Hey everyone! I'm back sooner than I expected! I've been binge watching Season 7 episodes these last few days and feeling extremely productive, and managed to write a few chapters for the new season, so I had no excuse not to update. I'll probably only update once a week for the next few weeks, but hey, it's better than nothing!
So here we go. Welcome to Season 3 of The Mini Slayer, aka Season 7 of BtVS.
Enjoy!
Lee out.
She was tired by the time she made it to the front door of the Summers house. It was barely sunrise, her bag was heavy -although it wasn't at the beginning of the journey back, so she supposed it was because of the exhaustion-, she felt like dropping dead on her bed and just as anxious about seeing them.
Her sisters. She hadn't seen or talked to them in almost three months. She had missed them so much...
She slowly opened the front door and walked inside, careful not to make too much noise and wake every living soul in the house. It looked like no one was up yet, at least. Tiptoeing upstairs, she managed not to make a sound as she approached her shared room, the door slightly ajar, her sleeping baby sister inside.
She smiled. Wide and brightly, really smiled. Her Dawnie. Her little teenage angst filled sister. She'd changed her hair, got a few highlights, but she was still her Dawnie.
Ally got closer to the bed, let her bag as quietly as possible on one side and looked at the alarm clock on the sleeping girl's bedside table. 6:48 am. She should probably allow her to sleep some more.
It didn't go as planned.
As soon as Ally had stepped back from the bed to start unpacking her bag, Dawn stirred, making the eldest of the two pause in her task. As the teen stopped moving and slightly opened her eyes, apparently searching for the alarm clock to know how much time she had left to sleep, she caught a glimpse of something standing near the edge of her bed and looked over, eyes a bit more open.
Needless to say, it didn't take her more than five seconds to realize who it was and jump from bed.
If only she got up that fast when she had to go to school.
Dawn basically tackled the junior Slayer, who was thankful for the Slayer powers as the teen didn't even realize how much force she had put into it, too excited to have a clear thought.
"Oh, God, you're back!" She squealed, hopping as she hugged the eldest brunette, who couldn't hold back a smile as she embraced the teen back.
"I'm back." She reaffirmed softly, closing her eyes in content.
Then the sound of an stampede came from the corridor, right before Buffy turned up at the door, looking agitated and ready for battle. "Dawn, what's...?" She stopped mid sentence, taking in the image of both her baby sisters hugging in the middle of the room, and froze. It was only a few seconds, enough to make Ally smirk at her expression, before Buffy came forward and hugged her too.
Buffy made the best impersonation of a boa constrictor that Ally had ever been victim to. She couldn't say she was unfazed thanks to her Slayer powers anymore, that excuse flew out the window the moment the senior Chosen One saw her.
"Woah, I see you missed me, Buff. More like... I feel it." She chuckled, rubbing the blonde's back and relaxing into her sisters' embrace. They were both hugging her right then.
It felt good. It felt so good to be back.
A couple minutes later, when it looked like the Summers girls had had enough hugging for the moment, they stepped back and watched each other, smiles breaking into their faces. "How are you, Alls?" Buffy asked, looking her up and down.
"Great. I missed you girls, and everyone in the Scooby Gang. Heck, I'm sure Mr. and Mrs. Harris will have been too busy in their honey moon phase but..."
"They didn't get married." Dawn corrected her before she continued, her face falling a bit. "Xander left Anya at the altar. Now Anya's a vengeance demon again, but... she's still Anya, if you know what I mean? She's not like she was before she lost her powers the first time. She's more... human."
"Holy shit."
"Yeah. We... should go down, have breakfast. Have you eaten?" Buffy asked, trying to divert the direction the conversation was taking before dropping the biggest news. She wanted Ally to calm down, settle a bit. It was going to be upsetting enough as it was.
"No, I'm starving, really. Airplane food is gross." The junior Slayer brightened considerably, although the idea of Xander leaving Anya at the altar was incomprehensible for her. He loved her. Why would he do that?
Indeed. Why would a man that loved a woman so much betray her like that?
Even though she was disappointed in Spike -disappointed, not really angry. Yet she didn't know which was worse. -, she had missed him to the point of dreaming about him in everyday situations, like watching TV in his crypt, or just walking around the graveyard. She missed him, every part of him, but what she missed the most was the fact that she could always go to him when she felt like it, be it night or day, and simply enjoy his company.
The disappointment hadn't erased that. The distance hadn't stopped her from loving him. In any case, it had made her more conscious of her feelings towards him. And disappointment was a minuscule part in comparison to the other emotions filling her heart and making her fear it might burst.
She couldn't wait to go visit him. What had he been doing all those months? That's what she feared, the possibility that he might have forgotten her. That he might have gotten over her.
She was terrified and anxious, yet so excited about seeing him again.
The three sisters made their way down the stairs, Ally only halting on her way to look up and make the question that Buffy and Dawn feared she would make. "Can I go wake Willow up? I wanna see her face when she notices I'm back." She smirked, glancing toward her sisters to see them exchange a concerned look. "What is it?"
Buffy bit her lower lip and averted her eyes, Dawn gulping and fiddling with her hands at the same time.
Something was wrong.
Ally ran upstairs, dreading what she would find, Buffy's shouts for her to stop only making her more scared. If she was screaming, it meant Willow was not asleep.
When the brunette arrived to the doorway to what was previously Joyce's room, she paused.
It was empty.
She spun on her heel when she heard her sisters approach, her face twisted in concern. "Where's Willow? Is she alright? Is she alive?"
"She's alive." Buffy immediately confirmed, watching as Ally's shoulders relaxed a bit, relieved. "But... a lot of things happened. Let's go downstairs and sit down. It's... a lot to take in."
Needless to say, Ally was scared shitless by the time they all started having breakfast. The blonde was trying to make her eat something before she started to explain what had happened while she was gone, but the knots in Ally's stomach were making it hard. And she wasn't the kind to refuse food, she had a great appetite that could surpass that of a six feet four man.
When she pushed her empty bowl of cereal away from her, Buffy nodded and seemed to be preparing herself for the talk. "Well, you already know the part about Xander and Anya. Anya is still running the Magic Box, too. Then... Tara and Willow got back together. They were so happy... We found out about Warren and the other nerds planning to rob a van full of money using some... orbs that gave Warren superpowers. I stopped him and got Andrew and Jonathan into police custody, but Warren escaped. He was angry, and he came here, with a gun, shot me, and by... accident, he killed Tara." She paused, keeping an eye on Ally in case she got more upset. She had left because someone she cared about had died, and the story wasn't going to get much better. When the brunette's hands flew to her mouth, it was Dawn who wrapped an arm around her shoulders and rubbed the junior Slayer's arms, trying to comfort her. "That's not all." The eldest continued. "Willow was torn. She got... out of control. She started using magic for vengeance. She went after Warren with magic that surpassed anything she had done before, she sucked the magic from the books from the dark section of the Magic Box, and killed him. She tortured him. And then she went after Andrew and Jonathan."
"Oh, god." Ally sobbed, subconsciously leaning against Dawn.
"We tried to stop her, get Andrew and Jonathan away from her, but when she ran out of her magic she resorted to stealing it from Rack. She killed him too. We fought, Giles came to try to stop her too, but she beat him, and me... Xander and Dawn were helping the other two nerds hide from her, but it wasn't enough. And in the end, she tried to destroy the world. Xander stopped her. She's now in England with Giles in a wicca rehab program of some kind."
"She's... better now, we've heard. Andrew and Jonathan went who-knows-where and Xander is doing great in his job. He leads the crew building what's left of the new Sunnydale High. Which, as scary as it sounds knowing how it was when Buffy went there, I will be attending from tomorrow on. Anya is... still doing her own thing."
"Tara..." The junior Slayer couldn't believe her own ears. It couldn't be. Why?
"I know." Dawn murmured before bringing her into another hug, this one less excited and much more supportive. "At least, it was quick and painless."
Buffy walked around the kitchen counter and rubbed her back softly as she cried, her face soft and loving, Dawn's own similar to the blonde's.
How she'd missed her sisters.
She eventually calmed down, although her eyes still glistened and were red, but she could breath more or less normally again.
"I'm so sorry I wasn't here." She apologized, surprising the other two, who would have never thought of making her feel guilty about it. "I'm so sorry."
"You had other problems. We understand. We missed you, but you had to go. It's fine." Buffy cupped her cheek, smiling softly. "How was it back home, anyway?"
"Hard at the beginning. And the middle. And the end." She sighed, slumping back against Dawn, who happily accepted the weight of her sister. "It was my fault, really. I mean, I hadn't even called once, they all thought I was dead, and then to suddenly turn up at the funeral where all my old friends were... A couple of them fainted, my brother went apeshit crazy, my aunt freaked out, my uncle was pale as a ghost and didn't speak for hours and my cousins and aunts and uncles had to tell my grandparents before I went to see them so they didn't have a heart attack. But then... you know, there were hugs, and tears, and more tears, and I was yelled at, and there were family gatherings, and some happy things too. But it was hard. Things were... very different from what I remembered. I felt like a stranger. I didn't belong there. I belong here."
"Who died?" Dawn asked quietly so as not to upset her further.
"And old friend. We... had known each other almost all out lives before I left." Her voice got quieter, lost in thought, in memories. "He was one of my dearest friends back then. His mom and mine knew each other, he was really smart and we often talked. He didn't make me feel strange for... you know, the special education needs. Apparently, they found out he had cancer a couple years ago. Riley... he had just called my brother after he left here to... you know, know how he was doing, keep in touch, so he could tell him he found me when... my brother told him about my friend. Riley knew I was going to go back when I found out. Guess it was a good excuse to push me to contact them again." She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, sighing again. "I missed you two so much. You have no idea."
"We do. We missed you too. Dawn was going crazy, she has a lot of things to tell you." Buffy smirked, Dawn's face brightening as she remembered something.
"I'm going to start training!" She announced, happy and bubbly just like Ally remembered her.
"What?" Ally straightened in her stool as once, glancing from one sister to the other to make sure she'd heard right.
"Yeah. Dawn showed me she's... very capable of becoming a good Potential." Buffy admitted.
"Of course. I have not one but two Slayer sisters. Who else can say that?" She grinned, looking proud of herself.
"Oh, god, finally!" Ally jumped from her seat and hugged the teen again, hopping in place. "You're gonna be kicking ass soon, Dawnie!"
They all laughed, a little bit of joy lessening the despair that had filled the kitchen mere minutes earlier. Things were always easier to handle when they were together.
However, Ally still missed something. More like she missed the mention of someone. A very important someone.
"Uh... and... how's Spike?" She asked once she let Dawn breath, her face slightly flushed still.
Both girls fell silent.
No.
"Girls?" Her voice got weak. Not him. He had to be alright.
"He left." Dawn revealed, gaze set on her own feet. "Right after you did. No one has seen him or heard of him yet."
Not Spike. Not her vampire. He couldn't be gone.
