Dear Diary....

Air Date: ?/01/2002

10 Sep 2000, Sunday 10:33pm

I snap the phone closed as quickly as I can and drop it into my bag like it's a burning coal. He's coming. And he's going to kill me. I just know it.

I can't do this.

Breath. Breath.

I hear movement around me, but I cant open my eyes just yet. I'm too afraid of what I might see.

Look at yourself, Alex! You're a wreck. Hiding here, with your eyes closed. Hoping like a little kid that if you close your eyes the bad stuff can't get you. Hoping that it isn't all true. That it didn't all just happen.

I have to do something or I'm going to go mad.

I sniff and wipe the tears away from my eyes. I open them and everything is just a white, bright blur while my eyes try and adjust.

I reach down to my journal and pull it out. It feels familiar and comfortable. This is something I can do. The pen slips out of the spine and it falls open to the page I need. I clutch the book to my chest and hunch over it. This is familiar. I know this.

I don't go back and read the writing on the previous page like I usually do. That was from a different life, it's all different now. Everything. It's not right that the old should meet the new, so I turn the page to a new blank page.

Empty.

I click the pen top and the nib drops down, ready to start writing.

10th of September 2000

Good start, eh? I shake my head and wipe my face on my jacket sleeve again. Ooops. I smeared the page. Looks sort of brown/red. I hope it's not blood.

It's all, but I cant finish the sentence.

I stare at it. I know what's coming next, but I just can't seem to write it. My Doctor mode kicks in and I talk to my self like I do with my patients, 'Come on Alex. Put it on paper and then it has form. Then you can deal with it.'

The pen mocks me for a little bit by just sitting there at the next space. Waiting. Showing me that I can fool my patients with my chatter and superior clinical outlook, but that it knows me. It knows that it's a sham.

The pen has proved its point and finally does my bidding, so I finish the sentence.

my fault.

There it is in it's completed glory.

It's all my fault.

There. I take a breath and stare at the words and take them in.

Maybe Cowley was right and I am too soft for.. for this sort of thing. Maybe...

Stop it. Just accept it, deal with it and move on.

I wanted to change everything and make things 'better' and so here we are.

Gemma is in intensive care. They wont tell me the exact chances, but I know enough to know that it isn't good. I close my eyes again and whisper a quiet prayer for her, 'Please don't die.' Loss of blood and internal bleeding I heard them say. Surgery. Critical. Other words like that.

Jayde is a little better off. She has burns over about a third of her body and I'm sure she'd be worse off if it wasn't for the Slayer healing. She was alright after the fight, but once the adrenaline wore off she sagged and it all hit her, but she was still up and moving. I think she'll be OK. I hope.

That Arden fellow is much worse off. He has some severe burns to his arms and chest. If only he'd trusted us more. Or us him.

And Jonathan... I shudder. Best not to think about that just at the moment.

And Faith...

I wipe my nose on the back of my hand. Not very lady like, but I don't care any more.

I just stare at the words.

Suddenly I blink and realize that this is my Watcher journal and this just isn't what gets copied into a Watcher diary. The pen comes alive and slides to the start of the line and before I know it....

It's all my fault.

I look up from the page and struggle for breath. When I close my eyes, that isnt what I see.

It's all my fault.

Well I called and he'll be here soon and the doctors will talk to him and we'll know for sure. Next of kin. David. I have to face him.

He is going to kill me. OK. Maybe not, but I know that I just burnt my last bridge with him. I could hear it in his voice, that coldness that I used to hear when his anger and pain over the loss of Leda would come out in our sessions. That chilling single minded determination that he poured into his work after Leda. The kind of determination that drives him to win against an opponent.

Is that how he sees me now?

Henry comes round a corner and comes walking towards the bench.

I close my eyes again and, unbidden, the memory returns. My failure. Alex, the great Watcher. I can even picture the page in the cross reference guide. Dumb. Alura, Binding of the Elemental forms vrs Alura the Younger, Ritual of the Elemental Binding. Why did I get so excited over the first one. Sloppy. I should have checked out both. Conrad said 'younger', I remember it, now. And how dumb and I? 'The Younger', it obviously comes after. Dumb.

I open my eyes and see Henry stop for a nurse. Always the gentleman, is Henry. I feel like I'm a young girl again and I'm about to be told off for not doing my homework or something like that. It's a struggle, but I look up and into his eyes. He looks sad.

Then I feel selfish. This isn't about me. It's about badly injured kids. Kids who helped stop Hell Fire being let loose on Earth. This isn't about you, Alex, get over it and try and make up for it.

Henry slows as he gets to the bench. I want to ask how things are, but I just don't have the breath and my throat is too choked up. He understands though.

"From what I can gather, Jayde will be fine. They expect scaring and maybe some loss of motor function, but obviously they have no idea about the Slayer healing. She should be fine. The burning is severe in places, but Slayers have had worse and recovered." He pauses, looks down at me with sorry eyes and places a hand on my shoulder. "Gemma is more serious, I'm afraid. She lost a lot of blood and the internal bleeding is pretty bad, from what I can gather. Carrying her up the passage just made that worse, but we didn't have any choice. They are going to operate to close the internal wounds, assuming they can stabilise her."

I just nod and pull the journal to my chest. "Er, Thanks" I manage to rasp out.

Henry sits beside me and then puts an arm around me and hugs me. Well as much of a hug as his upbringing allows him. And for that effort, I'm ever so grateful. "Her name was Talia." he states, as if it answers everything.

I blink and look up at him, puzzled. "Talia?" Talia? April 1940 to, er, '40 or '41? '41 yes, January '41. My photographic memory, bless it's little heart, kicks in and I start to recall. Born, 4th of Febuary 1924. Polish, I think. The picture of her, black and white, a small girl, in a skirt, looking oddly out of place. Died, 20th January 1941. Details are a little sketchy. I think I only scan read those diaries once. Something about a summoning? Water demons? No, rain?

"My Slayer." He smiles down at me. "The Council psychics found about her about 7 months into the war, after Lucy", 1938 to 1940, "passed away in the farce with the Brazilian portal. Remember?" Oh, yes, that portal. I nod and shudder. I wonder again how everyone can just 'forget' about a whole town. Henry continues, "The Council arranged it with some contacts in the SIS, as it was back then, and I slipped into Poland and made contact. She wanted to bring her family too, but we didn't have the resources to bring her whole family with us. Plus it wasn't Council policy." He stops and looks down at me, suddenly realising that he might need to explain. "She was Jewish...."

"Talia, it means Dew. I know." Thinking in Hebrew reminds me of the prophesy, 'the sacrifice', 'becoming one through death'. I curl up a little more and add "I figured you didn't mean the Aramaic meaning." Way to sound schollarly, Alex. Who are you trying to impress?

He nods and continues. "She was a quiet girl and surprisingly accepting of her calling. It was a hard time for everyone. People were dying and the world was engulfed in barbarism and war, resources were stretched thin and many people thought that the end was upon us and so all sorts of evil was trying to open gates and the like." He pauses and sighs. "We were quite busy. Anyway, it was about 8 months after I first contacted her. We received word that some Vorette demons in Germany were trying unleash the Thing under the Black Forrest. Given the magnitude of the emergency, we had to mount a mission to stop it."

I vaguely remember reading the journals about this. "She died fighting the Vorettes didn't she?"

"After actually." He is quiet for a while. "It was after the we stopped the ritual. There was a Magi working as the focus for the Vorettes, and so Talia fought the demons while I took the crystal from the Magi. Talia had Slayed the demons, but the Magi and I were in a Mexican stand off. He was an officer in the German air-force and his Luger pointed at Talia and I had my Webly pointed at him. He demanded the crystal back, but I refused. Our voices must have attracted a local sentry because this corporal came in and pointed his gun at me. The Magi shouted that I was a spy the guard called for more help. I knew our only chance to get out alive was surrender, as Talia should have been able to escape easily, given her abilities, so I dropped my weapon." He just keeps staring ahead as he adds, "He shot her anyway."

I gulp a swallow of air. "Oh."

"He shot me too" he pats his weak leg, "and was going to finish me off, when the guard ordered him to stop. He lowered the gun to my head and was obviously going to shoot when the guard shot him."

"He did? Why?"

"Because he had a conscience and wasn't going to watch someone who had just shot a young girl, murder someone else, even a spy. Corporal Alvar Gamms, good man really. We still exchange letters actually. He heads a Watcher observation group for the Council in Germany. Watching the Thing, actually, tending the signs."

"And Talia died?"

"Yes. Chest wound. Severely punctured the lung and nipped the spine on the way out. Nothing we could do. She gave me a necklace. She had told me that it was her mothers and she thought that her sister to have it, if anything happened. Family airloom and all that. This was back when we first met. I'd dismissed it at the time. I hadn't really thought that she might die. Foolish youthfulness on my part, but I guess we all feel immortal and that nothing can go wrong when we are young."

Oh. Yes, I know what he means.

"I looked them up after the war. Her sister, Keren, had survived, the camps and all that. Her father, Ira, too. I went to see them and it was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I thought that watching her die was hard, but that just happened so suddenly. One moment she was alright and the next, she was dying on the floor. Traveling to see her sister and father was like days of torture, knowing that I was going to have to tell them that she died, but not being able to tell them why. Worse were the things that I felt, that maybe I could have saved her. Maybe I should have fired or maybe if I'd only fought harder."

Maybe. Maybe if I'd got the right spell. Maybe if I'd not taken them all with me. Maybe.... "How did they take it?"

"Poorly. Ira, her father started screaming at me and asking what his daughter was doing in Germany with a British officer. I shouldn't have told him where it happened, but I just felt I had to answer their questions. I was desperately trying to lessen their sadness. That's what I told myself at the time, but really I was trying to lessen my own guilt. A selfish weakness on my own part." I nod, understanding. "I felt responsible, I mean they had lost brothers and mothers and wives and here was I bringing them even more bad news."

I nod, tears starting again. We both understand, and somehow that makes me feel better and worse at the same time.

"Ira, was shouting in Polish and he rushed over to me and started punching me. Keren pulled him out of the room and came back and walked me out. I gave her the necklace, but she just held it and stared at it for a while before she handed it back. She said she didn't have any more tears left. She said I should keep it, because Talia had obviously meant a lot to me and she wanted me to have it and keep her memory alive too. She said that she was glad to finally know what happened, but that she liked to imagine that 'Keren had escaped the evil'. That struck me as the saddest thing that I'd heard."

"Oh." Way to go Alex. Phd from Cambridge and that's all you can say?

"David may understand or he may hate you, but you did what you had to do. We all do what we can to keep darkness at bay. I personally swore to do all I could to keep people like Keren safe. I've seen too many people die in my lifetime, Alex. You saved a lot of lives tonight, Alex, remember that."

"But we don't know what happened." I hate not knowing.

"If the elemental was going to go on a rampage then it would have do so by now. It is obviously bound somewhere. I've called in the council investigators to search for it. Even if it is unbound, it has yet to start feeding, so there is a chance to find it still."

I just nod, unconvinced. It doesn't feel as if I did anything. We didn't kill it. It got away. We didn't win. We lost and what's worse, we don't know what happened, or where it is or anything. We might not have lost now, but it's free and somewhere, people are going to pay for our mistake.

Our mistake. I laugh a little out loud and Henry looks at me oddly. My mistake.

I think back to the people that this cost us, Gemma, Jonathan, Faith and Jayde. Gemma, probably going to die, Jonathan, gone, Faith, disappeared and Jayde, possibly scarred. All this and still we let it out.

Jonathan. Obviously he was consumed by the Elemental, I mean, Rose said that he accepted it into him. But we saw him consumed by it, so where did it go? Arden's ritualists said that it wasn't in binding rooms, so how did it get out?

"Er, Henry, what's going to happen with Arden's associates?"

"Well we spoke to them. They didn't have much knowledge of real magic, it seems that they had made up their own ritual to bind the thing. We've passed them the ritual to bind it without any sacrifice. Their ritual was somewhat unstable, it had a dependence on stellar positioning and... er, I digress. Should we find the elemental again, they are more than willing to help bind it again. They are trying to track it now."

"Oh. Great." I add with more hope than I actually feel. "How is Arden?"

"He should recover. His burns are severe, but with some grafts and such like he should recover. It may take a while though. Assuming that complications don't set in, that is."

"Oh, I see. I think Jayde liked him." I look up at him, hopefully.

"He..." Henry fishes round for something to say. ".. does seem to have some loyal followers and they were doing a splendid job given their situation." Good show, Henry.

And now the hard one. "And Faith?"

"No word, I'm afraid." I know what he's thinking. He thinks she's run away with her demon friend from the Mayor. "We just have to wait and see what happens." Wait to see who turns up dead you mean?

What should I hope for here? That she died fighting like she dreamt or that she escaped with her demon friend? Die with the 'good guys', or escape with the 'bad guys'. Some choice. I know she survived the battle, at least most of it. I mean she was there when we were doing triage on the wounded. I remember Jayde helping her to her feet, removing the sword and trying to stem the bleeding, but I think I lost track of her once we went to tend to Gemma. Jayde looked round for her, but she wasn't in any of the rooms off the portal room.

Oh God and what if what she dreamt was right and she was survived but was finished off by someone she trusted? Maybe that demon thing? Either her or Casey or Jayde. Who else did she trust? Jayde went off to look for her alone and Casey did mention a water room. Didn't she say she drowned? No. I cant think that way. Must stop!

Noticing the silence, Henry adds, "I'm sure she'll turn up."

"Yes." Suddenly I have a sinking feeling. What if we never know? What if someone did do that? "Yes, Im sure she will."

Henry sits up and turns and looks down at me. "I have some bad news. Buffy is dead. She died fighting Glory, the Hell God. Glory opened a portal and Buffy gave her life to close it."

Oh no. Giles! Those kids. Buffy. Dead. Buffy was... well Buffy. "Giles?"

"Yes. Yes, he is rather upset." Yay, for British understatement. He's probably experiancing Exaustio. Most Watchers burn out once their Slayers are taken. I wonder what happened to Henry after Talia. I wonder what I'll be like.

"So what happens now?"

"Well, it's doubtful that any other Slayer will be called, given what we know from Faith. We will place some Watchers in Sunnydale to make sure things don't get out of control. Jayde is close, in case something does need our attention."

Oh. Back to work, eh? I guess it never stops, does it? Well here goes. "So, do you have a new Watcher ready for Jayde?"

Henry sits up and pushes me off. He turns. "Don't you think it's a little too early to be talking about this?"

"No. I don't. I just want it settled. I just want it over."

"You can always leave. You know that."

"No. I really can't. Jayde can't, so what makes you think I can?"

He nods, understanding. "I don't want you to leave. I think it's best if Jayde makes that decision, not the Council."

"But I mistranslated the spell, all these people were hurt. I mean it got away, all because of my mistake."

Henry looks at me and my stare dares him to tell me any differently. "Maybe so." Oh, OK, surprised. Henry regards me for a moment. "But you never hired for your research abilities, Alex. You were hired because of your linquistical and psychological skills. You were an experiment. Mr Giles and yourself both argued that changes were needed to the Council's methods. You said that modern Slayers needed to be treated differently and after the debacle of Buffy's cruciamentum and the Mr Wyndham-Pryce/Faith experience, I have come to believe that you were may, in fact, be correct. I argued at that the time that Mr Giles involving these children was a mistake. You chose to follow Mr Giles example, and given Buffy's performance, noone can blame you for that." Henry looks over to me, but I just nod, accepting the comment. All true. "Perhaps we were wrong to allow you to distance yourselves so much from the council and their resources, but this is what happens when you change tradition, Alex, things go wrong and the unexpected happens. We tried and things didn't work out, but we learn and move on. You were chosen as Jayde's Watcher because of your ability to foster and maintain a link with her, not because of your research abilities, formidable though they are. If anything the mistake has been mine for allowing you to drift so far from the Council's resources."

Henry waits for a while to see if I have anthing to say, but what can I say? I guess that it really does depend on Jayde. "Mmmm." I grunt.

"The Council is has another candidate ready to step in if you want to step down or if Jayde requires another Watcher. Hopefully she can see that together the Watcher and Slayer are better than just a Slayer alone."

"I dont know." I really dont. Can I go on? Can I walk away?

"I know what it's like, Alex." He puts a hand on my shoulder and I find it as warm as any group hug therapy session. "I'm going to recommend to the council that other likley Watcher candidates join you here. If you stay, I want to organise a team to help with the research and other Council operations. You will be Jayde's Watcher, but we will have experts onhand to help with the research and operatives to help with field work, should you need it."

"I.... I dont know."

"Don't think about it now. There are more important things to think about now. Let's get Gemma and Jayde attended to first, eh?"

I smile at him. "Thanks Henry."

He smiles and stands up, straighting his shirt and tie. "I have to go and check the Council budget and see if we can afford a medical specialist for Gemma."

You dont fool me, I know you secret now, you old softey.

I drop the Journal from my chest and the pen comes to life again.

10th of September 2000

It's all my fault.

It appears that the Elemental, Tophet, has escaped.

The Elemental was bound by a group of self taught Ritualists in the Berkeley area (see Casefile 2000J44). Their binding was unstable and the demon seemed to take the opportunity provided by Glory's portal to break free.

Attempts to bind the spirit have failed, and at some loss to our group.

As for the Demon, there has been no evidence of mass feeding, leading us to conclude that the Elemental is either planning some larger feeding or has somehow been bound by the magics that were attempted to hold it. It seems unlikley that demon would ignore a chance to feed, so it seems likley that the sacrifice of Gemma to bind the demon has been, atleast partially sucessful in completing the ritualists binding.

The Council is organising a search for the Demon, in hopes that we will be able to bind it or capture it before it breaks free or starts to feed.

Jayde was burned by the Elemental and appears to be injured, but not in any serious danger. Her performance this night has been excellent. I can personally confirm the Slaying of atleast 7 vampires and I expect the real number to be in the vicinity of a dozen.

Jayde's fighting skills seems to have improved amazingly over the past week. She has been training with Faith and perhapse the challange of being confronted by other Slayer has provided a better training scheme that that a humble Watcher can provide. Henry has mentioned the possibility of a Watcher team working with Slayers and perhapse as part of that, a professional martial artist should be called aswell.

Gemma's sacrifice has left her in a critical condition, yet we have hopes for her recovery. It seems that once it was certain that our ritual had failed, she chose to sacrifice herself to complete Arden's ritual.

I have yet to study the ritual in detail, so I am uncertain of the quality of the binding or it's effects.

Faith is missing. She Slew Orme, the leader of the vampires and an unknown number of others. I have conserns about her fate, but it seems that we must wait to see what has happened. Casey and Mary have gone off to search for her, rather than wait at the hospital.

Jonathan, who seemed to correcly deduce that his friend Rose was one of those mentioned in the Prophesy, seems to have become the vessel for the Elemental, either willingly or not, I am not yet sure, as I yet to debrief Rose at length.

Mary and Casey are physically alright, although the trama of the event is obvious. Rose, Jonathan's companion, seems to....

10 Sep 2000, Sunday 10:18pm, UCB glade

He loved the power of it. The roar of the fire, the heat, the control. It made him feel powerful.

He twisted his twist and the fire stick spun round and roared past his ear, just missing his hair. He loved playing with it. Teasing it.

"Man, Dave, you rock!" Tina called out. "Do that move again!"

Dave, flipped the fire stick into his other hand and repeated the move, feeling the heat flash past his cheek, missing by inches.

"Thats so cool! What you call it?" Stephen asked.

"Oh, the..." Dave stopped spinning the sticks and blinked. He hadn't just seen... no.. no.. it couldn't be. He strained to see in the darkness, and watched as the man stepped out of the fire, his eyes ablaze....

Dave flipped the stick behind his back and walked up to the guy. He looked pretty weedy and mundane. "That's wicked cool!!"

Jonathan looked at Dave and smiled.

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