animal before. From Finn’s description of the bastard, he’d never had a need. Polovsky was a butchering psychopath, but he was also a skilled warrior.

So what the hell had happened? Was there another one of their kind here? Was it possible that Mac was searching for two targets? One that had killed Finn in addition to Polovsky? Because even if it wasn’t Polovsky that had killed Finn, Mac was still going to find him – and take his head. The real question was whether or not there was a different killer to find first – and where to find him.

Scene 2
Sunnydale, Ca.
Sunnydale Fairgrounds
1000, Thursday (Local)

Mac carefully surveyed the site where Finn had been killed. The location was perfect for a battle between immortals – remote, isolated and offering plenty of room to fight and maneuver. Crime scene marking tape outlined where Finn had fallen. Mac crouched down and set his hands on the ground.

Closing his eyes, he tried to picture what had happened here. The strike of the animals. His mentor locked in a desperate battle with at least two of them. Blood flying-

*Blood*.

Mac saw the stained tarmac where Finn had been killed – but where was the blood of whatever had attacked him? He’d had his sword out – the paper said it had been found several feet from his body – so where was the blood of the animals? Mac asked himself how likely it was that Finn was taken down without causing any damage to his attackers. Being as objective as possible, he concluded there was little chance of that.

Finn had far too much experience.

Further, there was no doubt that the animal attack had occurred before his head was taken. The cut of his opponents blade bisected one of the gnawed wounds on his throat.

So where the hell was their blood?

Scene 3
Sunnydale, Ca.
Sunnydale Community College
1200, Thursday (Local)

Buffy sat in her History 102 class trying to concentrate on what the professor was saying. Try as she might, she was failing. The guy struck her as a pompous blowhard who, while he might know what he was talking about, unfortunately did so in a mind-numbing monotone guaranteed to put the students to sleep.

As she looked around, she wondered what one of Giles’ immortals would have had to say about the subject the blowhard was lecturing on – the causes of and events leading up to World War One.

Finally the torture ended. Released from the class, she made her way to the student cafeteria. As she sat and stared at her food, she wished again that her ‘job’ came with a paycheck. She could certainly use a car.

Scene 4
Sunnydale, Ca.
150 Creek St
1400, Thursday (Local)

Mac stood and looked at the house for a few minutes before entering. It was a two-story Georgian affair set on a good sized piece of property.

Finn had written him about it, mentioning its attractions. The older man had considered buying it.

O’Byrne walked into the house and started exploring. Two main floors, an attic, a basement and an absolutely huge backyard that gave way to the rolling southern California hills. The entire place was surrounded by a low stone wall in front and a six-foot high privacy fence in the back. The nearest neighbor was a full quarter-mile away. The house was fifteen minutes away from what passed for downtown Sunnydale and only ten minutes away from the freeway, putting L.A. Within an hour’s drive.

The first floor was comprised of a living room, two additional rooms, a dining room and a kitchen. Upstairs were four bedrooms. The attic was partially finished and the basement constructed to be an earthquake shelter. The current owner’s asking price was ridiculously low considering the location.

Mac frowned as he considered how long he might be in the area. He hadn’t lived in the U.S. Since seventy-one and still had bitter memories about Americans. Still... The businessman in Mac rebelled at passing up on the property. And he was determined to stay long enough to resolve the issues surrounding Finn’s death...

Decision made, Mac climbed back into his Pathfinder and returned to the real estate agent’s office.

By five, Mac had enacted the transfer of funds for the house and set up a drawing account at a local bank. The following day he would close escrow. Returning to his motel, Mac got on the phone and called a friend in Quebec. With great sadness, his friend agreed to have his goods boxed and shipped out to the new place within the next couple of days.

Scene 1
Sunnydale, Ca.
The Bronze
2000, Thursday (Local)

Buffy sat with her friends taking in the scene. Couples were dancing together, swaying to the music. Being surrounded by all that togetherness was depressing the young woman. She wished she could find someone. She wasn’t all that picky, she thought. Basically, she wanted someone nice, cute, warm-blooded, male...

Buffy sighed. On top of everything else, she was developing one hell of a headache. Willow turned to her friend and grinned at her.

“C’mon, Buffy,” she cajoled. “That one in the corner is kind of cute. Why don’t you ask him to dance?”

Buffy examined the object of Willow’s suggestion. A guy about their age, dressed in a khaki-colored pants and dark turtleneck. The guy had a dark brown duster in his lap. He was sitting alone, nursing a drink. His eyes were roving among the crowd as if he were searching for someone.

She didn’t know why, but something about him set alarm bells ringing. The stranger smelled like trouble.

Mac could feel the presence of another immortal nearby, but in the crowd he couldn’t tell who it was. His eyes swept back and forth over the crowd, searching.

Across the room, a pair of women were surreptitiously eyeing him. One of them? Judging from their manner and dress, he thought that unlikely.

He kept scanning the room.

The guy across the room barely gave Buffy and Willow a second glance. In light of her headache, Buffy decided that whoever he was searching for was going to have to fend for themselves. The man was too well dressed to be a vampire, and she wasn’t a cop.

Excusing herself from Willow, Buffy left to go home. Once outside her head cleared immediately. Deciding that it had been brought on by too many people when she just wasn’t in the mood to party, she shrugged her shoulders. Patrol suddenly struck her as a good idea. Maybe she’d run into something in need of being killed. With that in mind, the Slayer strolled down the street toward the cemetery. In minutes she was standing at the entrance.

And heard the scream.

Instantly, she set off at a dead run.

The buzz dissipated. Whoever the other immortal was, he was gone now.

Mac surged to his feet, cloaking himself in his long duster as he made straight for the door. Sunnydale was too small a town to chalk this up to mere coincidence. The other immortal might or might not be Finn’s killer, but it was inconceivable to Mac that he or she didn’t know anything about what had happened

Mac considered what he’d seen – rather, what he hadn’t seen – at the fairgrounds that day. Where the hell was the blood?

And who the hell was that girl from the club? He’d almost swear that that girl was an immortal. The ‘buzz’ had faded with her departure.

Could she have something to do with Finn’s death?

As he exited the Bronze he saw a man dart into the alley behind it. As Mac got closer to the alley’s mouth, the ‘buzz’ hit him. Slipping his hand under his coat to grasp the hilt of his sword, he slipped quietly into the darkened back street

Mac felt the presence of the immortal draw close as he padded quietly down the alley. Reaching the shadows, he slipped his hand under the duster and withdrew his sword. The ‘buzz’ was a ripping spike now, racing up and down his spine, coursing around in his brain.

He didn’t even consider calling out to his opponent. The veteran of numerous battles against others of his kind, Mac was cautious.

A slight crunch of gravel ahead and to the left announced the other’s presence. Crouching down, Mac picked up a loose piece of mortar and chucked it off to his right. A glint of metal in the dark confirmed the location of the other immortal when he – she? – started at the noise.

Silently gliding forward, Mac loomed out of the darkness and faced the newcomer. In an instant, the blade of his Katana was resting against the throat of his opponent.

“Looking for me?” he asked quietly.

The other immortal stiffened. “Jesus!” he sighed, frightened.

“Name,” Mac demanded.

“Cathay,” was the quiet answer. “And you?”

Mac grinned in the dark. “I am become death,” he taunted. “Yours, specifically, if you don’t have a very good reason for being here.”

Cathay shuddered. “I’m not looking for a fight.”

“Really?” asked Mac. “Well, in that case...” He lifted the blade from Cathay’s neck. Instantly Cathay turned and swept his own blade at Mac’s legs. Cautious of treachery, Mac was alert. He jumped straight up into the air a good four feet. Landing lightly, he smashed Cathay in his face with a palm strike.

Spinning away, Mac raised his blade in a defensive posture. Feinting to his left, he suddenly lunged forward and thrust his sword into Cathay’s heart. Cathay squealed in surprised pain and died. Mac jerked his blade out of his opponents chest and stepped back.

Looking around quickly, he made certain they were alone. Not the best place for a Quickening but, with all the noise inside the club he doubted anyone would hear the noise of the Quickening. Too, they were far enough back in the alley that the lightshow should be difficult to locate immediately.

Most importantly, the young – and possibly immortal - woman from the club was nowhere nearby. This bastard hadn’t been inside, Mac was certain of that. So there was no way he could have been the cause of the ‘buzz’ that had hit Mac in the Bronze and faded when the blonde girl left.

Mac glanced down at his enemy, wondering why he’d been attacked. The veteran had a sneaking suspicion that the man at his feet had been after the girl. He kicked the man’s sword away and settled into wait for his revival. In a few minutes, he was rewarded by a shuddering gasp as Cathay came alive. Mac picked up Cathay’s sword and set it against its owner’s throat while cocking his own back over his shoulder.

“Welcome back,” he greeted Cathay cheerfully.

“Why didn’t you kill me?” Cathay asked, then hissed as his own blade dug a little into the skin at his throat.

“Curiosity,” answered Mac. “Finn Mac Cuhill. Name ring a bell?”

Cathay started to shake his head before he remembered the press of the blade against his neck. “No,” he answered instead.

“Why’d you attack me?”

“You attacked me first.”

“Bullshit. I had you cold, but I let you go. Try again,” Mac demanded.

“All right, all right. I’m sorry. It was a bad call on my part,” agreed the immortal. “How about you let me go and we call it quits, huh? No harm, no foul.”

Mac swept the Katana up from his shoulder and down through Cathay neck in one powerful blow. Cathay’s head fell from his shoulders and rolled a short way down the alley, bouncing a couple of times before coming to rest several feet away.

“Guess again,” answered Mac. He’d been prepared to let Cathay live before his attack. Mackenzie O’Byrne wasn’t one for tolerating dishonorable behavior in an immortal – too often, those without honor would deceive and defeat better men.

A mist arose from Cathay’s headless corpse and drifted to Mac as the body levitated into the air. Blue lightning began to skitter around the alley, connecting Mac and Cathay’s body. Mac’s nerves danced with tortuous pain and almost orgasmic pleasure as the Quickening seized him.

Concentrating every shred of his considerable self-control, Mac managed to keep from screaming.

Barely.

Quickenings, he knew, seldom permitted any self restraint. Fortunately, it was over quickly. He grimaced with the realization that the immortal he’d slain was pretty new. The brevity and relative impotence of the Quickening attested to that.

‘Fool,’ he thought scornfully. He briefly examined Cathay’s sword.

Cheaply made, it wasn’t worth keeping and wasn’t worth the risk of holding onto for longer than it would take to dispose of. Mac quickly wiped down his Katana with a piece of chamois. Putting his sword away beneath his duster, he grabbed up Cathay’s blade and raced off.

He never saw the young woman at the mouth of the alley. If he had, he would have recognized her immediately. She’d been one of the two girls in the club who had been staring at him.

Unbeknownst to Mac, Cathay’s Quickening had been of sufficient force to blow out the fuse box in the Bronze. Oz frowned as the lights went out in the middle of their third set.

Reflecting that the Bronze was a real dump, he set down his guitar and went to sit with Willow. Looking around and not seeing her, the youngster was about to sit down and wait when she suddenly appeared at his side. On her face was an expression of absolute horror.

“C’mon,” she managed to get out as she tugged at her boyfriend’s arm. A little concerned, Oz allowed her to draw him outside.

After Buffy had split, Willow had seen the good looking stranger slip out the door. Thinking that he might be after Buffy (and just a little interested in his dark good looks), she’d followed him out. Once Willow made it out the door, she had realized immediately that he was just *gone*. After a couple of futile minutes spent looking around the street for him, she’d been about to return inside.

Willow had no idea what had made her decide to walk around behind the Bronze and glance down the alley. The sight had frozen her in place.

One man was laying on the ground. Another was crouched beside the first, mostly obscuring her view. Absolutely still, she could just barely hear the end of the conversation:

”-no harm, no foul,” followed by the sweep of a sword and the sight of a head bouncing down the alley.

The words "Guess again,” had preceded a storm of blue lightning.

Terrified, Willow had done her best to become one with the shadows.

After what seemed an interminably long time, the lightning had stopped striking the killer and he’d strode away.

She hadn’t been able to breathe for a while, much less escape. The moment she was capable of movement, she ran back in to get Oz.

Now the two of them stood over the murder victim as she tried to explain what had happened. “See, and there was a sword and lightning, see, and this guy who, and this guy, see- “ Oz finally took his girlfriends arm and walked her to his van. Scene 2
Sunnydale, Ca.
1414 Palm Way
2100, Thursday (Local)

Oz knocked on Giles’ door repeatedly. After a few moments, Giles opened the door in answer to the continuous rumble.

“Oz, Willow,” he greeted them. Taking a good look at Willow’s face he fearfully asked, “Buffy?”

“No,” Oz reassured the Watcher. “Not Buffy. Willow saw a guy get his head cut off.”

“And lightning. Swords and lightning,” added the young witch. Giles took this in with a sinking feeling. The legends...

Racing away, Mac was seriously pissed. Another life wasted! He would never understand why so many of his kind risked so much. What was the Prize really worth, anyway? What was the point in being the last immortal? He understand that there would always be those that played the Game full time – he’d been a warrior for a long time and understood that there those that craved power – but he had never understood *why*.

If someone craved excitement, adventure – hell, power – there were plenty of other opportunities to be had without risking their heads.

Mac had himself been a warrior all his life.

But he had never craved the Prize. He didn’t really want to be the only immortal.

Still, some did, there was no denying that. When he ran across one of them, they fought. So far, he had always been the victor. And he certainly wasn’t going to miss any of those he’d killed, be it in self defense, for honor or out of duty. He’d even met a couple that he’d enjoyed killing. Like Polovsky – the world was a better place without them.

As he cursed at the stupidity of those that wasted their gift in the foolish pursuit of power, he began to feel the tingling buzz yet again.

‘What the hell is this? Grand Central Station?’ he asked himself. Then it hit him – the girl from the club. Cathay probably had been after her. Mac must have been a rude surprise.

He looked around himself, trying to discern where he’d gotten to. Damned if he wasn’t right back at the park. As he looked around, searching for the source of this new sensation, the sound of a struggle came to him from somewhere up ahead.

Where the immortal was.

Scene 3
Sunnydale, Ca.
Sunnydale Park
2130, Thursday (Local)

Buffy had wandered out of the Bronze feeling depressed. That mysterious guy in the duster had been good looking, even if something about him did scream *danger*. Of course, he hadn’t done any more than glance at her. Why should he?

She new she was pretty enough, but something about her drove most guys away. Most of the ones she was interested in anyway. The stranger’s lack of interest was just another case in point. Hell, his lack of interest probably meant that he was perfectly normal.

The young woman knew she was lonely. She tried to chalk it up to spring fever, but the fact of the matter was that she was almost twenty and hadn’t really had a boyfriend in nearly three years. Buffy had gone out with a couple of guys, but it never seemed to work out. Every guy she’d dated had turned out to be too shallow, or too vain or...

It was a long list.

Like most young women, what Buffy wanted was a nice guy who was reasonably cute, smart, well-mannered and worshipped the ground she walked on. Oh, yeah – Mr. Wonderful would have to understand the whole Slaying thing, too. Was that so much to ask?

Buffy decided to cruise through the park. Maybe something in need of being slain would present itself. Entering the park, she started a long sweep around the perimeter. After completing a loop, the Slayer changed direction and headed through the center when she heard the scream. She raced off.

And there they were. Three vampires, cruising along like they didn’t have a care in the world. Who had screamed? Of course – one of them had. Probably to see who it would draw in. “Hi, there,” she called out.

“You boys looking for a good time?”

The vampires stopped and looked at one another before turning to her with a grin. They charged. They died.

With the fight over – and three new piles of dust decorating the park – Buffy’s headache returned. This time it was worse.

Scene 4
Sunnydale, Ca.
Sunnydale Central Park
2200, Thursday (Local)

Buffy gripped her head with both hands as a buzzing spike ripped through her head and twisted her gut into knots. The sensation took her so suddenly that she fell right down on her rump. Hearing the crunch of gravel, she looked up to see a large man wearing a dark brown leather duster striding toward her. It was the guy from the Bronze! The stranger would have been a hunk, no doubt about it – if not for the look of sheer rage that twisted his features. As he spoke, Buffy noticed that the sickening buzz was gone.

“My name is Mackenzie O’Byrne. I think we have business. Now.” Mac could hardly credit what he’d seen. This young woman had run through three men in hardly an eyeblink. And to think, he’d thought he was protecting her from *Cathay*.

“Huh?” said Buffy. Suddenly she realized that she was still sitting on the ground. She scrambled to her feet and the stranger backed a step away. “What ‘business’?” she asked. ‘Crap!’ she thought. She’d been patrolling the park hoping to spot a vampire. A quick stake job and she’d be home for the night to get in some studying.

Now a strange man was looming over her with a sword in his hand and apparent murder on his mind.

“I’m Buffy,” she said. ‘Oh, that sounded cool. *Not*!

“Buffy,” repeated the stranger. “Fine, *Buffy*, let’s go.”

“Go? Go where? Go why?” demanded Buffy. This was so not a good scene.

“Let’s get *started*. Do what we do.”

“Uh... Why?” asked the Slayer. ‘Do what?’ ran through her mind.

“Because you just killed three men,” answered the stranger in a flat voice. “And, I think, a man named Finn Mac Cuhill. He was a friend of mine.”

“*Who*?” Buffy asked. Oh, crap! This guy had seen her stake the three vampires, and now he thought she’d killed some friend of... Then it clicked – the dead dude at the fairgrounds! This guy with the sword was one of Giles’ immortals. And he had a sword in his hand. Mr. Immortal here wanted to kill her. ‘Oh, SHIT!’

O’Byrne backed up another step. The rage on his face was slowly replaced with puzzlement. ‘She doesn’t know,’ he decided.

“Do you even know what you are?” asked Mac quietly. He held up his hand, palm out as if to signal ‘Halt!’ Where the hell had her three victims gone? Mac knew that he’d seen her stab them with...something. “Wait. Let’s go somewhere and talk. Just talk. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”

Buffy desperately wanted to just get away from D’artagnan here, but decided on reflection that this guy wasn’t going to be that easy to shake. Besides, she was more than a little curious about him herself.

Scene 5
Sunnydale, Ca.
Denny’s on Spring St.
2300, Thursday (Local)

Mac walked Buffy down the street to a nearby Denny’s. Despite the lack of coolness involved in drinking coffee at Denny’s of all places, Buffy walked without complaint through the door as he held it for her.

Mac smiled at the waitress and politely requested a table in the back away from the other patrons. After being seated and ordering their drinks – coffee for Mac and Diet-Coke for Buffy – they sat and studied each other. Finally, Mac let a grin spread over his face. The grin almost – but not quite – reached his eyes. Under the circumstances, it was as friendly as he knew how to be.

“Please tell me if you know anything about Finn’s death,” he asked.

Buffy wasn’t sure how much to say. More importantly, how much not to say. “I wish I could tell you who killed your friend, but I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“Just tell me what you do know,” he pushed. “Please.”

“There was a report of a weird lightening storm around the fairgrounds Saturday night. Some cop saw it and reported finding a body. It had been decapitated-” she broke off realizing how cold that sounded.

O’Byrne’s gaze never wavered from her face. A silence settled over them.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “Your friend?”

Studying the young woman, Mac decided she knew a great deal more than she was letting on. It was almost as if she knew what he was...

“What do you know about me? About Finn?” he suddenly asked accusingly. "And how?”

‘Decision time, girlfriend’ Buffy thought to herself. Immortals didn’t know about vampires – probably. And this guy’s friend was dead. This immortal didn’t know what he was facing.

“I don’t think you’d believe me,” she began.

“You’d be amazed what I’ll believe,” he answered.

“Well, then, you’d better come with me.”

Scene 6
Sunnydale, Ca.
1414 Palm Way
2345, Thursday (Local)

As Buffy guided Mac to Giles’ house, she took note of the way he drove. He was both deliberate and cautious. He didn’t drive like an old guy.

He didn’t drive like a guy who was the age he looked would drive either. Buffy decided he looked about twenty-five. She wondered how old he actually was. She liked the way he held the door for her when they got in the truck. The way he simply glanced at her to make sure she buckled up. She noticed his hands – they were strong looking. She was noticing a lot of things about him.

The boy had ‘Grrr’.

Once they reached their destination Buffy turned to him and said “Giles is going to have a major wiggins. Don’t freak, okay?” O’Byrne gave her a puzzled look for a second, then nodded.

‘Christ on a crutch, but I hope she didn’t kill Finn,’ Mac thought as he walked behind her. The girl was a babe. Sure, she talked a bit like a valley girl airhead, and her parents had named her Buffy of all things, but Mac sensed a fierce intelligence within her. Which was, all- in- all a good thing. She’d need it.

Buffy knocked on the door. In a moment t was opened by a bookish-looking fellow that Mac would bet his last nickel was a Brit. Who took one look at Mac and turned perfectly pale.

“Don’t start Giles. Just let us in. I think we all need to talk,” Buffy said.

Giles and Mac looked each other up and down for several moments. Mac couldn’t have known that Giles was in absolute awe. This had to be one of the immortals. Specifically the one Willow and Oz had just finished telling him about. Finally Giles sighed.

“Come in Buffy, Sir. Please have a seat. I’ll get some tea.”

“Who are they?” asked Mac, nodding at Willow and Oz. “Answer that and I’ll consider the offer of tea.” The couple sat on the couch, Willow with an expression of absolute terror on her face. Mac recognized her as the girl who had been sitting with Buffy at the club.

“They are the two young people who witnessed you murder a man tonight,” answered Giles. Mac started at that. What the hell? He’d been sure no one else was there. Buffy was backing quickly away from him.

“Are you sure that’s what you saw?” Mac asked the two witnesses.

The moment was a frozen tableau of tension. Finally, with a shudder, Willow answered him. “I saw you cut off a man’s head. Then there was lightning and stuff,” she said in a tremulous voice.

Mac nodded his head. “So you didn’t see him attack me? Or, presumably, see him waiting outside the club for your friend here?” he asked with a nod in Buffy’s direction.

“He was following me?” asked Buffy. “Why?”

“Later,” answered Mac. “You first. What do you know about me?”

The four friends traded looks. Finally Giles decided to answer for the group. “I believe you’re an immortal.”

Mac absorbed that stoically. He’d been at least partly right about the girl. But if the young woman didn’t realize...how in hell did they know about immortals? Did they have something to do with Finn’s death?

“A friend of mine was killed here on Saturday. His name was Finn Bonet. What do you know about that?” he asked.

“Well, we sort of figured out – that is, Giles figured out - that your friend was an immortal. I’m guessing one of you guys killed him. Like you killed that guy who you say was following me,” Buffy answered.

“How in hell do you know about immortals?”

Just as Giles opened his mouth, Buffy broke in. “Giles is a Watcher. They watch. He knows all about this supernatural stuff.”

‘*Supernatural stuff*’? Mac considered that for a moment. And he’d thought Sunnydale was such a nice, quiet little town. “Watch what?” he asked.

“Well-” Buffy began.

“Buffy!” Giles cut her off. “I feel I must point out, we really know very little about... What is your name, if I may ask?”

“Mackenzie O’Byrne.” There followed a long moment of silence as the Slayer and her friends waited for him to add to that. When it became apparent that he wasn’t going to, Buffy turned to look at her friends. It was obvious that Mr. O’Byrne was in skeptical company.

“Why are you here, Mr. O’Byrne?” queried the Watcher.

“To find the immortal that killed my friend,” answered Mac. “I’m going to kill him.”

Cold silence descended over the room at Mac’s bald declaration. As Buffy, Giles, Willow and Oz examined him, they were left with no doubt that he intended to do just that.

“Now,” Mac finally broke the uncomfortable silence, “what’s your story?”

“I’m-” Buffy began.

“Buffy...” Giles softly warned her again.

“He needs to know what he’s facing, Giles.” She turned back to Mac. “I’m a Slayer. I hunt vampires. That’s what you saw me fighting tonight. A couple of them attacked your friend before he was killed. I’m sorry.”

Mac and Giles stared at Buffy, both incredulous (albeit for different reasons). Giles sagged, imagining what the Watcher Council would do to him when this little tid-bit slipped out.

“Vampires,” repeated Mac. “You hunt vampires. Buffy – the Vampire Slayer.”

“Mackenzie O’Byrne – the immortal warrior,” she answered back.

Mac cocked an eyebrow at her. Girl had a point. He turned to Giles.

“Well?” he prompted.

“My name is Rupert Giles. I’m Buffy’s Watcher. I try to teach her, train her, prepare her for the demons she faces every night,” Giles answered. “And, yes, we believe that your friend was attacked by a pair of vampires prior to engaging the other immortal. Perhaps his wounds weakened him to the point that he was an easier target. I am sorry,” he finished.

Mac turned back to Buffy. “How’d you get picked for the job?” he asked.

Giles answered up. “One girl in every generation is chosen-”

“He loves this part,” Buffy interrupted in a stage whisper.

“Ahem,” responded Giles before continuing. “One girl in every generation is chosen to be the protector of humanity. To be the Slayer,” he finished.

Mac considered this for a moment. “Why a girl?” he asked. “ Wouldn’t a more experienced immortal be a better ‘choice’?”

Giles paled. “What do you mean? “ O’Byrne’s suggestion was preposterous.

“I don’t believe any immortal has ever even discovered the existence of vampires. The risk of an immortal being turned has staggering implications!”

“Is that a fact, now?” asked Mac with a grin. “If you truly believe that, Mr. Giles, I think I have some ‘staggering’ news for you.” Mac turned back to Buffy. “When did you die?”

Part 4

Scene 1
Sunnydale, Ca.
1414 Palm Way
0015, Friday (Local)

"What... What are you saying?" demanded Giles.

Buffy was shaking her head. No way – NO WAY – was that possible!

"When did you die, Buffy?" Mac asked again.

"Three years ago. I drowned," she said softly.

“She was resuscitated!” Giles almost shouted. “She came back...” he trailed off as he realized what he’d just said.

“Buffy, do you remember, that sensation you felt when we first met in the park? You felt it before that, in the club, too, didn’t you?” Mac asked gently. Buffy nodded. “That’s how we recognize each other. How we prepare.”

“Prepare for what? Oh,” she answered herself, realizing what he meant. “That’s why you charged up to me looking like you wanted to cut my head off? You really wanted to cut my head off!”

“It isn’t possible!” asserted Giles again. “No immortal has ever-”

“Get over it, old son,” Mac cut him off. “Buffy’s an immortal.”

“And Kendra was called,” Giles whispered.

Mac took in how glum the two of them looked. And wondered who the hell ‘Kendra’ was. “Hey, guys, cheer up! It’s hardly a death sentence. Finn lived for nearly three thousand years, you know.”

“Until someone cut his head off,” responded Buffy.

“Leave that bastard to me. You will need to learn a few things, but it can wait for now. You say you hunt vampires – so you’re obviously no stranger to violence.”

“Tell me what I need to know, Mr. O’Byrne,” demanded Buffy. “Just let me call my Mom first and let her know where I am.”

Scene 2
Sunnydale, Ca.
1414 Palm Way
0900, Friday (Local)

Buffy looked up from the couch, bleary-eyed. It had been a long night.

Though initially reticent, Giles and Mac had been increasingly forthcoming as the hours dragged on. Mac’s reaction to the Watchers and Buffy’s role as the Slayer had been a pleasant surprise. He seemed to like the idea that someone actually gave a damn about fighting evil.

Giles in turn was fascinated that immortals actually existed. He would really like to meet some more of them – provided Mackenzie’s tales were true. ‘Probably the most accurate account of history to be found,’ he’d said.

Mac crouched down in front of her. “How’re you feeling, sleepy-head?” he asked her with a grin. “Want some breakfast?”

Buffy groaned. “What time did you two go to sleep?” she asked.

“Sleep?” he demanded. “I’ll get all the sleep I need when I’m dead.” He reached out and gently brushed the hair out of her eyes. His touch sent tingles throughout Buffy. Her eyes widened.

“You let Giles cook?” she asked.

“No. I’ll cook. I’ve read the collection of greatest British recipes.” His grin turned into a full on smile that touched his eyes. “It was a pamphlet that read ‘Eat someplace else!’”

Buffy couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing as Mac went into the kitchen to prepare breakfast. Giles walked into the living room with a puzzled expression. “What’s so amusing?” he asked.

Breakfast was omelets, sausage, home-made biscuits, gravy, pancakes and juice. Buffy groaned as she looked at the spread. “Immortals don’t have to watch their weight?” she asked with a hopeful expression.

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” answered Mac. “Especially when in training. Which you are as of today.”

Buffy grimaced as she pictured the last of her free time turn into a memory. “But-”

“No ‘buts’, Buffy. I can’t fight other immortals for you. Would that I could, but in the years – perhaps centuries – to come, you’ll inevitably face other immortals. They’ll be out for your head. It’s never too early to learn. It can be too late. Now, eat,” he finished.

“How long will you be here?” queried Giles. Buffy displayed obvious interest in the answer to that, causing a swirling sensation in Mac’s gut.

“At least long enough to teach Buffy what she needs to know,” answered Mac vaguely.

“And then?” Giles persisted.

“I don’t know, Rupert.”

‘Rupert?’ thought Buffy.

“And your intentions vis-à-vis the Hellmouth and its denizens, Mackenzie?” asked Giles.

‘Mackenzie?’ ‘Rupert?’ What the hell?

“I’m a warrior, Rupert. There’s a war here. I don’t want to tread on Buffy’s toes...”

‘Please tread!’ Buffy thoughts screamed in her mind.

The longer she was around him, the more she was liking the older immortal. “I could use some help, Mac,” she interjected. Buffy realized that he had become ‘Mac’ in her mind. ‘Down girl!’ At the sound of that, ‘Rupert’ looked rather amused. Mac looked a little bashful.

“There are a lot of people that need my help, Buffy. I break away now and then, but...” Mac’s voice petered out. “Let’s see what develops.”

‘This girl is a broken heart waiting to happen,’ thought Mac. His relationships tended to be very short term. He’d taken Finn’s advice seriously – especially where it came to the inherent fragility of relationships for immortals. ‘Course, Buffy wasn’t mortal. ‘No,’ he thought, ‘just on the expressway to hell.’

Besides, while one might argue that Buffy’s grandmother was a little young for Mac, there was no arguing that she was, in many ways, far too young for him. Mac remembered girls her age being rather flighty, anyway.

And Buffy was now his student. ‘Don’t complicate things, Mac,’ he told himself.

“Hello! Earth to Mac!” Buffy called out, startling him.

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly.

Scene 3
Sunnydale, Ca.
150 Creek St
1700, Thursday (Local)

Joyce Summers drove Buffy up a street located at the very edge of Sunnydale. Very few people lived out here, Joyce noticed. Buffy had needed the ride because of the distance and Joyce had been happy to oblige. She wanted to meet the new ‘trainer’ that Buffy and Giles had recruited.

Their destination was fairly remote. The house was a two-story Georgian affair, set well back from the street and surrounded by a low stone wall. A Nissan Pathfinder was parked in the driveway in front of the garage. As they pulled up Joyce saw Buffy cringe.

“Are you all right, honey?” she asked, worried. Buffy looked up, suddenly looking much better. A tall man with broad shoulders and very short dark-blonde hair was standing in front of the car.

“Fine, Mom,” her daughter claimed and practically leaped out of the car.

“Hi, Mac!” she called out. Mac nodded at Buffy as he studied Joyce.

“Hello, Mrs. Summers,” he said in a rich tenor. His voice was pitched just a note higher than Joyce expected. He was also younger and much better looking than Buffy had suggested. “I’m Mackenzie O’Byrne.”

“Joyce Summers,” she answered.

“Which?” he asked. Seeing her puzzled expression he elaborated “Do prefer Mrs. – excuse me, Ms. – Summers, or Joyce?”

“Joyce. Please, Joyce,” she answered.

“Very, well, Joyce. I’ve a few refreshments out back,” he offered. “Not much, I’m sorry to say, but I’m not really moved in yet.”

“Oh, I’m fine, thank you,” she replied.

“Please. Indulge me. I seldom get a chance to play host.”

“Well, okay.” The man was charming, she’d give him that. Despite the fact that all her ‘Mom’ alarms were ringing. ‘Mac’ was a dangerous man – good looking, well built, charming... Pretty much what every mother feared.

Mac led the women around to the back of the house he’d bought on a what had been a whim, really. He didn’t know how long it would take to find Polovsky, so having a base of operations that was a bit more secure than an anonymous hotel struck him as sound. Besides, real estate was almost never a bad investment. In the backyard a picnic table was set with chips, dip and an ice chest filled with what proved to be sodas and a bottle of Merlot. Next to the table a huge slab of meat was skewered on a spit, suspended over a bed of glowing coals.

As he gave the meat a slow quarter turn he said to Buffy, “You can change inside. We’ve got a couple of hours yet.”

Buffy groaned. Joyce asked, “What do you intend for this afternoon?”

“I want to evaluate Buffy’s level of skills. I’m a believer in basics, but given her...job,” he finally decided, “I don’t want to waste time trying to teach her what she already knows.”

“What are you going to teach her?” Buffy’s mother persisted. Buffy wanted to roll her eyes, but she was a little curious herself.

Mac considered how to answer that question. Buffy’s mother knew that she was the Slayer, but he didn’t know if Buffy had shared her most recent revelation. He looked at Buffy.

“I wanted to tell her here,” Buffy threw in, answering his silent question. ‘I wanted some help explaining it,’ she shouted with her mind.

Mac took a deep breath and looked Joyce square in the face. “I’m going to teach her how to protect herself, Joyce. From people like me. I’m an immortal.” In nearly forty years, Mac had never shared that with any mortal before. Giles and Buffy’s friends didn’t count – they’d already known, more or less. He did so now, because of Buffy’s unique situation. He wasn’t happy to do so, but with her in Buffy’s life, he’d need her trust.

“Immortal,” Joyce said simply.

“I was born...” Mac’s voice petered out. “My teacher was born in the south west of Ireland almost three thousand years ago. Next to that, I’m practically a baby. I was born in 1940. I’ve been a warrior since I was seventeen.” He glanced at Buffy, asking the question with his eyes.

Almost imperceptibly, she nodded.

“Buffy is one of us. I’m going to teach her what she needs to know to survive. Buffy, please go change.” Buffy jumped a little at the sudden change in the flow of the conversation. “You two will want to talk later. Let me talk to your mother now.”

Once Buffy was inside Mac asked gently, “Does she know she was adopted, Joyce?”

Joyce reared back. “How did you know?” she demanded.

“All immortals are foundlings. I haven’t told her that yet. She loves you a great deal. In time it’ll come out, but I wanted to give you the chance to speak first. In your own good time,” he added.

“You’ve done a great job, Joyce. She’s a very special girl because of that. It doesn’t matter who gave birth to her. You are her mother. You loved her, raised her...” Mac’s voice trailed away as Joyce began to sob.

“Then why has all this happened to her?” she demanded. Mac moved close to the sobbing woman and gently put his hand on her shoulder.

“Some are touched by the hand of destiny, Joyce. Some for good, some for evil. You made her good. The rest...” Mac gave her arm a gentle squeeze. “What mother is ever happy to learn that her child is one of those in destiny’s grip?”

Joyce seized on one last desperately shining ray of hope. “But she’s immortal? Nothing can harm her?” she pleaded. Mac let go of her arm.

“I wish that were so, Joyce. There is one way to kill an immortal. I’m going to teach her how to prevent that.”

“How?” she demanded as Buffy emerged from the house, dressed now in sweats and tennis shoes.

“With this,” answered Mac as he held up a sword.

Scene 4
Sunnydale, Ca.
150 Creek St
2000, Thursday (Local)

Mac and Buffy had spent the better part of two hours pounding on one another. Giles had arrived around six in the evening and he and Joyce had been charged with roasting the meat. Just before eight o’clock Mac had called a halt. Despite her natural maternal misgivings about watching her daughter abused by a man that outweighed her by a good eighty pounds, Joyce found the ballet of violence fascinating.

And she couldn’t help feeling a mother’s pride that Buffy had quite often seemed to be giving as good as she got.

As they settled down to eat, Buffy was practically bouncing up and down with excitement. That was *fun*!

Mac seemed as calm and unperturbed as ever. What did it take to get a rise out of that guy? Buffy would have blushed had she known the answer. Only two things ever really excited Mac: battle and sex. Buffy definitely excited him, he was just really good at not showing it.

As the evening progressed, Mac answered all of Joyce’s questions, carefully steering her away from topics that he figured would upset her. The Game was not discussed and by the time Joyce and Buffy stood to go, Joyce was still blissfully ignorant of that and what it entailed.

Joyce had, in fact, decided two things: She really liked Mac; and Mac and Buffy really liked each other. As the two women walked out to Joyce’s car, she steered Mac away from Buffy for a moment.

“Tell me something, Mac.”

“Sure Joyce.”

“You’re not under a curse or anything are you? I mean, there’s nothing going to send your soul to Hell and leave a demon in your place is there?” she asked.

“Mom!” screeched Buffy, outraged.

Mac was clearly puzzled. “Send me to-?”

“Never mind, Mac,” called Buffy. “See you tomorrow!”

As the women drove away, Mac turned to Giles. “Send my soul too Hell? Demon? What’s she talking about, Rupert?”

Giles pursed is lips as he carefully considered how to answer his question. “I think Joyce is simply worried about Buffy, Mackenzie.”

“You don’t say?” Mac responded with dripping sarcasm. “Why do I feel that she wasn’t asking an idle question? *Give*, Rupert.”

“Let’s have a drink, Mackenzie.”

Late into the night Rupert and Mac got progressively more inebriated as they talked about Angel.

Scene 1
Sunnydale, Ca.
150 Creek St
1600, Friday (Local)

Buffy hitched a ride with Oz and Willow out to Mac’s place, arriving to find it bustling with strangers. Painters were moving out as furniture delivery men were moving in. She felt Mac’s presence – as promised, the shock of that was wearing off – but didn’t see him.

“Buffy,” he called. She looked up to see him leaning out a second floor window. As she waved to him the ‘buzz’ faded immediately. Freaky!

“Hello, Buffy,” said Giles, appearing from out of nowhere.

“Giles! Where’d you come from? What are you doing here?” asked Buffy.

“Partly helping Mackenzie learn the town. Partly shopping. For furniture. Odds and ends, mostly.”

Giles? Shopping for *furniture*? Buffy groaned. She should’ve skipped classes at college and helped Mac. No telling what the geezers had bought. Youthful appearance or not – the immortal was older than one of Buffy’s grandparents. She was a little hurt that she hadn’t been asked.

“I think you’ll find that Mackenzie has exceptional taste. Most of this just arrived from Quebec,” Giles responded to Buffy’s unspoken complaint. He turned and led the Slayer and her friends around to the back of the house where they found Mac arguing with someone on the phone. In French.

“How’d he get a phone *in one day*?” wondered Willow.

“I’ve found that Mackenzie can be quite persuasive,” said Giles by way of answer. Mac finally disconnected, but immediately punched in another long string of numbers, placing another long distance call. He nodded at Buffy and her friends.

Whoever he was calling picked up, and Mac launched into a conversation in German.

Buffy sighed. How was she supposed to be mysterious and appealing to a man that spoke at least three languages and could talk the phone company into an almost instantaneous hook-up?

She looked around the backyard and noticed that a large, square pit had been installed and filled with sand. A few feet away from that an area had been parceled off with stakes for additional renovation.

“Cool. A sandbox,” observed Oz.

“Training pit,” corrected Giles.

A pair of heavy punching bags had been hung from a nearby tree. One of the bags hung over the ‘training pit’, the other over the marked out section of grass. Mac finished his second call and wandered over.

“Hello,” he said offering his hand to Oz.

They shook hands and Oz said “Hey.” Mac turned to Willow.

“Hello, Willow,” he greeted her.

“Hi, yourself,” she answered.

The last of the movers brought over some paperwork for Mac to sign and left. The group of them stood and looked at each other. “Why don’t you get changed, Buffy?” suggested Mac. “We’ll go for a run.” Buffy looked at him for a moment.

“Nice to see you too, Mac,” she answered sardonically. Mac looked at her for a second, then walked over too her, bent down and bussed her cheek with a soft kiss.

“Hi, Buffy,” he said as she felt the blush crawl up her cheeks. “Why don’t you get changed. We’ll go for a run.”

Buffy stared at the older immortal for a beat. Then she turned and dashed inside. Willow took all this in and darted after her friend.

“That’s one approach I never considered,” Giles said behind them.

Willow nearly crashed into Buffy, who’d come to a halt in the living room. Willow saw why. The living room was tastefully – almost exquisitely – decorated. Queen Anne style furniture, Persian rugs, Mahogany tables – and a couple of paintings from Joyce’s gallery!

“He’s got taste, too,” said Buffy softly. It was hard to believe that it was the same house she’d been in just the day before.

And she’d thought that maybe she had a shot. Right! *Not*!

“I think he likes you, Buffy,” said Willow. “What a catch! You go, girlfriend!” she cheered.

“Right, Willow. Like I have anything to offer a guy like this,” she moaned. She whirled on her best friend. “He speaks French! And German! And who knows what other languages. He’s been at schools like Oxford since before I was born! Me-” she broke off, struggling for control. “What have I done?”

Mac watched Buffy disappear into the house. Jesus! He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been as entranced by a woman. Maybe it wasn’t her beauty so much as her courage. If Rupert hadn’t been pulling his leg, Buffy had fought and defeated things that made his nightmares seem like amusement park rides in comparison.

Well, tonight he’d see. After what seemed like an awfully long time, the girls came back out.

Buffy and Mac stretched out and took off at a brisk pace. Mac hadn’t run in days and it felt good. After a couple of miles, he began engaging her in conversation. He asked her about her life, about what she was studying at college and about her interests in general.

After about an hour they jogged back up his driveway, both of them winded. Giles had made tea.

As they sipped at their tea, Mac asked Buffy about her plans for the evening.

“I’d planned on a quick patrol, then maybe hitting the Bronze. Why?”

“How do you feel about some company?”

Buffy turned to look him full in the face. “Company? You mean like a date?”

“Well I had in mind seeing some of what you deal with.” His face hardened. “And trolling for an immortal.” His expression cleared. “If you think we can work a date in there, too... I’m game,” he finished with a grin.

Buffy grinned back.

Scene 2
Sunnydale, Ca.
Sunnydale Cemetery
2100, Friday (Local)

Buffy sat on a tombstone in the Sunnydale cemetery and looked across at Mac. He was dressed in loose jeans, combat boots and a turtleneck. He’d taken off his duster and sat upon it, revealing a way under legal length shotgun in a shoulder rig. Leaning against the tombstone was his sword, a Japanese Katana. He was turning one of her stakes over and over in his hands, focusing on it intently.

“Penny,” she said.

He slowly looked up at her. “Excuse me?”

“Penny,” she said again. “As in ‘a penny for your thoughts.’”

“Oh.” He considered her question for a moment. “I was trying to come up with some design to increase the lethality of this,” he said, holding the stake aloft. ‘Take the risk,’ he told himself.

“Also, I was trying not to think about how beautiful you are.”

Buffy froze. “Is it hard?” she asked.

“What?!”

She blushed a deep crimson. “I meant-” Breathe, girl, breathe! “Is it difficult not to think about that?”

“You have no idea.”

“Oh.” Wanna bet? “Good,” she replied with quiet satisfaction.

“Is it generally this quiet? Rupert made this area sound like a Grand Central Station for vampires,” He said. ‘Did she say “Good”?’

‘Does he really want to talk about *vampires*?’ she wondered.

“Sometimes. We could check out the Bronze. If you want,” Buffy suggested.

Mac was all too aware that what he really wanted had nothing to do with public places. ‘Course he really wanted to kill something, too. Since nothing was presenting itself in the killing department, Buffy’s suggestion sounded pretty good.

“Let’s go,” he said.

As they neared his truck, the vampires struck. Three of them. Buffy’s reaction was instantaneous. In seconds she had staked one vampire, turning it into a cloud of dust, grabbed the second and whirled it over her head and smashed it head first down on the ground. The sickening crunch would have signaled the demise of a mortal, severe inconvenience to an immortal. The vampire flew right back to its feet.

‘Sturdy bastards,’ Mac thought. The third vampire hurtled at Buffy from behind as she lunged at number two, driving a stake through its heart.

Vampire three was just reaching Buffy. She whipped around as the vampire came to a sudden stop with the flat of O’Byrne’s blade pressed against its throat. Mac estimated that four seconds had elapsed since the beginning of the attack. He cocked his head at Buffy.

“May I? I need to conduct an experiment,” Mac asked, leaving the choice clearly with her in obvious respect of her ability.

“You’re not really supposed to play with your food, you know,” she teased. The vampire hissed and tried to slip around the blade. It was fast. Mac was faster.

He seized the beast by the scruff of its neck and hurtled it against the side of the truck. He did it again. And again. Then his blade whirled in a high arc and cut off the vampires right arm. With cat-like grace he danced around the beast. His sword whipped through the air and its other arm fell. He seized the beast by its left stump, picked it clean up in the air and smashed it against the ground.

He set the edge of his blade against the vampires neck.

“The lady and I were discussing matters. Be still,” he ordered. “Buffy?”

Buffy couldn’t help herself. Her jaw was hanging open. She had never ever seen anything like that. No vampire moved with the easy power and grace that Mac displayed.

Giles had a point about the danger.

Xander had a point about the potential.

Of course, unless she left the Hellmouth, the danger was there with or without the presence of other immortals. And she could use some help.

Potential won.

“Don’t take too long, ‘kay? I really want to party a little.”

“Yes, dear,” answered Mac. He focused his full attention to on the vampire. “One chance. Defeat me.”

‘Some chance,’ thought Buffy. ‘He is playing with is food!’ Then she thought ‘*Dear*?’

Mac spent about five minutes pounding upon and thrusting his sword into the vampire. Suddenly he whirled his blade and beheaded it. It dusted immediately.

“What was that all about?” asked Buffy. “*Dear*,” she added.

Mac smiled at her. “I told you. I was experimenting. I know what kills them, but I needed to know what *hurts*. Now I know.” He brushed her face with his fingertips. “You want to change before we go out?”

Scene 3
Sunnydale, Ca.
Sunnydale Fairgrounds
2030, Saturday (Local)

Mac surveyed the fairgrounds where Finn had died. He’d felt compelled to return here. How badly he wanted to get his hands on the bastard that had killed his friend. No one knew where he was. No matter. Mac would find him.

Tonight. Tomorrow. Next week. Next year. Next century – Mac would find the bastard who had killed Finn. Buffy approached behind him and laid a hand on his back.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked. Not demanded – *asked*.

“Yes,” he answered. He looked at her companions: Xander, Willow and Oz. “Later. To you.”

Buffy smiled. Then she wrapped her arms around him and held on tight.

After a few seconds they broke apart. “All right, Buffy. It’s your show. Where to?”

The Slayerettes separated into two groups. Buffy, Willow and Oz in one group, Mac and Xander in the other. Much as she wanted to stay with Mac, Buffy decided that if the group was going to split up – and cover more ground – each set should have an immortal. She had the experience, but Mac was a warrior. Mac had admonished Buffy to remember that if she came across another immortal, she get her friends and herself to holy ground and call him. He’d given her a sword (they’d driven into L.A. That morning for just that purpose), but if the immortal that had taken Finn was still around... Besides, Mac had a prior claim on the bastard. It was beginning to sink into Buffy that Mac really had a jones for the guy.

After about four hours Mac’s group had found only one vampire. This time Mac didn’t play. He and Xander spent a lot of time discussing immortality and immortals Mac had known.

Buffy, Oz and Willow found two pairs about an hour apart. Four more dead vampires. Lots of discussion about one immortal.

At twelve-thirty Buffy pulled out her cell phone and called Mac.

“Hey, sweetie, lets close up shop,” she said.

Willow mouthed ‘Sweetie?’ at her and Buffy grinned.

“All right,” Mac responded. “Let’s meet back at the truck.”

The gang met up at Mac’s truck and piled in. He dropped Willow, Oz and Xander at each of their homes. After dropping off the last of the Slayerettes, Mac turned to Buffy, leaned over and kissed her softly. They sat back from one another.

“I’ve wanted to do that since about an hour after we met,” he said.

“What did you want to do the first hour?” Buffy asked. Mac just looked at her. “Oh, yeah. Forgot.”

“You want me to take you home?” he asked.

“What’s option number two?”

“Go park. Talk. Maybe take a walk.”

Buffy pulled out her cell phone and dialed her mother. “Mom? I’m gonna be later than I thought. Yeah, I’m with Mac.” She blushed. “Mom!

“Yeah, I’ll be home in a while.

“Love you to. Bye.” Buffy put away the phone, leaned over and kissed Mac deeply. After a long moment she pulled back and whispered “Option two.”

Scene 4
Sunnydale, Ca.
Skyview Dr (’The Point’)
0100, Sunday (Local)

Mac followed Buffy’s directions to ‘The Point’ and parked the truck. As soon as he set the parking brake, the two immortals were in each other’s arms. Several very hot minutes later they broke away from one another.

“Whoa!” said Buffy.

“Yeah,” agreed Mac. They smiled at each other.

A fist smashed down through the roof of the Pathfinder. Mac and Buffy rolled out each side of the truck, she clutching a wooden stake in her hand. Mac came up wielding his Katana.

They saw immediately that they were surrounded by about ten of the beasts. ‘When out- numbered, *attack!*’ Finn’s voice ordered in Mac’s mind. With a blood-curdling scream, he waded into the enemy.

Buffy staked one vampire, kicked a second in the face and twirled to stake a third. She leaped into the air, somersaulted and landed on the ground straddling blood-sucker number two. Without hesitation she drove her stake down through its heart. Buffy rolled to her feet and risked a glance in Mac’s direction.

Vampire limbs were flying through the air, turning to dust before their various trajectories could take them to the ground. Mac’s Katana was a whirling fan of destruction, hacking and slicing into his enemies.

‘Cool,’ thought Buffy. Of the ten attackers, suddenly only three were left. They turned to flee, but Mac lunged a dozen feet and beheaded two of the three with a single swipe of his blade.

“Hey,” cried Buffy. “Quit hogging all the fun!” she teased. Mac stared after the retreating vampire for a beat and turned to Buffy with a sarcastic grin.

“Last one’s all yours,” he said.

Buffy charged after the fleeing beast, leaped into the air and seemed to fly for a second or two. Her trajectory took her right into the beast.

She staked it through its back on impact, the two of them falling toward the ground. The vampire turned to dust as she rolled forward, head over heels, and finished on her feet.

Buffy turned to see Mac quietly applauding. “*Cool*,” he said with a grin. “I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

“Is that sarcasm?” she demanded, embarrassed. “Is this sarcasm I’m hearing?”

Mac strode down the hill toward her. “No, sweetheart. Admiration.” With that, Mac stepped forward and grabbed Buffy, pulling her into a tight clinch. They kissed deeply. For a moment, the world stood still for the two of them.

Mac dropped Buffy off at home. As she went inside, she turned to watch him drive away. For the first time since her night with Angel, Buffy was content. Mac was a pretty amazing guy. *And he liked her*. A lot.

No doubt about it, Buffy was falling for him. She walked into her house grinning goofily. Joyce was sitting on the couch, waiting for her.

“Buffy? Are you all right?” Joyce asked, worried. She knew what had happened with Angel – and what the consequences had been.

“I’m great, Mom,” answered Buffy happily.

“Did anything...happen?” Joyce asked.

“Some vampires attacked Mac and me. No biggie. We dusted ‘em.”

Joyce blinked. Buffy sounded rather cavalier about the attack. Like it really was no big deal. “How many?” she asked.

“Ten, I think. Mom, you should have seen Mac. Taking him on is, like, major vampire suicide. He dusted six of them in about three seconds. I had to jump him about being greedy!”

Joyce knew she should have been happy to hear that Buffy’s new ally was so effective, but all she could think about was how dangerous the immortal obviously was. Her daughter was obviously taken with him – a man older than Joyce’s own mother – and Buffy was still shy of twenty!

Buffy cut into her thoughts. “I was thinking... We should have Mac over for dinner,” she said.

“Okay,” agreed Joyce. She certainly wasn’t amiss to getting to know Buffy’s new interest better. A lot better. “When?”

“How about tomorrow?”

“All right. Just the three of us? Or do you want to invite the whole gang?”

“Just us,” decided Buffy. She was aware that her mother was a bit skeptical about Mac, and she was resolved to change that.

Scene 1
Sunnydale, Ca.
1240 Riverside Dr
1600, Sunday (Local)

Mac pulled into the Summers’ driveway, parked, grabbed a bottle of wine and walked up to the front door. Buffy had sensed his presence and opened the door as he approached. She greeted him with a kiss on his cheek.

“C’mon in,” she said. He followed her into the house and was greeted by her mother.

“Hello, Joyce. How are you today?” he greeted her. Joyce noted that Buffy moved up next to him and wrapped her arm around his waist as he slung an arm over her shoulder. “Fine, thank you,” she answered. “I hope you brought your appetite with you, Mac.”

“Most certainly,” Mac affirmed.

Dinner went well. Joyce and Buffy – mostly Buffy – enjoyed playing up the part hostess to their guest. Mac entertained them with stories of his days at Oxford and his time as an actor in London. As the afternoon turned into early evening, Joyce decided that there was something she really wanted to know.

“Mac? What was it like for you?” she asked. “Learning you were an immortal, I mean.”

Mac got a far away look in his eyes. “Hard,” he finally answered. “I’d figured out that I was different a couple of years before Finn found me.” Mac took a sip of his wine. I was in Algeria in 1960. I’d just celebrated my twentieth birthday...”

Flashback

Mi’on Talgar, Algeria

26 September, 1960

Legionnaire O’Byrne was point man on patrol. The night had been quiet despite the reports of rebel activity in the area. Suddenly the wind shifted and O’Byrne caught the smell of sweat and goat cheese.

He dived down to the ground just as a line of rifle fire erupted from the left. As he rolled to his feet, scrambling for the cover of a nearby boulder, an Algerian rebel popped up in front of him and let loose a long stream of fire from a sub-machine gun. The series of bullets took O’Byrne full in his chest, hurling him backwards as the world went dark.

O’Byrne came awake with a start. The sun was creeping over the horizon as flies crawled over the drying blood of his tattered uniform blouse. Cautiously, he rolled over and got to he feet. Before him laid his entire section – all dead. O’Byrne fingered his blouse in wonder.

Present day

“My god!” exclaimed Joyce. “What did you do?”

“Well,” answered Mac, “I got rid of the shirt and walked back to base to report the loss of the patrol. It took me three days to make it back. I was almost delirious from heat and thirst.

“I spent most of the next year hunting an killing rebels. I was wounded from time-to-time, but I always healed in minutes. No matter how serious the fight, I always came through, if not *unscathed*, exactly, at least not visibly wounded. My fellow legionnaires called me ‘Reaper’ – I always produced enemy casualties and never seemed to suffer so much as a scratch.

“It really was doing a number on my head. I didn’t really believe in God, but I had been raised by nuns. Made me start to question everything. I mean ‘Why me?’, you know?”

Buffy and Joyce both nodded at that. Buffy had spent four years wondering ‘Why me?’

“I didn’t learn about immortality and other immortals for almost eight years. I was captured by an immortal in Viet Nam in ‘68. He couldn’t seem to decide how to get rid of me, cause he couldn’t risk a Quickening in front of his troops.

“Finally he ordered me sent north to a POW camp. On the way there I managed to escape, but it was still another month before I made it back to friendly forces. I volunteered for another two tours hoping to find that other immortal. I finally gave up and got out of the army in early ‘71.” Mac shot Joyce a look. “You remember what the country was like then?”

Joyce nodded, saddened by the memory of how so many of her peers had treated the returning veterans.

“Well, I took one look around and jetted to Paris. Finn found me that November...”

Flashback

Paris, France

18 November, 1971

O’Byrne was walking up the left bank, enjoying the unseasonably warm day, when he felt it – the ‘buzz’. He hadn’t felt it in three years – and only from Major Quan Li. He stopped and turned in circles. The buzz in his head faded immediately as a stranger approached him.

The stranger stood just a little over five feet tall, had reddish-brown hair and appeared to be in his mid-thirties. O’Byrne wondered what his fellow freak would try to pull with all the witnesses surrounding them.

In a moment, the two men stood a few feet apart and studied each other.

“Well,” the stranger finally spoke. “Should we have a drink or find a private place to try an’ kill one another?” he asked in a soft Irish burr. “Personally, I’d prefer the drink.”

Present day

“That was Finn?” asked Buffy.

Mac nodded. “Yeah, that was Finn. We sat and talked over bread, cheese and wine for about three hours. Didn’t take him long to figure out that I was new to the Game.”

“Game?” asked Joyce. Buffy tensed.

“It’s how we refer to our lives as immortals, Joyce,” responded Mac, not quite lying. “Finn and I were friends from the start. We spent most of ten years together, traveling around. We’d each go our own way, now and again. Never for more than a few months, though. Finally in, oh, I guess it was sometime in ‘80, I decided I wanted an education. The kind you get from books. I’d always liked England, so I settled there for a few years. Didn’t see Finn for nearly five years.”

“Why not?” asked Buffy.

“Well... Finn had figured by then that he’d taught me all he could and he never really cared for the British. Besides, he had an ‘old friend’ in Poland he wanted to see...

“Sometimes even the fastest friends have divergent interests they want to pursue. Finn and I were at that point. In a lot of ways he was a father to me. There comes a time when the son needs to strike out on his own. Don’t get me wrong – we stayed close. Corresponded regularly.

After my time in England, we usually saw each other a couple of times a year. Once e-mail started getting big, we wrote weekly – sometimes daily. That’s how I knew he was here. Finn sent me an e-mail letting me know that he’d found a bastard that he’d been hunting for a couple of hundred years. I presume they’d agreed to meet at the fairgrounds.

Either that or Finn let himself get ‘tagged’ and followed there. I can’t think of any other reason that Polovsky would’ve been out there. If not for those damn vampires, Finn would probably still be alive.” Mac fixed his gaze on Buffy. “I’ve more reason to help you than you realize, Buffy. Vampires essentially murdered my father. “Now... I’m going to exterminate them.”

At a little after ten o’clock, Mac realized it was getting late and excused himself. As he got up to leave, Joyce came to him and embraced him warmly.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Mac,” she said. “But I can’t help being glad you’re here.” The evening had settled things for Joyce. Mackenzie O’Byrne was without a doubt the most dangerous human being she’d ever laid eyes upon, true – but he struck her as an honorable man nonetheless. If her suspicions were right about Buffy and Mac’s emerging feelings for one another... ‘Well,’ Joyce decided. ‘What will be, will be.’

Buffy walked Mac out to his truck, noting the repair job to its roof. As she kissed him goodnight and felt the warmth of his embrace seep through her, she said “That went pretty well. Its always risky bringing your new boyfriend by for the first time.”

Mac considered that for a moment. “Setting aside, for a moment, that your mother had already met me, Buffy, consider my position: I’m definitely the older man trying to make a favorable impression here.” He kissed her again. “Come by around four tomorrow. We’ll start on fencing.” Buffy grinned. “*After* we run,” he finished as Buffy’s expression wilted into a grimace.

Mac winked at her and patted her on the fanny before turning out of her arms and getting into his truck to go home.

Buffy could almost still feel the warmth of his hand on her butt as she walked back inside smiling.

Scene 2
Sunnydale, Ca.
1265 2^nd St
2100, Monday (Local)

Buffy and Willow walked the dark streets discussing the men in their lives – Mac and Oz – giggling almost incessantly. Willow’s parents had never quite accepted Oz, so she was a bit envious of Joyce’s approval of Mac.

A scream from a nearby alley caused them to break into a flat out run.

Entering the alley revealed a young girl being attacked by three vampires. Giving a loud screeching yell, Buffy charged at them and leaped. The Slayer somersaulted through the air, landing on the far side of the beasts and facing them with her new sword. As she hacked away at them, the girl they’d been attacking charged Willow and pasted her in the face with a fist. Willow flew back and hit the ground, dazed. The ‘victim’ then picked her up, tossed her over her back and disappeared down a manhole.

Buffy finally finished the last of the three ‘attackers’ and looked up to see Willow missing. Panicked, Buffy searched frantically for her friend. Noticing the dislodged manhole cover a few feet away, everything clicked. Setup.

Buffy raced to the sewer entrance and jumped down in the hole. Landing nimbly with her sword poised in a defensive position, Buffy looked around. No Willow. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed Mac.

“Hello?” he answered.

“They’ve got Willow!” Buffy announced.

“Buffy? Who’s got Willow?” Next to Mac, Xander’s head whipped around.

The two of them had been enjoying a quiet patrol, discussing an idea Mac had for the systematic extermination of every vampire in the vicinity of the Hellmouth. Despite his own lingering feelings for Buffy – and a concurrent mild jealousy regarding Mac – Xander was practically in awe of the immortal and was glad that they’d teamed up for patrol again. Mac didn’t treat him like a kid. In fact, he treated him like a partner.

“Vampires! They set a trap. The victim snatched Willow and disappeared into a sewer entrance on Pine street,” Buffy explained quickly. “Get over here! I’m going in.” Buffy hit the disconnect, shoved the phone in her pocket, pulled out a flashlight and set out in pursuit of her friend.

“Buffy, no! Wait for me-” Mac shut up as realized he was talking to himself. “Shit!”

Xander opened his mouth to ask what was going on, but Mac cut him off.

“Pine street. Now!”

“This way,” said Xander, setting off at a dead run.

As they ran, Mac cursed silently. He was worried about Buffy. As an immortal – not to mention an experienced Slayer – she’d be hard to kill.

Hard, yes. But impossible? No.

Scene 3
Sunnydale, Ca.
Sunnydale sewer system
2200, Monday (Local)

As Buffy raced through the sewers she could here Willow’s cries in the distance. Inside her chest, she could feel her heart wrench. ‘God, please protect her,’ she prayed silently.

She made turn after turn and always she could just hear Willow’s voice out ahead of her somewhere. Periodically she came to an intersection or branching and she would have to pause. Breathing as quietly as she could, she’d listen for Willow’s voice to guide her. Then there would be a scream revealing Willow’s direction and she’d set off again.

Buffy knew that every delay was lessening the chance that she’d catch up in time to save her friend. She ran as fast as she could, careless of noise.

She came to another branch. Left or right? ‘C’mon, Willow!’ she pleaded silently. Finally, not hearing anything, Buffy screamed “Willow!”

“No,” said a hissing voice behind her. “*Not *Willow.”

Mac and Xander quickly spotted the open sewage entrance. Mac paused at the gaping hole and shed his duster, handing to Xander along with his keys. Xander started shaking his head.

“Don’t argue, son!” ordered the immortal. “I’ll find them. I’m a lot harder to kill than you are. Get my truck. Phone’s in the pocket of my coat. If Buffy calls *pick her up*! Meanwhile, call Rupert and brief him. Go, now!” With that, Mac disappeared down the entrance.

Xander stood there for a moment, feeling useless. Then he put on the immortal’s coat and raced off to the Pathfinder, pulling out the cell phone and calling Giles on the way.

Mac looked around the dark hole. He was silent. Veteran of countless night stalks going back forty years, Mac became one with the dark. Then he heard Buffy’s voice scream “Willow!” from somewhere in the distance.

Vectoring in on the sound of her voice, the Reaper raced off.

Buffy had no room to maneuver. She battled the beasts of Hell with a deepening rage, but she was outnumbered. The weight of the vampires’ numbers proved too great. In less than a minute she was pinned down.

Six vampires held her in their grasp and carried her through the sewers as she struggled to break their grip.

Finally, Buffy sagged, conserving her strength. She hoped that they took her to Willow. She prayed her friend was still human. After a short while, she was carried up into an underground room.

‘Basement,’ she decided. Willow was at the far end of the room. A vampire held her, his hand wrapped around her throat.

“If you even appear to resist,” it said, “I’ll rip out her throat.”

Buffy was carried to an incline bench press and strapped down tightly.

“Who the hell are *you*?” she asked.

“My name is Lamar. Tonight I’ll feast on the blood of a Slayer!”

The Reaper slid through the tunnels. Long years of discipline forced him to be calm. ‘The warrior carries no emotion into battle,’ counseled Finn’s voice in his head. ‘The warrior is death. Calm. Cold. Without emotion.’

With every silent step, Mac’s burgeoning love for Buffy sank farther from the sight of his heart. With every yard traveled, Mackenzie O’Byrne was submerging beneath the specter of death.

In the Legion O’Byrne, Mac had been called “C’est la mort” – the Bringer of Death. In Special Forces, where he’d tallied more than 100 confirmed kills, his fellow troopers called him “The Reaper”. Those sobriquets had been well earned. Death stalked the sewers this night.

Vampires beware.

Buffy desperately searched for a way out. “If you hurt her, Lamar, I won’t settle for killing you,” Buffy promised. God, she wished she’d waited for Mac! Between the two of them... Still, Buffy knew in her heart that if she had waited, Willow might well be dead already. Mac would come – she had to believe that. She needed to stall

“Tell me something, Lamar. Why is it that all you guys are so completely lacking any fashion sense?” Buffy asked. “I mean, get real! That shirt came and went years ago!”

Reaper found a pair of vampires wandering through the dark, laughing about some child they’d just had for dinner. His sword flashed through three fast, brutal strokes. One vampire filtered to the ground as a cloud of dust. The other opened its mouth to shriek in rage and pain at the loss of its arms.

Reaper’s hand reached out and seized its throat, hoisting the vampire into the air. In a voice like two boulders rubbing together, he hissed “*Where is the Slayer?*”

“Time to feast!” announced Lamar. He tossed Willow – hard – against a nearby wall and began walking toward Buffy. Buffy grimaced as she felt the ‘buzz’ of an approaching immortal. ‘Hurry, Mac!’

“I may have some bad news for, fang boy,” she taunted.

Using the mutilated vampire as a guide, the Reaper was speeding through the sewer. As soon as he felt the telltale sensation announcing the presence of another immortal, Mac staked his captive through the back. Without hesitation, he charged through the dust of his victim, ready for battle. Thirsting for blood.

‘C’mon, Mac. Hurry!’ Buffy’s mind screamed as Lamar loomed over her. As if in answer to her silent cry, a vampire suddenly sailed through the air Buffy’s from right to left and crashed against the wall. Spinning like a mad whirling dervish, slicing limbs from vampires as he went, Mac thundered into the room. In the space of a heartbeat, he was by her side, his sword extended over her body with the edge against Lamar’s throat. In a cheerful voice he asked, “Is this a private party, or can anyone come?”

Lamar nearly levitated back and away from Mac’s blade. “Who in the name of hell are you?” the vampire demanded. Mac grinned.

“Don’t you recognize me?” Mac growled. Then he roared “*I’m the bloody- fucking Grim Reaper!*” Mac suddenly turned to Buffy, slashing her restraints with his sword. He spun back to face the vampires, sword flying from his hand as he whipped around. The flying blade skewered Lamar, the force of the blow picking the blood sucking fiend up and carrying him through the air. With a resounding thunk! His was pinned to the wall.

Buffy ripped the remaining vestiges of her restraints away and charged the vampires that surrounded them. Mac literally tore vampires limb from limb. Terrifyingly he was absolutely silent during his rampage.

Buffy smashed a chair to pieces by the simple expedient of whacking it against a vampire. Grabbing a broken chair leg, she set to staking vampires as Mac threw their torn bodies at her. At on point she saw a vampire fix itself to the older immortal’s back and bite down into his throat. As Buffy whipped her arm back to hurl a stake at it, Mac gathered himself and thrust back through the air to smash into a wall.

He spun around and grabbed the dislodged vampire with both hands. With a growl he tore its head off its body. Buffy was stunned. Mac’s strength was incredible! Sensing a shadow, she turned and staked another vampire.

And then it was over. The only remaining vampire was Lamar, still pinned to the wall by Mac’s Katana. Buffy started to approach him, but Mac stopped her.

“He’ll keep. See to Willow,” he instructed. Buffy hurried to her friend.

Gently she tried to rouse her. Finally, Willow stirred and moaned.

“Buffy?” she asked. “What happened?”

“Take it easy, Willow,” Buffy told her. “We’ll have you out of here in a minute.” Buffy turned to look at Mac. The wound at his neck had already stopped bleeding. He was staring at Lamar.

“Does it hurt?” he asked politely. The vampire moaned. “Good,” Mac said simply. He looked over at Buffy. “Do you want the honors?” he asked her.

Buffy looked back down at Willow. “Finish him, Mac. Willow’s hurt.”

The Reaper gazed calmly at the creature he’d pinned to the wall like a blood-sucking butterfly. “This is actually a lucky day for you, jackass,” he said. “Sometimes I play with my food. Right now, I don’t have time.” With that, the immortal grasped the hilt of his sword and jerked it out of the beast. As it fell to the ground, Mac whirled the blade up in the air and, with one smooth down stroke, beheaded it.

Buffy moved the sewage grate out of the way and turned to help Mac lift Willow through the hole. Once they were all outside, she replaced it and turned to Mac. He held Willow cradled in his arms.

Carrying the semi-conscious girl, he led Buffy across the street. “Call my cell,” he instructed. “Xander has it and my truck.”

Buffy reached in her pocket, pulled out her phone and quickly called Xander. In minutes he pulled up, Giles in the truck with him. Under the light of a street lamp, Mac was examining Willow.

“Possible skull fracture,” he announced. “Definitely concussed. Broken shoulder, too, I think,” he finished. He stood with the injured girl cradled in his arms and gently set her in the back seat of the Pathfinder. Buffy climbed in the other side. “Hospital,” Mac ordered Xander.

Scene 4
Sunnydale, Ca.
Our Lady of the Light Hospital
0215, Tuesday (Local)

Buffy was sitting in the ER waiting room, leaning up against Mac when Willow’s parents arrived. Mac explained to them about the ‘mugging’.

After a while, the ER doctor came out and pulled Willow’s parents aside. Mac’s diagnosis had been dead on. Hair-line fracture to her cranium, concussion, broken shoulder.

“But,” the doctor hastily added, “her friends got her here quickly. We’ll want to keep her for a day or two, but the prognosis is good.” Mr. And Mrs. Rosenberg held each other tight as they deflated in relief.

Buffy was feeling pretty low. Her best friend had almost died because of her. When Mr. Rosenberg thanked Mac profusely for saving his daughter from the ‘muggers’, Buffy wanted to sink through the floor. They were right – if not for Mac’s intervention, Willow and she would both be dead.

The police came and took their report. Mac gave them a reasonably detailed – if entirely fabricated – description of five boys wearing Halloween masks and wielding baseball bats.

“If you ask me,” Mac amended, “they were all higher all higher ‘n a kite on drugs. It was sheer luck that they ran off when I showed up. Else there’d be three of us needing a doctor.”

The medical personnel absolutely forbade any visitors that night, so Giles gave Xander a ride home and Mac took Buffy to hers. Buffy was extremely quiet during the ride to her house. When they pulled into the driveway, Mac turned to her,

“Buffy-” he began.

“*I know!*” she cried. “It was my fault! She shouldn’t have been there! I should have waited for you,” she sobbed.

Mac considered that for a moment. “Buffy,” he said gently, “do you really think you could have kept her away? Mortals are fragile, yes, but they aren’t children. Willow’s young, but old enough to make her own choices.

“And you were right not to wait. If you hadn’t followed, the vampires’ trap would have been pointless and she’d be dead. Or worse.” Buffy looked at him through her tears. “Listen, Buffy,” he continued. “Do you have any idea how many mortal friends I’ve buried? Men that were killed in countless theaters of combat. I’ve grieved for every one of them. I’d have traded my life to save many.

“Life doesn’t work like that. For us or for them. You’re fighting a war, sweetheart. How many other mortals would be dead if not for your friends? Despite your best efforts?”

Buffy stared at him for a long beat. Then she was in his arms, crying. After a while, they got out of the truck and walked inside. Joyce was waiting.

“Oh, Buffy,” she said and gathered her daughter in her arms. “Willow?” she asked.

“She’ll pull through,” reported Mac. “She’s young and strong.”

After a while, Joyce and Buffy went up to bed. Mac accepted Joyce’s offer of the couch for the night. As he laid there waiting to drift off to sleep, Mac considered how to eliminate the threat the vampires posed. They were going to need help, he decided. Maybe the war couldn’t be won, but Mac was a veteran of countless campaigns. He didn’t doubt that they could win a major battle. Tomorrow, he decided, he was calling the cavalry.

Scene 1
Sunnydale, Ca.
1240 Riverside Dr
0630, Tuesday (Local)

Mac woke to the smell of brewing coffee. He rolled up off of the Summers’ couch and padded quietly into the kitchen. Buffy’s mother was bent over, examining the contents of her refrigerator.

“Good morning,” he said, startling Joyce.

“Damn it, Mac!” she scolded. “Don’t do that!”

“Sorry,” he apologized. “Where’s Buffy?”

“Still asleep. I was going to make some breakfast. Are you hungry?”

“Famished,” replied the immortal. “Can I help?”

Joyce shook her head. “You could roust my daughter, though. She has a class at ten.”

Mac nodded agreement and headed out of the kitchen. When he reached the entrance to the living room he paused and turned back to look at Joyce.

“Upstairs. First door on the left,” she answered his unspoken question. Mac nodded again and went in search of Buffy’s boudoir.

When he got to her door, he paused and knocked softly. Not hearing a response, he opened the door and stepped inside. Buffy was twisted up in her sheets, clutching a pillow in her arms. Mac just stood and drank in the sight of her for several minutes. With a start, Mac shook himself free and walked over to the sleeping woman. He sat on the edge of her bed and reached out to brush a few stray hairs from her face. Then he put a hand to her shoulder and gently shook her.

“Buffy,” he called. With a jolt, Buffy woke up. She stared at Mac for a moment with eyes wide. Suddenly she smiled. “Good morning,” Mac greeted her.

“Morning,” she replied. “What time is it?”

“Closing on seven. Joyce is making breakfast, and you’ve got class, so up and at ‘em.” Mac grinned wickedly. “We’ve got time for a short run.” Buffy groaned and shut her eyes. Mac started to get up and leave. Buffy lunged up from behind and wrapped her arms around him.

“Just a second, mister,” she ordered him. “I think you forgot something!” Mac turned in her arms and Buffy gave him a soft peck on his lips. She nuzzled his neck for a second, then shoved him in the direction of the door. Mac left and she reached for her sweats.

Mac and Buffy ran a little under four miles at a hard pace, returning to find breakfast waiting. Joyce kissed Buffy on top of her head as her daughter sat to eat. “You two get to handle the dishes. I have to get to work,” she announced, and departed.

As Buffy and Mac cleaned up from breakfast, Buffy studied Mac. “Mac,” she asked, “what do you do for a living?”

“Well... I’ve got some investments. When I went to Oxford, Finn gave me million pounds sterling to get started.” Buffy’s eyes widened. “Then, in the mid eighties, I... *acquired*, you might say, a pretty good chunk of change from some drug monkeys that weren’t going to need it anymore.” An evil grin touched Mac’s face at the memory of his days in Reagan’s ‘War on Drugs’. “Once Apple, and, later, Microsoft started getting big, I invested pretty heavily. Every now and then, I convert some of it into gems, precious metals, real estate...

“Anyway, I’m ‘comfortable’,” he finished.

Buffy stared at him. “How ‘comfortable’?” she asked.

“I guess I’m worth around twenty-five million or so.”

Buffy was stunned. Twenty-five *million*? No wonder Mac could drop everything and race across the breadth of a continent on a moment’s notice! After a moment’s consideration, she decided that that wasn’t fair – she didn’t doubt that having money made it easier, but neither did she doubt that Mac would’ve found a way to come for his friend even if he’d been penniless.

“Just for the record,” she stated, “I want you to remember that I was falling for you before I found out you were rich.”

“So noted,” he acknowledged with a smile. They leaned into each other and shared a brief kiss. Then Buffy darted out of the kitchen. “I need to get ready for school,” she called over her shoulder as she departed.

Scene 2
Sunnydale, Ca.
150 Creek St
1400, Tuesday (Local)

Mac spent the day productively. It was time – past time – to start making phone calls.

“Connor, Mackenzie O’Byrne. I need some help...

“Ceirdwin, how are you...

“Jim, boy! Are you bored by any chance?

“Morning, Colonel. Its Mac...

By two o’clock, Mac had reached out and touched some of the most experienced warriors he’d ever met. Six additional men and women were enroute to the Hellmouth. Within the week, the most dangerous strike team he’d seen since the heyday of Viet Nam would have assembled. With the Slayer to guide them, Mac and his fellow immortals would clean house.

Then he’d be free to conduct a more thorough search for that bastard Polovsky. Mac wouldn’t rest until he’d avenged his mentor. No matter how long it took.

Once he finished his calls, Mac went out back and started mixing and pouring concrete. When the forms set, he’d have two side by side training areas – the ‘sandbox’ as Oz called it, and a concrete slab. Between that and the grass covering the rest of the rather substantial backyard, Mac believed he’d have a proper training area. He was committed to getting Buffy fully trained as quickly as possible, aside from his own desire to hunt down Polovsky – who was likely slipping farther away each day – there was the ever-present risk that Buffy would be challenged by a far more experienced immortal.

Mac’s plans for the young immortal didn’t include avenging her death.

At four-thirty, Mac decided it was time to head to the hospital and check up on Willow. Arriving just a few minutes shy of five, he sensed an immortal’s presence as he approached the door to Willow’s room.

Surprising him not at all, Buffy slipped out from her friend’s hospital room and met Mac in the hallway.

She smiled as she walked up to embrace him. Without a word, the two immortals held each other close. Eventually, Buffy broke the clutch, slipped her arm through Mac’s and led him in to see Willow. Oz and the Rosenbergs were keeping her company. At his entrance, Willow’s mother immediately walked over to Mac.

“Mr. O’Byrne? I never properly thanked you last night.” The woman stood up on her toes, leaned in and kissed Mac on the cheek. “Thank you, sir,” the woman sobbed. Her husband walked over and asked to shake Mac’s hand. The Rosenberg patriarch had tears in his eyes.

“Your welcome. I’m just glad they spooked so easily-” Mac started.

“Buffy has told us that you attacked the men *bare handed*,” interrupted Rosenberg. Mac shot Buffy an accusing look. “I thank you for your bravery.”

Mac was speechless. He couldn’t remember anyone ever thanking him for committing an act of violence. Ever. His mind drifted back to his army days. Coming back from the ‘Nam, people of the Rosenberg’s generation had spit on him. It was the memory of those days that had largely kept him out of the U.S. For almost thirty years. Mac said little during his visit. He didn’t really know Willow all that well and wasn’t sure what to say to her. Additionally, the Rosenberg’s enthusiastic greeting had sort of taken the wind out of his sails.

Eventually, Oz came over and led him from the room. Mac wasn’t sure what to make of the younger man. Giles had told Mac that the kid was a *werewolf*, of all things! Life had certainly gotten much more interesting in the last couple of weeks. Oz took the immortal to a nearby waiting room and turned to face him. “Buffy told me what happened,” he said. “I owe you big man.” With that, Oz offered his hand. The two men clasped hands. “I have to leave. It’s almost dusk,” Oz stated, and turned to go.

“Oz,” Mac called. “Rupert explained your...condition. Come see me tomorrow, if you like. I think we can come up with a better arrangement than what you have now,” he offered.

Oz grinned at him. “I may take you up on that,” he said. “Thanks.” With that, Oz left. Mac looked up at Buffy’s approach.

“That was nice of you, Mac,” she said. The two of them looked at each other.

“Hungry?” asked Buffy. Mac nodded an affirmative. Buffy stepped to his side and slipped her arm through his again. “Well, then, let’s get something to eat.” The two of left the hospital in pursuit of supper.

Scene 3
Sunnydale, Ca.
150 Creek St
1800, Wednesday (Local)

Mac locked the door to Oz’s cage, securing the young lycanthrope within. It was a sturdy piece of work. Mac and Oz had spent several hours putting it together. Mac had forked over nearly ten thousand dollars getting the components earlier that afternoon, and then he and Oz had transported the pieces to Mac’s house in Oz’s van.

Mac had promised that he’d make some additional modifications before the next full moon. When Oz had started to protest the expense, Mac had pointed out that it was better all around if Oz had a secure bolthole. Besides, he’d pointed out, having a cage capable of holding a werewolf posed all sorts of possibilities for future operations. Mac intended to have a pointy-toothed guest in the near future, and wanted a place to keep it between interrogation sessions.

Once the door was secured, Buffy asked Oz “Will you be comfortable?” Oz grinned in reply as Mac straddled a chair. Buffy turned to look at him with a question written on her face.

“If our friend here doesn’t mind, I want to observe for a while,” he explained. “I need to make certain that this cage will prove sufficient.”

“That makes sense,” Buffy agreed. “Giles should be here soon. I’ll go upstairs to let him in.”

“Thanks, honey,” responded Mac. Buffy felt a warm rush. Mac looked a little startled himself. She decided he’d surprised himself with that remark. Buffy kissed him on top of his head and went upstairs. Within a few minutes, the phone rang and the doorbell chimed simultaneously. She grabbed up the phone as she walked to the door.

“Hello?” she answered as she opened the door and found Giles on the front porch.

“Buffy? Its Mom,” responded Joyce’s voice. Buffy gestured for Giles to enter.

“Hi, Mom. Hold on a sec,” she said and covered the phone with her free hand. “Mac’s downstairs with Oz,” she told the Watcher. “Make yourself at home,” she instructed. Removing her hand from where she’d covered the phone, Buffy returned her attention to her mother. “What’s up?”

Giles headed down the stairs to Mac’s basement, quietly chuckling to himself as he shook his head. Buffy seemed to have made herself at home. Considering what he’d learned about Mac over the last couple of weeks, Giles was both comforted and worried.

Comforted because of the older immortal’s skills and his eagerness to teach Buffy all she needed to know. The man obviously cared deeply for her. And that was what troubled Giles. What Mackenzie had told the Watcher about himself painted the picture of a highly skilled and very experienced warrior. Buffy’s report on Mac’s rescue of her and Willow had easily meshed with what Giles had begun to suspect about the immortal.

Mackenzie O’Byrne was almost a force of nature. A destructive force of nature that tended to leave piles of corpses in his wake.

Additionally, the immortal had admitted a tendency to drift in and out of casual relationships with a remarkable frequency. Giles didn’t think Buffy was a casual affair for him, but... Well, if she was, then she stood to be hurt. After what had happened with Angel, Giles didn’t know how well she would be able to handle that.

If she wasn’t... Well, that wasn’t really any improvement. Mackenzie had made no secret of the fact that he was dead set on avenging the death of his mentor. To Giles, that meant that he determinedly risking his head. If he died, Buffy would certainly be out for vengeance – and facing an immortal that had proven capable of killing seasoned warriors.

A fierce howl shook Giles out of his reverie as he descended the stairs.

“What’s up?” Buffy asked her mother.

“I figured I’d know where to find you,” Joyce teased. “I was just wondering if I should plan on having dinner alone tonight?”

Buffy bit her lip and considered things for a second. “Well, Giles is here. I think he and Mac were planning to discuss stodgy, geezer-type stuff after Mac and I patrol. I’ll get one of them to run me home before that,” she finished.

“Is that a ‘no’ for dinner?” persisted Joyce.

“That’s a ‘no’, Mom,” confirmed Buffy. “I’ll be home around nine or so.” She and Joyce said their good-byes and Buffy hung up the phone.

Afterward, the young woman sat and considered what her mother had really been calling about. Mom liked Mac, and that was helping as she struggled to accept that her daughter was taking tentative steps into the adult world. Still, Joyce was worried about her daughter and was struggling with it. Buffy wondered why she didn’t feel resentful. ‘Maybe I’m growing up,’ she thought.

Joyce replaced the phone, sat down at the kitchen table and cried. Her little girl had become a young woman who was rapidly falling in love with a grown man. Where had the years gone? How much longer until Buffy moved out and began a life all her own? Joyce wouldn’t really have been surprised if Buffy had announced that she wasn’t coming home that night.

Joyce hoped that there would still be room in her daughter’s life for Mom. On further consideration, Joyce decided that what really scared her about Mac was the possibility that he’d leave and Buffy would follow. Intellectually, Joyce knew that Buffy was pretty much tied to Sunnydale because of the Hellmouth. Yet, *emotionally*, Joyce was confronted by the certainty that her daughter was slipping away.

She cried for a long time.

Scene 4
Sunnydale, Ca.
1630 Rabello Dr
2300, Wednesday (Local)

Buffy walked into her house and found Joyce waiting for her.

“Hi, Mom,” she said. Then she noticed her mother’s face. “What’s wrong, Mom? Why are you crying?”

Joyce gave Buffy a bleary smile. “There’s something I need to tell you, honey,” Joyce said. “You better sit down.”

Buffy was filled with a sudden sense of dread as she moved farther into the room and sat on the couch next to her mother. “What is it, Mom?” she asked softly.

Joyce took a deep breath. “I don’t know how else to say this, honey...

“Say *what*, Mom?” Buffy demanded.

“I never wanted you to know...that you were adopted.” Joyce forced out.

Buffy reared back. “You’ve always, *always*, been my daughter, Buffy,” Joyce said in a rush. “You have no idea how proud I am of you. It has never mattered to me – or to your father – that I didn’t give birth to you. You’re my daughter and I love you,” she finished.

Buffy was in shock. “Why are you telling me this *now*?” she demanded. “What’s changed? What’s happened?”

“Mac knew you were adopted,” Joyce explained. “He told me that all immortals are foundlings. No one knows where they – you – come from.”

“Mac *knew*?!” Buffy exploded. ‘Why didn’t he tell me?’ she wondered. ‘Oh, *Mac*...’

“He told me that you’d find out eventually, but he wanted to give me a chance to tell you myself,” Joyce answered Buffy’s unspoken question. The two women sat and looked at each other for a long time.

Finally, Joyce broke the silence. “I love you, Buffy. I hope you believe that. I hope you can forgive me.”

Buffy stared at Joyce. “Forgive you? For what, Mom? For being my Mom?” Suddenly they were holding each other. They cried together for a long time that night, and held on to each other as if they’d never let go.

Scene 1
Sunnydale, Ca.
150 Creek St
1500, Thursday (Local)

As Mac pulled into his driveway, he simultaneously sensed and saw Buffy sitting on his porch. He hopped out of the Pathfinder and walked over to her as she stood up to meet him.

“How’d you get here?” he asked, looking around to confirm that there weren’t any other cars around.

Buffy rolled her eyes. “’Hi, honey,’” she corrected him. “’How was your day?’ Then you ask how I got here.”

“Hi, honey,” he responded cheerfully. “How was your day?”

Buffy stood up on her toes and leaned forward to kiss him. “*Better*,” she said. “And fine, incidentally. Now you can ask how I got here.”

“How’d you get here?” Mac repeated.

“Oz dropped me off. He’ll be back in a couple of hours,” she informed him. “We need to talk.” Mac groaned.

“The four most frightening words in the English language,” he said, “are ‘We need to talk’. Guaranteed to strike fear into the heart of the most intrepid warrior.”

Buffy giggled. “C’mon, handsome,” she ordered. “Let’s go inside.” Mac unlocked the door and stood aside to let her pass inside. Buffy led him into the living room and sat him down on a sofa. She scooted up close to him and took his hand in hers as she stared into his eyes. “Last night Mom told me that I was adopted,” she said simply. Mac nodded. He was glad Joyce had gotten that out of the way. Mac had always believed that relationships needed to be built on trust. Trust grew from truth.

“And?” he prompted. Buffy leaned over and kissed him.

“We’re cool. It was a bit of a shock, but she’s still my Mom.” Mac nodded again. “Anyway,” Buffy continued, “I’m glad you let her tell me. I don’t know how I’d of taken it if I’d found out from you...or *Giles*,” she suggested pointedly. She’d picked up on the fact that Giles probably learned about that from Mac – her honey had told her Watcher everything he knew about immortality.

They sat together quietly for a while. “So,” Mac finally prompted, breaking the silence. “Where are we?”

“*We’re* really wishing that Oz wasn’t gonna be here in less than an hour,” Buffy said playfully.

“Tease,” Mac accused, causing Buffy to giggle again.

With Oz secured for the night, and Xander watching over him, Buffy and Mac practiced kata with and without weapons for several hours. When the pair of them resembled a pair of well-used pincushions, Mac finally called a halt. “Let’s clean up and head out,” he suggested.

Within an hour they were parking the truck and setting out on patrol. They moved quietly, comfortable with the silence and alert for the presence of the undead. “Some friends of mine will be arriving over the next couple of days,” he broke the silence.

“Oh?” she prompted. “*Old* friends?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “We need some help, Buffy. You’ve been fighting a holding action for years,” Mac explained. “You haven’t lost much ground, but the numbers are against you. Even with the both of us, how many mortals will die because we can’t be everywhere at once?”

Buffy considered that. How many people had died because she couldn’t save them? How many friends had she lost? Just a few days ago, Willow had almost died. “What’s the plan?” she asked, agreeing.

“I’ve only got a general sketch in my head for the moment,” he demurred. “Once the troops get here, we’ll all put our heads together. The people I’ve got coming – six of us, by the way – are all experienced warriors. But you’re the only one of us with serious practical experience dealing with these things.” Hearing that, Buffy was torn between glumly acknowledging that she had all too much experience with Hell’s creatures and warmth that Mac valued that experience – and, by extension, valued Buffy. She moved closer to him and slipped her arm around his waist. Mac’s arm moved up around her shoulder and held her close. Buffy couldn’t help feeling that the tide was about to turn on the forces of evil. “You know,” she teased, “for a guy born well before the advent of political correctness, you’re a pretty swell guy.”

“I’m a pretty practical guy,” he corrected her. “I don’t understand how this whole ‘Chosen One’ thing works, but I do understand that you’re already a formidable warrior with extensive experience in this theater of combat.”

They patrolled another hour, exchanging only occasional comments. Each of the immortals was learning from the way the other moved: Buffy saw Mac repeatedly fade into the shadows. She watched as he’d fall behind her, turn and walk backwards from time to time – ‘pulling drag’ he called it. She loved watching him walk. Mac moved with the lithe grace of a dancer. Meanwhile, Mac was taking extensive mental notes on the way Buffy searched out vampires. Most of their occasional conversation concerned her instruction on spotting how the beasts moved as she clued him in on the subtle differences between humans and demon-possessed corpses. Decades of experience caused the older immortal to be an attentive student.

At ten they decided to call it a night. Buffy had some homework to do for freshman English and Mac needed to relieve Xander from watching Oz so the other young man could get home. As they approached Mac’s truck, three punks stepped out of a shadowed alley and confronted them. Mac shot Buffy a look and she shook her head, confirming his assessment. The punks were trash, but they were human.

The kid in the middle flicked open a knife as he stepped forward and opened his mouth to make his demands. Whatever he was going to say remained a mystery. Without any hesitation at all, Mac attacked the would-be muggers. Taking two steps forward, the immortal leaped into the air and thundered into the boy with the blade. A double kick planted both of Mac’s extended feet square in the boy’s chest. The veteran landed nimbly on his feet, crouched down low, braced his weight on both hands and spun through a horizontal axis to sweep a second punk’s legs out from under him. Completing the spin, Mac whirled to his feet, took one short step and drove the flattened palm of his hand into third boy’s chest. A sharp crack announced broken ribs as the boy flew back through the air and thudded into a nearby wall. The immortal stepped to the rear and spun to the left as he raised his leg. A quick thrust drove his foot down into the chest of his previous opponent. Mac centered himself and strode over to the first of the boys. Mac bent over, grabbed the boy, hoisted him up into the air and smashed him headfirst into a nearby wall. Eleven seconds after beginning his attack, the immortal was standing over three fallen opponents. He prodded the punk who’d held the knife with his toe. “I don’t want to talk about this again,” he told the boy.

Then he turned and walked back to Buffy. Halfway back to her, he noticed the look on her face and stopped. “What?” he asked. Buffy rolled her eyes.

“Should I call the hospital or the morgue?” she asked. Mac was confused. He honestly didn’t understand her complaint. His first thought was that she was pissed at him for being overly protective of her – not that he had intended to be. His response had been instinctive – ‘When confronted, *attack*’ was a rule he’d had pounded into him for decades. Yet her question suggested that she simply thought he’d over reacted. It occurred to Mac that, in many ways, and despite her experience in dealing with the supernatural, Buffy was frighteningly innocent when it came to civilization’s dark underbelly. Not her fault, really – lots of Americans were stupid in that way. “They were going to attack us, Buffy,” he pointed out.

“So you dropped a nuke on them?” she replied scornfully. Mac decided that Buffy was seriously pissed.

“They had it coming, honey. If one want’s to dance, one must be prepared to pay the piper. Besides, I didn’t hurt them that badly.”

“How do you *know*?” she demanded.

“Experience,” the veteran responded curtly.

“You could have killed them by accident, Mac,” Buffy maintained. That brought him up short. “I have never killed anything by ‘*accident*’,” he replied coldly. Buffy stepped back as if he’d slapped her. Then walked around him to check on his victims. Mac felt himself getting angrier by the second. *She didn’t believe him*? On the verge of ripping her head off, Mac forced himself to find his center. He didn’t submerge beneath the cold blackness that lurked in his soul, but he did reach out and stroke it softly. In moments he was calm. He turned to watch Buffy as she examined the fallen youths. He decided – quite consciously – to admire her apparent reverence for life. Mac knew that growing up without a family and years of savage warfare had pretty much stripped his empathy away. If he wanted Buffy – and he was honest enough to acknowledge that he did – he was going to have to be worthy of her. In another moment he swallowed his pride and walked over to ask her if she wanted to take them to the hospital.

Scene 2
Sunnydale, Ca.
1630 Rabello Dr
2330, Thursday (Local)

Buffy walked into her house and greeted her mother. Joyce picked up immediately that something was wrong. She tensed up. Even knowing that her daughter was immortal didn’t relieve her maternal concern for Buffy’s well being.

“What happened, honey?” she asked.

“Oh, Mac and I had our first lover’s quarrel, that’s all,” Buffy said dismissively. Joyce considered that for a long moment.

“Is this a ‘talk to Mom’ kind of thing?” she asked hopefully. Now that Buffy knew she’d been adopted, Joyce feared being cut out of her life.

“Well, I suppose I shouldn’t have been so angry with him,” Buffy said, unknowingly reassuring her mother. She came over and flopped down on the couch next to Joyce.

“What’d Mac do?” asked Joyce.

“Patrol was pretty quiet, and we decided to call it quits around ten. We’d just got back to his truck when we were mugged.” Joyce’s eyes widened on hearing that. Her mouth dropped open in shock as Buffy went on, pretty much oblivious to her mother’s reaction. “I didn’t even get a chance to suggest to these three boys that they were making a big mistake. Hell, the muggers didn’t even get a chance to mug us!

“They’d no sooner walked up and this one kid pulled a switch-blade, than Mac heard the bugler sound ‘Charge!’ and tore into them! Mom, I swear it couldn’t have taken more than a few seconds for him to take those kids out. And he took them down *hard*! I made him take them to the hospital and drop them at the emergency room – every one of those guys had broken bones.”

“I guess they’re lucky to still be breathing,” suggested Joyce. She winced in empathy for those kids and made her twenty-third mental note that Mackenzie O’Byrne was a dangerous man.

“That’s what I said!” exclaimed Buffy, vigorously nodding her head in agreement. “And that ticked Mac off to no end. ‘I have never killed anything by ‘*accident*’,” she mimicked her boyfriend.

Joyce couldn’t help herself. She started to laugh. In a second, Buffy, too, started to chuckle. “It wasn’t funny at the time,” she asserted.

In a minute Joyce got control of herself well enough to ask, “So you guys had a big fight?”

“Not really,” returned Buffy. “After I chewed him out, he kind of sulked for a second. But then he loaded the kids in the truck and took ‘em to the hospital. It was kind of a quiet ride back here, though,” she admitted.

“Oh, Buffy,” Joyce empathized as she stroked her daughter’s hair.

Scene 3
Sunnydale, Ca.
150 Creek St
0100, Friday (Local)

Mac walked downstairs and checked on Oz. The werewolf had apparently worn itself out – it was snoring noisily in the far corner of the cage.

He’d given Xander a lift home and taken his time driving back, thinking about the unexpected turn of events that the night had brought. He knew he was putting up with crap from Buffy that he’d never tolerated from any other woman. He cursed himself for a fool. Almost sixty years old and he finally falls in love! A girl who was still shy of her twentieth birthday had brought the perpetual bachelor down low.

‘Oh, the shame!’ he thought to himself and chuckled softly as he turned and left the lycanthrope to its slumber. The real kicker, he decided, wasn’t that he was in love with a woman he hadn’t even slept with. No, the real shock was that he didn’t really mind having fallen in love! Sure, he’d felt passionately about various women in his youth, but the general experience called ‘love’ had left him determined to avoid it in the future. Women were useful from time- to-time, he’d decided, but only complete idiots allowed themselves to be swept away on love’s wings.

‘”Love’s wings?”’ he thought to himself. ‘Christ, Mac, but you’ve got it bad, don’t you?’

The ring of his telephone startled him. He quickly strode into the living room and snatched it up. “Hello?” he answered.

“Mac? Its Buffy.”

“Hey, sweetie. What’s up?” Jesus! Just the sound of her voice caused his gut to start doing hula-hoops around his ass. Mac might have been reassured to know that Buffy was experiencing a similar situation (albeit, she would’ve phrased it less graphically).

“Nothing much,” she replied. “I just wanted you to know that I wasn’t...I mean, I didn’t want...Ah, damn! I just wanted to talk to before I went to sleep, I guess,” she finished. “I’m sorry about, you know, earlier. I shouldn’t have jumped all over you like that.”

Mac grinned. “Its okay, honey,” he said. “It’s not your fault. I guess that maybe I shocked you. I still love you.”

Buffy was silent for a long moment. “Still?” she finally asked

Mac was suddenly soaked with a cold sweat. “Uh, yeah. Didn’t I mention that?” ‘Well,’ he thought, ‘*that* was suave.’

“No, you didn’t. I think I’d’ve remembered,” Buffy teased.

“Well...” Mac had no idea what to say. “Good night, Buffy.”

“Mac?” her voice called as he moved his thumb to disconnect the phone. He stopped and forced himself to put the phone back to his ear.

“Yes?”

“You probably should remember to tell a girl how feel before you remind her about it.” There was what sounded suspiciously like a smile in Buffy’s voice. “That’s what’s commonly called a ‘*hint*’, by the way.”

Mac gave in. “I love you, Buffy. Sleep well.” Again Mac prepared to disconnect the phone.

“Mac?” her voice called him to the phone again.

“Yeah, honey?”

“I love you, too,” Buffy said softly and promptly hung up the phone.

As Mac finally managed to put the phone down, he found that he was soaked with sweat. Curiously, his stomach was still conducting its acrobatics demonstration. And, strangest of all, there was a warm sensation seeping through his chest.

Buffy practically slammed her phone down. She lay back on her bed with a silly grin on her face. She remembered that she’d once told her first Watcher, Merrick, that her plans were to marry Christian Slater and die. Dying was apparently no longer an immediate concern. As for the subject of her schoolgirl crush... Well, he’d waited too long to show up and sweep her off her feet. Instead of doing the sensible thing, that unfortunate gentleman had missed his chance.

Mackenzie O’Byrne had beaten him to the prize.

Scene 4
Sunnydale, Ca.
Frontage Rd
0130, Friday (Local)

Jan Polovsky sat in his car considering the peculiar twists his life had taken of late. Next to him sat the scanner that had allowed him to listen in on the younger immortal’s declarations of mutual affection with his woman. Polovsky sneered. To his mind, love was for poets.

O’Byrne certainly hadn’t wasted any time getting here. Polovsky had figured that some of Mac Cuhill’s students might put in an appearance and had waited in the event that some might do just that. He was confident that with the power the ancient immortal’s Quickening had given him he could take any that came.

Yet O’Byrne wasn’t hunting for him! Instead he’d allied himself with the girl on the phone in order to hunt *vampires*. Polovsky still couldn’t quite believe that such creatures existed even after witnessing the attack against Mac Cuhill. He wondered when O’Byrne intended to resume the hunt for him? Certainly not immediately. Polovsky had tapped into the calls the younger immortal had made to summon assistance for his quest.

He’d deal with the vampires first. After that, he’d probably stay in the vicinity if the conversation with the girl was any indication. Polovsky had time. For now he’d fade away.

As Polovsky drove north out of Sunnydale toward L.A., he decided he’d return in a few weeks. O’Byrne had a hell of reputation – the young immortal had defeated an extraordinary number of immortals in the last few decades. Polovsky decided he’d need an edge, just to be safe. The girl would be the key. Take her and the lovesick young pup would be at Polovsky’s mercy.

And Polovsky would have his head.

Scene 1
Sunnydale, Ca.
150 Creek St
1500, Friday (Local)

As he worked the heavy bag slung over the sandbox, Mac sensed the approach of an immortal. Padding out of the training pit, he picked up his Katana and waited patiently, centering himself. Gathering his *chi*, Finn had always called it. In a moment he relaxed as the voice of an old friend called out.

“Mackenzie! Where are you, you damn drunken Irishman?” Mac grinned and walked around the side of the house. Waiting for him was a slight, nearly bald man wearing an expensive, well-cut suit and an exquisite navy blue Armani overcoat. Seeing him, the visiting immortal smiled.

“Hello, Colonel. Its good to see you again,” announced Mac. He strode over to the man with his hand outstretched in greeting. The two warriors clasped their hands firmly. “Thank you for coming, sir.”

“You said you needed help,” explained the older man simply. “Is Finn about?”

“Finn is dead,” Mac calmly answered. It was getting easier to say, even if his heart turned to ice at the thought of his fallen friend.

“Dead?” repeated his visitor. “How? When?”

“Couple of weeks ago. He found that bastard Polovsky. It’s why I’m here – and the reason I’ve called you,” added Mac.

“I don’t understand. You didn’t invite me her so I could watch you take his head, did you?” Jean-Paul Deblout suddenly wasn’t certain that it had been a good idea to answer the younger man’s summons. Mac knew the rules, he couldn’t possibly expect help fighting Polovsky. Deblout wondered if Mac expected to lose. Did he want the Colonel to avenge him?

“Your not going to believe me when I tell you what’s going on in this town, Colonel. I mean, you really won’t believe me,” Mac grinned.

Deblout was still curious about Mac Cuhill’s killer. “And what about Polovsky?” he asked.

Mac’s eyes grew very cold. “I don’t know where that shit is, Colonel. I don’t know how long it’ll take me to find him. Finn searched for two hundred years. I do know what’s happening in this quiet little town. So, this first. Then I deal with Polovsky,” he finished

‘God help Polovsky,’ Deblout mused to himself. He knew full well that Mackenzie was a viscously vindictive son-of-a-bitch. Polovsky just might take a long time dying. “So,” he asked, “what are we here for?”

Mac gave him a bemused grin. “Vampires,” he answered.

“Vampires?” repeated Deblout incredulously.

“Vampires,” affirmed Mac. “I told you that you wouldn’t believe me.”

“You were right. I’m failing to see the humor in this. I came a very long way at your request, Mackenzie,” asserted Deblout coldly.

“I do appreciate that, sir. Look, I know you don’t believe me – yet – but tonight I’m going to show you.” Mac suddenly remembered his manners. “I’m sorry, Colonel, I should have asked right off – how’s Marie?” He hadn’t seen the Colonel’s adopted daughter in almost two years.

“Quite well, thank you. She sends her love,” responded Deblout.

“Please come inside,” invited Mac. “I’ll make tea.”

When Giles and Buffy arrived at Mac’s house in Giles aged car, Buffy saw an extremely beautiful woman striding across the path between Mac’s door and driveway. The taxi that had brought her drove off, freeing space in Mac’s drive for Giles to park. Feeling an immortal’s presence, Buffy naturally assumed it was Mac.

With a sinking feeling, she realized it was the woman turning to face her. Buffy noted quickly that the new arrival was wearing a long coat that would easily conceal a sword. Buffy began backing toward Giles as Mac’s door flew open and he bounded out on to the lawn.

“Ceirdwin!” he called happily. The woman had been eyeing Buffy warily, but spun to Mac and embraced him warmly.

“Ceirdwin?” echoed Giles softly. “I don’t believe it! Buffy, Mackenzie told me that that woman fought Caesar’s Legions in ancient Britain!” Mac had told Giles a little about the company he was expecting.

“She’s holding up well for her age,” observed Buffy sardonically. Giles gave her an amused look as Mac walked Ceirdwin over to them. Buffy plastered a smile to her face. The smile became much more genuine as Mac abandoned the older woman to move next to Buffy and give her a kiss.

“Hi, honey. Rupert,” he greeted the Watcher with a nod. “Meet Ceirdwin. Ceirdwin, Rupert Giles. And this,” he added as he placed his arm over Buffy’s shoulder, “is Buffy Summers.” Buffy wrapped an arm around Mac’s waist, subtly staking her claim.

Ceirdwin smiled at Buffy as she picked up on the younger woman’s body language. “Pleased to meet you both,” she responded as another immortal joined them. Ceirdwin turned to the new arrival. “Jean-Paul!” she squealed as her smile’s wattage kicked up a couple thousand times. Stepping over to Deblout, Ceirdwin offered the Colonel her hand. Their handshake quickly became a warm embrace.

“Ceirdwin! My god, what’s it been? Twenty years? Where is Paul?”

Ceirdwin winced. “Paul’s gone. Four year ago,” she responded. Buffy picked up on the pain in the woman’s voice and her heart gave a sympathetic tug.

“He was so young!” protested Deblout. “What happened?”

“He was killed in Paris. Murdered for the forty Francs in his wallet,” the woman answered bitterly.

Deblout was outraged. His jaw set, he asked, “Did you find them?”

Buffy chilled at the expression on Ceirdwin’s face. “All but one. Duncan Macleod convinced me to spare him.”

At the mention of Macleod’s name, Deblout stiffened. “Macleod, eh? I believe I’ve met the man. Marie was savaged some time ago,” he explained bitterly. “Macleod was visiting the boy’s family and gave them aid. We nearly killed each other.”

“If Duncan helped them, he had good reason, Jean-Paul,” Ceirdwin defended her old friend – and occasional lover.

After a moment Deblout nodded in agreement. “Yes, he did.”

Mac chose that moment to join the conversation. “The Macleods are on their way here,” he said. Ceirdwin and Deblout looked at him with startled expressions. “I’ve not met this man Duncan, but Connor and I go back a few years. I asked him to come and his clansman was with him, so they’re both on the way. They should be here tomorrow,” he finished.

Ceirdwin looked at Deblout, then at Mac. She considered her own history and that of the Macleods.

“Is there a good reason why your ‘gathering’ us together?” she punned. The meaning was intentionally double-edged.

“You won’t believe him when he tells you,” interjected Deblout. “I don’t.”

The five of them were seated in Mac’s living room. Giles had spent some time explaining the circumstances of the Hellmouth as Buffy played hostess. Neither Ceirdwin nor Deblout missed the ease with which Buffy asserted her place in Mac’s home. Buffy might not be living with Mac, Ceirdwin decided, but she had certainly assumed for herself a role as mistress of the keep. Seeing Buffy perched on arm of Mac’s chair with his arm draped around her waist, Ceirdwin concluded that they were lovers. She was happy for them. It was rare that immortals fit together so easily.

She was having a great deal of trouble, on the other hand, believing their story about vampires.

“Tonight,” Mac finally announced, “we’ll split up and patrol. Buffy, you take Ceirdwin with you. Colonel, you and I will team up. By the time we all get back here, you’ll believe.

Scene 2
Sunnydale, Ca.
Sunnydale Cemetery
2200, Friday (Local)

As Buffy and Ceirdwin strolled through Sunnydale’s cemetery, the Slayer pondered how to approach the older woman. Suddenly seizing her courage, she blurted “Were you and Mac ever...you know...”

Ceirdwin smiled at the younger woman. “No. The timing wasn’t right. When we first met, I was a newlywed.” Ceirdwin somberly regarded the memory of her late husband.

“I’m sorry about what happened to – Paul, right?” Ceirdwin nodded and Buffy plunged on. “The first guy I ever really loved turned out to be a vampire. He was the first – well really the only – guy I ever slept with.” That surprised Ceirdwin. She’d assumed she and Mac were lovers.

“Anyway,” Buffy continued, “he was under this curse. He had a soul. Only, he couldn’t be happy. Happiness caused his soul to be stripped away and sent back to hell. Then he was just another vampire. Essentially, see, I destroyed the man I loved.”

Ceirdwin’s mouth hung open as she took that in. The girl really believed what she was saying!

“Sometimes, Buffy, men just aren’t what they seem to be-”

Buffy held up a hand, cutting her companion off as she signaled for silence. “Follow me,” she instructed. “Hang back and keep quiet, okay? And remember what we told you about how to kill these things.” Buffy moved fast and quiet as she crossed the cemetery. In a moment she confronted a vampire lurking beneath a tree, observing a fresh grave

“Expecting company?” asked the Slayer.

Ceirdwin had more than a little trouble believing what happened next.

The young man Buffy was facing spun toward her. His face morphed into a Halloween mask as he roared and leaped at Buffy. The younger woman whirled in a three hundred and sixty-degree turn, delivering a powerful kick to the creature’s face. The beast flipped over backward and landed on its head. Instantly Buffy sped forward with a stake in her hand. A quick, powerful thrust of the wooden weapon through the creature’s back and into its heart caused it to turn to dust with a soft *POOF*.

The grave the vampire had been watching over suddenly erupted, spewing forth another of the creatures. It had no sooner cleared the grave than Buffy hurled a stake into its chest. The Slayer followed up with a flying spin-kick that drove the stake through the vampire’s chest. There was a second soft POOF and the second vampire settled to the ground as a cloud of dust.

Buffy calmly brushed herself off and walked back over to Ceirdwin.

“Anyway,” continued Buffy as if there’d been no interruption, “I just wanted you to know that I understood about Paul. ‘Cause I lost someone, too.”

Ceirdwin stared at the Slayer.

Several blocks away, Mac and Deblout were arguing about the existence of vampires near an all-night grocer, unaware that Ceirdwin had just had that question laid to rest so dramatically.

“All I’m saying, Mackenzie,” expounded Deblout, “is that some of us would have run across them before.”

“Maybe we have and just never realized. Most of us are just trying to live our lives. Some are concentrating on the Game,” Mac added as thoughts of Polovsky danced through his head. “We’re immortals, Colonel,” he pointed out. “I’d say that means we’re not in much of a position to categorically deny the existence of the supernatural.” Mac suddenly stiffened.

Picking up on the younger man’s body language, Deblout scanned the area.

“What is it, Mackenzie?” he asked. Mac handed his bag to Deblout.

“Proof,” he said simply. His hands now free, Mac stalked a young man who just didn’t *fit*. As he quietly approached his potential victim, he heard it call out to a passing woman who was struggling to manhandle several bags of groceries.

“Hey, pretty-pretty,” Mac’s target called out. The woman froze for a second, then raced for her car. As the vampire ran her down, its face morphed to exhibit the demon within – completely unaware of O’Byrne’s lightning-swift approach. The woman reached her car and finally dropped her bags as she fumbled to get her car keys.

The vampire was one step away from closing its hands around her throat when it was suddenly jerked into the air, whirled up and over in a short arc and smashed headfirst into the ground.

Deblout raced to Mac’s side in time to hear the crunch. Surprisingly, Mac continued to work on the beast. Bones snapped in quick succession as Mac struggled with the vampire.

“Shackles, Colonel,” Mac ordered. “In the bag. Hurry!”

Deblout tossed Mac several sets, one after another. In moments, the vampire was securely trussed up. Hearing a soft moan, Mac and Deblout turned to look at the woman.

“Who...who...who...?” the woman stuttered.

“Neighborhood Watch, ma’am,” answered Mac. The woman fainted. Deblout reached out and caught her before her head hit the asphalt.

Buffy’s cell phone rang.

“Hi, sweetheart,” greeted Mac. “What say we call it a night?”

Buffy consulted her watch. “I don’t know, Mac,” she answered. “It’s still pretty early...” She looked over at Ceirdwin. The immortal looked as if she was in shock. “Oh, what the hey,” she said, changing her mind. “Ceirdwin’s seen a couple of them, and I guess that was really the point. How’d you guys do?”

Buffy could hear the smile in Mac’s voice as he answered, “I got you a present.”

Gathered at Mac’s truck, Buffy decided that Mac was in desperate need of an education in the gift-giving department. “Honey,” she said sweetly. “For future reference: Flowers are good, candy’s good, and jewelry’s even better. Thrashing fang-boys: not so good, ‘kay?”

Mac gave her a light kiss. “What is it with women and dead plants, fattening food and shiny rocks?” he teased. Buffy rolled her eyes.

Deblout and Ceirdwin observed the struggling vampire, disbelief written on their faces. Ceirdwin quietly told him what had happened at the cemetery as Mac and Buffy snuggled a few feet away. Deblout shook his head and examined the young woman in Mac’s arms.

“Mac,” asked Ceirdwin, “ why take one alive?” Mac turned to face her, one arm around Buffy’s waist. He grinned with evil intent.

Mac and Deblout tossed the vampire into the cage in Mac’s basement. As Deblout stood guard with a sword, Mac released the shackles, tossing them out of the cage one by one. The vampire reached around to try and bite him, resulting in Mac’s grabbing it by the head and pounding it into the concrete floor five times in rapid succession. The beast quieted down hurriedly. Finishing his task, Mac stepped back and delivered a powerful kick to the vampire, caving in its ribs and sending the beast crashing against the wall four feet away.

Mac backed out of the cage and secured the door. “Listen up, jackass,” he called. “You’re my prisoner. If you behave maybe I’ll kill you quick. Fuck with me, and I’ll strap you down, get a paint brush and a bucket of holy water and baste you with it,” he promised. The vampire huddled in the corner of the cage and shivered in fear.

Leaving the other immortal to watch over the caged vampire, Mac headed up the stairs. Buffy and Ceirdwin were sitting in the kitchen quietly drinking coffee. Mac walked over and kissed Buffy on top of head.

“Hey, sweetie,” he said. “You’d better head on home. It’s gonna be a long night downstairs.”

Buffy looked at him then turned her head to look at Ceirdwin and finally back to Mac. He was saying, “Ceirdwin, do me a favor and drive her home, will you? My keys are on the table in the foyer.”

“I’m staying,” Buffy announced. Mac and Ceirdwin gazed at her for a moment. Then the older woman hopped up from her seat and left the room.

Mac and Buffy looked at one another.

“I’d rather you didn’t, honey.”

“I’d just as soon I did,” she persisted.

“Buffy, this is going to be...messy,” Mac argued. She hadn’t responded well to his treatment of the muggers – what was she liable to think when he began torturing the creature downstairs?

Buffy stood up and walked over to the phone hanging on the kitchen wall. Picking it up, she dialed her mother. Joyce quickly answered the phone.

“Hi, Mom.”

“*Hello, honey. Is everything all right?*” asked her mother.

“Fine. I just wanted to let you know not to wait up. I’m staying over at Mac’s tonight,” Buffy informed her. Standing next to the kitchen table, Mac watched her closely.

“*Are you sure, sweetheart?*” Joyce asked after a pause.

“Yeah. I am,” answered Buffy. Joyce was silent. “Mom?” Buffy asked.

“*I’m here, honey. I love you*.”

“Love you, too, Mom,” Buffy answered. “Good night.” Buffy hung up the phone and turned to Mac. Without saying a word, he walked across the kitchen, took her by the hand and led her from the room.

In an all-too-empty house across town, Joyce Summers sat and began to cry.

Scene 3
Sunnydale, Ca.
150 Creek St
0030, Saturday (Local)

Mac led Buffy upstairs and down the hall to his bedroom. Opening the door, he gestured for her to precede him.

“I’ve some pretty good size T-shirts in that dresser drawer there,” he pointed. “Plenty of towels in the bathroom. Spare toothbrush in the cabinet over the sink. I don’t think I’ll be getting to bed tonight,” he added. He wasn’t quite sure what Buffy’s intention’s were and didn’t want to presume. “I’d prefer you stay out of the basement,” he asked her. “I don’t think you’ll approve of what I’m going to do to our guest.”

Buffy nodded in agreement. Personally, she believed the vampire had it coming. Still, she agreed with Mac’s assessment: she didn’t want to watch Mac coldly inflict punishment on anything.

“Make yourself at home.” Mac turned and began to leave, but stopped at the door and turned back to her. “I mean that, Buffy. I might prefer you weren’t here *tonight*, but I am glad you stayed.”

“Was the spare toothbrush for me?” she asked softly.

“Well,” answered Mac as a smile spread across his youthful features. “Let’s just say that, like the ant that moved the mountain, I had high hopes.” With that, Mac tossed her a wink and left the room to head to the basement.

Leaving Buffy, Mac went back down to the kitchen. Ceirdwin was waiting for him with a raised eyebrow. For the first time in about as long as he could remember, he blushed. The female immortal chuckled at him. Then she patted him on the arm and walked to the stairs, obviously going to check on her newest sister.

In the kitchen, Mac poured coffee for himself and Deblout. Sweetening his coffee, Mac stirred it absentmindedly as his thoughts revolved around the young woman in his bedroom. Realizing that he’d left the Colonel nearly a half-hour before, Mac grabbed the cups and headed downstairs.

Buffy stood in the middle of the room for a few minutes, just looking around. Finally, she walked over to and opened the closet. Mac had plenty of clothes, but it was a large closet and had room to spare. In the dresser, only half the drawers were filled. The bathroom was tastefully decorated and included both a large garden tub and a stand- alone shower. The tub had vines of ivy spread around the rear third.

Closer inspection revealed a Jacuzzi attachment. Opening the cabinet over the sink, Buffy found the toothbrush he’d mentioned, still sealed in the factor wrapping.

Buffy suddenly felt dizzy. She hurried out to the bed and sat down. The bed was large and firm. Pillows were piled high against the headboard.

On one side of the bed was a book. She smiled, realizing which side of the bed Mac preferred. Scooting over to where she could see the book’s title, Buffy discovered Mac was reading Caesar’s “Commentaries”. She opened it up to find that it wasn’t a translation – the book was written in Latin.

She found herself sort of breath. ‘What am I doing?’ she asked herself.

Buffy was the Chosen One, veteran of countless encounters with demons, vampires, werewolves and other assorted agents of evil, but suddenly she was confronted by something terrifying in a completely different way. Her only previous experience had sent her lover to Hell. The consequences of that had left her a little gun-shy.

Buffy remembered Angelus’s cruel words to her the morning after their one night together. The memory cut her to the quick.

Mac had been around the world. He was sixty years old, for god’s sake! He read Latin when he went to bed at night. The older immortal was handsome, rich, educated and experienced with who knew how many women. Every time she thought things were looking up for the two of them, something served to remind her how stupid her hopes were. Sensing a nearby immortal, Buffy jerked her head up to find Ceirdwin standing in the doorway.

“Are you all right?” asked the older woman.

Buffy stared at the older woman. What had she said before? ‘The timing wasn’t right’? Her husband had been dead for four years now. Ceirdwin had battled Caesar’s legions! She was very pretty and had a worldly manner about her. Buffy started to feel that with Ceirdwin around, she really didn’t stand a chance.

“He really loves you, you know,” Ceirdwin said as if in response to Buffy’s thoughts. Buffy’s mouth dropped open as she regarded the older woman. “I’ve known Mac for nearly twenty years, so you can trust me on this,” she added with a smile. She walked over to the bed and sat next to Buffy.

“I wish you could have met Finn,” she continued. “They were like a before-and-after picture: Mac what Finn had been, Finn what Mac might be. They really were like father and son, you know.” Ceirdwin smiled at some memory. “I knew Finn for more than fifteen hundred years. He was one hell of a man.”

“Me, too,” responded Buffy.

“Hmm?” asked Ceirdwin, returning from the past.

“I love him, too,” repeated Buffy. “Mac. I love him, too.”

“Yeah, I kind of picked up on that,” teased Ceirdwin. “You understand why he wanted you to go?” Buffy nodded an affirmative. “Well, the guys don’t need our help,” Ceirdwin suggested. Suddenly, she shuddered as the thought of what Mac intended played through her mind. “If you don’t mind some company, we could go down to the living room. I have a lot of questions about what we’re in for.” She stood up and cocked an eyebrow at the younger woman.

With a smile, Buffy stood and followed her from the room.

Scene 4
Sunnydale, Ca.
150 Creek St
0600, Saturday (Local)

Mac crept through the bedroom to the bath. On the way, he quietly pulled out fresh underwear and a pair of shorts from the dresser. At the entrance to the bathroom, he stopped, turned and regarded the young woman sleeping in his bed. He was smiling as he shut the door and started the shower.

Mac emerged from his toilet to find Buffy’s eyes on him. Buffy examined him as he toweled his short hair dry. It was the first time she’d seen so much of him and she drank the sight in. Standing six foot two, the man weighed in at around two hundred pounds and was well tanned. His broad shoulders framed a deep chest covered with dark hair. His abdomen rippled with what the body-builders called a ‘six-pack’ and descended to a narrow waist. His legs were muscular with well-defined quads and thick calves.

Mac, in turn, studied her. Slim, she had full, high breasts. Shoulder length brownish- blonde air framed an angelic face. Warm, green eyes sparkled as the early morning’s light filtered in through the bedroom window. She was wearing a button-down shirt she’d found in his closet.

‘What is it about a woman wearing a man’s shirt that’s so damn sexy?’ he wondered. She smiled sleepily at him and took his breath away.

“Morning, beautiful,” he greeted her. “Good morning, yourself, handsome,” she replied. He walked over to the bed. “I need to get a couple hours sleep. The Macleods will be here today and it’s liable to be a long night,” he explained. “I should get up and check on my Mom,” she replied Neither of them moved. “Eventually,” she added. Mac slipped between the sheets and lay back against the pillows. Buffy snuggled into his arms and laid her head against his chest. Mac smelled her hair, catching the scent of strawberries as he drifted off to sleep.

Scene 1
Sunnydale, Ca.
150 Creek St
1000, Saturday (Local)

Buffy gradually woke up. Wrapped in Mac’s arms with her head pillowed on his chest, she took her time enjoying the feel of him. He smelled of soap – Irish Spring she decided and giggled softly. His chest rose and fell as he quietly slept. She could feel the slow, powerful rhythm of his beating heart. Moving carefully, so as not to disturb him, Buffy glanced at the clock on her side of the bed and saw the time.

As she slipped from the bed, Mac stirred and opened his eyes. “Shhh,” she whispered and kissed his lips softly. “Sleep.” Mac rolled over and went back to sleep.

Buffy brushed her teeth and decided to run home to shower. She needed fresh clothes anyway, and didn’t want to disturb the slumber of her man. Setting her toothbrush in the holder next to Mac’s she smiled. She had a toothbrush here, so she might as well bring over a few clothes. Mac had room and she doubted he’d mind.

She headed downstairs to find Ceirdwin and Deblout reading the paper over coffee.

“Good morning, my dear,” the Colonel greeted her.

“Morning, Buffy,” echoed Ceirdwin. “Coffee?” she offered. Buffy nodded, but as she moved to get it, Ceirdwin waved her into a chair. “Sit. You look like you’re still half asleep.”

Buffy sat down and regarded the Colonel. The immortal was examining her as closely as if she were a previously undetected life form.

“You’re very new to the Game, aren’t you?” he asked. She nodded. “I presume Mackenzie has explained everything? The rules? The Gathering?” he pressed.

“Yes,” she answered him. She wondered what was bothering the old geezer.

“You do understand that, in the end, there can be only one?”

“Jean-Paul!” scolded Ceirdwin as she set a cup oh coffee down in front of Buffy. “She gets it, all right? Let them be happy.”

Deblout looked a little abashed. “I’m sorry, young lady. I don’t believe Mackenzie would take advantage, but...” Deblout’s voice trailed away as he looked up at something behind Buffy. Sensing the presence of an immortal, she new Mac had arrived without turning to look.

“But what, Colonel?” asked Mac politely.

“But she’s new, Mackenzie. You’re her teacher. And, I gather, her lover.” Buffy flinched at the sound of those blunt words. “My concern’s are no different than yours would be,” he finished.

“She’s not Marie, Sir,” Mac said gently.

Deblout colored slightly. He turned to Buffy. “Mackenzie is right. You’re just about my daughter’s age. If I sound a little paternal, I apologize. I intended no offense.”

“Daughter?” asked Buffy. The earlier references to ‘Marie’, she’d assumed, meant the Colonel’s wife or girlfriend. Mac had said immortals couldn’t have children. If he was wrong, all sorts of possibilities opened up for them. Though, for the short term, she’d definitely need to be seeing a doctor about birth control.

“Step daughter, truthfully,” said Deblout after a moment, derailing her train of thought before it could get up to speed. “I’m sure Mackenzie has explained we can not have children.” Buffy nodded. “My late wife had had Marie before we met. When I married Elyse, I adopted Marie. As I said, you’re about the same age,” he finished.

They all sat quietly for a while. Mac got some coffee and joined the others at the table. After a while, Buffy broke the silence. “We really don’t have a choice? About the Game, I mean.”

“Yes, we have a choice,” answered Ceirdwin. “Many of us refuse to play the Game. Once the Gathering is upon, though... Who knows?”

Buffy turned to look at Mac. An image of the two of them trying to kill each other, swords flying through the air as they played out a horrible dance of death flashed through her mind. It was too terrible a thought to hold in her head,

“I don’t see it,” she said. The other three stared at her. “It just doesn’t make any sense! You’re suggesting that at some point we’ll all have an irresistible urge to kill each other? All humanity gone? Friendship and love just get chucked out the window?

“Guys, I can’t buy that,” she finished.

“Even if you were right about the Gathering, sweetheart,” interjected Mac, “there’s no getting around the fact that enough immortals believe in the Game to make life dangerous from time to time.”

“That I can buy. The world is full of evil people – and other things,” Buffy agreed. “But, Mac, honey, I just can’t picture you and me – or you and your friends, for that matter – trying to chop each other’s heads off!”

Too that, none of the other immortals had a response

Scene 2
Sunnydale, Ca.
1630 Rabello Dr
1200, Saturday (Local)

Buffy had Mac run her home. When she went inside, she found Joyce waiting for her. Buffy stood in the living room unsure what to say.

“Good morning,” she tried.

“Morning, honey,” answered Joyce.

“Uh, Mom, about last night...”

Joyce waited for her daughter to continue. After nearly a minute, she prompted her daughter by saying: “Yes?”

“Well, nothing happened. Mac caught a vampire. He put it in a cage that he built for Oz. Well, built and tested on Oz, I guess,” she said upon further consideration. “Some other immortals are here, and some more are coming. Mac called them to get some help.” Joyce listened to her daughter passively as she ran on.

“Anyway, I wanted to stay with Mac, see, so I crashed. He finally came to bed – I mean went to bed around six this morning and, ahh...” Joyce kept listening calmly. ‘”*Came* to bed”?’ her thoughts echoed.

“So anyway, like I said, nothing happened,” Buffy finally finished.

Joyce looked at her daughter for a moment before saying simply, “This time.”

“’This time’?” echoed Buffy.

“Buffy,” explained Joyce, “you’ll be twenty next month. I may not like it, exactly, but you’re a grown woman. You’re in college. *And*,” she continued, “you’re in love. It’s okay, you know. I like Mac. I think he’s a good man. Don’t get me wrong,” she added. “I want you to be careful. A young woman’s heart is a fragile thing, and I don’t want you to get hurt. I’m just saying that I understand that you and Mac are...getting close,” she finished.

Buffy stared at her mother for a few seconds. Then she went to her and gave her a warm hug. Joyce held her daughter and congratulated herself, deciding she’d handled that pretty well indeed.

Mac went to a Safeway near his home and dropped nearly five hundred dollars on groceries. On the way back to his house he considered the logistics of his operation. He had six guests between those present and imminent arrivals. The house had four bedrooms, of the three spare bedrooms, he’d purchased and installed bunk beds in two of them and a full size bed in a third. That accounted for five people. If he double bunked the two women in the room with the full size bed, all bases were covered. He briefly considered surrendering his own bed to the two women, but decided against it. He had a sneaking suspicion that Buffy was positioning herself as the mistress of his little estate – he hoped so, anyway - and it wouldn’t do to throw her out of what was essentially her own bed.

He’d called Oz the day before, and the youngster add agreed to pick up some of Mac’s other purchases that day and drop them off around five.

So by that evening, Mac would have a new, full size washer and dryer.

Food and accommodations seemed to have been effectively dealt with.

Giles would be by that evening for additional briefings. Buffy would be able to pinpoint key nodes for the strike force to attack and guide them in. Xander was on a mission to get as much holy water as he could lay his hands on. Two wood lathes were due to be delivered today from Sears (and hadn’t that cost a small fortune!). And Giles had agreed to transfer a substantial portion of Buffy’s arsenal to his place (Mac wondered if that was liable to become a permanent transfer).

He’d just decided that his preparations were as thorough as they could be at this juncture, when he pulled into his driveway and found it taken up by a rental car and a huge Harley. The ‘buzz’ signaling the presence of several immortals attacked his senses.

Walking in his front door he discovered that the Macleods had arrived along with Big Jim Meyer and a bearded mortal with a cane he’d never before laid eyes on. He warmly greeted his old friends and was introduced to Duncan Macleod, who immediately confronted him.

“Jean-Paul tells me we’re going hunting for vampires,” he said.

“Yeah. Look, I know you won’t believe-” Mac started.

“I believe you,” Duncan cut him off.

“You *do*?” queried Mac. This was a first. “Why?”

Duncan got a haunted look in his eyes. “Long story,” he answered simply.

Mac shrugged – the story could wait. He turned to the mortal.

“I’m Mac,” he said and held his hand out to the stranger.

“I know who are,” responded the man with a warm smile as he clasped his hand. “Mackenzie Patrick O’Byrne, born September 23^rd 1940,” he began, speaking as if reading from a memorized file. “Believed to have first died in an ambush at Mi’on Talgar in September of 1960. Veteran of the 2^nd Parachute Regiment of the French Foreign Legion and U.S. Army 5^th Special Forces Group. Cited numerous times for bravery in Algeria and Viet Nam.

“Former student of the legendary Finn Mac Cuhill of Irish legend,” the stranger continued. “Graduate of Oxford University. Holds degrees in History, Chemistry and Biology. Veteran of numerous campaigns against the South American Cali and Medellin drug cartels. Recent student at the University La Quebecois where you studied mechanical engineering.

“Moved to Sunnydale, California two weeks ago to avenge the death of Mac Cuhill,” The stranger finished. “Pleased to meet you! Name is Joe Dawson.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know a man named Rupert Giles, would you, Mr. Dawson?” asked Mac.

“I’ve yet to meet the man personally,” Joe admitted. “But Ceirdwin and Colonel Deblout have been telling us about him.”

“But you are a Watcher, right?” persisted Mac.

Joe nodded an affirmative. “But not like you think. I’m part of the Society of Watchers. We watch immortals – like you. I’ve never heard of this man Giles or his organization before today.”

“You watch immortals? I mean, you know about us? You track and record our lives?” persisted Mac. Dawson nodded again, though uncertainly this time, waiting to see what O’Byrne’s reaction would be.

“In that case, sir,” Mac informed him, “please accept the thanks of this historian for the work your people do.” Mac grabbed his hand and shook it again, warmly.

Dawson was a bit flustered. This wasn’t the reaction he’d imagined from a man who guarded his privacy with a zeal that made most other immortals look like exhibitionists in comparison. Mac noticed a tattoo on Dawson’s left wrist.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Watcher emblem,” answered Dawson. “We all have them.”

“Rupert doesn’t,” corrected Mac.

“Well,” the Watcher hastily amended, “like I said – I’ve never heard of him or his group before. I’m looking forward to meeting the man. And please, call me Joe,” he added.

“Mac,” returned the immortal. “You know, you guys must be pretty good at sneaking around. I’d never heard of you until a few days ago. Well, just *now*, actually.” Mac suddenly felt like an idiot. If most immortals had Watchers, and Joe had the kinds of details he obviously did...

“Joe,” he asked, “where’s my Watcher?”

Scene 3
Sunnydale, Ca.
150 Creek St
1600, Saturday (Local)

Upon receiving a telephone call from Mackenzie and directions from a man named Dawson, Giles gathered Mackenzie’s Watcher from his motel and drove over to the immortal’s house. He’d been surprised when the two men had called and asked him to pick this other gentleman up. In fact, Giles was amazed – not only did the immortals exist, there was another organization of ‘Watchers’ out there watching them..

This Watcher was proving to be an interesting man. He was a veteran of the Legion. Though he’d never met Mackenzie there – their terms of service had been almost two decades apart – it had been determined somewhere that O’Byrne’s Watcher should be someone who’d been exposed to extreme danger and handled himself well. The immortal was simply too fond of plunging into deadly situations to ask most men to take the risks being his Watcher entailed.

The Watcher’s were rather short in the experienced commando department, and it was sheer luck that another veteran of the Legion was available.

The Watcher had been on O’Byrne’s tail for nearly ten years and held great respect for him. “Not a man to make angry” had been his summation of the man to Giles.

They arrived at Mackenzie’s house – the ‘Keep’ he called it – to find a warm reception. Mackenzie studied his Watcher for several long moments before walking up to the man and shaking his hand.

“I understand from Joe, here, that you’re a brother legionnaire,” Mac greeted his Watcher. “You’ve followed me through some pretty hairy shit, *mon ami*. I wish I’d known you were there.”

“Well you lost me in Africa, for a couple of years,” answered the Watcher with a slight German accent.

“My point, exactly. Listen, I understand that you guys keep to the shadows – hell, I even understand why – but, now that I know about you, don’t be a stranger,” demanded Mac.

The Watcher grinned at the man he’d followed with varying degrees of success over the last decade. “You’ve got it, Reaper,” he agreed.

Hearing the old nickname from his days in the Legion and Special Forces, Mac’s mouth twisted in a grim smile.

“And what’s your name, brother?” he asked.

The Watcher looked the Reaper in the eye. “Hunter, when I was with the Legion. Mostly Thomas Jager, these days,” he said, pronouncing his name as ‘Yager’ in the German fashion.

“Well, Hunter, ordinarily I’d say the honor of the Legion demanded we teach these sissies how to drink, but under the circumstances we all need a clear head, agreed?”

“I agree completely, Reaper.”

“One thing, Hunter,” amended Mac. “I know you don’t interfere in the Game, but there’s something I need to know.”

Jager guessed immediately what it was. “Mac Cuhill’s killer?” he asked.

Mac nodded. Jager and Dawson exchanged a pained look.

“I wish we could tell you for certain, Mac,” said Joe. “Unfortunately, his Watcher wasn’t there. Mac Cuhill slipped away from him.” Dawson shrugged. “It happens.”

“We do know that Polovsky was here, Reaper,” added Jager. “It’s a safe bet that he killed him.”

“What about Polovsky’s Watcher?” the immortal asked.

“Dead. Killed in a car wreck three weeks ago,” Joe informed him. He then added, “He was following Polovsky here to Sunnydale.”

Willow picked up Buffy and drove her to Mac’s house. She had her arm in a sling, but was otherwise bouncing back pretty well from the injuries that the vampire Lamar had inflicted on her. She was nearly bouncing up and down as Buffy dished about where she’d spent the night. Willow liked Mac a lot. He seemed to be a genuinely nice guy. Of course, the fact that he’d saved her life didn’t hurt his cause any. Willow was practically leading the cheering section as he and her best friend enjoyed their blossoming romance.

Best of all, to Willow’s way of thinking, was that the guy wasn’t a vampire. Oh, sure, he had that whole immortality thing, but, then, so did Buffy. What was important was that the guy wasn’t a blood-sucking fiend from Hell! Willow saw this as a serious step in the right direction for Buffy.

When the young women got to Mac’s place, they found two groups of men working. One group was unloading heavy equipment into the garage, a second was taking a washer and dryer out of Oz’s van. Mac broke away from directing the two operations to come over and greet them. First he gave Buffy a warm kiss and held her for a few seconds, then he turned to Willow.

“Hi, Willow,” he greeted her. “How are you feeling?”

“Peachy!” she said as she gave a wide-eyed look at the hustle and bustle going on around them. Mac laughed and waved the women toward the house.

A few minutes later the ruckus was over, and the Sears delivery truck had left. A couple of men Buffy had never seen before announced that they were going to make dinner. Buffy examined them as she realized they were both mortals. One was a kindly looking man with a graying beard who displayed some difficulty walking. The other sort of reminded her of Mac the day she’d met him – danger to go, freshly bottled. Mac tugged on Buffy’s arm and she followed him to his office.

Inside, he went to his desk and pulled a set of keys from a drawer. He walked back to her and handed her the keys. Buffy took them and then stared into his face, unsure exactly what he intended with gesture.

“Two things, Buffy,” he said. “One, I don’t know where this is going between us, but I do know that I’ve never felt like this before. I’ve never given a woman the keys to my home before, but I want you to have them. *Mi casa es su casa*.

“Two,” he continued, “I’m a pragmatic guy. I’m your teacher and Giles is bringing most of your arsenal over here tomorrow, for a while anyway, since this is where most of us are staying. So, you need access to the house. I have just one request.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“This room – this one room – don’t move anything around. It may look a little disorganized from time-to-time, but I’ll always know where everything is if you don’t mess with it,” Mac explained.

Buffy grinned. “This one room?” she repeated. “What about the rest of the house?”

“I’m flexible,” he answered with a smile.

Buffy played with keys in hand for a couple of seconds. “We agree that it’s a little soon for me to be moving in, right?”

Mac seemed to give that serious consideration for a moment. “Probably,” he finally agreed, sounding just a little reluctant to do so.

“Good. So don’t get any ideas if I hang a couple of things in your closet or steal space in a few drawers,” she said with a smile.

“When might that happen?” Mac asked, doing his best to avoid sounding hopeful.

“I was thinking that, probably, oh, I don’t know, but, probably as soon as haul I my stuff upstairs from Willow’s car,” Buffy answered, feeling rather pleased with herself.

Without missing a beat, Mac asked, “Want some help?”

Scene 4
Sunnydale, Ca.
150 Creek St
1900, Saturday (Local)

Two trips had gotten Buffy’s things upstairs. Leaving her and Willow to put Buffy’s things away, Mac went downstairs to try and figure out how to seat twelve people for dinner. Eventually, Joe and he had turned the dining room table into a buffet line. His guests could eat wherever they found a seat.

Most of the people in the house knew each other and broke into small groups to catch up. He was headed to the kitchen when he felt a pair of arms wrap around him. “Looks like were going to have a regular party,” said Buffy.

Mac turned and planted a kiss on her head. “Looks like it,” he agreed.

“I’m thinking we should invite Mom,” suggested Buffy. “She’s handling everything pretty well, but I think she’s suffering from a premature case of empty nest syndrome.”

“So, call her,” responded Mac.

By seven, Joyce had arrived and everyone was feasting. Everyone was in a pretty good mood, simply enjoying themselves in the calm before the storm. Xander was slinking around, wide-eyed as he caught snatches of conversation. Joyce wandered over to Mac, looking as if she needed to have a serious conversation. Mac took her by the arm and walked her into his office. Once the door was shut and the two of them seated, he decided to seize the bull by the horns.

“Joyce, please tell me that you’re not here to ask me my intentions toward your daughter,” he challenged her.

“Well, actually, yes, I am. Sort of.” Joyce sighed. “Listen, Mac. I like you a lot. I really do. I just can’t help feeling...well...” She took a breath. “I’m her *mother*, Mac. It’s my job to worry about her!”

Mac chewed that over for a couple of seconds. “I don’t know what I can say to reassure you, Joyce. I’m in love with her. I’ve never felt this way about a woman before. *Ever*,” he emphasized. “I’m not sure why she seems to feel the same way – I’m just glad that she does.”

Joyce gazed at him with tears in her eyes. “I feel like I’m finally losing her. Really losing her. And please don’t say I’d be gaining a son, Mac – You’re older than my parents!”

“I don’t think you’re losing her, Joyce. I think she grew up and you’re wondering where the time’s gone. I’ve never had children, so it’s pretty easy for me to view that dispassionately.” Mac stared at her for a long moment. “How about we just both love her as best we can and see where life leads, okay?”

Joyce agreed with a nod of her head, then said, “She isn’t really moving in she? Not already?”

Mac shook his head. “No, Joyce, she’s not moving in. Gimme a little time, will you?” he joked. “I’ve never wanted a woman in my life permanently before. I’m not real sure where I stand from one minute to the next.”

Joyce chuckled. “You really don’t know, do you?” she asked. Seeing the expression on his face, Joyce busted out laughing. “I wouldn’t worry, Mac. You’re standing right where she wants you.”

“What’s that mean?” he demanded to know.

“In her heart, Mac,” she answered. “In her heart.” Hearing that, the immortal looked inordinately pleased with himself.

Buffy was searching for Mac when she noticed that her mother was missing as well. Moving back into the living room, she saw the door to his office open. Mac and her Mom sauntered out, Mac with an insufferably pleased look on his face. Seeing her daughter, Joyce walked over and gave her a hug.

“I’m going home, honey,” she announced. Buffy examined her mother closely.

“Uh, huh. What were you and Mac talking about?”

“Oh... Life,” Joyce said evasively. “Listen, Buffy, I don’t want to pry, this is just curiosity – should I leave the light on?”

Buffy gave the question serious thought for a moment. “I don’t think so, Mom,” she decided.

“Okay, honey.” Joyce hugged her daughter again and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” Buffy nodded and Joyce turned to leave.

On her way to the door, Joyce stopped by Mac and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Good night, Mac,” she said.

“Good night, Joyce,” answered Mac. With that, Joyce left. Buffy trailed her to the door and stood there watching as her mother got in her car and drove away. The two women exchanged a wave as Joyce backed the car out of the driveway. Buffy turned to find Mac beside her. She stepped to him. They wrapped their arms around each other and just held on tight.

The next several hours were spent with Giles briefing the immortals on the Hellmouth and it’s supernatural denizens. The last of Mac’s selected strike team had arrived shortly after Joyce’s departure. The immortal – a woman named Belle – was apparently a demolition expert.

Buffy, Xander, Oz and Willow shared their accumulated experience. Buffy spent several minutes pounding home to them the strengths and weaknesses of their quarry.

Finally, Mac and Deblout gave a short brief on how to entice cooperation from a vampire. Mac explained the methods they had used to acquire their knowledge – including both what worked and what did not. That portion of the discussion had caused Willow to turn green and left Buffy a little unsettled. At eleven the meeting was adjourned by mutual consent. Mac explained the sleeping arrangements – adjusted to accommodate the two Watchers - and everyone began to drift off to bed.

“One thing, Mac,” asked Belle. “Where is this ‘vampire’ of yours?”

“You don’t quite believe it, Belle?” asked Mac.

“*Seeing* is believing, you drunken lout!” she teased.

“We killed it,” interjected Deblout. “It was too dangerous to leave it unguarded and we’d learned all we could from a single specimen.”

“Never fear, Belle. You’ll be seeing soon enough,” promised Mac.

Mac sidled up to Buffy. “Honey, could you run upstairs with me to the linen closet?” he asked. We need to pull out some stuff for Connor and Thomas.”

Joe obviously needed a bed, and Jager and Connor had volunteered to crash on the floor. Within a half-hour, Giles and the Buffy’s friends had departed and everyone else was bedded down for the night. Buffy went in to Mac’s room and changed into one of his shirts. After brushing her teeth, she peeled back the covers and slid into bed. A minute later Mac walked in. He shut the door and gazed at the woman lying in his bed.

After a while, Buffy asked, “Are you coming to bed?”

Mac disrobed and slid naked into the bed next to her. Eventually, they fell asleep.

Scene 1
Sunnydale, Ca.
150 Creek St
0800, Sunday (Local)

Mac woke up with his arms filled with what was easily the most beautiful sight he’d ever laid eyes on. Buffy lay with her head pillowed on his chest, one arm thrown across his belly. ‘Jesus!’ thought the immortal. To his mind that had been, hands down, the greatest sex in the evolution of the species. The night had bled over to the early hours of the morning before they’d finally sated themselves and, exhausted, fallen asleep.

He laid there for what seemed to be hours. He watched as the room filled with sunlight, picking out the highlights in Buffy’s hair and illuminating her lightly bronzed skin. Gently he stroked her back, enjoying the feel of her under his hand. Noticing the time, he grimaced. He wished he could keep still and enjoy the feel of her – the smell of her. Sundays should exist just to let him hold Buffy.

Damn! Grasping her shoulder, Mac gently shook the sleeping woman.

Gradually, Buffy’s eyes fluttered open and she gazed up at him. A smile plucked at her lips as she felt his hand stroke her back. She stretched and molded herself to his body.

“We need to get up, sweetheart,” he said, breaking the silence.

“Not yet,” she groaned, and snuggled a little closer to him. Finally, the two of them rousted up out of bed and stumbled to the shower. Once there, one thing sort of led to another...

Ate eight, Mac hoisted himself out of Buffy’s arms, returned to the shower and cleaned himself. Emerging from the bathroom, the immortal quickly dressed. Buffy’s eyes were on him every moment. Finished dressing, Mac strode over to the bed, bent over and gave her a light slap on the rump.

“Up and at ‘em, sweetie,” he commanded. “We’ve a lot to do today.” Buffy threw him a pout. ‘God! But she’s gorgeous,’ he thought to himself as he scowled back at her. Buffy won the staring contest as Mac cracked a smile. Buffy winked at him a swung her legs out from under the covers. Mac planted a quick kiss on top of her head and left the room.

By the time she made it downstairs, their guests were all up and about, drifting in and out of the kitchen. Mac, Joe and Thomas were bustling around making biscuits, gravy, eggs, pancakes and hash browns. Buffy grabbed a cup of coffee, gave Mac a quick kiss on the cheek and got out of their way. She wandered from one immortal to another, bidding them good morning and asking how they’d slept.

After she finally grabbed a plate of food and took a seat in the living room, Connor came and sat down next to her on the couch. As the older immortal scrutinized her, she felt her cheeks flush, wondering if everyone had heard her and Mac carrying on the night before. Connor finally broke the awkward silence.

“So, Buffy. You’re the woman who finally brought down Mackenzie,” he said with a smile. “I can think of a few women who would love to know how you did that.”

Buffy smiled, embarrassed. “I guess it’s a kind of magic,” she said.

Connor laughed uproariously and winked at her.

With breakfast over, the cooks wasted no time starting the clean up.

Buffy was on her way in to offer her help when Ceirdwin grabbed her arm and pulled her aside. She suggested Buffy put on some sweats and join her out back. When Buffy reached the training area, she found both Ceirdwin and Belle waiting for her. In a few seconds, Buffy learned that the two women had decided to take advantage of the opportunity to spar with her, hoping to teach her a little of what they knew. Buffy was touched.

Two hours later, she was drenched with sweat and her torn clothes were covered with little splashes of blood. The other women had told her not to pull any punches – they certainly didn’t intend to! With Belle watching from the sideline as she nursed a thigh slashed open to the bone, Buffy swept Ceirdwin’s feet from under her, turned and swept her blade down at the other immortal’s neck. As she stood over her downed opponent, her blade hovering an inch from Ceirdwin’s throat, Buffy heard hands softly clapping together behind her.

Ceirdwin nodded at Buffy, conceding the victory. Buffy lifted her sword away and stepped back. After helping Ceirdwin to her feet, the young Slayer bowed from the waist. With a wry grin, the older woman returned the gesture by saluting with her sword. Then Buffy turned to find Mac and Giles watching the show. Giles had a shocked expression on his face as he took in the scene. Her lover bowed to her and turned to Giles.

“That’s our student who just kicked butt, Rupert. Give the lady her due,” he instructed the Watcher with a smile in his voice. Buffy decided Mac must have been the one applauding as Giles smiled and nodded at her. Mac walked over to where Belle sat on the grass. “You all right, Belle?”

Belle scowled at him. “I should have known better than to try to thump on the woman that tamed *you*, you damn ape,” she growled. Then she couldn’t help herself any longer. A huge smile spread across her face.

“Jesus, Mac! What the hell are you dealing with that you need more help than *her*?” Belle demanded, lifting her chin at Buffy. The Slayer flushed with pride at the respect in the other immortal’s voice.

“It’s a question of numbers, not ability,” explained Mac. “Wait ‘till tonight. You’ll see.”

Scene 2
Sunnydale, Ca.
150 Creek St
1200, Sunday (Local)

Buffy supervised stake production in the garage. Duncan, Joe and Thomas quickly turned a small load of oak into weapons for use on the vampires. They chatted comfortably as the wood was spun and carved on the lathes. At one point Buffy asked Duncan why he’d been so quick to believe them about the bloodsuckers. Joe grimaced and Duncan got the same far away look in his eyes that she’d seen in Mac’s from time-to- time.

“It’s all right if you don’t want to talk about it...” she offered, letting him off the hook.

“No,” answered Duncan. “It’s just not easy to talk about. I lost a good friend fighting a demon named Ahriman. In the end, I defeated him, but Richie is dead.”

Buffy nodded in empathy. “I know how you feel,” she said in a voice heavy with sympathy. “I’ve lost a lot of friends in this war.”

“Were you tricked into killing them?” Duncan asked. With that question, Duncan explained more to Buffy than any amount of conversation could.

Buffy suddenly hurt for the man so badly that she felt tears form in her eyes. “Oh, god, Duncan,” she choked out. “I’m so sorry...”

Duncan wiped tears from his own eyes. “Not your fault,” he replied with a wan smile. Buffy saw tears streaming down Joe’s face as well.

“Did you know him, Joe?” she asked, already sure of the answer.

“Yes,” Joe nodded as he confirmed her suspicion. “He was only a couple of years older than you. He could have seen a thousand – he didn’t make it to twenty-five.”

Buffy suddenly realized that ‘Richie’ had been an immortal. Then it hit her – Duncan must have been his teacher! Oh, *god*! She watched Duncan visibly shake himself free of his melancholy and turn back to the work at hand. She walked over to Joe and hugged him.

“We’ve had a rough couple of years,” he explained.

“If you need to talk...” Buffy offered quietly. Joe gave her a smile as he considered what a find O’Byrne had on his hands. As the afternoon wore on, preparations were made for the upcoming battle. Mac’s living room was turned into a command center and communications node. Deblout, Belle and Mac and driven into L.A. And purchased some very expensive communications gear and a load of ammunition. Upon their return, Mac had spent some time in the basement with Thomas. Buffy had popped in once to see what they were up to. Mac explained that they were increasing the depth of the cave in some hollow-point ammunition, filling them with a mixture of garlic and holy water and sealing them with a wax plug. “The range won’t be much – we’ve really hollowed these rounds out, and blown the ballistics to hell,” explained Thomas.

“But they’ll pretty much explode inside whatever they hit.” Buffy chewed her lip as she considered that. Vampire killers. She smiled. Cool! She noticed that Mac and Thomas addressed each other as ‘Reaper’ and ‘Hunter’. She wondered what that was about. Thinking back to the night Willow had been hurt, she remembered what Mac had bellowed at Lamar. ‘*I’m the Grim Reaper!*’ he’d shouted. Finally tired of wondering, she asked them about it. Mac chuckled as Thomas turned to answer her. “It’s a legionnaire thing,” he explained.

“Oh,” Buffy responded. That didn’t really explain anything. Suddenly she recalled that Mac had been in the French Foreign Legion. Deciding that Thomas must have been as well, she asked, “Does everyone in the Legion have a really cool nickname?” Jager roared with laughter.

“No,” he finally choked out. “Not all.” Buffy decided that the two of them were enjoying a joke at her expense. She rolled her eyes and slapped Jager on the shoulder. He just winked in response. Obviously, she wasn’t going to get any more out of the two veterans. She turned and left, pausing on the stairs as she heard Thomas say something to Mac. Realizing he was speaking French, she continued out the door, wishing she’d paid more attention in her high school French classes. She’d have been pleased at what she heard if she had been able to understand Jager’s remark.

"That’s one hell of a lady you’ve got there, Reaper.”

“Don’t I know it,” had been Mac’s response.

Buffy went in search of either Joe or Colonel Deblout and found both of them in the living room. The Watcher was quietly enjoying a cup of coffee as Deblout checked the power and antennae connections on the communications rig. “All right, guys, I need the 4-1-1 on those two characters in the basement,” she announced.

“The what?” asked the Colonel.

“Information,” translated Dawson.

“Ah!” responded Deblout and turned back to his chores.

“What do you want to know, Buffy?” asked Joe.

“’Reaper’? ‘Hunter’?” she prompted. Joe grinned and Deblout looked back up. The two men exchanged a meaningful look. “Do you really want to know?” asked Deblout. Buffy nodded. “I can’t speak for Jager, but I can tell you that Mackenzie built a formidable reputation while with the Legion,” he said.

“Jager, too,” added Joe. “Mac built up that reputation all over again in Viet Nam when he was a Green Beret. And again in Latin America in the eighties.”

“What reputation? I’m gathering that people thought he was pretty bad.”

“Bad?” asked Deblout. Buffy started to roll her eyes, but caught herself, realizing that the older immortal was struggling to understand teen-speak in what was, for him, a foreign language. “Dangerous,” she translated. “Ah!” he said again. The old soldier gazed at her a moment before replying. “My dear young woman, Mackenzie O’Byrne is one of the most dangerous men alive.”

As Buffy let that sink in, Joe added, “Mac was involved in one war or another pretty much without interruption for almost thirty years, Buffy. Trained and employed by some of the most respected military outfits in the world. And he spent nearly ten years with his teacher, you know. Finn Mac Cuhill was almost always mixed up in something or other.”

“One might safely say that Mackenzie is indeed ‘bad’, young lady,” affirmed Deblout Joe joined back in,

“Thomas spent two tours with the Foreign Legion – that’s ten years. Those guys are all over the place. Thomas has been from Beirut to Baghdad.” Joe grinned as he added, “’Jager’ is German for ‘Hunter’. When he was in the Legion, they called him ‘Hunter’ in French as opposed to ‘Jager’. They punned his name because of the body count he wracked up as a sniper in Lebanon.” Buffy sat down and considered the information the two men had given her.

“So this is an old soldier kind of thing?” she asked. “Calling each other ‘Reaper’ and ‘Hunter’ is a bonding thing?” Deblout considered that and nodded. Joe had a slightly different opinion.

“I think it’s more a matter of two men deciding in about two- point-five seconds that they were going to be fast friends.”

“The Legion is a strong bond, Buffy,” added Deblout. “Thomas and Mackenzie are simply two men with a similar history – one a Watcher, one an immortal. Reaper and Hunter, on the other hand, are Brothers of the Legion,” he explained. Buffy thought she understood. She thanked the two of them and slipped out of the room to call her mother and say hi.

Scene 3
Sunnydale, Ca.
Around town
2000, Sunday (Local)

The immortals split into four groups: Buffy with Belle, Mac with Connor, Ceirdwin with Duncan and Big Jim with Deblout. Each member of the team had a small, powerful hand-held radio. With Jager driving Xander and Oz in Mac’s Pathfinder and Dawson and Giles manning the maps and radio rig at Mac’s place, the strike team was set for the night’s patrol. The intention was to expose each of the newcomers to a vampire.

Everyone was armed with stakes, squirt guns filled with holy water and, of course, their swords. Additionally Mac and Jager each had a suppressed .38 automatic loaded with the experimental ammunition. Before departing on the recon, Mac had admonished the team not to get carried away.

“Remember, the vampires know about Buffy, more or less, and might be starting to develop some intel about me. They can’t possibly know about the rest of you. Let’s keep it that way for now – it’s our hole card.

“The intent is to expose each of you newcomers to our fanged friends,” he had continued. “If you see someone being attacked, deal with the immediate threat and *call for extraction*! Bag limit tonight is one incident per team, excepting Buffy. Being the Slayer, she needs to be seen and it won’t set off any alarms if she takes out more than one or two bloodsuckers. Buffy? Anything to add?”

Buffy had reminded them to be safe. “I don’t know if it’s possible for one of us to be killed or – worse – turned by these things. I’d just as soon not find out.”

Deblout and Big Jim made first contact. A couple of beasts had cornered a teenage girl and forced her down an alley. Hearing her scream, the two immortals had quickly zeroed in on the source of the cry. The two creatures were drinking the girl dry when the Deblout and Big Jim found them. Drawing their swords, the warriors charged in and dispatched the fiends.

Crouching down beside the girl, Big Jim hardly deigned to notice that the damn things really did turn to dust when you beheaded them.

Finding that the girl was already turning cold, he began to shake.

They’d been too late.

Connor and Mac sat in a run down bar making idle conversation as their eyes scanned the crowd. Deblout had reported in and called for extraction over an hour before. Mac had grimaced as he heard the Colonel’s report to Dawson and Giles. Another child was dead.

Giles had queried them about the girl’s condition, wanting to know if she’d been fed any blood of the vampires’ blood. Connor had quirked an eyebrow at that. Mac reminded him that a victim had to drink the blood of a vampire to be turned.

Around ten, Mac nudged his companion with his foot and inclined his head toward one of the bar’s patrons. Something about the way he moved had alerted the veteran. The vampire was talking up a drunken barfly. Soon, they left together. The immortals stood and Mac threw some money down on the table. They quickly hurried outside. Scanning the street in front of the bar, a noise drifted to them from a nearby alley. Connor was barely a step behind Mac as they raced to the mouth of the alley.

In file, they blended into the shadows. Quickly, they silently padded toward the sound of a struggle.

“Hey, lover,” complained a drunken woman’s voice. “Not so rough!”

The vampire and his meal were suddenly visible in the light of the waning moon. The barfly seemed to be realizing that there was something wrong with the face of her ‘date’. Her struggles turned from playful to frantic as the creature hissed at her. Mac raced forward, seized the beast and hurtled it into the wall across the alley. Recovering instantly, the vampire hissed again.

“Mother of god!” said Connor, amazed by the site. Seeing a gun materialize in O’Byrne’s hand, the vampire chortled. “I’m going to rip your heart out, bloodbag,” it promised.

Mac shot it in the heart. The vampire thudded against the wall and began to twist. In a moment it was howling in agony. Mac and Connor watched, fascinated by the sight of the screaming beast as smoke started pouring from its chest. The woman fainted.

It took the thing nearly thirty seconds to die. Smoke emerged from one rapidly appearing hole after another in the beast’s torso as it twisted, flopped and screeched. Suddenly collapsing into dust, the thing was gone.

“Well, that was interesting,” noted Connor.

Belle and Buffy sat in the park. Since Deblout’s report an hour before, they’d sat quietly. Buffy feeling guilty that another kid was dead, Belle torn between deciding on the veracity of the report and regarding Buffy. She hated to admit it, but she was jealous of the younger woman.

She’d carried a flame for Mac for nearly the entire time she’d known him. She wasn’t sure whether or not he’d ever even noticed she was a woman. Now here comes this child and sweeps the object of Belle’s affection off his feet. It wasn’t fair! Belle thought herself attractive, but next to Buffy she didn’t hold a candle and she knew it. The girl was going to look sixteen for the rest of her life. Belle had fought beside Mac on several occasions and apparently impressed him enough to be called up for this mission, but she didn’t doubt that Buffy could take her head without breaking a sweat. Earlier in the day Buffy had taken down both Belle and Ceirdwin when the two had teamed up against her in the training pit.

What made it worse was that she couldn’t help liking the younger woman. The girl had charm on top of everything else.

Buffy suddenly stiffened and her eyes narrowed as something caught her attention. Belle turned to see a group of three shadowed figures approach. The older woman shot Buffy a look and saw a cold smile on her face.

The newcomers – two men and a woman – froze as they got close enough to recognize Buffy. Belle realized she was alone on the park bench. Buffy was charging the three recent arrivals with her sword in her hand.

‘Jesus, she’s fast!’ Belle thought. Then she saw the vampires’ faces morph into Halloween masks.

Buffy leaped high in the air and somersaulted over the vampires’ heads, twisting in the air and landing behind them. Her blade whipped through the air and decapitated two of the creatures with a single, powerful stroke before they had a chance to turn and face her. The last of them charged at the Slayer, planning to catch her and snap her neck before she could turn the blade against it.

Buffy continued her turn and whipped the blade back, under her arm. The beast impaled itself. The Slayer set her foot and turned clear around until she was facing the vampire. Taking a step back and bracing herself. She moved the sword quickly through three ever-widening circles, coring the bloodsucker out before jerking the blade free.

Stepping to the side as the vampire fell to the ground, Buffy raised her sword high in the air and brought it down in one smooth, fast motion. The headless thing at her feet turned to dust.

Belle hadn’t moved. She didn’t want to get anywhere near Buffy while the Slayer had that sword in her hand. The entire spectacle had taken mere seconds. Buffy pulled a piece of chamois from a pocket in her coat and wiped the blade of her Katana.

“Explain to me again exactly why you need help?” demanded Belle. Before Buffy could answer, their radios crackled with an incoming transmission.

“*Base, Team four*,” they heard Mac say. “*Mission complete. Require extraction at Sunset and Vine. Over*.”

“*Roger, four*,” answered Dawson. “*Victims*?”

“*Negative, Base*.” Belle heard Buffy sigh with relief. “*One observer. Observer has been returned to safety. Over*.”

“*Roger, four. Cavalry, Base. Did you copy that*?”

“*Base, Cavalry*,” answered Xander’s voice. “*Roger. Cavalry enroute. Over*.” Buffy smiled at the crispness in Xander’s voice. She wondered if it was due to the Halloween he’d spent as a soldier, or Mac’s influence. Her friend was obviously in awe of her boyfriend.

“Do you want to stay longer?” Belle asked Buffy. Buffy shook her head. She had school in the morning and wanted to get at least one decent night’s sleep. Belle pulled her radio out of her pocket.

“Base, Team one. Over,” she called.

“*One, Base*.”

“Mission complete. No victims. No observers. Require extraction at drop site. Over.”

“*Roger, one. Stand by*,” Dawson instructed. “*Cavalry, Base. Which site is closer? Over*,” Joe finished. Buffy and Belle shared a smile. Joe seemed to be picking up some habits.

“*Base, Cavalry. Three is closer. Will extract three, then one. Over*,” Xander informed them.

“*One, Base. Copy that? Over*.”

“Base, one. Affirmative. Will stand by at extraction site. Out.” Belle put the radio back in her pocket. The two women headed toward their extraction site.

In Mac’s living room, Dawson, Giles, Deblout and Big Jim sat and waited.

“That young man has promise,” Deblout informed the group. Dawson regarded the Colonel curiously.

“What makes you say that?” he asked.

“He’s quick. And he’s selected an excellent role model in Mackenzie,” Deblout answered.

Giles let the conversation pass by him. He was literally stunned by the night’s events. The arrival of the immortals and the professionalism with which they made their plans had impressed him, but the smoothness of it all left him in awe. It was due to the little things, he decided. Things like Joe’s chagrin at an apparent mistake in his radio procedures that Giles still hadn’t figured out. Hearing Joe mumble something under his breath about embarrassing the ‘Corps’ whatever that was. The way Dawson had tracked each team’s location with periodic checks.

Mostly, it was the discipline of the immortals that grabbed his attention. It even seemed to be rubbing off on Buffy. A little, anyway.

The Watcher glanced at his watch, and saw that it wasn’t even nine- thirty. A few short hours had resulted in the death of at least three vampires – perhaps more. ‘Mission complete’ signified a successful slaying. They wouldn’t know the actual tally until all the teams were back in.

One innocent was dead, but how many others had been saved by what was actually a mere reconnaissance?

Duncan and Ceirdwin walked the streets of Sunnydale. As they walked, they talked about old times for a while before finally discussing the matter at hand. Duncan told her about the demon he’d fought and what the fight had cost him. Ceirdwin was walking much closer to him by the time he’d finished the story.

As the reports of the other teams success rolled in, they listened. As they patrolled the streets, they watched. Finally Joe called them on the radio.

“*Team two, Base. No joy? Over*.”

“Base, two. No joy. Over,” answered the Highlander.

“*Two, Base. Six says extract*.” Six was an old military term for the boss. O’Byrne was pulling them in.

“Base, two. Wilco. 5^th and Vine. Over,” agreed Duncan.

Scene 4
Sunnydale, Ca.
150 Creek St
2330, Sunday (Local)

The strike team was reassembled in Mac’s living room. Each team debriefed in front of the group. Big Jim nearly cried when he described finding the little girl. Giles had clasped his shoulder and said,

“Steady on, man. You couldn’t have done anything else.”

When the last outbrief was finished, Mac conducted the After Action Review – a forum where everyone in the team analyzed the night’s events and tried to determine what had been learned and what, if anything, should have been differently.

Big Jim’s comment was the most direct. “We need to wipe these fuckers off the planet, Mac.”

After an hour and half, Mac called a halt and sent everyone to bed. Once everyone had shuffled off, and Giles, Oz and Xander were on their way out the door, Buffy walked up to Mac. “I need to go to Mom’s,” she told him. “It’s too soon for her to deal with an empty house every night. Besides,” she grimaced, “I’ve got class tomorrow and all the homework I should’ve read is at her place.” Mac took note of the way Buffy phrased that. ‘Mom’s’ and ‘her place’, she’d said.

Mac smiled and gave her a kiss. “All right, sweetheart. Sleep tight.” Buffy embraced him warmly. All too soon, she’d turned and darted out the door to where Giles was waiting to give her a ride back to Joyce’s house. With everyone settling down to sleep, Mac checked the locks and window latches. Deciding the house was secure, he turned to find Jager holding a beer out to him.

“The lady of the house gone for the night?” Jager asked. Mac winced.

“Yeah.”

“Well, hell, Reaper. Might as well have a couple of beers then, don’t you think?”

Scene 1
Sunnydale, Ca.
1630 Rabello Dr
0730, Monday (Local)

Buffy came downstairs and found her mother sitting quietly in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee. Buffy gave her a peck on the cheek before moving to get a cup for herself.

“How’d it go?” asked Joyce.

“We got six of the fang boy brigade,” Buffy answered. Then she winced and added, “One girl was killed though. Big Jim and the Colonel found her as she was being attacked, but it was too late.”

“Will she be back?”

Buffy shook her head at her mother’s question. “No. She wasn’t turned – just murdered.” The Slayer gave herself a mental shake. “Still, Mom, things went pretty well. Mac’s put one heck of an operation together!” she commented. Joyce heard in her daughter’s voice the pride she felt for her boyfriend.

“I imagine you had a little to do with it, too,” she said, asserting a little pride of her own.

Buffy shrugged. “Just info really. I’m the native guide – Mac is the ‘six’.”

“The what?” Joyce asked with a sigh. Sometimes she had a little trouble following what her daughter said. Had she ever given her parents problems like this?

“The *boss*, Mom. Sheesh, you act as if you never spent time with a bunch of immortal warriors,” Buffy teased her mother. “You ought to come hang out at the Keep with us,” she invited. While she was a little worried about her mother embarrassing her, Buffy couldn’t help feeling sorry for Joyce. Buffy wasn’t planning on spending too many nights in Joyce’s house in the immediate future – she’d tossed and turned all night.

One night with Mac had pretty much cured her of any desire to sleep alone.

Joyce stood up to go, giving her daughter a kiss on the way out. Alone, Buffy sat and read her homework. As she struggled through “The Iliad”, she started wondering what Mac’s fascination with school was. After a while she simply decided that her honey was a little bent.

Scene 2
Sunnydale, Ca.
150 Creek St
1400, Monday (Local)

Mac and Belle spent the morning crawling through the sewer system. As they moved through the underground tunnels, the immortals constantly compared their actual layout with the schematics Oz had managed to download from the city engineer’s office. So far, things had matched up pretty well. Mac had just about decided he could modify the engineering diagrams into useful maps.

At a little shy of one o’clock, the two warriors emerged from the tunnels, blinking in the harsh glare of the sun. A quick call resulted in the appearance of Mac’s truck with Jager at the wheel. Belle and Mac quickly hopped in, and the truck sped away. Pulling in back at the Keep, the dirty pair quickly hustled inside to get cleaned up.

Clean at last, Mac sat on his front porch with his feet kicked up. Next to him was a plate loaded with a sandwich and chips. At his feet rested a bucket of ice. Every so often, Mac would reach down and pull the bottle of Samuel Adams from the ice and take a sip. The veteran sat quietly. The house felt almost empty. Aside from Belle – who was probably still in the shower – and Jager, Mac was alone. The other members of the team were prowling the streets, familiarizing themselves with the terrain.

Jager walked out on the porch with an ice bucket cradled in one arm. Crouching for a moment, he stuck another bottle of beer in Mac’s bucket. Then the Watcher moved to a chair a few feet away, positioned it so he could prop his feet on the rail as well, and sat down. Leaning back in his chair, propping up his feet, Jager set down his bucket and started sipping his own beer.

Mac’s mind revolved around the biggest problem the sewers presented.

Their radios weren’t going to be functional. Finishing his beer, the immortal set it down and reached for the newly delivered bottle.

Obviously, the tunnels needed to be dealt with, but how? He’d considered flushing them with a flammable chemical and simply dropping a match – effectively burning the vampires out (and who new what else along with them?), but the size of the tunnels precluded that. He’d never lay his hands on enough stuff to do the job.

Besides which, that plan would almost certainly make large holes in the town. Sewer grates, manhole covers and sewage access points – located in every building – might well vent the blast. Mac suspected Buffy’d be a little pissed at him if he blew up the town.

Mac was sound asleep when the ‘buzz’ signaling the approach of an immortal hit him. Instantly, the veteran was on his feet with his Katana in his hand. Connor Macleod stood half in and half out of his rental. To the other side of the car, his clansman had frozen in a similarly awkward position. At his left, Jager had been roused by O’Byrne explosive flurry of movement.

“*Gott*, Reaper!” the Watcher exclaimed.

Sheepishly, the immortal lowered his sword. Connor grinned and shook his head. Mac watched the two kinsmen exchange a wry look as the elder Macleod muttered something to the younger. Dawson climbed out of the sedan’s back seat and, together, the three men walked up the porch steps.

“Jumpy, Mac?” asked Joe.

“Being in the company of trusted friends is no excuse for shoddy reflexes, Joe,” he answered as he settled back into his chair. Duncan grinned at him.

“Not to disagree, Mac, but you may want to tone down those reflexes around Buffy,” he advised.

“Yeah,” agreed Jager. “I can just picture it – a sudden noise in the wee hours resulting in a mutual beheading,” he joked. Chagrined, Mac shook his head as his friends enjoyed a quiet laugh at his expense.

Just then, Oz’s van pulled into the driveway. Buffy, Oz and Willow got out and walked up to the men clustered on the porch. Noticing that they were all examining her attentively, Buffy grew self-conscious. As she neared them, she slowed to a stop. Jager started to chuckle. After a moment, Joe and Connor joined him. Suddenly, all of the men were laughing like loons.

Blushing a pretty shade of pink, Buffy demanded “What’s so funny?”

Wiping tears from his eyes, Mac assured her, “Nothing, honey. Just a bad joke at my expense.” Buffy looked skeptical, but shrugged and walked over to him and dropped into his lap. Giving him a soft kiss, she asked, “Miss me?”

Before Mac could answer, Connor interjected: “Luckily, yes,” causing the others to start in laughing again. Mac shot the older man a foul look. Then he wrapped his arms around the young woman and leaned back, pulling her with him.

Kissing her forehead as he stroked her hair, Mac softly replied to her question. “You’ve no idea. As for you characters,” he barked at the laughing men as they began to subside, “go find something to do, and leave us alone for a bit.”

As the others trailed into the house, dragging Oz and Willow with them, Buffy relaxed into Mac’s arms. For a while they snuggled together quietly. After a time, Mac asked his lady about her day.

Scene 3
Sunnydale, Ca.
150 Creek St
1800, Monday (Local)

Joyce sat in the corner and listened as the strike team planned the night’s operation. The immortals planned to continue gathering intelligence by baiting a vampire with a ‘victim’ – Ceirdwin acting as bait for one team, Belle playing the part for another – and capture one of the ‘fang brigade’. Each of the women would be trailed by two immortals. One of the trail men on each team would carry a suppressed .38 automatic loaded with ‘Vamp Killers’ in the event of an emergency.

While the two ‘snatch teams’ were baiting their trap, Buffy would patrol well away from their immediate vicinity. Mac and Buffy had decided that there was a very good chance that the vampires were tracking her movements on patrol, resulting in a vampire free ‘pocket’ surrounding her at all times. Consequently, the Slayer was only getting a chance to kill the unlucky and the stupid among the bloodsuckers.

Mac reasoned that as a result of this Darwinian selection process, the snatch teams had a reasonable shot at finding a vampire that would provide the sort of ‘intel’ the strike team needed. The immortal intended to annihilate the local vampire population, and he needed to know where to find them to achieve that goal. Once he’d discovered where to find the vampires during the day, the strike team could hunt them in sequential shifts: during the day, they’d slaughter the beasts in their own lairs; at night, the team would troll and hunt.

The methodical nature of the planning process impressed the Slayer’s mother. Not for the first time, it sank into her that she was surrounded by some very dangerous people. That Buffy was numbered among them was startling. It was a little upsetting as well. The last few years had been frustrating and, at times, terrifying. The last few weeks had been heartbreaking. Her little girl wasn’t simply in constant danger. She wasn’t even merely moving away from her mother as she fell in love.

Buffy was a warrior. Worse, a warrior who’s given her heart to another warrior. Rather than settling down, letting others deal with the twisted evil that surrounded them, maybe even raising a family of her own one day, Buffy had found a man to join her quest and walk the dark path with her. Joyce knew that it had been a forlorn hope that Buffy might escape her destiny, but she’d held it close nonetheless. She watched Buffy and her lover sadly, amazed at how easily the two meshed together.

“Any last minute questions?” Mac asked as he gazed around the room at his team. No one stirred. “All right,” he said. “Let’s roll.”

As the team divided up and walked outside to ride into the night, Mac pulled Buffy aside and kissed her forehead. “Be careful, sweetie,” he instructed. Buffy smiled at him, grabbed his head and kissed him deeply.

“Be careful yourself, cowboy,” she ordered him in turn. Then she turned and was gone. As Mac walked out the door and disappeared into the night, Joyce sighed. Mac and her daughter reminded her of the romantic leads in some movie. Despite all her qualms, Joyce felt a moment’s envy toward her daughter.

Happy as she and ex-husband had been during their courtship and the early years of their marriage, the woman knew that they’d never shared the magic that Buffy and Mac found with each other. She was glad that Buffy had invited her over to sit in the ‘command center’ with Joe and Rupert. She had to admit that seeing the team in action made her feel a lot better about her daughter’s safety.

“Tea, Joyce?” Giles offered.

“Yes, thank you,” she answered as she smiled warmly at the man. Giles left the room, but quickly returned with a tray cluttered with the necessities.

Giles prepared a cup for her and handed it over saying: “It’s really something to watch, isn’t it?”

Joyce nodded in agreement. “Yes it is. I am curious about something, though.” Joe turned to look at her. Giles handed the man a cup of tea before answering her.

“Curious about what?” he asked.

“Why hasn’t someone done this before? If men and women like these walk the Earth, where have they been? I keep thinking about all those young women – the other Slayers – who died fighting these *things*. Where were the Mackenzie O’Byrnes and the Jean-Paul Deblouts and the Connor Macleods?” she demanded.

“I don’t think they ever knew, Joyce,” answered Giles. “You see how quickly they respond when the do.”

“There’s more to it than that,” interjected Dawson. “Half of the immortals out there lived through the inquisition and the enlightenment. I think it left them a little skeptical when it comes to things like vampires,” he pointed out. “And the others, well... Joyce men like Mackenzie are separated from you by only a generation. You’re the Slayer’s *mother*. How long did it take you to accept – really accept, really believe – that these things exist?”

Joyce considered that. Joe’s explanation – while it made perfect sense - didn’t really matter. She knew that her complaint was an emotional one.

Still, she had to admit to herself – grudgingly – that this band of heroes was here *now*. And that meant that her daughter was the first Slayer in history to really have a chance of seeing thirty.

Ceirdwin’s team hit pay dirt – big time. Barely an hour into the operation a host of vampires slipped from the shadows and surrounded her. The leader, still wearing its human guise, stepped forward to confront her.

“Hello,” it said, smiling at her.

“Hello,” the immortal echoed cheerfully.

“Out for a stroll?” asked the vampire. Ceirdwin nodded, noticing the vampire’s British accent. “Me too. And I’m hungry,” it said, stepping toward her.

“Mind if I ask a question?” asked the vampire’s ‘victim’. The creature cocked its head to the side, as it seemed to consider her request. The woman was gorgeous. Maybe instead of simply killing her, it should turn her. The vampire would have plenty of time to enjoy her, then.

“Why not?” it finally agreed. The surrounding creatures began to hiss in frustration. Who wants to deal with talkative food?

“Are you important? I mean big in the community?” asked Ceirdwin. The vampire frowned as his dinner continued, “See, I’m new in town, and I’m looking for a special kind of...guy.” Though the beasts were apparently oblivious. Ceirdwin could feel the approach for her trail party. She smiled at her target. “I think you’ll do.” And the night exploded.

Duncan and Mac had trailed far enough behind Ceirdwin that no one – more importantly, no thing – should connect her presence to theirs.

Ceirdwin had slipped down one alley after another as the men ranged a block behind her, keeping to the shadows.

When the vampires had surrounded her – five of them in all – the two men had split left and right, hugging the alley walls as they quietly approached. Nearly on top of their quarry, the immortals paused and waited. Mac’s hand was filled with the .38, while Duncan grasped the hilt of his Katana. Keeping their weapons hidden under their long coats, they poised for the attack.

Hearing Ceirdwin say “I think you’ll do” to one of the creatures – a vampire with short spiked blonde hair - Mac whipped out the pistol. Sighting down the barrel, the veteran quickly pumped three rounds into the chest of the vampire nearest him. Turning a few degrees to his left, he repeated his action with the next vampire. Turning slightly farther, he claimed a third victim.

Meanwhile, the woman launched herself at the vampire that had been taunting her. Wrapping her arms around it she bore the beast to the ground. Duncan stepped forward and whipped his blade through the neck of the fifth, turned and set the edge of his blade against the throat of the vampire struggling with Ceirdwin. It immediately ceased its resistance.

Ceirdwin stood up and began pulling shackles from beneath her coat.

Risking a glance over her shoulder, she saw Mac keeping guard over two vampires as they twisted and screamed in agony. One of them collapsed into dust before she turned back to the leader. Duncan never moved. He just stood there with the blade of his Katana pressed against the vampire’s neck.

The vampire was furious. As the woman secured its arms and legs, silence descended on the alley. “I don’t know who you are, *bloodbag*,” it hissed, “but rest assured, I will rip your heart out before this night his over!” The woman smiled at it. Then she pulled an ancient Celtic cross made from finely etched silver out of her pocket and pressed it against the vampire’s head.

Within an hour, the vampire was tossed into the cage in Mac’s basement.

Scene 4
Sunnydale, Ca.
150 Creek St
2200, Monday (Local)

When Buffy walked into the living room, she found her mother sleeping on the couch. The members of the strike team slipped quietly in and out of the room. She nodded greetings at different men and women as she passed by them. Willow and Oz were sitting in the kitchen. Willow jumped up as the Slayer walked in.

“Buffy, they caught *Spike*!” she announced. Buffy froze. She hadn’t seen Spike in over a year – when had he come back? Of course, that meant Drusilla was back too. Those two were virtually joined at the hip. The Slayer felt her lips curl in a cold smile.

“Really? That’s...interesting,” observed Buffy. Her smile grew warm as she gave her friend a hug. “I think I’ll head downstairs. If you guys want to split-”

Oz jumped up and blocked Buffy’s path. “Uh, Buffy, Mac asked specifically that you not go down there. He said you’d know why.”

Buffy nodded. She did know. Her boyfriend was playing with his food, and didn’t want her to see him while he did it. Buffy gave Willow a quick hug and slipped around Oz.

“Like I was saying, you guys can take off.” She grinned menacingly. “I’m gonna go say ‘Hi’ to an old *friend*.” With that Buffy opened the door to the basement. She was greeted by a howl of pain that quickly became a piteous moan.

Shutting the door behind her, Buffy padded silently down the steps. In the basement, she found Mac, Deblout, and Big Jim standing around the cage. Big Jim was grinning as he squirted holy water on the naked vampire.

She heard the immortal say, “*Please*, Mac? Can’t I go in for just a little while?”

“*No*, Jim,” answered her boyfriend with strained patience. “I want to keep it for a while.” Hearing that, Spike shuddered in terror. Mac noticed Buffy’s arrival. “Damn it!” he growled as he strode over to her. “Honey, I-”

Standing up on her toes, Buffy hushed his complaint with a soft kiss on the lips. “Its okay,” she whispered softly. She gave him a quick hug and strode over to the cage.

“Hello, Spike,” she greeted the vampire. At the sound of her voice, Spike’s head jerked up. Its face was ravaged – the result of Big Jim’s fun with the squirt gun. A cross had been burned into the vampires forehead.

“Slayer,” it hissed. Gathering itself, Spike adopted a friendlier tone. “Buffy. Long time, no see. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to be reasonable, would you?” it asked. “Maybe work out some kind of deal?” Spike glanced around at the other immortals. “These, ah, *gentlemen*, seem to be rather upset about something. I assure you, whatever it is, I had nothing to do with it!”

Buffy stared at the vampire with loathing in her eyes. “Good bye, Spike,” she said. She turned her back and walked away from her old nemesis. Pausing by Mac, she reached up and gave him a kiss. “Don’t stay up too late,” she instructed him. As Buffy headed up the stairs, both the immortals and the vampire watched her retreating back.

‘That sounded almost *wifely*,’ reflected Mac as a grin spread over his face. Turning back to face the vampire, the immortal’s smile turned frigid.

“Well, Spike old son,” he said. “Shall we continue?” The vampire shuddered again.

Emerging from the basement, Buffy found Willow and Oz anxiously waiting.

She shut the door, cutting off the beginning of another pain-filled scream. Buffy winced. She loved him, but there was no denying that Mac had a dark side. She told herself that it didn’t bother her, but she knew she was lying to herself. It bothered her a great deal. She took comfort in knowing that Mac wasn’t torturing Spike for pleasure’s sake – he was, in fact, rather clinical about it.

‘Course, on reflection, that wasn’t terribly reassuring.

She ushered her friends out the door and went to her mother. Joyce was still sleeping. Someone had spread a blanket over her and placed a pillow under her head. Buffy gave her Mom a soft kiss on her forehead and headed upstairs.

After taking a shower, Buffy pulled on the shirt she’d stolen from Mac and crawled into bed. Opening a textbook, she tried to concentrate on her studying.

At midnight, Mac walked into their bedroom. He nodded at her and walked into their bathroom. In a minute, she heard the shower start. A few minutes later, Mac walked out of the bathroom naked. Neither of them said a word as he walked over to the bed and slid in next to her. They kissed each other, softly at first, but soon the clinch turned passionate. Buffy reached out to the bedside lamp, intending to turn it off. Mac stopped her hand with his own.

“Do you want to sleep?” he asked her.

Buffy smiled at him. “That’s not really what I had in mind, no,” she answered.

“Then leave the light,” Mac instructed her. A smile stretched across his face. “I want to see you.” Buffy paused as she considered that. Then she smiled at her lover as he began to unfasten the buttons of her shirt. It was a long time before she got around to extinguishing the light.

Scene 1
Sunnydale, Ca.
150 Creek St
0630, Tuesday, (Local)

Joyce awoke to the smell of brewing coffee. Seeing the woman stir, Belle walked over to where she lay on the couch and crouched down.

“Good morning,” said the immortal. “Would you like some coffee?”

“I think the smell of it is what woke me up,” said Joyce as she nodded her head. She hoisted herself up to a sitting position and blinked the sleep from her eyes. The house was quiet. After a minute she could hear faint sounds coming from the kitchen. Smiling, Belle offered her a hand and pulled Joyce to her feet.

Walking into the kitchen, Joyce discovered Joe and Thomas were in the process of getting breakfast prepared. Joe held up a coffee cup and, at Joyce’s nod, filled it. She sat down and Joe set the cup on the table in front of her. Scattered about the table were Sweet ‘n Low, Coffemate, a picture of cream and a bowl of sugar. She added some cream and sugar substitute, stirred the mixture and sipped her coffee. Everyone was silent, simply enjoying the warmth the kitchen offered.

“Has anyone seen Buffy?” Joyce asked after a while.

Behind her a voice said, “I don’t believe the mistress of the house as risen yet.” Joyce turned and saw that Deblout had walked in and was leaning on the counter. She watched as he moved around the table and glanced down at Belle’s coffee.

“Oh,” she said. ‘*Mistress of the house*’? Joyce saw that Belle didn’t care for the appellation being applied to Buffy. In a moment of insight, she grasped that the woman envied her daughter dearly. As much for Belle’s sake as to relieve her own discomfort, Joyce’s mind raced for another topic of conversation. Ah!

“Joe?” the Watcher turned to look at her. “All immortals have Watchers, right?”

He nodded. “Most of them. That is to say. Most of the ones we know about. It’s rare that we find out about a new immortal as quickly as we have Buffy.” Joe continued with an odd grin, “There’s one immortal who’s reputed to be five thousand years old – and we have no idea where he is.”

Deblout grabbed the coffeepot and topped off Belle’s cup.

“The Methos Project?” asked Thomas. Joe nodded. At Joyce’s confused look, he elaborated. “A legendary immortal reputed to be so old, he doesn’t remember where he came from.” Joyce considered the implications of that.

“Do you believe he exists?” she asked him.

Deblout pulled up a chair and sat down next to Belle.

Thomas shrugged. “After this trip? Let’s say I’m not quite as skeptical.” Jager shot Dawson a look. “Is that guy, what was his name? *Pierson*,” he said, suddenly remembering. “Adam Pierson. Is he still researching the project?”

“Yeah,” confirmed the other Watcher, still with that peculiar smile on his face. Turning to Joyce, he steered the conversation away from the subject of Methos. “Curious about something, Joyce?”

“Well, I was wondering... Where are everyone else’s Watchers?” she asked.

“Ah.” Suddenly, Joe found that Belle and Deblout were focused on him as well. “Well, see, until a couple of years ago, no immortal new about us. In theory anyway,” he amended, thinking of Methos. “Duncan found out about us. Since then, we’ve been seeing the domino effect. We’ve been trying to contain it. Once we realized what your future son- in-law was up to, I sent orders out for the Watchers that weren’t here to stay away. To minimize the danger to them – from the vampires – and to reduce the amount of exposure.”

‘Neatly done, Dawson,’ thought Deblout. The Watcher’s ‘son-in-law’ remark was guaranteed to force a change of topic away from the Watchers.

Joyce and Belle stiffened. Suddenly, Joyce completely forgot that Buffy and Mac were exactly the topic she wished to avoid. The others in the room caught Belle’s reaction, but Joyce was oblivious to it. Nor did she notice the entrance of another person to the kitchen.

“My future *son-in-law*?” she repeated.

“*Son-in-law*?” echoed Mac. Joyce nearly jumped out of her skin. Her head whipped around and she stared at Mac. The others burst out laughing. The look on Mac’s face was priceless. Even Belle was amused.

Seeing that Belle had lowered the level of her coffee by about an inch, Deblout stood up and walked over to grab the pot again.

“Joyce,” Mac suggested, “don’t you think you ought to let me get around to asking your daughter to marry me before you start planning the wedding?”

Joyce’s mouth dropped open as Belle’s last vestige of hope crumbled.

Mac’s remark caused the laughs to become guffaws, but Belle heard what Mac was really saying, She didn’t know if the man had ever really been in love before, but he certainly was now – and he’d just more or less announced it to the world. Belle also realized that she’d been more in love with him than she’d ever admitted to herself.

Deblout poured Belle some more coffee.

Buffy woke up in an empty bed. At some point Mac had slipped out of her arms and departed. ‘Damn it,’ she cursed silently. ‘What does it take to wear that man out?’ She was certainly still tired. She was also all too aware that she wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep alone. With a groan she forced herself to climb out of bed.

Forty-five minutes later, the young woman was showered, dressed, perfumed and had applied what little make-up she wore. She was just about to head downstairs to get a cup of coffee when she heard a soft knock on the door.

“Come in,” she called. Her mother opened the door and walked in carrying a cup of coffee in each hand. Buffy flushed with embarrassment. “Uh, Mom! Good morning!” Seeing her mother smile at her, Buffy forced herself to calm down. “Did you sleep okay? I didn’t want to wake you up, see, so-”

“Buffy, relax,” said Joyce. She sighed and shook her head. Then a smile cracked. “I swear. You two could drive me straight up the wall. I think Mac is running around making sure all the shotguns are somewhere I can’t get at them!” Mother and daughter contemplated each other for a beat. Then they smiled. The smile gave way to mutually relieved laughter. Finally the two women hugged.

As they broke apart, Buffy got an evil gleam in eye. “So, he’s ducking the whole wedded bliss issue, is he?” she asked.

Her mother giggled. “Actually, Buffy, I think you’re the one who needs to be checking into a getaway plan,” she said.

“Oh?”

“I sort of got the impression that putting a ring on your finger was somewhere between ‘slaying vampires’ and ‘finding a hobby while Buffy’s in school’ on his ‘to do’ list.” Buffy got an insufferably smug look on her face. Joyce was suddenly a little sad. “Did you realize that Belle is in love with him?” she asked. Buffy nodded.

“Yeah,” she said. “I feel a little sorry for her. I don’t think Mac even sees her. As a woman, I mean. She must just hate me.”

“Oh, she’s jealous, sure, but actually, I get the impression she’s a little in awe of you,” said Joyce. “It’s too bad, too. She’s so hung up on Mac, that she’s missing what’s right in front of her.”

“What do you mean?” asked Buffy. Joyce smiled. “I mean that Jean-Paul seems to be rather taken by her,” she answered. Buffy had a speculative look on her face as she considered that.

Scene 2
Sunnydale, Ca.
150 Creek St
1000, Tuesday (Local)

Mac walked down to the basement with a cup of coffee in his hand. He drew a chair up outside the cage and sat down. Casually crossing his legs, he sipped his coffee and regarded his prisoner as it lay huddled in the far corner of the cage.

The vampire was a mess. Big Jim had tortured the creature long into the early morning. At Mac’s orders, the other immortal had made certain to keep the beast alive, but Mac suspected it had been touch and go at times. O’Byrne had hesitated to let the immortal at the vampire, but was glad he had. Big Jim had managed to work off some of his rage at failing to save the girl who had died Sunday night, and the vampire...

Well, Mac suspected that right about now, it would do anything to avoid another session with its antagonist. The immortal’s foot lashed out against the bars. A tremendous gong sounded. The vampire jerked, then shivered where it lay against the wall.

“Morning, Spike old boy,” Mac greeted it cheerfully.

Spike’s head lifted and the vampire looked at him. “What do you want, bloodbag?” it demanded.

Mac quirked an eyebrow. “I’d expected you to be a little more polite this morning. Guess I was wrong,” said the immortal as he uncrossed his legs and rose to his feet. “Big Jim must be losing his touch. Excuse me.” Mac turned to leave.

“Where are you going?” asked Spike, worried.

Mac stopped and turned back to face the thing in the cage. “I’m gonna go rip off a piece of Big Jim’s ass. Then I’m going to suggest he come back down here and follow my instructions concerning your attitude adjustment.” The vampire jerked as if he’d been struck. Having spent a little time as a guest of the North Vietnamese Army once upon a time, the immortal figured he knew what was going through Spike’s mind. The question was whether or not the vampire was as strong-willed as he had been. If called to bet on it, Mac would have said no. Shrugging, he turned to go.

“Please don’t!” Spike shouted. Softening his tone, the vampire begged, “Just tell me what you *want*!”

Mac suppressed a smile. He’d have won his bet.

Buffy paid particular attention in her History 102 as the teacher discussed the Viet Nam war. The man still struck Buffy as an insufferable baboon, and she strongly doubted that man had any first- hand knowledge of the subject he was discussing. She smiled as she considered that she was living with an historian who had been there with two separate armies. She’d just hit Mac up for a little one-on-one tutoring. Then her thoughts circled around and Buffy sat up a little straighter in her chair.

*Living with*?

The rest of the day blurred by. Buffy had a queasy feeling in her stomach all day as she thought of returning home at the end of the day.

‘Home’ had changed addresses at some point when she wasn’t paying attention. How the hell had that happened? She didn’t remember ever consciously making that decision. She’d only known him for...’Oh, my god!’ she panicked. ‘Two *weeks*.’

At three o’clock, her last class finished, Buffy strolled down in front of the student bookstore. Mac’s Pathfinder was parked in front of it and Ceirdwin was sitting on the hood enjoying the admiring glances of the student body’s male segment. Buffy walked up to her and the older immortal hopped down.

“Hi!” she greeted Buffy warmly. “Mac’s still tied up with our guest, so I grabbed his keys. I figured you could use a ride home.”

Buffy gave her a wan smile and started around to the passenger side. She stopped when Ceirdwin held the keys out to her. “Want to drive?” she asked.

Buffy climbed into the driver’s seat and cranked the truck, thinking that she needed to ask Mac where the expression ‘crank it up’ came from. Exercising extreme caution, she steered the truck home.

Occasionally, her companion tried to engage her in conversation. Buffy mumbled barely coherent answers to her questions.

Finally, as Buffy turned the truck up Mac’s driveway, Ceirdwin asked, “Buffy, what’s wrong?”

Buffy didn’t answer. Standing on the porch, Mac was watching the truck pull in. All the questions Buffy had tortured herself with throughout the day drained away. She hopped out of the truck and raced up to him.

Wrapping her arms around Mac, she said, “Miss me?”

She was home.

Scene 3
Sunnydale, Ca.
150 Creek St
1800, Tuesday (Local)

Spike had proven to be a veritable cornucopia of useful information. The maps in the living room were filled with color-coded pushpins detailing vampire lairs, boltholes and favored hunting grounds. Mac was reasonably sure the information was accurate – he’d promised Spike that a single incorrect detail would result in another full day with Big Jim.

Belle had spent the afternoon mixing up some pretty flammable concoctions while Jager had supervised the construction and loading of several hundred rounds of ‘Vamp Killers’. Somehow Dawson had managed to produce another six .38 automatics fitted with silencers. The team had a plenitude of wooden stakes and, of course, each of the immortals was armed with a sword.

A series of three man patrols would be run through the night - each limited to three hours. In the morning, the entire strike team would zero in on one nest after another. It was damn near the fastest, loosest operation the Reaper had ever put together, but he believed that with one or two days concentrated effort the team could virtually wipe out the local vampire threat.

Not completely – the beasts were too well entrenched. But sufficiently enough that the Slayer would be left with only minor maintenance work.

The group was huddled over some of the detail planning preparatory to the first patrol’s departure when Mac decided he needed a break. He went into his office and started unpacking boxes of books. It was drudgework, but the simplicity and repetitiveness of it let his mind unwind.

After about an hour at it, Buffy walked in to join him. Silently, she started helping him. After a while, she asked him to tell her about Viet Nam. After considering her question for a moment, Mac asked, “Why do you want to know about that?”

“We’re studying it in U.S. History. Besides, you were there. Since we’re living together, I want to know about where you’ve been,” she answered with a sly smile.

Mac jerked as if he’d grabbed a live wire. ‘Living together’? After another short pause, he smiled. “Do you want the long or short version?” he asked.

“Well...” she considered. “Let’s start with the short version. For my class,” she explained. “We’ve got plenty of time for the long version.”

Mac nodded and began a short, precisely detailed lecture on Viet Nam’s struggle for independence, the partitioning of the country and the escalation of U.S. Involvement. At one point he broke off and left the room to wish the first team luck and see them out the door, returning to take up right where he’d left off.

‘Damn,’ Buffy thought. ‘Mac should be a teacher.’ Her honey made it all sound halfway interesting.

At eight-thirty, he kissed her good-bye to join the second shift and relieve the first patrol. Buffy continued unpacking boxes – Mac had an extensive library – leaving it off now and then to wander through the living room and listen as his team conducted periodic check-ins. By eleven, she’d finished unpacking the books, so she went upstairs to their bedroom and changed into sweats. At eleven-thirty she, Deblout and Belle set out to relieve the second shift patrol.

Spike had been left alone off and on throughout the day. During the frequent absence of its jailers, the creature had examined its cage and found a weakness. The cage was bolted together! The vampire reached through the bars and worked furiously to unscrew the fastenings. Spike had no doubt that his jailers intended to kill him. Curiously, ‘Big Jim’ wasn’t the one that truly terrified the bloodsucker.

Spike was scared shitless of the one called *Reaper*.

The vampire had known a number of experienced killers over the years. It had had many of them for a meal. None had ever affected it the way this Reaper did. Not even Buffy – and Spike had a healthy respect for the Slayer – had ever really scared it before. Hell, this entire gathering of mortals was dangerous. There was something about them that set alarm bells clanging.

But *Reaper*... There was something in that man’s eyes...

It was time to relocate.

Suddenly, the first bolt came loose in Spike’s hand. With hope swelling in the vampire’s chest, it worked even faster.

Mac had just reported in, saying that Buffy’s team was on site and that his patrol was heading back, when a tremendous crash sounded from the back of the house. The Macleods – who’d pulled the first shift and were presently the only immortals in the house – leaped up, drew their swords and bolted out of the room. Giles and Dawson armed themselves with wooden stakes. In a few minutes the immortals returned.

The back door and been torn out of its frame. Fearing the worst, the two clansmen had investigated the basement and found that one wall of the cage had been unbolted and moved. Wary of a trap, the immortals split up and searched the house from top to bottom. Spike was gone.

Scene 4
Sunnydale, Ca.
150 Creek St
0015, Wednesday (Local)

Mac examined the cage and started cursing himself for a fool. Exhausting all the available profanity of one language, he moved on to another, getting angrier by the second. How in hell had he forgotten to weld the damn bolts? Worse, he knew he should have never left the vampire unattended!

Listening to the lengthening string of multi-lingual profanity, Dawson was impressed. O’Byrne had quite a repertoire of color euphemisms at his disposal. Finally, Buffy stepped up to her lover and laid a hand against his chest. The veteran quieted immediately. Buffy wrapped her arms around him and held him. After a moment, he returned her embrace.

“I just can’t believe I was so damn stupid!” he growled.

“It’s done, Mackenzie,” said Deblout. “Move on.”

The Macleods were nearly as angry with themselves as O’Byrne was. “We should have been watching it,” said Duncan as Connor fumed.

“As I said, Duncan. It is done,” repeated the Colonel. “The thing we need to do know is determine how this affects our plan for tomorrow.”

Mac loosened his grasp on Buffy and stepped back so he could look down at her. “What do you think?” he asked the Slayer.

Buffy chewed her lip as she exchanged a glance with Giles. “He’ll need time to recover. He won’t be back tonight. When he does come,” she added, “it will be in force.”

“Then the best thing would be to post a guard and get some sleep, correct?” asked Deblout. “Tomorrow – we strike!”

Connor added, “Let’s make damn sure we take that creature out at our first opportunity first opportunity. It knows where to find us.”

The strike team needn’t have worried. At that moment, Spike was dragging itself into its lair with one thought only. The vampire had found a broken down motorist and stopped long enough to feed - not out of desire, but because it needed to recharge its batteries. The previous twenty-four hours had been rather draining.

Arriving at the one location it hadn’t divulged during the Reaper’s interrogation, Spike demanded Drusilla stop screeching at him about where he’d been. Within minutes of its arrival, the vampire, Drusilla and a couple of lieutenants were on the road and speeding away from Sunnydale. Away from the Slayer and her mate, *Reaper*. * Far* away.

Scene 1
Sunnydale, Ca.
150 Creek St
0700, Wednesday (Local)

The strike team gathered in the living room. Everyone had been up for an hour or two already, eating breakfast and preparing for the day.

Shortly after seven, the team was on its way out the front door. Loaded into three vehicles, the team was soon convoying through the streets of Sunnydale to their first target.

Riding shotgun, Buffy contemplated her boyfriend as he drove the truck.

His features were smooth and relaxed. She wondered again what it took to make the man lose control. Suddenly, Buffy realized that she already knew the answer to that. Seeing her start to blush. Mac cocked an eyebrow at her.

“Penny,” he said.

She just shook her head at him, a slight smile on her lips.

The team arrived at their first target – a ramshackle affair that appeared to be a former office building gone to seed. The immortals slipped from the vehicles and quickly moved to seal off possible escape routes. Belle and Deblout pulled open a sewer grate and disappeared down the hole. Seeing them vanish down into the Earth, Mac silently counted to ten. He nodded to Duncan and stepped back from the door.

Duncan whispered into his radio, “Go, go, go!” as O’Byrne lifted his leg and sent a powerful kick into the door. The heavy obstruction crashed open and Mac led his team charging inside. The immortals scattered through the building by twos, Mac and Buffy speeding in search of an entrance to the basement.

A hideous scream rang through the structure. The Reaper gave a mental nod – one down. It never crossed his mind that any of the immortals might have been the source of the racket – only the cause.

Finding an entrance to the lower level, Mac led the Slayer down into the basement. In quick succession, four vampires sprang at the attackers.

Mac pumped a trio of bullets into the chest of each. Reaching the bottom of the stairwell, the Reaper crouched for a moment with his situational awareness on high. Detecting something behind him, Mac spun around to find Buffy blocking his line of fire.

The Slayer was whipping her sword through the air, beheading a vampire. As the fiend shattered into dust, Buffy drew a stake from where it was sandwiched between her belt and the small of her back. Lunging forward, she plunged it through the chest of a second beast and pierced its heart. Turning to Mac, she winked.

With a grimly appreciative smile, Reaper changed magazines and continued to search the basement.

Within fifteen minutes the building was clear. The strike team assembled outside and tallied up the kills. Twelve of the undead were now truly dead. Pausing only long enough to reload, the team set out for their second target.

Late that afternoon, the team drove back to Mac and Buffy’s house. The immortals were exhausted. Forty-seven vampires had been destroyed at a dozen different locations. Twelve sites had been valid out of twenty they’d stormed. Six homeless people had been rousted as well. Big Jim had nearly shot one, earning the immortal an ear-blistering tirade from Buffy.

The immortals entered the house and immediately fell to cleaning weapons and rearming for the next strike. Over her protests, Mac sent Buffy to bed to get some sleep – the Slayer would have to patrol that night, and her boyfriend wanted her well rested. Grumbling something about overly protective chauvinists, Buffy finally complied.

Pissed that he’d been excluded from the hunt, Jager had spent the day preparing additional ammunition. What had been used that day – about a hundred and fifty rounds – was made good.

By suppertime, Mac and Thomas were sitting on the porch drinking beer. Connor, Ceirdwin and Joe were leaning on the porch rail arguing with them about the relevance of the second amendment in modern America. The immortals and Watchers were deep into it when Buffy walked outside and sat in Mac’s lap.

Giving his beloved a kiss on her forehead as she snuggled up against him, Mac continued to make his point. “You’re not getting it, Joe! It’s because society is so permissive that people need to be armed. There are so few social mores left that we’re being over run by unsocialized animals.”

“I just don’t think guns are the answer, Mac,” protested Dawson. “How many kids were killed last year alone by guns?”

“With power comes responsibility. I’ll grant that there are a lot of irresponsible people out there – kids getting there hands on weapons and killing each should be a crime. *But*, stripping the citizenry at large of the ability to defend themselves? That’s insane. What we should be doing is mandating weapons training in our schools. Then kids would know how to treat them. And as they became adults they’d be much better prepared to use them,” finished the veteran.

Buffy’s mouth dropped open in surprise.

“An armed society is a polite society, Mac?” asked Ceirdwin skeptically. “Think that through – would you really want to live in that society?”

Mac glanced around at the others. Looking down at Buffy, he noticed the expression on her face. Only his fellow legionnaire seemed to agree with him.

“Listen to yourselves,” suggested the immortal wryly. “How many of you are willing to give up your weapons? Your swords for example?”

“That’s different, Mac, and you know it!” Ceirdwin said vehemently. “We need our swords to protect ourselves...” her voice trailed off as she saw the grins spread across the faces of the legionnaires.

“Am I to understand, Ceirdwin, that you don’t believe we mere mortals should have that right as well?” asked Jager in his faintly accented voice.

“Not very many of us have to deal with the kind of danger they do, Thomas,” pointed out Dawson.

“You never need a gun until you need it badly, Joe,” answered the younger Watcher.

Buffy interrupted. “Are you interested in my opinion?” she asked Mac.

“Of course,” he replied.

“Mac, most people aren’t like you. I don’t mean because they’re *mortal*. I mean because you’re a warrior – and you were a warrior before you became immortal. The world needs people like you. Like *us*. And we need to have access to the right equipment to do our jobs.

To protect people,” she finished.

Mac considered her words. “So,” he asked at last, “what are the people we protect supposed to do when we aren’t around?”

Scene 2
Sunnydale, Ca.
Around town
2000, Wednesday (Local)

About the time Spike and Drusilla were rousing themselves in San Diego to continue their flight from the Hellmouth, the surviving vampires in Sunnydale were taking stock. A lot of them seemed to be absent this evening. A couple of nesting areas were checked. Finding nothing but dust, the vampire community checked a couple more. And a couple more after that. Spike’s place showed evidence of a hurried departure.

Even the most senior of them started to get a little concerned.

Something was in the wind. The conclusion was inescapable: either the Slayer was on speed, or something new was hunting them.

Buffy cruised through the park. Accompanying her were Belle and Deblout.

The Slayer’s thoughts bounced back and forth between the conversation on the porch and hoping Belle would notice her admirer. The Colonel reminded her of an older version of her boyfriend in a lot of ways.

Another professional soldier, Deblout radiated the same competence. The older immortal wasn’t as hunky as Mac, but he was handsome in a geezer sort of way. He even had a certain kind of old world charm.

Her thoughts returned to Mac. She’d never suspected that her boyfriend would turn out to be a gun nut. Reluctantly, the young woman conceded that what he said made a certain amount of sense, but she remembered the tragedies that had dogged high schools around the country during her senior year.

Mac had grown up in an orphanage and run away when he was sixteen, winding up in the *Foreign Legion*, for Pete’s sake, a year later. Mac had never really been a kid. He saw the world in terms of good and evil. He protected the good and destroyed the evil. Which was good, of course. Mac was a hero of the old school.

It was just that he didn’t seem to touch base with ordinary society *at all*. Her honey saw problems and dealt with them as expediently as possible. He would never understand the psychology that drove kids to massacre their fellow students, or caused some overworked, under appreciated civil servant to carry an AK-47 into the Post Office and open up. Mac would just point, say “Evil!” and charge.

Buffy sighed.

It was almost eleven when she got home. Mac was in the library with Giles, filing all his books in alphabetical order. Sometimes he kind of got geezerish, Buffy noted. Looking up and seeing his lady, Mac set down the books in his hand and walked over to her. Sweeping her off her feet, Mac carried Buffy out of the room as he called over his shoulder to Giles.

“Later, Rupert.” Cradling Buffy in his arms, the immortal walked up the stairs and into their bedroom. He set her on their bed, got down on his knees and began taking off her shoes.

Buffy smiled at him. “I take it you missed me?”

Scene 3
Sunnydale, Ca.
150 Creek St
1600, Thursday (Local)

The strike team stumbled into the living room and collapsed into different couches and chairs. God, what a day! Fifty-three dead vampires. That made over a hundred just since Mac’s arrival in town a few weeks before. Buffy wondered how many more of the things there could be. She was so tired of this fight!

For four years the Slayer had been fighting vampires. Sometimes it felt as of she wasn’t making any progress at all! And the last few weeks had been a marathon of destruction – not to mention the upending of her personal life. Almost without realizing it was happening, she’d fallen in love and moved out her mother’s house! All that on top of learning about the existence of immortals, the Game and discovering that she was immortal herself.

She still wasn’t sure how she felt about *that*. It was kind of cool that she didn’t have to worry about growing old – not that she’d expected to anyway, albeit for different reasons. It was way cool that she was now, apparently, so hard to kill. But learning that she could never have kids of her own, that she herself was adopted and that the price of immortality was watching all her mortal friends grow old and die as complete strangers periodically popped out of the woodwork and tried to take her head...

That was bad.

She was trying to focus on the good things when she fell asleep.

Buffy jerked awake as a hand shook her shoulder. It was her mother, bending over her and gazing at her daughter with love in her eyes.

“Mom! What are you doing here?” she asked. Then Buffy winced, realizing that had sounded a little rude. “Sorry,” she apologized.

Joyce smiled. “Mac invited me. I’m glad it occurred to one of you that I hadn’t seen you in a couple days. I was getting a little worried.”

“Sorry,” Buffy apologized. “We’ve been a little busy.”

“So I gather. How are you feeling?”

“Tired,” answered Buffy. “I know it’ll never stop, but sometimes it feels like I’ll never even get a break!”

Joyce heard the exhaustion in her little girl’s voice. She tried to sound reassuring. “Rupert seems to think that you and Mac and you’re friends have just about depleted the local supply of bad guys.” She paused. “That doesn’t mean you’ll be leaving does it?”

Buffy living across town Joyce could deal with. Buffy leaving was something else again. Buffy hugged her mom.

“It’s the Hellmouth, Mom. Plenty here to keep me busy,” she reassured.

Dinner tonight was huge stack of pizzas. The team had rested through the early evening in preparation to continue the hunt that night. Mac wanted this thing wrapped up. His friends had lives to get back to and he had things he needed to attend to as well.

Buffy figured largely on that list. Her calling was going to be keeping him in the vicinity of Sunnydale for a good long while. Which meant he was going to need a job of some kind. Maybe he’d open a Dojo – Duncan had run one in Seattle and could set him straight on what to do to get started. It would certainly be a practical use of his time.

Or he could go back to school. Finn’s death had interrupted his studies in Quebec. He wasn’t going back there, of course, but he could see what Buffy’s college had to offer. He could even do both, if he set his mind to it.

And, of course, there was Polovsky. Sooner or later, Mac would deal with that murderous bastard. He owed it to Finn.

But mostly there was Buffy. The woman saturated his senses. Shocking Mac, he’d realized that he’d never really been happy before meeting her. Busy, yes. Often satisfied. Sometimes he’d even been content. But happy? No. Until now, that is. Never having heard the term ‘honeymoon phase’, the immortal wouldn’t have understood it if he had. Even if someone had succeeded in explaining it to him, they would have been unable to shake Mac’s conviction that he and the young woman belonged together.

Mac tended to be a man of absolutes.

Dinner finished, the strike team sat to discuss strategy. They’d very nearly finished hitting the sights Spike had identified. Buffy hadn’t seen a single vampire on patrol the night before. There was no denying that there had to be a finite number of them, but how many more were there?

Finally, it was determined that the entire team would patrol in teams of two in two shifts. Buffy, Mac and the Macleods would go till one a.m.

The remaining immortals would then be on station until dawn. The object was to hunt and kill as many of the beasts as they could find. The following day, around noon or so, the team would hit the five sites remaining on their list of targets.

Buffy and Mac decided that would end the operation. Deblout cautioned the veteran on that point.

“Never leave a job half done,” warned the Colonel.

“I don’t intend to, sir,” answered Mac. “But this job won’t ever really be finished. My intent all along was to take a serious bite out of their ranks.

“Now that we all know what to look for, as we all head back to our homes we’ll each be able to spot vampire activity,” he continued. Buffy gave a start. “For now, we’ll have done what we can,” he finished. Grudgingly, the others nodded in agreement.

Strolling down the street in front of the Bronze, Buffy had her arm around Mac’s waist. His arm was around her shoulder.

“Are you leaving, Mac?” she asked.

“What?”

She stopped walking and freed her arm. Mac let go as well and turned to face her. “I asked if you’re leaving. You said something about ‘when we all go home’.”

“I didn’t men *me*, sweetheart,” he reassured her. “I just bought a house here, remember?” Mac smiled at her. “I understand that you’re stuck here, at least for now. College, your mother, the Hellmouth...” he recited. “So, I guess I’m stuck here, too,” he finished.

Buffy hated it, but knew she had to ask. She still remembered what had initially brought this man into her life.

“What about Polovsky?”

The smile melted away as Mac’s as face grew hard. “I don’t know where to find him. I won’t lie to you, Buffy. If I did, I’d be off like a shot. Once this is done, that is. But I’d be coming back to you,” he finished.

“Unless you were dead,” she stated bluntly. The two lovers stared at one another for a long moment.

“Sooner or later I will have to deal with him, honey,” Mac finally asserted.

Tears in her eyes, the young woman demanded “Why? It won’t bring back your friend! It won’t fix *anything*!”

“Rule number one, Buffy. In the end, there can be only one,” he stated flatly. “It won’t be Polovsky. Not if I can help it.”

“Only one? What does that mean, Mac? Would you take my head?”

O’Byrne stepped back, stunned at the question. “Of course not!”

“But there can be only *one*, right? What if it came down to you and me, huh? *There can be only one*,” she spat at him. There were tears running down her cheeks. Mac stepped closer to her. When she tried to retreat, Mac reached out and grabbed her shoulders. Pulling her to him, Mac held the woman so tight she could barely breathe.

“Then you’ll win the Prize,” he whispered into her hair. Realizing what the man had said, what he *meant*, Buffy started to cry. After a long time she managed to choke out at a question through sobs. With her face muffled against his chest, Mac hadn’t been able to understand what she said. He leaned back from her.

“What was that?” he asked.

“I *said*, when will you be going? To look for him?” she repeated.

“I’m not going anywhere. I’ll find him when I find him,” he answered.

‘Finn, forgive me,’ he begged the memory of his dead friend.

Concluding that his answer was the best she was going to get, Buffy held him closer.

Scene 4
Sunnydale, Ca.
150 Creek St
0150, Friday (Local)

Buffy slipped into bed, watching Mac towel his head. It had been another vampire-free night for her. The Macleods had found a group of three bloodsuckers and quickly dispatched them, but that was it for the first shift. Buffy didn’t really have any hope that the relief would last long – she’d seen dry spells before. She did believe that vampire activity was hitting an all time low for the area. With a little luck, she’d get a vacation of sorts.

“You want to get out of Sunnydale for a while?” Lost in thought, Buffy jerked at the sound of Mac’s voice.

“What was that?” she asked.

“I asked if you’d like to get out of Sunnydale for a while,” he repeated.

“Are you reading my mind all ready, Mac?” Buffy asked with a smile.

Mac grinned. “It just occurred to me that you probably haven’t had a real vacation in a long time. Our lives aren’t all about sword fights, you know. Your life - our life – has room for a little fun now and then.”

“I’m in school, Mac. If I ever want to graduate college, I need to attend some of the time,” she answered fondly. Graduation. She might actually graduate from college. Get a degree, see the world... “What did you have in mind?”

“Well... I was thinking a week in Acapulco. How about a weekend in L.A. Or San Francisco in the meantime?” he offered. Buffy smiled as Mac came to bed.

Scene 1
Sunnydale, Ca.
150 Creek St
1700, Friday (Local)

The last known nest was clear. Another six vampires were dead. More than a hundred and twenty had been destroyed in the last three weeks. Giles was thoroughly amazed. He wouldn’t have believed that there were that many vampires concentrated in one spot *anywhere*. He felt confident that the Hellmouth would stay fairly vampire-free for a while. Say a week or so.

The strike team returned to Mac and Buffy’s place savoring their victory. Xander had announced that they needed to have a party. At Buffy’s insistent agreement, Mac had smiled and reached for his wallet.

Handing Buffy his credit card, he told her to take his truck and get whatever she thought they needed. Ignoring the credit card, she’d grabbed his keys and dragged him out the door with her.

“I know this has escaped you, my love,” she informed him on the way out. “But Xander and I are both under age. You and some of your friends drink like fish.”

By five, things were in full swing. Under Deblout’s supervision, Xander was turning the barbecue pit’s spit. A large chunk of mutton and been skewered on it. In the kitchen, Duncan, Joe and Mac were trying to outdo one another with culinary expertise.

‘He cooks, too,’ Buffy noted with a grin.

Joyce was summoned, arriving just as Jager finished putting the ‘command center’ paraphernalia away and Belle and Buffy straightened the living room. Busy playing hostess, Buffy had time only to give her mother a quick hug and kiss before darting off on some other chore. Handed a glass filled with a dry wine, Joyce located Giles – the only adult there she really knew – and struck up a conversation.

As afternoon turned to evening, everyone feasted and relaxed in the company of friends and family. Wandering around, Joyce heard voices coming from the front porch through the open door. Outside she discovered Deblout and Belle sitting together on the porch rail, Thomas leaned back in a chair drinking a beer and Mac sitting with Buffy in his lap.

“So,” the Colonel was saying. “Polovsky.”

Joyce didn’t know who ‘Polovsky’ was, but, seeing her daughter stiffen, she guessed that it wasn’t a topic she was comfortable with.

“I’ll find him, Colonel. Eventually, I will find him-” Seeing Joyce, Mac cut himself off. Buffy hopped up and came over to her mother.

“Hi, Mom. What’s up?” she asked.

Joyce looked around the suddenly uncomfortable group. “I didn’t mean to intrude, folks,” she apologized.

“Don’t be ridiculous, my dear lady,” responded Deblout. “We old war- horses were simply chewing over old business.” Mac and Thomas both jumped up to offer Joyce a seat.

As the evening wore on, Joyce decided to go home. Several of the immortals had already gone to bed. Her departure started a general exodus. As Buffy’s friends left, the rest of the team began to settle down for the night. The visiting immortals would all be leaving the next day, though each made it clear they expected to return if needed.

Buffy snuggled into Mac in the darkened bedroom.

“Busy few weeks,” she said as she toyed with the mat of hair covering his torso.

“Mm-hm,” he responded sleepily.

Buffy smiled. He was finally worn out!

Scene 2
L.A., Ca.
Los Angeles International Airport
1300, Saturday (Local)

Mac bid the Colonel farewell and watched as the older man walked up the causeway to board his flight. Watching Deblout’s retreating back, Mac heard the Colonel’s final words ringing in his ears.

‘Polovsky, Mackenzie. Deal with him.’

Deblout was the last of the strike team to leave. Jager had decided to remain in Sunnydale, saying that the Watchers could kick him out if they wanted – he wasn’t abandoning a fellow legionnaire. There was still evil to be dealt with in the vicinity of the Hellmouth.

Mac had placed a call to his friend in Quebec that morning, helping to arrange shipment of Jager’s personal effects. Giles was running his fellow Watcher around Sunnydale to look at places for rent. Willow, Oz, Xander and Joyce had come over to help Buffy clean up from the party, leaving Mac to run those immortals that had not rented transportation to LAX. Driving home Mac reflected on the turns his life had taken of late. In the space of a month he’d lost his best friend, abandoned his life in Canada, returned to the U.S., taken on an army of the undead and fallen in love. What next – E.T.?

Spotting a florist, Mac had a sudden thought. Taking the next off ramp, Mac wheeled around and re-entered the freeway headed in the other direction. Pulling off the freeway, the immortal parked at the florist’s shop. Emerging a half-hour later – and a hundred dollars poorer – Mac loaded his purchase in the Pathfinder and continued home.

At three o’clock he parked in his driveway. Sensing an immortal’s presence, he decided Buffy was home. He pulled the flowers from the back of the truck and headed toward the porch steps.

Inside, Buffy was sitting in the living room with her friends discussing recent events. Suddenly she stiffened. Realizing that everyone had stopped talking to stare at her, she grinned.

“Mac’s home,” she announced. Giving her friend a strange look, Willow peeked out the window.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” commented Xander.

“Used to what?” asked Buffy.

“That whatever-it-is that let’s you know when another immortal’s around.”

“The ‘buzz’?” asked Buffy with a smile. “You should try it from my point of view,” she suggested.

Willow turned back from the window with a wide smile. “I think Mac might need help with the door,” she hinted.

Giving her friend a curious look, Buffy hopped up and went to the door.

She opened it just as Mac finished climbing the steps. His head and chest were hidden behind a huge bouquet of roses. Buffy stood, stunned at the sight. Then she called out “Guys? Come here.” She needn’t have bothered. Her friends were standing directly behind her.

She stepped to Mac and relieved him of the flowers. Turning around, she handed them off to Oz and Xander. Then she turned back to Mac, grabbed his head and pulled him down into a deep kiss. After a while she released his lips.

“I’m getting it that you missed me?” she asked with a smile.

San Francisco, Ca.
1900, Saturday (Local)

Polovsky sat in the restaurant enjoying a steak dinner. The wealth of the U.S. Never ceased to amaze him. As he ate his meal, the immortal leafed through a paper. The woman he’d raped and murdered the night before had been given a long write-up due to the brutality of the crime.

He hadn’t taken a woman like that in years. He just hadn’t been able to help himself. He’d been so – what was the expression? Ah, yes – jazzed by Mac Cuhill’s Quickening that he simply had to have some fun. Since he’d had to put off taking Mac Cuhill’s student for a while, he figured he was owed a little diversion. It had been three weeks, now, since he’d decided to discretely depart due to the gathering of immortals. Given the abruptness of their appearance, Polovsky didn’t think they’d stay long – he’d head back to Sunnydale soon.

In the meantime, he might just find another playmate. The last one had died too quickly. With a little patience, Polovsky imagined he could make a woman last for a full day or two before she was so badly injured that the fun lapsed.

It was something to think about.

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