Heaven Tagged (BtVS/SPN)
4 Mar 2010 15:12![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skylar0graceTitle: Heaven Tagged.
Author: SkylarGrace.
Status: Complete.
Rating: PG-13.
Summary: Buffy has been brought back from Heaven and she has more than one hitch-hiker. One of them goes by the name of Mary Winchester and she needs to speak to her family. Can Buffy help her?
Spoilers: Pre ‘Supernatural’ and Season 1-6 of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’.
Disclaimer: ‘Supernatural’ and all related characters are copyright Eric Kripke, Kripke Enterprises & The CW Network. No infringement intended. ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and all related characters are copyright Joss Whedon and ME. No infringement intended.
Notes: Based on a challenge issued by Phoenix.
Buffy stood in her room in front of her mirror staring blankly at her reflection. From behind her closed bedroom door she heard a door in the corridor close and she moved quickly, for reasons she didn’t understand, to sit on her bed. The comforter was plush and soft but to her it may as well have been made out of nails.
She picked up a picture frame from her bedside table and stared at the picture. It was a photo of her, Willow and Xander and they were laughing. How she wished she had something to laugh about. No, even if she did, she wasn’t sure she could. How was it possible to laugh now? After all she had seen?
Buffy put the photo frame back and stood, walking slowly over to the bulletin board that hung on her wall. This had been her life. Numerous pictures taken at various stages but it seemed like somebody else’s life. The joy that shone through the pictures seemed foreign to her, as if it was something she’d never experienced before.
Buffy looked in horror as the flesh began to melt away from the smiling faces, their grim visages grinning as if from beyond the grave. She saw a blur of something, like a smudge of smoke in mid-air and Buffy squeezed her eyes shut, hoping that the horrible nightmare would end and she would find out that she wasn’t even there. That she was back where she was, where everything was simpler.
When Buffy opened her eyes, the smudge was gone and the photos had returned to normal. Buffy looked at the pictures and though she didn’t know why, she found it worse than the horrible alteration that she’d seen.
“Osiris! Here lies the warrior of the people. Let her cross over.”
A wrinkled, desiccated hand…a body encased in black clothing. An orange mist swirls around the decomposing head, tendrils tracing even the individual strands of hair. The mist moves further along the body until it is completely covering it. Features begin to become clearer until Buffy’s eyes open and she gasps. She looks around and notices the four solid walls surrounding her, suffocating her. And she begins to panic.
Buffy pounds frantically on the sides, small whimpers all she can manage, as the realisation sets in. She’s buried alive. And she knows what she has to do; she has to dig her way out. She’s done it before and it was as terrifying then as it is now, only that was when her nightmares came to life. She’s always remembered it as a nightmare, the breaking of her skin as the wooden splinters pushed themselves into the newly torn hands, the suffocating silence and the all-consuming darkness. But she doesn’t want to do this again.
Buffy bangs as hard as she can on the lid, the piece of wood just in front of her face, before she begins tearing away the cloth lining, the tearing sound echoing in her ears. She knows she doesn’t have a lot of time, air is minimal and even if somebody had been lying on her grave, they wouldn’t have heard her under all that dirt.
Buffy punches the exposed wood and eventually hears the wood crack. As her hand punches through the lid, dirt rains down on her and she acknowledges the pain in her hands. This definitely is not a nightmare.
~
Buffy walks down the once familiar streets. She used to walk these streets, protecting the people behind the closed doors from the horrors of the night. But the streets look different now. There is so much light, heat, smoke. Buffy’s sure she can hear someone screaming but it sounds so distant and for the first time she wonders if this is hell. Buffy stops and leans against a parked car, her brain refusing to stop whirring and the cacophony of her thoughts are drowned out by the sudden noise coming from somewhere nearby. She instantly puts her hands over her ears as the piercing noise seems to hit right down to her bones before she realises that the noise is coming from the car she’s leaning on.
An armed man appears in front of her and she wants to ask him for help, ask him to tell her where she is. But he’s yelling and shaking his gun at her. She can’t really understand him and besides, she doesn’t know who she can trust. Her vision is blurry and every noise is slightly muffled but she hears the gunshot and she knows what that means. Buffy doesn’t even hesitate as she sprints as far away from him as she can.
~
Buffy notices a group of demons, at least she thinks they’re demons, and finds that her feet are leading her to them. Her brain is telling her to run but she doesn’t. They’re standing in a circle, their faces lit up by the bright flames nearby and one of them is talking to the others, riling them up as he loads a gun.
“All in one quick, really, *really* violent fell swoop,” she hears him say as she comes to stand behind some of the pack. “Gentlemen, start your engines.”
Buffy notices the four bikes in opposing corners as their engines rev and she follows the chains attached to their bikes to the person standing between them. Her breath catches in her throat and she can’t believe what she is seeing. Standing in front of her is…her. She tries to understand how she can be in two places at once when she hears, “Bye-bye, Slayer!” Buffy takes a step forward and the other her calls out. Buffy can’t hear her but she is sure she’s saying her name. She knows she has to stop herself from being killed, even if it doesn’t make any sense and she does the first thing she thinks of. She screams.
Her ‘No!’ pierces the air and the demons that had previously not noticed her turn around. The bikes move off in their directions and she can’t even look at the carnage left behind. Fear starts building in her gut and as the demons move to get a better look at her, she sees the leader grin.
“Another one for the fire, boys.” He grins sadistically. “Tear it up.”
Buffy runs. She couldn’t save the other her but she can try and save herself. Nothing makes sense in this crazy world and it seems that all she is doing is running. Running for her life. She doesn’t feel strong and powerful anymore, she doesn’t feel the strength of generations of Slayers in her blood. She feels scared, alone and the feeling is overpowering.
~
Buffy looked down and frowned. This was the spot, she’s sure of it. She remembers the blood, the night tearing as hell bled in and the flash of lightning signalling the horror about to be unleashed. She remembers running down the platform and diving off into the blinding light at the end.
Buffy closed her eyes against the assault of memories and remembered turning from Dawn to see the holes opening up in the sky and the quiet resolve as she looked back at her beautiful sister. Even now she could hear their last conversation as though it was happening at this moment, the pleading in Dawn’s voice as she begged.
“Buffy, no.”
Buffy felt her heart breaking as she heard her sister’s voice catch. “Dawnie, I have to.”
“Buffy?”
Buffy frowned. That wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Dawn didn’t say that and it sounded closer. She opened her eyes and turned around and saw Dawn standing at the other end of the platform. She was standing there, like she had been the last time she’d seen Dawn but she looked different; older.
“Buffy…Buffy…how…?”
She wasn’t real. Buffy tried to convince herself but the person in front of her looked so real, so sad.
“Is it you? I mean really?” She takes a step toward Buffy. “What are you do-”
The tower shakes and Buffy looks back toward the end of the platform. Maybe she could have it again?
“No! Don’t!” Dawn shrieks. Buffy looks back at her.
“Don't jump, Buffy, don't move! Just walk to me. Please!”
Buffy turns away and looks back down at the ground. It’s a long way down and she begins to wonder if it will hurt if she jumps.
“Please?”
Buffy continues staring down. She remembers the pain from the first time she jumped, the electricity shooting through her, her whole body feeling like it was on fire and then…
“I'm your sister. Dawn. We were up here ... together, and then ... you went away. And you don't wanna do that again. I don't know how you're back, but you are, and please, just stay still.”
The tower shakes again, making Dawn shriek and though a part of her automatically feels like comforting the obviously distressed Dawn, a bigger part wants what she had.
“Or-or move. But-but towards me. Because the tower was built by crazy people and I don't think it's holding up very well. Talk to me. Say something!”
And then Buffy has to ask the question that she’s been wondering since before Dawn arrived. “Is ... this hell?”
She hears Dawn’s confusion and turns to look at her. She’s sure that everything she’s feeling is written on her face but if this is just some elaborate torture than she couldn’t care less what fake-Dawn sees.
“Is this hell?”
“No! Buffy, no”! She takes a step forward. “You’re here ... with me.” She takes another step forward and Buffy can feel the muscles in her body tensing in case this fake-Dawn attacks. “Whatever happened to you, whatever you've been through, it's ... it's over now. You're-”
The tower shakes again and Dawn shrieks, the sound piercingly loud and shrill even to an already sensitive Buffy.
“We have to get off this tower!”
Buffy turns to look down again and remembers the place before this, before the horror she is now faced with. ”It was so ... clear ... on this spot. I remember ... how ... shiny ... and clear everything was.” But the memory is cut short as the blood and violence and noise of the last couple of hours filters through. “But ... now ... now...”
“Buffy ... please ... listen to me.”
Buffy closes her eyes, doesn't turn around. What did she do to deserve this torture? Why?
“You told me I had to be strong ... and I've tried. But it's been so hard without you.”
Buffy still has her eyes closed and frowns at the sorrow she can hear. The fake-Dawn is sounding remarkably like real-Dawn
“I'm sorry. I promise I'll do better, I will! If you're with me. Stay with me ... please. I need you to live. Live! For-”
The tower shakes again, hard. Dawn screams, crouches down and Buffy knows; the tower is gonna fall.
“Buffy!”
The shrill scream breaks through to Buffy and she whirls around, looking at the scared girl at the end of the tower. “Dawn.”
“Buffy!”
Now Buffy knows. She doesn’t know how but this is Dawn, her sister, the one she has to protect. “Dawn!”
Buffy runs across the platform to Dawn, pulls her up and into the body of the tower. They run around one bend, pause and look around. She needs to find a way down and obviously there isn’t time to take the stairs. Even if she can just get Dawn off…she spots a rope on a pulley.
Buffy holds onto Dawn, leaps off the tower and grabs the rope. They hang there for a moment, then the rope begins to move and they plummet downward. Dawn screams. They fall for a while and then something catches and they stop. They both look toward the ground and Buffy instantly calculates just how far it is. She might be able to survive but she’s not sure about Dawn. She needs to find another way to get down, and soon, when the choice is taken from her. Something above her breaks and they fall with Dawn screaming the whole time. Buffy does her best to cushion her sister’s fall.
Buffy hits the ground and the air is forced from her lungs. She tries to suck air back in, to relieve the pain in her chest even if it’s momentary and she sees the tower above her move. Toward them. She grabs Dawn and pulls her out of the way before the twisted metal can crush them. The noise that follows is the loudest she has heard since she woke up and Buffy tries to drown it out the best she can.
Once she is sure they are out of danger, Buffy collapses to the ground, sucking in lungfuls of air as the noise dies down.
“Buffy?”
Buffy looks at her sister, unsure of what to say, of what to believe. Dawn smiles in disbelief.
“Buffy. You ... you …” She reaches out and touches Buffy’s cheek, an action which should have been comforting but Buffy can’t feel anything inside. “...you're really here.” She leans over and hugs Buffy, crying softly as her grip tightens. “You're alive, and you're home. You're home.”
A memory of ‘home’ flashes in Buffy’s mind and although she doesn’t understand what has happened, she knows she’s not going back. She can’t find it within herself to feel the joy that Dawn does, knowing what she’s lost.
Buffy woke suddenly and tried to shake the memories from her mind as she sat up. She was done, everything had been settled and she had been home. And now she wasn’t. She’d been pulled from there and forced back here. Buffy took a deep breath before lying back down. She closed her eyes and as she was drifting off, she could have sworn she heard Spike’s voice in the background.
~
Anya and Xander crossed the porch and began walking down the stairs
“I think Willow's wrong. I don't think she's particularly normal at all.”
Xander sighed and turned to her. “Well, she just got back. Give it time. I bet in a week she'll be our little Bufferin again.”
“Oh yes, cause six or seven days, that's all you really need to get over eternal hell experiences.”
Xander heard a noise and stopped, his eyes searching for the source. “Who's that? Spike?”
Spike continued to lean against the tree in Buffy’s front yard and quickly wiped his eyes as Xander and Anya approached.
“What are you doing out here? I hope you're not going to start your little obsession now that she's around again.”
Spike’s already thin thread of calm broke and he grabbed Xander and spun him around, slamming him up against the tree and holding him there as he leaned in close.
“Hey!”
“You didn't tell me,” Spike spat at Xander, ignoring Anya’s protests. “You brought her back and you didn't tell me.”
“Well, now you know,” Xander replied, looking at Spike.
“I worked beside you all summer.”
“We didn't tell you. It was just ... we didn't, okay?”
“How long was I gone?”
“Hundred forty-seven days yesterday. Uh ... hundred forty-eight today. 'Cept today doesn't count, does it?”
Spike looked down at her damaged hands and knew, even if she wasn’t saying anything, that they were hurting – just like she must be.
“How long was it for you ... where you were?”
She paused just for a moment. “Longer.”
“Listen. I've figured it out.” Spike, still glaring, let go of Xander but didn’t move out of the way. “Maybe you haven't, but I have.” Xander and Anya saw the moisture glistening in his eyes as he pointed back toward the house. “Willow knew there was a chance that she'd come back wrong. So wrong that you'd have ... that she would have to get rid of what came back. And I wouldn't let her. If any part of that was Buffy, I wouldn't let her. And that's why she shut me out.”
“What are you talking about? Willow wouldn't do that.”
“Oh. Is that right?”
Xander ignored the obvious sarcasm. “Look. You're just covering. Don't tell me you're not happy. Look me in the eyes, and tell me when you saw Buffy alive, that wasn't the happiest moment of your entire existence.”
Spike scowled at Xander and walked off. “That's the thing about magic,” he threw over his shoulder, “there's always consequences.”
Spike sat on his bike and looked back at them. “Always!”
He started up the bike and Xander and Anya watched as he rode off, his coat billowing behind him in the wind.
~
Willow and Tara lay asleep, their bodies recovering from the very long and draining day. They heard a loud smashing sound and awoke to shards of glass falling down on them.
“Buffy?” Willow asked as they sat up in bed.
Buffy glared at them eerily, her silhouette lit by the bright moonlight and casting shadows across her face. “What did you do? Do you know what you did? You're like children. Your hands smell of death. Bitches! Filthy little bitches, rattling the bones. Did you cut the throat? Did you pat its head?”
They looked on in fear as Buffy grabbed a crystal ball off the table next to her and threw it at them. It hit the wall above them and shattered, the noise covering their shrieks.
“The blood dried on your hands, didn't it?”
“Oh my god, oh my god,” Tara said breathlessly from beside Willow.
“You were stained. You still are. I know what you did!”
Willow jumped out of bed and turned on the lights; the yellow glow bathing the room and Willow looked at Tara and then back at the empty space where Buffy had been standing.
Tara looked down at the bed. “The glass. There's no glass.”
Willow looked to Tara and they both moved down the corridor to Buffy’s room. They opened the door silently and a sliver of light fell on a deeply sleeping Buffy. Willow looked at Tara before pulling the door closed and heading back to their room.
“Okay, what in the frilly heck is going on?”
“Maybe we dreamed it,” Tara offered as Willow closed the door.
“Right. Right. Wrong! Different brains.”
“Oh yeah.”
Tara moved over to the table and ran her fingers along the fully intact crystal ball.
“Well ... what was it talking about? Did you understand it?”
“Well, I understood the words, but ... no.”
Tara gasped as the wall behind Willow moved as though there was something crawling behind the paint. Willow and Tara watched as it moved along until it hit the door and disappeared.
“What was that?”
“There's, there's something in the house.”
“What is it after? Is it ... Buffy?”
“I don't know,” Tara replied soothingly. Willow picked up the phone on the bedside table.
“That's it, I'm gonna call. I hope Xander's up.”
~
“Xander, are you up? I can't sleep.” Anya leant over a sleeping Xander. “Play a word game with me.”
Anya lay back on her pillow and looked at the ceiling. “Xander, are you awake? Okay, I'm going to describe an adjective with accurate but misleading clues, and then you have to guess what it is. Xander? Xander?”
Anya poked him but still got no response. The phone rang and Anya jumped. Xander sat up awake.
“Huh? What? Do what?”
“That oughta do it,” Anya said dejectedly.
Xander reached across her and grabbed the phone. “Hello?”
“Xander, it's me, Willow.” Anya stood and walked out of the room. “We were just attacked.”
“Attacked? A vampire?”
“No, it was Buffy. Or something that looked like her.”
Xander sat up on the end of his bed, completely awake.
“Like she was possessed,” Tara offered.
“And then she just disappeared,” Willow finished, “a-and, and we saw something... a little ... there's something in the house. “
“In the house? All right, Willow, you need to get out of there, just get everyone out.” Xander heard Anya behind him laughing and wondered in the back of his mind what was so funny. “Wake up Buffy and Dawn. Don't make a big deal- ”
Xander turned to the still laughing Anya and saw her now greyish-white eyes staring back at him as she ran a butcher’s knife across her face, the red blood standing out against her white skin.
“Gah!” Xander dropped the phone and grabbed the knife from her. Her body instantly crumpled to the ground and he noticed her cheeks were unmarked. “Anya!” Xander knelt beside her. “Anya!”
Xander didn’t notice the bulge in the carpet move away from them and into the kitchen.
“Xander? Xander!” Willow called helplessly from the phone.
~
“Very bad. Very, very, very bad. Bad.”
Anya rubbed his back as she sat on the am of his chair in Buffy’s backyard across from Willow and Tara. “He's all traumatized.”
“Well, whatever it is, it's not the, the traditional haunting, because i-it's not limited to one specific place, and there's not, you know, a dead person.”
“Not any more,” Tara said, looking across at Willow.
“I bet it's a hitchhiker.”
“A hitchhiker?” Xander asked as he looked up at Anya.
“Um, standard way to travel through dimensions. Uh, some demon-thing sees someone moving between worlds, and grabs on for the ride.”
Willow could feel the guilt rising already. “You mean like, some hell-beastie rode in with Buffy? Like ... we're responsible for this?”
“Assume crash positions,” Tara said quietly.
“I think we shouldn't've brought Buffy back. I knew it was going to end badly. I should've said something.”
“Okay, fine, but ... what are we gonna do?” Xander asked, trying to deflect Willow’s glare from Anya. “I mean, I'm feeling the need for some vigorous doing, you know?
“It's okay. We, we just kill the beastie and then all is good. We're rolling in puppies! ... Right?”
Xander looked at Willow. “Can we do that? Kill it?”
“We killing something?” Buffy asked from behind them, holding a coffee mug.
“Buffy! You're not supposed to be up,” Willow exclaimed
“How, how are you feeling? Are you okay?” Tara asked quietly.
Buffy blinked and chose to ignore the questions. “So what are we killing?”
“A demon you brought back from Hell with you,” Anya said, apparently oblivious to the look Willow gave her.
“Oh.”
“It's not like she's making it sound.” Willow said quickly. “A little haunting-type stuff. Boo-scary, everything's normal.”
“You shouldn't worry about it,” Tara added.
“Um, I remember something, last ... night, uh...”
Buffy trailed off as she remembered the photographs and the still unsettling feeling she still had. She’d woken up this morning and had seen a smoky smudge at the foot of her bed. She’d tried to focus on it but it had disappeared again.
“Buff?” Xander asked when she didn’t finish.
“Um ... the photographs. O-of us. They changed.”
Tara sat forward on her chair. “How did they change?”
“They were ... dead. I-I-I mean, we were dead. Like, um ... dead bodies? But, but then they were okay. So I just, you know, figured it was me. That I was going crazy.”
“Well, maybe you are. Going crazy. From Hell.” This time Anya saw Willow’s angry look. She looked back up at Buffy quickly. “No. You're fine.”
“You are,” Willow reinforced. “And Buffy, we're, we're so glad.”
“Yeah. This thing, this haunting thing, we'll fix it, and then we'll still have you back, which is ... it's so important.”
“Yes.”
“It's wonderful.”
Buffy looked at them all silently and blinked. “We should get to work.”
Author: SkylarGrace.
Status: Complete.
Rating: PG-13.
Summary: Buffy has been brought back from Heaven and she has more than one hitch-hiker. One of them goes by the name of Mary Winchester and she needs to speak to her family. Can Buffy help her?
Spoilers: Pre ‘Supernatural’ and Season 1-6 of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’.
Disclaimer: ‘Supernatural’ and all related characters are copyright Eric Kripke, Kripke Enterprises & The CW Network. No infringement intended. ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and all related characters are copyright Joss Whedon and ME. No infringement intended.
Notes: Based on a challenge issued by Phoenix.
Chapter One
Buffy stood in her room in front of her mirror staring blankly at her reflection. From behind her closed bedroom door she heard a door in the corridor close and she moved quickly, for reasons she didn’t understand, to sit on her bed. The comforter was plush and soft but to her it may as well have been made out of nails.
She picked up a picture frame from her bedside table and stared at the picture. It was a photo of her, Willow and Xander and they were laughing. How she wished she had something to laugh about. No, even if she did, she wasn’t sure she could. How was it possible to laugh now? After all she had seen?
Buffy put the photo frame back and stood, walking slowly over to the bulletin board that hung on her wall. This had been her life. Numerous pictures taken at various stages but it seemed like somebody else’s life. The joy that shone through the pictures seemed foreign to her, as if it was something she’d never experienced before.
Buffy looked in horror as the flesh began to melt away from the smiling faces, their grim visages grinning as if from beyond the grave. She saw a blur of something, like a smudge of smoke in mid-air and Buffy squeezed her eyes shut, hoping that the horrible nightmare would end and she would find out that she wasn’t even there. That she was back where she was, where everything was simpler.
When Buffy opened her eyes, the smudge was gone and the photos had returned to normal. Buffy looked at the pictures and though she didn’t know why, she found it worse than the horrible alteration that she’d seen.
“Osiris! Here lies the warrior of the people. Let her cross over.”
A wrinkled, desiccated hand…a body encased in black clothing. An orange mist swirls around the decomposing head, tendrils tracing even the individual strands of hair. The mist moves further along the body until it is completely covering it. Features begin to become clearer until Buffy’s eyes open and she gasps. She looks around and notices the four solid walls surrounding her, suffocating her. And she begins to panic.
Buffy pounds frantically on the sides, small whimpers all she can manage, as the realisation sets in. She’s buried alive. And she knows what she has to do; she has to dig her way out. She’s done it before and it was as terrifying then as it is now, only that was when her nightmares came to life. She’s always remembered it as a nightmare, the breaking of her skin as the wooden splinters pushed themselves into the newly torn hands, the suffocating silence and the all-consuming darkness. But she doesn’t want to do this again.
Buffy bangs as hard as she can on the lid, the piece of wood just in front of her face, before she begins tearing away the cloth lining, the tearing sound echoing in her ears. She knows she doesn’t have a lot of time, air is minimal and even if somebody had been lying on her grave, they wouldn’t have heard her under all that dirt.
Buffy punches the exposed wood and eventually hears the wood crack. As her hand punches through the lid, dirt rains down on her and she acknowledges the pain in her hands. This definitely is not a nightmare.
~
Buffy walks down the once familiar streets. She used to walk these streets, protecting the people behind the closed doors from the horrors of the night. But the streets look different now. There is so much light, heat, smoke. Buffy’s sure she can hear someone screaming but it sounds so distant and for the first time she wonders if this is hell. Buffy stops and leans against a parked car, her brain refusing to stop whirring and the cacophony of her thoughts are drowned out by the sudden noise coming from somewhere nearby. She instantly puts her hands over her ears as the piercing noise seems to hit right down to her bones before she realises that the noise is coming from the car she’s leaning on.
An armed man appears in front of her and she wants to ask him for help, ask him to tell her where she is. But he’s yelling and shaking his gun at her. She can’t really understand him and besides, she doesn’t know who she can trust. Her vision is blurry and every noise is slightly muffled but she hears the gunshot and she knows what that means. Buffy doesn’t even hesitate as she sprints as far away from him as she can.
~
Buffy notices a group of demons, at least she thinks they’re demons, and finds that her feet are leading her to them. Her brain is telling her to run but she doesn’t. They’re standing in a circle, their faces lit up by the bright flames nearby and one of them is talking to the others, riling them up as he loads a gun.
“All in one quick, really, *really* violent fell swoop,” she hears him say as she comes to stand behind some of the pack. “Gentlemen, start your engines.”
Buffy notices the four bikes in opposing corners as their engines rev and she follows the chains attached to their bikes to the person standing between them. Her breath catches in her throat and she can’t believe what she is seeing. Standing in front of her is…her. She tries to understand how she can be in two places at once when she hears, “Bye-bye, Slayer!” Buffy takes a step forward and the other her calls out. Buffy can’t hear her but she is sure she’s saying her name. She knows she has to stop herself from being killed, even if it doesn’t make any sense and she does the first thing she thinks of. She screams.
Her ‘No!’ pierces the air and the demons that had previously not noticed her turn around. The bikes move off in their directions and she can’t even look at the carnage left behind. Fear starts building in her gut and as the demons move to get a better look at her, she sees the leader grin.
“Another one for the fire, boys.” He grins sadistically. “Tear it up.”
Buffy runs. She couldn’t save the other her but she can try and save herself. Nothing makes sense in this crazy world and it seems that all she is doing is running. Running for her life. She doesn’t feel strong and powerful anymore, she doesn’t feel the strength of generations of Slayers in her blood. She feels scared, alone and the feeling is overpowering.
~
Buffy looked down and frowned. This was the spot, she’s sure of it. She remembers the blood, the night tearing as hell bled in and the flash of lightning signalling the horror about to be unleashed. She remembers running down the platform and diving off into the blinding light at the end.
Buffy closed her eyes against the assault of memories and remembered turning from Dawn to see the holes opening up in the sky and the quiet resolve as she looked back at her beautiful sister. Even now she could hear their last conversation as though it was happening at this moment, the pleading in Dawn’s voice as she begged.
“Buffy, no.”
Buffy felt her heart breaking as she heard her sister’s voice catch. “Dawnie, I have to.”
“Buffy?”
Buffy frowned. That wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Dawn didn’t say that and it sounded closer. She opened her eyes and turned around and saw Dawn standing at the other end of the platform. She was standing there, like she had been the last time she’d seen Dawn but she looked different; older.
“Buffy…Buffy…how…?”
She wasn’t real. Buffy tried to convince herself but the person in front of her looked so real, so sad.
“Is it you? I mean really?” She takes a step toward Buffy. “What are you do-”
The tower shakes and Buffy looks back toward the end of the platform. Maybe she could have it again?
“No! Don’t!” Dawn shrieks. Buffy looks back at her.
“Don't jump, Buffy, don't move! Just walk to me. Please!”
Buffy turns away and looks back down at the ground. It’s a long way down and she begins to wonder if it will hurt if she jumps.
“Please?”
Buffy continues staring down. She remembers the pain from the first time she jumped, the electricity shooting through her, her whole body feeling like it was on fire and then…
“I'm your sister. Dawn. We were up here ... together, and then ... you went away. And you don't wanna do that again. I don't know how you're back, but you are, and please, just stay still.”
The tower shakes again, making Dawn shriek and though a part of her automatically feels like comforting the obviously distressed Dawn, a bigger part wants what she had.
“Or-or move. But-but towards me. Because the tower was built by crazy people and I don't think it's holding up very well. Talk to me. Say something!”
And then Buffy has to ask the question that she’s been wondering since before Dawn arrived. “Is ... this hell?”
She hears Dawn’s confusion and turns to look at her. She’s sure that everything she’s feeling is written on her face but if this is just some elaborate torture than she couldn’t care less what fake-Dawn sees.
“Is this hell?”
“No! Buffy, no”! She takes a step forward. “You’re here ... with me.” She takes another step forward and Buffy can feel the muscles in her body tensing in case this fake-Dawn attacks. “Whatever happened to you, whatever you've been through, it's ... it's over now. You're-”
The tower shakes again and Dawn shrieks, the sound piercingly loud and shrill even to an already sensitive Buffy.
“We have to get off this tower!”
Buffy turns to look down again and remembers the place before this, before the horror she is now faced with. ”It was so ... clear ... on this spot. I remember ... how ... shiny ... and clear everything was.” But the memory is cut short as the blood and violence and noise of the last couple of hours filters through. “But ... now ... now...”
“Buffy ... please ... listen to me.”
Buffy closes her eyes, doesn't turn around. What did she do to deserve this torture? Why?
“You told me I had to be strong ... and I've tried. But it's been so hard without you.”
Buffy still has her eyes closed and frowns at the sorrow she can hear. The fake-Dawn is sounding remarkably like real-Dawn
“I'm sorry. I promise I'll do better, I will! If you're with me. Stay with me ... please. I need you to live. Live! For-”
The tower shakes again, hard. Dawn screams, crouches down and Buffy knows; the tower is gonna fall.
“Buffy!”
The shrill scream breaks through to Buffy and she whirls around, looking at the scared girl at the end of the tower. “Dawn.”
“Buffy!”
Now Buffy knows. She doesn’t know how but this is Dawn, her sister, the one she has to protect. “Dawn!”
Buffy runs across the platform to Dawn, pulls her up and into the body of the tower. They run around one bend, pause and look around. She needs to find a way down and obviously there isn’t time to take the stairs. Even if she can just get Dawn off…she spots a rope on a pulley.
Buffy holds onto Dawn, leaps off the tower and grabs the rope. They hang there for a moment, then the rope begins to move and they plummet downward. Dawn screams. They fall for a while and then something catches and they stop. They both look toward the ground and Buffy instantly calculates just how far it is. She might be able to survive but she’s not sure about Dawn. She needs to find another way to get down, and soon, when the choice is taken from her. Something above her breaks and they fall with Dawn screaming the whole time. Buffy does her best to cushion her sister’s fall.
Buffy hits the ground and the air is forced from her lungs. She tries to suck air back in, to relieve the pain in her chest even if it’s momentary and she sees the tower above her move. Toward them. She grabs Dawn and pulls her out of the way before the twisted metal can crush them. The noise that follows is the loudest she has heard since she woke up and Buffy tries to drown it out the best she can.
Once she is sure they are out of danger, Buffy collapses to the ground, sucking in lungfuls of air as the noise dies down.
“Buffy?”
Buffy looks at her sister, unsure of what to say, of what to believe. Dawn smiles in disbelief.
“Buffy. You ... you …” She reaches out and touches Buffy’s cheek, an action which should have been comforting but Buffy can’t feel anything inside. “...you're really here.” She leans over and hugs Buffy, crying softly as her grip tightens. “You're alive, and you're home. You're home.”
A memory of ‘home’ flashes in Buffy’s mind and although she doesn’t understand what has happened, she knows she’s not going back. She can’t find it within herself to feel the joy that Dawn does, knowing what she’s lost.
Buffy woke suddenly and tried to shake the memories from her mind as she sat up. She was done, everything had been settled and she had been home. And now she wasn’t. She’d been pulled from there and forced back here. Buffy took a deep breath before lying back down. She closed her eyes and as she was drifting off, she could have sworn she heard Spike’s voice in the background.
~
Anya and Xander crossed the porch and began walking down the stairs
“I think Willow's wrong. I don't think she's particularly normal at all.”
Xander sighed and turned to her. “Well, she just got back. Give it time. I bet in a week she'll be our little Bufferin again.”
“Oh yes, cause six or seven days, that's all you really need to get over eternal hell experiences.”
Xander heard a noise and stopped, his eyes searching for the source. “Who's that? Spike?”
Spike continued to lean against the tree in Buffy’s front yard and quickly wiped his eyes as Xander and Anya approached.
“What are you doing out here? I hope you're not going to start your little obsession now that she's around again.”
Spike’s already thin thread of calm broke and he grabbed Xander and spun him around, slamming him up against the tree and holding him there as he leaned in close.
“Hey!”
“You didn't tell me,” Spike spat at Xander, ignoring Anya’s protests. “You brought her back and you didn't tell me.”
“Well, now you know,” Xander replied, looking at Spike.
“I worked beside you all summer.”
“We didn't tell you. It was just ... we didn't, okay?”
“How long was I gone?”
“Hundred forty-seven days yesterday. Uh ... hundred forty-eight today. 'Cept today doesn't count, does it?”
Spike looked down at her damaged hands and knew, even if she wasn’t saying anything, that they were hurting – just like she must be.
“How long was it for you ... where you were?”
She paused just for a moment. “Longer.”
“Listen. I've figured it out.” Spike, still glaring, let go of Xander but didn’t move out of the way. “Maybe you haven't, but I have.” Xander and Anya saw the moisture glistening in his eyes as he pointed back toward the house. “Willow knew there was a chance that she'd come back wrong. So wrong that you'd have ... that she would have to get rid of what came back. And I wouldn't let her. If any part of that was Buffy, I wouldn't let her. And that's why she shut me out.”
“What are you talking about? Willow wouldn't do that.”
“Oh. Is that right?”
Xander ignored the obvious sarcasm. “Look. You're just covering. Don't tell me you're not happy. Look me in the eyes, and tell me when you saw Buffy alive, that wasn't the happiest moment of your entire existence.”
Spike scowled at Xander and walked off. “That's the thing about magic,” he threw over his shoulder, “there's always consequences.”
Spike sat on his bike and looked back at them. “Always!”
He started up the bike and Xander and Anya watched as he rode off, his coat billowing behind him in the wind.
~
Willow and Tara lay asleep, their bodies recovering from the very long and draining day. They heard a loud smashing sound and awoke to shards of glass falling down on them.
“Buffy?” Willow asked as they sat up in bed.
Buffy glared at them eerily, her silhouette lit by the bright moonlight and casting shadows across her face. “What did you do? Do you know what you did? You're like children. Your hands smell of death. Bitches! Filthy little bitches, rattling the bones. Did you cut the throat? Did you pat its head?”
They looked on in fear as Buffy grabbed a crystal ball off the table next to her and threw it at them. It hit the wall above them and shattered, the noise covering their shrieks.
“The blood dried on your hands, didn't it?”
“Oh my god, oh my god,” Tara said breathlessly from beside Willow.
“You were stained. You still are. I know what you did!”
Willow jumped out of bed and turned on the lights; the yellow glow bathing the room and Willow looked at Tara and then back at the empty space where Buffy had been standing.
Tara looked down at the bed. “The glass. There's no glass.”
Willow looked to Tara and they both moved down the corridor to Buffy’s room. They opened the door silently and a sliver of light fell on a deeply sleeping Buffy. Willow looked at Tara before pulling the door closed and heading back to their room.
“Okay, what in the frilly heck is going on?”
“Maybe we dreamed it,” Tara offered as Willow closed the door.
“Right. Right. Wrong! Different brains.”
“Oh yeah.”
Tara moved over to the table and ran her fingers along the fully intact crystal ball.
“Well ... what was it talking about? Did you understand it?”
“Well, I understood the words, but ... no.”
Tara gasped as the wall behind Willow moved as though there was something crawling behind the paint. Willow and Tara watched as it moved along until it hit the door and disappeared.
“What was that?”
“There's, there's something in the house.”
“What is it after? Is it ... Buffy?”
“I don't know,” Tara replied soothingly. Willow picked up the phone on the bedside table.
“That's it, I'm gonna call. I hope Xander's up.”
~
“Xander, are you up? I can't sleep.” Anya leant over a sleeping Xander. “Play a word game with me.”
Anya lay back on her pillow and looked at the ceiling. “Xander, are you awake? Okay, I'm going to describe an adjective with accurate but misleading clues, and then you have to guess what it is. Xander? Xander?”
Anya poked him but still got no response. The phone rang and Anya jumped. Xander sat up awake.
“Huh? What? Do what?”
“That oughta do it,” Anya said dejectedly.
Xander reached across her and grabbed the phone. “Hello?”
“Xander, it's me, Willow.” Anya stood and walked out of the room. “We were just attacked.”
“Attacked? A vampire?”
“No, it was Buffy. Or something that looked like her.”
Xander sat up on the end of his bed, completely awake.
“Like she was possessed,” Tara offered.
“And then she just disappeared,” Willow finished, “a-and, and we saw something... a little ... there's something in the house. “
“In the house? All right, Willow, you need to get out of there, just get everyone out.” Xander heard Anya behind him laughing and wondered in the back of his mind what was so funny. “Wake up Buffy and Dawn. Don't make a big deal- ”
Xander turned to the still laughing Anya and saw her now greyish-white eyes staring back at him as she ran a butcher’s knife across her face, the red blood standing out against her white skin.
“Gah!” Xander dropped the phone and grabbed the knife from her. Her body instantly crumpled to the ground and he noticed her cheeks were unmarked. “Anya!” Xander knelt beside her. “Anya!”
Xander didn’t notice the bulge in the carpet move away from them and into the kitchen.
“Xander? Xander!” Willow called helplessly from the phone.
~
“Very bad. Very, very, very bad. Bad.”
Anya rubbed his back as she sat on the am of his chair in Buffy’s backyard across from Willow and Tara. “He's all traumatized.”
“Well, whatever it is, it's not the, the traditional haunting, because i-it's not limited to one specific place, and there's not, you know, a dead person.”
“Not any more,” Tara said, looking across at Willow.
“I bet it's a hitchhiker.”
“A hitchhiker?” Xander asked as he looked up at Anya.
“Um, standard way to travel through dimensions. Uh, some demon-thing sees someone moving between worlds, and grabs on for the ride.”
Willow could feel the guilt rising already. “You mean like, some hell-beastie rode in with Buffy? Like ... we're responsible for this?”
“Assume crash positions,” Tara said quietly.
“I think we shouldn't've brought Buffy back. I knew it was going to end badly. I should've said something.”
“Okay, fine, but ... what are we gonna do?” Xander asked, trying to deflect Willow’s glare from Anya. “I mean, I'm feeling the need for some vigorous doing, you know?
“It's okay. We, we just kill the beastie and then all is good. We're rolling in puppies! ... Right?”
Xander looked at Willow. “Can we do that? Kill it?”
“We killing something?” Buffy asked from behind them, holding a coffee mug.
“Buffy! You're not supposed to be up,” Willow exclaimed
“How, how are you feeling? Are you okay?” Tara asked quietly.
Buffy blinked and chose to ignore the questions. “So what are we killing?”
“A demon you brought back from Hell with you,” Anya said, apparently oblivious to the look Willow gave her.
“Oh.”
“It's not like she's making it sound.” Willow said quickly. “A little haunting-type stuff. Boo-scary, everything's normal.”
“You shouldn't worry about it,” Tara added.
“Um, I remember something, last ... night, uh...”
Buffy trailed off as she remembered the photographs and the still unsettling feeling she still had. She’d woken up this morning and had seen a smoky smudge at the foot of her bed. She’d tried to focus on it but it had disappeared again.
“Buff?” Xander asked when she didn’t finish.
“Um ... the photographs. O-of us. They changed.”
Tara sat forward on her chair. “How did they change?”
“They were ... dead. I-I-I mean, we were dead. Like, um ... dead bodies? But, but then they were okay. So I just, you know, figured it was me. That I was going crazy.”
“Well, maybe you are. Going crazy. From Hell.” This time Anya saw Willow’s angry look. She looked back up at Buffy quickly. “No. You're fine.”
“You are,” Willow reinforced. “And Buffy, we're, we're so glad.”
“Yeah. This thing, this haunting thing, we'll fix it, and then we'll still have you back, which is ... it's so important.”
“Yes.”
“It's wonderful.”
Buffy looked at them all silently and blinked. “We should get to work.”
