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The Body

Prologue

Buffy returns home and calls out for her mother. She doesn’t get any answer. She sees a bouquet of flowers on the table by the door and checks the card. They are for Joyce from Brian, thanking her for a lovely evening.

“Still a couple of guys getting it right,” she tells herself.

Buffy tries calling upstairs, asking if she should go pick up Dawn from school, but she still gets no answer. She looks around into the living room. She sees her mother sprawled across the sofa. Her eyes open and staring at the ceiling.

“Mom?” asks Buffy.

Buffy steps into the living room. “What are you doing?” Joyce doesn’t move. “Mom?” asks Buffy. “Mom? Mommy?”

Act I

Christmas, 2000

Joyce gets up from the dinner table and starts to collect dirty dishes. Buffy gets up to help. “I think we’re just about ready for pie,” says Joyce.

“Then I’ll be about ready for barf,” says Xander.

“Xander!” says Buffy.

“Gross!” says Dawn. Xander explains that he just means that he has eaten way to much good food. Joyce chooses to take his comment as a compliment.

Giles gets up from the other end of the table, and grabs a dirty plate himself. He tells Joyce that everything was delicious.

“Yes,” says Anya. “I’m going to barf, too.”

“Everyone’s so sweet.” Joyce carries the dishes in her hands out to the kitchen.

Xander asks Willow if she’s going to be joining in the vomiting. She looks like she might. She tells him that she’s had too much nog.

Tara offers to rub her tummy to make her feel better. “She likes it when I…uh, stop explaining things.”

Dawn gives her eggnog glass a look, it tastes funny. She thinks she might have gotten one with rum in it.

“That’s bad,” says Willow.

“Yeah, now Santa’s going to pass you right by,” says Xander. “Naughty booze hound.” Willow always gets passed by by Santa. She thinks the big honkin’ menorah puts him off. Tara asks Dawn if she wrote Santa a letter. Xander wants to know what she asked for.

“Um…guys,” says Dawn. “Hello. Puberty. Sort of figured out the whole no Santa thing.”

“That’s a myth,” says Anya.

“Yeah,” says Dawn.

“No,” says Anya. “I mean, it’s a myth that it’s a myth. There is a Santa Claus.” Everyone looks at her in surprise. “Mm-hmm. Been around since, like, the 1500s. But he wasn’t always called Santa. But with, you know, Christmas night, flying reindeer, coming down the chimney… all true.”

“All true?” asks Dawn.

“Well, he doesn’t traditionally bring presents so much as, you know, disemboweled children. But otherwise…”

“The reindeer part was nice,” says Tara.

Joyce pulls the pies she had heating up out of the oven. She’s upset to see that the crust on one of them is a bit burnt. Her oven has been giving her problems lately. She puts the burned pie on a hot mat on the kitchen island. Buffy isn’t concerned. It’s just a blackened Cajun pie.

Giles asks if he should open another bottle of wine. Joyce isn’t sure that’s a good idea.

“As long as you two stay away from the Band Candy,” says Buffy. “I’m cool with anything.” Giles clears his throat, and goes to get the corkscrew.

“You are a demon child.” Joyce tells Buffy.

“I live to torment you. Is that so wrong?”

“A daughter’s duty, I suppose.”

Buffy picks up a knife. She thinks she can trim the worst of the burnt crust off the pie. She starts to cut away at its edges. The pie slides off the island, and falls to the floor.

Now

Buffy looks at her mother lying motionless, sprawled across the sofa. “Mom!” she calls, and runs to her. She grabs Joyce by the shoulders and shakes her, trying to wake her up. “Mom! Mom! Mom, Mom! Mom, Mom. Mom!” Joyce doesn’t respond.

Buffy rushes into the kitchen, grabs the phone and dials 911. When the operator answers Buffy tells her that her mother’s unconscious and not breathing. The operator asks for her address so she can send an ambulance, and Buffy gives it to her.

The operator asks if Buffy knows what happened, if her mother fell or something, but Buffy doesn’t. She just found her mother not breathing when she came home. The operator asks Buffy if she knows how to administer CPR.

“No,” says Buffy, “I don’t remember.”

The operator starts to tell Buffy what to do. As she does, Buffy remembers how to do it. She puts the phone down and goes to her mother.

Buffy pulls Joyce down so she’s lying flat on the sofa, tilts her head back and blows into her mouth. Then she starts doing the chest compressions. She blows again, and starts another set of compressions. Something cracks in her mother’s chest. “Oh! Oh, God.” Buffy picks up the phone again. “I…are you there? I broke something.”

“Hello?” says the operator.

“It cracked,” says Buffy

“Is she breathing?”

“No.”

The operator tells Buffy that the paramedics should be there any moment, and not to worry. “You might have cracked a rib. It’s not important.”

“She’s cold,” says Buffy.

The operator pauses before she answers. “The body is cold?”

“No, my Mom! Should-should I make her warm?”

The operator says not to. It’s best if she waits for the paramedics. They should be there soon. Buffy hears the sound of an engine outside. She lowers the phone and looks out the window. It’s just a passing car. Buffy lifts the phone again. “I have to make a call.” She hangs up.

Buffy just looks at the phone for a while, not doing anything. Then she hits a speed dial number. Giles answers on the second ring. “Giles. You have to come.”

“Buffy?” asks Giles.

“She’s at the house.” Buffy hangs up again. She hears the sound of an approaching siren, and goes and opens the front door. She watches as the ambulance pulls to a stop in front of her house. Buffy goes back into the living room. She sees that her mother’s skirt got hiked up well above her knees when she was doing CPR, and quickly pulls it back down before the paramedics can see it.

Two paramedics come through the front door, and Buffy calls them into the living room. They push aside the coffee table and lift Joyce down onto the floor to work on her. One of them places an oxygen mask with a respirating bag over her mouth while the other starts doing chest compressions. While he works on Joyce he asks Buffy how long she has been like this, and if her mother has any history of health problems, or a heart condition.

“No,” says Buffy, “I mean, there was a tumor. A brain tumor. But she had an operation, and she’s fine now. She’s…she’s been fine.”

Joyce starts to cough.

“We got her! My God, we got her,” says the paramedic. He pulls the mask from her face, not really believing what’s happened. “Man, we never brought one back that late.”

Joyce weakly calls out for Buffy through her coughing, and Buffy rushes to her side. “I’m here.”

Buffy rides in the ambulance, holding her mother’s hand while the paramedic tapes an IV tube to her other hand. “It’s a miracle,” he says. “That’s what it is. A beautiful miracle.”

Buffy stands beside Joyce’s hospital bed with Dawn sitting on the bed beside her mother.

“Good as new.” Dr. Kriegel tells them.

“Oh, Buffy,” says Joyce. “Thank God you found me in ti—”

Buffy watches the paramedics working on her unresponsive mother. She’s still clutching the phone in her hands. They have hooked up their electrocardiograph to Joyce and it’s showing a flat line.

One of the paramedics looks at his partner. “She’s cold, man. Call it.”

The paramedic slowly gets to his feet and turns to Buffy while his partner starts to pack up their gear. “I’m sorry.”

Buffy asks what they will do now.

“I’m sorry, but I have to tell you that…your mother’s dead.” He says it as gently as he can. “It looks like she did die a good while before you found her. There’s nothing you could have done.” Buffy’s vision blurs with tears as he talks. “I’m guessing it must’ve been an aneurysm or some clotting. Some complication from surgery. She probably felt…very little pain. I’m going to call it in. The coroner’s office will come by and take her in, and they’ll determine the cause of death conclusively.”

The paramedics receive a call on their radio wanting to know their status. There’s been a traffic accident, and they are needed. The second paramedic tells the dispatcher that they’re on their way. His partner tells Buffy that he’s going to call this in to the coroner’s office, but it may take a while for them to get there. Buffy should sit down and have a drink of water. “And try not to disturb the body. Do you need anything? Is there someone you can call?”

“Someone’s coming,” says Buffy.

The paramedic picks up his gear, and starts to go. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.” Buffy follows the paramedics to the door, and watches as they carry their gear back to the ambulance. “Good luck!”

Buffy slowly walks back into the living room, and looks at her mother lying on the floor. She starts to walk back toward the kitchen, and sets the phone she has been clutching down on the hallway table. A wind chime swings in the gentle breeze coming through the open window at the end of the hall. Buffy drops to the floor, and throws up on the hallway carpet.

Buffy gets back to her feet and goes into the kitchen. She opens the back door and looks out into the yard. She can hear the sound of children laughing and playing, splashing around in a neighbour’s pool. She leaves the door open and gets some paper towels from a roll on the kitchen island. She takes them into the hallway and puts them down on top of her vomit. She watches as the paper towels soak it up.

Giles comes in the front door. “Buffy! What is it? Is it Glory?”

“I’m waiting.” Buffy speaks in a daze. “The coroner’s coming.”

“What?” asks Giles.

“I have to tell Dawn. She’s at school. I’ll go there.”

“I’m not sure…” Giles looks into the living room and sees Joyce lying on the floor. “Oh, God.” He rushes to her. Buffy tries to tell him that it’s too late as he kneels beside the body. The coroner is coming for her.

Giles is busy checking for Joyce’s pulse. “Joyce!”

“We’re not supposed to move the body!” yells Buffy. She stops, horrified by what she just said. She raises her hand to her mouth and stands looking at Giles and her mother. Giles goes to Buffy and holds her.

Act II

The people from the coroner’s office zip Joyce’s body into a body bag.

Dawn leans against the wall in the girl’s washroom sobbing. Her friend Lisa doesn’t think it’s such a big deal.

“Kevin Berman calls me a freak in front of everybody. No, that’s no big deal,” says Dawn.

Lisa tells Dawn that Kevin didn’t call her a freak. He just said she was freaky, which can be kind of cool.

“Yeah. Real cool. I’m a suicidal head case.”

That particular rumour got started by Kirstie. She’s been going around telling people how Dawn cut herself, and that Dawn was adopted.

“What a prima bee-otch.” Dawn checks herself out in the mirror. “Great. Now I look like a wet rat.”

“Yeah, you know you can’t go out there looking all cry-faced,” says Lisa. “That’ll just give Kirstie more ammo.”

Dawn wipes her face dry with some toilet paper. “You know, my big sister could really beat the crap out of her. I mean, really really.” She blows her nose, and asks Lisa how she looks.

“You’re good to go,” says Lisa. “We’re going to be late anyway.”

Dawn and Lisa pass Kirstie and a couple of her friends in the hallway on the way to class. Kirstie is a tall pretty blonde girl who is Dawn’s school’s Cordelia Chase. She asks Dawn how she’s doing, with a palpable lack of sincerity.

“Good,” says Dawn. “Thanks for asking.” She and Lisa keep going. “Bee-otch,” says Dawn under her breath after they are out of Kirstie’s earshot.

Dawn and Lisa enter their art class. One wall of the classroom is made up of windows out onto the corridor. The class is already full of students, there are only a few vacant easels left open. Two of them are flanking a cute guy—Kevin. Dawn and Lisa take up positions on either side of him.

The teacher is telling the students about today’s assignment. She has a replica of a Greek statue set up at the head of the class “Okay. Remember we’re not drawing the object. We’re drawing the negative space around the object. We just draw the edges, and then give me a sense of the spaces around. The space in-between.”

Dawn starts to draw, and Kevin says “Hi” to her. She’s a little surprised that he’s being friendly to her. He asks what’s going on.

“Um…negative space,” says Dawn.

“Yeah. What’s that all about?” Kevin glances at her drawing and tells her it’s pretty good.

Lisa holds up her paper behind Kevin’s back and shows it to Dawn. She’s written “He wants you!” on it. Dawn pretends to ignore her, and hopes Kevin won’t turn around.

“So I heard you, like, had a freak-out and cut yourself,” says Kevin.

“No. Not even!” Dawn starts to panic. “It was a whole— it was so not—”

“I felt like that before,” says Kevin. “Things get so crazed, you know? You just feel like you want to do something…extreme.”

Dawn quickly shifts gears, and stops pretending that it didn’t happen. “Yeah. I just had a lot of intense stuff going on. A lot of people don’t understand that. Pain.” Kevin says he understands. “Then Kirstie’s got to blab it everywhere ’cause she’s—”

“Kirstie man,” says Kevin. Dawn has turned away from the windows to talk with Kevin, and doesn’t see Buffy appear in the hallway outside the class. Kevin understands about Kirstie too. He thinks she’s just all full of herself. Dawn thinks Kirstie is completely superficial, only interested in clothes and the way things look, when there are a lot more important things in the world.

Buffy enters the class and has a quiet word with the teacher. Dawn still hasn’t noticed her, she’s still talking with Kevin about Kirstie. “This one time in history, she had this book called Annals of History. And she didn’t know how to say the word ‘annals’. So she kept saying—”

“Dawn,” says Buffy from behind her. Dawn turns in surprise. “I have to talk to you.”

Dawn asks if it can wait, she’s in the middle of class.

“I know,” says Buffy. “Please come with me.”

Buffy leads Dawn out into the corridor. Dawn wants to know what’s going on. She thought her mother was supposed to be picking her up today. Buffy wants to go outside before they talk.

“No,” says Dawn. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“It’s…bad…news,” says Buffy. Dawn asks her what’s happened. Buffy still wants to go outside.

“Where’s Mom?” asks Dawn.

“Mom…had an accident,” says Buffy, “Or, um, something went wrong from the tumor.”

“Is she okay?” asks Dawn. Buffy doesn’t say anything. “Is she— But she’s okay? But— It’s, it’s serious, but—”

“Dawn.”

Most of the class is still drawing, but the teacher, Lisa and Kevin are watching Dawn and Buffy through the windows. They can’t hear what Buffy tells Dawn. They can hear Dawn’s response. “No…” Dawn puts her hand over her mouth. “no, it’s not true! You’re a liar! She’s fine! She’s— Oh, please—please, it’s not true.”

Dawn drops down onto the floor, crying. Buffy kneels beside her.

“She’s fine,” cries Dawn. “Oh, no, no, no. No, no! She’s fine, please, no.”

Act III

The coroner unbuttons Joyce’s blouse, and cuts open her camisole to begin his examination of the body.

Tara watches Willow standing and staring at a green blouse in front of her closet. Willow isn’t moving.

Anya sits staring out the window of Xander’s car as he drives to Willow’s dorm building. Neither of them says anything.

Tara looks out the window and sees Xander’s car pull up outside. “I think they’re here.”

Willow tosses the green blouse onto a pile of other shirts on her bed.

Xander and Anya sit silently in his car for a few seconds. He asks her if she wants to come up with him.

“You’re double parked,” says Anya.

“Let them give me a ticket.” Xander gets out of the car. Anya gets out too.

Willow pulls a purple blouse and a yellow T-shirt with a cartoon on the front of it out of her closet. She asks Tara what she thinks of them. “The purple, right? ’Cause—’cause it’s somber? No. No, it’s too depressing. It’s like, um, a…a funeral. God, I—”

Willow holds up the yellow T-shirt. “Well, this is, this is cheerier. Maybe I want to be cheery, like everything is normal. No, that’s, that’s rude. That’s— It’s disrespectful. La la la! I don’t care. Unh! If I had that blue one… Joy—Joyce really liked the blue one. She told me one time. You sure it’s not in your room?” Tara offers to look again, but Willow tells her not to. She’ll wear the purple one. “It’s just that it’s so…I don’t know. It doesn’t mean something bad?”

“I think it’s, um, royal,” says Tara. “Purple means…royalty.”

“Well, I can’t see Buffy at the morgue and be all royal!” Willow, starts to lose her battle against the tears. “‘Oh, I’m the king of everything. I’m better than you.’ I have to be supportive. Buffy needs me to be supportive. I need—” She picks up another one of her shirts off the bed. This one has a cartoon hula girl on it. “Oh, God. Why do all of my shirts have those stupid things on them? Why can’t I just dress like a grownup? Can’t I be a grownup? I—”

“Shh.” Tara takes Willow’s head in her hands, pulls her close, and kisses her forehead. “Shh, darling.” She kisses Willow on the lips, and they stand together, forehead to forehead.

“I can’t do this,” says Willow.

“We can do this,” says Tara.

“Okay. We can be there for Buffy. And Dawn. Little Dawn.” Willow starts to cry again.

“We can be strong,” says Tara.

“Strong like an amazon?” asks Willow.

“Strong like an amazon, right.”

“Okay.” Willow turns back to her closet. “I wish I had the blue.”

Xander and Anya walk up the stairs to the second floor of the dorm. Anya wants to know what they’re supposed to do. Xander doesn’t know. They’ll have to talk to Giles.

“Yeah, but what will we do?” asks Anya again. “What will we be expected to do?”

They reach Willow’s door. It’s ajar, so Xander enters after knocking on it. He and Willow embrace. She has changed into a green T-shirt and a red cardigan sweater. After they release each other Xander asks her how she’s doing. Willow doesn’t say anything. She just shakes her head and wraps her arms around herself.

“I know the feeling,” says Xander.

“I’m afraid I’m going to start to cry again,” says Willow.

“Xander cried at the apartment,” says Anya. “It was weird.”

“Yeah,” says Willow. “It’s a—it’s a thing we do.”

An awkward silence falls over the group. They stand around shuffling their feet waiting for someone to say something. It’s broken by Anya. “What’s going to happen?”

Willow tells Anya that they’re going to go meet Buffy at the morgue. That’s where they were taking Joyce. Tara tells them that Giles was going to go with Joyce, while Buffy went to the school to tell Dawn. She asks if they know where the morgue is. Xander tells her it’s a wing at the hospital. “We do morgue time in the Scooby gang.”

Willow decides she has to change. She pulls off her sweater, tosses it aside, and goes back to her closet.

Xander asks Tara if Giles told them anything else.

“Not a lot,” says Tara.

Xander asks if they are sure Joyce’s death was natural. What about Glory? She threatened to go after Buffy’s family. Tara doesn’t think it was her. Xander isn’t so sure. Glory might have done it, and covered her tracks.

Willow pulls on a pink turtleneck sweater. “Why would she? She’d want us to know.”

“I’ll tell you what it is,” says Xander. “It’s the frickin’ doctors. I mean, they just let her out, you know? Clean bill of health. Dig a hole in your skull. Here’s a band-aid. Next! They should have checked her over. They should have had her in. What, we don’t have enough monsters in this town that doctors got to help them out?”

“Xan, I don’t think it was any—” says Willow. “It just happened.”

“Things don’t happen! I mean— They don’t just happen. Somebody’s— I mean, somebody’s got—” Xander looks like he wants to hit something.

Willow steps in front of Xander, and raises her fists in a boxer’s pose. “Okay…let’s go. Come on. You and me. Come on.”

Xander calms down a bit, places his hands on either side of Willow’s head, pulls her close, and kisses her on the forehead. “You know I can’t take you.”

“Damn straight,” says Willow.

“Are we going to see the body?” asks Anya.

“What?” asks Willow.

“Are we going to be in the room…with the dead body?”

“Uh…I don’t know,” says Willow. “No.”

Tara decides to distract them with a little practical business. They should take over the patrolling for a while, for however long it takes.

“You know it,” says Xander.

Willow looks down at her pink sweater. “I can’t wear this. I really should have the other. Joyce liked it so.” Tara asks if maybe she left it in the laundry room, and volunteers to go look. She leaves the room.

“Are they going to cut the body open?” asks Anya.

“Oh, my God!” says Willow. “Would you just…stop talking! Just—shut your mouth. Please.”

“What am I doing?” asks Anya.

“How can you act like that?”

“Am I supposed to be changing my clothes a lot? I mean, is that the helpful thing to do?”

“Guys…” Xander tries to calm them down.

“The way you behave!” says Willow.

“Nobody will tell me,” says Anya.

“Because it’s not okay for you to be asking these things!”

“But I don’t understand!” Anya’s voice cracks. “I don’t understand how this all happens, how we go through this. I mean, I knew her, and then she’s— There’s just a body, and I don’t understand why she just can’t get back in it and not be dead anymore. It’s stupid! It’s mortal and stupid! And Xander’s crying and not talking. And I was having fruit punch, and I thought, well, Joyce will never have any more fruit punch, ever! And she’ll never have eggs or yawn or brush her hair. Not ever. And no one will explain to me why!”

Xander tries to put a comforting arm around her but Anya pushes him away and goes to sit in the chair in the corner of Willow’s room. “We don’t know…how it works,” says Willow. “Or…why.” She sits down on the end of her bed to wait for Tara to get back.

Anya shifts uncomfortably in the chair. She reaches behind her, pulls out a pillow, and Willow’s blue sweater. She shoves the sweater into the open drawer beside her, and clutches the pillow.

Willow and Anya are startled by the sound of breaking drywall.

“Sorry,” says Xander. “Sorry. Some…pent-up…”

Willow gets off her bed and looks at him, and his fist, buried in the wall beside her door. “Xander…where did your hand go?”

“As I was saying, some frustration and now, um…I appear to be stuck.”

Willow and Anya move over to him and examine the situation. Anya asks if his hand is okay. He tells her it’s fine, and apologises again for breaking Willow’s wall.

“Did it make you feel better?” asks Willow.

“For a second there,” says Xander.

“A whole second?”

“In my defense, some crappy wallmanship.”

Willow agrees. She can hear everything next door.

“Who did the drywall in this place?” asks Xander. Willow neglected to ask.

Tara returns and asks if she missed anything. Anya explains that Xander decided to blame the wall.

Xander manages to extract his hand from the wall with a little effort. His knuckles are all scraped and bleeding. They all look at his bleeding hand for a few seconds.

“It hurts,” says Tara. Xander looks at her nods.

Willow points Xander to her sink to wash it off, and tells Anya that the band-aides are underneath it. Tara tells Willow that she couldn’t find her sweater. Willow says that it doesn’t matter. She just wants to be there for Buffy.

“You’re right,” says Xander. “The avengers got to get to the assembly. We’ll go. We’ll deal. We’ll help. That’s what we do. We help Buffy.”

Willow stands looking at Tara. ”I love you.” she whispers quietly to her.

They all leave Willow’s room together. “How are we going to help?” asks Anya.

Willow runs back into her room and picks up the red cardigan sweater she had discarded earlier. Outside the dorm a meter maid is placing a ticket under Xander’s windshield wiper.

Act IV

Dr. Kriegel finishes his examination of Joyce’s body. He removes his rubber gloves and pulls the sheet over her face. He takes off his apron and picks up his white lab coat off the back of a desk chair beside the morgue doors. He puts it on as he walks down the corridor from the morgue examining room to the hospital waiting room.

He pauses at the entrance to the waiting room. Willow, Xander, Tara and Anya have just arrived, and are exchanging hugs with Buffy, Dawn and Giles. He waits until they’re finished.

Giles is a little surprised when Anya grabs him, and hugs him tightly. He holds her and rubs her back, and then sees the doctor watching them. “Doctor?”

Everyone looks toward Dr Kriegel. Buffy and Dawn separate themselves from their friends and walk toward him. Most of the group hangs back, but Giles follows behind them. The doctor tells them that he has finished his examination of their mother’s body.

“Can we see her?” asks Dawn.

“Dawn, not now,” says Buffy.

Dr. Kriegel tells them that the initial report was correct. Joyce had an aneurysm. A ruptured blood vessel near where the tumor was removed. Buffy asks if they shouldn’t have known that that was a danger.

“Sometimes these things are detectable, and sometimes they’re not,” says the doctor. “Joyce was aware of the possibility of a rupture and the effects. She didn’t even get on the phone, so clearly this was very sudden. She, uh, may have felt a little nausea and probably passed out as it happened. I doubt there was much pain, and even if someone had been by her side…”

“Oh, my head!” Joyce sinks down onto the sofa with Buffy at her side.

Buffy rides to the hospital with her mother in the ambulance.

Buffy, Joyce and Dawn get the good news of Joyce’s recovery in the hospital from Dr. Kriegel.

“…it’s doubtful that this could have been dealt with in time.”

Giles thanks Dr. Kriegel. Buffy asks if he’s sure that there wasn’t a lot of pain.

“Absolutely,” says Dr. Kriegel. “I think we can be almost positive about that,” but what Buffy hears is: “I have to lie to make you feel better.”

Giles asks what needs to be done now, and the doctor tells him there are some forms and things that need to be filled out. Giles volunteers to take care of as much of that as he can. He’ll sort out the ones that Buffy needs to see. He leaves with the doctor. Buffy and Dawn go back to their friends to wait.

“What did the doctor say?” asks Xander.

“Nothing,” says Buffy. “That it’s, you know, it’s what we thought— a tumor.”

Willow pulls Buffy and Dawn toward the sofa, and she, Buffy and Tara sit down. Buffy tells them that Giles is going to take care of the paperwork.

“Man, if there’s one day they should not give you homework,” says Xander.

Willow asks Dawn if she wants to sit down too, but she shakes her head. Buffy doesn’t think they are going to have to be there very much longer.

“What about—?” asks Dawn.

“What about what?” asks Buffy,

“Nothing,” says Dawn. “I have to pee.” Buffy asks if she wants someone to go with her, but Dawn says she still remembers how to pee. She leaves to go to the bathroom.

“I think maybe she’s mad at me or something,” says Buffy.

“’Cause you were the one that told her?” asks Willow.

Xander asks how Dawn took the news.

“Meltdown,” says Buffy. “She just wouldn’t believe me. I still don’t think she does.”

“I wish that Joyce didn’t die!” blurts out Anya. Everyone looks at her. “Because she was nice. And now we all…hurt.”

“Anya, ever the wordsmith,” says Xander, but Buffy hears the sincerity behind Anya’s words, and thanks her.

Willow asks Buffy if she wants anything to eat or drink. Buffy is still too much in shock to know what she wants, but she thinks Dawn might like a snack. Willow asks Xander for some money, and he tells her that he and Anya will come along. They leave Buffy sitting with Tara on the sofa.

Buffy and Tara sit silently for a while. Buffy tells Tara that she’s sorry that she has to go through this. Tara says not to worry about her.

“Everybody wants to help. I don’t even know if I’m here. I don’t know what’s going on. Never done this.” Buffy pauses for a moment. “That’s just an amazingly dumb thing to say. Obviously, I’ve never done this before.”

“I have.” Tara gets a surprised look from Buffy. “My mother died when I was 17.”

“I didn’t know,” says Buffy. “I’m sorry.”

“No, no, I didn’t mean to— I’m only telling you this because— I know it’s not m-my place, but…there’s things— Thoughts and reactions I had that I couldn’t understand or even try to explain to anyone else. Thoughts that made me feel like I was losing it, or like I was some kind of ho-horrible person. I know it’s different for you…because it’s always different but, if you ever need…” Tara trails off and they sit silently together for a while.

“Was it sudden?” asks Buffy.

“What?”

“Your mother.”

“No,” says Tara. “And yes. It’s always sudden.”

Dawn comes out of the washroom, sees Buffy talking with Tara, and the others gone. Buffy and Tara don’t notice her. She looks toward the doorway leading to the morgue on her right, and goes through it.

Dawn walks down the corridor to the morgue. She enters the examination room, and bolts the door behind her. She walks past the other sheet covered bodies up to the table that her mother is on. She reaches out toward the sheet, but she pulls her hand back. She stands with her hands clenched by her side looking at the sheet covered body.

One of the bodies on a table behind her sits up. The vampire reaches up, pulls down the sheet from over its head, and looks around. He sees Dawn. The freshly risen vampire quietly gets off the table and walks unsteadily toward her.

Dawn hears the sound of the vampire’s bare feet on the floor and turns around.

Willow, Xander and Anya return, their arms full of drinks, snacks, and sandwiches. Willow explains that they panicked. Buffy can have anything she wants. Buffy still isn’t hungry. Willow asks about Dawn, and Xander asks if she’s still in the bathroom.

Buffy realizes Dawn has been gone for a while, and gets up to go look for her. She tells the others to wait.

Buffy walks up to the bathroom door, but she doesn’t enter. She sees the doors leading to the morgue, and knows where Dawn went. Buffy starts down the corridor. Halfway down she hears Dawn’s muffled scream, and she starts to run.

Buffy sees Dawn struggling with the vampire through the window in the door. It has grabbed her by the arms from behind, and is trying to hold her still so it can bite her. Buffy pushes against the door, but it doesn’t open. Buffy hits the door harder with her shoulder, and breaks the lock.

Buffy runs across the morgue and grabs the vampire from behind. She puts an arm around its neck and tries to pull it away from her sister.

The vampire pushes Dawn away, and she falls against the table with Joyce’s body on it. Dawn falls to the floor, pulling the sheet away from Joyce’s face.

The vampire elbows Buffy away, and turns and attacks her. It grabs Buffy by the throat, and they struggle together. Buffy brings up her knee between the vampire’s legs. It spins around and tries to throw her away, but Buffy holds on and they both go crashing into a tray of surgical instruments.

Dawn looks up from the floor at the table above her. She can see the top of her mother’s head. She slowly starts to sit up, so she can see her mother better, ignoring Buffy and the vampire fighting behind her.

Buffy rolls on top of the vampire. It grabs her by the throat again. Buffy reaches out and grabs a bone saw that got knocked off the table. She puts its edge against the throat of the vampire and pushes. The vampire lets go of her throat. Buffy puts both hands on the saw and pushes harder. She pushes the blade right through the vampire’s neck. It explodes into dust.

Buffy rolls onto her back and catches her breath for a moment. She sits up and looks toward her sister. “Dawn?”

Dawn slowly rises up onto her knees, never taking her eyes off of her mother. “Is she cold?”

“It’s not her,” says Buffy. “It’s not her. She’s gone.”

“Where’d she go?” Dawn slowly reaches out her hand toward her mother’s cheek.

Death Toll