Chapter 7

Giles ran down the corridors of Sunnydale's hospital. He stopped dead in front of his friends when he saw the doctor giving them, what appeared to be bad news.

Giles made his way to his friends, Xander, Dawn, Tara and Anya were all sharing tears as the doctor gave his final sorry and left the friends to grieve.

Alexander Harris was the first to stand up and greet him, he gave his old friend and father figure, since he really didn't have a father of his own, a hug and cried in his arms.

Xander had always been the comedian in the group; whenever things got bad he'd make up a joke and attempt to cheer everyone up. Not this time however. His funny just wasn't there in a time like this. He carried on hugging Rupert Giles, the man most of them called dad. Xander's family was complicated.

His mom and dad rarely spoke to each other, even though they were still married and lived in the same house, they didn't share a bed.

Ever since Buffy came to Sunnydale he had always admired her and Giles and loved them both like family. But times had changed, he now resented Buffy, it was her fault any of this had happened.

"But how?" Giles was saying after the remaining of the scoobies told him the terrible news. Tears were lurking in the corner of Giles eyes; he shoved them back not wanting to show any of his friends the sadness he felt. He had to be strong for them. He didn't know why, but it felt like it was his fault somehow, maybe if he hadn't have left none of this would've happened.

Instead he was selfish and left his only friends, whom he had spent all of his life on Sunnydale with. He was a stupid old man to have left them when they really needed his help.

The group of friends looked on in sadness as Giles finally shed a single tear.

"Buffy." A whisper woke Buffy from her sleep. She felt like she had been hit by a bus. Buffy looked around the room she was in. it looked familiar. it was the room in her dreams, the one where she spent most of her time when hers and Dawn's mom was sick.

Buffy closed her eyes trying to fight back the tears. As she opened them again she jumped up in shock and backed awkwardly against the wall.

The mayor was stood in front of her.

"Buffy, its okay."

"No, no it's not. You tricked me, you tried to kill me."

"No, Buffy, that was you're dream. You let it do that. You need to unmask the figures. All of them." The mayor told a confused Buffy Summer's.

"But, there's only two…."

Buffy was again out like a light.

"Unmask the figures." Buffy told herself. For the first time in her life she felt scared. She kept telling herself to stay calm but the more she did, the quicker she ran down the hospital wards. This time she had three masked figures chasing her. But she had a plan.

She lured them into one of the rooms; she didn't know how she was going to do this. But she gave it a shot.

"Oy! Over here." Buffy yelled at the newest figure, the one with the axe.

It swung round and Buffy leapt onto the masked figure.

She struggled for a few seconds then finally grabbed the mask off the figure.

Buffy was shocked and fell back onto the hard ground when she saw who the figure was.

It was her.

Buffy awoke from her dream with the mayor sitting in the chair next to her.

"I was running from myself." Buffy said in a shocked whisper.

"Well," the mayor stood up and rubbed his hands together. "My work here is done."

Then he was gone.

"Thank you." Buffy said as if to herself.

Buffy stood up and began to change into her own clothes. She had to find her friends.

Little did se know she had a shock waiting for her when she found them.

The gang sat down still in a emotion trance as none of them spoke a word.

They didn't evem move when Buffy Summer's came running towards them.

"Guys." Buffy said as she stopped in front of Xander, who was leaning on the wall, and hugged him.

"Hey, what's up?" Buffy had never seen her friends this quiet before, which meant something bad, had happened.

Tara was the first to respond. She stood up to face Buffy, who in turn greeted her.

Tara slapped Buffy round the face leaving a red mark. This made everyone look up, but still no one spoke a word.

"You left her. She was you're best friend and you left her. Where were you!"

Tara screamed as Buffy held her face in agony.

She was confused and it didn't dawn on her what had happened at first.

"Willow?" Buffy almost whispered as she let tears run down her cheeks.

"No, she's… dead?" Buffy asked, even though she had already known the answer.

Buffy could see that all of her friends blamed her, but why? What had Buffy done?

"Tara, it wasn't Buffy's fault." Giles's said staring between the two women.

"Oh wasn't it?" Xander now found his voice.

"Willow, Willow was my best friend. She was supposed to be Buffy's too" Xander couldn't find the right words, he was speechless.

Anya stood up and held Xander in her arms as he cried over the absence of his best friend. "She left her with Amy." Xander said in a muffled tone against Anya's silk shirt.

Buffy couldn't handle the blame she knew it wasn't her fault. It was Amy's.

Buffy turned round and ran towards the doors. She was going to find Amy, and punish her, maybe even kill her.