Chapter 1

Home is Where the Heart is

A/N: First chapter of the Scorched Earth series. Placed fourteen years after the end of the story titled 'A Man's Worth', and it is a continuation of said storyline. Read it beforehand or this story won't make much sense. I respect what happened in the seventh and final season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, as well as the fifth and final season of Angel The Series, and I try to fill the gaps left by Spike's absence.

Disclaimer: Property of Joss Whedon and all parties responsible for airing the shows. Other original characters are mine, and some others will be explained as the story goes on.

Feedback: Sure, if you wish.

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London, England

November 2017

Buffy Anne Summers hated Thursdays.

For the past thirteen years of her life, she'd lived in London, England, one of the biggest cities in the whole world. She had changed little from the twenty two year old woman who'd seen her hometown cave in under a mysterious power. She remained as beautiful as ever, her slayer healing keeping her looking like a woman in her late twenties, even though she was already a thirty six year old married woman and mother of one.

She'd stopped dyeing her hair, changing from her usual dirty blonde to a neutral brunette, and had gained a few pounds, leaving behind her slender figure and gaining a more filled look. She smiled, knowing her extra pounds attracted more looks than her more delicate appearance.

Buffy sighed, still having trouble with the way most Englishmen drove. It had only taken a few scares and some unwanted tickets but she'd quickly gotten used to driving on the wrong lane, but sometimes she just felt it was too much trouble and took the tube.

Thursday usually meant she had to forego the whole subway experience and drive. Turning left, the large building she was headed to loomed large in the horizon. In her long years as a slayer, she'd felt this sense of dread in very few times. Mostly, when new and seemingly unbeatable foes appeared, or when ancient slayers predicted her death, or when hellgods appeared on her hometown, making her spidey sense tingle all over.

But never, never before had it tingled as it usually did on most Thursdays for the past two years.

Thursdays meant Joyce Anne Summers, her fourteen-year-old daughter, had already grown bored with school and had gotten herself in trouble. Whenever the phone rang at her office on Thursdays at ten thirty two a.m., it usually was her teacher, Mrs. Wormwood, asking Buffy to come pick her already detained daughter.

Buffy tightly gripped the steering wheel of her smart car, or her 'bloody small box with wheels' as Rupert Giles referred to it, almost to the point of bending it. She took three deep breaths and parked the car some hundred feet away from the main entrance. As she locked her car, she looked up at the enormous structure, built hundreds of years ago, and sighed again as she read the large sign above her head.

Westminster School.

More accurately, The Royal College of St. Peter at Westminster, obviously located in Westminster, Central London.

Buffy kept looking at the sign, realizing she couldn't remember when she'd been fourteen. It had been two years before S day, and she'd been carefree and all airhead.

'So much like Cordy.' She thought, remembering she hadn't been at the Pantheon in over a month. Sighing again, she remembered all their fallen comrades. Closing her eyes, she tried to think of something else entirely different from what lay ahead regarding her meeting with Mrs. Wormwood, and pictured their private holy ground.

Someone next to her coughed, bringing Buffy back to reality, but she still kept her eyes closed. She already knew who had coughed next to her, having felt the presence almost two minutes ago.

Buffy took another three deep breaths, just to be sure, and opened her eyes. She was instantly greeted by a pair of big, bright blue eyes; a soft, round and almost pale face, framed by natural dirty blond locks, and a big smile that both infuriated and calmed her.

Buffy narrowed her eyes and the smile on the young face disappeared.

'There. I still have it.' Buffy thought. The young girl crossed her arms, and Buffy knew it was going to be just like every other time.

"All right." She said. "What happened this time?"

Joyce Anne Summers smiled again.

"I know this is going to sound sooo lame, but..."

Buffy sighed again. She really hated Thursdays.

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London, England

The Watcher's Council

November 2017

"Good morning, Mr. Summers."

Angel nodded his greeting and walked straight into his office, trying to ignore the dirty looks his secretary sent his way. He slowly locked the door and walked to the window. He sled it open and breathed in the morning air. Angel sighed as he tried to identify at least three different scents but failed. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply again.

Nothing.

He could only identify the exhaust fumes of speeding cars nearby and the unmistakable greasy smell of the Fish & Chips stand directly beneath his office, four floors beneath. Angel shook his head and closed the window. He plopped on his chair and turned on the AC as he stared at his office.

He remembered the luxurious office he'd once possessed, while still head of Wolfram & Hart.

'Those sure where the days.' He thought. He'd had power and respect. He'd had unlimited resources at his disposal, and he hadn't been afraid to use them. He'd been the big boss.

Number 1.

He didn't regret what he'd done. He had to do it. The reign of blood of W & H had to be destroyed. Their hold on earth had to be severed. He'd almost lost his soul and his humanity in the process, but it had been worth it. It had to be done, and he was the vampire to do it.

'Not a vampire.' He thought. 'A man.'

Still, he'd been the king of his domain, and even if one was king for a day, the memory of power remained.

In the Watcher's Council, he was only Mr. Summers, the husband of the great Buffy Summers, an agent of the good guys; a watcher in a building full of watchers.

Something inside of him cringed, not knowing how in hell he'd taken this offer.

It had been Buffy, of course. Everything was about her.

Angel's mind cried in outrage. He was whipped, and he didn't have the slightest idea of how that made him feel. More accurately, he didn't know how to feel about it.

He placed his hands on top of his eyes, not wanting to see his small, ugly office. His hands on his skin felt so hot he felt the need to lower the temperature of the AC a few more degrees.

He still couldn't get used to how warm his body was. Over two hundred years of being room temperature, his body now felt like a burning coal.

His core temperature was a topic he'd never share with his wife, fearing how she might react to his discomfort.

His telephone rang, startling him out of his thoughts. He slowly picked it up.

"Yeah?"

"Two hundred term papers on your desk to grade, Mr. Summers." His secretary spoke. "One class at sixteen hundred, and Mr. Giles would like to see you immediately."

The line went dead before he had a chance to answer. He dropped the telephone, not caring whether it was properly placed and sighed loudly.

He ran his hands through his hair, which was beginning to get gray on the temples.

'Oh yeah.' He thought. 'The perks of being an ex vampire in a building where everybody hates vampires.'

And the fact he was an Irishman working and living in Britain didn't elude his brain.

The irony.

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The not so newly reformed Watcher's Council had already turned ten years old.

A new building had risen from the ashes of the old one, built as a tower in the ground where the old building had resided. After the First Evil had caused it to explode, Rupert Giles had taken it as a personal challenge to form a new Council, different from the previous one.

Only a few watchers had survived, and they'd pledged their lives to the new cause.

The new building stood five stories high, and three levels under street level, under the disguise of Jenkins-Giles enterprises. Such business offered a public library on its ground level, as well as a bookstore on the second level of the building. A small shop, named the Magic Box stood on ground zero, as homage for the small store that bore the same name in the now extinct Sunnydale.

The ruins of the old building had been removed from around the small magic shop and rebuilt as a park, private property of the Council's new façade, wanting to keep it as sacred ground and a training ground away from public eyes. The coven of witches working side by side with the Council had ensured it was indeed sacred ground, off limits from most humans and all demons.

Such sacred ground was home for the most private side of the Council.

The Pantheon.

A secret garden mystically hidden amidst the garden surrounding the Magic Box, meant to honor their fallen as their final resting place.

Small at first, it had grown in size as heroes fell and found their final home in its ground.

In the middle of the beautiful garden, rose a small fountain, a majestic warrior angel keeping vigil above it all.

Rupert Giles stood tall, staring at the angel.

He felt older than ever before, and knew one day he'd take his place among his fallen friends. Not an old man by any standard, he felt the weight of his fifty-five years weighing on him. Physically, he looked the same; save for the more pronounced loss of hair and his walking cane, he still was the same man who'd left the United States, fourteen years ago.

But the pressure of reconstruction and management had taken its toll, as well as his unchecked affair with dark magic ages ago were beginning to show their consequences.

Giles took a long breath, remembering each and every hero and slayer buried at his feet.

He remembered the first graves opened in their sacred ground, Joyce Summers being the first. Even though they'd all known she'd been lost when Sunnydale caved in, a second memorial service was held in honor of the mother of the leader of all slayers. A plaque reading her name rested under the angel's shadow. Next to Joyce, another plaque peacefully marked the resting place of another hero. Tara, the shy but strong witch, the source of Willow's strength, had a small sculpture of mother earth above her plaque.

Next to them, a single eternal flame, marking Anya's fierce spirit, another warrior whose body couldn't be recovered.

In front of them all, stood another statue, facing the warrior angel. A beautiful angel made of marble held her arms open, encompassing the other tombstones with her shadow. No inscription marked the statue, but everyone knew whom it belonged to.

To the one they were certain had become an angel.

Giles smiled. He still couldn't picture Cordelia Chase as an angel.

Flanking the statue, four white columns rose, each engraved with a different name.

Doyle.

Charles Gunn.

Winifred 'Fred' Burkle.

Giles looked away from the last column. Broken for the past years, he knew whose name it once bored and why it lay shattered on the ground. Something on the floor caught his eye and he slowly knelt to take a closer look. Beneath Fred's column, a single rose stood on the grass. He took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Wanted to see me?"

The voice startled Giles, but he didn't turn around. Angel stood right behind him, looking at Cordelia's angel.

"Your cell's not turned on." Giles slowly said, as he placed his glasses back on. Angel chuckled and took his cell form one of his pant's pockets.

"Oops." Angel said. "Been trying to reach me for a long time?"

Giles slowly stood up. Angel didn't even bother to try to help him, knowing Rupert Giles would never like him.

"Turn it on." Giles said.

"Already on, sorry." Angel replied. It wasn't long until Angel's cell began beeping. The former vampire frowned and looked at his cell.

"Looks like I have some messages." He muttered and quickly read the text messages. Giles watched how Angel's face quickly turned into a frown, and then into a grimace.

"Oh shit." Angel said. Giles took a sick satisfaction upon noticing his companion's reaction.

"Buffy's been trying to find you all morning." Giles said. "Something happened at Annie's school."

"Dammit." Angel frowned again. "Must be Thursday. Buffy's going to kill me." He turned around and ran away, leaving a silent Giles behind.

'If only, Angelus. If only.' Giles thought, before kneeling again to pray.

A/N 2: Mrs. Wormwood, Annie's teacher, is named after Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes, as she is Calvin's grade school teacher.

Don't want to influence your imagination, but for those of you wondering what Annie looks like, I picture her in my mind resembling Canadian singer Avril Lavigne, only a foot or so taller.