See Part One for disclaimer and details. Thanks to EVERYONE who's reviewed and sent feedback, you rule. That being said, folks, that's it; this one's done. Onto new ideas and fanfics. But in the meantime, we hope you enjoy the final chapter of ASTOF. And please hit that big shiny review button at the bottom of the screen after you've read it, okay? Pretty please with sugar on top, even. Right, now off we go...

Part Eight: Out Of Time

Sunnydale High School, Sunnydale, California

April 23rd, 2000

12:01 am

"Well, don't just stand there, Giles! DO SOMETHING!"

The Englishman simply stood there gaping at his former charge. The 19-year-old blonde girl was very upset after just having seen her boyfriend vanish into the past, Giles knew that. But trying to deal with her hysterics, while worrying that everything would suddenly disintegrate into utter chaos from any significant alterations to history, was a bit much even for him.

( Looks like we're all still here, at least for now. ) "Er, do something like what, Buffy?" Rupert finally asked, relieved that the world hadn't completely imploded.

"I don't know, you're the Watcher around here! Just...do something, anything, to bring Riley back!" Miss Summers shouted.

"Ughhhh..." Xander moaned as Cordelia helped him up. He was still somewhat befuddled and confused after being thrown halfway across the bombed-out former library. "What the hell happened?"

"You got exactly what you deserved for being so stupid," his girlfriend growled at him, as she whacked him just above the ear. Cordy ignored Xander's yelp of pain and said, "Just what the hell were you thinking, you idiot? We could have lost you instead of Buffy's boyfriend just now!"

"Well, I couldn't just let Ethan..." Harris trailed off. "Wait up, run that by me again?"

"R-riley went through the portal before it, it disappeared," Tara filled him in as Xander's eyes went wide.

"And I betcha he's taken care of Ethan by now. So, so, we gotta get him back!" Willow added with a great deal of determination. "Giles, where do we start?"

"How the bloody hell should I know?" Giles asked peevishly, acting out of character because he was totally out of his depth, a very rare thing indeed. "Even if I knew anything about the secrets of time travel – and five minutes ago, I-I-I would have called anyone who said that such a thing was even remotely possible a complete and utter fool – we have no idea where or when Ethan and Riley have ended up. Tell you what – I'll take time, you lot take space. W-we should have the answer in a jiffy!"

"GILES!" Buffy shouted, very upset. "Knock it off. Rant mode, not helping!"

"It was the crystal, wasn't it?" Cordelia spoke up, as all eyes focused on her. "The one that Ms. Calendar mentioned in my Slayer dream a few days ago, the one Giles said was just a myth. That's how it was done, right?"

"M-most likely, yes," Giles nodded, calming down. As soon as he saw the questioning looks, he briefly summarized for the rest of the gang what he had told Cordelia the other day. "So if we want to undo this, I-I'd say first and foremost we need to get our hands on that creation of the Old Ones."

"How do we do that?" asked Tara. But no one said anything in reply, tellingly enough.

"Um, guys? Are you sure we should even be trying to change this?" Xander raised his hand tentatively. "'Cause I'm not sure if we should-"

"Yeah, right. Like you'd be saying that if it was Cordelia who was missing?" Buffy interrupted, glaring at her friend.

"No, Buff, that's not what I meant; Riley was my friend too, and I want him back as much as any of us. I'm just wonderin' if we'll totally screw everything up if we do that, though, what with this being the usual end of the world type deal. 'Cause the way I understand it, history is never really altered, y'know? In the end, it all just sorta fits together like a jigsaw. Maybe what happened a few minutes ago was...inevitable," Xander told her.

Willow immediately said, "Come on, Xander, I don't buy that. There's no fate but that which we make for ourselves, remember?" she quoted from the John Connor speech almost verbatim.

Tara was quick to agree with her lover. "I-if we go by every time travel movie I've ever seen, th-then that means changing the future is possible."

Xander shrugged, "I don't know. Maybe. But I don't think you people are taking into account something very important here."

"Like what?"

"Fate, Cor. Predestination. I mean, why else was Riley able to go through that thing and I wasn't?" Xander let that one sink in and added, "I think him and Ethan had to go back into the past today, 'cause from a certain point of view, they'd already done it...but for some reason I was never part of the team, and so history protected itself that way when I tried to go through too."

Everyone looked at Xander strangely, not having expected to hear such a cogently rational theory from him. Well, apart from Tara, who had never known the high school clown version of Xander Harris; all she knew was the guy who had once been possessed by James Bond and had moved on from that experience, and her preconceptions weren't colored by a history she had never been part of.

"No, no, that doesn't make any sense. I mean, what's so special about you?" Buffy asked angrily, before she realized how that sounded and immediately apologized, "Sorry, Xander. I just meant, why would Fate or Destiny or whatever go to all that effort to keep you in the here and now?"

"I don't know," Xander said once more with feeling. "I really don't."

And then, as if to relieve the tension, a group of grief-filled Initiative survivors stumbled onto the Scooby gang, and started shooting up the neighborhood with their blaster weapons.

The Giles residence, Sunnydale, California

May 27th, 2000

8:30 am

Giles was pretty much just puttering around the house after fixing himself some breakfast; he was feeling more than a little tired right now. Things hadn't exactly been boring the past month or so.

It had all started that night when the Initiative soldiers had shown up at exactly the wrong moment. They had pissed off the Slayer so much with their cowboy tactics that she'd let go of all her inhibitions and started pounding on the squad members. Luckily, the Chosen One hadn't killed any of them, but the soldiers' battered and broken bodies had later proven to be a testament to Buffy's fury over losing her boyfriend in such a sudden and unexpected way.

The truth was, Miss Summers had certainly become a complete emotional wreck afterwards. So the gang had left her to Joyce's tender loving care, and later on Giles had let Xander explain the 'misunderstanding' to Graham Miller, who had suddenly found himself in charge of the pitiful remnants of the Initiative. Since both Forrest and Colonel McNamara had been killed during the destruction of the facility, and Riley was persona non gratis in addition to being lost in the past, Graham turned out to be the most senior officer available.

Miller hadn't been able to fully believe what he'd been told, of course, especially the part about time travel by his former comrade. He just passed the news up the food chain about Ethan Rayne confessing to being the one responsible for the massacre before he'd vanished. No doubt a lot of people were now searching fruitlessly for that Englishman throughout the country, but Rupert didn't care about that. He had other things with which to concern himself.

He, Willow and Tara hadn't been able to find any trace of the ancient crystal Ethan had used to open up his portal all those weeks ago. That wasn't surprising, given how Rayne had taken it with him that night. But still, in desperate times hope springs eternal. The two witches had, over the course of the last month or so, also started researching any and all magicks related to temporal mechanics. Slowing time down or speeding it up, for example. They'd found a few interesting spells but nothing to go backwards down the river of years as Ethan and Riley had done.

However lousy Giles felt for the daughter of his heart, the lack of success actually let him sleep a lot better at nights. It wasn't that he didn't want Riley to return as much as the others did, of course, but playing around with the universe was not something to be taken lightly. One of the few advantages of growing old was learning one's limits, and understanding that some lines should never be crossed no matter how good your intentions were.

The doorbell rang and Giles slowly got up to answer it.

"Well, it's about time! What if we'd been the prize patrol?" Cordelia demanded, as she came in through the front door of the condo without waiting for an invitation.

"I'm sorry, the what?" Giles asked in confusion as Xander came in as well. "Prize patrol?"

"Don't ask," Xander told him simply. "She's been in a bad mood today ever since the moment we woke up."

"I heard that," his girlfriend growled. "And you just earned yourself another twenty-four hours in the doghouse, mister!"

"Dinner at that French restaurant we went to a few weeks ago?" Harris asked hopefully.

Miss Chase appeared to consider it carefully, and then she nodded, accepting the bribe. "But this time, I'M choosing the wine!"

"Was, uh, was there a reason why you two came over here so early in the morning, or-or is this just your idea of a social call?" Giles asked with a new look of confusion.

"Oh yeah, sure, THIS is what I like to do on my Saturdays. Hang out here with you," Cordy commented acidly. "How's that fugue state coming along there, Giles?"

"Just dropped by on our way to the deli to tell you that Buffy's...better," Xander said diplomatically. "Cordy and I went over to visit her and her mom last night and there was a chick flick vid-fest. Believe me, after less than half an hour I was real tempted to throw myself at Adam's mercy, just to make the suffering end."

"Ha, ha," Cordelia scoffed, giving him an absent-minded whack on the arm. She was glad though that her boyfriend hadn't mentioned the fight between Buffy and herself last night, because it was embarrassing to think how Joyce had decided to do something about all the fighting.

"This has got to stop," Mrs. Summers had said, after Xander had fled to the bathroom. "As a matter of fact this, this bickering which you two get up to, it's now officially over. It makes me ashamed to learn that you two think this is acceptable behaviour of any sort!"

"But mom-!" Buffy had whined.

"I mean it, Buffy! You too, Cordelia!" Joyce had said firmly to the female teens. She'd then gone on to say that by forcing Xander to choose between them, both girls would eventually lose him one way or another. The middle-aged mom understood how he loved them both, albeit in different ways, and it wasn't fair to Xander the way the female pair been acting for nearly a year. So they had to grow up and stop acting so petty, for heaven's sake.

Cordelia knew she and Buffy would never be friends, not really, but Mrs. Summers' actions had put things in perspective and finally drained nearly all the hostility from both parties. Which was a miracle in and of itself.

"Right. So, was that all?" Giles asked wearily, bringing Cordelia back to the here and now.

"Also wanted to ask, have you seen any sign of Jonathan and Anya lately? I haven't been able to get in touch with either of 'em," Xander said.

"Oh, them. They've, uh, they've left Sunnydale, apparently," Giles remarked absent-mindedly.

"What?" Cordelia demanded. "Why?"

"Jonathan was accosted by, um, by a M'Fashnik demon, I believe it was. The creature broke his left arm for some reason. Given the species, i-it was probably hired muscle for someone or something that the young man had annoyed somehow," Giles explained. "In the hospital, Anya was so distraught that she decided they should move to Utah and retire from the information brokerage business. So, uh, as soon as she could after Jonathan was discharged, Miss Jenkins made all the arrangements. She, she left some contact details with me in case of the untimely end of the world, but nothing more."

Xander looked surprised, but Cordelia just looked pleased that the potential rival for her beloved's affections had willingly removed herself from the board. ( Note to self: remember to send that girl a fruit basket or a house-warming gift or something. )

Then Miss Chase tensed up, somehow knowing that something had changed. She swivelled around, "Someone's at the door-"

And right on cue the doorbell rang. Giles carefully answered it, "Hello?"

"Rupert Giles?" a female voice with a British accent answered.

"Yes?"

"I need to talk to you. Please open the door."

"Who is this?" Rupert demanded. "Kindly identify yourself-"

"Just open the damn door before I kick it down, you limey idiot!" That was a younger, different female voice.

"Kennedy!" the previous voice sounded scandalized. "Manners, please!"

Giles shared a look with Xander and Cordelia before opening up. "Well, it's about time!" the newest Slayer said in an uncanny imitation of Cordelia just a few short minutes ago.

"You," Cordelia said scathingly, as the brunette Chosen One and her Watcher came in. "You're that new Slayer, aren't you? So you finally got here!"

"Who the hell are you?"

"If I may interrupt for just a moment," the British woman with glasses said calmly and soothingly. "I believe introductions are in order. Mr. Giles, I'm Lydia Hyde-Fitzpatrick, and this is my Slayer, Kennedy."

"Ah, of course. Well, you know who I am, and this is Xander Harris and Cordelia Chase," Giles introduced his younger friends.

"Really? Then this is perfect," Lydia beamed. "She's just the person I was hoping to find."

"Why?" Cordelia asked bluntly.

"Lydia says you've got something that belongs to me, and so we're here to get it," Kennedy said shortly. The lesbian girl had been edgy for quite a while, ever since her new 'tutor' had managed to convince her of the truth when a vampire had gotten itself invited into the mansion and had been about to feast on her entire family.

The female Watcher explained the plan after Willow and Tara were summoned. Lydia had been studying the problem ever since she'd been assigned to her new charge and had eventually come to the conclusion that what was needed was a enjoining spell; the same kind of spell that could have turned Buffy into an über-Slayer, in order to defeat Adam.

The two witches got to work, and then Willow incanted the spell. Cordelia and Kennedy were instantly caught in a mystical trance, their eyes briefly glowing orange before they snapped out of it.

"YOU!!" Kennedy turned around and roared hatefully at Xander. "YOU UNFAITHFUL BASTARD! How dare you hurt Cordelia that way? And with WILLOW of all people?!"

"What?" poor old Xander looked surprised and dismayed. So did many other people in the room.

"Whoa, that was a major rush," Cordelia shook her head. Then she looked at her boyfriend, "Ignore her. It worked, the Slayer thing is gone now; I can feel it. But the spell also combined both our memories. She knows what I know, and I know what she knows." The Chase girl then looked at the redhead, "You didn't think that that was something worth mentioning before now?"

"I, I don't get it. That shouldn't have happened," Willow shared a look with Tara, who just shrugged.

"Sure, but it did anyway. And by the way, thanks for the unwanted extra of Solitaire's memories," Kennedy said bitingly to Cordelia, trying to bury anything that wasn't her own personal memory. "Like I wasn't confused enough by everything before?"

"Time to grow up, you little brat," Cordelia snapped.

"Please, that's enough. Thank you for your hospitality, Mr. Giles, but if my Slayer's feeling alright I think we'd best be off," Lydia put in.

"What? You're, you're leaving already?" Giles looked surprised. "But you haven't even met Buffy yet..."

"No offense to your Slayer, but all things considered, I think it's best if Kennedy doesn't fraternize with her. Not if what happened with Miss Lehane is anything to go by," Lydia replied sharply. "The current situation in Cleveland with the Hellmouth there demands our presence, and so in my opinion, we need to depart as soon as possible to deal with it."

Thus, less than two hours after they'd arrived in town, both the new Slayer and the new Watcher left Sunnydale, never to return.

Adam's lair, Sunnydale, California

The next day

The cyber-demonoid was sitting at a computer set-up within his private chambers in the sewers. Adam was currently hooked into the Internet, accumulating background information as he continually modified his master plan, the same plan that had been seriously disrupted after Ethan had destroyed the Initiative.

Adam had learned Harmony had been dusted when he'd talked to Spike, before the peroxide-blonde vampire had chosen to depart from Sunnydale. That explained why she hadn't informed him of the situation with the Initiative, and why there was no point in Adam trying to find her to rip Harmony's head off for inefficiency.

( Almost nothing is within parameters any longer, ) Adam thought to himself emotionlessly. ( With the 314 facility destroyed, my brother vanished and the one responsible for my setbacks now beyond reach in the past, the situation can no longer be classified as 'interesting'. How did I ever miscalculate so badly on such a minor variable? )

"Well, who have we got here? It's Adam; or as we like to call him, Mr. Demon Bits. You know, as supervillain lairs go, I think this place could use some work. Few rugs, some throw pillows, couple of scantily-clad hot-looking bimbos...I mean, you gotta go with the classics, if you want people to take you seriously about becoming the Big Bad around here!"

Adam turned around without hurrying and said to Xander, "I wasn't expecting you to show up. The Slayer, perhaps, but not her flunky."

Harris just gave him a mock salute. "Not exactly a flunky anymore, big guy. But I guess I can see how you would think that, given how basically you're just a mistake. The flawed creation of a flawed woman with a majorly huge superiority complex. By the way I like the new eye, how it's all glow-y like that. Who'd you have to kill in order to get it?"

Adam just stared at him, having become annoyed. "You are irrelevant. Either leave or I will kill you."

"I'm irrelevant?" Xander looked indignant. "Do you have any idea who you're talking to, pal? I'm the guy who's been possessed three times in his life. I'm the one who twinned the Slayer line, twice. And I'm also the man who's gonna make sure that your ass finally gets kicked into a brand new shape!"

No matter what else you could say about him Xander Harris had the ability to get under anyone's skin, good guy or bad, and annoy them to the point of abandoning everything in order to deal with him. Adam disconnected his computer links and got up from his seat, removing a disk from its drive on his left pectoral before chasing after the aggravating pest in order to eliminate it.

The cyber-demonoid really should have learned his lesson from his previous plans falling apart a month ago. As Adam lumbered through the sewers chasing after Xander, not far away Willow and Tara began to do a magic spell. Miss Rosenberg set a piece of paper on fire, and placed into a bowl in the middle of a red triangle on the floor. She chanted in Latin, "Opus orbit est, tempus ad calcem intendit." ( The work is a circle, the time stretches out. )

Tara threw in some herbs, and smoke began rising from the bowl. Just then, not far away, Xander threw himself to the floor and Adam suddenly found Buffy's fist slamming into his face.

The force of the Slayer-strength blow made him stumble to the side...directly over and into a red triangle similar to the one Willow and Tara were using, only much larger.

For the first time EVER, Adam started to panic as he suddenly found himself stuck in a time loop.

Trapped within a mystical energy field, Adam was unable to stop the witch-y pair as the two women began to put to use the esoteric knowledge they'd gleaned in trying to come up with a way to rescue Riley from his fate. Time began to pass much, much faster for the cyber-demonoid than for all the humans standing around staring at him.

Colloquially known as the Sphere of the Infinite Agonies, the spell was such that for every second that passed on the outside, the equivalent of a human lifetime passed for the prisoner. The cyborg couldn't feel the pain that an ordinary victim would, thanks to what he was, but Adam knew that he wasn't immortal and after the equivalent of about a week had passed, he also knew that he had to escape before his power source ran out.

But there was no escape.

Xander had planned too well for that after he'd come up with the idea yesterday and everyone had added in their input on how to take down the big scary monster.

"No! No! NO!!!" Adam was seen to yell, even though his voice couldn't penetrate through the temporal barrier. His demon fists continually slammed against the energy cage, but they accomplished nothing but indicate his complete and utter impotence to change his situation.

Adam's body flickered now and then, as the cyber-demonoid tried everything he could think of to escape his confinement. But all to no avail. And in the end, after about an hour or nearly half a million years, it was all over.

Jonathan had once said that Adam's U-235 power source would last 'just this side of forever'. Which was true enough, but thanks to the peculiar mangling of time in this instance, forever had become quite a lot shorter than expected and Adam collapsed, his power source exhausted.

Just in case he was playing possum the Scoobies kept the spell going; but a second (or a human lifetime) later, the human parts had turned into a skeleton, the demon parts had turned into goo and the metals had started to rust and corrode.

"Well! I'm glad that's finally over," Cordelia said simply, as Xander moved to stand at her side and Willow terminated the spell.

"Kinda anti-climatic," was Buffy's response, as she finally started to put Riley's loss behind her.

"Not as exciting as blowing up the school, anyway," Willow nodded.

"Eh, I don't know about that. But as potential apocalypses go, yeah, this was kinda yawn-worthy," Xander expressed his opinion.

"You lot a-a-are getting far too blasé and jaded about the end of the world, you should know," Giles said warningly, sounding like a stuffy father.

"Does anyone want pizza? I, I could do with a slice," Tara said hesitantly. "I'm kinda hungry."

"Sound like a plan to me," Xander nodded. "We finally got rid of Adam. So I say, let's party!"

The Monastery of the Order of Dagon, Czech Republic, Europe

August 23rd, 2000

6:00 am

Two monks raced down the corridor of their home, panicked, throwing terrified glances behind them. They clutched various items in their arms as they ran: books, candles, incense. One of the monks stumbled, dropping a censer of incense. His companion helped him up, and they continued their flight down the candle-lit hallway.

"It's coming. It's going to kill us!" the clumsy monk babbled in Czech.

"Our lives aren't important," his brother reminded him in the same language. "We have to protect the Key. Come, come!"

The two men continued racing down the corridor, only to encounter Faith at the end of it standing in front of a massive set of doors. "What's the sitch?" she said urgently.

"It comes," said one of the monks in halting English. "You must, delay. Need time to send Key to guardian."

"Yeah. I'll do my best," the brunette Slayer muttered, cursing the fact that she had ever ended up coming here.

Months ago after departing Sunnydale, Faith had arrived in Los Angeles; where she had been found by a woman named Althenea, the first amongst equals within a coven based in Devon, England. The middle-aged female seer had transported Faith and herself across the pond in the blink of an eye, and explained the situation to the raven-haired Chosen One; that a vision had shown the coven that she would be needed to help save the world in about six months time from an insane hellgod.

Glorificus, or Glory as she preferred to be called, was a threat unlike anything anyone had ever faced before. It had been foreseen by the coven members that the crazy hell-deity would be going after the living energy known as the Key and, upon acquiring it, then cause the destruction of the world. So the group of women needed a Champion to prevent all that, and Faith had fit the role quite nicely.

Upon regaining her edge after eight months atrophying in that damned coma, Miss Lehane had arrived here and spoken to the monks about what she had been told. Unfortunately the holy men had refused to heed her warnings, until it was far too late.

As Glory and Faith suddenly spied one another, the two monks secured the door leading into a sacred chamber. The male duo then ran to the center of the huge room and joined a third, more senior member of their order. They knelt on the floor before the abbot, who had lit candles and magic talismans all around him.

"Help me perform the ritual," the abbot said in Czech.

"Are we to send the Key to the other Slayer, as planned?" one of the newcomers asked in the same tongue.

The abbot shook his head. "We were fools not to listen to the Chosen One's warnings before now. No, we will send the Key to the one who she considers to be the most suitable protector, as we should have done from the start."

All three monks extended their arms and began chanting. As they spoke the ancient words, a tremendous crash echoed through the monastery and the massive wooden door trembled in its frame from the battle between Faith and her opponent.

As the junior monks glanced fearfully at the door, the abbot admonished them, "Concentrate. Concentrate!"

The ritual resumed and a breeze sprung up out of nowhere inside the chamber. A relentless pounding on the door started to take place, as the crossbeam blocking entry started to splinter apart.

Suddenly, a bright flash of green light leaped up from the center of the monks' circle and disappeared. A moment later, the door finally gave way and shattered completely, forcefully blasted into the room in little pieces.

But it was too late, as what looked like a beautiful blonde woman stormed into the chamber and glanced around in pure fury. The spell was done and it had rewritten history, just as the monks had intended. The Key was safely hidden and integrated into the timeline.

And four months back in the past, the monks' spell also acted to stop Xander from going through Ethan's time gate, blasting him backwards across the room and preventing the end of the world due to temporal paradox.

The Harris-Chase residence, Sunnydale, California

August 26th, 2000

9:00 am

"Okay, Xander, what's this all about? Your phone call was like pretty vague," Buffy said, as she, Willow, Tara and Giles came into the apartment. "Is it something to do with the Initiative?"

"No. Like I said before, now that they've verified that Adam's remains are the real deal, they're vacating the premises. Graham and one or two others will be sticking around to keep an eye on things, but they've officially handed over guardianship of the Hellmouth to you now that the brass has decided that their little experiment has failed," Xander replied, then he sighed. "This is about something else."

"Okay, what?" Willow asked.

Xander said simply, "I got a letter from Riley."

"WHAT?" four voices yelled at the same time.

"Hey, don't yell like that! Okay? Cordelia's still asleep in the bedroom, she hasn't been feeling too hot lately. Last night was a pretty bad scene, she was constantly running for the bathroom, so do me a favor and just keep the noise down," Xander ordered his houseguests in no uncertain terms.

"S-sorry," Tara apologized on behalf of the group. "But Xander, h-how did you get a letter from Riley?"

"Magic," he said. "It just showed up in a flash of light last night, around eleven."

"And you waited until NOW to tell me about this?" Buffy shouted, her ire evident.

"Buffy, I already asked you nicely not to yell in my home," Xander hissed at her, and his expression actually made Buffy take a step back. "And the reason I waited 'til this morning to call is that after I read the letter, I knew there was no point in not letting everyone get a decent night's sleep before you read what he had to say."

The others didn't get what he meant, and said so. Instead of explaining further Xander merely handed Buffy the letter. After she read it, the blonde Slayer looked like she wanted to cry as she threw the parchment away and ran out the front door. Willow and Tara exchanged a look and quickly ran after her.

Xander simply picked up Riley's letter, and gave it to the ex-Watcher to read.

The Monastery of the Order of Dagon, Czech Republic, Europe

The same time

Faith looked grim as she wandered through the ruins, the supernatural healing factor of her badly damaged body working overtime to try to get her back into some semblance of good health. As her fight against Glory had not gone well, and that was putting it mildly.

Going up against a god was something that not even the Chosen had ever been designed for. Faith had gotten her ass royally kicked within ten seconds of the insane hell-bitch noticing that she actually existed, but on the upside, at least she was still alive. Anybody else would have been turned into hamburger.

The curvaceous brunette was looking for any survivors before she abandoned the monastery and returned to the coven back in Devon. Miss Lehane wasn't optimistic about the chances of finding any of the monks alive, but as Fate would have it, she did stumble upon one lone survivor, badly wounded and dying though he was.

"Shit! Hold on, I'll get you outta here," the Chosen One said, recognizing the abbot and stepping forward.

"No. My journey's done, I think," the holy man wheezed out. "There are...more important things to do...in the short time I have left."

From the extent of his injuries, it was a miracle that the monk had survived the last three days without food or water and Faith was furious with herself for not getting here sooner. Even though she'd been unconscious and injured as well, all this time. "The Key?"

"Safe, for now. You have to...go. Find it. Protect it," the man croaked out.

"Okay, fine. But we can protect the Key together, right? Far, far away from here," Faith grimaced at the situation. "Come on, work with me here, pops. Try to get up..."

The abbot ignored her demand. "Just before the abomination found us, we hid the Key. Gave it...physical form, molded it into flesh...made it human. And sent it to..."

"Who? Who did you send it to?" Faith asked urgently, suddenly sure that the monk was going to die.

"God forgive us, but we should have done it long ago. We followed your idea," the abbot whispered, before he exhaled one last time and died.

"My idea?" Faith asked herself, before realization struck her like a lightning bolt.

Xander.

The Harris-Chase residence, Sunnydale, California

A few moments earlier

( Dear Xander, ) Giles silently read Riley's letter to himself. ( I hope this message finds you well in the year 2000. After a lot of soul searching, I decided to send it to you for a couple of reasons. One, first and foremost, I consider you a friend. And two, the person who sent it to the future for me couldn't be sure exactly when it would arrive, only that it would be within six months after I went through that portal; and I suspected that out of everybody in the group, you were the one who would most likely still be alive. So after you've read this letter, please give it to the others to read as well. )

The Englishman was mildly miffed that Riley hadn't thought that as the oldest, he himself would have been the most likely choice of candidate to receive this letter, but he quickly buried that and kept on reading.

( I'm assuming that you've all been wondering what happened after I chased Rayne through the portal into the past. We ended up in sixth century Wales, a place called Caerleon. Or Camelot, as it's more popularly known. Yeah, you read that right: Camelot. As in King Arthur, Excalibur, the Knights of the Round Table, everything. )

Rupert had to take a deep breath, stunned. ( Good Lord! That place actually existed? I always thought the legends were nothing but that, legends! ) He then frantically turned back to the letter and kept on reading.

Giles quickly learned many things; for example how Ethan and Riley had been taken prisoner and met the woman known as Morgan le Fay upon arriving outside the legendary stone fortress. How the blonde witch had smashed the crystal and killed Ethan. He also learned how Riley had managed to escape from the murder scene and become a hunted man for a very long time.

Giles paused in shock at that point. ( Ethan's dead, ) he thought to himself. It took a while for that concept to truly sink in. ( Bloody hell. Of all the ways I ever thought he might go out, that wasn't one of them. And the crystal's gone, too. What else happened? )

Rupert shook himself, and continued reading. He learned how Myrrdin a.k.a. Merlin had eventually found Riley, and upon being hit by the wizard's magicks, Finn had confessed who and what he really was to the half-demon mage. Giles started shaking in fear at this point, ( Oh dear Lord, Riley, what have you done? If Myrrdin knew...if even that much changed, and the man sent messages to people in the future...we, we must be living in a totally different timeline right now! I can't even imagine what the ramifications of all this might be, right at the moment! ) Hands shaking, the former Watcher got on with reading the letter again, determined to learn everything.

( We talked, and once he got the full story Myrddin offered to help me return to my own time. So I spent the next ten years looking for the crystal that had been stolen from him during that era, but it was a hopeless task right from the start. I may as well have looked for a needle in a haystack the size of Australia. Eventually I gave up and accepted the fact that I was stuck in the sixth century for the rest of my life. So as you might have guessed by this point, Xander, I'm writing this letter over thirty years after I first arrived in Caerleon. The year is now 537 AD, and the Battle of Cad Camlan is finally over; believe it or not, the current Slayer and I just watched four women carry off the mortally wounded Arthur to Avalon. That elixir of eternal youth which Rayne was after, it couldn't help him as funnily enough, that really was nothing more than a fairy tale. So I finally decided to take up Myrddin's offer to send this letter to you, before God decides to cap my pen forever as well. )

Giles rubbed his eyes for a moment, and then finally entered the home stretch.

( Xander, I know that you and the others will have been trying to figure out a way to bring me back to the future somehow, especially Buffy. Despite all the decades that have passed I haven't forgotten anything about her; her face, her smile, her wonderful caring heart. But I need you to convince her and everyone else not to try to bring me back any longer. Too much time has passed, and the young idiot who could barely even believe in magic back then – he hasn't existed for a very long time now. I still miss you, all of you, but the facts are the facts here. Myrrdin's crystal no longer exists, at least as far as all of you are concerned, and there's no way to bring me home without it. So please tell Buffy that I love her, but she needs to find someone else now. I'll be waiting for her when the time comes. Take care of yourself and everyone else, my friend. Riley. )

"Really messes with your mind, doesn't it?" Xander's voice suddenly registered in Rupert's ears. "And it kinda looks like I was right all along. Riley and Ethan really were both part of history, long before they were ever even born."

"Xander, that's, that's not the point!" Giles said loudly. "The point is-"

"G-man, don't yell-!"

Cordelia stuck her head out of the bedroom. "Okay, that's it. Could you guys keep it down out here?" she demanded irritably. She patted her four-month pregnant belly which now contained the Key, courtesy of the monks. "The baby's been kicking my bladder all night, and I need to get some rest, God damn it!"

Cordy slammed the bedroom door shut. Then she opened up again and said to Xander, "Bring me a sandwich. Cheese, sour cream and a dash of corn flour!"

( Damn weird pregnancy cravings, ) Xander grumbled to himself even as he went off to the kitchen to obey orders, Giles trailing behind him.

Xander, Giles and the rest of the gang had no idea though just how weird things would get once Faith, Glory and her minions arrived in town.

The End