SO SORRY for the late update! I got a writer's block. Don't you just hate them? Reviews would still be very lovely!

Chapter Six - Familiar Strangers

As soon as Dawn finished showering and getting dressed, she turned on the TV and lay down on her bed. She flipped through the channels finding anything good to watch. Finally she settled on one channel. Though not knowing what was showing, it caught her attention. What she saw was a dad and his two daughters playing in a park. She smiled, the display reminding her of her own father and what she, Buffy and their dad did spending time together before when they were a lot younger. Sighing, she stood up and got her diary. Leaving the TV on she started to write.

Dear Diary,

Surprisingly I'm thinking about dad…again. I just flipped to this channel where there's this dad and his two daughters playing, which really reminded me of what Dad, Buffy and I used to do when we were younger. And we were still here in Los Angeles. Obviously. We'd stay in the park all day. Have a picnic, play ball, eat ice cream. If only things just stayed that way. We'd be a goofy happy-go-lucky family with lots of dorky traditions and stuff. I know, sounds lame but… it would be nice. Mom and Dad would still be together and well, they'd both still be alive. But, I guess nothing's ever the way you want it to be like– I should know.

I wonder, if it would be different, if Buffy wasn't chosen to be a slayer. Would we still be living in L.A.? Would we still have met Willow, Xander, Giles and the others? Would maybe, Mom and Dad… still be alive? Or would they be killed by some demons because Buffy isn't there to protect them? Sigh, it's all different. Those are all just silly thoughts. Nothing's ever gonna be normal, like before. I don't regret anything though. Well, anything really big. I have something like a family already. Full of friends who love me and a sister who loves me to the point of dying for me. I think Buffy's done a great job, not only as a slayer but as a sister who looks out for me. Despite how she treated me when she came back from the dead, I forgive her for that. She had a lot of things, hard things to deal with back then. No one's perfect after all.

I'm worried about her though. I don't really know my exact reason why, but I'm worried. Speaking of Buffy, where the heck is she? It's 2AM! And it's not like she has to patrol or something, not being the only chosen and all. Oh wait, I see a note. It says – she's out for a walk and that I shouldn't stay up waiting for her. Yeah please. I gotta go now. I'm gonna talk to Angel. .

Dawn

Dawn closed her diary, quickly put on her night robe and headed to Angel's office. She was worried for her sister, even though she knew Buffy could take care of herself.

"Come in" Dawn heard Angel say after she knocked on the door.

"Hey" greeted Dawn.

"Oh hey, it's you" he said. "Come on take a seat"

"Thanks"

"Do you need something? Because if you haven't noticed, it's uh, two in the morning" Angel pointed out.

"Yeah I noticed. I actually came here to talk to you about Buffy" she said.

"Why, what happened, is she okay?" Angel asked, suddenly becoming worried.

"Well, yeah, no. I mean, I don't know" she said. Then she noticed Angel's confused expression and decided to explain more. "It's because – she's kind of…well, I don't know if the correct word is "missing" but well she said she was taking a walk outside and she's not back yet. I mean it's not like she has to patrol, not being the only chosen and stuff, right?"

"Yeah, but what's your point? Are you worried about Buffy?" he asked.

Dawn nodded in reply. "Dawn, we both know she can take care of herself. And we can't be paranoid…yet" he said. "Maybe she needed time alone"

"Yeah I guess. But come on, who would "go for a walk" this late? What if something happened to her?" Dawn asked.

Angel sighed. "You're right. Anything could happen to her but we can't just go look for her right away. I'm sure she's alright" he said. Seeing Dawn's still worried expression, he said, "To make you feel better, I'll go look for her if she still doesn't come back in an hour" he assured her.

"Yeah, ok. That would be great. Thanks. For everything" she said with a smile which Angel returned.

Just before she left, she said, "By the way. When you go look for her, I'm coming with" she said as she left.

Angel was about to protest but he changed his mind. She's just like her sister. He thought and went back to work.

The cold night air embraced Buffy as she cautiously and carefully walked down a street, her slayer sense tingling. Then in an alley she saw a shadow pass by. A shadow, with horns. "I'm guessing that's the demon" she said to herself as she went over to check it out.

She gripped her battle ax tighter as she made a turn to the alley. Then suddenly something jumped on her. She was about to swing her ax when she realized it was just a cat. "So much for demon" she muttered as the cat ran away in fear. She was about to turn back and check some other places when there was a loud thud behind her. She turned around and saw it was the demon she was looking for. "Demon after all" she said as she moved forward sizing it up and thinking of her first move.

But the demon wasted no time at lunging at Buffy. It knocked away her weapon then threw her to the wall. She grunted in slight pain as she fell to the ground then kicked the demon before it could strike again. It stumbled backwards hitting a dumpster, roaring in anger. Buffy quickly stood up, ran towards it, gave it a couple of hard punches and occasionally threw in some kicks. Then she gave it a nice hard roundhouse kick to the head. But before her foot reached back to the ground, the demon got it and twisted hard. Buffy yelled in pain and heard her bone crack. Taking advantage of her sort of weakened state, it got on top of her, pinning her hands above her head. She struggled to break free from its grasp but it held her in a hard iron grip. When she looked at the demon's face, she saw its eyes glow red then turn back to yellow.

Suddenly she stopped struggling. She was in a trance. Feeling the world falling away from her, all she saw was herself and the demon, surrounded in darkness. Using its power to control her for a while, the demon slashed her stomach with its sharp claws. At that exact moment, Buffy snapped out of the trance and felt the pain. It was a burning pain like nothing she's ever felt before. She yelled in agonizing pain but she tried to ignore it the best she could. First rule of slaying: Don't die. She reminded herself as she head butted the demon. Desperately she crawled to the corner of the alley where she saw her battle ax, ran back to the demon before it could get back up and stuck the ax in its gut. She slowly sunk back to the ground, clutching her stomach and willing the pain to go away. Very slowly, she felt it did lessen. But the other pain in her ankle didn't help.

"How are you so sure there's another apocalypse coming?" Xander asked.

"Actually they were just suspicions. We just had some leads to pointing it out" said Willow.

"But what you guys found out made it pretty clear that our suspicions were correct" added Kennedy.

"Okay but, care to explain more?" Faith asked.

"Oh, right. We started off with researching about the demons we found the other night. According to what we found, those demons are called Regontre demons. They have mind controlling powers and their claws are poisonous" explained Willow.

"But if they can control minds, then how come they didn't try their mojo on us?" asked Faith.

"Well that could've been because it was outnumbered 5 to 1. And before it could do anything to any of us, we either distracted it or already killed it" answered Kennedy.

"Anyway, related to the Regontre, we found a prophecy. It's kind of vague though" said Willow as she gave the book to Faith, Xander and Robin to see.

The prophecy was in a language neither of the three could read but attached to it was a piece of paper that had the translated version written by Willow. "'The Old One shall rise - the king of slaughter. Once, twice, thrice, it shall strike. Then shall it gather its army of demons, everywhere in the world, all with a hunger and thirst for bloodshed. Slaughtering all good and right, it shall feast upon fear and death. She herself cannot defeat it, lest she take her last breath.'" Faith read aloud.

"Lovin' the vagueness" said Xander sarcastically.

"I'm guessing "she" here means the slayer. But look around, more than one slayer" said Faith.

"But how could we not know about this prophecy?" asked Robin anxiously.

"Well, this prophecy was until now, thought to be a flop. This was prophesized ages ago but it never happened on the day it was supposed to happen. Since then, barely anything has happened. Only a few signs of the prophecy have been sighted. Like the increase of demon activity in various places, and then there were two solar eclipses in 4 months. Which never occur regularly. After that nothing happened ever again" explained Willow.

"So far all we know is that step one of apocalypse is completed" said Kennedy.

"Is there anything else that we need to know? Like any way to stop it or kill it?" asked Faith.

"Unfortunately nothing yet" said Willow.

"Did I mention how much I hate prophecies?" asked Xander.

"Aren't we going to tell Buffy about this?" asked Andrew, ignoring Xander

"Of course. We cant do this alone" stated Willow.

"Has she called at all since the last one?" asked Faith.

Everyone else shook their heads in response. "Well then, we'll call her. Not now, but soon. She needs to know about this." said Faith.

"Giles! We can ask Giles for help right?" Xander suddenly said.

"Yeah, that's not a bad idea. He may know some stuff we don't" said Willow. "Which isn't exactly a surprise" she added.

"In the meantime, we'll do what we can" said Xander. "Usual stuff"

"I wonder if she already found out about Spike" Andrew said staring off into space, suddenly off topic. No one said anything.

"Well, if she did find out, she'd tell us" said Willow after a while. Then she had a thought. "But what would we say?"

Everyone looked at each other for a while, trying to think of an answer. Then they all turned and looked at Andrew. He stared back innocently at them. "What?"

Buffy crawled slowly towards the alley wall. Carefully, she stood up using the wall for support. She started to make her way back out of the alley when she heard a grunt. She turned back slowly, horrified to see the demon get back up and charge toward her. It tackled her to the ground and she yelled again in pain. It was about to make a death blow when someone with a knife dug it in its back. The demon then roared and turned its attention to its attacker, letting Buffy have a chance to regroup.

As Buffy got up, she looked at the person who saved her life. A tall, blond girl of about 17,she had an aggressive air about her. Swiftly and skillfully she fought the demon with amazing strength, speed and skill. Definitely a slayer. Buffy watched as the girl fought and saw she had the upper hand. But then the tables turned and the demon was about to kill her when Buffy quickly got her axe and threw it at the demon's neck, cleanly cutting off its head.

"I'd like to see you get up again looking like that. Or well, actually I wouldn't" Buffy said to the dead demon as she went over to the girl and helped her up.

"Thanks" they both said.

"I take it you're a slayer too" said Buffy.

"Yeah. How'd you know?"

"I'm a slayer too" Buffy replied.

"Oh. I'm Jamie by the way. Jamie Scott" she said as they shook hands.

"Buffy. Buffy Summers"

Jamie gaped at her. "You're the Buffy Summers?"

Buffy nodded. "Wow. I've heard a lot about you" Jamie said.

"Imagine that"

"Like the time you burned down your high school gym and then blew up your other high school"

"Hey those were both necessary" Buffy defended.

"Do you have like a thing for high schools?"

"I told you it was necessary!" Buffy said getting annoyed.

"Okay,okay" Jamie said raising her hands in the air and backing away. "Just asking. Don't go hack my head off"

Buffy rolled her eyes and started walking away. "Whatever"

"So what brings you here in L.A.?" asked Jamie catching up with her.

"My sister and I were going to visit our dad but…uh something happened to him– let's just say I'll be going to a funeral in a few days" Buffy said softly. Both she and Jamie were surprised that she was sharing that much.

"Oh I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked" said Jamie.

"No it's okay. You couldn't have known. 'Sides it was just a simple question"

Jamie gave a small smile as they started walking out of the alley.

"Hey where are ya going anyway?" Jamie asked.

"Wolfram and Hart. A friend offered my sister and I a place to stay"

"Isn't that place well, evil?"

Buffy thought for a while. "Yeah, I was thinking the same thing" she said distractedly.

The other slayer just nodded. "Whoa. That looks nasty" Jamie said as she noticed Buffy's wound and broken ankle. "You need a hand?" she asked when she saw Buffy limping.

"Uh well - " Buffy started to say when Jamie got her arm and put it over her shoulders.

"Right"

"You're welcome" said Jamie with a grin.

"You're very-" Buffy started to say.

"-convincing? Intimidating? Commanding?"

"I change my mind. I can't even describe you" said Buffy while shaking her head.

"I'm indescribable" Jamie said with a big grin.

"So what's your story anyway, Ms. Scott?" asked Buffy.

Jamie shrugged. "Well there's not much to say. I was born here" She shrugged again. "Got an annoying sister"

Buffy laughed at that. "I know what you mean, believe me"

"Uh huh. Anyway my life occasionally sucks. Lotsa detention and grounding, friend problems and stuff. Oh and especially the parents. The slaying gig can be such a pain, you know?"

"Believe me when I say I do"

"Anyway, to top it all off, we might move from L.A. and my parents are thinking of having a divorce" said Jamie sadly.

"That's harsh" Buffy said trying to comfort her new friend. "I know what it's like. My folks split up too" She paused suddenly realizing a sort of familiarity. "Ok. Hold on. Suddenly realizing that you life is waaay similar to mine"

"Is that a good thing?" Jamie asked, amused.

"Well, look at it this way: I died twice and both my parents are dead"

The smile on Jamie's face instantly disappeared as she heard that.

"It ain't pretty" Buffy said with a funny accent to try to lighten up the mood.

"Sounds like there's a lot that you want to change in your life" said Jamie.

"You don't know the half of it" Buffy said as they continued their walk back to Wolfram & Hart.

Dawn wandered around the empty building amazed at how huge the place was. Sleep wasn't an issue since she wasn't sleepy and she was too awake to try and go back to sleep. Even at this late an hour. She made her way down to the first floor and somehow ended up right at the entrance of the building. She wanted to go out there and look for her sister herself but then decided against it knowing that it wouldn't make that much of a difference. Before heading back to her room, she saw movement at a distance just outside the building. Squinting through a window, she saw two girls walking. As those two walked under a street lamp, Dawn could make out one of the girls, unmistakably as her sister. She breathed out a sigh of relief at that sight. But then she saw Buffy limping.

She walked outside trying to get a clear view of her sister. Whether or not she was absolutely, positively sure that Buffy was hurt, she ran like the wind towards her.

"Dawn!" Buffy said as she saw her sister. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing" Dawn said crossing her arms in front of her.

"I left a note! I told you I was going out" Buffy protested.

"Yeah sure. Who takes a walk at two in the morning?" she asked. "Here" she said as she took Buffy's other arm and put it over her shoulders.

"Why does everybody think I'm incapable of walking by myself?" Buffy asked, annoyed as they started walking.

"Because you are. I mean look at that foot! It's twisted in an extremely painful position and don't even bother telling me I'm wrong 'cause I know I'm not" she said and Buffy gave a pout.

"It's lucky you have the two of us" Dawn continued but realized she didn't know who the other girl was. "The two of us, being?"

"Jamie Scott. Fellow slayer" she said as she and Dawn shook hands.

"Dawn Summers. Sister of slayer" she said with a grin as they finally reached the building.

"Now. You sit here while I go get Angel" Dawn said as she left.

"I'm perfectly fine!" Buffy called after her.

"And I thought you were the older one" Jamie joked as she sat down too, missing the glare Buffy shot her.

Dawn was right outside Angel's office when she heard voices inside.

"You bloody idiot! I almost got fried out there!"

Dawn's eyes went huge when she heard that unmistakable accent. It couldn't really be him, could it? She wondered.

She opened the door to find out. "Angel I-" she stopped when she saw the person talking to Angel.

"Spike?" she managed to choke out.

"Dawn" he said surprised. The last time he had seen her, she hadn't even known he was there.

"How? When? Are you real?" she asked, overwhelmed. She was speechless.

"I don't exactly know how, but it had something to do with the amulet Buffy gave. I've been alive for a little while-" he stopped talking when Dawn suddenly rushed forward and hugged him tightly.

"I missed you" Dawn said.

"Missed you too nibblet" he said smiling.

They hugged for a little while longer when suddenly Dawn pulled out of the hug and slapped Spike in the face.

"Ow! What'd you do that for?" he asked while rubbing his cheek. Man, that girl could slap hard.

"You were alive all this time! And you didn't bother to tell us! To tell Buffy!" She exclaimed.

Still standing behind his desk, Angel couldn't help smirking. Spike got almost everything he wanted and the fact that Dawn slapped him mad him happier.

"Dawn I-" he tried to explain.

"Do you have any idea what you put Buffy through?" she continued. "She mourned for you. For months. She was a total wreck" Dawn finished. Spike just stared at her, speechless. He had no clue.

Satisfied that she gave Spike a piece of her mind, she started with the next soul-having-vampire.

"And you!" she said whipping around to face Angel as she too slapped him on the face. And as it's the same hate-hate relationship between the two vampires, Spike couldn't help but smirk too.

"Me? What did I do?" Angel said, almost sounding terrified.

"It's what you didn't do! You should've called us! I expected Spike to make some stupid decision like that. He can be really pigheaded sometimes!"

"Hey!" Spike protested.

Just then the door opened and in came a very injured, limping, stressed-looking Buffy. "Dawn I told you I'm fine and what's with all-"

She gasped and almost stumbled when she saw a very alive-looking Spike.

"Spike?" she asked softly. "Are you real?"

"As real as you are luv" Spike said. He couldn't even begin to show how happy he was to see her again.

Buffy laughed. "I must be dreaming"

"Buffy you're not. Spike's alive" Dawn said a little excitedly. She seemed to have forgotten all that anger she just had.

"Buffy, you're hurt" Angel said lamely.

Buffy carefully sat down on a couch ignoring Angel. "It can't be. It's just not possible"

"If you remember luv, both of us have been raised from the dead at least once before" he said with a slight smile.

Still seeing Buffy's uncertain expression, he tried again. He wanted more than anything to just wrap his arms around Buffy and make her feel better. But he felt like he had before. Terrified. He knelt down in front of her and took her hand. "Buffy. I love you. I'd never lie to you"

"How long have you been alive?" she asked quietly.

"A few weeks now" answered without thinking. After saying that, he instantly regretted it.

"Funny how you said you'd never lie to me" she said, hurt. She meant to stand up quickly but her wounds and aching body made her stand up slowly. "Being alive for the past few weeks when everyone thought you were dead. Not bothering to tell them. Yup. That's sort of like a lie, isn't it Spike?" she asked, getting angry.

"Buffy I thought-"

"-you thought you were protecting me. That I would be better of having a normal life. Well this just in: I'll never have a normal life" she said to both her ex's knowing that Angel would have had something to do with Spike not telling her he was alive. Angel just sighed and look defeated. "It's like I don't know the both of you anymore"

She sighed and Dawn came over to her. "Buffy we really should get you fixed up"

"Yeah I-" Buffy started to say when she gasped in pain and held her stomach. At that exact moment, both Spike and Angel rushed to her side.

"Luv, what is it?" asked Spike, beyond worried for Buffy.

"I don't know, it just hurts" she said wincing.

"She needs help! Angel!" Dawn cried, getting even more worried by the moment.

"I'll go" Angel said. With one last look at Buffy, he was gone just as Buffy screamed in pain again.

Quickly, Spike carried Buffy and carefully lay her down on the couch.

"Stay with me, luv" he said when he noticed Buffy's eyes fluttering.

"Spike" was all Buffy said before she fell unconscious.

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