Friends Last

Buffy paced the floor of the living room, her thoughts racing as she struggled to find some explanation. Tara had arrived and breathlessly told her of the newest revelation. She had showed Buffy the matching amulets and waited expectantly for Buffy’s newest plan. But Buffy was at a loss. The little she knew of vengeance demons was no help in finding an answer.

“Buffy sit down. You’re wearing a hole in the rug,” Dawn said, trying to lighten the mood.

Buffy wasn’t phased. “What does this mean?” she kept asking, holding the pendants in her fist.

Willow and Tara sat next to each other on the sofa. Both worried about Anya and both very aware of the other’s presence. “Maybe I could do a locator spell,” Tara suggested.

“Could you?” Buffy asked hopefully. “It might help.”

Tara nodded. She stood up and retrieved her backpack from the hall. She opened it and began pulling out jars and herbs. At Buffy’s raised eyebrows, Tara grinned. “Always come prepared,” she said with a short laugh. “I’ll need something of Anya’s,” she said.

Buffy held up the pendants. “Will one of these do?” she asked.

Tara furrowed her brow in thought. “If one of them is Anya’s, then who does the other one belong to?”

“Don’t know,” Buffy said. “But if they are in on this, then it might help to know where they are too.”

Tara nodded and took the amulets from Buffy’s extended hand. She arranged her items on the floor and took a deep breath. She began chanting softly.

“Should I call Xander?” Willow asked quietly.

“Not yet,” Buffy replied. “Not until we know what is going on.”

The air was tense, the only sound being that of Tara’s chanting. Abruptly, she stopped. “I think I found her,” she said. “But she isn’t alone.”

“Who is with her?” Dawn asked.

“Halfreck.” Tara replied.

“Halfreck?” Willow repeated. “Her demon friend?”

Tara nodded. “They aren’t here. In this world, I mean. They are trapped somewhere.”

“Where are they?” Buffy asked evenly.

“I’m not sure,” Tara replied. “But Halfreck doesn’t have any demon powers. She is human. Just like Anya.”

“How can we get to them?” Willow asked.

“I don’t know,” Tara said. “I’ll have to do some research.”

“I’ll help,” Willow said quickly.

“Me too,” Dawn chimed in. The three looked at her. “Hey, I can read, you know.”

“Okay, just do it fast,” Buffy said. “I don’t like this.” She moved into the kitchen, frustrated beyond conscious thought.

Tara stood up and followed Buffy as Willow went upstairs to retrieve her magick books. Dawn kept her eyes on the hallway as she crept to the other side of the room. She lifted up the pair of pendants and stuffed them into the pocket of her jeans before moving into the kitchen to join the others.



“Halle, what is going on?” Anya asked for the fiftieth time.

“Anya, Dear, I don’t know.”

“Who was that man?” Anya asked.

Halfreck took a deep breath. They had been walking for about an hour, searching their prison for some means of escape. So far they had found nothing. Neither of them seemed to possess the ability to teleport out and they were looking awfully…human. “I am not without my faults, Anyanka. Or drives. He and I sort of had a…thing going for awhile.”

“What?” Anya said, incredulously. “You?”

“Yes me. He wanted to take it further than I wanted it to go. You know men, always wanting to rush a girl to the altar-“ The look on Anya’s face made her stop. “Oh, right. The Xander thing. Sorry. Anyway, he didn’t want to take no for an answer, so I kind of turned him into a dwarf. Guess he didn’t think it was funny.”

“That still doesn’t explain why we are here,” Anya said.

“I don’t know why,” Halfreck stated. “I suppose this is his pathetic excuse at vengeance on a vengeance demon.”

“Doesn’t seem so pathetic to me,” Anya muttered. “So how do we get out of here?”

Halfreck frowned. “I don’t know.” She looked up at the sky. “It looks like rain,” she said. “We need to find some shelter.”

“Rain?” Anya said. “You’re worried about rain? We are stranded here, Halfreck! Don’t you think that your mind should be working somewhere in that area?”

“D’Hoffryn will find us,” Halfreck said.

“And what if he doesn’t know to look?” Anya said. “No one knows we’re gone.”

Halfreck began walking again. “We have to believe that, Anyanka. Because if he doesn’t look for us, who will?”



“I think I might have found something,” Dawn said excitedly. “Listen to this. ‘Dimensions: Alternate realities. Access can be gained through portals randomly placed on the earthen plane.’”

“We already knew that Dawn,” Buffy snapped, irritated after six hours of pacing.

“Buffy, no,” Willow said. “Wait a minute.” She turned to Tara. “Is there a way to locate a portal?”

Tara thought a moment. “There is, but it would be pointless,” she said. “Portals appear and disappear so quickly that by the time we got to one it would be gone.”

“Damn,” Buffy swore, slamming her hand down on the counter.

“But,” Tara continued, tactfully ignoring Buffy’s display of outrage. “There might be a way to draw a portal here. Well, not here, necessarily, but to some other convenient hidden place.”

“But how do we know which portal to draw?” Willow questioned.

“Let me research some more,” Tara said, her excitement building.

Buffy sighed. Yes, she was glad that they had a tentative plan, but she hated the waiting. Hated doing nothing. She looked at her friends and her little sister pouring over the array of books scattered over the kitchen table. Frustrated, she resumed pacing.


The rain pelted down on the two ex-demons as they tried in vain to shelter themselves under a palm tree. “This sucks,” Anya said flatly.

Halfreck nodded, her dark curls sticking to her face. She looked at Anya, feeling the familiar pang of guilt. It was her fault that they were there. She knew that she had to find a way out. She just didn’t know how. The rain wasn’t helping Anya’s mood any and she was snapping at any and everything. Hesitantly, Halfreck put her arm around her friend, trying to keep her warm. Anya smiled gratefully and leaned into the embrace. “I’ll get us out of this,” Halfreck said. “Somehow. In the meantime, why don’t we just think of it as a camping trip? Isn’t that what humans do in the wilderness?”

Anya thought about that. “I never understood that one,” she replied. “It seems like a pointless activity. I mean, why would someone want to give up the comforts of modern living to revert back to this? Seems to me like a major backslide in humanity.”

Halfreck nodded. “I agree. But still, the situation being as it is, we may as well make the most of it.”

Anya nodded. “You’re right, Halle. I’m sorry I was being such a brat. I mean, I came here willingly, didn’t I? Granted, I had no idea that this is where we would end up.”

The rain stopped as suddenly as it had started. Halfreck smiled. “There,” she said, as though she had stopped it herself. “At least that’s better.”

Anya shivered. “It’s going to be really cold come nightfall.”

Halfreck stood up and began shucking her clothes. “Well, I, for one, don’t want to be stuck with wet clothes when the sun goes down.”

Anya nodded and rose to her feet. “Me either,” she said, undressing. They walked back out to the beach and hung their soaking clothes on the trunk of a wayward palm tree.

Halfreck walked to the water’s edge and held her arms out, relishing in the feel of the warming sun on her bare skin.

Anya watched her with interest. While it had seemed to be the most natural thing in the world to strip off her soaking clothes for the purpose of drying them, the feeling she was getting now was anything but normal. Her eyes were glued to Halfreck’s body, framed by the glow of the afternoon sun. She had never seen her friend in the nude and it struck her just how pretty Halfreck really was. Even soaking wet.

Halfreck felt Anya’s eyes on her and turned. “You okay, sweetie?”
Anya lowered her gaze. “Sure,” she said. “I mean, aside from being stranded on an island in the middle of who knows where.”

Halfreck barely heard her. The sight of the woman standing before her demanded her full attention. What Slake said was true. She had been long since enamored by Anya. She may very well have stared the night away but for a low rumbling in her stomach.

Anya laughed. “Me too,” she said, feeling similar pangs of hunger. She looked around. “Let’s look some more,” she said. “Maybe we can find some berries or something.”



“Tara, look at this,” Willow said, passing a large book across the table. It was nearing sunset. They had been researching all afternoon.

Tara took the book and read where Willow had pointed as Buffy and Dawn watched her expectantly. “This is it,” she said excitedly. Her look of elation was quickly replaced by one of worry. “But there is one problem,” she said.

“What now?” Buffy asked.

“We can summon the portal-the right one-and I can do it very easily.”

“That doesn’t sound so hard,” Buffy said, leaning over Tara’s shoulder to read along.

“That’s the easy part,” Tara muttered. She continued. “But none of us can go through it.”

“What? Why not?” Dawn asked.

“Only someone close to Anya can go. Any others who try will be sucked someplace else. It doesn’t say where, but it suggests that it wouldn’t be pleasant.”

“Xander,” Buffy said flatly.

Buffy resumed her pacing. “So he has to be the one to go.” She concluded.

“Yes,” Tara said. “But he can’t go alone.”

“What do you mean?” Buffy asked.

“Halfreck and Anya having gone together would represent coming and going. If Anya was the reason that they are there, then Halfreck could be the one to get them back. Or vice versa. But being that they are human, for some reason then they don’t have the ability. Or the knowledge of it, most likely.”

“What does this have to do with the plan?” Buffy asked, eager for her to get to the point.

“Say Xander went. He would be the way in. There would be no way out.”

“I don’t get it,” Dawn said. “Why couldn’t he just go through, grab Anya and Halfreck, and just leave?”

“Because the portal will close,” the witch explained. “The second he goes through it. With this kind of spell, there is a clause. “It can only be opened once by one person.”

“But you would be opening it the first time, Tara,” Willow said.

“For Xander,” Tara said. “I don’t quite understand why, but that’s how it works.”

“So what you’re saying then is that two people have to go if we are going to get Anya back.” Tara nodded. “Well, who else can go?”

“There’s Spike,” Dawn whispered.

“Spike? No way,” Buffy said. “Forget it.”

“Well, wait Buffy,” Willow said. “Tara, is it possible that Spike could make it through?”

Tara glanced at Buffy. “Considering the recent events, I’d have to say yes.”

“This is crazy,” Buffy blurted. “There has to be another way.”

“There may be a different type of spell,” Tara said. “But I don’t know how long it would take to find or how long Anya and Halfreck have. We don’t know what got them there.”

Buffy flopped down into a chair. She knew Tara was right. They may not have much time. “Fine,” she said at last. “Just don’t expect me to like it.”


End o'chapter 2!