When I thought about it, I was pretty sure I could pinpoint where people's assumptions came from, the source of all of the rumors. It might have been the night we arrived in L.A. on the bus out of Sunnydale, to crash at the hotel and tend our collective wounds.

When I emerged from the shower, I put on the cotton-poly Lakers pajamas from the plastic CVS bag that Buffy had left for me on the bed and read the note beside it. It said, 'Get some rest. I'm downstairs if you need anything.'

It didn't even bother me that she wasn't there. She was accessible and nearby and that was enough. It might have been one of the first times I was aware and conscious of just accessible being enough.

I tossed the plastic bag and the price tags in the trash and jotted down a note in reply to her on the yellowed hotel stationery: 'Can't sleep. Hanging out next door w/ A. if you need anything.' I underlined the 'you'.

He wasn't sleeping either, which was what I expected. He let me in without a word, and returned to the floor in front of the TV. It was the only light in the room. I sat down on the floor beside him, leaning against the bed.

The screen flickered with images of a cartoon dog in the desert, and then there was a confrontation with some guy that I think was supposed to be Quentin Tarantino. It was all very meta, and I was too tired to follow it properly. Next, a show came on about little girls who were super heroes, and it was funny, if even a little more meta. Then we were watching a boy, who was a mad scientist and built a robot, and at first it was a little too much and then it was a lot too much.

I seized the remote, pressing the first button that my thumb could reach. The picture dissolved into some documentary about groundhogs, or possibly prairie dogs, something cute and furry and ground dwelling.

"Thank you." He sounded dead inside.

I bumped his shoulder, trying to lighten the sense of despair that rolled off of him. "You know life might be kind of messed up when the Cartoon Network-"

He made a sound that might have been either laughing or crying, I couldn't tell. Finally, he said, "Why are you here?"

"I thought I told you about that," I began, grateful for the distraction, "See there were these monks, and um-"

"No. I mean here."

"Oh. I don't know. Can't sleep; figured you'd be the same. I-I could go, you know, if you're-"

"And me?"

"What?"

"Why am I here? I shouldn't be here. I should have died, Dawn. Why didn't I die? There was supposed to be retribution. Sacrifice. Karma."

He shifted and looked right at me; like he expected a real, non-rhetorical answer. Someone expected me to have answers, or at least opinions. God. What was I supposed to say?

I took a breath. "Maybe you're looking at it backwards."

"Backwards?"

"Well, yeah. Maybe you haven't earned it yet. Maybe you still owe this world, karmically speaking. Maybe you have years and years of, you know, good deeds you have to do first. Or, maybe, there's no eye-for-an-eye at all. You just try to be better out of... um... enlightened self-interest or something, because being evil is so incredibly lame and boring. Or something." I gulped for air.

He didn't respond. When I snuck a peek over at him to check the quality of my philosophic rambling and its possible calming properties, his eyes were closed. The back of his head rested on the edge of the bed. The only indication that I hadn't put him to sleep was that, after a while, the hand that he had clenched in a fist on his knee turned over and opened, palm upward.

I wasn't sure that it was an invitation, but I covered his hand with my hand, interlacing our fingers and he didn't pull away. We must have sat like that all night, because the next time I noticed, sunlight was streaming though the blinds and someone was calling down the hall that we were supposed to be going out to breakfast in twenty minutes.

I still don't know why I was really there. It just seemed like the thing to do.