It was the last night of the summer when the new perils began. Well, last day of summer holiday, in any case.

Xander had asked Willow out for the evening and she had insisted on inviting me along with them, which I think Xander wasn't entirely pleased about, but he put up a good front of wanting me along as well.

Bless his heart, I know he wanted to spend more time with Willow, but though she had been wanting a relationship deeper than friendship with him, I think there was a part of her that was still just a tad nervous about the idea. Hence the reason she brought me along.

It was…well, quiet. In fact the past few months had been oddly quiet. Not quiet in a foreboding manner, just…quiet. Normal-quiet, and I wasn't sure how to process that. I was so used to having to face down another danger around every corner that it was strange to just go about my business as I used to.

Well, almost as I used to. I had company now. Giles was my constant reading companion. In his home it must have seemed frightfully boring to most people since we didn't really talk to each other that much. It wasn't uncommon to find one or both of us curled up in a chair or on the sofa, buried in a mound of lore books, or literature.

That's not to say we didn't talk. No, we talked. More than I've talked to anyone, I talked with Giles; answering questions he had about history and what it was like back then. He practically wanted a day by day account of my life, and I did my best to supply it, but there were some things I wouldn't mention…hopefully not ever.

The Essence had been, well, rousing itself. At first, when I resisted the urges it kept dredging up, it would writhe and coil itself in my chest until it almost felt as though I were choking. When I built up a resistance to its sway, it began to give up, but I could tell it was still there, in the back of my mind, seething.

Lately, it had been subtly trying to work its way back into my mind, and I had to struggle to catch it sometimes.

Most recently, a few days before, actually, I had caught myself stalking someone. It had only last a few hours, but I hadn't even realized I was doing it.

It had been a man I'd seen on the bus one evening on my way back from the hospital. There weren't many people on the bus, just myself, two young ladies who were holding each other's hands and looking very weary but very much in love, and judging by the smell of them they hadn't stopped traveling for days, so I figured they had more or less eloped; there was also an elderly man who may or may not have been homeless, and then he had gotten on.

Immediately noticing their intimacy, he decided it would be funny to ridicule them and make them feel uncomfortable in front of everyone else.

I won't repeat what he said, but suffice it to say he was using some of the foulest names to describe the two women, who huddled together and tried to ignore him, even as he prodded them with his foot and groped at them.

When the bus stopped and he got off, I followed.

He didn't notice me, and knowing he didn't made me all the more excited. I followed him through alleyways, hearing his heart beat and listening to him wheeze. He wasn't in shape, so he would have been an easy kill, and I kept this in mind when I drew closer and closer to him.

To me, he didn't deserve to see another dawn. Such foul, disgusting people are a waste of space and resources. I'd be doing everyone a favor by getting rid of him, and in a way avenging the poor girls' honor.

I had just convinced myself this was the right thing to do, and started to rush him when a wave of déjà vu crashed over me.

I'd had this conversation with 'myself' before, hadn't I? With Billy's coach. Before I'd murdered him.

The realization practically struck me across the face that the Essence had manipulated me again, and I slid to a halt. Not before the man had noticed me, however. He made some lewd comment about my following him and approached me, so I broke his arm.

Compared to what I'd been planning on doing, he got off easy, but I went home to Giles' shaken, and worried.

Giles, thankfully, had been in bed already, or I don't know what I would have done to explain why I was acting so strange.

So, yes, the Essence was getting…smarter.

Which was disconcerting on a number of different levels.

Anyway, for this reason I was acting a little distracted the evening Willow asked me to join her and Xander. Buffy would have been with us, of course, but she had been away during the summer, visiting her father.

I walked a few paces ahead of the children while Xander ate ice cream and exchanged movie quotes with Willow. I'd joined in the game at first, but it became clear after a few minutes this was a moment Xander wanted to share with Willow. To oblige him, I put myself ahead of them and stared up at the night sky, listening to them chatter.

We were wandering past the graveyard when I heard Xander chuckling at Willow.

"Come on, your turn." He told her.

"I'm thinking, hold on," she answered, "okay, uh, 'In the few hours that we had together we loved a lifetime's worth'."

Xander barely even missed a beat.

"Terminator!"

"Good!" Willow answered, giggling.

"Okay, I got one," Xander responded quickly, though his words were a little obstructed by the mouthful of ice-cream he'd just taken.

"'It's a madhouse!'" he bellowed in a deep, gravelly voice, "'a mad-'"

"Planet of the Apes." Willow interrupted.

"Can I finish, please?" Xander said, in a tone of mock-hurt.

"Oh, sorry, go ahead." Willow demurred.

"'HOUSE!'" Xander finished triumphantly. I glanced back at them and he turned and pointed at Willow as he finished the line.

"Planet of the Apes." Willow grinned. I smirked, shook my head, and went back to scanning tombstones.

"Okay, me," I heard her say, followed by a sound of distraught humming.

"Well?" Xander prodded.

"I'm thinking," Willow insisted, then said: "'Use the Force, Luke.'"

Both Xander I both stopped and turned to look at her. She caught my motion and shrugged helplessly at me.

"Really?" I said, "You couldn't have even gone with 'I've got a bad feeling about this'?"

"I couldn't think of anything." Willow complained. I stifled a laugh and turned my back on them again when they started walking. For some reason, I couldn't help but keep looking at the tombstones.

Reading the inscriptions, the names, the dates; it was all both discomforting and oddly reassuring.

Everyone's equal when they're dead. That's one thing we all have to look forward to, even an 'immortal' monster like me. One day I would be dead, too, that was a certainty. I just had a longer time to wander through the world, that's all.

In this way, it was a bit comforting. However, I couldn't help but wonder if there would even be a corpse to bury. I was a half-vampire, but did that mean I would leave a body? Or would I disintegrate like vampires did?

Of course, they were discomforting as well because, well, those were people under those stones. Sure some of them had been dead for centuries, but they had once been living, breathing people walking around having hopes, dreams, memories, relationships, desires, fears, doubts, and lives. And now all that was left to represent that was a block of granite with a tiny dash between the date of their birth and the date of their death, and maybe, maybe a few words underneath to describe just a miniscule portion of their lives.

I doubted very highly I would get that much.

"Well what else do you want to play?" Xander was asking, pulling out of my melancholic melodrama I was having in my head. Being alone for centuries will do that to you: turn you into a brooding, internally argumentative person.

"We already played rock, paper, scissors," he continued, "my hand cramped up."

"Yes, when you are always scissors, of course your hand will cramp up." Willow reminded him. I did chuckle at that. I had had to help Xander get his fingers unstuck when they cramped in that position, it had been rather humorous.

"I've got to say, this has been the most boring summer, ever." Xander complained, quickly changing the subject.

"Yeah, but on the plus side, no monsters or stuff." Willow replied.

I heard her hopping up to sit on the wall of the bridge we were crossing and I half-turned to clear my throat at her.

"Present company excluded." She hurriedly clarified.

"I'm just so restless!" Xander whined as I started slowing pacing the width of the bridge from where I was. "I'm actually looking forward to school starting up again."

"Yeah, and that wouldn't have anything to do with a certain girl we all know?" Willow teased, "A girl who is a vampire slayer?" I could hear the grin in her voice without evening having to look at her.

"Please, I'm so over her." Xander answered, borderline guffawing at the notion, though his argument wasn't exactly reinforced when in the next breath he asked: "Did she mention when she might be getting back?"

He must have realized how that sounded because as an afterthought he added: "About which I do not care."

"I haven't heard from her." Willow answered with a shrug. "I got a couple of postcards when she went to L.A. but then, like, nothing."

"Well she's probably just having a good time with her dad." Xander said.

"And you don't care?" Willow teased again.

"Well, okay there might be some interests, I mean, I'm a man. There are certain desires, certain needs-"

I looked sharply at the both of them.

"She's been through that class, too, Xander, she knows about that." I informed him. I saw the tips of his ears turn bright red.

"I got a movie for ya!" Xander suddenly said, ignoring me and swiping the tip of his ice-cream cone across Willow's nose.

"Xander!" Willow groaned.

"You're Amish!" Xander said, "You can't fight back, you're Amish! I mock you with my ice-cream cone, Amish guy!"

"Witness." Willow growled.

"That wasn't even the line." I called to him.

"Whatever, she got it." Xander called back.

"My nose is cold." Willow complained.

Xander's trademark boyish grin spread across his face.

"Let me get that for you." He offered, sticking his tongue out and moving in towards her face. Willow squealed, giggling, and pushed him back.

"Sorry, I can't help myself," he said, producing a napkin from his pocket, "your nose looks so tasty." He started gently brushing the cream off her nose, and I noticed his movements become prolonged, and he wasn't just touching her nose anymore.

I smiled to myself and ducked my head down, intending to give them a little privacy, when suddenly I caught a whiff of a scent I'd not smelled all summer: vampire. And it was close, too close, to the children.

Immediately I whirled around and sprinted towards them. Unfortunately, they had been right about to kiss, and Xander glared at me when he saw me coming.

"Hey, calm-" he began when I grabbed him and Willow both and pulled them away from the side of the bridge just before a vampire sprang from the shadows. I pushed the children behind me and picked out, catching the vampire in the jaw hard enough to send a few of his teeth flying.

Willow gave a startled scream while Xander stepped up to join me.

The vampire snarled at us and charged, slashing at us.

I knocked his arm away while Xander struck it across its face with the back of his hand, and I followed it up with a blow of my own that twisted the vampire around, but didn't quite fell him.

A stagnant summer had left us ill-prepared. None of us were armed, except for my fangs, but they're not exactly vampire-killing weapons.

The vampire started to turn around again when out of nowhere a flash of blue darted into my vision and I turned just in time to see Buffy dive-kick the vampire.

"Hey guys," she said, smiling at us. We all gaped at her, completely taken aback. The vampire got up, growling in anger, and she nonchalantly kicked it into the branch of a tree, piercing the vampire's heart and turning it into dust.

I hadn't even thought about using a tree branch.

She turned back to us, acting as though nothing had happened. She gave a toss of her golden hair and grinned.

"Miss me?"