Disclaimer: Joss Whedon owns everything that isn't me and mine.

Thanks to my faithful reviewers. You're all so nice to me, I just don't deserve it.

"This thing doesn't work. It isn't working."

Buffy took the call button out of her mother's hand, "I am sure they heard you."

"I bet it's not even hooked up to anything. Just like those push buttons at the cross walk they're supposed to make the signal change."

Buffy tried to stay calm. Her mother had been . . . off. It was the tumour. It was pressing on her brain. The doctor had told her about it. Fortunately, Dawn wasn't noticing too much. Willow had given her a book on spells and Dawn had been absorbed in it for the past two hours, "I am sure that someone's . . . wait the push buttons aren't hooked up to anything?"

Buffy had apparently been right. The doctor came through the door, "Oh tell him Buffy. Tell him okay?"

Buffy placed a hand on her mother's arm and nodded, "Look Doctor Kriegel we wanna go home."

The doctor smiled sympathetically, "Of course. You can come back and visit your mother first thing in the morning."

Buffy looked a little sheepish, "No, I mean 'we'. All of us. My mom too."

The doctor frowned and Buffy could see something switching on his brain, that kind of 'pacify-the-patient' mode, "Oh. Well I understand that, but it's not exactly the first thing I'd recommend."

Buffy was about to explain but her mother interrupted, "I can't. I can't stay here for two days waiting. I just can't. It makes my head hurt to be here can't you tell that?"

"Joyce there's no need to get upset."

"No reason to get upset, oh, right, sorry I must just think there is cause of my brain tumour."

All of the adult eyes in the room immediately swivelled to Dawn, who instantly paled. Buffy fished some money out of her jeans pocket, "Dawn? Why don't you get something from the machine?"

Dawn took the money and slipped out of the room. Joyce looked to her older daughter, "I'm sorry I said that I'm just tired."

Buffy took charge. She was getting pretty good at that, "Look doctor, I don't see why we can't take her home, I mean just until . . .Wouldn't it be better for her to rest somewhere where she felt safe and comfortable?"

Buffy physically saw the doctor give in, "Even if it would mean some work for you? Taking care of her?"

Joyce let out a breath, "Oh thank God."

Buffy smiled, "I'll do it, anything."

The doctor shook his head, "There are medications to administer, and I'd have to go over those with you. And I would need you to check her vitals, watch her pretty closely. I'm afraid you wont get a lot of sleep."

Buffy smiled at the simple absurdity of that statement. If she needed a lot of sleep she couldn't have functioned as a Slayer, "I'm not much of a sleep person anyway."

Joyce tried to get out of the bed, "Can we go now? Let's go now?"

Buffy held her mom's arm, "Whoa, whoa, hold on a second. Let me get all the medications and all the instructions on how to do everything."

The doctor smiled at her mother, "She's right. Let's do this right. We don't wanna forget anything."

The gang were checking out the meteor. Riley had opted to go with them. He felt guilty about abandoning them. After all, the reason for abandoning them hadn't exactly been good. He'd been getting off on a vampire feeding off him. "I'm glad you called me in on this."

Xander fixed him with a piercing stare, "Glad you answered."

"Oh yeah sorry about last time."

Xander didn't stop staring at Riley. He knew that there was something going on with the soldier. He didn't understand how Buffy hadn't noticed it way before now. He could have understood if it had been a recent development, Buffy had every reason to be distracted now. But it had been going on for months. Xander had seen it with Dracula. It hadn't ever seemed to fully go since Angel's brief visit to Sunnydale last year; Riley never seemed to accept it.

Now something seriously not good was going on. It seemed that only he could see it.



The guys saw the meteor. It was the size of a car. It had obviously hit at one hell of a speed. There were tracks about sixty feet long at one side of it

"Is it hot?" asked Anya smiling.

Riley reached out to touch it.

"Cause if there's radiation you could like, go all sterile."

Xander beat a very hasty retreat, Riley carried on reaching forward. "No it's not hot. It's warm, and broken, it's kinda . . ."

Giles looked at the meteor, "Hollow."

Anya, who was still looking cheerful bounced on her toes to try to keep warm, "So we're all thinking the same thing right?"

Willow linked Tara's arm, "Something evil crashed to earth in this and then broke out and then slithered away to do badness."

Giles raised his eyebrows in thought "In fairness we don't know for sure about the slithered part."

Anya looked at him, "Oh no. I'm sure it frisked about like a fluffy lamb."

Tara voiced what no one else seemed willing to, "Let's look around, maybe we can se where it went."

Willow walked. Icky! As if they didn't have enough problems living on top of a Hellmouth, now they had to deal with aliens. God! It really was not big with the fairness, and didn't these things always pick their times. The one time when they really didn't want to bother Buffy with demons. Willow was so caught up in her own thoughts that she almost fell over the body of a man. She seemed to be making a habit of that lately. Shopkeeper and then this one. "It went here."

He really hadn't been able to resist this. He missed this. Being treated like someone important. He didn't feel like that with Buffy, he didn't feel like top dog. He always felt like number two and after years of being respected and in charge, it was kinda tough to take. As he filled in the Major on all the information he had he revelled. The Major was impressed. Especially with the deduction about mentally sick people. In fact, the Major just seemed impressed full stop. Riley liked this. It was like coming home.

Buffy lay her mother down. Making sure that she swallowed her pills, the doctor had said that the pain could get bad without medication. Dawn lay down next to her mother and Buffy stood by the door watching. Dawn may be the key, but she was still a sister and a daughter, she was more a sister and a daughter before anything else.

Joyce suddenly pulled away, "Don't touch me, you . . .you thing."

Dawn looked as though she was about to cry, "Mom, please."

Buffy was so shocked that for a second she couldn't say anything, her mother apparently could, "You're nothing, you're a shadow . . . I don't know who you are, how you got here."

Buffy rushed forwards, "Mom, mom, its Dawn."

Dawn backed out of the door, just as her mother seemed to come back to herself, "Dawn honey what's wrong?"

Buffy heard Dawn shut the door, "She's just tired, we all are. Come on."

Riley hung up the phone. A Queller demon., probably summoned by that demon woman Glory. Tracking and feeding off crazy people. Riley looked around at the bodies in the ward. Well, a demon, they could deal with.

"Major?"

The man turned around, "Yeah?"

"Apparently according to the people I know, it's a Queller demon."

"Do you think that they are right?"

Riley smiled, "I've never known them to get it wrong."

The Major nodded as a private rushed through the door. "We think we know where it's gone Major."

The entire group headed for the door. Following the signal, Graham announced in a rather defeated voice, "Trail stops here, edge of the parking lot."

The Major did not seem pleased "It stops?""

Riley sighed in frustration, "A car. It hitched a ride. Probably underneath. So much for containment."

The major scowled, "So some poor mental patient checks out of here today, this thing grabs on and they took it right to their own home."

Riley felt his stomach clench, "Checked out today?"

"Set the trackers . . . "

Riley interrupted, "No, I know where it's going. We gotta move, now."

Buffy turned on the radio. She had been so scared. Dawn was no fool. She knew that there was something going on. Apparently, something similar had happened before. Buffy was afraid. Her sister could find out. She might not understand at first, but there was no way that she could keep the truth from her forever. Oh God. Buffy fought, she tried not to, but it was just touch much, the tears started and she couldn't seem to stop them. Buffy put her hands to her face.

Buffy sobbed until she heard a knock at the door. She opened it to see Spike. "Hey. How did you know that we were home?"

Spike stepped over the threshold, "I just thought I'd check. You coping?"

Buffy nodded. Slowly the nodding turned into a shake. Spike leant down and kissed her. Buffy clung to him. "Spike . . ."

"It's okay pet."

Buffy pulled him down to the floor and climbed onto his lap. He held her, rocking her like a small child as she clung.

He was truly worried about her. She was trying to take on so much, with her mum and Dawn. She came to him sometimes and just cried like this.

"I wish some one had bothered to tell me that there would be tennis being play. I just didn't know. Those eyes, those eyes, they're like gasoline puddles. Tell me; tell me because I need to know why? Why are you staring at me like that? Is this the test? Did they tell you at the gate?"

Dawn lay in the next room listening to her mom. It was grating through her hearing her mom like that. Her mom and Buffy had always been there for her before. They were the strong ones; she needed them. Dawn stood; she had to talk to her mom.

Dawn opened her mom's door to see a demon on top of her. It took a second for Dawn to register what she was seeing. She shook with panic. Her mom seemed to be choking. Dawn picked up a clothes stand in the corner and hit the demon, it fell off her mom and Joyce pulled something that looked like plastic goo on her face.

Dawn screamed as the demon threw itself over the bed. She ran round through the connecting door and pushed the exercise bike in front of it. She ran around the bed and shut the other door.

Buffy stood and pushed her hair out of her face. "Thanks Spike. You staying for a bit?"

Spike smiled and took her hand, "Can do slayer."

They smiled at each other. But both of their heads flicked to the stairs when they heard Dawn scream, "BUFFY!"

They looked to each other and then they ran to the stairs.