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"
4: Redux
The Sheriff of Penobscot County, Walt Bannerman, stood in his office the next morning with the receiver to his ear while the tiny television set on the desk blared the news. Outside of the office, a multitude of police officers moved to and fro in front of the windows, carrying about their business of making Bangor, Maine the safest place that they could. He stared down at a file folder in his hands as he sat down in his chair, skimming the information within quickly.
"Sunnydale, California," Walt read aloud on the phone. "Last known population: 32,900. It was about two hours northwest of Los Angeles. One of those one-main-street towns. It used to have a University of California campus nearby."
"In a town that small?" Bruce asked as he sat in the passenger's seat of a rental car. Johnny sat in the driver's seat as the cell phone was mounted between them on speakerphone.
"A lot of businesses seemed to fail there for one reason or another," Walt continued. "There was an excess of abandoned buildings and structures."
"Can you tell us anything else about the town, Walt?" Johnny asked. "Some sort of crime or unsolved murder?"
"Plenty," he scoffed. "The town had one of the highest death rates in the country. There are a lot of continuity errors in the police reports – apparently the Sunnydale Police Department lacked a lot organization. Most of the deaths and injuries were categorized as 'drug-related problems.' PCP and such."
Walt's attention was pulled away from the phone conversation by the TV set as he searched for the remote. He glanced at the anchorman as he went over international news, including an Egyptian politician's election, a tragic Indonesian plane crash, and a bounty for a patient that escaped from an Italian asylum.
He muted the television set as Johnny asked, "What about a high school?"
"Sunnydale High School," Walt answered. "It was rebuilt in 2002 after being closed forthree years. There was an explosion that destroyed the entire school during a graduation ceremony in 1999. The town's mayor was said to have been killed in the blast. There was a brief investigation, but it's pretty sketchy. It was ruled as an accident finally." Walt lifted his head from the file. "Is any of this helping you?"
"I don't know," Johnny said, shaking his head. "I've got a million pieces floating around in my head. I'm just trying to put it together."
"What's going on, John?" Walt asked.
"I can't explain now," Johnny answered flatly. "Thanks for your help, Walt." Without another word, he ended the call leaving Walt confused and a bit worried on the other end of the line.
Johnny looked over to see Bruce with the same expression as Walt's. "The man's got a good question," Bruce declared. "What is going on? And what's with you following that guy into the street last night?"
"Like I said," Johnny sighed, shaking his head, "I can't explain it. I… had to follow him. Something was driving me."
"What? Your Dead Zone?"
"I don't know. It has something to do with Buffy, though. I just know it."
"We're getting nowhere, Johnny," Bruce exclaimed. "All we know is that this woman's going to die. And we're not even sure she's not dead already."
"I know that!" Johnny snapped back. He declared strongly with a sense of urgency, "I don't know what to do or how to find, all I know is that I just have to." They were both silent as Johnny stared ahead at the open road as the car traveled diligently through the desert. Bruce studied his face with an intent expression.
"There's something more to this, isn't there?" Bruce suggested, eyeing the psychic. "There's something you're not telling me." Johnny remained silent, staring at the road ahead as the car came to a slow stop.
Bruce looked in front of him out the windshield and saw absolutely nothing. "We're here," Johnny declared, getting out of the car.
Bruce stared at the empty road ahead before getting out himself. "We are?" The bright sun beat down on both of them as they walked away from the parked car. The desert terrain surrounded them, but in the distance they could hear the sounds of coastal waves and seagulls squawking nearby. In the road ahead, a cement guard wall lay across the road with three orange road signs proclaiming that the road was a dead end.
Johnny stared at the signs momentarily, pausing in his steps. With a sigh, he ignored them and stepped over the cement wall, Bruce following. About fifty meteors away from the wall, they could see the reason for the signs.
All that was left of Sunnydale lay before them – a massive crater in the Earth that soaked up all the sun it could. They gazed across the several-mile-wide hole in astonishment, the complete devastation amazing them. Both of them were completely speechless as Johnny walked closer to the edge, moving steadily one foot at a time.
The voice of a teenage girl broke through his thoughts. "Yeah, Buffy. What are we gonna do now?" Johnny saw a bright, clear day like the one he was experiencing and the crater lay before him. He looked over to his right and saw Buffy, tired and sweaty, standing with her arms crossed and a cut across her forehead.
He faced her and gazed at her intently, watching as the sound of that phrase filled her face with warmth. She beamed happily, finding a peace that Johnny hadn't ever seen in her eyes. Watching her smile only drew his heart closer to her.
Johnny came out of the vision and glanced around in the area, wanting to stay where he was. "Johnny?" Bruce called, pulling him even further back to reality. He remembered what they were there for as he turned back towards the devastated town with a face of resolve.
He took a deep breath and rubbed his palms together as he crouched down. Johnny stared at the ground closely as he rested the outstretched fingers of his hand on the asphalt of the road.
Johnny looked up to see the edge of the road rise out of the ashes of the crater and recreate itself. He came to a stand and walked out on the road as it materialized in front of him. Gazing around, he watched as the entire town destructed in reverse – every grain of sand, every stone, every tree, every building lifting out of the hole and rebuilding itself in front of him.
He followed the road into the town as houses rose out of the ground. He found himself walking through a neighborhood of homes that looked a completely untainted and perfect Wisteria Lane. He stopped at one house in particular – a green-and-white, two-story home with two huge cedar trees in the yard. He walked passed the evergreen bushes in the yard, up the cement steps leading to the front door where he paused and viewed the house number: 1630.
Johnny entered through the open door and walked into a foyer with a staircase in front of him. Several teenage girls were standing in the foyer, all staring into the adjacent living room. From the living room, he could hear Buffy's soft voice speaking words of honor and honesty. He walked through the open double French doors to see over thirty people crowded around the living room, mostly including teenage women and three people he had recognized: the teenage boy with black curly hair who had grown up to be a man and sported an eye-patch over his left eye, a tall, middle-aged man with salt and pepper hair as he tiredly removed his glasses, and a shy young woman with long, red hair who stood quietly near the wall.
In the center of the room, standing in a delicate, white, button-up shirt and jeans with her long blonde hair falling at her shoulders was Buffy herself. "So here's the part where you make a choice," Buffy declared. "What if you could have that power… now? In every generation one Slayer is born because a bunch of men who died thousands of years ago made up that rule. They were powerful men."
Buffy pointed to her red-haired friend and added, "This woman is more powerful than all of them combined." The red-head blushed and whimpered at all the sudden attention. "So I say we change the rule," Buffy suggested. "I say my power should be our power."
Johnny walked through the living room and out of a door that led to an even bigger room that didn't belong in any house.
He entered a large brick room with mats laid on the floor, a mannequin standing in the corner and an Olympic vault on the side. Buffy stood wearing a black blouse with shorter, wavier hair tied back. She looked tired and beaten, however the middle aged man who stood near the doorway of the room looked even more so. Johnny watched as he struggled for breath as a woman appeared in the doorway wearing black from head-to-toe, complete with straight, short black hair and extremely pale skin. It was Buffy's red-haired friend from before, but she looked much scarier now. Dark veins stretched across her neck and face, along with a bloody cut across her cheek.
"That all you got, Jeeves?" she challenged with a half-smile. "'Cause I can stand to go another ten rounds." The man breathed heavily, standing nearly defeated in dirty, torn clothes. "Whereas you can barely stand," she smiled.
Johnny looked over to see Buffy standing on edge as her eyes moved back and forth between the two people she cared about. Her female friend let out a vicious snicker.
The man wearily answered in a British accent, "Your powers… may be undeniably greater. But I can still hurt you if I have to."
"Boy, you just don't get it, do you?" the black-haired woman boasted. "Nothing can hurt me now."
That caught Buffy's attention and wounded her deeply. Johnny walked over to her, watching carefully as she stared at her best friend in disgust and terror before she looked away suddenly, unable to stand the sight of someone that meant so much to her become such a horrible monster.
"This?" the woman added, her hand pointing to her bloody cut. With a wave of her hand, the cut vanished before their eyes. Johnny stared at her in amazement. "Is nothing," she declared bitterly. "It's all nothing."
"I see," he breathed tiredly. "If you lose someone you love… the other people in your life who care about you become meaningless." The dark-haired woman didn't know how to react for a few seconds as he added, "I wonder what Tara would have to say about that."
A flash of anger filled her eyes as she spat, "You can ask her yourself." She lifted her arm as Buffy flew into action, tackling the man out of the way of a sudden bolt of lightning that struck the beam he was leaning against.
Johnny watched in astonishment, but something else caught his attention. He turned around to face the doorway leading to another room. Buffy along with another group of people stood and sat around a table inside of a store of some sort. He looked to see a blonde woman in pajamas curled up in a chair, the red-haired woman sitting beside her protectively. The curly, black-haired young man sat beside another petite woman with blonde, curly hair. The man in the long, black leather duster that Johnny remembered from the diner stood in the corner against the wall. Buffy and the British middle-aged man stood on opposite ends of a table – all of them looked agitated and afraid.
"It's always got to be blood," the platinum blonde man declared in a Cockney British accent, joining the conversation they were already having.
"We're not actually discussing dinner right now," the black-haired young man quipped.
"Blood is life, lack-brain," he snapped back. "Why do you think we eat it? It's what keeps you going. Makes you warm. Makes you hard. Makes you other than dead." He quietly added, "Of course it's her blood."
"It's pretty simple math here," Buffy declared as she crossed her arms, standing more like a general than a southern Californian teenager. "We stop Glory before she can start the ritual. We still have a couple of hours, right?"
"If my calculations are right," the middle-aged man declared. "But Buffy…"
"I don't wanna hear it," Buffy snapped, cutting him off and turning away.
He replied, "I understand that—"
"No!" she shouted, whipping around to face him again. "No, you don't understand. We're not talking about this!"
"Yes, we bloody well are!" he snapped back, coming to a stand. Johnny looked around at the table to see everyone stunned and shocked into silence for several moments by his outburst. The middle-aged man controlled himself and quietly reiterated, "If Glory begins the ritual… if we can't stop her…" He let the words fade away.
"Come on," Buffy challenged. "Say it. We're bloody well talking about this. Tell me to kill my sister." A layer of ice covered her words as Johnny looked over at her in surprise.
"She's not your sister," the British man whispered in response.
Buffy silenced herself for several moments of consideration. She finally answered with a quiet tone herself, "No. She's not. She's more than that. She's me. The monks made her out of me. I hold her and I feel closer than…" The words faded away as Buffy looked down at the floor with a sigh of despair. Her head lifted up to face her friends as Johnny viewed her moment of pain. "It's not just the memories they built. It's physical. Dawn… is a part of me. The only part that I—"
She quieted her rant again and looked away. She turned her face towards Johnny as he viewed her expression of loss and confusion, knowing that no one in the room could understand her. Johnny's thoughts were again broken by a shout in another room.
"How can you possibly help?" he heard from the back doorway of the shop. Johnny walked through the door and found himself again in a place of residence. Four people stood in the living room of a well-furnished apartment.
In the kitchen, the British man stood with a bottle of alcohol in his hand, slightly tipsy as he stared down at the ground. The red-haired woman with shorter hair stood with a frown on her face and her arms wrapped around her. The curly-haired young man stood with his hands inside his pockets and a guilty expression. Buffy, bruised and beaten, stood in a dirty, white sweater as she glared at them in pain and anger.
"So…" she whispered as she disappointedly gazed at them. "I'm starting to understand why there's no ancient prophesy about a Chosen One… and her friends." With those damning words, Buffy turned around and headed for the front door, walking passed Johnny to pull her jacket off of the rack.
"If I need help I'll go to someone I can count on," she spat as she marched out of the door. Johnny followed her to another living room, but this one was decorated in a very contemporary manner.
Buffy stood in red leather pants and a black tank top with her black leather jacket over it as she squared off with another voluptuous young woman with thick, dark hair and pale skin. The other woman wore nearly all black, save for a white tank top and glared angrily at Buffy as the two of them were about to do serious battle.
"The Mayor got me the poison," she the other woman declared. "Said it was wicked painful."
"There's a cure," Buffy coldly declared.
"Damn," she sneered. "What is it?"
"Your blood," Buffy matter-of-factly stated. "As justice goes, it's not un-poetic, don't you think?"
"Come to get me? Gonna feed me to Angel? You know you're never gonna take me alive."
"Not a problem," she declared with angry eyes, the eyes of a brutal killer.
Johnny continued walking through the room, approaching two double doors as he opened them up. He looked out and saw the high school library that he remembered before in his vision of Wes. He entered the room and watched as Buffy, wearing a knee-length, baby blue jacket, leaned over the body of a dead teenage girl with brown skin and a slash across her throat. Johnny stared at the body ominously as Buffy's heart broke. He stared down at her as tears welled up in her eyes.
Johnny turned around to see Buffy standing with tears streaming down her face as she ripped the silver cross necklace from her throat and threw it on the ground. "I don't care!" she screamed in distress. Shaking her head, she quieted herself as she whispered, "I don't care."
Johnny stared at her painfully and looked over to see the British middle-aged man standing beside him with an overwhelmed expression, dressed in a tweed suit and glasses.
"Giles, I'm sixteen years old," she tearfully declared with a withering tone. "I don't want to die." Johnny's eyes shot towards her and held on her with exclamation. After saying that, Johnny could swear that Buffy's eyes rested on him, as if she was looking at both he and Giles.
She spun on her heel and ran out of the double doors of the library without looking back. "Buffy!" Johnny called, running after her, back out of the library.
He ran into a nightclub of some sort where dozens of teenagers sat around in tables or danced slowly on the dance floor to a haunting song. Johnny himself was now dressed in a black blazer over a white, button-up shirt, the first three buttons of which were undone. Buffy was standing right in front of him, looking at him with an apologetic expression, the silver cross hanging from her neck. The words of the song filled the entire room: 'Your eyes / That always make me shiver / Now they are closed / They just sometimes twitch a little'
"I just gotta…" Johnny declared. "I gotta walk away from this."
Buffy nodded with understanding. "I know. Me too." The two of them stood in front of each other, unmoving. Buffy whispered, "One of us has to go here."
Johnny whispered back, "I know." They stared at each other in silence as their eyes locked. A few moments later, the two of them leaned in and kissed each other gently.
'And your body / I could hold for an hour / It sent me to Heaven
/ With its heat and power…'
Buffy pushed even closer to Johnny with more passion than before. As the two of them made contact, another vision shot through his mind.
Buffy, now much older and with long, wavy hair, grimaced in pain. A man with blonde hair held her tightly, his face obscured by Buffy's neck as he buried his face into the left side of her throat. Behind her, La Musique aux Tuileries was hanging on the wall. She whimpered in torment, her fingers tightening as she scratched her nails helplessly across the back of her attacker, tearing four slashes into the back of his navy blue blazer. Blood poured down Buffy's shoulder as her head rolled back and she fell into her attacker's arms.
Johnny watched in horror and sickened disgust as her killer held her, still biting her on the neck for a few more moments. The look of pain on her face was so intolerable that it tore his heart open to see such a strong woman be torn down to the strength of a powerless child. Her body finally fell out of her killer's arms and landed on the ground, her wound dripping with crimson life.
Johnny looked down weakly and helplessly at Buffy as suddenly her eyes opened wide. She stared straight up at him and declared, "There's still time."
Buffy, now much older and with long, wavy hair, grimaced in pain. A man with blonde hair held her tightly, his face obscured by Buffy's neck as he buried his face into the left side of her throat. Behind her, La Musique aux Tuileries was hanging on the wall. She whimpered in torment, her fingers tightening as she scratched her nails helplessly across the back of her attacker, tearing four slashes into the back of his navy blue blazer. Blood poured down Buffy's shoulder as her head rolled back and she fell into her attacker's arms.Johnny jolted with terror as he came out of the vision and nearly fell into the crater if it hadn't been for Bruce, who held him straight. Johnny found his heart beating out of his chest again and he couldn't hear his friend shouting his name only inches away. Bruce picked him up on his feet and walked him back to the rental car.
Opening the door, Bruce nearly threw Johnny into the passenger's seat as he declared, "That's enough." Johnny was still in a daze as Bruce got in the driver's seat and closed the door, turning over the engine. "We're going back home."
"No," Johnny breathed. "We can't… not now. There's still time."
"What?" Bruce exclaimed, all but fed up with the name Buffy.
"She's still alive," Johnny declared with certainty. "I saw what's going to kill her."
Bruce looked over at him with concern. "What is it?"
"It's…" Johnny tried to explain, but he shook his head at a loss. "I can't explain it. It's… inhuman." The final word rang out ominously as the two of them sat in silence.
Bruce knew what he wanted to say – that he didn't believe it. It wasn't real. It was impossible. But then, he noticed something as Johnny leaned back and rested on the seat, heaving quietly as his mind raced. Bruce reached over and pulled down the collar of Johnny's blue button-up shirt. Johnny looked down to view the same thing that Bruce was seeing with wide, frightened eyes.
A deep, blood-red mark the shape of Buffy's cross pendant was burned into the skin of Johnny's chest.
The front door of the Los Angeles hotel room opened as Johnny and Bruce walked in later that night. Johnny was just at the end of trying to explain what he saw to Bruce. "She was in a gang?" Bruce asked.
"No," he shook his head in reply, very confused himself. "I don't… Well… I'm not… No. It's weirder than that."
"A cult?"
"Too weird," Johnny declared, going over to Bruce's laptop. He sat down at the table and opened it up as Bruce closed the door.
"You should try to type some of the stranger stuff into a search engine," Bruce suggested as he walked towards the table. "Maybe you'll find—"
Bruce was cut off by a loud explosion as the door was blown off the hinges. He hit the ground as Johnny looked up in shock. He saw the British, middle-aged man, Giles, appear in the doorway as he punched out a guard. Another security guard grabbed Giles from behind when the dark, curly-haired young man with the eye patch hit the guard in the back of the head, knocking him out.
Bruce pushed himself off of the ground as Buffy's friend, the young, red-headed woman walked in the door with long, flowing white hair. She eyed Johnny instantly. Bruce stood up, about to confront her as she waved her hand in his face and said very calmly, almost ignoring the fact that he was there, "Sleep."
Bruce collapsed on the floor unconsciously as Buffy's three friends entered the room, followed by a younger woman with long, straight, dark-blonde hair. Each of them stood like statues with stone cold faces as they glared at Johnny.
"Johnny Smith?" Giles declared in his British accent, wearing casual clothing, as they all did.
"That's me," John answered with uncertainty.
"Get up," the white-haired girl demanded as the color of her hair faded back to red. Johnny stared at them hesitantly as he idly pressed a button on the keyboard.
"I'd listen to the little lady," the young man with the eye patch declared. "She's got quite a temper."
"So I've seen," Johnny answered as he came to a calm stand.
"What's that supposed to mean?" the younger girl asked angrily as she eyed him suspiciously.
He pointed down at Bruce and demanded, "Is he going to be all right?"
"He's fine," the red-haired woman declared. "Just asleep. But he's not your main problem. We are."
"What do you know about Buffy Summers?" Giles flatly asked. "And please, don't insult my intelligence by pretending that you don't know who she is."
"I do," Johnny answered.
"What have you done with her?" the younger girl snapped. Johnny looked over at her, a sudden fear coming over him. Was he too late?
"What are you talking about?" Johnny asked.
"Buffy is our friend," Xander threateningly announced. "We care a whole lot about her. And now she's disappeared. Unfortunately for you, you're the one all the signs are pointing to."
"We know you have something to do with it," the red-haired woman accused. "So what is it?"
He shook his head and considered lying, but had to be honest. "I really don't know," he answered. "I was in a coma for six years and when I woke up… I changed. My brain rewired itself to work through an area that's usually considered dead. And now…"
"Let me guess," the young man cut him off. "Every time you get a little touchy-feely you start seeing things?"
"Visions," Johnny reiterated as he stared at him in confusion. "I thought you didn't know who I was."
"We don't," Giles declared. "But we've seen it before."
"How?" Johnny asked. "That's impossible. I'm the—"
"One psychic in all the world…" the younger girl interrupted, rolling her eyes in boredom. "Yada, yada, yada…" Johnny stared at her in utter confusion.
"We know you're psychic," the red-head announced.
The young man skeptically challenged, "Yeah, well, if you're so psychic, then tell me what my name is."
Johnny began instantly, "Oh, well…" He paused, trying to remember and then realized that it never had come up. "Actually, I don't know that," he matter-of-factly admitted.
"We're not here to play magic tricks," Giles snapped in frustration.
"I understand that, Giles," Johnny answered.
"Hey!" the young man declared. "I thought you said you didn't know our names."
"No," Johnny replied. "I just didn't know your name."
"Oh," the young man reeled back with a bitter, disappointed look of rejection on his face. He crossed his arms obtusely. "Well, I'm not telling you."
"Enough, Xander," Giles declared seriously.
"What did you mean by seeing my visions before?" Johnny asked with concern. "I thought I was the only one."
"Guess what," the young girl declared impatiently. "There's two now." Johnny gazed at her in astonishment as he took the information in.
"Don't worry," the red-head comforted. "It happens to everybody." A new thought occurred to her as she added, "And… hi. I'm Willow." She then remembered the reason that she came and put on a semi-fierce gaze. "And also – what did you do to Buffy?"
"She's having visions?" Johnny asked in amazement.
"Something about the end of the world," Xander answered.
"But the fiery kind," Willow added. "Not the normal kind."
Giles removed his glasses as he explained, "Buffy was arrested by Italian police and institutionalized. She escaped a day ago."
"You still haven't answered our question," the younger girl declared angrily. "And being Buffy's sister that puts you in a bad place with me."
"Dawn," Johnny said as he connected the events in his memory to the current situation. "I don't know where she is."
Xander crossed his arms with an intimidating, matter-of-fact tone, "Then you're going to help us look for our friend… or you're going to the hospital. The trip involves a no-expense-paid trip to the fabulous town of Rome, Italy, where you can do your finger dance all over the city until you find her."
Johnny shook his head as he processed the information. He gazed up at them at a loss, "Why do you think I can find her?"
"Because," Dawn declared as she eyed him, "she went looking for you."