As soon as her eyes closed and her head hit the pillow, she was out.
And she was in there again. There were whispers in her ears, something wet hitting her skin right beneath her temple, and then the metal, carving her, slicing until there was nothing but bone. The screams started over, drowning out the whispers, the soundtrack of her torture. She was pretty sure some of those screams were hers, yet she couldn't even feel her mouth opening and letting those sounds out. They were not human.
The something shook her. That wasn't part of her hell. Something more was going on.
"Ally. Alls. Come one, Alls wake up. Wake up." Dawn's voice brought her back to the real world, her eyes snapping open, her screams subsiding.
Just when she looked at her sister, the door to Dawnie's room opened, the witches rushing in, terrified expressions on their faces.
"What's going on?" Willow asked while Dawn held her sister in her arms, Ally's breathing irregular and her hands trembling.
She thought she was back again. It was like she had never gotten out, but it was only a nightmare.
Only a nightmare.
Dawnie echoed her thoughts, tightening her hold on the eldest brunette and rubbing her arms in an attempt to soothe her. Ally rested her head against Dawn's shoulder, trying to get in deep breaths and the memories out of her mind.
That was over. She was not going back. She was home, with her sisters, her family.
The witches didn't seem to be convinced, like there was something more the two brunettes didn't know, but left the room quietly to go back to theirs.
The girls eventually went back to their beds, too, but Ally resisted falling asleep again. She waited until Dawn was out before climbing out of the mattress, grabbing her clothes and going downstairs as quietly as possible. She changed from the dinosaur pyjamas she had borrowed from Dawn and changed back into some of the clothes that had been left in the house before she died, her boots back on, a stake on the waistband of her shorts.
It felt good to have her things again, it felt... safe, comfortable. At least, when she wasn't asleep. She didn't want to risk a repeat of the nightmare, so she figured she might as well do something useful.
Scribbling down a quick note to let them all know she was out for a walk or patrol in case they woke up and freaked out, she left the house, her feet moving on their own accord. She knew where she was going. Where she always went.
The crypt hadn't changed one bit, at least from the outside. She knocked, no answer coming from the other side, so she decided to wait inside for him to come back.
Like she did before.
The inside was a bit different. New furniture filled the empty spaces, a few lamps here and there, a new stand for a new TV, bigger and better looking. The VHS player she gave him last Christmas stood right beneath it, the Passions videotapes next to it. The hole that led to the tunnels was bigger too, and the stairs down looked stronger, better built.
She looked around, taking in every new thing, remembering exactly what it looked like before. She had spent so much time in there, with him, it would even feel homely with only the couch, the telly and the fridge.
"Ally."
The voice coming from her back, from the stairs, made a shiver go down her spine, goosebumps covering her arms. She turned her head slightly, seeing him gawking at her, his eyes sliding from her face to her feet. "You should be careful. Never know what kind of villain's got a knife at your back." He moved his hand to show her a huge curved knife clutched in it, the red from his knuckles catching her attention.
She approached him, taking his hand in hers, just like he'd done earlier that night. "Your hand is hurt."
His gaze went from her face to her own knuckles, nodding. "Hmm. Same with you."
"They'll be fine soon." They were already much better than they would have been before, the edges turning pink, new skin forming.
"Slayer powers." He stated, not needing a confirmation, yet she still nodded. "How?"
"Buffy died a couple seconds before me. It felt like a cruel joke of the Powers." She let his hand fall, glancing up at his face.
"Tell me about it." He averted his eyes, stepping back an sitting down on the edge of the TV stand. "You can sit down. Got furniture."
"I noticed." She smiled lightly, sitting on the edge of the couch, hands on her lap. "Did you sign up to Style at Home, crypt version?"
"You should see the downstairs, too, it's quite posh." He attempted an smile, yet it was more of a grimace. Something was bothering him. "Uh ... I do remember what I said. The promise. To protect her. If I had done that ... even if I didn't make it ... you wouldn't have had to jump." He felt guilty. He didn't know. "But I want you to know I did save you. Not when it counted, of course, but ... after that. Every night after that. I'd see it all again ... do something different. Faster or more clever, you know? Dozens of times, lots of different ways ... Every night I save you."
"You couldn't have avoided it." She corrected, trying to ease his guilt. "The promise was for when I wasn't here, and neither was Buffy. I knew it would happen. I told Buffy. I was sent here for that."
First, his eyes widened in shock, then they narrowed in anger. "You knew? All along?"
Oh, no. He thought she knew from the moment she got there, that she had been hiding it from them all. "No. I found out when I was unconscious at the hospital. A dream. From the First Slayer." When he seemed to relax a bit again, she leaned back against the back of the sofa, her arms coming around her middle. "She told me I was the missing piece. That Buffy and I could take Dawn's place. I was meant to be here, to be their sister, to save Dawn. I was meant to die in her place."
"You knew there would be no one left to protect her but me." He muttered, his eyes taking that soft edge again, almost watery.
He had suffered. He had made himself responsible for it, for not saving her, all that time.
"How long have I... we... been gone?"
"Hundred forty-seven days yesterday. Uh... hundred forty-eight today." He smiled at that, if only a little, nothing like his smirks. "'Cept today doesn't count, does it?" He paused, letting her take it all in, her eyes falling to the floor. Hundred and forty-seven days. Not even five months. It felt surreal. "How long was it for you... where you were?"
"Longer." She sighed, her arms tightening around her, refusing to acknowledge the light ghost of scratching she felt on her skin. It was not real. Not anymore. She was home. She was home.
She was home.
Something had come from Hell with them. Hitchhiker, they called it, and it was possessing her friends.
Back to their normal life, researching demons and evil crawlies. It felt good, in a creepy way. She had something to fight, even if she was partially the reason why it was there. She was a Slayer, it was her duty, more than ever.
Still, with her lack of sleep and any kind of noise or feeling resembling her stay in hell making her zone out for a few moments, the Gang decided it was better if she stayed home, away from triggers, until they found a way of lessening her reactions. Willow suggested some kind of hypnosis, or a spell that buried those memories or blurred them so they didn't have as big an effect on her.
The hitchhiker was a priority, Ally decided. They would not waste time trying to fix her while it was out there. She could wait.
And she went home.
She was in Dawn's room when she heard the front door open. The steps were quiet, no one was calling out, and she knew it was Buffy. The steps got closer, up the stairs and into Buffy's room. Maybe they could talk about what had happened, see what it was that had Buffy so... broken. Ally knew she wasn't fine, heck, she was terrified of falling asleep, but when she was awake, she was... better. Buffy didn't look like that. Something more was going on.
"Buffy?" The new Slayer rose from her baby sister's bed, walking out to the corridor to find a white mist floating on the doorway to Buffy's room.
"You don't belong here." It whispered, glancing from the blonde to the brunette before the first tried to punch it, her fist going through the mist.
The demon-ghost punched back, an ethereal tendril shooting out to hit the senior Slayer, sending her flying back. Both Slayers went into attack, all of their hits ineffective, not being able to touch anything corporeal. What was more, the mist vanished and reappeared at will, making it even more difficult to follow.
"Did they tell you, you belonged here?" It taunted, floating in front of the girls. "Did they say this was your home again?" It disappeared when they aimed for it, swirling around them and sneaking behind the Slayers. "Were you offered pretty lies, little girls?" In one movement, both sisters were crushed together, feeling something more solid against their backs, squeezing, trapping them. "Or did they even give you a choice?"
Somehow, they managed to break the demon's hold on them, pushing against its 'arms' and setting free, only to be hit by the same things that had trapped them, sending them stumbling back, laying on their sides. The demon stood above them, suddenly still, its misty form turning a brighter, harder white, more touchable.
Buffy reacted quickly and got an axe from beneath her bed, getting up to continue fighting.
The demon wasn't done talking yet, it seemed, as it started again while the brunette stood back up. It was focused on the blonde, though, like she was its target. "You're the one who's barely here. Set on this earth like a bubble." Buffy cut the air with her axe, not even making the demon flinch, even if its face got cleared after a couple swings. The girls could make out its mouth, moving, while it confronted the senior Slayer. "You won't even disturb the air when you go."
"You won't take her away." Ally hissed, joining her sister once more, aiming a hit at its body.
Unexpectedly, Xander, Anya and Dawn appeared at the door, running until they saw their opponent, their eyes widening in fear.
"Go!" Ally ordered, not wanting them to get hurt too. If Buffy and her couldn't deal with the demon, what could they do?
"Take Dawn out of here!" Buffy shouted, still holding the axe.
All of a sudden, the demon became corporeal, its body like a decaying corpse, white and grey, and tall as no woman they'd seen before. Buffy swung at it, the demon grabbing the handle and trying to take it from her, finally letting go and hitting Buffy, the axe dropping. Ally, behind Buffy, saw her sister be knocked down in one more hit and rushed to pick up the axe, slashing directly at the demon's neck, its head separating from the body and falling to the ground.
It was over. Nothing was taking her sister from her.
Trying to get some kind of normalcy back, Ally and Dawn left the Summers house, home, heading towards the high school. Buffy had stopped them at first, giving the youngest a brown paper bag with her lunch, the gesture making Dawn much happier than any of them expected. She had suffered in their absence, and Ally couldn't help but feel a pang in her chest at causing her such pain. Yet, it was better than her dying. And they were all back together. Everything would be alright.
On the walk to high school, Dawn held onto her brunette sister's arm, almost as if she needed to touch her to make sure she was really there. As if her screams at night weren't proof enough of her presence.
Ally was still reluctant to sleep, the last couple days since she had been resurrected filled with nightmares the moment she fell asleep, which resulted in only sleeping a couple hours each night, the dark circles under her eyes evidence enough. Willow and Tara were looking into something to get rid of the nightmares; meanwhile, she run on coffee and sheer will power. She was back home, and sleep was not going to ruin it for her.
