A/N: Dreams are from "Restless", "Normal Again", and "Never Leave Me".

April 23, 2012—Morning

I had a scary, weird dream. There was Mommy and she was fighting someone on a building, but it wasn't a monster.

It was a girl. She was taller than Mommy and had shoulder-length brown hair. A pretty lady. Then Mommy pulled out a shiny knife and stuck it in her. The girl stared back at Mommy, then fell over backwards, off the roof.

I woke up then and Mommy and Daddy were both here. Mommy asked me if it was a bad dream and I said yes. She asked me what it was about, so I told her. Then Mommy got a funny look on her face and asked me if I had had any other strange dreams like these before.

I thought hard.

"I am not alone," Mommy said. She stood in a large field of sand. Maybe a big sandbox? No, probably the beach. There was a somewhat familiar blond lady in the background, like one of the people in the pictures on the walls. There was a scary-looking thing coming towards Mommy, wrapped in rags.

"The Slayer does not walk in this world," the blond lady said.

"I walk," Mommy replied. "I talk. I shop, I sneeze. I'm gonna be a fireman when the floods roll back. There's trees in the desert since you moved out. And I don't sleep on a bed of bones. Now give me back my friends!"

Meanwhile, the dirty thing wrapped in rags gets more and more agitated.

"No…friends! Just the kill," it growled. "We. Are. ALONE!"

Suddenly, in pops a bald man with two slices of cheese. He smiles widely and shakes the cheese at Mommy and she stares at him, then he disappears.

"That's it. I'm waking up," Mommy said, just as the thing ran up to her and tried to beat up Mommy. They fight and then Mommy stops. "It's over. We don't do this anymore."

But the scary thing doesn't listen and starts to fight Mommy again. And then Mommy yells real loud, "ENOUGH!"

***

Mommy is sitting in a chair, a funny look on her face. It's some type of office, and there are three other people in it. One of them I recognize as Grandma Joyce, but the other two are unfamiliar.

"—Possibilities for a full recovery, but we have to proceed cautiously. If we're not careful—" one of the strangers said. He was wearing a white coat.

"Wait," Grandma Joyce said. "Are you saying Buffy could be like she was before any of this happened?"

The strange man in the white coat walked over. "Mrs. Summers, you have to understand the severity of what's happened to your daughter. For the last six years, she's been in an undifferentiated type of schizophrenia." What did he mean?

"We know what her condition is," the other stranger said. He was a man, maybe a little older than Uncle Xander, with light brown hair. "That's not what we're asking."

"Buffy's delusions are multi-layered. She believes she's some type of hero."

"The Slayer," Grandma Joyce said.

***

Mommy and Daddy were in the basement. But Daddy was all chained up.

"Listen to me," Mommy said patiently. "You're not alive because of hate or pain. You're alive because I saw you change. Because I saw your penance." I didn't really understand what she was talking about, but it sounded wrong. Hate? Pain? Penance? As a living? She didn't sound like Mommy.

Daddy leaps up and looks like he's gonna attack Mommy. "Window dressing." He doesn't seem much like Daddy, either.

"Be easier, wouldn't it, it if were an act, but it's not. You faced the monster inside of you and you fought back. You risked everything to be a better man." What was Mommy talking about? A better man? But Daddy was the best.

"Buffy…" Daddy tried to say. But Mommy interrupts him.

"And you can be. You are. You may not see it, but I do. I do. I believe in you, Spike."

I nodded. I told Mommy I had some of these dreams before. When she asked me what they were, I told her that most of them were about her fighting monsters. She paused and asked me if I had any dreams of her doing other things. So I told Mommy about the one with the creepy thing in rags and the funny cheese man, the one with Grandma Joyce and the strangers, and the one with Mommy and Daddy in the basement.

Mommy looked at Daddy and Daddy looked at Mommy. Then Mommy said that we could discuss this tomorrow, which would be today. Soon as Mommy wakes up.

But it's a Saturday, which means Daddy will wake up around noon and make Mommy pancakes with strawberry syrup and make me chocolate pancakes with chocolate syrup. Then I go sit with Mommy in her bed and we eat pancakes. And then Mommy gets up.

Ding-DONG!

Doorbell! Who's here this early in the morning?