A/N Justa note to say that the gods used in the last chapter are Sumerian.

Also, just asking, but is anybody else not liking the Buffy I've created? I'm kind of tired of her crying. I'm trying to fix her.. .Really!

Chapter 6

Buffy slid into her black leather pants, trying to remember who she had been so long ago. She wore a plain black tank-top and over that the jacket Angel had given her back high school. For a long time she had not felt complete, she had not felt happy in almost as long. Since she had waken buried alive she had never slept peacefully again. She had stopped hanging out with her friends. She had changed. Today she hoped to renew her younger self. Although the Bronze no longer existed, Xander, Willow, and she had planned a night at a near-bye club and a movie mocking that would last into the morning hours in hopes of renewing their once family-like relationship.

Together the three walked slowly to the club that was only about 3 blocks away, telling each other what had happened to them since leaving Sunnydale. "Okay, so, I walked out of the Wal-mart, and I knew that I was parked in row five, right? So I looked up at the row numbers. Only every row had a little sign on it that said Speed Limit Five! I ended up having to walk down every single row of the parking lot." Xander exaggerated his distress with a 'woe-is-me' hand to his forehead. Buffy and Willow giggled at his distress.

"Hey! Buffy is this it?" Willow pointed to a building on the side street marked.

"Yea. I think so. Guess we'll see?"

As they had in high school they all crowded into a table with their mochas and cappuccino's in hand. Buffy was soon dragged onto the dance floor by Xander, leaving Willow to watch the table and laugh at Xander's flailing and Buffy's pretended embarrassment. Xander soon came back for refreshments worn-out

"Where'd Buffy go?" Willow looked up at Xander, who was taller and might be able to see her in the crowd.

"She's still dancing. Man that girls got stamina!" He said without even looking.

"No, I mean, I could see her before, now I don't."

Xander scanned the dance floor and when he didn't see her either told Willow, "Maybe she went to the bathroom, or saw a vampire?"

"Yea, I guess. I mean she is the slayer, right?"

"One of many." Xander answered smiling reassuringly at his best friend.

Buffy slumped almost immediately as the needle poked into her arm. She was caught by a plain looking vampire who quickly carried her out of the club.

He tossed her into the cage than looked up at his sire, "so, what are we gonna' do with her now, Boss?"

"Nothing. We'll keep her drugged and away from Angelus and her friends. That is all we were hired to do."

"But Boss . . . Slayer blood!" The vampire whined.

"Nothing!" His voice echoed with the sound of the demon as his face changed in anger towards the cringing vampire.

"She's not back yet. Xander, I'm worried. What if—"

Xander interrupted before she could finish, "She's the slayer. She's Buffy. She'll be okay."

"It's been almost an hour, Xander. She's not coming back. Something . . . someone took her. She may be dead!"

"Let's go back to the Hotel, maybe she decided to leave."

Willow looked at him in doubt, "Without telling us?"

"Yea, you're probably right." He looked kind of sheepish at even having suggested that Buffy would leave without telling them, "But, still, Giles is as the hotel, and Angel too."

"You mean to say that she just disappeared. And you didn't come straight here?" Giles was amazed at their stupidity.

They both shrugged and Xander defended them, "We just figured she had disappeared into the alley with a vampire, and she doesn't need our help with just one vamp Giles, at least, she never has before."

Giles grimaced, "No she hasn't has she. Especially lately, vampires are the easiest battles she's fought in a long, long time."

"Giles, where's Angel? Shouldn't he know?" Willow asked shyly, remind both Xander and Giles of her sixteen year old self.

"He left here a little over an hour ago. He didn't say where he went though."

"Oh." She added disappointedly, "I thought maybe he'd be able to, like, track her or something."

"Yes, that would be rather handy wouldn't it?"

Buffy hurt.

Buffy couldn't see.

"Angel?" She whispered her voice sore for reasons unknown to her foggy brain.

"Hey Buff."

No . . . No . . . No no no no no. Her mind began sobbing the word over and over. This couldn't be happening. It wasn't real. It couldn't be real.

"Tick-tock. Tick-tock." The vampire stood in front of the cage as the small girl began screaming in her slumber, she would wake up soon and he would have to give her another injection, but he couldn't do it a moment before she was awake. He didn't understand the science of it, but the man who had given it to him had told him that it wouldn't work if she was already asleep. He didn't want to risk an angry slayer.

"tick-tock. Tick-tock."

"Wake-up Buff. Face the world. It's a fun place. Really." His face morphed and blood dripped from his mouth as he grinned at her.

"I can kill you."

"Not if you don't wake up Buff."

"I did kill you."

"Not here lover. Never here." He held his hand to his heart.

"A thousand times I've killed you here." She gestured to the world her mind had created. "A thousand more. Why are you here?"

"To tell you to wake-up. Look at the world. Live in the world." He disappeared into the darkness of her mind.

Buffy slowly blinked, taking in her surroundings. The metal bars glittered in the light provided by a single dim light bulb that hung from the center of the room. There were three vampires in the room with her. One sat in a chair at the door way reading a comic book. Another stood in the corner furthest from her, grinning sadistically at her. The third stood directly in front of the cage holding a small dart gun, "Wakey, wakey." He smiled grimly, pulling the trigger. The drug once again entered her blood stream. Her head slumped and she fell back into her dream world.

TBC

A/N The Xander story is something that seems to happen to me on almost a weekly basis. I swear I've already spent, like, a quarter of my life wandering through parking lots looking for my car. Stupid Car!