Jesse

a BTVS post-series AU

by Setcheti

 

 

Disclaimer: Don’t own them, not trying to - all fun and no money and all that jazz.

 

Author’s Note:  Not sure where this came from, it was just there one day and I had to write it down – which I did, pouring it out through the keyboard practically all at one go.  And once I finally finished it…well, it turned out to be disturbing and sort of dark, which is not the way I usually end a story.  But I still like it, in a disturbed sort of ‘oh crap this is demanding a fix-it sequel’ way, so here you go. 

 

He knew he’d been somewhere, and it wasn’t where he was now.  All he remembered was a wrenching feeling, almost like being yanked out of his skin, and then he was standing someplace cold that burned in front of a black-haired woman with unnaturally black eyes.  She looked familiar, at least a little bit, but he couldn’t even begin to figure out where he might be remembering her from – and considering how scary she was, he wasn’t sure he wanted to anyway.  He tried to take a step back, away from her, and hit something that felt like cold lightning and made him yelp.  He looked over his shoulder.  Nothing was there.

 

“I’ll let you out in a second,” the woman said.  Her voice was black like her eyes, and cold like the barrier he couldn’t see…but again, there was a worrisome hint of familiarity.  And it didn’t make him feel any better that she seemed to think it was funny the invisible thing had zapped him.  Was she the one who’d brought him here, to this cold place that hurt?  He tried to think where he’d been before that, and only got an impression of warmth and comfort and belonging.  A thought crystallized: this scary woman hadn’t brought him somewhere, she’d taken him from somewhere.  Somewhere nice.  Somewhere he was supposed to be, as opposed to wherever he was now.

 

He needed to get away from this woman.  He looked back again at the invisible barrier, squinting, hoping he’d be able to see something, anything that might help him.  There was no shimmer in the air, no green or blue or gold glow, nothing.  But on the floor…now that might be something.  He was standing in a star surrounded by a circle, and it looked like it had been drawn with chalk; if this was a comic book, he’d say that the circle was creating the barrier, making it out of magic.  He scuffed at one leg of the star with his tennis shoe.

 

And felt a slight buzz in the air, like the vibration of a bumblebee in a still room.  He scuffed again, harder, this time at the edge of the circle, ignoring the zap he got for touching the barrier.  A shoe-sized portion of the chalk line smudged out…and he stumbled forward when the barrier popped like an invisible balloon.  He heard the woman make a surprised noise, but he didn’t look back. There was a door right there, and he ran for it.

 

There was a yell and a sort of sizzling noise, and he instinctively ducked; something small and bright hit the door and disintegrated, leaving behind a scorch mark.  He looked back, and saw that the woman had another glowing ball in her hand, and she was aiming so that if he dove for the door, she’d hit him.  And she knew it too, and she was smiling in a way that made the hair stand up on the back of his neck.  This woman was evil, she’d taken him from where he was supposed to be, and now he was trapped.

 

Then he heard a noise, the sound of someone or something someplace on the other side of his blocked route to freedom, and he screamed for all he was worth.  “HELP!!!!”

 

The evil woman yelled something incoherently angry and threw the little ball, but it went wide and impacted the wall and then the door was slammed open and a bulky man-shape crashed through and took in the situation with a growl.  “What the fuck?!”

 

He took advantage of the distraction and, taking a chance that they weren’t working together, dove behind the man.  “She…I…therewasaforcefieldandshethrewfireballsatme!”

 

Amazingly, the man seemed to understand that.  He straightened, radiating anger.  “Willow, what…”

 

“He broke through the wards, I was trying to stop him from running away!”

 

“Uh huh.  By frying him to a crisp, I get that.” The man pushed at him a little, gently, making sure he was completely out of the evil woman’s line of fire.  “And just what were you doing with a teenage boy held prisoner in here anyway?  Or do I want to know?”

 

He heard an outraged gasp.  “I…you…it isn’t like that!  He was in the circle because I summoned him!”

 

The man snorted.  “He’s human, you don’t ‘summon’ humans...” and then there was a sudden, silence, as though the man had just seen something startling.  The man’s arm moved back again as though making sure he was still there, the worn leather brushing against itself and releasing a homey yet exotic scent compounded of blood and trees and wet earth, and a callused hand grasped his arm.  “Willow, what have you done?”

 

The evil woman’s name was apparently Willow and that teased his memory again, but the hand on his arm and the broad, leather-covered back that sheltered him were moving him backwards out of the room and he stopped wondering about the woman in favor of making sure he didn’t hinder his savior’s progress.

 

A new voice startled him, an older man’s British voice that sounded out of breath.  “What’s going on?  What…”

 

“Giles…”  The man in front of him sighed.  “Elbereth.”

 

He looked around, and saw an older man with glasses gasp and clutch at the front of his shirt.  “Gilthoniel!” he cried out, and there was a bright flash of light that startled the pretty blonde woman standing next to him.  In the room they’d just left, the evil Willow woman screamed – in rage, it sounded like.  The British man spoke again.  “Thanks goodness, it worked.  Is there anything we need to sort out before the coven gets here?”

 

“I think it’s too late for that,” his savior said, in a voice that was quiet and sad and furious all at once.  “She summoned this kid, Giles – she was throwing fireballs at him when I showed up, because he was trying to get away from her.”

 

“Shit,” the blonde woman swore.  Her pretty blue eyes narrowed.  “Are you sure this isn’t…”

 

“He’s all human,” the man interrupted her with finality.  “He was scared absolutely shitless and babbling at me, probably never even knew real magic existed until he saw Wicked Witch Willow in action just now.”  The hand on his arm squeezed a reassurance.  “What’s your name, kid?”

 

He opened his mouth…and then just let it hang open like a gasping fish when he realized that he couldn’t answer the question.  The British man frowned.  “I don’t think he knows, Xander.”

 

Xander?  That name seemed even more familiar.  “I…I don’t know.”  He swallowed, clutching at the blood-and-trees smelling coat sleeve like a little kid.  “Where…where am I?”

 

The British man smiled sympathetically.  “London.  Where were you before?”

 

Another fish moment, but only briefly.  “Someplace…it was warm and comfortable and I belonged there.  I don’t know what it was called.”

 

The blonde woman paled, raising a hand to her mouth.  The British man put a hand on her arm.  “Buffy?”

 

She shook her head; tears were starting in her blue eyes.  “I…Giles, that’s all I could remember about…about where I was before Willow…brought me back.”  She brushed off an attempt to pull her into a hug, took a step closer.  “Where you were,” she addressed him, her voice shaking.  “It…when you got here, it was cold and it hurt, didn’t it?  It hurt to be here?”

 

He nodded, relieved beyond measure; this woman knew something about it.  “Yeah, it did.  I don’t understand, you’re from where I’m from?  Do you know me?”

 

“No.  It’s not like that.”  She looked incredibly sad.  “But I’ve been…there, and I know what it feels like to get yanked back here.  We’ll help you, it…it’ll be okay.”

 

She didn’t sound like she really thought it would be, and that scared him.  “Can’t you send me back there?  I…I belonged there.”

 

The British man winced, and the Buffy-woman started to cry.  “You’ll go back there, eventually,” the woman choked out.  “But we can’t…we just can’t.”

 

He was about to demand more, needing to put answers into the sick empty spot that was growing inside his stomach, but a bright red flash and the appearance of three women in robes made him press himself into the blood-and-trees smelling coat in fear.  The man called Xander half turned around then and put a strong arm around him.  “It’s okay, those are the good guys,” he said softly.  “That’s Greta, Bella, and Betsy; they’re witches.  They’re gonna clean up the rest of Willow’s mess, and maybe they can help us figure out who you are.”

 

He nodded, not taking his eyes off the women who were now speaking quietly and intensely with the British man and the sad blonde.  “But she said I can’t…”

 

“No, not if Buffy’s right about where you’re from…” the arm tightened around him.  “You’re gonna be okay, I promise.  And someday you will go back, but it probably won’t be for a long time.  I’m sorry.”  The man turned a bit more and looked down at him then, and they both gasped.  He gasped because his savior only had one eye, but the leather-coated man looked like he’d seen a ghost.  “Oh my G…oh crap.  I should have known she’d try something like this.”  The damaged face looked away, back over to the British man and the blonde and the red women, and the man called Xander scowled.  “No more of this, no more chances,” he spat venomously, and the group froze.  “Either you make a permanent end to this or I will.”

 

“Xander…” the British man began, but the blonde woman cut him off.

 

“No, he’s right.”  She swiped at her eyes defiantly.  “This…Xander, you know him, don’t you?”

 

“Yeah.”  Xander looked back down, and tried for a smile.  “Your name’s Jesse.”

 

It was as though hearing his name unlocked something in his mind, and suddenly he knew he was Jesse.  He also knew he was fifteen, and that he lived in California not London…

 

…And that something was still very, very wrong, because Xander was his best friend and should have been fifteen too, and shorter, and have less muscle and a not-so-cool coat and two brown eyes instead of just one.  And Willow…

 

Strong arms pulled him into a hard hug, and in spite of the wrongness of it Jesse felt safe.  This too-old Xander had saved him, from Willow, who had also been their friend and who was now scary and evil.  It sounded like she’d yanked the blonde woman out of Heaven too…

 

That was where he’d been.  In Heaven.

 

He’d been dead.  He remembered, just a little, if he thought about it, he remembered being killed.  And then he’d been in Heaven and it was nice there and he belonged.  Jesse started to cry into the worn shirt his cheek was pressed against, turning his face so that the leather coat hid him because he knew guys as old as he was shouldn’t cry this way but now that he’d started he just couldn’t stop.

 

The hard hug gentled, gathering him into the comfort of a private little world that smelled like blood and dirt and trees, and a hand stroked his hair.  Xander’s hand.  Xander’s voice, his grown-man voice, rumbled a soft assurance that he was going to make things as right as he could.  And that made Jesse feel just a little bit better, because Xander hadn’t lied and said he was going to make everything all right, because there were just some things that couldn’t be made right by anyone and Jesse figured being yanked out of Heaven by your now-evil former second-best friend was one of them.

 

 

Xander looked up at Giles over the sobbing boy’s head, a murderous expression on his face.  “Well?  Has she done enough now, Giles?  Is this bad enough for you, or do you still need the magic around more?”

 

“We are stripping her powers, permanently,” the oldest of the three witches told him before the head of the International Watcher’s Council could stammer out a response.  She shook her head sadly.  “The boy…” 

 

“Is coming with me,” Xander said.  “As soon as I’m sure this is over, we’re leaving.”

 

Buffy bit her lip.  “But Xander, you don’t have a…I mean, you’re just wandering around Africa, right?  You can’t…you should stay here, with him.”

 

“I think that was Willow’s idea.  Wasn’t it, Willow?” 

 

Jesse peeked out of his hiding place, and saw a woman with red hair and green eyes that looked a lot more like the Willow he’d known leaning in the doorway.  Her face was white, and she had her arms wrapped around her middle like she felt really sick.  “I was just doing…”

 

“Whatever the hell you wanted, as usual,” Xander spat, and Jesse realized that he hadn’t even looked back at the doorway to see her there.  “Anything to get what you want, right?”

 

“I just want what’s best!”

 

“You just want what you want.  Well, no more.”  Xander did look back now, and his voice was so cold it might have frightened Jesse if the arms holding him hadn’t still been full of comfort.  “I’ll wait just long enough to make sure it’s over, and then Jesse and I are going home.”

 

“You don’t have a home.”  The look on her face frightened Jesse.  There was an expectation there, like a cat waiting to pounce on an unwary mouse.  “You just ‘wander around in Africa’, like Buffy said, right?  You can’t take Jesse to Africa to live like that, they won’t let you.”

 

Xander laughed, a deep, dark, unpleasant kind of laugh, and Jesse realized that whatever Willow had been trying to do, he’d seen through it.  “Greta,” he said to the oldest witch.  “I think you guys had better hurry, she’s stalling for some reason.”

 

The witch had an expression on her face that said she’d seen something too, something she hadn’t liked very much.  She gave the British man, Giles, a look that made his face pale, the sort of look Jesse remembered getting from his mother that meant they were going to have a very long and unpleasant talk later, and then she motioned her two fellow witches forward and they advanced on Willow.  “Little Tree, your playtime is over,” she said, and the power in her voice made Jesse shudder even though it didn’t frighten him.  He could tell it had frightened Willow, though, because the little bit of smugness she’d been showing disappeared.  “You have abused your power, the gift of our Mother, for the last time.  No more harm shall you cause.  Mother Goddess, we call on you to take back that which is not deserved.”

 

The other two witches had echoed the last phrase, and Willow yelled out an incoherent denial – or possibly a curse – before sliding down the doorframe and dissolving into tears.  Greta turned her head.  “All of you, go downstairs and wait for us in the kitchen.  No one is to leave.  We will come to you when we’re finished here.”

 

Xander immediately began moving Jesse out of the room, which Jesse suddenly realized wasn’t actually a room at all but rather a wide, roomish sort of spot in a hallway.  They went around a corner and down some narrow stairs, and emerged in a comfortably warm kitchen whose large center island was surrounded by tall wooden stools.  Xander sat Jesse down on one of the stools and then pulled up one right beside him for himself, which he sank onto a little bit more heavily than he probably meant to.  He saw Jesse’s worried look and smiled just a little.  “I’m tired, it’s been a long day,” he explained.  “It’s okay, though.  I’ll catch up on my sleep on the flight home.”

 

“Xander, you can’t take him to Africa,” Buffy scolded tiredly.  “Willow was right about that.  It’s not like you have a home or a family there or anything, and you can’t just drag him around the jungle with you.  You’re going to have to stay here and settle down.”

 

Xander ignored her.  “Giles, I’m going to need guardianship papers that say I’m Jesse’s only living relative,” he told the older man.  “Make his last name Harris and say I’m his uncle, that should do it.  He’ll need a birth certificate and everything too, and I’ll get another anti-malaria mojo bag from the girls before we leave but he’s still going to need the rest of his shots.”  He shot Jesse a wry grin.  “You won’t like getting them, but you’ll be glad you had them, trust me.”

 

Giles sighed.  “Xander, there’s no need to rush.  You can stay here…”

 

“No, I can’t.  I won’t.  Jesse and I will be flying out in the next couple of days,” Xander informed him, the grin disappearing.  A reassuring hand landed on Jesse’s shoulder.  “I’m going home, Giles, and that’s final.  My days of being kept here against my will for days and weeks on end because it’s what Willow wants are over, understand?  If you want to see me from now on, you’ll have to come to Africa.”

 

“And do what, Xander?  Track you down in the jungle and then pitch a tent?”  Buffy was getting angry now.  “How will we find you?  Where exactly are you going to be?” 

 

“I’ll be where you find me,” was the shrugged reply.  “And Jesse will be with me.”

 

“I haven’t heard you ask him if he wants to be with you,” she snapped back.  “He’s traumatized!  He needs…”

 

“I…I’m staying with Xander,” Jesse blurted out.  “I…I like camping.”

 

The hand on Jesse’s shoulder tightened slightly.  “You’ll like Africa,” Xander told him.  “And you’ll be safer there than you would be here.”

 

Buffy’s mouth fell open, and Giles shook his head.  “Xander…”

 

“Do you really want to debate that with  me?” Xander interrupted the older man sharply, and after a long moment Giles looked away.  “This isn’t up for discussion,” he told Buffy.  “Jesse and I aren’t staying here, and that’s final.  You don’t have to like it, but neither of you have the right to have any say in what I do or where I go ever again.”

 

“We can stop you from going, and from taking him,” came from Buffy, although there was hesitation in the words as though she wasn’t sure she should say them.  “You only get to go there because you work for the Council.  We don’t have to let you go back.”

 

“You don’t have to like it,” Xander repeated.  “I’m a naturalized citizen, it’s actually more legal for me to be in Africa than it is for me to be in England.  I can get home without your help or your approval, but I think the Council owes me and Jesse the ride back at least.”

 

“At least,” came a tired voice from the stairs, and Jesse jumped; one of the red-robed women was standing there with a crystal wand in her hand.  She came the rest of the way down into the kitchen, shooting Giles a disapproving look.  “It is finished,  Willow has been stripped of her powers, the magic is no longer hers to use or command; now it’s just for us to start cleaning up all the messes she made.”  She waved the wand in Jesse and Xander’s direction.  “Starting with this one.”

 

“This is Greta, the head of the Devon coven; she’s one of the good guys,” Xander reminded Jesse, although there was a note of worry in his voice that made the words seem more hopeful than certain.  “So what now, Greta?”  

 

“I need to verify something.”  The crystal wand twitched so it was pointing directly at Xander.  “May I…”

 

He shrugged and didn’t quite sigh.  “I can’t stop you.”

 

She sighed and shook her head.  “If you say no, I will stop.  But this is only for my own information – a sort of magical CAT scan, if you will.  I’m not actually casting anything on you.” She seemed relieved when Xander nodded his assent.  The crystal glowed softly from within, and Jesse felt the magic from it brush by him like a curious blind hand.  Xander just sat there, his face so very blank that Jesse knew he was doing it on purpose.  Then the magic withdrew and Greta got a pinched look on her face.  She swung the wand around and pointed it at Giles for just a second – without asking permission, Jesse noticed – and the pinched look got even tighter.  She lowered the wand, tucking it away in a pocket in her robe, and her expression smoothed out and became unreadable.  “Xander, if you ever were to have a family, what would happen if you told anyone about them?”

 

Xander’s blank expression didn’t so much as flicker, but Jesse could feel the relief course through his friend, see it shining in his remaining brown eye.  “If I ever were to have a family, and I told anyone about them…Willow’s curse would kill them,” Xander answered the witch with a shrug.  He ignored the gasp that came from Buffy.  “An…old man in…one of the villages I visited saw the curse and told me about it.  Only Willow can take it off, and it isn’t possible for me to ask her to do that, so the curse stays.”  He shrugged again.  “Most likely until the day I die.  I’ve learned to live with it.” 

 

“You should not…”  Greta stopped herself, shook her head.  “No, I won’t offer you platitudes. I am very, very sorry, Xander – sorry that our charge caused so much suffering before we stopped her, and sorry that no one with an interest in stopping her noticed sooner.  We can’t make amends for what has gone before, but…when we took Willow’s magic away from her, I took on the bindings of the magicks she was still tied to myself so that we could undo them.  I should be able to release you from the curse.”

 

Xander tensed.  “There wouldn’t…there wouldn’t be any way to tell whether the curse had really been removed or not,” he said carefully.  “There wouldn’t be any way to prove that it was gone.”

 

“Not unless you got a family and then told someone about it and waited around to see if they’d die,” Buffy said flippantly.  She winced, though, when he did.  “Oh, Xan, I’m…” 

 

He ignored the near-apology, his attention still fixed on Greta.  “Perhaps…” the witch ventured, choosing her words carefully.  “If you could find your…old man again, might he be able to tell you if the curse had been lifted?”

 

 “I could…try to find him again,” he replied just as carefully, with a hesitant nod.  “If I did, then yeah, I’m pretty sure he’d be able to tell.”  He straightened, and the hand on Jesse’s shoulder radiated hope.  “I’d like it if you’d try, please.  Could we do it now?”

 

“Yes.  And the coven and I will send you and the boy back to Africa afterwards so you don’t have to delay going.  Rupert can send the boy’s paperwork along to your regular mail drop…or to any other address you care to have it sent to.”

 

Xander seemed to consider that, shooting a measuring look at Giles, and then shook his head.  “The mail drop will do just fine.  But Jesse and I would certainly appreciate the mojo transport, thanks.”

 

She actually bowed, just a little.  “It is the least we can do.”  Then she locked eyes with Jesse, and in spite of himself he shrank back a little into Xander.  “If there were aught else we could do for you, no matter the cost, we would, child,” she said sadly.  “But I can promise you, Willow will never, so long as she lives, practice even the least bit of magic again.”  She smiled at him.  “And I also promise that you will be safe and well with this man as your protector.”  She waved a hand toward the stairs.  “After you, gentlemen.”  She returned her attention to the other two people in the room briefly before following.  “Both of you, stay right where you are.  I will be coming back.”     

 

 

After a time, what seemed like a long time, Greta came back.  “It’s done, and they’re gone,” she said.  Even her voice was tired.  “Betsy went with them just in case, and she’ll either come back in a few days on her own or call for a plane ticket.”

 

Giles just nodded, but Buffy still wasn’t happy.  “So we’re just going to let him drag that traumatized kid around Africa with him while he hunts down some old man in some village he probably barely remembers?” she demanded.  “I get why Xander needs to try to find the old guy, but he could have left Jesse here and then come back!  I understand he’s pissed at us right now, but if he wants to start a family he’s going to have to settle down someplace instead of just wandering around in the jungle like his life is an adventure movie or something…”

 

“He is settled.”  Greta sank down onto the stool Xander had vacated.  “Which is why he’ll find the shaman easily enough; they live in the same village,” she said, and didn’t quite snort at Buffy’s look of surprise.  “Were you not paying attention all this time, you foolish girl?  He has a home, in Africa, and a family of his own there as well.”

 

The head of the Watcher’s Council finally spoke.  “ That village shaman is his wife’s grandfather, if I’m not mistaken.”

 

“Giles, you…you knew?!”

 

“I knew…some things.”  Giles didn’t look up at her; he was slumped on his stool, speaking to the countertop in front of his clasped hands.  “But the Council and her mission was my first responsibility.  And we needed Willow.  So I…looked the other way in certain small matters.”

 

“Letting her curse Xander like that was small?!” Buffy shrieked, standing up so suddenly that her stool toppled over with a crash.  “Dammit, Giles, I’m not stupid!  Upstairs, when she was standing there in the doorway, she was totally baiting him, trying to get him to slip and say something so the curse would kill his family, wasn’t she?  And you just stood there.  And when he realized who Jesse was, when he asked you if it was enough…”  Her hands clenched on the island’s thick edge, and the wood groaned.  Tears were starting to stream down her face, and her voice dropped to nearly a whisper.  “You knew.  You had to have known about…so many things, not just one or two little things, for him to say that.  And you just stood there, and if the coven hadn’t taken over you totally would have let it go on, wouldn’t you?  Even after all that, even after she’d just yanked some innocent kid out of Heaven…”  She let go of the island’s countertop when the wood cracked, wrapping her arms around herself, suddenly looking very young.  “I can’t believe you…I can’t believe you would do that.”

 

Something twisted in the older man’s expression, something hard and hurt.  “We needed Willow,” he said, very softly.  “I thought…it was not my intention to allow her to torture Xander, you must believe that.  But it started out as such a small thing; she simply wanted him to remain nearby.  And then when his complaints became more frequent, protesting her interference with him in so many little ways, I…I spoke to her, once or twice, but she assured me that the boy simply didn’t know what was best for him, that he was being stubborn, that he was being ‘whiny’.”  He sighed.  “I finally realized that she’d been…well, I knew something more was wrong the last time she delayed his going back.  His reaction was much more extreme than the other times, he became so frantic, so angry, but the only complaint he made was that he was tired of rearranging his travel plans and having to find new guides all because Willow was a spoiled brat who thought she owned him.”

 

“He was missing the birth of his second child,” Greta said in a flat, dry tone that suggested she thought Giles already knew it.  “And he couldn’t very well have explained the problem to you – or to anyone else – without causing three deaths.  Four, if you count his own.”  She met the surprised man’s pale eyes with a flinty look and a cold little smile.  “We found the other curse when we took the first one off, and he admitted to having his father-in-law put it on him.  If he’d slipped, if Willow had managed to goad or trick him into triggering her curse, he’d have died at the same instant his family did.”

 

Buffy went from white to greenish-gray and bolted from the kitchen.  Giles stayed where he was, looking resigned.  “So what happens now?”

 

Greta shrugged.  “To the Slayer?  I don’t know her well enough to answer that.  If you’re asking about Willow, I’d say lots and lots of psychoanalysis until she’s sane again and understands why what she did was wrong – which she doesn’t, right now.  Or if you were asking what should happen to you…well, Rupert, the only thing I can say is that I doubt it would be what I would like to have happen to you, or what you deserve for what you’ve done.”

 

His head came up.  “I didn’t do anything.”

 

“Exactly,”  was the crisp response.  Giles looked away again, and the witch shook her head and stood up with a sigh.  “I can’t help you.  I won’t offer you absolution, even just by punishing you for your sins.  And they are sins, Rupert,” she said, moving back toward the stairs and starting back up them.  “Best start figuring out how to atone for them now.  You aren’t getting any younger, you know.”

 

Rupert Giles sat on his own at the kitchen island for what seemed like a long time.  Then he stood up with a show of effort suited to a much older man, gave the Slayer-damaged countertop a cursory glance to see if it needed replacing, and then strode out of the kitchen to go to his office.  He was the director of a multinational organization, and he had work to do.  Sins and the possible atonement for such would have to await his consideration until another time.  Especially as he was not sure Greta had been at all correct in her condemnation of him.  And he believed that once Buffy had calmed down she would certainly understand.

 

Because she of all people had learned, over the years, that the disruption of one life, or even the lives of one family, mattered very little when weighed against the salvation of an entire village, a town…or the world.  It had been a very little evil allowed in exchange for so much good being accomplished, and in the end Rupert felt that his soul’s books would turn out to be balanced quite well.

 

Standing invisibly on the stairs, crystal wand glowing, Greta wiped a tear from her cheek.  The Council truly had been reborn.