Chapter Three
Darry went downstairs and was surprised to see Xander and Anya sitting at the kitchen counter. Anya turned around to face her when she entered the kitchen and was all smiles when she caught sight of the newly alive Darry.
She jumped out of her seat and bounced over to Darry and gave her a hug. Darry was surprised at the girl's behavior, since Anya hadn't always been the best friend she had always been missing. Anya broke the hug and then studied Darry. "Xander said that I should be happy to see you; I am, but he told me to...I can't remember but I heard you were supposed to hug someone you haven't seen in a while." Anya said.
Darry smiled. "I'm happy to see you too Anya." Darry said and grinned.
Xander walked over to Darry and made to hug her but Anya stopped him. "Hands off." She muttered to him, giving him the evil eye. Xander looked down at his financee; he decided not to get Anya mad. Xander held out his hand for Darry to shake; when she took his hand she was surprised how tightly he gripped it, it was very clear that he was happy that she was back.
Xander released Darry's hand and smiled; Darry smiled back. Buffy walked over to the group. "Apparently Amy brought Darry back to life." Buffy said, as though filling them in.
Darry looked over at the Slayer; before Darry could say anything, Buffy spoke. "I see you found your necklace." She remarked, eyeing Darry's neck. The necklace lay perfectly on her neck as though it was made just for her and no one else.
Darry nodded, causing the necklace to sway slightly. "Yeah, it was on my night table." Darry answered.
After Dawn and Darry had gone upstairs and Xander and Anya left, Buffy and Willow sat in the kitchen talking.
"We should tell Oz." Willow remarked, taking a bite of the chocolate chip cookie that rested in her hands.
Buffy looked over at her friend. "You're right, but we have no way of knowing where he his. We should call Kellie too; I'm sure she went back to Snowville." Buffy added.
"It's weird." Willow remarked, her mouth full of cookie.
"What is?" Buffy asked, surprised by her friend's random comment.
"Having Darry back; it's as weird as having you back after...after you died. I was just telling myself this morning: 'Stop thinking about that night because there's nothing you can do to change it.' And now, well, it's changed." Willow answered.
Buffy nodded and was surprised how Willow's thoughts were much like her own. "I know what you mean; Dawn asked me, last night, if I blamed myself for Darry's death and I have to admit that I sort of did. I kept thinking: 'was there something I could have done to keep her from dying'? I knew there wasn't but I couldn't help but think that." Buffy said.
Willow nodded. "Yeah." She replied shortly and finished her cookie. She looked over at her friend. "But Darry's back now." She said.
Buffy nodded. "Yes." She said.
Darry stared up at the ceiling, looking up at the 'wooden' top. The half-moon shown through the windows that Kellie begged Xander to make. Darry looked around the empty room; the moonlight barely washed over the top of Kellie's dresser which was covered with a thin layer of dust.
The moonlight glinted on the glass fronting of the frame that held the picture of her and Oz. She hadn't told anyone that she had the picture but Buffy had mentioned that Kellie and Oz had taken all the pictures from her birthday party.
Darry sighed and rolled over on her side, tried of looking up at the ceiling. Her eyes scanned the bare floor, barely seeing through the dark. She closed her eyes, wishing sleep to come but knew that it wouldn't.
In a cheap hotel somewhere outside of L.A. Oz found that he couldn't sleep. His eyes wandered around the poor wallpaper job and broken television set. His guitar sat in the corner of the room, gathering dust because he hadn't used it since he left Sunnydale. On the stain-covered table beside his bed was a picture of him and Darry from her birthday party. Kellie had taken most of the other pictures; he had two other pictures that weren't in frames in his suitcase. He put this one on the table because he liked it the best.
Oz closed his eyes and opened them again, feeling a slightly sting that signaled tears. It seemed, to him, that all he ever did was lie in bed, doing nothing; he didn't really care because there was no reason to do anything else.
Oz closed his eyes again, trying to force sleep upon his seemingly always tired body. However, he knew that sleep wasn't that easy.
In an apartment building that rested by the main part of Snowville, Kellie wandered around the small one room apartment that she had called home after leaving Sunnydale a month ago.
She picked up a towel and wiped away some dust that wasn't on the kitchen counter. Her only companion since leaving Sunnydale was a cat that came and went as it pleased, which she called William, after the vampire that she had called her boyfriend back in Sunnydale. Kellie doubted that Spike wanted anything to do with her after the way she had yelled at him the night she left Sunnydale.
Kellie had found that she was having trouble sleeping ever since she left Sunnydale. She could barely sleep for more then five hours, if she was even that lucky.
On the mantle, above the fireplace that really didn't burn logs, were pictures that she had taken with her. Most of the pictures were from before she moved to Sunnydale, of her and her parents. There were a few from Sunnydale, from Darry's birthday party, which was held the day before she died. One of the pictures was of her and Spike, at Darry's party; Kellie was worried that the picture wouldn't develop because she didn't know if vampires took good pictures. However, it had come out and Kellie had placed it in a frame and set it atop the mantle.
After glancing at the pictures, Kellie headed to her room. William lay in the hall, having entered through the cracked sliding-glass door that she left open for him. Kellie stepped over the cat, causing him to hiss and sprint away.
She entered her bedroom, which was dull and white, and lay down in her bed. She looked out the window and saw the snow building up on top of the bushes outside her window. Even in the middle of February, it still snowed constantly in her little town. However, despite the snow, Kellie wished she was in Sunnydale.
The next day, Willow brought up the subject of telling Oz that Darry was alive and in Sunnydale. However, Darry didn't seem to find that idea one of the best.
"I don't want him to know." Darry said, avoiding everyone's stares. "I don't want Kellie to know either." She added.
"Why?" Buffy asked, surprised at Darry's words.
Darry looked over at her. "You're the Slayer, so you'll understand this better then anyone else, and you know how dangerous life can by. There's nothing granteeing that I won't go into another battle and survive. And, Oz and Kellie have already had to lose me once, I don't want them to have to go through that again. It's better if they don't know." Darry answered.
Buffy had to admit that she did understand; she didn't want to die again but more, she didn't want to put Dawn and the others through that again. However, the Slayer could tell that there was something that Darry wasn't telling them; Buffy could tell that Darry really wanted both Oz and Kellie to know that she was alive.
However, Buffy just nodded, silently agreeing for the time being. Darry looked away from her, not smiling or revealing any of what she felt.
Spike sat alone in his crypt, bored as ever; it seemed that all he ever was bored. Kellie used to drop by and keep him company but now she wasn't in Sunnydale so he had no one to keep him company. Sometimes Buffy dropped by, just to toy with him; use him then shoot him down, telling him that she despised him and for him to never come near her again.
Spike wished for some excitement in Sunnydale, anything at all. After all this was the Hellmouth and excitement was never far away.
Rex looked down at the newly repaired Urn of Orsis with satisfaction. How easily he had tricked Amy into bringing him; humans could be easily tricked. Now, he had the tool that could make him even more powerful then he already was. Amy, and probably the witch Willow, had no idea what the Urn's true powers were. Yes, it could raise the dead but it could also capture all the souls of the damned death; those sworn to Hell or Limbo because they were evil or murderous in life, which was exactly the kind of crowd that Rex liked to hang with.
Once all the souls were imprisoned in the Urn then they would take the form of a horrible entity, capable of destroying the world or plunging it into Hell. Rex was eager to see if all that he had heard was really true.
Darry walked around the house, wondering if someone could be as bored as she felt at the moment. Dawn was off at school, Willow was running an errand, Anya was off at the Magic Box, Xander was working at some site and Buffy was somewhere, Darry didn't know where.
Darry felt as though she had done every possible thing to do, in the house. She had dusted, cleaned, rearrangened all the books in order of pages on the downstairs bookshelf and made sure everything was in its proper place. There was probably nothing more she could do, except lay on the couch and be bored and wait for something to happen.
Even in the town of Sunnydale, that seemed like it would never happen.
In his cheap hotel room outside of L.A. Oz finally decided to stop laying in bed all day and decided to move around the apartment. He walked over to his guitar and picked it up, running his fingers along the dusty cords of the guitar. He realized that Darry had never heard him play, he couldn't remember her ever listening to him. He set the guitar back down and turned away, putting his back to it. He looked around the apartment; his eyes rested on the phone that rested on top of the broken television set.
He decided that he was going to call the Summers house and see what was going on in Sunnydale. The first time he left Sunnydale he didn't stay in touch at all; it might do him so good to keep in contact with his friends in Sunnydale. He couldn't lock himself away for the rest of his life.
He walked over to the phone and picked it up the receiver and put it up to his ear, hearing the dial tone. He slowly dialed the Summers house.
Darry sat upright when she heard the phone ring; someone was calling, someone she could talk to so she wouldn't be bored. On the second ring she bolted off the couch and raced to the phone. She waited for it to ring again and took a deep breath and then picked up the phone.
"Hello?" Darry said. No one answered, she waited for someone to answer but no one did.
Frowning, Darry hung up the phone.
Oz dropped the phone, barely realizing that he had dropped the phone. He sucked in a breath; he couldn't believe what he heard. The person on the other end of the line was Darry; however, it was impossible because Darry was dead. However, it sounded like her, there was no mistaking that voice that he had missed so much since the second she died. Oz took a step back and knocked into his guitar, knocked over his guitar.
It wasn't possible but he had to be sure; with a shaking hand he picked up the phone.
The phone rang again right as Darry made herself comfortable on the couch. She frowned as she stood up, hoping that it was the person that hung up on her so she could yell at him.
Darry picked up the phone and said, "Hello?" as mean as she could.
"Darry?" The voice on the other end of the line said.
Darry sucked in a breath; it was Oz, she almost couldn't believe that he was on the line. "Oz?" She said, hardly believing that she found the breath to speak.
"Oh God." Oz replied, his words coming out in a gasp.
Darry couldn't say anything, couldn't find the words to speak and couldn't fathom what to say.
She didn't need to find the words because she heard a click and then a dial tone. If she hadn't been so shocked at the fact that Oz had called her, she would have been slightly upset that he had hung up on her.
Darry slowly put the phone back on the hook, her hand shaking. She stepped back and sat down on the coffee table in the center of the room. She needed to talk to Buffy.
Darry went downstairs and was surprised to see Xander and Anya sitting at the kitchen counter. Anya turned around to face her when she entered the kitchen and was all smiles when she caught sight of the newly alive Darry.
She jumped out of her seat and bounced over to Darry and gave her a hug. Darry was surprised at the girl's behavior, since Anya hadn't always been the best friend she had always been missing. Anya broke the hug and then studied Darry. "Xander said that I should be happy to see you; I am, but he told me to...I can't remember but I heard you were supposed to hug someone you haven't seen in a while." Anya said.
Darry smiled. "I'm happy to see you too Anya." Darry said and grinned.
Xander walked over to Darry and made to hug her but Anya stopped him. "Hands off." She muttered to him, giving him the evil eye. Xander looked down at his financee; he decided not to get Anya mad. Xander held out his hand for Darry to shake; when she took his hand she was surprised how tightly he gripped it, it was very clear that he was happy that she was back.
Xander released Darry's hand and smiled; Darry smiled back. Buffy walked over to the group. "Apparently Amy brought Darry back to life." Buffy said, as though filling them in.
Darry looked over at the Slayer; before Darry could say anything, Buffy spoke. "I see you found your necklace." She remarked, eyeing Darry's neck. The necklace lay perfectly on her neck as though it was made just for her and no one else.
Darry nodded, causing the necklace to sway slightly. "Yeah, it was on my night table." Darry answered.
After Dawn and Darry had gone upstairs and Xander and Anya left, Buffy and Willow sat in the kitchen talking.
"We should tell Oz." Willow remarked, taking a bite of the chocolate chip cookie that rested in her hands.
Buffy looked over at her friend. "You're right, but we have no way of knowing where he his. We should call Kellie too; I'm sure she went back to Snowville." Buffy added.
"It's weird." Willow remarked, her mouth full of cookie.
"What is?" Buffy asked, surprised by her friend's random comment.
"Having Darry back; it's as weird as having you back after...after you died. I was just telling myself this morning: 'Stop thinking about that night because there's nothing you can do to change it.' And now, well, it's changed." Willow answered.
Buffy nodded and was surprised how Willow's thoughts were much like her own. "I know what you mean; Dawn asked me, last night, if I blamed myself for Darry's death and I have to admit that I sort of did. I kept thinking: 'was there something I could have done to keep her from dying'? I knew there wasn't but I couldn't help but think that." Buffy said.
Willow nodded. "Yeah." She replied shortly and finished her cookie. She looked over at her friend. "But Darry's back now." She said.
Buffy nodded. "Yes." She said.
Darry stared up at the ceiling, looking up at the 'wooden' top. The half-moon shown through the windows that Kellie begged Xander to make. Darry looked around the empty room; the moonlight barely washed over the top of Kellie's dresser which was covered with a thin layer of dust.
The moonlight glinted on the glass fronting of the frame that held the picture of her and Oz. She hadn't told anyone that she had the picture but Buffy had mentioned that Kellie and Oz had taken all the pictures from her birthday party.
Darry sighed and rolled over on her side, tried of looking up at the ceiling. Her eyes scanned the bare floor, barely seeing through the dark. She closed her eyes, wishing sleep to come but knew that it wouldn't.
In a cheap hotel somewhere outside of L.A. Oz found that he couldn't sleep. His eyes wandered around the poor wallpaper job and broken television set. His guitar sat in the corner of the room, gathering dust because he hadn't used it since he left Sunnydale. On the stain-covered table beside his bed was a picture of him and Darry from her birthday party. Kellie had taken most of the other pictures; he had two other pictures that weren't in frames in his suitcase. He put this one on the table because he liked it the best.
Oz closed his eyes and opened them again, feeling a slightly sting that signaled tears. It seemed, to him, that all he ever did was lie in bed, doing nothing; he didn't really care because there was no reason to do anything else.
Oz closed his eyes again, trying to force sleep upon his seemingly always tired body. However, he knew that sleep wasn't that easy.
In an apartment building that rested by the main part of Snowville, Kellie wandered around the small one room apartment that she had called home after leaving Sunnydale a month ago.
She picked up a towel and wiped away some dust that wasn't on the kitchen counter. Her only companion since leaving Sunnydale was a cat that came and went as it pleased, which she called William, after the vampire that she had called her boyfriend back in Sunnydale. Kellie doubted that Spike wanted anything to do with her after the way she had yelled at him the night she left Sunnydale.
Kellie had found that she was having trouble sleeping ever since she left Sunnydale. She could barely sleep for more then five hours, if she was even that lucky.
On the mantle, above the fireplace that really didn't burn logs, were pictures that she had taken with her. Most of the pictures were from before she moved to Sunnydale, of her and her parents. There were a few from Sunnydale, from Darry's birthday party, which was held the day before she died. One of the pictures was of her and Spike, at Darry's party; Kellie was worried that the picture wouldn't develop because she didn't know if vampires took good pictures. However, it had come out and Kellie had placed it in a frame and set it atop the mantle.
After glancing at the pictures, Kellie headed to her room. William lay in the hall, having entered through the cracked sliding-glass door that she left open for him. Kellie stepped over the cat, causing him to hiss and sprint away.
She entered her bedroom, which was dull and white, and lay down in her bed. She looked out the window and saw the snow building up on top of the bushes outside her window. Even in the middle of February, it still snowed constantly in her little town. However, despite the snow, Kellie wished she was in Sunnydale.
The next day, Willow brought up the subject of telling Oz that Darry was alive and in Sunnydale. However, Darry didn't seem to find that idea one of the best.
"I don't want him to know." Darry said, avoiding everyone's stares. "I don't want Kellie to know either." She added.
"Why?" Buffy asked, surprised at Darry's words.
Darry looked over at her. "You're the Slayer, so you'll understand this better then anyone else, and you know how dangerous life can by. There's nothing granteeing that I won't go into another battle and survive. And, Oz and Kellie have already had to lose me once, I don't want them to have to go through that again. It's better if they don't know." Darry answered.
Buffy had to admit that she did understand; she didn't want to die again but more, she didn't want to put Dawn and the others through that again. However, the Slayer could tell that there was something that Darry wasn't telling them; Buffy could tell that Darry really wanted both Oz and Kellie to know that she was alive.
However, Buffy just nodded, silently agreeing for the time being. Darry looked away from her, not smiling or revealing any of what she felt.
Spike sat alone in his crypt, bored as ever; it seemed that all he ever was bored. Kellie used to drop by and keep him company but now she wasn't in Sunnydale so he had no one to keep him company. Sometimes Buffy dropped by, just to toy with him; use him then shoot him down, telling him that she despised him and for him to never come near her again.
Spike wished for some excitement in Sunnydale, anything at all. After all this was the Hellmouth and excitement was never far away.
Rex looked down at the newly repaired Urn of Orsis with satisfaction. How easily he had tricked Amy into bringing him; humans could be easily tricked. Now, he had the tool that could make him even more powerful then he already was. Amy, and probably the witch Willow, had no idea what the Urn's true powers were. Yes, it could raise the dead but it could also capture all the souls of the damned death; those sworn to Hell or Limbo because they were evil or murderous in life, which was exactly the kind of crowd that Rex liked to hang with.
Once all the souls were imprisoned in the Urn then they would take the form of a horrible entity, capable of destroying the world or plunging it into Hell. Rex was eager to see if all that he had heard was really true.
Darry walked around the house, wondering if someone could be as bored as she felt at the moment. Dawn was off at school, Willow was running an errand, Anya was off at the Magic Box, Xander was working at some site and Buffy was somewhere, Darry didn't know where.
Darry felt as though she had done every possible thing to do, in the house. She had dusted, cleaned, rearrangened all the books in order of pages on the downstairs bookshelf and made sure everything was in its proper place. There was probably nothing more she could do, except lay on the couch and be bored and wait for something to happen.
Even in the town of Sunnydale, that seemed like it would never happen.
In his cheap hotel room outside of L.A. Oz finally decided to stop laying in bed all day and decided to move around the apartment. He walked over to his guitar and picked it up, running his fingers along the dusty cords of the guitar. He realized that Darry had never heard him play, he couldn't remember her ever listening to him. He set the guitar back down and turned away, putting his back to it. He looked around the apartment; his eyes rested on the phone that rested on top of the broken television set.
He decided that he was going to call the Summers house and see what was going on in Sunnydale. The first time he left Sunnydale he didn't stay in touch at all; it might do him so good to keep in contact with his friends in Sunnydale. He couldn't lock himself away for the rest of his life.
He walked over to the phone and picked it up the receiver and put it up to his ear, hearing the dial tone. He slowly dialed the Summers house.
Darry sat upright when she heard the phone ring; someone was calling, someone she could talk to so she wouldn't be bored. On the second ring she bolted off the couch and raced to the phone. She waited for it to ring again and took a deep breath and then picked up the phone.
"Hello?" Darry said. No one answered, she waited for someone to answer but no one did.
Frowning, Darry hung up the phone.
Oz dropped the phone, barely realizing that he had dropped the phone. He sucked in a breath; he couldn't believe what he heard. The person on the other end of the line was Darry; however, it was impossible because Darry was dead. However, it sounded like her, there was no mistaking that voice that he had missed so much since the second she died. Oz took a step back and knocked into his guitar, knocked over his guitar.
It wasn't possible but he had to be sure; with a shaking hand he picked up the phone.
The phone rang again right as Darry made herself comfortable on the couch. She frowned as she stood up, hoping that it was the person that hung up on her so she could yell at him.
Darry picked up the phone and said, "Hello?" as mean as she could.
"Darry?" The voice on the other end of the line said.
Darry sucked in a breath; it was Oz, she almost couldn't believe that he was on the line. "Oz?" She said, hardly believing that she found the breath to speak.
"Oh God." Oz replied, his words coming out in a gasp.
Darry couldn't say anything, couldn't find the words to speak and couldn't fathom what to say.
She didn't need to find the words because she heard a click and then a dial tone. If she hadn't been so shocked at the fact that Oz had called her, she would have been slightly upset that he had hung up on her.
Darry slowly put the phone back on the hook, her hand shaking. She stepped back and sat down on the coffee table in the center of the room. She needed to talk to Buffy.
