LEGAL A/N: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all characters belong to Joss Whedon, Fox, UPN and the WB. The Dead Zone and all characters belong to Shawn & Michael Piller, Stephen King, Lion's Gate Television and USA Network. No profit is being made off of this and no copyright infringement is intended.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Post-BTVS S7 "Chosen" and post-DZ S4 "Vangaurd".
2: Puzzle
Johnny took his seat next to Bruce aboard the commercial airplane, both of them surrounded by dozens of people as the dawn was breaking on the East Coast. Bruce tiredly plopped down in his chair as he looked over at Johnny with utter confusion as to how he was able to get Bruce on the plane.
"I just don't understand it," Bruce shook his head as the rest of the passengers on Flight 815 sat down and prepared for takeoff. "You call me up in the middle of the night and tell me to get on a plane and like some fool without any regard for my sleep patterns or job… I do."
"Hey," Johnny shrugged carelessly, "what have I told you before? Where I go, you go."
Bruce answered, "Yeah, but if I go to the unemployment line, you don't."
"I really do need your help, Bruce," Johnny explained seriously. "I don't think I can handle this one alone."
Bruce looked over at his sobering expression. "I've told you before, John. I've got your back, but…" Bruce shook his head in confusion. "What are you talking about? You're Johnny Smith. Of course you can handle it. I mean, you're the one with all the power."
The sound of the word burned into his brain. He frowned and shook his head bitterly as he looked away. "I don't even know what that means anymore," he answered. His response bothered Bruce as he stared at the unresponsive psychic. Johnny stared out the window as the plane began to take off as he added, "Maybe I don't have the power to stop Stillson, Bruce. Maybe I never did."
"What are you saying?"
"How can I save the world?" Johnny asked bluntly, turning to him defensively. "I can't even save my student."
Bruce's face fell flat. "This is about Alex…"
"This is about everyone," John said. "This girl… I don't know if I can save her. I don't know if I can save anyone anymore." With a grim expression he gazed out the world falling away from him through the airplane window as they moved further and further into the sky. "What if my power… was never enough?"
Bruce stared at him in silence, not knowing how to respond. He turned towards the front of the plane as the two of them sat somberly, listening to the whir of their own troubles and fears.
Johnny and Bruce walked into the Greater Los Angeles Museum of Art just a few minutes after it opened. Already there was a mass of people scanning the paintings on the walls and the statues on display. A man dressed in a suit with a tag on his lapel walked through as Johnny quickly asked, "Excuse me. Do you know where I can find Manet's La Musique aux Tuileries?"
The young man turned towards a hallway and replied, "Right down that hall, near the Art Restoration room."
"Thanks," Bruce nodded as he and Johnny continued on the assigned path. They came to a display room as a handful of people moved around slowly. Johnny's eyes lay on the painting and widened.
"Bruce, there it is," he said, pointing to the painting.
"Wow," he responded. "I love Manet. This is one of my favorites." A man in a construction outfit carrying a ladder walked past them as they watched him set the ladder against a wall in the room. Just then, a tall, petite woman with blonde hair tied back in a bun approached them wearing a blazer with a nametag on her lapel.
"Ooh, excuse me," she grinned with a bubbly attitude.
"Oh, no problem," Johnny answered, reading the name on her tag. "Are we in your way, Fiona?"
"Not at all," she responded. "I'm so sorry; you'll have to excuse us. They're about to do a little construction in this room. This museum has been renovated since 1995."
"Really?" Johnny said, taking note of the information. He pointed to Manet's painting and asked, "So, this painting has been here for ten years?"
"More like seven," Fiona nodded. "But you're lucky. We were just about to take it off display today. So… enjoy!" With a wide smile, the woman walked off as she heard a crash in another section of the hallway. "Ooh, be careful with that!" she shouted and ran off.
Johnny and Bruce gave each other a knowing look. Johnny turned to the wall where they were standing and rested his outstretched fingers on it, triggering a vision.
A pale-skinned man in a black, button-up shirt stood in front of the painting with a mass of people standing around him. He stared at the crowd comfortably, peeking at the security guards at the corners of the room with his dark eyes momentarily before returning to the crowd.
"And this brings us to Manet's incomparable 'La Musique aux Tuileries,'" he declared. Johnny watched from the corner as the tour guide turned to the painting and added, "First exhibited in 1863."
The guide stared at a particular face of the painting, and then continued, "On the left one spies the painter himself. In the middle distance is the French poet and critic Baudelaire, a friend of the artist. Now, Baudelaire… interesting fellow. In his poem 'Le Vampyre' he wrote: 'Thou who abruptly as a knife didst come into my heart.'" The guide looked around a bit nervously and replied, "He, uh, strongly believed that evil forces surrounded mankind. And some even speculated that the poem was about a real vampire."
The crowd broke into quiet laughter which he joined in on. His smile faded as he seriously added, "Oh… and, uh, Baudelaire was actually a little taller and a lot drunker than he is depicted here." Johnny curiously watched the guide pull away from the crowd as they applauded his performance and disappear in the shadows of the hallway.
Johnny opened his eyes again in confusion as he gazed around at the room and the painting. "What happened?" Bruce asked.
"There was a guy," Johnny answered with uncertainty. "Some tour guide. He was explaining the history of the painting…" He shook his head in puzzlement. "There was something familiar about him."
"A guy?" Bruce repeated. "I thought we were looking for a girl."
"We are," he sighed.
"So your Dead Zone gave you some random vision?" Bruce asked.
"Doesn't usually work that way, does it?" Johnny responded, mulling over it. He looked at the painting and stepped towards it, eyeing Baudelaire with curious eyes. Glancing around to see that no one was watching him, he reached out and touched the surface of the painting.
A middle-aged woman with blonde curls stood over the painting with an inquisitive face. A delivery man stood on one side of her and a man in a suit stood on the other. Johnny appeared from behind them, watching the scene as they stood in a restoration room that was too small for Los Angeles' art gallery. He eyed the nametag of the woman: Joyce.
With a nod from Joyce a box was placed on the table marked Sunnydale Shipping Company. Joyce walked over to her desk and began to write out an invoice for the delivery. Johnny followed her as a framed picture on the woman's desk popped out at him. The smiling face of the doomed, beautiful, blonde young woman gazed at him with sparkling green eyes.
Johnny looked up at the painting as he pulled his hand away. He stared at the painting in amazement, the face of the captivating woman burning into his memory. "Your mom," he whispered as the realization came over him.
Bruce blinked in confusion. "That's not nice."
Johnny turned to him. "No – the girl's mom. She worked in an art gallery." Johnny faced the painting again as he stepped back and viewed it whole. "She's the one that sent this to L.A."
Bruce asked in utter confusion, "This girl's been in contact with the painting before?"
"Her mother has," he shrugged.
"How do you know your vision's not from the past?" he asked. "She might already be dead."
"She's not dead."
"But—"
"I've seen her," Johnny declared, turning to him. Bruce stared at him, baffled as Johnny walked away from the painting without explanation.
Bruce rushed up to him. "What do you mean?"
"I had a dream, Bruce," Johnny hesitantly admitted as they walked through the museum towards the front. "It wasn't like any vision I've ever had. The girl was standing in a park near a bench and she looked up at me…" He shook the terror out of his mind. "Her eyes… it's like they were screaming for me to help her."
"What happened?" Bruce asked.
Johnny answered, "Her neck was bleeding like her throat had been cut or bitten…"
"Bitten?" Bruce repeated, almost coming to a stop.
Johnny continued, ignoring how strange it sounded. "She looked at me, fell down and died," he declared. "The whole thing was so real."
"She looked at you," Bruce said, thinking deeply. "That's the same thing you said about Christopher Wey."
He shook his head skeptically. "It was different."
Bruce shrugged and replied, "Maybe it was only a nightmare – some sort of psychological response to seeing this girl die in your vision."
"I'm not crazy," Johnny said, snapping at him. Bruce stared at Johnny, stunned as he reeled back. Johnny looked away, embarrassed by his outburst. "I… I'm sorry, man," he apologized. "I didn't mean to—"
"John, you've been under a lot of pressure," he answered with deep concern. "I think it's beginning to change you. You need to get some rest."
Johnny looked down at the ground and didn't respond for several seconds until he finally answered, "Look. Let's just get to a computer. I need to find out how to get to Sunnydale."