[Some dialogue taken from script, just to kick this off]
Tirer la couverture… Pull back the curtain…
Buffy uncorks the bottle of sand, kneeling on the carpet of her bedroom.
Great. Easy. What could go wrong?
She focuses on pouring the sand counterclockwise around her as the sound of Riley's footsteps dwindles down the stairs.
All alone with the magic spooky sand. The magic, irreplaceable sand that they had to special order in. And the expensive incense from the top shelf.
Man, this is so a Willow thing.
Her hand wobbles as a knock sounds through the door, causing a ripple in the circle's outline.
"What are you doing?" Dawn's voice calls from the other side.
Buffy huffs, managing to finish the sand circle semi-smoothly and taking a cross-legged seat. "My boyfriend. Go away."
"Liar, he just left." Dawn pauses, waiting for a biting response from Buffy, and when it doesn't come adds: "Are you doing magic?"
Buffy's lips tighten in aggravation. She could be whiling the hours doing exactly nothing and no Dawn would interrupt her, but the second, the single stupid second, she needed to do something, her sister would immediately materialize. It's like she had Spidey-senses for Buffy-is-trying-to-concentrate tremors in the air.
"Are you?" Dawn asks with an irritating little tap at the door as though Buffy had forgotten she was there.
"No, served with a double helping of go away," Buffy bit out.
Another beat of silence, but Dawn's presence is still pressed against the door's wood grain.
"Can I watch?"
"No!"
"Oh, come on! Please, please, like times ten and cubed? Please?"
Buffy opens her mouth, about to shout another variation of go away when she notices the unlit incense left on her bedside table.
Oh, crap, I'm not supposed to leave the circle once I'm in it…
She shuffles to the edge of the sand circle on her knees and stretches out a hand, her fingertips grazing the table's edge, the incense sticks just out of reach.
Dammit…
"...Okay, you can come in," she growls begrudgingly. "Carefully!" she adds as the door bursts open.
"Cool, magic circle," Dawn says, bouncing over to her. "Can I help?"
"No, you—" Buffy begins to protest by rote and then sighs. "Actually…yes. I need you to light the incense—"
Dawn squeals in excitement.
"-And then leave."
Dawn's face drops.
"No way, I wanna watch," she whines.
"Dawn, this is like, super fragile not to be messed with stuff. And also the sand is apparently rare and I can't do it twice—"
"I'll be good! I won't touch the sand. Just sit, quietly watching."
"No."
Dawn shrugs, a poor imitation of indifference. "Then no can light the incense."
Buffy rolls her eyes, huffing at the artless blackmail. Oh my God, she's going to put me in an even earlier grave. "Supreme silence from you," she says, pointing a finger, and Dawn nods, motioning a zipped lip as she darts to the matches next to the incense.
The smoke curls in winding tendrils, filling the room with a soft scent of sandalwood and camphor. It blossoms upwards into a thick, mushroom-shaped cloud, and Dawn coughs.
"Good thing you don't need to breathe for this spell."
Buffy sighs, suppressing a cough of her own.
"Dawn, that's the complete opposite of silen—"
She's cut off as the ballooning smoke breaks like a wave and rushes down on her.
"Hey, woah—"
It knocks her flat on her back, her head bouncing off the carpet.
"Buffy!" Dawn cries, darting across the sand circle and scuffing it with her sneakers, waving a hand to fan the smoke away from her sister's face. "Buffy!"
"I'm fine, Dawn, just must've lost my balance."
Buffy struggles to sit up.
…But her body doesn't obey, remaining prone and helpless against the bedroom floor.
"Buffy, wake up! Wake up!" Dawn screeches, still wafting the smoke away from Buffy's face.
Buffy tries again, straining her legs and arms, trying to raise her head to no avail. Her limbs won't listen to her.
I can't move, Dawnie, I can't—
Her words aren't coming out of her mouth. They're stuck tight, trapped in her throat, lips motionless.
Oh, God—I can't speak—can't move—I'm paralyzed—Dawn, get Giles! Get Willow!
"I'm going to get Mom!" Dawn burbles. "You stay here," she adds and then shakes her head at herself as she rises out of her crouch and rushes to the door.
I swear if this is your fault! Buffy shouts after her (silently in the confines of her head), I am so going to tirer your couverture!
A hectic twenty minutes later Buffy bounces in the gurney she's strapped to as the ambulance speeds its way to Sunnydale General Hospital.
Except she's not bouncing along in her own body.
She stares down at herself over her mother's shoulder as she rubs her hand, calling down to her to wake up, to open her eyes, wake up Buffy wake up—
I'm awake, Buffy says, hysteria spreading like a contagion. I'm just not in there! she shouts, pointing to her body. Mom, get Giles! You have to get Giles!
"Her vitals are stable. What was she doing at the time of the collapse?" the EMT asks, writing illegible notes on a clipboard.
"Like some seance-trancy-meditation thing," Dawn answers, hugging up close to Joyce like a terrified baby bird. "I lit the incense for her and she breathed it in and then she just fell over."
"Did she hit her head?" asks the EMT.
No, answers Buffy.
"Only on the carpet," responds Dawn.
Pfft, barely, Buffy mutters, crossing her arms.
"Any history of head trauma?" EMT-guy asks, and Joyce and Dawn swap wary looks.
"Maybe?" They both answer cautiously.
Well, I can't exactly fight evil in a bike helmet! Buffy cries in exasperation.
The ambulance swings into the emergency bays outside the hospital and she's wheeled in, tripping along beside her mother, barely picking up on what the EMT is telling her. Something about a CT, and blood tests for an infection, and a possible something, and potentially a something-somethingy-something-something. It's all gobbledegook—partial words made up of capital letters that don't make sense to anyone not on the hospital payroll—but Joyce is nodding along in bewilderment.
They all follow into a waiting room, and as Buffy's body makes a right turn in through two big swinging doors Joyce and Dawn come to a halt, watching with Buffy as Buffy's body disappears from sight.
Okay, Buffy says with a barely contained gulp of panic. That went well...
Big big thank you as always to my faithful beta RavenLove12!