Haunted:
Solid feet beat packed dirt as worn leg muscles are driven to their limit. Buffy pushes her body to reach him in the dark underground of the hellmouth, but with each step he seems farther away. Buffy bursts through particles of dirt which stick to her slick sweat coated skin. The light is in her eyes now bursting from the amulet around Spike's chest. It's blinding.
"No!" Buffy screams, "You've done enough!"
Taking every ounce of strength left in her weakened frame the slayer speeds up, but before she can reach Spike a dark shadow clouds her vision. The First materializes in front of her. Through an evil mirror her own face glares back at her with eyes like blackened pools of oil. Exhausted Buffy stops in her tracks. The First morphs, now instead of looking into an evil mirror she is glaring into the blue eyes of the man she is about to loose forever. The man she loves.
"You could have saved me Buffy," The faux Spike says. The First leans in until the image of Spike is inches from Buffy's face. "If you really meant it… you would have saved me." In anger Buffy pushes through the formless face of the First's impersonation of Spike and continues running with added exuberance.
The walls are crumbling, the ceiling is caving in. Now inches from Spike, the real Spike, boulders and dirt come crashing down. All of it landing on the tiny slayer. All of it crushing her.
Buffy's eyes burst open. Her back is instantly and perfectly perpendicular with the mattress of her bed. The cool breeze through the open window does little to cool her as salty beads of sweat flutter down her face. Her breathing is hard. It was all a dream, she thinks and allows her body to fall from its rigid state, however for the rest of the night her mind races with thoughts of him. It races a race that it will never make it to the finish line of, a race it will never win, and a race that has kept Buffy from falling into the sweet surrender of sleep night after night for the past three months.
--
Down the hall from Buffy's room in her London flat, the flat owned by the Summer's sisters in the new and improved Watcher's Council Head Quarters, Dawn sleeps soundly, so soundly that there's not a noise in the world that could wake her brain from visiting all the places she's so vividly seeing in her dreams, all the places and people she's remembering and missing terribly. With the exception of one Buffy Summers who lies awake just beyond Dawn's paper thin bedroom wall, the entire building sits in a snooze.
Willow and Kennedy are sound asleep in their four poster bed in their apartment next door, as is Andrew with his night time sleep mask covering his eyes down the hall and Faith two flights up sleeping with the sheets pushed down to her ankles. Even across the ocean in an endless sea of sand Alexander Harris has quietly dozed off in his makeshift bed bellow the African starlight.
--
Buffy's head rests across folded arms. Drops of drool puddle upon the surface of the large cherry table in what is now Giles's office, conveniently located one floor above Buffy and Dawn's humble abode. An office with a view of the London skyline and bookshelves that run from floor to ceiling which cover the walls in a vast landscape of demonic and mystical literature.
"Buffy, Buffy wake up," Giles says putting an arm on her shoulder to stir her, which it does. With a flinch Buffy's head pops up and she wipes the drool from the corner of her lip.
"Wha… Oh… Sorry Giles. I'm up, good to go, ready to… what were we talking about?"
"Yes, well… we were just discussing how it might be a good time to get back into a routine."
"Right. Routine, like slayage and so on"
"Exactly," Giles pauses to clean his glasses. When he looks back up at Buffy he notices the slight sunken appearance of her eyes as well as the restless look across her face. "… Buffy, are you alright? I turn my head for a minute and you're passed out… Is everything okay?"
"I'm sorry Giles… I just haven't been sleeping well I guess. New place and all… I'm just not used to it yet," Buffy lies. "But, you know, you're right… I should get into a routine. Go out on patrol..."
"Buffy, I know these past few months have been… hard to say the least, if you think you need…"
"No… no, I'm fine really… actually I think a little slayage is just what I need, get back into the swing of things. Maybe I'll head out tonight."
"Yes, well maybe it would help you sleep better."
A false smile floats across Buffy's face. It's enough to convince Giles that she's at peace with herself, but far from enough to actually make peace with the thoughts that keep her sleep at bay. For a second Buffy wonders if there will ever be anything that will soothe her mind. In all her years of being the Slayer Buffy wonders if she's just seen too much, if she's lost too much for her to ever feel normal again.
--
Buffy's feet tread lightly as she walks down the corridor coming out of Giles's office. To her left a door is open and Buffy pauses to look through its way. Baubles and magical knick-knacks of all sorts surround the room along side ancient books of magical charms. This is Willow's work station. Cauldrons, and candles and all the supplies she would ever need should she have to craft some save-the-day spell surround her. Right now however inside the room Willow is preoccupied with something else, her reading of an oversized spell book has been interrupted by Kennedy who playfully teases and taunts Willow from her seated position atop the round table at the back of the room.
Buffy walks on. A few more steps and to her right are five large Plexiglas windows all in a row spanning the majority of the rest of the wall. Through the thick windows is a room padded from wall to wall with bright blue padding like that of a high school wrestling gymnasium or martial arts studio. Tiny girls are dancing on that blue padding with kicks and punches of Slayer strength they never asked to have. Tiny ballerina puppets and today Faith is their puppet master leading the class in a lesson of ways not to die.
Another few steps and the elevator is on Buffy's left. Buffy hits the down arrow and watches as a circle of light surrounds the button, then she catches a glimpse of herself in the reflective metal of the elevator doors for a few seconds before they open. Her face is tired and in those few seconds Buffy feels older then she's ever felt, she can see lines and wrinkles imbedded in her skin that have never been there before.
--
The sun set in defeat of the darkness as the moon rises in the sky. Sunset has passed just an hour ago but already the evil things know that this is their time to come out and play. Buffy walks along side her sister under the dazzling London star-scape. She twirls a stake between her fingers with an invented sense of enthusiasm as she sails among headstones with Dawn beside her. A Long charcoal grey pea coat adorns her shoulders while Dawn is snuggled up with a few layers of clothing topped off with a hoodie from her school, Birkbeck University of London.
"This is gonna be great, we'll dust a few baddies and then head home for some chocolate ice cream… it'll be just like old times," Buffy says.
"Well yeah except for how that's nothing like old times… Buffy, are you okay… you just haven't really seemed like yourself since… well since Sunnydale… imploded."
"I'm sorry about how things were last year Dawnie, I know you probably felt a little ignored with the potentials swarming around… it was just how it had to be, with the big bad and all… and now…"
"No, Buffy, that's not what I meant… It's just well… since… all that happened… You just haven't really talked about any of it."
Buffy's eyes float down to examine her shoes with intense scrutiny for a moment as her mind drifts back to her bittersweet victory over the Hellmouth. Their success in battle that day had such a high price.
"What's there to talk about, we fought the big bad, we won, end of story…"
"No, not end of story… that wasn't just a big bad, and it wasn't just we won at the end… we lost people… Anya… and Spike."
Buffy's eyes dart to meet her sister's blue ones, sparkling pools of blue eyes, Blue eyes like his, Buffy thinks to herself. For months his name has gone unspoken. Spike has become a silent set of syllables which the Scoobies find unable to verbalize in the presence of the Slayer. It's as if his name will start the apocalypse all over again, and in truth as far as Buffy's emotions are concerned it just might. But now his name is said, Dawn said it clear as the light of day with all the boldness and stubbornness that she could muster and in that moment Buffy doesn't know how to respond. However, she doesn't have to. With a whoosh of air Dawn is knocked to the ground and left with an oomph.
"Here we go," Buffy says lifting the vampire off of Dawn with one hand and heaving him against a nearby headstone.
Dawn is up in seconds and charging after the vampire with her stake in hand; however before she is able to lead the vampire to a dusty demise he is up off the headstone and rushing at her. In a second of fear and squeak of a girly scream Dawn flinches. Her eyes shut tight and the grip on her stake stiffens. For a second all she can think about is being home, at her real home, the one that's now buried below an ocean of dirt. For a second she thinks she can actually smell her mother's cooking drifting through her nostrils. For a second she would swear that below her feet were wood floors not the wet squish of newly grown grass over filled-in holes running six feet deep.
Two seconds too long Dawn's eyes are closed as she awaits the impact of the vampire. She opens her eyes, but the sight that invades her senses is not that of a graveyard beneath the London star-scape. Instead, Dawn finds that she is standing on a wood floor with the dim glow of the living room side table lamp across her face. She is home; but before she can even turn her head to absorb all of what she is seeing a bright light from seemingly nowhere nearly blinds her and as her eyes finally readjust themselves she's back in the graveyard before her sister.
Particles of dust filter through the moonlight and flutter to the ground. Dawn looks up at her sister's face which is glaring at her with concern. Buffy immediately moves toward her sister, distress evident in every step she takes, and looks her over as if she were a delicate china doll that someone accidentally dropped to the floor.
"Dawn! Are you okay, what happened… the vampire must have…"
"No… no, I think it was me."
"What… Dawn, what are you talking about?"
"I was home Buffy…"
--
A tendril Willow's red hair swings loose and blocks her vision. Quickly she brushes it back behind her ear to rejoin the group in observing the spectacle that is Dawn sitting on the cherry table top in Giles's office In the corner of her eye Willow sees Buffy standing with concern pulsing through every vain. Faith stands behind them both leaning with her back against the wall, and Giles himself has a tiny black flashlight in his right hand and is using it to invade Dawn's personal space and shine it in her eyes.
"Giles this isn't getting us anywhere," Buffy says with frustration in her voice.
"Yes, well do you have any better ideas?"
"I don't know, let's research stuff, hit the books and…"
"And look up what exactly?"
"The key," Willow interjects.
"What?"
"Dawn, you said for a second you thought you were home right, maybe you were, like back in time… maybe this is some mystical key thingy, like a portal or some big built up power that you've never known how to access before."
"That's a lot of maybes," Faith says.
"…or maybe not."
"No… Will, you might be on to something there… I mean just because we stopped Glory doesn't mean that that Dawn stopped being the key," Buffy says.
"Dear Lord, I think you might be right… the key had the ability to move between dimensions," Giles says with awe in his voice. "Somehow you must have figured out how to tap into this power."
"So you're saying Dawn here is a certified portal powerhouse… neat," Faith says.
"Powerhouse… what no, not me… I can't even figure out what train to get on half the time when I need to go somewhere… I can't…" Dawn says in a squeaky voice filled with fear.
"Whoa, chill out there… I'm just saying, from what I've heard if the key was meant to open up all the dimensions or whatever, it's got to have a lot of energy," Faith says to calm the teenager not wanting to upset her.
"Yes, quite, the key posses an immense amount of energy… It would seem if that is the case… then this has the potential to be very dangerous," Giles says.
"Or extremely useful," Faith says.
"Yes, well in either case I think this is something that we should do some looking into."
"Uh, guys. While this is fun and all to sit and talk about me, I feel fine and it's getting late… so unless you think I'm in with the danger… " Dawn says needing time to take in everything she's just learned.
"And it's a school night," Buffy adds.
"Right, so I think I'm gonna go downstairs and get some sleep."
"Of course Dawnie… and don't worry, I'm sure we'll have the scoop on all of this real soon," Willow says in a reassuring voice.
--
The Summer's front door closes with a click as Dawn walks into the apartment. However, her reasons for coming home are far from the notion of sleeping. Her new abilities are a little frightening but also fascinating and Dawn thinks to herself that one way to calm her fears is to test those abilities to see how much control she has over them. Dawn darts to the kitchen table to swipe the decorative white candles that reside in its center. She lights them with a match as she sits Indian style on the living room floor. Dawn closes her eyes and starts to meditate. However, when she opens her eyes she's still alone in her London flat. Dismayed Dawn's shoulders slump and she rolls her eyes.
"Come on," she says in frustration. Still nothing "I just want to go back to Sunnydale for a second." She says as she shuts her eyes with the intention of envisioning her home. However the image that pops into her mind is not that of a warm two story house, but that of ruins in a southern Californian desert. This time when Dawn opens her eyes she's no longer alone in the London flat, but neither is she sitting on the hard wood floor of the Summer's Sunnydale house. Instead she's sitting in the dirt. "Oh sure, now it works," Dawn says as she looks around the dark cavern that is all that remains of Sunnydale.
Dawn closes her eyes again to try and get herself back, but it doesn't work. When she opens them again something catches her eye. Dawn gets up; something is shining through the rubble. She picks it up and as she does her mind wanders to thinking of bringing it home with her. Whoosh. Blinding light surrounds her as she's pulled through space back to the living room of her London flat, pulled back with the shiny trinket still in the palm of her hand. Dawn steadies herself, she's knocked slightly off balance from the movement, and then as if she forgot about what she held in her hand brings the charm closer to her face. With her other hand Dawn uses her thumb to brush some of the dirt off its surface.
Dawn realizes that the object she's holding in her hand is none other then the amulet that Spike was wearing the night the Hellmouth was closed, the night the mouth of Hell swallowed him up along with a dozen other girls she knew well. Creak. Dawn's eyes dart up to the front door as it swings open; surprised she drops the amulet on the floor as her eyes meet Buffy's.
Both Summer's sisters look down at what has tumbled from Dawn's hand as it starts to glow, within seconds the glow grows bright enough to give the entire room a warm radiance. The amulet starts to shine and smoke as it swivels around on the floor. Swirling through the light of the amulet a whirlwind of dirt and dust creates a mini-tornado dead in the center of the Summer's living room. A mini-tornado that screams a horrible and painful sound and begins to take on shape, a human shape, or rather a vampire shape, piece by piece the tiny bits of sparkling dust mold and form together… form back into Spike.