"So this is what you've been doing for the past year and a half, huh?" a voice asked, interrupting him from his thoughts. "Paperwork?"

Glancing up from his work, Snyder saw a short, street-wise looking man standing in front of him. He had on a round brimmed brown hat and his clothes spoke for themselves, a brown suit and neon green, collared shirt.

"It's part of the job, isn't it? I followed your orders, Whistler. Monitor the hellmouth's activity and report back to you with the details."

"Yeah, you did your job, all right," Whistler agreed sarcastically. "The hellmouth opened last year and the Master went free. Lucky for you, the slayer was there to kill him and close it before things got out of hand. It's a shame you let her go because now you have to go out and bring her back."

"The slayer?"

Snyder was confused. He knew someone had closed the hellmouth, but his sources said it was Angel, the vampire with a soul. Did the slayer help him?

"You know, you'd better find a more well-informed source to rely on," Whistler informed him. "You had the slayer right in front of you all this time and never even realized it." Chuckling, he continued. "You even sent her away when we needed her the most. Buffy Summers may not have been a great student, but she's saved us all more than once, yourself included from what I'm told."

"Summers?" In all his one hundred and sixteen years as a demon, the knowledge he had acquired never would have led him to think Buffy could be the Chosen One.

"How do you think she knew what to do when Spike and his men invaded the school on Parents' Night last year? Buffy's a really great, take-charge kind of person, just what you need to have in a slayer besides all that fighting stuff. She's a very intelligent girl, but you never seemed to notice. You were too busy yelling at her for being a 'delinquent teenager.' Don't you think she got enough of that at home and even before she came to Sunnydale? She couldn't just say, 'Hey, I'm the Chosen One. Cut me some slack, okay?' She toughed it out for all of our sakes, even slaying Angel, her own boyfriend, to save the world from Acathla, and for that you expelled her. It's no wonder she ran away."

"If I had known-" Snyder began, but he didn't want to hear any of it.

"I don't care. Just find her and bring her back. With the slayer gone, we've got a real crisis on our hands. Spike and Drusilla may have left and Acathla lies dormant, but there will always be something on the hellmouth that requires our attention. Sometimes it just takes a little longer than others."

Turning his back to the younger demon, Whistler started towards the door. Snyder's voice stopped him, though, and her turned back again to face him.

"How do I find her?"

"Talk to her friends or the librarian, her watcher. It might take a little doing on your part, but they'll tell you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a little hell to raise. My buddy Angel needs me."

And with that, he was gone, leaving Snyder to his thoughts. He had messed up big, and now it was up to him to fix it...