Chapter 2

August 2004; Florida; Mid-afternoon

Bright sun shined through the thin white curtains, she must have forgotten to close the heavy ones this morning. Too lazy to get up and throw the heavy dark red curtains closed she lifted the covers over her head and sighed underneath the quilt.

Buffy knew she's alone in the bed, she's always alone this late in the afternoon. Her lover's side would be cold if she touched it, but she didn't want to lay a hand over the spot. That cold sensation would feel too much like another's touch, ones touch that she didn't want to think about anymore. He left her; there's no point in dwelling on the past.

If there's no point then why did she do it? It broke her heart when he left; she'd gone to the Mansion one morning having seen no sign of Angelus for almost a week. There was no one there, clothes were gone, Dru's dolls were gone, and Spike's chair was gone, everything gone.

She knew logically that Angelus was evil and she should've been happy he wasn't roaming around her town any longer, but she wasn't. Her heart had been torn out and stomped on and all that mattered was the fact that her lover left her…again.

Buffy yawned, stretching her sleepy limbs out waking them up. She supposed she should get out of bed, no point in wasting away the rest of the day, even if there was only four hours left of daylight. The idea of staying right where she was got better and better as each second passed, but the choice was taken from her when her phone rang.

"Ugh." She groaned in annoyance. Who could be calling her now, all the people who had her number knew she wasn't awake till at least five in the afternoon, it wasn't even three yet.

Stretching across the span of her King sized bed she reached for the annoying chirping cell phone; she could hear the aggravation drip from her voice. That was why she'd never make it in the customer service field, dealing with demons, apocalypses, and Hell Gods alike daily put a serious crimp in her helpful side.

"What?"

"Sorry to call you Buffy but we got a situation here." Willow sincerely regretted bringing this issue to Buffy but she was the boss.

She ran her fingers through her hair getting them caught in the tangles. "Hmm, what's the problem?" If Will could handle it she wouldn't have called so it must be important.

"We've got two of our regular girls that have up and disappeared. Now Mindy we're sure skipped town without supernatural help, she left a note, her house was cleaned out, and her boyfriend is with her. However Erica is another story, there are a few things not right with her disappearance. We've called a meeting, everyone should be here within the hour."

"Are we thinkin' demon something? Vamp? Or an entirely new creature feature?" As she questioned her friend she rose from her comfy cocoon grabbing clothes from her drawers and a pair of shoes that she tossed aside that morning.

Over the years Willow had developed more confidence in herself and it showed especially when dealing with the forces of darkness. She'd become a damn powerful Witch; according to her girlfriend Tara she had a natural gift for magicks, and with Tara's help, taught Willow to control her amazing gifts. "At this point demon. There were some carvings on a nightstand in her house that Oz found. I've seen them before but they mean certain things that don't make sense yet."

Oz, Willow's boyfriend since high school…yea she had a boyfriend and a girlfriend, was a werewolf. He became furry three nights out of the month; he fit right into their freaky little group. "All right, I'll be there in about ten minutes." The friends hung up, where the meeting was taking place was where they always took place, at their bar.

Buffy had taken to calling it 'their' bar, technically it was her bar. Her Aunt Lil wanted to expand her own bar Coyote Ugly into other big cities, naturally when she heard her niece was out in Florida she offered her the opportunity to be the boss and help build her franchise. She of course jumped at the chance.

It took a year for her to find the right abandoned building to make into the bar and then another year to get the building up to code and make it look like a bar. It was a two-story warehouse; the bottom floor was the bar. Half of the top floor was storage and the other half was her group's hang out, slash research, slash hash out plans area.

Xander had demanded they put a pool table in there, after all what was the point of being up there if there wasn't a pool table. He insisted that he worked better with that distraction in the room just like Ho-Ho's were a valuable part of his cognitive process.

Giles objected to the pool table but she'd seen him shoot a few games with Xander and Cordelia, who turned out to have a hidden skill of kicking anyone's ass at billiards. Who would have guessed she'd be the best out of everyone in their group, she certainly wouldn't have.

Then there was Xander's fiancée Anya, they were in the process of planning their wedding. Anya came to be apart of their group during senior year, during the whole scenario with the Mayor; she'd helped them by giving them information about pure demons and the last Ascension. How did she come to have all this knowledge? She was a demon or ex-demon, as she preferred, she tortured men for thousands of years, righting the wrongs of women, and she'd been at the last Ascension.

It had been two and a half years since she and the others closed the Hellmouth in Sunnydale and two years-four months since the left the city to move onto Cleveland. Willow had found a spell that would give Buffy all the knowledge and magicks of the Slayers before her.

For a while her personality changed, she withdrew, got quiet, and didn't want anyone even her mother to touch her. At one point she feared that it was too much to handle and came within a hairs breath of begging Willow to reverse the spell. Thankfully though with the help of Giles she came back out on the other side ready to face the Hellmouth for the last time.

With the others taking care of most the vampires trying to keep her away from the Hellmouth she managed to close the impressive beast that lived beneath the ruins of the high school. When it closed she helped her friends up top. There were injuries, a slash cut across Giles stomach, Xander had an arm pulverized—he still didn't have full feeling in it. As the years went on the arm healed but it'd still take some time before he got fully recovered.

Tara had suffered the most in her opinion; while yes Tara had magick and knew how to use it well she wasn't nearly as powerful as Willow. She got tossed around a lot, so much so that she had a few broken bones, a pierced lung, and a concussion. If she had Oz's werewolf strength, Doyle's demon, Crystal's necromancy, or Willow's power she'd have probably faired better in the fight.

Doyle and Crystal were two of their group's newest members. Doyle's a demon, a Broccoli-something. Hmm, even after all this time she still wasn't very good with demon names. Was it her fault that demons chose such confusing titles for their races? Anyway Doyle was handsome, sweet, a bit of a drunk, gambler, and took fashion tips from Whistler—an old friend of hers and Angel's—who had no fashion sense to speak of.

The friendly demon—hmm, kinda sounded like Casper the friendly ghost—only Doyle's not dead or a ghost came to Sunnydale shortly after the she and Scoobies started college. Originally he'd be sent to LA, it was where Angel was supposed to have gone had he not left Sunnydale. Apparently when Angelus left he caused an 'uh-oh' in the future…don't ask her how all that worked, it gave her a headache just thinking about it.

According to Doyle, who had a direct link to The Powers That Be, was told to meet Angel in LA after the Ascension in Sunnydale. So he waited there for three months but no sign of Angel, it was then he received a dream from his mystical bosses telling him Angel wouldn't be in LA and for him, Doyle, to head to Sunnydale to help the Slayer.

After he arrived he explained that, to which she had told him that Angelus had left Sunnydale a year and a half earlier. And it was unlikely he'd ever be Angel again. From there Willow questioned him on why didn't TPTB send Doyle to Sunnydale immediately since the TPTB should have known that Angelus wasn't coming back to Sunnydale. Why would they send Doyle on an assignment that wasn't going to happen? See? Headache inducing.

Now Crystal entered their family when they went to Cleveland to close another Hellmouth. See there was an expiration date on that knowledge spell Will cast on her, she had six months to do with it what she could, after that the knowledge and all the magical gifts went back to where Willow got them from. Buffy would still have memories of using those spells or using those gifts but the actual know how on what to do to get to those points taken from her brain.

Crys had been—well a huge handful while trying to close the Cleveland Hellmouth for good. She thought it would be a hoot to test out her new necromancy skills on a bunch of badass vampires that weren't ones to play with it. If Buffy could have she would have avoided them but she's the Slayer and avoiding the ultimate vamp wasn't an option. On second thought it was an option just not one that she could choose in good conscious.

When Crystal joined the Scoobies she was seventeen, young, impressionable, eager to please, and coming into her powers. She's tall, supermodel tall, with long straight black hair, a slightly crooked smile, and the most gorgeous, vibrant, brown eyes she'd ever seen.

Okay she was lying terribly—they weren't the most gorgeous she'd ever seen. Only one man—beast, held that title. But no she wouldn't do that to herself, she swore she'd stop thinking about him, but it was a lot easier said than done. Especially lately. On a normal night she met him in her dreams once a night, now it's different. She could feel his presence beside her warming her, exciting her.

An ache that built so slowly she hadn't been aware it was happening until her lovers touch began to revolt her. It wasn't fair to him; he deserved to be with a woman who didn't shy away from his caress when he reached out.

High time to let the man go. Grabbing her keys and sunglasses she headed out the door breathing in the smell of fresh flowers in the neighbor's garden. She'd talk to her friends first; they always helped her put things in perspective.

TBC