The Empty Grave
Part 1: A New Journey
Chapter 4

The room, the apartment, the building, perhaps even the whole of Sunnydale shook with pain. Willow couldn't even see anymore, she was crying for him. Everything he had done was for love. That had destroyed him and all that he had stood for. He tried to fight the monster he had become. Tricking himself into ignoring this possible victim, pausing at just the right moment to give them a chance but it was all too little as the monster cut a bloody swathe across his galaxy.

In slow motion, almost mirroring Buffy's collapse Willow could hear his tears as the former Dark Lord of the Sith fell to his knees before being over come with fatigue.

Finally she was safe, the adrenalin in her system was no longer enough to keep her going and, like him, she simply could not stay awake. With a small sigh she too collapsed and fell asleep.

Buffy clawed her way from the back abyss, Slowly waking up she saw Dawn kneeling beside her. 'Morning.'

'It's afternoon Buffy. Are you alright?'

'Getting sick of late nights. You?'

'My head hurts and I'm a little queasy but I've not barfed yet. So that's cool.'

'Darth Vader?'

'I think he's broken.' Buffy sat up and looked at the ball of black armour. He had curled up and was rocking gently. The sound of his breathing was stuttered and rasping a lot more than usual. Xander and Giles were standing over him with an axe and a sword, making very sure that the big guy wasn't faking them out. Anya was hovering over Willow, who was sleeping on the sofa. 'They were like this when we woke up Buffy.'

Falling on her back again Buffy sighed; 'What a week.'

It was later that day and the evening was just around the corner. 'Right so we've got a plan. One that doesn't involve running or pegs. Me and Xander carry tall, dark and comatose here to my place and chain him up. Anya sees what she can scavenge in the Magic Box that tells us how he's here. Giles takes Willow to England for some rehab and uses the books he's got there for more research.'

'And I go to the nice hospital and get this cut seen to.' Smiled Dawn with haunted eyes. She still didn't like the hospital.

There was a dead silence only broken by the stuttering breaths coming from the body of Darth Vader 'Are you sure you want to do this Will.' Xander asked finally.

Willow had woken up a few hours ago and jumped on the chance to go with Giles. 'I can't stay. Not yet I've done to much. I'll be back one day but I need this.'

'Don't forget to call.' Smiled Buffy trying to be comforting. If she was honest with herself it was good that Willow got out of here. It was just too much to have seen her kill someone and know that there was nothing mortal law could do other than arrest a grieving young woman.

'Or e-mail.' Pitched in Xander pulling Buffy from her thoughts.

'I won't. When should we be going?'

'As soon as possible I am afraid. I have no idea how the presence of a Dark Lord and a Hellmouth is effecting you but I doubt it's positive.' Giles put a comforting hand on Willow's shoulder

It took half the night to carry the heavy body to her house. Willow, and Giles, had stayed at Xander's not knowing what effect returning would have on her. As Buffy chained Vader to one of the posts in the basement Xander packed some bags for Willow. 'Did you get everything?'

'I got what I thought she would need. Some clothes, a few pictures of us, her passport and purse. I also got some things from the bathroom, toothpaste, her toothbrush.'

'Underwear?'

'Urm, no. I didn't feel… well you see.'

'Pathetic much. Give that here, I'll get them.' She did, and other things that he wouldn't have thought of. She did notice that a few things that would remind Willow of Tara were missing. She asked him about it.

'Giles asked me to. He thinks they'll help her when she's ready for them. We're not supposed to tell her.'

'I guessed as much. I would do the same.' She gritted her teeth. 'I'll take these back and then pick up Dawn at the hospital. You guard tall dark and formally unstoppable downstairs.'

'I'm sorry Buffy I know how much trouble you'll get in over what happened to Dawn.'

'I just hope she sticks to the story.'

Xander laughed, probably remembering the way she "improved" the more impossible Slayer excuses. 'One question. If Vader wakes up…?'

'Call me. If you can, or when you wake up.'

'If I'm dead?'

'Then we'll find you.' She looked at him, trying to tell him that he would not die. Too many people had been lost today.

Dawn looked up from the computer and was tempted to swear. It was still sunny, three days of glorious sunshine after Willow left. Was someone up there playing a joke, it was supposed to be raining. How could she feel like this if the traitorous weather would not help. One of her best friends was dead, almost everyone had deserted her, Darth Vader was comatose in the basement and she had five stitches over her right eye. On the plus side it was the summer holidays so non of her friends could see her wonderful new scar.

She had spent the past three days researching how they had the real Darth Vader in the house. Not just some guy in a costume but the real, Force wheedling, lightsabre glowing Darth Vader. Who could really throw unsuspecting real people, through real glass windows and give them real cuts, just above their real right eye. The annoying thing was how itchy the little cut was with those stitches in. Refusing to scratch them she looked over the research again.

While Anya had spent about five seconds looking for information before moaning about the damage to the Magic Box Dawn had been working. Amongst the page after web-page of Star Wars stuff so geeky that the nerds would have been embarrassed was a small note on some Demi-God called Promithea, who supposedly was a story made real. She could explore the worlds created by imagination and even summon up creatures to help. But she was supposed to be good and there was no way anything on their side would bring Vader here, so that was a dead end.

Same with the lightsabre and his other stuff. It worked, well the lightsabre did work but when Buffy tried it she almost cut her own arm off. After that they agreed not to mess with anything else, including the three little balls that Xander recognised as thermal detonators. Dawn might have been a klepto, past tense, but even then there was no way she'd touch what was a pocket nuke.

There was only one person who could help her and he was down in the basement and chained up. Not for the first time she crept down there and watched him. Before he would be rocking in a ball at the bottom of the pole he was chained to, not noticing the sudden light. Now he flinched away from it. 'Hello' she asked, he didn't answer. 'I'm not going to hurt you.'

This time he answered, a hollow laugh. It sounded painful, like he couldn't remember how to. Then he spoke; 'Child. Whatever pain you think you could inflict upon me would be a mercy.'

Dawn looked at him in silence, he didn't sound like he did before. He sounded weaker, vulnerable. 'I'm trying to find out why you're here. To do that I need to know how you got… well here. Anyway I think you owe me that much after the whole mind control thing.'

Vader tilted his head at her and she could have sworn she felt his eyebrows rise.

He told the young girl what she wanted to know, hoping she would leave him alone when he had finished. He told her of the destruction of Grand Moff Tarkin's Death Star, of his damaged ship and how he blindly used his fighters hyperspace drive to escape. Then he told her how he found his wife's memorial empty and looted with nothing more than a flickering hologram to remember her. His black rage and the great rip in the universe he created. Had he been paying attention he would have noticed her reaction to his method arrival and the shear power he used to create it.

'So… So you fell through this hole you made. Why did you go after Willow and me?' She was sat at the bottom of the strange stairs looking at him. He could feel the pity she felt for what he had become and honestly despised her for it. He would tell her exactly what happened, that would stop her.

'I felt the young lady's power and sought her out. She would have been my apprentice and I would have wiped and sense of humanity from your friend. You were isolated and I needed information. The only reason I did not kill you was that you were not worth the minuscule effort.' Thinking back he couldn't come up with a reasonable explanation for her survival. The same could be said about the young man, Xander, tricking him. Looking back now the only possible reason both were not killed was that he didn't want any more blood on his hands.

'So you could have snapped my neck like that,' she somehow cracked her fingers against her palm in a sharp snap. 'But you couldn't be bothered. So why are you talking to me now.'

'So you will leave me alone.' he answered absently. Thinking back, he could sight a thousand times or more when he held on to a brief sliver of mercy. Victories over the dark side that he didn't notice himself fighting for.

'Oh I'm sorry. Thanks for the help.' As she got up and walked away he realised there was one more thing.

'No do not leave yet, I owe you something else.' Even the smallest victory did not make up for his actions. He knew that he must atone somehow.

'What?'

'You're head. How badly are you hurt.'

'I might have a scar but nothing special.'

Silently he made a decision he knew he would regret. 'May I see?' he asked and she warily came back down the stairs and stood just out of reach, it made it harder but it had to be done. 'I am sorry' he muttered after completing the task.

'I don't think it was you who did it.' she smiled a sad little smile and left him alone.

Dawn just couldn't shake the cold from her spine as easily as she had from her head. His voice was so hollow. He sounded empty, no emotion even when he was telling her to leave. Absently she scratched above her eye, something light fell into her hand. It was a short, thin, thread.

After a moment staring at it she realised where it had come from.

Buffy dragged her feet through the front door. Dropping her bag and kicking off her shoes she couldn't find the strength to call to her sister. Dragging the last of her Slayer strength out from deep within her she stumbled up the stairs to the bathroom.

After the shower she put on a fresh blouse and jeans before somehow making her way back downstairs and to the living room table. Finally collapsing in the seat next to the one Dawn had been working in, but she wasn't at the table. Thankfully before she had to pick herself up Buffy saw Dawn coming back with two cups of coffee.

'Another double shift?'

Buffy nodded and then reached to one of the cups 'Thanks.' After the caffeine hit her system she found she could move again 'I'm the Slayer. I'm stronger, faster than anyone else. Why am I so whipped after a double shift?'

'I don't know, real work?' Dawn smiled. Buffy gave her the "Summers Death Glare" in response. 'Look Buffy vampires you just have to poke with a bit of wood. Working people takes longer that's all. You'll slay 'em in no time.'

Popping a shoulder Buffy grimaced; 'So what do we know about Darth.'

'What don't we know? Alright, that portal that Glory opened with me last year. He fell through that.'

'When.'

'From what I can tell the same time Tara was shot. Somehow he thinks he was the one to open it. He went after Will as an apprentice and we were little more than bugs that got in his way.'

'How do you know… You've talked to him.' Buffy looked at Dawn closely, the was something different. Or was it not different about her.

'I heard something coming from down there and looked in on him. He was awake so I asked him.' She smiled an arch little smile 'You didn't notice my scratch.' It was gone, completely gone, 'He used the Force to get rid of it for me.'

Shaken Buffy sat up straight. 'Alright. But I don't want you going down there again you hear me.'

'But…'

'Not again.'

'Okay'

'Right find anything else?'

'I've been doing some research into this whole Force/Magic connection thing. With magic you call on a God, or Goddess, to take your power and use it to do stuff but for the little stuff you don't need to ask, a powerful witch can move things with her mind without asking a God to help.' Dawn gestured to one of the piles in front of her. 'The Force is supposed to use the energy given off by living things to do the same sort of thing. I think that the Magic/Force difference is about the way you control that energy.'

'And this means what?'

'In other words they are different parts of the same thing. The power of something being changed and used for something else. Magic uses spells and things to focus the power while the Force uses concentration.'

'Right and the whole Sith problem?'

'I don't really know, it could be like the saying; power corrupts. No that's not right… From what I can tell the power that they use isn't good or evil. It's the intention of the user that makes it one or the other and when one is really angry or hurt the intention is to lash out. Without any morals you pretty much do what you want and thus badness.'

'So your saying it was Willow doing those things?'

'I don't know Buffy. I don't think so and there's enough to tell me she was out of control but it's something else, I'll keep looking.'

He felt the small warrior approach and walk down the stairs to what he regarded as his cell. 'I don't want you talking to her again. We're going to find out why you're here and send you back and until then no one is going to even come down here you got that.'

'You are afraid.'

'Damn straight.' With that she left.

Sitting in the dark the former Dark Lord turned in on himself once again. The only evidence time passed was the small crono built into his mask as it ticked away the seconds to hours that had no meaning on this world. Then he felt it. An outside source brushed against his mind and almost gloated. It was almost a pure facet of the Dark Side and instantly he knew that it was one more of the strange aspects of the Force on this world.

A new shadow faded into sight, the sensor pick ups in his helmet allowed him to see who had just appeared and to know that while there was light there was no physical substance.

'Hello Ani.' whispered Padme as she knelt beside him.

End Chapter 4