"Unfortunately, there are several entities which use dreams to reach their goals", Giles let the whole group know an hour later, after Buffy, Willow and Anya had told of their nightmares, all of them agreeing that this had to be more than a simple coincidence – especially now, with Anya's nightmare actually happening in reality and while she'd been awake.
"Are there any recurring elements in your nightmares?" the Watcher now wanted to know, giving them all a curious look, "a person, or maybe something in the background? A noise, or a smell?"
"I don't think so", Buffy was the one to answer that, after exchanging looks with Anya and Willow, "but to be honest, I don't remember much anymore, you know how it is with nightmares…"
"Same here", the redhead agreed, "the only thing I still remember clearly – unfortunately – is the end of the nightmare, with Pat bleeding out and how the blood felt against my fingers…"
"No more details, please", the demon muttered, making Giles smile slightly for a moment before he sighed and took off his glasses, beginning them to clean them while he spoke up again. "Well, as the incident at the Magic Box showed, the nightmares aren't restricted to phases of sleep or unconsciousness anymore, so we should all be on high alert – if the one responsible for this can access all our nightmares and make them come true, this might become very serious."
"No shit", Pat mumbled, shrugging at the look she received from the Watcher in reply, quickly speaking on before he – or Willow – could reprimand her.
"But if the nightmares now also can happen while we're awake, why did the fire vanish again then? Without leaving the slightest trace?" she demanded to know, frowning when Giles shrugged, then sighed at the look on her face.
"I can't know for sure", he then informed her, "it might mean that the being isn't strong enough yet to use our nightmares in this world permanently, and that it can only pull them out of our dreamscapes for a short while if we're awake. Or maybe it was just a test, to see how far it can go."
"So the possibility that it's a coincidence is totally dropped by now", Xander summed up once the Brit had fallen silent again, "but that's all we really know so far, right? How are we supposed to figure out who is behind this?"
"The old-fashioned way", Giles gave back, "with research. Just give me a few minutes to get some volumes which might be helpful."
With those words, he got up from his seat and made his way to the big bookshelf at the wall behind him; he looked at the books for a while, then finally pulled a few of them out and returned to where the group was seated around his living room table, handing the books out to Buffy, Xander and Pat before he looked at Willow and let her know that she could use his laptop for the research.
Nodding her agreement, the witch got up and moved to the table the laptop sat on, making herself comfortable in front of it; while she booted it and waited for it to finish doing so, Anya complained about not getting a book, as well, prompting the Watcher to give her a surprised look before he shrugged and ruefully let her know that these were all the books he had on the subject.
"You could go to the shop though, maybe you have some more there", he then suggested, "look for books about the dreamscape and how to enter and influence it. Also, some information about demons, ghost and other entities who use the dreamscape for personal gain might be useful."
"Xander, come with me", Anya demanded as an answer to that, "give your book to Giles, I don't wanna go there alone, what if there's a fire again?"
"Of course I'll come with you", the young man agreed at once, handing the book to the Watcher before he got up from his seat; Anya beamed at him, then they left the house together while Giles made himself comfortable on the couch and opened the book, beginning to leaf through it.
With a held-back sigh, Pat did the same with the volume he had given to her; Buffy smirked when the demon grimaced at the tiny print, making sure to keep her expression neutral though when the taller woman looked up and at her, as if challenging her to say something. As innocently as she could, she smiled back at Pat, then focused on her own book; for a while, the room was mostly quiet, the only sounds being the noise the three reading people made as they turned the pages and the clattering of the laptop keys whenever Willow typed something, her gaze firmly fixed on the monitor in front of her.
"What about that", Buffy finally broke the silence after almost twenty minutes had passed, turning her book so Giles could look at it, "a spell to influence our dreams? Could that be it?"
"Not really, I'm afraid", the Watcher gave back after he had read through the passage the blonde had pointed out to him, making her pout, "this is only about controlling what you dream, not about making it come true."
"Damn", Buffy pouted, turning the book back around so she could go on reading, "and here I was, hoping I'd found the solution so quickly."
"You know that hardly ever is the case", Giles mildly gave back, causing her pout to intensify while she nodded; before he could come up with something reassuring to say though, Pat spoke up, sounding thoughtful, her words gaining his full attention within the blink of an eye.
"Maybe we should try to find out if it's just us experiencing that, or if the whole town is going through it", she suggested, the Watcher nearly slapping himself when he realized that for some reason, he hadn't thought of that so far, "that also might make it easier to narrow down who might be responsible, no?"
"Good point", Buffy agreed as well while Willow looked up from the laptop monitor and beamed at her partner, even giving her a thumbs-up and briefly making her chuckle, "but how do we find out? I mean, we can hardly go from house to house and ask people if their nightmares are coming true, right?"
"I think we'll notice after a while", Pat shrugged as an answer, "just think of Anya's worst nightmare, the Magic Box burning down? There must be others, similar ones, and those we'll notice for sure."
"But how will we know it's a nightmare?" Giles threw in, raising an eyebrow at the taller woman, "if it's a fire like it was in Anya's case, it might have natural causes."
"Not if it just vanishes again the moment everyone left the building", Pat pointed out in reply, "and that's what it did at the Magic Box. It's worth a try, isn't it? Seeing what kind of town this is, I bet people will have enough nightmares that can come true, we'll just spot them while we're on patrol, we won't even need to look for them."
"If everyone is going through that, it might make things worse, right?" Buffy grimaced, shrugging when they all looked at her curiously, nervously moving one hand through her hair as she tried to explain. "Well, if whatever is behind that isn't strong enough yet to make the dreams come true permanently, maybe it will become stronger by subjecting people to their nightmares. And the more people go through that, the stronger it'll get… so…"
"Oh", Willow let out in response to that, not all too smart, "I see what you mean…" She exchanged a dismayed look with the Slayer, then focused on the laptop again; this clearly worked as a signal for the rest to go back to work as well, and again, the room fell silent as they kept up the research, all of them well aware of how pointless it might be, at least until they'd know more about the whole situation.
"Am I glad Giles finally ended this", Pat muttered almost three hours later, walking down the street with her partner by her side, back to their home, "I swear, if I'd had to go through one more of those books with the ridiculously tiny print, I would have gone insane."
"I'm sure you would have been fine", Willow smirked in reply, only to grow serious again moments later as she grasped the taller woman's hand and held it tenderly, "but I can imagine that it was tiring for you, reading that tiny letters the whole time…"
"As I always say, the people who wrote those books had no consideration for poor one-eyed people like me", the demon grumbled, making the redhead smile again, "they should be ashamed."
"Well, when those books were written, paper was hard to come by, expensive and rare", the witch explained in reply, forgetting that the taller woman actually had been alive already at that time and thus knew all about that, "so they had to write small to save room."
"I know, Sweetie, I was alive back then already, remember?" Pat smirked, prompting Willow to blush brightly as she realized that the taller woman was right; she cleared her throat noisily, making the other woman laugh before she stopped walking and pulled her closer for a brief kiss, the two beaming at each other afterwards.
"I wonder who'll be next", Willow then pondered as they resumed walking, "so far, I had a nightmare, Buffy, and Anya. I wonder if Xander had one and just didn't tell us, or Dawn."
"Well, if they came true like Anya's, I'm pretty sure they would have said something", Pat shrugged, digging through her pockets with her free hand until she found her cigarette; since she didn't want to let go of her partner, it took her longer than usual to get one of them out of the pack, since she could only use one hand, but finally, she managed, briefly looking around to make sure no one was watching before she lit it up on the flame she'd made appear on her finger.
"You shouldn't do that in public", Willow scolded her at once, giving her a strict look, "some day, someone will see you, and what will you tell them then?"
"I'll worry about that when it happens", the demon shrugged, "but I made sure no one's around, so no worries."
Still not looking convinced, the redhead gave her another sceptical look; before she could say something else though, the demon suddenly froze in mid-movement, her good eye briefly narrowing – before she looked at her girlfriend, sounding just worried enough to let her notice when she told her to go and hide somewhere.
"Someone's coming", she explained at the curious look the redhead gave her in reply, "and I'd rather not go into detail about it now, but keeping one of my worst nightmares in mind, it might be better if you're not too close to me when I fight…"
"Okay", the witch agreed at once, figuring that the taller woman knew what she was talking about; she briefly looked around, then hurried to the nearest side alley, ducking behind a dumpster there, keeping her gaze fixed on the demon, wondering if Pat actually was right and someone was coming to attack her, or if it had been a mistake. Only half a minute later, it was made clear that the demon had been right – she clenched her fists, then turned and looked at someone Willow couldn't see from her hiding place, her voice down to a low growl when she addressed the unseen person.
"Okay, pal, sneaky time's over", she snarled, smoke starting to curl from her still tightly clenched fists, "you better tell me who you are and what you want, or I'll beat the information out of you."
"Just wanted to meet the famous pet of the Slayer", a deep, somehow gross voice replied, sounding as if the owner was speaking through a mouthful of food, "there's a lot of talk about you going on among us, you know…"
"Well, we met then", Pat gave back, not sounding all too impressed, "and now it's time to part again. Whatever you want, I'm not interested."
"Aw, I was hoping we could have a little talk", the other one gave back, the redhead by now quite sure that he was a demon, as well; her partner just let out a snort in reply, the noise soon followed by the sigh which came from the still unseen other person on the otherwise deserted street.
"Well, well, well", he then stated, "it's a pity, I was hoping we might have a civilized talk and you'd see reason. Seeing how you act right now though, that's pretty much impossible, isn't it?"
"Correct", the taller woman gave back, "and I guess that means you'll want to fight me now and try to kill me? For fame and glory?"
"Correct", the demon mimicked her, and moments later, Willow gasped as he launched himself forward and she finally could see him; he was shockingly tall, more than a head taller than her girlfriend, and nearly twice as broad, his arms bulging with muscles the size of watermelons.
Is this one of her nightmares? the redhead pondered as she watched how the tall demon tried to punch Pat and she barely managed to duck, a demon she can't defeat? Maybe I should try to help, but she did tell me to stay away… She frowned as she thought about her options, not sure if she should try to intervene with some of her magic or not; now, she wished that Pat had told her more about the nightmare which had caused her to send her into hiding, only to be distracted of those thoughts immediately when she watched how her partner took a quite powerful punch and stumbled a few steps back.
Deciding that this was more than enough of a reason to help, Willow straightened up behind the dumpster and briefly closed her eyes as she concentrated; and when she opened them again, the tall, bulky demon was right in front of her, a small gasp escaping her before his fist slammed into her stomach and she was smashed against the wall behind her, stars exploding in front of her eyes when the back of her head connected with the stone.
"Don't you dare touch her!" Pat shouted, running to catch up with the other demon, trying to figure out how he had been able to move so quick – to her, it had looked as if he simply had teleported from the spot in front of her right to where Willow had been hiding. Shrugging it off and telling herself that this was the logic of dreams, she jumped the moment she was close enough, landing on the demon's back; he grunted, then almost ran backwards, pinning the black haired woman between the wall behind her and his massive body, her breath leaving her with the low grunt she let out at the impact.
For a moment, this almost was enough to make her loosen her grip around the demon's throat; then, she spotted Willow on the ground, the witch lying on the street facedown, a puddle of blood forming around her head slowly, but steadily, and with another low grunt, she tightened her grip instead of letting go, the bulky demon starting to make choking noises as she cut off his flow of air. Bending forward, he tried to shake her off, to no avail though; then, he felt her change her grip, his eyes briefly going wide as he realized what she intended to do, but before he could even try to stop her, she'd grasped him at the forehead and around the lower jaw, jerking his head to the left with all her might moments later, the sound of his neck breaking echoing through the quiet night.
Still with a snarl on her face, Pat let go of the now dead demon, watching how he dropped to the ground; and just a second later, he was gone, and Willow was sitting up on the street, looking dazed and confused, but apparently unhurt, the blood vanished from where it had been pooling just moments ago.
"Willow", she heard her partner call out, the concern in her voice briefly making her wonder what had happened – before her memories came back to her and she grimaced as she thought of how she'd been flung against the wall by that huge demon, her hand automatically moving to the back of her head, surprise filling her when she found no wound, not even a bump.
"Are you okay?" Pat wanted to know, kneeling down next to her and giving her another worried look, "you were hurt when I killed that asshole, but it seems you're fine now…"
"I think I am", Willow reassured her after another moment of waiting for pain to appear somewhere, "it must have been another one of those dream thingies… And when you killed him, it was reversed."
"Yeah, thank goodness for that", Pat sighed, then put an arm around her waist and helped her to her feet, grimacing when immediately, Willow asked her if that was one of her worst nightmares.
"Not that scenario specifically", she then explained, keeping one arm around her just in case, "but the general idea… That you get hurt, or even killed, because of some fuckup I make."
"Language", Willow automatically replied, "and aw, that's kinda sweet, but what happened right now wasn't your fault. That demon was moving so fast, one moment he was fighting you and the next he was in front of you, how could you have stopped him from hurting me?"
"Kill him before he managed to get to you?" Pat suggested as an answer, then shrugged, giving her partner a wry smile afterwards.
"As I said", she went on a moment later, "it's not that specific scenario that's in my nightmares, but the general idea…"
"Anything else?" Willow wanted to know, giving the taller woman a curious look, her expression softening considerably at the answer she received a second later. "In fact, yes… that might sound wimpy or something, but the thought of losing my other eye terrifies me."
"That's neither wimpy, nor anything else, it's understandable", Willow reassured her, placing one hand on hers and giving it a tender squeeze, "let's hope that's one that won't come true… Not even if they're still reversed, it would be awfully traumatic anyway."
"I'm not sure that, as a demon, I can be traumatized", Pat chuckled, making the witch smile as well after a moment; as if on cue, they both stopped walking, but before they could share the kiss which had been the reason for their stop, an unknown, male voice started screaming not all too far away, so full of fear and panic that it made both of them jump. "No, please! Please! No, someone help me, nooo!"
Startled, the couple exchanged a look – before they both started running without another word being necessary, both of them fearing what they might find now, asking themselves if now, they'd find out for sure if it was just their nightmares – or if the worst dreams of the screaming man had come true, as well.