I put my fork down and stood, shifting dogs out of the way with the side of my foot as I walked over to Maggie. She looked at me. I nodded, once, and put my arms around her, feeling the tension in her shoulders. “I won’t tell you it’s going to be all right, because it’s not going to be all right,” I said. “I won’t tell you I understand what you’re going through, because nobody who isn’t inside your head can understand, and I won’t say that we’re here to help. We’re not. We’re here to save our asses, and we’re here to find out what the fuck is going on. But I’ll say this: Dave made his decision, and they’re going to put him up on the Wall with all the other heroes. He’s going to be there forever because of what he decided was the right thing to do. I guess I can’t be too angry at him for that. George wouldn’t have hired him if she didn’t think he knew how to make the hard calls, and I wouldn’t have kept him if she wasn’t right.”

“I think I loved him,” said Maggie, her voice soft and almost muffled by her face pushing up against the side of my shirt.

I sighed deeply, looking over her head toward the others. Becks and Alaric had barely had time to get over being the walking wounded after losing Buffy and George. I’d barely had time to learn how to look like I was coping. And now it was all starting up again. The conspiracy theories, the confusing evidence, the deaths, the whole fucking mess.

The worst part was that deep down in my heart, in the part of me that no one got to see but George, I was glad. Because if all the old shit was starting up again, that meant that we were moving again. Moving toward an answer to the question that kept me from sleeping at night, and probably kept me from killing myself:

Who really killed my sister?

Kelly met my eyes and looked away, expression guilt-stricken. I’d have to talk to her about that. This wasn’t her fault, any more than it was mine, or Alaric’s, or Maggie’s. She was a victim, just like the rest of us. None of us did anything wrong. But that could be dealt with tomorrow, when we’d had time to sleep, reassure Mahir that we were still alive, and really look at Kelly’s data.

“I think we all loved him at least a little,” I said, with complete honesty, and I stood in that homey-smelling kitchen surrounded by the remains of my team, and I held her while she cried.