After staring blankly into the sun for a moment, (when was the last time he'd done that?) Spike had blinked and scrambled into the shade out of dark habit. Safe behind a veil of shadow, he then tentatively thrust his hand into the sun and snapped it back. Satisfied that his hand didn't sizzle and pop like frying bacon, Spike let out the breath he didn't realize he had been holding.

Experiment completed. It was time to go exploring.

Nothing had been worse than those first few hours, down in Africa.

Was this a nightmare? Spike didn't even know. He thought he had just gone crazier, if it were possible. It had been months since he had retained any sense of lucidity for longer than a few minutes, so how could he tell? The hissing voices of his past victims surrounded his every thought and stirred up a dust cloud of raucous torment that led to constant headaches.

But no. That wasn't even the worst of it, was it, Spikey boy?

His heart. Oh, how his heart had ached. It rotted inside him with a dull throb, blackness and evil oozing from ventricles and arteries like sewage. He could feel it poisoning him slowly. It seeped into his soul, laying waste to whatever left of virtue and goodness lay within.

That was why he had tried to cut it out. That was why it burned. After all his hard work, his soul was being ravished, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

But here….here it had all stopped. The discordant buzz in his brain hadn't reared its nasty head. A giant mute button had encapsulated Spike's mind. It confused him at first, but then sunk to a deep dread. Could it have gone? If the voices had fled, had his soul gone with them? It was just so quiet.

Which begged the question: Where was he really? Spike wasn't even sure anymore.

It looked like Sunnydale but didn't sound like Sunnydale, for there were no human fingerprints to be found. No screeching traffic of cars, no indistinct smattering of voices, no music parading from a restaurant window, and no patterns of life in the air.

It felt like Sunnydale, but didn't smell like Sunnydale. It couldn't have been.

There wasn't a scent of warm blood anywhere.

Something was wrong. Deadly wrong. Determined that the simmering sauté of anxiety wouldn't get the best of him, with a snarl Spike headed to the only place he ever expected to find answers.

"Slayer."

With a whoosh, automatic doors opened and blasted an air-conditioned gust onto sweaty skin, creating the pleasant cooling sticky sensation that only summer can bring.

Rubbing her arms in a vain attempt to chase the growing goose bumps from her flesh, Dawn grabbed a shopping cart and started meandering towards the school supplies.

Anya accompanied her, looking skeptically at the products in front of her, as if suspecting they were all sub-par. "So." she said, "Have you given any more thought to my spectacularly-prepared suggestions?"

Dawn rolled her eyes, "Anya, you've cut out every single coupon from the newspapers and magazines for the last month and flagged the best deals with hi-lighters and post-its." Scrunching up her face, she added as an afterthought, "And it's still August."

Seeming quite pleased with herself, Anya started parading down the aisles, admiring the colorfully-labeled rollback prices along the way.

"Well, you can never be too prepared. Careful and well-researched purchasing is the cornerstone of American capitalism. You don't want to jump in all willy-nilly into the market, do you?"

Despite knowing it was best to ignore any discussion about free enterprise with Anya, Dawn stubbornly refused to give in to her quips. "I'm not jumping into anything. It's just back-to-school sales. They're the same every year. Chill."

"Everyone keeps telling me that, but I don't understand," said Anya in a suddenly less-than-cheerful mood.

Slightly confused, Dawn asked, "What, back-to-school sales?"

Anya waved Dawn's question away with a flick of her wrist and continued, "Chill. You use the word so casually but do you have any idea what it's like trying to pretend everything is perfectly normal all the time? I can't chill."

Awareness crept upon Dawn as she recognized the simmering anger behind Anya's voice. It was a bitter frustration that pressed upon the chest like a slowly turning vice. The hurt it left behind in its destructive grip left nothing sacred. She knew because it had ensnared them all.

"Things just keep getting worse for you humans, how can you stand it? I'm…riddled with these unpleasant feelings and memories and I can't do anything about it! I visit Tara twice a week, and I don't understand why it still doesn't feel any better."

It kept spilling out, unbidden and unending, and it was all Dawn could do to stand and watch helplessly with somber understanding.

"This ache isn't going away and none of you will talk about it! I mean, my god, don't you ever tire of bottling everything up?"

The tension was palpable. It wore thin on restraint and stoicism by testing even the furthest limits of Scooby suppression. It cracked them slowly. Differently. They were each caught in the deepest muck and drowning slowly. This time, no one was coming to rescue them.

How did we get so lost?

Willow was gone, nursing and rehabilitating in England with Giles, and Dawn didn't know if she was ever coming back. Even if she made it back to Sunnydale, Willow would never really come back. Not without Tara.

Buffy, on the other hand, was so laden with guilt, it was a miracle she was still standing. Dawn could see it press on Buffy's shoulders in the morning when she didn't think Dawn was watching. How could she have missed it before? Blinded by admiration and sisterly jealousy, Dawn had mistaken the sad and lonely burden of the Slayer for glory and celebrity. She was glad, now, to have escaped that fate. She could grow and be loved and have a life all her own, safe from destiny and circumstance.

Anya and Xander….well, they danced so finely around each other, Dawn wasn't sure where they stood. Hell, Anya and Xander weren't even sure. Tangled in the past, they simply couldn't figure out how to unravel and just forgive themselves. And each other.

And Tara…..Tara was dead. There would be no more milkshakes and movies, no more morning couch cuddles or pancakes. A great warmth was gone and Dawn had never felt so utterly alone, motherless once more.

"Anya. I get it," Dawn spoke, sounding very small.

Anya made a face and shrugged, as if embarrassed, and gently put an arm around Dawn's shoulders. Abandoning the shopping cart, they exited the store, fading into the summer wash of customers and cars.