Author's Note: It's been building to this for some time now.
Enjoy!
"It is said that, in the final days of planet Earth… everyone had bad dreams…"
"Buffy," Dawn said, catching her sister, before she could fall. "Buffy. What are we doing here?"
Buffy gritted her teeth. "I need to come back," she said. She could feel her head pounding, to the beat of the rain thudding against the ground around them. "I need to become me again. Or she'll take me."
There was a house beside the crater that had once been Sunnydale.
The house that Buffy had bought and furnished.
Seo unlocked the door.
"Dreams of fire and war and insanity. Dreams of the terrible things that are to come.
We know what is to come. Just as we know what's already happened.
The Slayer returns to her home — a noble warrior, making her final journey…"
They helped Buffy get inside.
But she fell unconscious before she made it half way across the living room.
"She's worse here than she was in Cleveland," said Dawn.
Seo helped support her mother's limp body. "She told me… this was where she went on her quest," she explained. "The place she sees in her dreams. She thought… if she came back…"
They looked at one another.
Too afraid to say what they really thought.
"Did she tell you what was attacking her, this time?" Dawn said, as they both hauled Buffy into a spare bed. Tucked her up with pillows and blankets. "She told me… the headaches, now — they're different from the last ones."
Seo hesitated.
"What are…?" Seo began.
Dawn looked up at her. Across the sleeping form of Buffy. "This time… they're drumbeats."
"The madman laughs.
A prison is destroyed, the madman returns, and the healer arrives too late to prevent the resurrection of his enemy. Four knocks will bring his death.
Half a world away, death has already arrived.
The events are already being set into motion. Alongside the healer, the prison, the madman… a second story is told. One that begins with the rain over Sunnydale. One that begins with the Slayer.
We see the end of days. We see it coming.
We see — she is returning…"
Dawn started, abruptly, out of the uneasy sleep she'd fallen into, sitting on the armchair, watching over Buffy. Dawn was still shaking from the nightmare. Remembered… a madman laughing. A prison in ruins. The fire and the death. The end of the world, and the end of everything, and… and…
Buffy was screaming.
Dawn forgot her dream. Rushed forwards, to help Seo, who was already trying to treat Buffy.
But neither knew what to do.
"It's a bad dream," Seo tried to say. "Mom. Wake up. It's not real!"
Buffy thrashed. Not aware of what she was saying or doing. "In my head," she muttered. "Pounding in my head. Over and over again!" She lashed out, throwing Seo off of her, with a force that slammed Seo against the floor. "Leave me alone!"
"Elizabeth's a universe away," Dawn assured Buffy. "She can't just… take you! We've got weapons to keep her out!"
Seo got to her feet, with a groan. Went back to Buffy.
"She won't get you," Dawn said. "She can't, Buffy. We won't let her."
But one timeline away, Elizabeth knew they were wrong.
Would always be wrong.
She was smarter than them. Smarter than everyone.
"Just wait for it," Elizabeth said. Her eyes glowing, as she watched for the moment the Time Lady slipped out of this reality and appeared in the other one.
To some useless idiot named Wilfred Mott.
But it was all Elizabeth needed to give her the advantage she needed. Make her move.
She saw the spike in energy that signaled another transfer for the Time Lady. And yanked down a lever.
"Time to meet, other-me," said Elizabeth. "Time to die."
Neither Seo nor Dawn saw the moment it happened.
Just the moment before.
And the moment after.
The moment before — when Buffy cried out, her eyes opening in sudden terror, as if she could see the gates of hell in front of her…
And the moment after — when Buffy was gone.
"What the…?!" Dawn looked around. "Where'd she go?"
Seo's face was grave. She touched the empty bed — still warm. "We both know where," she said, in a soft voice. "Elizabeth got her. Somehow… she beat us."
Dawn didn't accept it.
Couldn't.
"I'm not giving up on Buffy," Dawn said. Gritted her teeth. "I know my sister. She's probably beating the living crap out of Elizabeth, right now."
"In a locked away timeline," Seo replied, "that no one can get into. Or out of."
Dawn felt an emptiness rise up inside her.
An emptiness that echoed through the hollow sound of the rain hitting the rooftop.
"Elizabeth only came out, last time, because of Rose and the dimension canon," Seo reminded Dawn. "There's no dimension canon, this time. Whatever Elizabeth did to get Mom to that timeline…"
"No!" Dawn interrupted. Shoved her finger in Seo's face. "Don't say there's no way back. I know there is! There has to be!"
Seo's shoulders drooped.
As she looked away.
"The Doctor!" Dawn said. "He can help us! He got Elizabeth back to that timeline, before, right? I bet he knows how to get Buffy out! I bet—"
"We don't even have to look that far," Seo muttered.
Dawn stopped.
Frowned.
Seo's face was cast in shadow. Her hair still dripping with the last of the raindrops, like tears, upon the bed that had once held her mom.
"Mom worked it out," Seo said. "She knew she'd be taken. That's why she brought us here. Now. Why she came back to Sunnydale."
"I don't get it," said Dawn.
Seo looked up at Dawn. "I can reach out with my senses," she said. "I can detect — there's a weak point in time coming. And we both know at what point, in space, that weak-point will occur."
Dawn shook her head, still didn't…
Then she stopped.
Froze.
As she realized… she knew exactly what Seo was talking about.
"We have all seen, in our dreams, what will bring the end of days.
The Sunnydale crater.
The falling rain.
The tower rebuilt, just as it was before.
We always knew the end would come when she returned, and opened the portal.
What we never suspected… until we knew it, could see it in our dreams and feel it in our nightmares… is that those we thought were innocent have turned on us. Turned on the universe.
The Key will create the portal.
But this time… it will want to."