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: Sequel to Real. Post-BTVS S7 "Chosen" and post-DZ S4 "Vangaurd"

3: Haunted

Bruce sat in a chair at a table inside a hotel room a few hours later in Los Angeles as Johnny paced around behind him. "Could you sit down?" Bruce asked. "You're kind of making me nervous."

"Sorry," Johnny answered, sitting down as his foot got tangled in a wire connected to the laptop. Johnny sighed as he untangled his leg from the mess of wires below. "What is all this?"

"That's the microphone, I think," Bruce answered, keeping his attention on screen.

"Why do you need a microphone?" Johnny asked incredulously.

Bruce looked over at him. "Oh, didn't you hear?" Bruce said sarcastically. "I'm gonna lay down some tracks as a rapper." Johnny gave him a look as Bruce looked back at the computer with a tired sigh, shaking his head in bewilderment. "It's the same everywhere, Johnny," he said finally, giving up.

"Are you sure?" Johnny asked.

"Positive," Bruce answered. "There's no Sunnydale. Or at least, not anymore."

"What happened to it?"

"Funny thing, I can't get a straight answer anywhere," he replied. "Massive sinkhole destroyed the entire town."

"A whole town disappears?" Johnny repeated. "How come we didn't hear about it before?"

"There's not really much anywhere around that area," Bruce explained. "No art galleries. No Joyce."

"Another dead end," Johnny declared, staring down at the floor with his arms crossed. His blue eyes were dark with bitterness and disgust. Johnny turned and marched out of the hotel room, slamming the door behind him with a defeated expression.

"John!" Bruce called, jumping out of his seat to follow. "Johnny, wait."

The two of them sat at a table in a diner named Helen's Kitchen with coffee in front of them. Johnny stared out at the sky and watched the sunset with lonely, tired and beaten eyes. Everything about today has led him in circles and for all he knew the girl could be dead by now.

Maybe it was the thought of her dying which made him note the fading daylight even more. Whatever it was, something was different about watching the sun set. Being a former science teacher, it was certainly not something he had never done before. However, this sunset was remarkably different, as it sparked a deep feeling within him.

The thought now angrily burned inside him, sparking determination to save a woman that didn't deserve to die. He blinked in confusion after the thought passed through his mind.

She didn't deserve to die.

Johnny was certain of it. However, he had never met her in his life. He had no idea who she was. And although he was taken by her beauty, he knew that was no assurance as to what kind of person she was. How could he be so sure?

His mind deep in contemplation, he leaned back in the chair, causing another vision to flash through his mind.

Johnny looked around the diner as he sat in the chair to see a blur of people speed around him – all of them moving in reverse. The blur sped up so fast it was impossible to make out until a bright flash filled his eyes. Johnny looked around to see himself standing next to a table as two beefy, unkempt, roughneck men sat at the table with crooked and lecherous expressions directed at their waitress. Johnny looked over to see his eyes widen and find the object of his desire.

The beautiful young blonde stood in a waitress' outfit at the same table Johnny and Bruce had been sitting at. Her green eyes were darkened with despair and boredom – like she had already died on the inside and a shell was moving about in her place. She stared down at an order pad as the two roughnecks giggled like schoolchildren.

"Is there anything else?" she asked jadedly.

"That'll do us, Peaches," one of them grinned, leering at her promiscuously.

The woman, obviously disgusted, ignored them to the best of her ability as she angrily ripped off the receipt and slapped their bill on the table. "Pay at the counter," she ordered coldly.

"Sure you don't want us to work it off for you?" the other roughneck smirked. She glared at him as his friend burst into laughter. The woman rolled her eyes and turned away from them as one of them reached out and smacked her on the behind. Johnny frowned as she paused in her steps. The two men howled with laughter.

Johnny watched her eyes – the eyes of a once-strong woman as she tore herself down and weighed her chances of confronting them. She balled her fists and walked away with her head low as the two men continued to snicker, watching her walk off in shame.

He followed her, enchanted and sympathetic to her plight. She served another young couple that was too infatuated with each other to even notice her. Moments later, Johnny saw her fleeting out of the back door and stopping in the alleyway. Johnny stood beside her as she leaned up against the brick wall of the building and fought back her tears of embarrassment and humiliation.

Johnny watched her reach for her chest and hold onto her heart. Just by standing next to her, he could feel the agonizing heartbreak inside of her. This was the pain of a person that had lost the love of their life. It was pain that Johnny understood too well.

His eyes fell upon her hand as a sparkle caught his attention. She pressed the silver cross against her chest, pulling at it for protection and sanctity.

Johnny looked up at Bruce who was staring at him intently, waiting for his reply. "You just had another vision, didn't you?" Bruce asked. Johnny was stunned, to say the very least.

"She was here before," he replied.

He blinked in surprise. "No way."

Johnny shook his head in amazement. "It's a small world."

"Did she live here?"

"I don't think so. She was running away."

"From what?"

Johnny stared up at him grimly as he replied, "Pain."

Bruce considered the answer as thoughts flowed through his mind. "I think there's more to this than we think, Johnny," he suggested. "There are way too many coincidences here to…"

Johnny stared at Bruce in confusion. His lips were moving, but he could no longer hear his voice. In fact, he couldn't hear the voices of the people in the diner, nor any other sound save for the beating of his own heart. His eyes pulled away from Bruce and found a figure leaning over the bar across the room.

A pale-faced man in his late-twenties finished his glass of Jack Daniels and slapped it down on the counter. The tall man with slicked-back platinum blonde hair dressed in a black, leather duster jacket, black clothes, and black combat boots gave John an eerie feeling. He watched as the strange man slapped the money down, pulled away from the counter and strutted towards the door leisurely as if he owned the ground he walked on. Johnny's eyes followed him as he came to a stand.

"Johnny?" Bruce called for his attention, but received no reply. "Johnny?" He followed John's point of view to see the Billy Idol wanna-be walk out of the diner as Johnny began to follow him curiously.

Johnny kept his eyes on the man as he walked out of the diner, moving through the door and onto the street. His attention was completely taken with the entity before him.

Entity.

There he went again.

"John, look out!" he heard Bruce's voice stress suddenly. Johnny was pulled back to reality as the bright headlights and the screeching tires of speeding car threw him off guard. Johnny looked over to see the Porsche headed towards him at top-speed and he felt a strong hand grip his back.

Oh, no, he thought. Not now…

Johnny looked around and found himself standing in the middle of a library near the front desk. He turned to a short, blonde man in his thirties with glasses and his hair neatly combed in a tight suit. The nerdy, awkward man had a shameful expression as he cleared his throat and declared in a British accent, "You haven't an enormous amount of time."

Johnny looked over to see several people standing and sitting at the other end of the library at a large table with grim expressions. One of them, a teenager with black curly hair in a Hawaiian shirt declared with cutting, sarcastic glee, "Hey! It's Mr. States-the-Obvious!"

"The council is not welcome here," a familiar voice declared with clouded frustration. Johnny turned to see HER sitting in a chair facing away from him. The nerdy man shamefully stared at the side of her face as she added, "I have no time for orders. If I need someone to scream like a woman, I'll give you a call."

Her bitterness cut the man deeply as he gathered his strength and replied, "I'm not here for the council. I'm here to help." Johnny watched her eyes raise up and look over at him, resting on him with surprise. She gazed at him with a grateful expression as she forgave him for all his wrongdoings.

Johnny stared into her eyes as a single word popped into his mind.

Johnny was yanked back out of the street and out of the path of the speeding car in a flash. He and the man behind him fell to the ground as the angry horn of the speeder honked at them as it flew by. Johnny came to his senses as he looked up at the man standing before him who had saved his life.

The nerdy man was anything but. He stood tall without glasses and a suede leather jacket. His face was unshaven and his blonde hair was spiky and cut short. Johnny stared at him in confusion, uncertain if this was even the same man.

"You should be careful," the ex-nerd declared to him in a semi-British tone. It was him. He extended a hand and helped Johnny back onto his feet. "This city can be dangerous," he explained ominously. Johnny eyed him in amazement, but couldn't bring himself to form words.

"Wes!" they heard from a distance. A dark-skinned man dressed in an expensive button-up dress shirt came bounding down the sidewalk carrying a cell phone. "We got the call. Angel's got them." Without another word or thought, 'Wes' ran off, following the man into the darkness and out of sight.

Bruce ran up to Johnny and pulled him aside. "Johnny, what the hell's wrong with you?" he demanded in shock, staring at him. Johnny couldn't focus on anything in the world at that moment, least of all Bruce.

"They know Buffy," Johnny breathed, the world slowly slipping into a dizzying blur.

"Who's Buffy?" Bruce exclaimed.

"The girl…" Johnny explained. "The girl we're trying to… to save."

"What kind of a name is that?" Bruce said to himself as Johnny grabbed his arm for balance. Bruce suddenly took note of the fact that John was teetering on the edge of consciousness.

"We have to find her…" Johnny breathed before he fell to the ground, collapsing unconsciously.

Buffy stood inside her bedroom as the moonlight shined down on her face through the blinds covering her window. She looked over at her companion, still dressed in the same attire as he stood as a king with his cane in hand. Her eyes idly glanced over at her desk to see an awful sight. Her journal was left lying open when she was positive that it hadn't been before.

"You've been reading my diary?" Buffy declared with wide eyes. After a few moments, she calmed herself down and was overcome with more confusion than anger.

"I've been trying to find you," he answered.

Buffy turned to him with a baffled face. "Wait – like, in the real world way of finding me?" He nodded simply as she shook her head. "I-I don't understand."

"There's a reason…" he declared, catching her full attention again. "You and me."

"The fire," Buffy whispered, remembering. She looked up at him, "What does it mean? What is it?"

"The end," he answered. "Of everything you've sacrificed to save."

"When?" she exclaimed, deeply distressed. "When is it going to happen?"

He shook his head sadly. "You're asking me for answers I wish I had."

Buffy closed her eyes fearfully as she declared, "I have to stop it."

"No," he responded. "You can't."

She stressfully gazed up at him. "If I don't, who else will?"

"I will," he declared to her, taking her by the shoulders. Again, she found herself lost. "You're not alone. I'll protect you." Buffy stared at him in utter confusion.

"From what?" she asked, shaking her head.

He gazed at her motionlessly for a few moments, then pulled back her blonde hair. Buffy glanced down to see blood dripping down her chest. He reached out and touched her bloody wound.

A massive explosion sent a shockwave of fire through Washington, D.C. as it was ripped to shreds and incinerated by the force of the flames. The blonde man Buffy recognized as the President lifted his head and his eyes opened to reveal that they were blacked out, striking a nerve of terror inside.

Buffy gasped in horror and collapsed on the floor unconsciously. Johnny Smith stared down at the woman he now recognized as Buffy as she fell to the ground before his eyes. He stared at her lovely face and the gash on her neck in confusion. What happened? What horrible being did this?

Johnny's heart nearly skipped a beat as Buffy's green eyes suddenly opened. They found him and stared straight through him. He stared at her, eyes widened in fear, as she gazed at him and declared with a hallow tone.

"There's still time."

Johnny sat up in his bed with a scream. His eyes shot around the unfamiliar room as Bruce barged through the door from the adjoining living room of the hotel suite. "What happened?" Bruce exclaimed, stunned. "Johnny, what's wrong?"

He gasped for air and struggled to keep his heart from pumping out of his chest. His eyes continued to dart around the room until they caught sight of the digital clock. It was 3:07 in the morning. Bruce stood by his bed as Johnny tried to make sense of it all. "She was back," Johnny declared with uncertainty. "She was in my dream."

"Buffy?" Bruce asked.

Johnny's words began to slur and stutter together. "She… she was already dead and-and she looked at me and talked to me…"

"Johnny, slow down," Bruce said.

"I have to find her," he declared.

"Johnny!" Bruce called loudly, finally grabbing his attention. "It was just a dream."

Johnny looked down and became stone still. "No." He lifted his hand and gazed at it in horror and bewilderment. "It's not a dream," he declared. Bruce looked down to see blood dripping from Johnny's fingers. "It's real."