Author's note: I just want to thank those people who sent reviews this early in the process. The encouragement helps my pace, I really appreciate that.

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Not knowing where she is, Dana climbs a crane to see the world around her. She sees the city and the ocean. Then she jumps into the water, and in the fall she feels at peace.

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Buffy and Spike park the car in front of the [-] Psychiatric Hospital.

"What are we doing here, again?", Spike asks as they get out of the car.

"I need you to get Dana's scent from something in her room. Also, who knows, we may find a picture of her or something. I don't even know what she looks like."

She leads him to the side of the building blocked off by a twelve foot-tall fence. Spike is curious that Buffy seems familiar with this place.

He says, "I'm guessing we're not using the front door."

"They wouldn't let us anywhere near her room even if it wasn't a crime scene." She roughly estimates the height of the fence and then leaps over it.

She lands, turns around and asks, "Are you coming?"

Spike, a little skeptical, follows with a jump of his own, but he tips the top of the fence and falls over then lands on his side.

Buffy giggles as he groans, and then he says, "It's easy for you, you're lighter and stronger than me."

"Come on, it's this way."

On the side of the building the windows of offices are scaffolded with a fire exit. They jump and reach for the railing of the stairs for the second floor. Once on this they follow it to the roof.

Spike follows Buffy over the top of the wall and lands on the roof. He then asks, "You've been here before, haven't you?"

She stops in her path and turns to him. "Yeah."

"Is this the place you're mum and dad sent you when they thought you were nuts?"

She recalls her time here with much pain, but answers his question with an attempt at nonchalance, "It was only for a couple of weeks. Still, enough time that I tried to escape once."

"What stopped you from getting away?"

"Knowing that if I did, my mom and dad would just think I'm even more crazy. The next day I shut up about vampires. Then I was out in four days."

He understands that it's a vulnerable topic for her, so he doesn't ask anymore questions.

They walk to the door on the roof and find that it's locked. Buffy kicks it open and they descend a flight of stairs to a another door to a hallway on the top floor. Buffy slowly cracks it open, but quickly closes it again when she hears whistling and the sound of small rolling wheels. When it passes, she opens the door again and finds the hallway clear.

When they enter the hallway, Spike whispers, "Do you even know where to look?"

She whispers back, "No. I was on the lower floors and I just followed the stairs when I tried to escape."

"Balls... wait." He sniffs the air. "Oh."

"What is it?"

"Blood. Lots of it. Close, maybe down a floor or two."

Spike slowly follows the scent down stairs and through hallways. They come to a broken chain-linked door that separates the ward from the main hallway. Police tape across the entrance way. They duck under it and keep walking till they get to the ward's intersection. Blood stains cover the floor, skirt the walls and doors , and even speck the high ceiling.

Spike shakes his head slightly.

"Are you ok?", Buffy asks.

"Yeah. It's very strong. It's not just blood, though."

"What else?"

"Spinal fluid."

"Oh god." She surveys the stains with a new comprehension.

He goes on, "She tore them apart. Are you sure this shouldn't be a search and destroy mission?"

"I'm having doubts, I'll be honest about that."

"Well, I'll have no problem tracking the little Pollock."

"Are you sure?"

"Anyone who made this mess got very dirty. I can track her for miles, even in this city."

"Good." They turn and see an open doorway at the end of the hall. In front of it lies a metal door riddles with dents. "I think we found her room."

They walk through the doorway. It's a small, windowless room with a nailed down bed and a light bulb covered in a tiny concave section in the ceiling. The walls are tiled with pictures made with crayons, each depicting a different girl being killed by some kind of monster. Even though they were made with little skill, their total effect shocks Buffy and Spike.

"Bloody hell. What was going on inside this one's head?"

As Buffy gets closer to the pictures on the back wall she understands what they are.

"They're her dreams. Slayer dreams. We dream the deaths of the girls that died before us."

"Right. Whoever customized the set of Slayer powers needs to be slapped upside the head for that one, the sick bastard. Is this what you dream every night?"

"I used to. It was bad during the first year, and the first few months on the Hellmouth brought them to a whole new level. Even then, though, it was never this much. I know a few of these, but most of them are totally new to me."

Spike scans the walls, then one of the pictures at eye level stills his gaze. It depicts a monster with wavy hair eating the neck of a small Chinese woman. A temple of sorts burns around them. He reaches up and pulls it from the wall and looks at it for a moment. He then starts searching the walls for another picture.

Buffy notices his frantic searching and asks, "What are you looking for?"

"Subway, subway, subway."

He finds it on the left wall next to the floor. It shows three figures in a subway car. In the center, a monster with fangs and yellow spiky hair sits on a black woman, her head is twisted backwards in his hands. A crying boy is under one of the seats to the right, he seems to be hiding. Spike falls to his knees in front of the picture, and then pulls it off the wall. He looks at the two pictures in his hands, which tremble slightly.

Buffy stands behind him and says, "It's the slayers you killed."

"I didn't know her kid was there," he says, slightly lifting the drawing with the boy. "You know, it's so meaningless, what I did to them. Sure, I gave you that big lecture when you asked about them. Inner darkness, death wish, and all the rest. Nice words, poetic, a little sexy. They don't mean anything now. I look back and all I see are two tired girls that I murdered 'cause I was bored. Then I left them to rot, and I used the stories to make Dru wet."

"Spike."

"That's all it ever was, too. For all of them. No high reasons or grand schemes. I didn't want power or the end of the world. I wanted to have fun. At least this Dana had a reason to tear those men apart, crazy, but still. Fear, escape. More than I ever had. They were just tired girls."

Buffy places a hand on one of his shoulders as says, "Come on. Let's help this girl, and maybe, somehow..." She stops as the rest would sound more childish than the pictures on the wall.

"Nice words." Spike stands and pockets the pictures.

"Are you going to be, well not ok, but you know what I mean?"

"No. But I'm not going to bash my head on the wall if that's what you're asking." He happens to look over her shoulder to the front of the room. The sight startles him. "Buffy, turn around."

She does, and finds that the doorway is bordered with drawings of her second death. Over a dozen variations of a blond figure jumping off a chaotic tower of straight lines into a swirling mass of color. Buffy walks toward them. Unlike the slayers in the other pictures, the falling girl in these pictures doesn't seem to be in pain, distressed, or afraid. She is always calm, and when the portal is blue it looks like she is diving into water, a fusion of both of Buffy's deaths.

She presses her palm on the one with the blue portal and says, "I never dreamed of the Slayer before me. My dreams were always like from the dark ages or something. I don't know how she died. I don't even know her name."

There is a long silence.

Spike says, "So," and she turns to him as he continues, "she's been in this room for over a year, not knowing what's happening to her. She's been having these nightmares, and she's already crazy, so that's not a good mix. Do you think she might confuse the dreams with the real world?"

"That might explain what she did to the guards."

"Can't wait to find out what she'll want to do to me."

"Oh crap! Do you think she'd recognize you?"

"Wouldn't you?"

Buffy recalls the vividness of her own slayer dreams, how she can still clearly remember the faces of every vampire and demon.

"Yes."

"Well then, you better be watching my back when we find this girl, 'cause I'm not going to be on the offensive with this chip in my head."

"She may be strong," Buffy gestures toward the broken door, "but she's been in a hospital since she was ten, so she probably doesn't know how to fight. You should be able to evade her. You sure you got her scent?"

"Blood, spinal fluid, and crayons."

"Hmm, this season's latest perfume."

They give the room one last look, and Buffy thinks that, in comparison to the others, the dream of her death must have been heaven.