This chapter follows Willow's family as they continue dealing with the apocalyptic circumstances they find themselves in. Willow discovers her mother is showing signs of premature senility. Xander moves out of the family home into a new house with his fiancée Marisa. Unfortunately, Buffy dies after being scared by ghosts while making lobster thermidor. Willow develops a crush on Meredith. The family continues adapting to constant changes and deaths.

1. A Buffyverse Apocalypse: Chapter Five
By RoseFyre
As always, I suggest you read previous chapters before reading this one, and that you please excuse the walls-down
pictures.
---
I still don't own Joss Whedon or any of the characters from Buffy/Angel.

2. After Rupert and Will became children, the family decided to host their weekly Tuesday gathering.

3. As always, the ghosts were out in force. Eloise hit Fred,

4. Rupert,

5. Willow,

6. Xander,

7. and Anya.
"Ghosts rock!"
I shook my head at her. "You're the only one who thinks so, dear."
"Well, everyone else is crazy."
At least Eloise only hit each of them once or twice, which meant that nobody died, and nobody was taken by the
Social Worker.

8. When she went upstairs to escape her grandmother, Willow found her mother washing her hands. "Congratulations
on your A plus, Willow!"
"Um, Mom, you know that I'm not actually in school at the moment, don't you?"
"What?"
"No school for teens. Remember, you didn't go to school when you were a teen?"
"Right, of course."
Willow's eyebrows lowered. "You're not going prematurely senile, are you?"
"No."
"Right."

9. At the end of the night, when Eloise had retreated back into her urn, Anya cooked some pancakes. She wanted to get
some cooking skill points, and actual practice was the only way she could.
Willow tasted the pancakes and immediately spit out a bite. "These are burned."
"You don't like them?" Anya opened her eyes wide.
Willow rolled hers. "You are way too good at manipulating me, sis. I'll eat them, but you can do better."
"I'll just have to keep practicing, then."

10. Later that Wednesday, Buffy became an Elder.
"Didn't realize my back would hurt so much."
As the day turned into night, she went downstairs for some food.

11. And promptly got scared by her sister.
"You put a dart through my head, Cordy! This hurts!"

12. She managed to make it to the fridge and started some lobster thermidor.

13. Which she unfortunately never got to eat.
"Yet another one, I see."
"Oh, shut up, Grim."
---
I can't say I was happy about Buffy's death, but I can say that I was less upset about her dying than I would have
been had it been one of her children. As an Elder, I can't control her at all, and so when she gets hungry, she goes
downstairs, and...
Well, you see what happened.

14. Leaving the lobster thermidor in the oven, however, caused the oven to burst out in flames.
Before her body was even cold, Xander found himself having to rescue himself - and the rest of the family - from the
fire.
Though he was able to put the flames out, his aunt's death made Xander determined to leave the house as soon as
he could. As he would not be able to lift a career restriction, he did not need to stay in the house once he was able to
move out.

15. "I miss Mom."
"I know, Will."
However, despite the family's mourning of Buffy, life went on.

16. "So, life is twisty and turny, kinda like chess." "You won't?"
"Huh?" "Nope. But I get to get bigger. You don't."
"And we have to find our way through, and maybe "Oh. I don't wanna die, though."
sacrifice some people, but we're gonna beat this thing."
"I don't either, not really, but it's part of life, you know?"
"I don't get it."
"Um, sort of?"
Rupert sighed. "That's cause your family doesn't haveta
beat this Apocalypse, and you're gonna live forever.” Rupert rolled his eyes at Sharla. "Whatever. Oh, and
checkmate."

17. Willow found herself with a crush on Meredith, who had walked by one evening and struck up a conversation.

18. And Xander, finally, became an adult.

19. He grew up into a truly horrible outfit, but he decided to go out to the Los Angeles Community Center anyway.

20. And, while there, he met the woman of his dreams, Marisa Bendett.

21. She found she liked him as well, but that she had absolutely no interest in moving in with him while he still lived at
his family's house.

22. Martin walked around absent-mindedly, and no one was certain how much he really understood about what was
happening. Still, he tucked in his children every night, and he never missed a day of work, though he often seemed
reluctant to go.

23. He also started drinking a lot of coffee.
"Why so much coffee?" I asked curiously.
"Sleeping gives me nightmares."
"Of what?"
"Cordy dying. And Buffy."
"Oh."
"I'm next, I guess."
I wanted to reassure him, but I couldn't. He was right. Chances were, Martin would be the next to die.

24. "So, why our family?" Will asked one morning over omelets.
"No one's really certain," Anya began, but she was quickly interrupted.
"Well, the world's in a state of chaos, and we have the power to make it better, because we're the only ones who
grow older." Willow looked at her siblings, who were staring at her like she was crazy. "What?"
Xander turned to his youngest brother. "I remember Liam - Uncle Liam - being angry about it. He said that Grandma
told him it was our family's fate, and he thought the whole thing was stupid. I don't know much more than that, but
when Grandpa was younger, the world wasn't like this. Then he finished college, and it changed, and he had the fate
of changing it back." He turned to Willow. "We don't have to fix it because we grow older. We grow older because
we're the only ones who can fix it."
"Oh." Will took a bite of his omelet. "Huh."

25. Soon, Fred became a teen. "So, what do you want?”
"I want to be friends with Justin. And best friends with Rupert. And to meet someone new."
"Popularity?"
"Yup. Like Mom. I picked it for her, really."
"And what do you ultimately want in life?"
"To graduate three kids from college."
"Did you know that's what your Aunt Cordelia wanted as well?"
"Huh. Cool."

26. "So, why are you standing in the nursery with a can of juice?"
"Have you looked around the rest of the house?"
"Um, no."

27. "Well, Uncle Liam's out tonight."

28. "And so is Grandma."
"Ah. Avoiding the first floor?"
"Yup. This fills me up well enough, and I won't get scared eight billion times. Except to cheer for the beds, they
mostly stay downstairs, and cheering for the beds doesn't take very long. Never understood the point of that,
actually."
"I don't either, to be honest."

29. "Fred, this is not fun!"
"Ha, I'm big enough to do this to you now!"
"And I'm going to do it back as soon as you let me go, Winifred Burkle Whedon!"
Ah, my mean sims. So sweet.

30. "You know, I kind of get why Mom loved animals so much."
"Oh?"
"Kim's kind of cuddly."
Unfortunately, though they became closer friends, Kim left before Willow could invite her to move in.

31. Soon it was Tuesday, and Xander found that the computer was once again usable. He applied for a new house and
found that his application was accepted.

32. He made his way to a taxi with about $25,000, two broken sinks and a cell phone in his inventory, and the clothes on
his back.

33. He wasn't able to afford much - a cheap fridge, a dartboard, one counter, one chair, a phone (which is behind the
stairs),

34. a bed, and one toilet. However, the bathrooms had walls, everything was under a roof, and it was his. He'd just need
to get a job to afford everything else, and he knew Marisa had some money.

35. He promptly invited her over and asked her to move in.
"Ignore me. I'm not standing here waiting to be greeted. Not at all."

36. With a couple of interactions, first Marisa,

37. then Xander, fell in love.

38. And he therefore took the next step, proposing to Marisa right in front of his - their - new house.

39. She said yes, since he no longer lived with his family. While she liked them, she had no interest in living in that crazy
house, where everything was shared.
"Ooh, shiny."
---
Marisa is a Gemini Fortune Sim. She brought in $8000, a fridge, and a cell phone. It was the emptiest Inventory I'd
ever seen, but we were able to add a few more furnishings to the house.

40. As soon as they were settled in, they found themselves back at Xander's family's home for the weekly Tuesday
gathering.

41. That afternoon, Willow invited Meredith over, and successfully got her first kiss.

42. She also made friends with Kobe, a friendly neighborhood cat,

43. and convinced her to move in.
Unlike Sake, she was able to eat from the (new) pet food bowl, and she already had most of her skills.

44. In fact, she even knew how to use the toilet.
Willow was able to get her a job in Showbiz almost immediately, which she would start the next day.

45. Unfortunately, she also had a penchant for scratching, and managed to destroy the double bed.
Luckily, the family could afford a new one, but the ghosts wouldn't recognize it as their bed.
---
Some of you boolprop people may remember me asking about how ghosts reacted when their bed was destroyed:
here you can see the reason why.
In fact, Joss, Eloise, Cordy, and Buffy all see this as their bed. Liam generally slept in the bed in the corner of the
third floor bedroom, so he views that one as his.

46. That night, Rupert

47. and Will became teenagers.
Both boys became Pleasure Sims, with, er, slightly odd lifetime wants. Rupert wants to become a Mad Scientist, and
Will wants to be Mayor.

48. Buffy also showed up for the first time, and promptly complained that her bed had been destroyed.
And everyone else immediately vacated the first floor.

49. Martin was not quick enough, however, and found that Liam was in a scary mood.
---
Martin rolled up the fear of seeing a ghost. Liam scared him. Martin rolled up the fear. Liam scared him. Martin rolled
up the fear. Liam scared him...again.

50. The shrink helped him to begin functioning, but he was still quite depressed.
However, when the whole family trouped over to Xander's new house, he came along.
---
Lucky for me, Liam didn't kill him, as his motives were pretty much maxed (at least, the important ones were) when
he got scared. A grave in that spot would have been horrible.

51. In order to witness his eldest child's wedding.

52. Well, he didn't really see the wedding. Instead, he played with his flour baby. But he was there, and he got the
memory.
---
As I've said earlier, Martin wants to marry off six children. He will probably not live to see all of his children get
married, and two of them probably won't get married anyway. However, he got to see Xander's wedding.

53. Xander and Marisa retired to bed, completely exhausted.
"No woohoo?"
"Oh. Hi, Rose. Xander warned me about you. No, no woohoo. We're both too exhausted, from the wedding and the family and getting
jobs."
"Oh?"
"We had to while the computer was still up. Xander's in Politics, and I'm in Business."
"Is that what you want to do?"
"No, I'd like to be a Space Pirate. But there were no jobs available in Adventurer, and Business pays well.”
“True.”

54. The next few days were pretty quiet. With five teens and one elder in the house, there really wasn't much anyone
could do.
"Mine."
"Huh?"
"Willow is Mine."
"Ah."

55. "So, what do you think of video games?"
"No clue, but the pinball machine's nice. More fun than this, anyway."
"What do you mean?"
"This is for you serious types. I like more fun things."
Rupert shook his head. "You are weird, Will. Playful and sloppy."
"Hey, I can't help it if I'm not a neat freak like the rest of you weirdos."
Rupert shrugged. "At least we can keep this place clean."
"Have fun with that."

56. Fred went down to recycle the paper, and found herself with a crush on Derek.
Derek also had a crush on her, which was good for his safety. Fred isn't exactly the nicest sim on The Hellmouth.

57. Kim stopped by the house again, and this time, Willow was able to get close enough to her to get her to move in.
Luckily, there was the pet house out by the driveway, and a pet bed in the nursery, so there were places for both cats
to sleep. The family bought and filled another pet food bowl, and added a couple of toy mice.
A third cat, however, was out of the question, at least for a while.
---
I'd really like to lift Pet Showbiz and Service, but Security can wait. The fact that beds and couches have to have
energy of 3 or lower? Really not a big deal.

58. Kim tended to think the entire house belonged to her.
"Of course it does."

59. And she wasn't always very nice to the urns.
Luckily, she never actually destroyed any of them, though she had an odd tendency to go to the bathroom on top of
Cordy's urn.

60. And, in fact, Kim and Kobe didn't always get along very well.
"Willow is Mine," Kobe hissed. "And so is that food bowl."
"Too bad," Kim answered, not moving her head from the bowl at all. "I'm here now, and they're both Mine."
Both cats hissed at each other, then Kobe went upstairs to claim the good bed before Kim got there.
They never got into a full-blown fight, at least.

61. One night, Joss showed up for the first time in a long while.
"So this is the man both of my daughters married."
"Buffy didn't actually marry him, Joss."
"Woohooed, then. Hmph. Don't think much of him."

62. Luckily, Martin escaped Joss's attention with his life intact.
Unfortunately, I can't say the same for his sanity.

63. "Why are you both leaving the chessboard so quickly?"
"Uncle Liam's out haunting again," Rupert answered.
"And while he's gone up to cheer for his bed at the moment," Anya cut in.
"He'll probably come down here again soon," Rupert finished.
"I thought you liked being scared, Anya?"
"Low motives. And I don't have the want at the moment. I'll go get a juice from the nursery fridge instead."
"And I don't like being scared at all, thanks."

64. "You too?"
"Avoiding Uncle Liam? Definitely."

65. Instead of going upstairs, Will went down and greeted Zach, a neighborhood teen. He tentatively flirted with him, and
realized just how hot Zach was.

66. "Dance?"
"Sure." They danced for a couple of minutes, then Zach spoke. "I'm not ready to take this really fast, Will."
While Will was a bit disappointed, he tried not to show it. "Oh. Okay."
Zach pulled himself away. "I'll see you on Tuesday?"
Will smiled at him, relieved that Zach seemed to want a relationship, even if he didn't want it immediately. "See you
Tuesday."

67. When Liam had returned to his urn, Will went back upstairs and made some cereal for himself and Fred.
"What's the ten thousand aspiration points for?" I asked, not even certain which sim they belonged to.
"Five best friends!" Fred said cheerfully. Will shoved some more cereal into his mouth. "Now I want ten."

68. The morning after their wedding, Marisa began her first day of work. Xander had a day off, so he finished decorating
the house (as much as he could with the money Marisa had brought in) and repaired both sinks.
That evening, they relaxed in bed.
"So, um, I'm guessing you don't want a pet."
Marisa rolled her eyes. "Xander. Shut up."

69. Then she pulled him into the bed and introduced him to the pleasures of woohoo.
Both of them enjoyed it so much that they did it again right after they woke up.

70. And the day after that, Marisa found out that she was pregnant.

71. "Driving yourself to work?"
"They don't send carpools for pregnant women! I'm NOT going to lose my job."

72. After work, Marisa was completely exhausted. However, she found a new invention on the roof when she got home,
and since she was in an excellent mood (having been promoted to a Field Sales Manager), she was able to use it.
"Wow, this thing is great!"
"I'm limiting your usage. You could get addicted."
"But,"
"You can use it when you're pregnant, but not at other times."
"Fine."

73. The next morning, Marisa popped into her third trimester. "God, I hope I'm not having twins."
"Oh?"
"We were able to afford one crib. I'm not sure what we would do if we needed a second."
"Ah."

74. That evening, Xander pulled his wife aside for a talk. "Um, honey, I got demoted."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, I edited this bulletin thing when I was supposed to just grammar-check it."
"Ouch."
"The thing is, I got sent home, and I was all ready to go back in for my new job, even if it was a level down."

75. "I'm guessing something happened?"
"They wouldn't send a carpool for me."
"And?"
"And you had the car."
"Oh."
"So they said if I couldn't make it in to work, I was fired."
Marisa paused for a moment. "Oh."

76. "I looked at the paper afterwards, I thought maybe I would get another job."
"But I'm guessing you didn't?"
"No. There wasn't anything worth it, and you're pretty pregnant. And if one of us doesn't stay home with the baby, the Social Worker will
come and take it away."
”Well, I'm not quitting my job."
"I wouldn't ask you to. I thought maybe you could keep working, like you want to, and I'd stay home with the baby."
"You don't mind not working?" The thought was clearly foreign to Marisa, but then again, she was a Fortune Sim.
"Nope. Besides, I like kids. I took care of my siblings a lot when they were little."
"Then that's what we'll do."

77. It was good that they had made the decision so quickly, because Marisa went into labor the next morning.

78. And gave birth to a baby girl, who they named Dawn Summers Whedon.

79. Marisa passed their daughter to her husband and went off to work.

80. "I guess it's just you and me, kiddo," Xander said to his daughter as he lifted her over his head. "You've got my eyes,
but your mommy's hair. I bet you'll be a cutie when you grow up."
Dawn just gurgled and waved her chubby fists.

81. All that day, Xander kept a careful watch over his daughter, even meditating by her crib to make sure he would be
ready and able to meet all her needs.

82. And when Marisa returned, it was with another promotion.
"Still not my ideal job, but it'll do for now."

83. On Monday morning, Fred got a call from Xander, and spoke to him for a while. It was great that he'd been able to
get a line out, since she was having trouble with that, which was incredibly frustrating for a Popularity Sim.
Besides, Xander was still her favorite sibling. As the only other sibling without a twin, she often felt that he
understood her more than the others did. He'd confided in her once that he felt the same way - particularly close to
her - and that he'd also felt that close to their Uncle Liam, who was the only other single child in the family and a lot
like Xander's much older brother.

84. Willow and Anya got dressed for school, even though they weren't able to go, and then played a friendly game of
chess.
“Willow!”
"What?"
"Stop cheating!"
"I didn't cheat!"
Anya rolled her eyes. "I can see you moving the pieces around."
"Damn, I thought I'd fooled you."
"Well, don't try."

85. After they finished their game, Will took over the chessboard, where he was joined by Tiffany Zarubin. He finally
maxed his logic skill, the last of his siblings to do so.

86. "Fred, darling, now that you're about to grow up-"
"Dad."
"What, Fred?"
"I'm not about to grow up. I've got almost a week to go. Willow and Anya are about to grow up."
"I...oh." Martin knew that his memory was going, but he didn't realize it had gone quite that much, to confuse which
of his children was the oldest.
"Dad," Fred said quietly. "It's okay." She wasn't always the nicest person, but she loved her father, and hated to see
his memory disappearing.

87. Meanwhile, downstairs, Willow became an adult, growing up badly into a bad outfit.

88. And Anya grew up well.

89. However, as a Knowledge Sim who hadn't been able to go to college, she promptly had a breakdown.
---
And thus ends this chapter. Please turn the page for more info!

90. Here you can see a shot of the first floor as it now appears. The urn in the lower right hand corner (between the two
chairs, behind the table) belongs to Eloise. The one in the back, by the chess table, belongs to Cordy. In front of the
stove is Buffy (oddly enough, it still works) and Joss is in front of the counter. In the far left front corner, outside, you
can see Liam's grave. He's the only one with a real grave, as his is the only one that's outside.
The barbecue used to be in that corner, behind Liam's grave, until Buffy maxed Culinary, at which point the barbecue
was shoved in someone's Inventory and an espresso machine was placed there. Obviously, that was no longer
reachable after Liam died, so it has been moved onto the second floor, to the deck outside the nursery.

91. Townies get themselves in the oddest positions, don't they?
I think my game may be glitching, but I'm trying not to get seriously worried about it, at least not yet.
Case in point: Fred, Rupert, and Will all had those lifetime wants as children, and kept them as they teened. Hence
why the LTWs aren't really suited to their aspirations. I don't know if anyone else had them as children, or if they had
them earlier, since I didn't notice until I went to check Willow and Anya's, and found that the younger kids had them
too.
Also, Martin has reacted rather oddly to the deaths. He doesn't have a memory of either Cordy or Buffy's deaths,
though he was asleep when both deaths happened, I believe (but he did have a breakdown over Cordy's). In
addition, he has a memory of getting caught cheating on Cordy...from around the time that Buffy became pregnant
with Fred, when Cordy had been dead for at least 8 days.
I don't think I've done anything to cause glitchiness, but I'm still a bit worried.

92. Didn't know townies could do this at someone else's house.
Stuff's about to get slower again, since I'm back to classes tomorrow. I will probably continue to play and update
while the work is still light, but I may have to take a break later in the semester, and will probably not update as
quickly again.

93. ...And here we have Martin putting his arm through Rupert's head.
And, as always, Boolprop (forums.boolprop.com) = my favorite Sims2 site. Go there for lots of great people and
stories!