[Milliways: Telling Erin about the Bar]

“A tav.”

I’m sitting in Erin’s front room, at one end of the couch, while she sits at the other. She’s made me cocoa, and it’s good stuff, but it’s nothing on Milliways cocoa.

“Yeah, a tav. At the end of the Universe.”

Yeah, she doesn’t believe me. I didn’t really expect her to believe me, but we’re doing this whole honesty thing now, so I had to tell her.

“With other Slayers. From history.”

I don’t blame her of course; it sounds skitz, even to me.

“S’right. Faith and Buffy.”

Faith had been exactly how I imagined her. I sort of miss her, really. Mike and Raph and Tim and Ace, too.

“And you spent how long there?”

Buff had been right. Time didn’t pass out here at all. I was pulled right back into the fight I’d been thrown out of. Except the three lurks had been fighting me for about half an hour, and I’d just had breakfast and a swim in the lake, so of course I dusted them.

“A month, more or less.”

This is a good thing. Means that Harth and the other lurks weren’t kicking up all kinds of hell while I was gone. But it’s also kind of like my time there didn’t really happen.

“How did you get there?”

Not that I did much, of course. I helped on a building site, I joined a security team. I went to a party. Compared to my real life, it was dull. Kind of relaxing, though

“Dunno. Just kinda fell into it.”

Nothing else changed. I didn’t bring back any fancy new scars, no shiny new toys, nothing.

“Is it likely to happen again, do you think?”

Except maybe for a tendency to slip into twentieth century slang, I may well have never been.

“Not a clue.”

I don’t even know if I want it to happen again.