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 "Vanguard"

6: Reunion

Greg Stillson stood in a hotel room wearing a cleanly-pressed, white, button-up dress shirt. He gazed at himself in the mirror with a pleased smile as he examined his chiseled features and tan he had received on the golf course earlier that weekend. With a comb, he made sure that every blonde hair on his head was in perfect place.

A few of his assistants, a couple of them in black suits and sunglasses, moved around behind him, taking calls, fixing coffee and writing speeches to be used later.

The door to the hotel suite opened as Malcolm Janus walked in with a pleased expression. Or at least about as pleased as an expressionless man could look.

"If you would all exit the room," Janus asked. "That's enough for now." At his command, the room emptied instantly. Stillson turned around and glanced at him curiously.

"What have you got up your sleeve today?" Stillson grinned as he turned back towards the mirror.

"I'd like to introduce you to a new business partner," Janus answered as soon as they were alone.

"Business partner?" Stillson repeated with uncertainty. "I don't know anything about a new business partner." Stillson turned back to the mirror and gazed at his reflection, studying it closely, "Do you really think I look like a JFK?"

"Vanity is a sin."

"Only to those who haven't got much to look at," Stillson replied with a smirk. He faced Janus again as he pulled a red tie out and threw it around his neck. "So what's the business about a business partner?"

Janus went to the door and opened it, letting in a medium-sized, bony man with brown eyes and brown hair streaked with grey spots. He wore a simple black suit with a blue, collared shirt. "Congressman," Janus began, "let me introduce to you Mr. Ethan Rayne." Stillson looked the middle-aged man over and extended his hand to him. Ethan shook his hand with a twisted, untrustworthy smile. Janus added, "This is the man that will change your destiny."

"That's quite the task," Stillson answered. "Does this have anything to do with that physicist from the law firm in L.A.? Because I've really had my fill of scientists for the year."

"Precisely," Janus answered. "But Mr. Knox was no Alex Connors. In fact, he was nothing more than a distraction. A brilliant idea given to us by Mr. Rayne."

"How so?" Stillson asked.

"What you fail to realize, Senator," Ethan casually declared in a proper British accent, "is that true power is not measured in polls."

Stillson grinned, "I beg your pardon, but I've got thousands of trusting voters who would disagree with you."

"There are other ways," Ethan added, "that require nothing more than a little effort and sacrifice."

He laughed unbelievingly. "Sounds like you're going to rewrite the book on politics," Stillson declared. "So tell me, sir. What makes you so knowledgeable?"

Ethan outstretched his hand and Stillson, standing five feet away, was knocked down forcefully to the ground, the wind getting blown out of him. The young Stillson looked up at Ethan in astonishment and fear. "Like I said," Ethan answered, glaring at the arrogant politician. "A little effort… and sacrifice."

Stillson stared at him in amazement as Janus explained, "With Mr. Rayne's assistance, we killed two birds with one stone." Stillson picked himself up and came to an uncertain stand as he stared at Ethan uncomfortably, trying to logically explain what just happened. "We received the ancient texts of Utarefson and we're going to keep the staff of Wolfram & Hart's L.A. branch busy."

Stillson asked in confusion, "Why would we be afraid of a bunch of lawyers?"

"You're a politician," Ethan declared. "You should be able to answer that."

Stillson gave him a look as Janus explained, "In fact, Wolfram & Hart's L.A. branch is not run by lawyers. It's run by a group of people that can bring our plans to ruin if they converge with the others."

"The others?" Stillson repeated. "Buffy Summers? That cute blonde you boys were going on about?"

Janus replied, "And Johnny Smith."

Stillson's eyes squeezed shut with fury. He inhaled lividly as he hissed quietly, "If I hear that name one more time…"

"Soon it'll be on everyone's lips," Janus grinned. "We've booby-trapped Smith's home. The second he walks through the front door he'll meet an untimely death."

"And then what?" Stillson snapped, unsatisfied. "We'll have turned him into a martyr!"

Ethan smiled pleasantly with eyes full of excitement. He whispered temptingly, "Not until we will have turned you into a god." Greg Stillson looked over at him curiously as Ethan wickedly grinned back at him. After a few moments of consideration, Stillson smiled at the idea of himself as a god…

He liked the sound of that.

Johnny sat inside the New York Public Library at a computer as the sun was setting over the East Coast. He diligently typed away at every search engine he could find. He typed in the phrase, 'In every generation, a Slayer is born' and 'one… in all the world.' Surprisingly, several websites popped up on the screen. He clicked on one domain name in particular which served the most accurate description – read the meaning of the word Slayer and its history throughout time. The word was associated with mysterious deaths and things that could not be explained. He spent over an hour reading frantically about vampires, demons, witches, werewolves, and other minions of the supernatural. All of it seemed like a big fairy tale.

Johnny finally stopped reading and squeezed his aching eyes closed. He had gotten so close to her and suddenly he found himself slipping away once again. She was going to die and he wouldn't be able to save her – history was repeating itself. Once more, he had that feeling of powerlessness.

Johnny opened his eyes as they gazed around the desk and rested on an annoying sight. Greg Stillson's smiling face beamed up at Johnny, full of confidence. John glowered at the nearly full-page picture on a local magazine cover, showcasing Stillson's everyman personality – and suggesting him as the perfect president. A headline above the picture screamed excitement about the politician's upcoming speech at a rally.

Johnny grabbed the magazine and tossed it into a wastebasket in disgust with his situation, disgust at Stillson, and above all – disgust in himself. He stood up from his chair and marched away from the computer towards the library's exit, more lost than he had been before he came.

Distant thunder rumbled as a flash of lightning illuminated a modest apartment bedroom. Johnny sat on a simple twin bed against a wall that was really more of a cot as he stared out at the unfamiliar settings around him. His skin was cold, he knew that, and his clothes were wet. He looked beside him and his eyes widened with surprise.

Buffy sat on the bed next to him in a wet, beige blouse of transparent satin over a matching camisole and a dark, floral skirt. Her face was wet with rainwater and her eyes were wet with approaching tears. She looked as if she were a small flower in the midst of the raging storm outside. She appeared so fragile and innocent, sitting on the bed as she gazed at the wall, shivering every once and a while with cold.

His first instinct was to warm her, but his eyes found an inch-long cut on her back where her beige blouse had been sliced open. "You're hurt," he whispered with concern.

Johnny's voice seemed to snap her out of her daze. She glanced at him before pulling her eyes away and replying, "It's… it's nothing."

"May I see?" he asked. Buffy turned to him and stared at him for the first time. He felt his heartbeat pace more rapidly as his eyes met with hers. After a few moments of hesitance, she gave him a small nod of trust. She turned herself towards the wall and slowly removed the beige blouse and reduced herself to the wet camisole. Buffy clung on to the blouse, holding it to her chest modestly as she faced the opposite wall and let him examine her wound.

Johnny narrowed his eyes on the tiny cut, but was careful – as he was at all times – not to touch her. However, now he found himself not touching for different reasons. She was a dream that he feared would vanish if he laid a hand on her. Staring closely at the cut, his eyes widened with suspicious surprise. "It's healed," he declared, then quieted himself once more. Johnny looked up from her closed wound to the back of her head as he heard a soft whimper.

He could tell she was trying to suck it back in from the moment she had let her cry slip. Johnny was still for a few seconds, deciding with much hesitation. But after a while, his will to think things through began to give in to his will to help her. Slowly, he reached for her short, damp, golden hair and pulled it out of her face.

"What's wrong?" he gently asked. Buffy was clearly in indecision herself. She turned her head, and then turned her body towards the front again, still holding the blouse to her. Johnny stared at the half of her face she allowed him to see and observed the glimmer of a tear as it ran down her cheek.

Softly and desperately she replied, "You… you almost went away today."

The teardrop fell from her face and he could already see another forming. Again, his instinct was to reach out to her – to console her. He stretched out his fingers, but then pulled them back into a ball, squeezing them tightly enough to cause discomfort so he would remember that he couldn't touch her.

"I've been looking for you," Johnny declared after a few more moments of silence. "I-I went to Sunnydale. I know what's happened. The things you've faced… and feared. I've seen it." Her eyes moved towards his direction, but she was obviously pulling them back and trying her best to not look into his. Johnny agreed with her – that would probably be best – as he added, "I've felt it."

She was silent and still as stone as she stared at walls of the room as another flash of lightning brightened her view, even if it was only for moment. "I'm tired," she whispered in reply. "I'm tired of running."

"I know," Johnny answered.

Buffy shook her head with wide eyes full of despair and doom. "I don't think there's anything that I can do to stop it. I can't change the future."

"I can," Johnny declared with resolve. His answer surprised her so much that she turned towards him, crossing the line and making eye contact. He added, truly believing in what he was saying, "We can." As she gazed at him, it filled them both with hope. Johnny again had to remind himself to not embrace her, trying his best to think out every move he made before he made it.

Buffy pulled her attention away from him and began to glance around the room nervously, aware that something was waiting for her. "You're in danger, Buffy," Johnny said with urgency.

"I have to go," she answered.

"No," he defiantly declared. "You don't have to."

Buffy gazed at him with a withering expression as she shook her head tearfully. "But I do," she whispered, the air leaving her lungs. She softly cried, "I'm the only one that can stop it."

"You're not alone," Johnny exclaimed as he reached out for her shoulders. Suddenly, he remembered his rule and restrained himself from contact. His hands were frozen a few inches away from her arms as she glanced down at them and then made the biggest mistake for either of them.

She looked into his eyes.

She looked into his soul.

Buffy and Johnny stared at each other for an eternity. "I'll protect you," he could hear himself saying, but couldn't feel his mouth form the words. And all of a sudden, Johnny had no desire to think things through and was no longer thinking about anything that wasn't holding her in his arms.

Buffy leaned over to him as Johnny closed his eyes and let her delicately grace him with a kiss. Though he could see nothing, his other senses pictured his hands gently meeting her arms.

Buffy laid her head on Johnny's shoulder as the two of them leaned back against a tombstone in a graveyard one misty evening in Sunnydale, his arms wrapped around her securely.

His fingers softly rose up from her forearms, over her shoulders and finally cradled her face as he pulled her even closer for a deeper kiss.

Buffy and Johnny walked hand-in-hand down a snow-covered Main Street in Sunnydale as peaceful flakes drifted down around them and children played in the distance.

He pulled away for a moment of breath as his hands slipped down her back, only to have her grab his face and kiss him passionately with a taste of desperation for him.

Buffy was standing on a beach as the warm sun rained down upon her and the wet sand gripped her feet. She suddenly felt Johnny's arms wrap around her waist as he rested his chin on her shoulder and they gazed out at the crashing waves together.

Johnny laid back on the bed as Buffy continued to kiss him, both of them giving in to their desires. They felt a sense of passion, exhilaration and relief as they became one with each other, thinking the same thoughts, feeling the same emotions, and everything in both of their broken worlds – from the tiniest drop of rain to the most monumental explosion of mountains – seemed right. They were no longer the legendary Johnny Smith and Buffy Summers. They were simply a man and woman melting in to each other with no fear, no worry – nothing between them but the soft linen of the bed sheets.

A bonfire blazed within them both, hungrily consuming them, while at the same time a chilly tingle ran through every vein of their bodies and brought an extraordinary peace. Every move was a smooth, improvised dance to the rhythm of the rain. Every breath was an elating flight through the atmosphere as it pulsed and jolted with lightning. Every touch was a gateway to not only their souls and bodies, but to their memories and minds as they joined as one in perfect ecstasy.

Buffy gazed up at Johnny as she felt his fingers open her tiny hand wide and tangle together with hers.

Johnny hung half out of Buffy's bedroom window, leaning over the windowsill into the room as she beamed at him and kissed him sweetly.

She exhaled slowly as he ran his thumb over her soft lips.

With the Sunnydale High School senior class dancing slowly around them, Buffy and Johnny swayed to the music together, Buffy in her prom dress and Johnny in a tuxedo. She closed her eyes, seizing the moment for all it was worth, and rested her head on his shoulder.

Lightning flashed again as Buffy closed her eyes while he tenderly kissed her neck.

Buffy was in a deep slumber in Johnny's bed as he lay next to her wide awake, watching her with awe and wonder as he caressed her golden locks of hair, paying no attention to how messy it was.

Her fragile hands ran over the flexing shoulder blades of his back.

Buffy began to walk out of the door of the apartment one morning as Johnny gripped her arm and pulled her towards him, embracing her as he passionately kissed her.

He gazed down into her warm eyes and kissed her deeply, reaching her soul and setting it ablaze with rapture and bliss.

Johnny protectively laid her back down in her own bed as the demon remedy to her 'aspect of the demon' began to take effect. He gazed down at her peaceful face and gently placed a kiss on her forehead.

Buffy's eyes opened as Johnny slowly grasped her upper arm, holding her closely as they moved in sequence with one another. His heavy head rested upon her right shoulder, concealing his exhilarated face with shadow. She felt as strange sensation and her eyes met his fingers as he gripped her left arm. Lightning flashed once more, illuminating her view. He closed his fingers tighter around her upper arm, smearing blood from an unseen wound across her flesh.

Her eyes widened as they settled on the crimson streak. The face of the young President, with demonic, blacked-out eyes and a vicious smile, flashed through her mind and suddenly reminded her of the things that she had been running from. Johnny pulled his head up suddenly with a jolt as Buffy gazed up at him in terror.

His mouth opened wide as his incisors and other teeth sharply and jaggedly grew, his brow morphing into a serpentine structure. His gorgeous blue eyes changed color, becoming bright and terrifying yellow. It was the kind of face she'd seen a million times, the face of the particular demon from which she got her namesake. But none of those times were as terrifying as this.

In a flash, Johnny buried his teeth into her neck with the ferocity of an animal without a care, or soul, within.

Johnny shot up from his New York hotel room bed in a terrified sweat and with a shout as the clock near his bed changed to 3:07. He instantly reached up and began to wipe his mouth, also trying to rid his brain of the horrible images that had just transpired. There was a metallic taste in his mouth that was undeniable.

He threw himself out of bed and ran towards the sink, turning the faucet on and throwing water into his mouth. As he spit the water back into the basin, he reached up and turned on the light. Johnny froze with fear as he stared down at the retreating water as his nightmares were confirmed – he was washing blood out of his mouth.

He gazed down at the scarlet color in confusion as his heart beat rapidly as if it were going to explode in his chest. Panting with fear, he looked up and came face-to-face with his own reflection in the mirror to see his normal, human face. He stared at his reflection with uncertainty and fright, not sure if the person staring back at him was truly him.

Johnny's horror only confirmed and reassured one thing: he had to find Buffy and he had to find her right now. He pulled himself away from the mirror, marching across the room as he grabbed his jacket off of a coat rack. He rummaged through each of the pockets until he felt the cold metal of Buffy's silver cross necklace. Johnny lifted the cross out of his pocket by the chain and glared at it in defiance.

"Where are you, Buffy?" He reached out and grasped the cross in his hand, closing his eyes. Images flashed through his mind and he opened his eyes again only moments later. Johnny stared at the necklace in confusion as he moved towards the front door. Twisting the doorknob, he opened the door to reveal a young woman with long, wavy, blonde hair standing in the doorway with a white tank top and blue jeans. She gazed up at him in motionless shock and awe as he stared at her, matching the expression.

"Buffy."