The school basement was hot and damp and warm and made Buffy feel as if she was dying. Which, ironically, wasn't as threatening of a feeling as it would be to, well, any other person who inhabited the galaxy. The once white walls still had ash hanging off of them and once blue school lockers were black and the metal covering was peeling off, much like metal shouldn't.

"Ah the memories." Buffy kicks at the foot of a locker and a sound echoes through the school that sounded as hollow as she felt.

A blonde haired man, familiar, stuck out in the corner of the end of the hallway she was walking.

"Buffy? What the hell are you doing here?"

"What?" She said, miffed, having felt a quick pulse of excitement upon seeing Spike, "That's all I get? I clawed my way out of the grave and all I get's a hello?"

"Well, I would lay you down and pound you back into heaven but I dun wanna get staked."

"You're a pig." She said, however her accustomed disgusted attitude when dealing with him had transformed into a mildly amused acceptance.

"Honestly, Buffy, I would get upon my knees and sing hallelujah to your angelic form if I thought it'd do any bit of good, but that grave you crawled out of is still on your shoulders, weighing you down. You're deader than I am."

"What?"

Spike sighed, mocking, "It was a pun luv. Grave, depressed. Crack a book."

"Oh, right, poet. It's easy to forget."

"And a damn good one mind you. Well I was, I suppose, just don't got the heart for it anymore." He beat his chest and spread his fingers apart to signify how small his heart was now.

Buffy giggled but her heart still ached. Vampire Spike, standing now in the hallway, his long leather coat blending in with the dark, decaying school, looked to her like the most alive thing she had seen since returning from the dead.

She walked over to him, "So, what are you doing here?"

"Same thing as you I'd s'pose. Having a stake out."

As they turned the corner a shadow exited the gaping hole that now acted as the school doors and exited and merged into the sillhouette of the town as it stood against the pale blue of the sky underneath lightened by the full moon.

######################################################################

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Underneath that same sky Buffy's friends, those who had retrieved her from the dead, are hanging out in the grave yard. The grey tombstones are the only bright thing in the dead area, everything else was hidden in night's all welcoming embrace.

Three people sat huddled around a grave that had the words JACKY BOY carved into it. Beneath was a very unthought out epigram,

JACKY BOY LIVED HIS LIFE
THE SAME WAY HE DIED,
BUT WE WOULDN'T KNOW
AS WE'VE NEVER MET THE GUY.

"Jacky Boy? Who writes a nickname on a tombstone? I mean, I'm the first guy gung-ho about relieving by the comedy but these guys took it to a whole new level It's disgusting, this whole no revering the dearly, or you know, not quite that dearly, deceased " Xander was sitting on the grave stone, swinging his legs irrelevantly back and forth, knocking them against the granite surface. For those unfamiliar with his appearance he was a young man, black haired, around the 20 year old mark.
Willow, slender, red-haired, was leaning against the fence parallel to the gravestone. She had her arms folded and Xander got the chills whenever he looked into her eyes now. But, being a good friend, he would never mention it to either her or himself. "Yeah," She said, too sardonically for Xander's taste, "A lot of irreverence going around."

Giles was standing, forming a triangle, to the side, his hands in his pockets. He looked, once again for the uninitiated, as exactly you'd expect a professor to look. Tweed Coat, matching pants, loafers, and a pair of glasses that happened to always catch the moon just right to give them a superior than though look, "There's nothing to be done about it Willow. You did what you felt you had to do. No body in the history of the world has ever done any different. Buffy died doing what she felt right, and you, following that same impulse, solidified her ethereal form."

"Wuh? What the hell was that teacher? There's no one to impress here. 'Solidified her ethereal form'. That's..." Xander stopped talking as he looked from Giles to Willow's solemn and tired looks, "Right. Not the time."

Willow sighed and Xander, looking at her look up at the stars, the pale moonlight highlighting or simple beauty, could appreciate the woman she had become. Slender, strong, and the melancholy only added to her beauty, "The thing is, Giles, I'm not sure it WAS the right thing to do. I can't remember if it felt right. What if I was just having trouble letting go? Everyone goes through that. It's like I hit the bargaining stage of dealing with grief and I thought, wait a second, I don't have the bargain, I am more powerful than God, I'll just bring her back " Willow raised her hand and allowed that magical current that flowed through her release and a fountain of black sparks shoot into the sky. The lights lit her face ominously, "I scare myself."

Giles approached her, "If you'd like, I know people who can help."

She turned away from him, "No, that's ok. If I'm strong enough to beat life I'm strong enough to handle some trifling emotions."

"There's nothing trifling about the human heart." He placed his hand comforting on her shoulder.

Willow scoughs and the sound is so opposite from the shy girl to whom Giles was accustomed to that he was startled. She tore away leaving his hand stranded, compassion rejected, "Don't go after school special on me Giles. I've outgrown that." She waked back over to the fence facing the grave and leaned against it, "You guys go on, I'll take this vamp if he shows."

Xander and Giles looked at each other, then Xander spoke to Willow, "I mean, I know your uber wicca now and all but you're not the slayer. I mean, sometimes Buffy even has trouble with the little ones if they get in a lucky punch or two. You'll need back up."

She closed her eyes as if all this small talk annoyed her and she crossed her arms again, "No I don't. I'm stronger than Buffy. I'm probably stronger than any slayer...ever. There's just something on my mind and...alone would be good."

"Alright," Giles said, "We'll go."

"I tell thee no " - Xander,

"Xander, she's right. I am well versed in slayer lore ("duh") and there no attribute to any girl that could match what I've seen Willow do. And, furthermore, if my scholarly instincts haven't failed, there's more that Willow can learn, maybe even noting she can't."

"Alright. But Will, if he so much's as hints at having the upper hand, run. Run like helicopters."

"That's sweet Xan, but we won't be using helicopters. I'm not going to fight with my hands anyway."

"Huh? What're gonna do, latin him to death?"

"I'm going to burn him with my eye lasers."

"What, seriously?"

Willow laughs and as she cracks so does that feeling of wrongness that Xander has when looking at her, "Go, please. I'm really the muscle here anyway, you guys are just the pretty face, and, as much as I love looking at you two, you're not needed. Go home, get some beauty sleep, don't want to lose the one function you have."

Now walking down the abandoned Sunny Dale streets Xander and Giles pass brick houses with lights turned out. The city, like the graveyard, appeared dead.. Xander turns to Giles, "I'm worried about her."

"There is reason for concern."

"Yeah. I mean, I still love her, but she used to have trouble looking you in the eye, you know? She was so sweet, and, and she giggled when she got ice cream nose "

"What?"

"I mean...I'm just worried. I'm worried I'm losing her, that's all. Like she's outgrowing me."

"She's outgrowing life."

"...I'm going to go talk to her." He leaves Giles and heads back to the cemetery.

Giles looks down at the cement, his face furrowed, his mind trying to work out a problem he can't even identify, "Yes, that would be best."

In the cemetery a shadow sits, waiting, intrigued by the scenes he sees, and wonders amusingly to himself, how it will play out and what his part will ultimately be. He had made up his mind; this scene was just way too interesting not to have a part to play.