The phone beeps.
'You got a message, Will?' Kennedy looks over her shoulder.
Willow Rosenberg is staring at the screen of her phone blankly. Then she looks up, her eyes fill with tears, and she rushes from the room.
Xander Harris leans on his spade and surveys the foundations of the building. Though it's only seven-thirty in the morning, it's already getting hot. Time to pack it in for a while.
He's suddenly conscious of his phone vibrating. He pulls it out of his pocket.
And stares.
The phone falls from his nerveless fingers as he crumples to the ground and buries his face in his hands.
'Xander, what's up?' asks one of the crew.
All he gets is:
'They're gone. Both of them.'
'Hey, Mr Giles! You've got an email!' Andrew Wells bounces excitedly away from the computer and pokes his head through the door into the library.
Rupert Giles removes his glasses. 'You've interrupted your game just to tell me that?'
'Well,' Andrew squirms a bit. 'It's from Wolfram and Hart.'
Giles promptly puts his glasses back on and heads into the study.
All Andrew hears is 'No. Oh, dear God, no.'
Buffy Summers wheels her bicycle through the back gate and chains it up, then inserts her key in the lock.
'Dawn!' she calls up the stairs.
There is no answer, only a choking sob. Buffy takes the stairs three at a time to find Dawn sitting at the kitchen table, her face running with tears, holding Buffy's phone in her hand.
'You always - leave it behind,' she sniffs.
Buffy takes the phone. And looks at the message. And her face crumples as she wraps her arms around Dawn and they both sob.
This is what the message said.
Cordy's gone. She never woke up.
Thought you would want to know.
Angel