Buffy listened. In a very few instances, she was good at it: letting facts and feelings wash over her phrase by phrase and twist by turn. Towards the end, she tried not to admit to herself that Sokka's description held something of a siren's call. And that five or six years ago she would have welcomed such nothingness. Such a bloodless slip into death. But here she was -- grown up and renewed and she felt proud of the horror brewing in her belly. It was good to be horrified by death; there was little else that made her feel more alive.

"And I guess it stuck a little more readily than last time, huh?" Full, complete death. "You came back a week later. I never even realized." She thought about Archie, his subterfuge, and the lengths to which he'd went to keep his death a secret. "You probably planned it that way. Funny how much death a person can hide in this place."