"Do they have to eat?" Jonathan asks, staring at the prisoners on the floor of the lair. "I mean, they've been going to the bathroom. You would think at some point they would have to eat or drink, but they can't, because they are asleep."
"Maybe we should get them hooked up to an IV or something," Andrew offers.
"Don't be stupid, they're fine," Warren says with a note of warning in his voice.
"If we don't find a way to feed them, they are going to die," Andrew says with concern.
"Well, then they'll be out of our way, won't they? That was the point of this whole thing, to get them out of our way," Warren replies.
"Yeah, by making them all happy in a fantasy world, not by killing them," Jonathan says, staring at the bodies on the floor, and worrying about the time when they might be no more than bodies.
"Look, we've got days before it's that dire. We'll think of something by then," Andrew says.
-0-
The feast is never going to end. It's not going to fill them up either. Why are they so hungry? So desperate for food? Why does everything taste like flowers? Why can't they get full? Why does the turkey appear back on the table every time they eat it? Nothing here is right.
-0-
Without the Trio noticing, the Lotus leaves begin to crack and peal. Little bits of fresh air get in through the creases. The Scoobies breathe deep.
-0-
Willow doesn't want to be a few feet away from Tara anymore. So she transports the woman in front of her.
It's a violation. Tara doesn't like being moved around like she is a thing. She's a person, and she wanted to be on the other side of the room, thank you very much.
Besides, if you use magic too much you become addicted. It's dangerous to use magic as often as Willow does.
Why did she think it was the other way around?
"Can you just ask me to come over next time?" Tara says.
Willow smiles at her, and is about to answer with a magic cloud in the air, because that's so much more fun, and easier than talking.
The magic is gone. It's used up. She's exhausted, because she used way too much magic. She barely has the effort to breathe. She takes deep breaths, really deep breaths.
-0-
Giles looks at Buffy in her wedding dress kissing…the vampire. The vampire that she hates.
"I object!" he protests.
"We're actually a bit past the objection part, mate," the vampire replies.
"He's evil!" Xander says, pointing at Spike, suddenly realizing what the British man is bent out of shape about.
Buffy starts to defend him, but as she pulls away from the kiss, his fang draws a single drop of blood from her lotus flower mouth.
It's not the fact that he's a vampire that bothers her. She's okay with that. She just doesn't love this particular vampire, as much as she wants to.
He is always there for her. She can trust that. He fights beside her.
Which is good, because the battle is not over. The battle will never be over. She's going to spend her entire life fighting things that go bump in the night. Sometimes they kill her, and one day the things that go bump in the night will kill her in a way where she will never be able to come back from it.
She will fight forever. She has to, because if she ever refuses the battle, someone will die, and it will probably be someone she loves.
Dawn falls to the floor, because she has just remembered that her mother has died. The sight of her mother's body is before her eyes. No one ever notice Dawn.
They've spent time with her in a fake world, but that was only because no one had jobs or school or the battle against the Big Bad. Now things will go back to normal, and she will go back to being the invisible little sister of a superhero.
She's sobbing over her mom's death, but no one can hear her. They are all still locked on the newly married couple, now arm's length away.
She can see why, the grief etched on the face of Spike is something that will remain with her until the day that she dies.
He's been in love for all his life, and all the time since his death. But he's never been loved back, not really. Here he is, once again with the world crashing around him. He was so happy, just a second ago. Now he's got the abused puppy look firmly back in place.
"Xander!" Anya screams as her children disappear.
He wants to scream their names. Maybe that would call them back from whatever mist they've disappeared to, but he never knew their names.
They were never real, but right now that doesn't make their disappearance hurt any less. He holds his wife close to his heart to comfort her.
Then he remembers that she isn't his wife yet. He remembers that she's a demon.
Anya realizes that she's never going to get to roll in her money pile again, and she wishes she'd spent more of the dream doing that.
Dawn continues to cry in unnoticed agony.
"I'm sorry," Spike says.
Giles realizes that Buffy is not grown up, that she still relies on him for everything. She never bothered to prepare for adulthood, because she never thought that she would live long enough to see it.
Really she didn't live long enough to see adulthood. She has just developed a little habit of coming back every time she dies.
The witches arrive. Even the wedding hadn't pulled them into the same reality as the rest of them. The cracks in the dream were enough to do it though.
Spike remembers that he's dead.
Dawn remembers that her sister was brought back to life. Willow was brave enough to do it for her sister. Dawn herself had not been brave enough to do it for her mother.
Buffy remembers how amazing heaven was.
Everyone smells flowers, and feels their empty stomachs.
"What's happening?" Willow asks, confused. She knows that this reality is cracking and another is coming through, but she doesn't know which reality is real quite yet.
"Lotus," Tara says, finally identifying the scent that she's been trying to identify ever since she got here. She feels as if the fog is lifting from her mind, and she is finally being allowed to think.
"Impossible, that species went extinct a long time ago," Giles says.
"I know a dealer, we could get some for the Magic Box," Anya offers.
Spike lifts his hand, and makes the motion of ripping something off his face, and just like that he disappears.
Dawn imitates the motion next. She's still crumbled on the floor, and still no one has noticed that she's there. She disappears, and appears in the other world.
The Trio is out the door, and Spike is chasing him in an adult diaper. She laughs until she realizes that she is wearing one too.
Giles is the next one to come out of the dream. He looks at the scene around himself, and just sits silently when he realizes there is no immediate threat.
Tara awakens next, and secures herself a blanket to wrap around her bottom half. When Willow wakes next to her a second later she shares. They're both wrapped in a giant blanket skirt, and it would be sweet if it wasn't so awkward now that Tara is leaving, and the heavy memory of manipulation hangs between them.
Spike returns muttering, "They got away," and then finding his pants. The rest of the new arrivals search for their own pants.
Xander and Anya sit up together, having pulled the flower off each other's mouth in the same moment in the dream.
"What were our kid's' names?" Xander finally asks knowing that itjust a dream, and the fact that he doesn't know it doesn't mean he's a bad father.
"You name them that young?" Anya responds.
"Great, our kids never had names," Xander said.
"It's all right, dear," she says patting his arm, "They were only imaginary children. When we have the real ones we'll name them sooner. By what? Age two?"
"Birth, we'll name them when they are born," Xander corrects.
"Is anyone going to wake the slayer?" Spike asks.
No one moves, but they just stare at Buffy on the floor.
Spike groans, and he kneels down next to the Slayer, slowly pulling the flower off her mouth. She doesn't open her eyes.
"Maybe the person in the dream has to do it themselves," Anya suggests.
"Pet?" Spike says softly.
"She's not your pet," Giles says firmly.
Spike doesn't back off. "Come on, love, wakey wakey or the nasty vampire is going to have to give sleeping beauty a kiss."
Xander takes a step forward to make sure the nasty vampire doesn't follow through on his threat.
Buffy's eyes are open now. Once again, she's been pulled away from peace and joy back into this world.
The battle will never end, and she's not even sure her heart is capable of love anymore.
But here she is, alive, once more.
And she's pretty sure it's all Spike's fault.