Dust-motes danced in the warm evening sunlight that poured through the deep bay windows of the lounge. Stretched out on one of the wide window-sills lay a sleeping black cat, her fur glistening in the sun light and a patch of white fur just barely visible in her chest. The sunlight also fell on an old, worn couch that had seen many years hard use. Birdsong could be heard faintly through an open window and from somewhere down the road came the whine of a lawnmower.
"Do you think she's all right?"
The speaker was a blonde woman, barely into middle age, and her long blonde hair had only a few silver threads. She was curled up on the couch against a much taller man and there was a sense of serene contentment and happiness about her. Anyone who had known Buffy Summers as a young woman would have been surprised to see the aura of peace around her, but twenty-two years can change a person more than many people would imagine.
Giles gazed down at his wife fondly. His hair was now silver and there were a few lines around his eyes but otherwise he looked little older than he had when they married. "I'm sure she's fine, love."
Buffy twisted around to look up into Giles' green eyes. "But Rupert, it's the first time she's left home and-"
He silenced her with a finger over her mouth. "She's more than old enough to take care of herself. She's graduated from college and most young women her age have already left home. I am sure that she's settling in right now."
"I guess . . ." Buffy trailed off pensively. "It's just I can't forget my little Lotty."
The former Watcher chuckled. "Love, you haven't been able to call her little Lotty since she was eleven."
Buffy punched him on the arm playfully. "You know what I mean. I know she's grown-up, and much taller than me, but whenever I think of her . . . she's my baby."
"She grew up so fast."
"I wish we'd had another one, a sister or a brother for her. Maybe it would be easier."
Giles kissed the top of her head and pulled her a little closer. "It would have just put this moment off for a few years. I suppose this what they call empty-nest syndrome."
"I don't think I like it. She's only been gone a few hours but the house feels so empty." Buffy paused. "Hey, do you realise that this is the first time it's just been us living here?"
With a surprised smile, Giles nodded. "You're right, love."
Willow, Xander, Faith . . . in some way they had all moved on. For a while the couple sat on their couch enjoying the unaccustomed peace and quiet. Nothing moved in the house, there was no loud music, no TV, no arguing voices. On the windowsill Patch, a grandchild of old Button, stretched and yawned before falling asleep again.
"I heard," Buffy said after a while, "that when the kids leave home, parents have fun."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"What do they do?"
"Well, I think someone mentioned walks in the park. And roses. And dinner at fancy restaurants. Ooh, and I think some couples even go away on their own and spend whole days at a time being romantic."
Giles grinned at her. "How do you feel about a cabin in the mountains for a week?"
"You mean it?"
"Of course. Would I tease you about something like that?"
Buffy considered it for a moment. "Wow, our own romantic getaway."
She twisted and reached up to kiss Giles lovingly. Time had never dulled her passion for him and she spent a few leisurely minutes exploring every inch of his lips before settling down at his side again. The house was still silent, and it now felt distressingly empty. In the hallway a clock ticked and somewhere a tap dripped. Buffy found herself counting each drip.
"Do you think Willow and Tara would like to come over for supper?" Buffy asked eventually.
"I'm sure they would if we asked them," Giles replied immediately. He was finding silent house unnerving as well.
"We could invite Xander and Anya," Buffy suggested.
Giles raised an eyebrow. "They'd bring their children."
Buffy reflected for a moment on the whirlwinds of terror that were the Harris siblings. Suzie and her gerbils . . . Barry's magic string . . . Terry and the skunk . . .
"We could ask Izzy to baby-sit," Buffy said slowly.
"I thought you were her godmother," Giles protested.
"And?"
"Do you dislike Izzy that much?"
Isabella was Willow and Tara's adopted daughter and Buffy loved her goddaughter. She was a high school junior but the Harris children . . . well, they would send a saint up the wall.
"We could pay her."
"Love, we couldn't afford what she'd charge for looking after those three," Giles said, chuckling. "Even Anya says they're a handful."
Buffy sighed and pouted. "I suppose we'll have to make do with just Willow and Tara."
"I'm sure Xander and Anya could come over another day - when the children are in college."
Rolling her eyes, Buffy stood and stretched watched by her appreciative husband. "I'll call them."
At the doorway she paused and looked back. "Do you think Aunt Mary would have liked what they've created in her name?"
"It's her and mother," Giles corrected her. "I think she and Louisa would be very proud. It wasn't just her - you forced them to change as well."
Even though Mary had died five years ago, Buffy still missed the amazing old woman. She had been a familiar visitor at the house and sometimes the Slayer half-expected to see her walking up the path, even now. Giles had never known Louisa, and didn't even know she was his mother until his own daughter was born, but if she had been anything like her twin he thought she would have been a wonderful mother. At Mary's funeral, he had comforted himself with the thought that Mary and Louisa were finally back together, the way the twins should have been. But even so, he still missed her.
"You did some of it, though," Buffy added, breaking into his slightly morose thoughts.
"It was a family effort."
Buffy flashed him a quick smile. "Yeah. Our family did good."
"That it did, love."
***
Charlotte shifted uncomfortably in her seat and glared at the obliviously snoring man in the seat next to her. Flying coach across America was not her favourite pastime. At six feet tall, the narrow seats and minimal legroom meant that her legs were cramped and her back was filled with knots. The short tubby man next to her had taken the aisle seat so she was trapped.
Outside the plane it was dark and Charlie could watch the bright stars high above them. It was the only amusement on the flight. The stewardesses had turned the lights down low and glared at her the one time she had tried to turn hers up again, so she slumped down and tried to will herself to sleep. When that did not work she sighed and opened her grey eyes.
Although Charlie had inherited her father's height, her colouring was entirely her mother's apart from her unusual grey eyes. Long, dark blonde hair framed a striking face, with a stubborn chin and wide mouth. She did not have a china-doll, delicate kind of beauty but there was no denying that she was stunningly attractive. Even her unusual height could not detract from that.
Charlie shifted again, trying to find some comfort in her cramped position, and willed the plane to get to its destination faster. One of the stewardesses passed her, making her rounds, and smiled with a sympathetic expression. Charlie smiled back but winced as her snoring neighbour shifted to rest his head on her shoulder. The stewardess snickered and walked away, leaving Charlie to frown and resume her star watching.
The flight seemed to last a lifetime and Charlie nearly shouted with relief when the lights finally came up and the seatbelt light flickered on.
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," came the captain's voice on the intercom. "We will shortly be arriving in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The local time is three thirty and temperatures are in the mid-sixties, with wind speeds of five to ten kph. We hope you enjoyed your flight."
The announcement repeated in French but Charlie ignored it, instead concentrating on finding her seatbelt and clipping it securely. Next to her, the tubby man who was using her shoulder as a pillow snorted and woke up, blinking blearily.
"Are we landing?" he asked.
Charlie flickered a glance at the seatbelt sign before focusing on him again. "Yeah. Should be another ten minutes or so."
"Ah, good." Tubby shifted around, finding his seatbelt, before looking over to her again. "Sorry about . . . that," he said, indicating her shoulder. "I must be more tired than I thought."
Charlie shrugged. "I hardly noticed."
She turned to back to the window, dismissing the man from her thoughts. Outside, she watched the stars tilt and shift slightly as they began to circle for the descent.
"Do you fly much?" Tubby asked eagerly.
"No," Charlie said shortly, her gaze not wavering from the window.
"Oh." Tubby continued undaunted. "Is this pleasure or business? Nova Scotia is so pretty. Not that I get to see it much, you understand, I always seem to be in meetings but . . . I'm told there's some exciting night-life. Maybe I'll see some of it this time."
The tall woman pointedly ignored him, but Tubby was not deterred.
"I wouldn't mind some company. Would you like the number of the hotel I'm staying in? The least I can do is buy you dinner after using you as a cushion for hours."
Charlie rolled her eyes before turning to face him, and Tubby flinched at the cold steel in her grey eyes. "No."
She went back to her window.
"All righty," Tubby drawled. "Are you sure that's your final answer?"
He was persistent, she allowed with a sigh, but he was also irritating, boorish, and after only a few minutes in his company she wanted to escape. An entire evening would push her over the edge into homicide. After a few minutes of receiving frosty silence Tubby gave up and began flirting with a woman across the aisle from him. Charlie breathed a silent sigh of relief.
The engines whined a little louder as the plane began slowing and Charlie pulled a boiled sweet out of her pocket. Descent always made her ears pop, but sweets usually lessened the effects. Her mother usually pointed out that she would find any excuse to eat a sweet, but Charlie always ignored her. After all, Buffy was the woman who dialled in for pizza whenever it was her turn to cook.
Clouds obscured her vision of the world outside the plane but Charlie continued to stare out. She was waiting for her first vision of the country that would be her new home for the next two years. The clouds seemed to go on for a long time. Inky darkness passed by unbroken. It even absorbed the light from the plane's running lights. Eventually the clouds thinned and then they suddenly broke through and she could look down unhindered. Directly below there were the tiny bright lights of a city. She could not make out any details yet but the city was apparently a good size. At the edges the lights thinned out until, beyond the city limits, it was all dark and only occasionally broken by little collections of fainter lights.
Slowly the lights grew closer as the plane descended. As always, the final few hundred feet seemed far too fast and moments later the plane was rolling to a stop at the airport. Compared to the one she had left from in LA, Halifax International Airport was tiny. The concrete glistened wetly in the moonlight as the aeroplane taxied to its gate. There only seemed to be one other plane at the gates so everything was latched up quickly. The tiny 'ping' as the seatbelt light flicked off was heaven to Charlie's ears.
Tubby quickly unhooked his belt and left, ignoring Charlie and chatting away to his next victim. The woman looked bored but was listening politely and for a moment Charlie felt sorry for her. But only for a moment. If the woman did not have the guts to tell Tubby where to go, her boredom was her own fault, Charlie reasoned. She waited until the crush in the aisle died down before standing and shifting out of the seats carefully so she did not crack her head on the overhead luggage racks. She stretched the kinks out of her back and it gave a satisfying pop as it snapped back into place. Her eyes felt gritty and tired, her throat was dry, but at least she was finally standing again.
Snagging her one carryon bag from the rack, she made her way down the plane to the door. The captain and stewardesses were still standing there shaking hands as everyone left so she smiled politely and did her duty. The pretty stewardess she had noted earlier was among them so Charlie grinned at her, the first real smile she had produced all night, and shook her hand. The dark haired woman was only a couple of inches shorter than her and she smiled straight back into Charlie's eyes.
As Charlie walked down the long tunnel from the plane she opened her hand. A telephone number. So, maybe she would get a native to show her around a little. At least she would not have to spend the next two years with only Watchers for company.
At the exit she took a deep breath before stepping out into her new city, and her new life.
*finis*