Willow thought this day couldn't possibly get any worse. It had started out so great. Xander and Anya were getting married, there were guests and cake and a fuss of getting into their dresses and remembering everything there was to do. A good kind of fuss. Then when all was finally ready, and everyone sat on their chair, waiting for the ceremony to begin, Xander of course had to get cold feet and run away!
She shook her head. She should have foreseen it. She had known Xander all her life, seen how his family treated him, and known his fear of ending up just like them. She wondered if there was anything she could have done to prevent this embarrassing catastropy. Been a bit more observant to him over the last couple of months. Talked to him about his parental issues. Or maybe warned Anya about those. But no, she decided there was no use in blaming herself for any of this. She had had plenty enough with her own issues. With overcoming her addiction to magic. With the faint hopes that Tara might soon take her back. She couldn't run her friends' lives, when she was just starting to manage her own. No, what had happened was entirely Xander's fault. He was the one that screwed up, and was to be blamed for all of this. That this didn't become a day of happiness, was entirely his fault, and his fault alone.
Now she realized that she had thought herself into a far to agitated mood to have any hopes of sleeping. So she decided to rather go out to the cemetaries where Buffy was patrolling, and see if she needed any help.
She put her coat on, collected a stake, cross and crossbow, and went out the door. The cold night air was whiskering past her face, as she strode quickly to the cemetary she assumed Buffy had gotten to by now. She couldn't see her. But a far distance away, she could hear the delighted growls from a vampire feeding off a victim. Without thinking, she hurried off in that direction, hoping against hope to get there before it was too late. To draw the vampire's attention away from the girl he was feeding off, she shouted at him, telling him that he had a few seconds to get away as quickly as he could, before she'd stake him. He straigtened up, and she noticed how remarkably tall he was. Tall and muscled, all though the rest of the vamp, his dark clothes and dark hair, was well concealed in the darkness of the night. Willow was almost starting to regret her heroic interference. Taking on such a huge vamp on her own? What was she thinking?! But then, slowly, it seemed like the vampire decided to take her threat seriously. He turned back, and ran. In a queer, bent over way, almost limping, like he had decided not to take this fight because the last one he was in had nearly done him in already. She walked up to the place he had been feeding, and looked down on his victim. And froze solid. No wonder this girl had been able to fight back. It was Buffy!
Right there, on the ground. Bruised and bloody, but otherways surprisingly pale. Her chest not moving. No breath. This was the one battle she had really lost. Willow had thought this day couldn't possibly get any worse. She was wrong.
She bent down, and lifted Buffy into her arms, intending to carry her home. But she was so heavy in this totally limp form, and Willow started to doubt that she would have the strength to get her all the way back to Revello Drive. Not by herself anyhow. She needed help. From someone living close enough for her to carry Buffy there. There was really only one choice. She headed for Spike's crypt.
She knocked forcefully on the door, really hoping he was home despites the hour. Noone came. She put Buffy down on the ground, because her arms were starting to ache, and knocked again. After a
few minutes, just when she was about to lose hope, she noted with relief that someone was on the move inside, and then the door opened.
"Red?" Spike asked, when he saw her standing outside. "What's up, that brings you here at this hour?" Then his eyes moved down to the corpse at her feet, and he staggered, abruptly losing the glass of Jack Daniels he was holding on to, so it shattered on the floor on his side of the door. He stepped over the pieces of broken glass, and bent down to cradle Buffy in his arms, already sobbing, so that his tears fell down into her open, spread hair. He saw the bitemarks on her neck, and looked up at Willow in fierce fury. "Did you see who did this?" "No. it was far away, and in the dark." Willow replied, but upon seeing the force of Spike's fury, she hurried to add as much as she could about the vampires looks. "He was tall, and looked well muscled. But injured. She got in a number of blows before going down, I guess." "Well, not enough"Spike muttered. "But if I ever come across this tall, injured guy, he'll learn what real injury is!!"
A few days later, life in the scoobie club was still in total turmoil. Giles had gotten on the first flight back from England, the moment he had heard that Buffy was dead again. Noone could handle having the body in the house, so they had decided to keep her at the morgue right up intill the funeral, which was to be in yet another couple of days. Spike had dropped by, and announced that he had staked a vampire fitting Willow's description, who had been over at Willy's, boasting about killing the Slayer, otherways very little had been said or done, other than what was needed for the funeral. Willow had tried mentioning that they should be happy for Buffy, since she was probably back in Heaven. But noone could seem to find much solace in that.
Dawn had been tossing herself around in bed all night without sleeping a minute, which had become her habit these last days. She had never thought she would be losing Buffy again so soon. And this time, even without the lame comfort of the Bot. But at least now it was not her fault that her sister was gone. That helped a little, that this grief at least wasn't mixed up with terrible guilt. This one had just been another patrol, a way she could have lost Buffy any time, during the last couple of years.
She couldn't stand her bed at nighttime. Laying down in silence for that many hours brought too much thinking. Too many harsh facts, which there was no distraction from, not even a loud television. Finally, she couldn't take it any more, and decided to go for an early morning stroll, to clear up her head.
She ended up, not surprisingly, at Buffy's old grave, which still stood there, and soon would be filled up again. But what was surprising, was that she was not alone there. Sprawled over the patch of grass in front of the tombstone, where the hole Buffy had climbed out of had been refillled with dirt, lay Spike.
"Spike?" she ventured, startled. "the sun is up soon!" He looked at her, with tearful, empty eyes, and replied "I know. Vampires can sense the sunrise way before it comes" "then you need to go home! Right now!" He looked at her, still with this empty gaze, but now with a streak of sympathy in it. "I am sorry you had to see this, Niblet". Then he laid down again, spread in front of the tomb, facing away from her, towards the horizon, where the sun was about to come.
Dawn got up to him, took a step back, and kicked him solidly in the back. He jumped up and turned towards her, yelling "what the bloody hell was that all about?" she tightened her fists, and breathed hard, while snarling. "You son of a bitch! You're leaving me too, huh? I could have expected that from anyone else, but not you!" Spike's face softened, and he moved in on her, while making a feeble attempt to explain. "I love you, Niblet. You know I do. But I just can't stand going thought this again. I've delived her body to you guys, done in the bastard who did this to her, and now… there is nothing left! Just the same empty void as was here the last time she was gone. And the knowdledge that I could have prevented it"
"You could?" Dawn asked. "Were you with her, on that patrol?" "No!" Spike snapped, with such force that Dawn jumped back, startled. "But I damn well should have! It was on my cemetary, I should have heard it, should have known that she was in trouble, and come out to help! When I instead just stayed home and drank the whole bloody night, feeling so sorry for myself because she dumped me, not doing anything before Red nearly knocked the door down" His voice broke, and he started sobbing feverishly. "…and it was too late".
Dawn looked at him though this whole speech, with the same cold fury in her eyes, and when he was done, she sneered "Well, you are not exactly making any progress away from that attitude now! Standing here, feeling oh so sorry for yourself, not giving a second thought to the fact that someone still needs you!" She walked all up to him, and hissed into his face "At least the last time she died, you found it worth the effort to stick around with me. But I don't mean a thing to you anymore, do I?" Then she turned around, and walked hastily away, yelling back at him, with a voice about to break into sobs. "So just stay. Burn for what I care. And wallow in the extra self pity of how disappointed Buffy would have been in you right now!"
Spike only hesitated a moment before he yelled after her "Niblet! Don't go. I'm coming!" She turned back towards him, and they ran together towards the closest mausoleum, just as the first rays of sunlight reached over the horizon. Dawn slammed the door shut after them, and they sat down together inside, holding each other, and cried into each others shoulder.
An hour or so later, Willow picked up the phone at Revello Drive, and got some disturbing news. There had been a break in at the morgue, and Buffy's body was gone.