The door to the magic shop creaked open, peering inside, Dawn saw an empty room. She wondered for a brief moment if what she was doing was wrong. Well of course it was but did she really care. No not really. She entered the space, fumbling around for the nearest shelf, she followed its path to the steps. Once she had found them she slowly stepped into the belly of the store and as her eyes adjusted to the gloom she saw her destination. The messed up table had been left only hours earlier by Buffy and Giles searching for a way to take Willow's pain away. But they were failing and Willow was suffering because of their naivete. Dawn reached for the nearest book, an assortment of rudimentary spells which any person could see would not even make the slightest dent in Willow's never-ending torture. The past few months had been awful on all of them, following Willows turn and during it, people had died. But this was no excuse for their pitiful attempts at curing her Dawn thought. But peering at the texts, the truth dawned on her, they were trying. But nobody had the power to help her. Dawn sat down silently and cried the way she had done countless nights before.

Spike sat in his home, if you could call it that. Shirtless he thought about his new position. He was quick to realize that no amou8nt of god awful poetry would get him out of the mess he was in. He cursed himself for his stupidity, before his change, during his change and now after. He really was just worthless. He had returned with his new soul 3 months ago and had done nothing but scurry around in the dark over come with guilt and fear. He HAD started writing poetry again, hoping his experiences as a vampire would help him, but he was still as rubbish as ever. And now he wasn't even remotely scary with it. What to do? Once again he opened a nearby bottle of whiskey and got started on his plan for the 120th time, he wanted to get so drunk that no amount of sobriety could ever make him remember his acts. It was worth a try he though, even though it hadn't worked any of the other times.

At the Summer's residence things were, as ever dark and depressing. Xander sat at Willow's bed side feeling as useless as he had ever felt, and trust me he that was bad, he was the butt monkey remember. But this time he new that not even Buffy could save them from this reality. Even with her superpowers Tara was still gone, Willow was still a murderer and Xander was still a wuss. As he thought these things, Willow opened her eyes. Xander stared into them ,calling her name and trying to reach her, but as she had many times before, Willow cried her silent tears an ignored everything and everyone around her.

While all the hero's in Sunnydale mourned, a new force moved in, one which promised a change. I say a new force, but it wasn't really, it was well known to the scooby gang, however this time it hoped to slip unnoticed into the background until it's time had come.