We charged into the east wing…or rather, we ran into the east wing and then immediately had to stop and battle our way through hanging sheets of plastic that separated the entrance from the corridor being repainted.

Xander and Willow were still giving shrieks of panic and we were wasting time with the silly plastic curtains, not to mention Giles was beginning to show signs of blood loss. He was turning paler and when he reached over to yank back the curtain he staggered, which told me the adrenaline was wearing off in his system.

"Here," I said, grabbing his arm and pulling him a step back, "allow me."

I grabbed a handful of the plastic and yanked the whole thing down, and then sprinted to the next one and did the same thing, thus clearing a path to our companions in distress.

Xander and Willow came running up to us, and for some reason Willow was dressed in a Japanese outfit and looked positively terrified, while Xander was sweating with both panic and exertion. They both stopped and did a double-take when they saw me.

I realized then that I was still covered in blood, and I hadn't even taken time to wipe my mouth after feeding from Giles, so I must have looked almost as frightening as whatever it was they were running from.

"What-?" Xander started to ask when Giles interrupted.

"What on earth has happened?" He demanded.

"Clown!" Willow squeaked. I frowned in confusion and then looked behind them when I heard the sound of maniacal laughter. Xander gave a yelp of fear and backed away, pulling Willow with him and leaving Giles and I standing before them.

It was only a moment more before the source of the laughter rounded the corner and revealed itself to be a clown clutching a knife.

I'll confess I have never cared much for clowns, not necessarily out of fear but more because they make me uncomfortable. Giles, however, seemed to be afraid of them as well. He gasped and took a step back as the clown suddenly broke into a run for us, still laughing wildly.

"Run!" I barked at them, and gave Giles a push after the children. He stumbled and I locked eyes with Xander for an instant.

"Help him!" I ordered. Bless the boy, he grabbed hold of Giles and pulled him and Willow after him as he ran for the exit. The clown lunged for me, and I managed to knock his hand away hard enough to make him lose his footing, which bought me enough time to grab a fallen plastic curtain and fling it at him.

I know that doesn't sound like much of a defense, but I was still not in any condition to fight and those curtains were heavy and thick, so it would take him another moment to get out of it. In the meanwhile, I turned and bolted after my friends.

I caught up with them quickly, and even managed to pass them and push a door open and let Willow through, when the laughter caught up with us.

Even though it had been a short sprint, Giles was panting heavily when he came through the door and I had to grab hold of his free arm to keep him from falling as he and Xander reached me.

"Hold on." Xander said, handing Giles off to Willow and turning around as the clown approached, but slowed when he saw Xander walking up to meet him.
I'll confess I thought Xander had lost his mind for a moment. After all he was just waltzing up to an armed assailant, literally a figure from his nightmares, and he had nothing to protect himself with.

Except his fists.

The clown cackled and raised the knife to stab him and suddenly Xander swung and I heard his fist connect with the clown's jaw with a sharp crack that sent the clown to the floor.

I stared in amazement. It wasn't that I thought Xander weak, not at all, it's simply I didn't know he'd had enough force behind that punch to knock a nightmare literally senseless.

"You were a lousy clown!" Xander shouted at his nightmare, "Your balloon animals were pathetic, everyone can make a giraffe!"

The clown didn't stir, and Xander straightened, looking proud of himself, and then turned to us with that boyish look of his and grinned.

"Come on," he said, "let's get out of here, I'm sick of listening to that idiot laugh."

Giles stood slowly, still looking pale but at least able to stand with just his hand on my shoulder.

"Well done, Xander," he said. He sounded as surprised as I felt and looked.

"Thanks!" he said, laughing, "That was pretty awesome, wasn't it?"

"That was really incredible, Xander," Willow said, "you just punched him in the face!"

"Yeah," he said, looking down at this red knuckles, "you know that hurt more than I thought it would."

"We'll find ice to put on it at a later time," I told him, "for now, I'd rather get out of here and find Buffy before anything else happens."

"Agreed." Giles said, adjusting his glasses, "I have a feeling getting away from the school would be the best idea, seeing as how it is the center of all this activity in the first place."

We formed into a group again, Willow holding Xander's hand for reassurance as we exited the building, myself and Giles behind them, with Giles keeping his hand on my shoulder while he took greater care with each step.

"So, what happened to you two?" Willow asked, glancing back at us as we stepped into the daylight.

"Yeah, you both look terrible." Xander commented, though he looked at me when he said it. "You looked like you got gored by a bull and then took a bite out of it to pay it back, what happened?"

I hesitated, wondering what would happen if I told them about my nightmare, about how I had nearly killed Giles, how I had nearly lost control. Looking at Willow's big, scared, eyes, I felt myself shrinking from the truth. I wanted to lie, yet I knew I wouldn't.

I started to answer, but Giles answered for me.

"There will be time enough for explanations after we sort this out," he said, "suffice it to say we've been contending with our own nightmares."

Xander and Willow frowned and looked at each other, but didn't have time to question us further as the sounds of screaming and sirens surrounded us. We looked around, and saw complete chaos taking over the school.

Students and teachers alike ran from the building in a blind panic, and in the distance I heard more sirens, which meant the influence was spreading.

"Things are getting worse," Giles said, "in a few hours everything will fall completely into the realm of nightmares."

"Well what do we do?" Willow demanded.

"The only thing I can think of is to try and wake Billy." He answered. Xander shook his head.

"No, we're not leaving without Buff."

"Agreed," Giles snapped, "but who knows where she might have gone?" he snapped.

Xander blinked and looked down, at a loss, but Willow was staring at something over my shoulder, a bewildered expression on her face.

"Excuse me," she said weakly, "but when did they put in a cemetery across the street?"

We all looked where she was indicating, and saw there was indeed a cemetery where it shouldn't be, and it was surrounded by a strange aura that distorted the area around it. Not only that, in the cemetery, it was nightfall, even though it was broad daylight.

I looked at Giles.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

"If you mean, am I thinking that wherever things are strangest, that's where Buffy is? Then yes, yes I am, sir." I answered.

He smirked at me, and then faced the cemetery.

"Then it's decided." He said.

We walked into the night cemetery, and immediately a heavy sense of foreboding settled over us. It was cold in that place. Not just in general, it felt cold deep down inside of you, dark and unwelcoming and threatening.

"Whose nightmare is this?" Xander asked. Giles was at the front of our group, looking around, when he happened to look down at a gravestone and he froze. I came to his side at once, thinking he had spotted some threat, when I saw what it was that he had seen: the tombstone read: Buffy Summers, 1981-1997. Rest in Peace

"It's mine." Giles murmured, in a tone that broke my heart. He looked as though someone had just struck him and he walked slowly towards the tombstone.

I wasn't processing this properly.

Buffy couldn't be dead, could she? Not so quickly, not even in a nightmare. No, this was wrong, this couldn't be right.

Giles fell to his knees beside the grave, staring at the tombstone, a lost look in his eyes.

I went to him and knelt beside him, at a loss to know what to do.

"I failed…" He said weakly, "In my duty to protect you. I should have been more…cautious…Taken more time to train you…But, you were so gifted…And the evil was so great." His voice was getting thick with emotion, and impulsively I reached down and grasped his hand, which was fumbling at the fresh dirt that covered Buffy's grave.

He flinched a moment, startled at the chill feeling of my flesh, I think, but then he gripped it as though it was the only thing keeping him from collapsing.

"We'll fix it," I whispered to him, "we'll fix this. We'll bring her back, she's not gone, it's not too late." I tried to believe my own words, but I couldn't wrap my mind around the fact that Buffy could even possibly be dead and gone. I just couldn't accept it.

"How?" he asked, his voice a broken whisper, and his shoulders slumped. He looked…tired. Tired and defeated and I felt responsible.

"Because that's what we do." I answered.

He nodded slowly. I wasn't sure he believed me, in fact I hardly believed myself, but he reached down and put his other hand on the grave.

"I'm sorry." He murmured. Then he looked at me, tears glistening in his eyes.

"W-We'll look…" he said, "We'll look for a way to fix it…right?"

I nodded.

"We will."

We started to rise when suddenly a hand shot out of the loose dirt and grabbed Giles' wrist.

Willow screamed while Xander and Giles shouted in surprise and pulled back, and Giles pulled the owner of the hand with him.

It was…Buffy?

She had her head lowered as she brushed dirt off of herself as though nothing had happened.

"Buffy?" Giles said, scarcely believing his own eyes.

"I thought I was dead!" she declared, lifting her head to smile in relief at us.

I started in surprise and felt Giles stiffen as he gasped.

"Buffy, your face!" Willow said.

It was the face of a vampire.

Buffy frowned in confusion, then reached up and started running her fingers carefully across the suddenly alien features.

"Oh," she breathed, "oh God…" her hands started to tremble violently.

Xander stepped towards her.

"Buffy…" he said, his voice soft and consoling.

"Don't look at me!" she said, whirling around.

"Buffy," I said, "dear heart it's nothing we haven't seen before. It's all right."

"No," she whispered, "no, it-it's not."

Giles stepped up beside her.

"You never told me you dreamt of becoming a vampire." He chided softly.

"This isn't a dream." Buffy replied.

I looked down at my bloodstained clothes and hands.

She made a very good point there.

"No," Giles conceded, "No it's not." He came around to face her, "But there's a chance we can make it go away. This all comes from Billy, if we can only wake him up, I believe the nightmares will stop and reality will shift back into place but we must do it now."

He paused, and Buffy continued to stare past him.

"I need you to hold together long enough to help us." He begged. "Can you do that?"

There was another beat of silence, but then Buffy nodded.

"Yeah," she said, "I think I can."

I sighed in relief and Giles smiled slowly at her.

"Thank you." He said.

Buffy turned around slowly to face us. Her eyes flickered over Willow's Japanese outfit in confusion, and then she looked at me, covered in blood, and I saw her nostrils flare as she inhaled the scent of Giles' blood.

Her pupils dilated slightly but she reigned herself in beautifully.

"We'd better hurry." She said, "Because I'm getting hungry."

And with that she turned and started stalking away while we filed in behind her.

"That is a joke, right?" Xander asked with a quiet laugh that no one bothered to respond to.

"Are we sure everything will go back once he's awake?" Willow asked as she fell into step beside Giles and myself.

"Oh, uh, positive." Giles said, though he didn't sound it.

"But how do we wake him? What if we can't?"

"Willow," Giles said, "do shut up."

At the hospital, things were in turmoil. Gurneys and wheelchairs were overturned and paper and bandages lay strewn and tossed about as though a huge fight had taken places.

Nurses, doctors, patients, at least those of who could, were trying to make it to an exit.

We all followed Giles as we rushed towards Billy's room, when Giles spotted the doctor we had spoken to before.

"Doctor!" he said, rushing up to him, "the boy Billy, is he still here?"

"My hands…" the doctor moaned, and I saw they were gnarled and bent painfully in appearance, rendering him helpless. Helpless to help anyone the only way he knew how, his own nightmare.

We rushed on to Billy's room, and he was indeed still in his bed, still comatose.

We all started to rush to his bed, including Buffy, but I saw the blinds to his window had been lifted, letting a stream of sunlight bathe over him and the wall opposite his bed so I hastily whirled around and grabbed Buffy.

"Stay back, sweetling." I warned, pointing at the sunlight. "Wait in the shadow." She bit her lip, then nodded and retreated a few steps while we gathered around Billy.

He looked so weak and vulnerable in his bed, I couldn't help but wonder how he was causing all of these problems, the Hellmouth not withstanding.

"Billy?" Giles shouted, leaning towards him, but there was no response, "Billy?" he repeated.

"That won't work." A child's voice said. We all jumped in surprise and looked at the source of the voice. It was Billy, or, Billy's vision of Billy standing beside his own bed.

Giles looked as though he had a hundred questions he wanted to ask, but he kept them back.

"Billy," Giles said, "Billy you have to wake up."

"No," he said, "I told her, I have to hide."

"Why? From what?" Giles pleaded.

"From him." Buffy answered, looking out the door and into the corridor we'd just come from.

I met her at the door while the humans looked out the window at a huge hulking figure clad all in black that was coming towards us.

"What do we do?" Xander said in dismay. Buffy started taking her coat off.

"I think I know." She said. She looked at me and then down at all the blood and the freshly healed wound in my stomach.

"You think you can watch my back?" she asked. I nodded. If she kept him distracted I might be able to do a bit of damage, though not as much as I would have liked to.

Buffy nodded, then stepped out into the corridor and planted her feet apart, shoulders back and her head up. I stood beside her, though I doubted I looked nearly as intimidating.

"Glad you finally showed up," she said as the huge thing that vaguely resembled a man came towards us, "you see I'm having a really bad day."

"Lucky Nineteeeeeen." The figure growled at us.

"Scary," Buffy commented, "I'll tell you something though: there are a lot scarier things than you."

The figure stopped two feet away from us, eyeing her suspiciously as she stepped up to meet him.

"And I'm one of them."

With that, she let out a battle roar and launched herself at him, her already formidable strength doubled now that she was a vampire. She tackled the huge thing and started beating his face in. She got several hits in, in fact so many I was beginning to think she didn't need my help at all when the man-thing caught her hand when she swung it at him again and kicked her back.

When she landed, he was already getting back up, so I took advantage of him still being disoriented and ran as fast as I could straight for him.

I jumped at an angle and wrapped my arms around his neck and swung myself around him, letting both feet hit the back of his legs so that he fell onto his knees.

Buffy came at us as he reached back with one hand that wasn't a hand but a club made out of hardened flesh and struck me with it hard enough for me to hear the crack as it met my skull, but I didn't let go.

She grabbed his arm as he swung at her and kicked him in the chest hard enough to make me let go and take a step back while she started punching him again.

He let out a roar of pain and started up, grabbed her with his actual hand and swung her up and into the wall.

I felt my fangs snap as I yowled at him in anger and to get his attention. He snapped his head around to look at me as I launched myself at him again, and sunk my fangs into the warped skin that covered his face.

He screeched and dropped Buffy while he hit me with his club again, and this time I couldn't help but let go.

But I had given Buffy an opening.

She danced around him, peppering him with punches and kicks, leading him back into Billy's room as I tried to get myself back up, watching them the whole time.

Once they were in the room, he swung his club at her again, but she ducked underneath the wide swing, caught his arm, and broke it over her leg. He howled in pain and Buffy shortened his cry by kicking him in the chest hard enough to send him into the wall.

His head cracked against the wall hard enough to leave a hole, and he slumped down. He wasn't going to get back up again.

I rejoined the rest of the group, rubbing the sore spot where he had hit me with his club.

"You all right?" Willow asked. I waved away her concern, though my vision did start to swim and dip as I walked.

"Nothing a good long drink won't fix." I tried to joke, but I couldn't help but let my eyes flicker to Giles, who looked at his shoes and unconsciously placed a hand over the bite on his wrist.

"Is he dead?" Dream Billy asked, staring at the nightmare-man.

"Come here, Billy." Buffy said softly.

"But…I don't-" he started, frightened, but Buffy interrupted him.

"You have to do the rest." She said.

Billy hesitated, then slowly came around the bed. Buffy held her hand out to him, he took it, and she drew him closer.

"What are they doing?" Willow asked softly. Giles held his hand up for silence while Xander looked grim and murmured: "I get it."

I thought I 'got it', I understood that this was Billy's nightmare, but I wasn't sure exactly what it was Buffy expected Billy to do.

He looked up at Buffy.

"No more hiding." She told him, pulling his hand towards the thing's face before letting go. Billy continued to reach, however, and grasped a handful of the skin at the bottom of his face, and yanked up, as though pulling off a mask.

There was a blinding flash of light, and then we looked up and realized that everything was back to normal.

Willow and Xander were in their normal clothes, and best of all: Buffy was no longer a vampire. She looked at us, and when she saw our relieved, happy smiles she grinned and reached up to feel her face, as lovely as it ever was.

I heard something stir, and I looked down to see Billy slowly rousing himself awake. He blinked at us slowly and looked confused, and so painfully young.

"I had the strangest dream," he said, and pointed slowly at Buffy," you were in it," he said, then pointed at Giles, "and you." He looked around, recognition in his eyes, but not the sort that said he knew exactly who we were.

"Who are you people?" he asked.

"I'll get a doctor." Giles said, starting for the door.

"We're friends, little one." I murmured.

"Oh, Billy's got company."

I turned towards the new voice and saw a man standing in the doorway, looking at Giles and Xander. He had a baseball cap on, which he took off to introduce himself.

"I'm his kiddie-league coach," he explained, "I come by here every day," he continued, "just hoping against hope that he's gonna wake up soon." He said.

I frowned.

The words were nice, but the way his heart-rate sped up bothered me.

False tales

My frown deepened.

"He's uh, 'Lucky Nineteen'." The coach said. I looked sharply at Buffy, and then to Giles, who, in turn, looked at us.

"So, uh, how is he?" he asked. Buffy's face had hardened, her suspicions aroused as much as mine. She looked at me, then moved slowly to the side so she was no longer obstructing Billy's bed from view.

"He's awake." She said. We were all watching him to gauge his response.

His eyes widened, his heart skipped a beat. I could hear the momentary halt in blood flow, followed by the sound of it rushing out again.

There was a strange look in his eyes. It was fear. Fear he quickly masked over as he came towards the bed, but it was fear nonetheless.

"What?" he said in disbelief. Buffy stepped up to face him.

"You blamed him for losing the game." She said, "So you caught up with him afterwards, didn't you?"

He flushed.

"What are you talking about?" he said, trying to laugh it off, but Billy sat up, removing his oxygen tubes.

"You said it was my fault that we lost." He said. The coach blanched.

I knew what he was going to do before he even made the first move.

I rushed forward as he started to turn and run for the door, and I grabbed his shoulder and wrenched, hard enough for him to give a gasp of pain as Xander and Giles made haste to grab him as well.

"It wasn't my fault," Billy continued, "There's eight other players on the team. You know that."

The coach stared, then made a big, big mistake: he rolled his eyes.

He had put this child in a coma for making a mistake whilst playing a game, and he dared to roll his eyes at the reprimand?

Kill him

'Yes.'

When?

'Soon.'