Legal Disclaimer: I own nothing. All rights to the Terminator or Buffy characters belong to the respective companies. No money is being made from this. It's all for fun.

Spoilers: Buffy Season 6+. Terminator 1,2.

(T3 was an abomination that proved to me that Arnold was planning to run for office and he had to get a contractual obligation out of the way first. So he did something that took no real creative effort on his part,. I may lift a few things. But otherwise it doesn't exist.)

Slightly AU: Joyce lived the aneurysm didn't happen. Vampires when they dust leave their clothes and possessions behind. (IMO Joss wanted to avoid the expense of having to drop clothes all the time.)

Dream sequence: Italics

Thoughts: (Italics)

Scene opens; Buffy's bedroom

Chapter One

Count Down to Judgment Day:

T Minus Seven (pt1):

Awakening

(Somehow I loaded the old version of this chapter. I saved the edited chapter in a different file when I thought I had over written the original. This is the revised text. There's not a lot of changes but they do make a difference.)

Buffy woke up clammy with he heart beating so rapidly that if she wasn't the slayer she might have faced a heart attack. Shouting

Noooo!

Joyce was startled out of sleep. She heard Buffy crying out in the way only a soul that had lost all hope could. She grabbed a stake from the nightstand and went running to Buffy's room not even fully awake yet. Just knowing that her daughter needed her. (AN:1)

Joyce burst into Buffy's room ready to do battle with anything that frightened her daughter. She lowered the stake when she saw Buffy crying in misery. She heard Dawn stirring as well. Yelling over her shoulder.

"Dawn go back to bed!" Joyce then went over and sat on the bed to hug Buffy.

"Buffy what's wrong?"

'There was this light. Everyone's dead." The misery in Buffy's voice was beyond any that Joyce had ever heard before. Even from when she was called back from heaven. Joyce held her in her arms, like she was once again her little girl, instead of the Slayer.

"Shhh Buffy it was just a dream. Nothings happened. Everybody is alright. It was just a bad nightmare" Joyce had never liked the demands that Buffy's calling put on her or her friends, which she thought of as her own children.

"No mom it won't be alright. The dream was a Slayer dream. I really wish it was a end of the world nightmare. Something that would keep me from sleeping for a week. But I'm convinced it felt like a Slayer Dream. But the powers that be give me something to go on to stop whatever I've seen. But not this time. Not only did I see us die. I was above and watched the whole planet destroyed."

To Joyce Buffy sounded like she was on the verge of breakdown. Like this last dream and pushed her back into the virtual death wish she'd had when Willow raised her from the dead.

"Your right toot's." A strange little man that dressed in a very bad suit suddenly seemed to step into Buffy's room out of nowhere.

"Whistler"

Joyce heard the hatred in Buffy's voice. As Buffy grabbed the stake she had brought into the room and rolled from the bed. Spanning the distance between her and this Whistler in less time than she could blink.

Buffy grabbed his shirt and jabbed the stake up to his throat.

"What do you want Whistler?"

Joyce and Whistler both heard the menace in her voice.

"Well I…"

"Forget it! Last time you showed up I had to kill Angel. What sort of hell am I supposed to go through for the powers now? Which of my friends am I supposed to kill? Buffy's voice escalated through the entire tirade.

"Slayer it's not like that. The dream was a warning of what will happen if you went on with business as usual. Please listen to me. The powers are bending the rules to the breaking point as is. This was a warning for you and your friends. The powers owe you to much to leave you unwarned. I'll explain as much as I can. So get all your friends and family together as soon as possible. And call my name."

He was smiling fondly. "And my name isn't proceeded by damn bastard or other similar additions." And he faded away as he said the last word.

"Buffy who was that horribly dressed little man who disturbingly reminded me of principle Snyder?"

"Mom if he was telling the truth. I think we'll need to get ready. If he was serious about…" Buffy visibly switched mental tracks and seemed to come to an acceptance of what she had heard. She looked over at her alarm clock. "Oh God it's that early. Couldn't the Damn powers have let me sleep longer and gotten me up closer to when I had to get up anyway? Don't they know that a sleepy Buffy is a cranky Buffy and that's never a good thing." She rolled her eye's dramatically.

"Come on, lets see what sort of non perishable food's we have in the house. As soon as it gets light out I'll call everyone local and tell them to meet us at the magic box. But I better give Giles a call in Tweed land right now."

Joyce was reeling from what she'd heard. "Buffy this can't be.."

"Mom snap out of it. I don't want to believe it either. But we better start getting prepared just in case. I really need to talk to Giles now."

"Ok dear go ahead call Giles. I just need some time to think."

Brinnng!

"Giles residence."

"Giles we have a problem."

"Buffy isn't it awfully early for you to be calling me?"

"I was just given a Slayer Dream and Whistler showed up. He was giving me an apocalyptic warning. He said we need to get all of our friends and family together as soon as possible. It seems like our time is short"

"Oh dear Lord." Buffy was sure he was cleaning his glasses again.

"I really need you to get Willow and come here as soon as possible. We need to be ready to bring out our biggest guns. We're going to meet as soon as we can at the shop"

"Buffy you needn't ask. Willow and I will be there as soon as we can. But you can't meet at the shop. It hasn't finished being repaired from what happened…"

"Oh boy, I can't believe I didn't remember that, Anya's still on the warpath with the contractors. Ok we'll meet at my house."

"Are you sure you need Willow to come? She's been making a great deal of progress. Can you tell me what is going to happen?"

"Giles I need the both of you. Make sure Will's knows that we love her and miss her. I can't go through this more than once, so everyone will need to be here."

-Scene Break-

A couple of hours later.

Buffy and Joyce are having coffee in the kitchen.

"Ok mom I've called everyone that I can reach for now, to an emergency meeting here. They'll all be here in a couple of hours. You me and Dawn better run to the store and buy some supplies. Thank God she's such and sound sleeper and hasn't gotten up yet."

Joyce knew that Dawn had probably laid awake in her bed since Buffy's shout. But let her go on thinking what she wanted. Right now she was more concerned with the almost maniacal energy Buffy was putting into her effort to avoid thinking about her dream. "What kind of supplies are you talking about?"

"We're fairly well fixed on canned goods for a change. But we could easily add more to the stockpile we have. It wouldn't even be wasted money since we could always eat them later. But I was thinking about vitamins and supplements, none of which would actually go to waste. IF this is real we will mostly need things we don't normally buy. Like camping gear and good comfortable boots."

"How are we going to pay for all of this?"

"When everyone gets here and we decide what were going to do. We can pretty much empty our bank accounts and leave just enough in them to keep them from closing. Somehow I feel it's best not to call to much attention to ourselves right now. We'll even ring up every piece of plastic we own. And I have an idea that Xander proposed some time ago. Just I've always felt wrong about doing it so I haven't followed up on it."

Seeing the look on her mothers face.

"Don't worry mom. It's not illegal or even immoral. Just I've never been comfortable with the idea. Even if we do everything I suggested, it will still be hard to do all that we need to do."

"I still can't believe I'm here talking about…"

Buffy preempted Joyce yet again. "Well we'll talk to the little geek and see what he has to say. I just don't know how long we have. But It just feels like time is running out.."

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Authors Note: Like I said the chapter length will vary widely. Mostly each chapter will be a particular scene/event.

Pwease pwease read and review. (/Roger Rabbit) I'm really disappointed that I didn't get any from the Prologue.

AN1: Only in Sunnydale do you grab a stake instead of a gun when there is a disturbance in your house. :)