In which everything generally goes somewhere in a handbasket.
SUNNYDALE
Dawn heard the banging on the door. The sun had been down for about an hour and even though part of her was still screaming it's Buffy! she didn't allow herself to believe it was anyone but Angel; he, Xander and Giles had gone out, armed to the teeth, a few minutes ago. She opened the door.
"Hello, Dawnie."
Dawn just stared, too much in shock to see the coldness in Buffy's eyes. Then she saw someone move in the dark hallway – red hair, black leather... "BUFFY! Behind you!" The Slayer spun around with the greatest of ease, her fist hitting a very surprised Willow square in the face. Buffy was on top of her before she hit the floor.
"Wha... baby, what's..."
"I told you you had to pay. All of you." Buffy pulled out the stake she'd found lying around in the library and staked the vampire bearing her best friend's face. She had served her purpose. When she stood up, Dawn was running towards her, throwing her arms around her, tears of joy streaking her face.
"You're back... you came back..." Dawn gasped as she felt Buffy grab her, roughly, by the shoulders and break the embrace. When Dawn looked at her, it was a demon's face looking back.
"All of you."
HIGHWAY
As they sped towards where Sunnydale had once been, Buffy explained as quickly as she could, right from the beginning; vampires, demons, slayage, high school, souls, mayors, hellgods, magic, death. And then waking up in a hospital, and slowly starting to believe that the doctors were right when they told her it was all a fantasy... until Willow and Tara showed up. Willow thought about it, knew it all sounded ridiculous but somehow felt in her gut that it was true.
"So OK, you died in our world and came here, wherever 'here' is. I get that. Or you know, I don't 'get it' get it, but... But how did we get here? Because we obviously don't belong here."
"I really don't know," Buffy shrugged. "I don't think it's important. Maybe the magic you picked up in the fight against Glory allowed you to break on through. Maybe it was me; they had me on some pretty strong medicine, maybe I could somehow make you manifest here... but if you could get through, then we should be able to find our way back somehow. What I don't get is why you don't remember anything."
Tara had sat quietly in the back seat up until now. "M-maybe... I don't know, but I think maybe I did that." They both turned to her – Willow very briefly, since she was driving, but she looked all the more worried for it. "You say I'm a witch too. Well, whenever I try to think of what happened before all this it's like something tells me I don't want to... like there was some painful memory I won't allow myself to remember."
Buffy remembered Mr Maclay and the shy, awkward Tara she had known before, and then the confident, kind woman who had saved her from the mental hospital. Would I want to remember that if it was me? Tara put her hand on Willow's shoulder. "I'm thinking maybe I put a-a hex on us both, made us forget... I'm so sorry... if I did, there must have been..."
Willow covered her hand with her own and smiled. "It's OK, Tara. We'll get back, and we'll figure it out. You know I..." She was interrupted by a siren shrieking to life behind them, and looked in the rearview mirror to see the State Trooper's car behind them. "Oh shit, it's the fuzz!" The others looked at her. "OK, not the most helpful movie cliché. Do we pull over?"
"NO!" Buffy was suddenly panicking. "They'll take me back, and... there's not much time, we need to get to Sunnydale NOW. It's somewhere around here, we have to find it. GO!"
For a few minutes, Willow kept the distance to the police car, but eventually Trooper Wilkins got his orders and started closing in. "Um, Buffy? How's that dimensional off-ramp coming?"
"I can't find it... I know we're in the right place, more or less, but..." Buffy closed her eyes, trying to picture what was happening in Sunnydale. "No... it's her. She's me." One girl in all the world... right. "There's another Buffy there. As long as she's there, I don't think I can go back."
SUNNYDALE
Angel wasn't sure why he was going back. They should be out combing the streets for Buffy and Willow, but for some reason he felt there was something he'd forgotten at Xander's place that he really needed. The others grudgingly followed as he started first walking, then running.
SUNNYDALE
"Please, Buffy... d-don't do this..." Dawn was trying to comprehend what was happening, but still in too much shock to do anything.
"Why not?"
"I'm your sister... you love me..."
"SHE loved you." There was no emotion in the Slayer's voice, just cold hard facts. "She loved a lot of things. It made her weak. No friends. Just the kill." As Buffy sank her teeth into Dawn's neck, something moved inside the apartment.
"HEY!" Anya yelled at the top of her lungs, and grabbed and threw the closest thing she could find that was throwable – it turned out to be a vase. It struck Buffy right in her temple, hardly hurting her but distracting her just enough for Dawn to slip out of her grip. Buffy went for Anya, but bounced in the doorway; she wasn't welcome here. Turning on Dawn, she struck out with superhuman speed, aiming for her sister's head but she was off by a fraction of a second; her fist shattered Dawn's collarbone and the girl went tumbling, screaming in agony. Before Buffy had time to finish the job Angel stepped between them, sword in hand.
HIGHWAY
Wilkins pulled the cruiser up next to the speeding Mustang, glared at the young woman driving and yelled "PULL OVER!" He saw her cast a terrified look at him... then the blonde next to her grabbed the wheel, turned it and suddenly he had to swerve violently to avoid a collision. His car went into a skid, did a 360 and eventually came to a halt on the roadside, his entire body shaking. Damn, that's it. That's attempted murder. Furious, he whipped out his service revolver and fired after the other car.
"What the HELL are you doing?" Willow was yelling at Buffy, trying to keep the car under control. "You wanna drive this thing?" She glanced in the rear view mirror, sighing with relief when she saw that the cop hadn't crashed his car... then all hell broke loose as the windshield shattered around two neat holes. Willow instinctively ducked and waited for more bullets, but they were already out of range. "Phew. That was a bit too close for..."
That's weird. She looked at the broken windshield. There was blood on it.
"Hey, is everyone alright?" She looked to her right – Buffy seemed OK – then kept turning her head... "TARA?"
And the whole world fell away as she saw Tara lying in the backseat, blood gushing from a large red hole in her upper chest where the bullet had exited. She was breathing in short, shallow gasps, all color drained from her face as she tried to move, not sure what had happened to her.
SUNNYDALE
"Come to save her again, Angel? Come to fail again?"
Angel didn't answer, just gripped his sword tighter as he and Buffy circled each other. She kept talking, her tone eerily flat – completely emotionless except for the mocking overtone she put in there for his sake.
"You know, she waited for you. She actually thought you were coming. Now here you are, only it's too late again, isn't it? Don't worry, I'll make it quick."
She spun around faster than should have been possible and kicked, hitting Angel hard in the chest. The pain was intense as most of his ribs broke, but for a second she was off balance and Angel saw his opening. His muscles were so used to fighting that he hardly knew what he was doing until he did it. The sword swung and connected with Buffy's neck, slicing her head clean off. Angel instinctively caught it with his free hand the way you catch a football.
For a brief moment he held her head in his hand before it crumbled to dust and ran through his fingers.
HIGHWAY
"Tara please no baby hold on God no please Tara..." Willow forgot about Buffy. Forgot about Sunnydale. Forgot about the fact that she was driving a car doing 120. Tara was dying in front of her, and all Willow knew was that she had to help her. When she let go of the steering wheel and tried to scramble into the back seat something held her back, and she tugged helplessly at it, no longer aware of what a seatbelt was. Still wailing "...no no no no..." she locked eyes with Tara, didn't see Buffy desperately grabbing for the spinning steering wheel, reached out and grabbed her girlfriend's hand and squeezed it. It took Tara every last ounce of strength in her dying body to squeeze back. As she tried to speak, Willow kept trying to climb into the backseat, and kicked the wheel out of Buffy's hand.
As Trooper Wilkins watched the other car speed away, he was relieved that his bullets didn't seem to have done any damage. He had acted too rashly. Then suddenly the Mustang lurched, turned and shot off the road, rolling over several times before coming to rest in a hopeless wreck of crushed metal.
SUNNYDALE
Angel stood perfectly still, staring at his empty hand. Then he let the sword fall clattering to the floor, turned around without looking back and walked away, not even glancing at Dawn who sat whimpering against the wall. As he passed Xander and Giles on the stairs, they instinctively backed off when they saw the complete nothingness in his eyes. Angel kept walking straight ahead, not looking back, out of the house, out of Sunnydale.
HIGHWAY
"Love...
you..." Tara couldn't speak, but mouthed the words as Willow
felt the entire world turn upside down. She heard someone scream
(Buffy?)
and then felt
something squeeze her entire body. Pain... then darkness. Her last
thought was to hold on to Tara's hand.