Introduction
Season:
First | Second | Third | Fourth | Fifth | Sixth | Seventh
Other Bodies | Episodes | Dramatis Personae
Ramblings | Links | Fanfic
| Him | Sleeper |
November 12, 2002 8:01 PM
Spike sits at the bar, nursing a drink in the Bronze while Splendid sets up their equipment on stage. Angie Hart steps up to the microphone, and starts to sing.
|
Night falls, I fall And where were you? And where were you? Warm skin, Wolf grin, And where were you? |
Buffy walks slowly through the cemetery. |
|
I fell into the moon And it covered you in blue. I fell into the moon. Can I make it right? Can I spend the night? |
Willow is studying in the UCSunnydale library. She starts to doze off. |
|
High tide, inside. The air is dew And where were you? While I, I died And where were you? |
Dawn comes home to an empty house. She drops her purse by the door, and tosses her jacket across the back of a chair in the living room. She sees a note attached to the shelf over the desk, with some money clipped to it: |
|
I crawled out of the world And you said I shouldn’t stay. I crawled out of the world, Can I make it right? Can I spend the night Alone? |
Will and I are out late. Here’s money for the store. |
Buffy stops and kneels by a grave. She reaches down and puts her hand on the freshly turned soil. An arm erupts out of the ground.
“Here we go,” says Buffy.
Jonathan drives an El Camino with Andrew in the seat beside him. Andrew thinks they should stop circling, and just go straight in. Jonathan wants to maintain a low profile.
“You’re just scared,” says Andrew.
“Of course, I’m scared,” says Jonathan. “Last time we were here, 33.3 bar percent of us were flayed alive.”
“Calm down,” says Andrew. “No one’s getting flayed alive. I’ve got a plan. I’m going to fix all that.”
“We should’ve stayed in Mexico.”
“I didn’t like it there,” says Andrew. “Everybody spoke Mexicoan.”
“You could’ve learned it,” says Jonathan. “You learned the entire Klingon dictionary in two and a half weeks.”
“That had much clearer transitive and intransitive rules, okay? Besides I can’t keep having those nightmares.”
“Me neither,” says Jonathan. “‘Desde abajo te devora.’”
“‘It eats you starting with your bottom.’” says Andrew.
“We’re going to make it right.” whispers Jonathan.
“We’re outlaws,” says Andrew, “with hearts of gold.”
Jonathan stops circling, and passes the Welcome to Sunnydale sign1 on the way into town.
The newly risen vampire brushes dirt from its suit. Buffy swings a punch at it, but the vamp ducks under it, and blocks her next punch. It hits her with a left cross to her jaw, and Buffy staggers back. It hits her with another backhanded punch before she’s recovered, picks her up and throws her against a tree.
Buffy rolls to her feet, and ducks under the vampire’s kick at her head. She tries to punch it, but the vamp blocks her again. It punches her in the stomach and kicks her in the head.
Dawn pulls a slice of her pizza out of the box.
“Anchovies, anchovies, you’re so delicious,
I love you more than all the other fishes!”
She shoves the slice into her mouth.
Dawn takes her pizza up to Buffy’s room. She takes one of Buffy’s blouses and holds it up in front of herself in front of the mirror. She sees that she has gotten pizza sauce on it.
Dawn is worried for a second, but then she relaxes. “Aw, she’ll think it’s blood.”
Dawn moves back to the living room, and starts to examine the contents of Buffy’s weapons trunk while loud music plays. She takes out an axe and swings it around her head. “Taste my blade, spawn of evil!” She swings the axe and sinks it into the top of the trunk. “Aah!”
Dawn switches to a crossbow. She loads an arrow into it, and swings it around. The crossbow triggers, and the arrow sticks into the wall beside the fireplace. Dawn tries to pull the arrow back out again, but a hunk of drywall comes loose with it. Dawn moves a potted tree to cover the hole.
Dawn dances around the kitchen to the beat of salsa music on the radio. She goes to the cupboard, pulls out a bag of marshmallows, and puts one onto a plate in the microwave. She turns it on, and watches the marshmallow swell. “Cool!”
Dawn is startled by a loud thump, like the sound of a door slamming shut. She looks around, but sees nothing.
Willow writes some notes from a book she’s reading onto a pad of paper.
“So!” says a voice behind her. “This is the UC library, huh? It’s so big.”
Willow looks around and sees Cassie Newton looking at her through a bookshelf. “I know you. I mean… I saw your picture.”
Cassie comes out from behind the shelves. “Yeah, I know. It’s kind of weird, because we never really met.”
“Or kind of weird ’cause you’re really dead,” says Willow.
“Yeah, well…” Cassie laughs.
“Did I fall asleep?” asks Willow.
“No. No, I’m here. I’m mean, not—not here here. It’s kind of complicated.” Cassie checks out some of the books on the shelves. “Kind of ironic, too, you know? I write all that intense poetry about ‘the end’…and here I am again. Chatting you up.”
“Yeah,” says Willow. “Ironic.”
“I knew this would completely freak you out. It’s just…” Cassie sits down across the table from Willow. “…she asked that I come talk to you. It’s important.”
“She?”
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt you or anything—”
“Who asked you?” asks Willow. “What are you talking about?”
“She says she still sings,” says Cassie.
“What?”
“Remember that time on the bridge when you sang to each other? Well, she says even though you can’t hear it, she still sings to you.”
“Tara?” asks Willow.
Dawn sits on the floor in front of the TV with her melted marshmallows on a plate in her lap. She licks marshmallow from her fingers while talking on the phone with Kit, and watching an old black and white horror movie on the TV. “Oh, come on. She is so dead. … Well, he’s clearly a psychopath. … Is so! … What? … No, that is not Tom Hanks. … Well, what channel are you on?”
Dawn hears the thump again, and nearly drops the phone. “Okay, there it is again.” She puts down her plate of melted marshmallows. “I keep hearing this, like, thumping.” Dawn mutes the TV and gets to her feet. She hears a couple more thumps.
Dawn walks toward the door. “No, I can’t tell if it’s…”
The door bursts open, driven by a gale force wind. Dawn grabs the door. “Kit, are you there?” She pushes it closed. “Is there a storm?”
The sound comes back on on the TV. Dawn tosses the phone aside as she runs back to it, and tries to turn it off. The power button on the front of the TV doesn’t do anything, so Dawn pulls out the plug. Dawn stands holding the TV’s power chord in her hand, while the TV continues to play.
The vampire grabs Buffy by the lapels of her jacket, and tries to bite her. She punches it in the face, and it throws her away. Buffy does a hand spring off the ground, and comes up ready to punch it again. The vampire takes her punch, and kicks her in the gut. Buffy staggers back against a headstone and the vampire puts its hands around her throat, and starts to strangle her.
The vampire suddenly straightens up. “Buffy? Buffy Summers?”
“Have we…?” gasps Buffy.
The vampire lets go of Buffy and steps back. “Oh, uh… Webs—Holden Webster. We went to school together. European history. I let you crib off my Vaclav Havel essay that time.” Buffy looks completely mystified. “You—you really don’t remember me?”
“Sure! Sure,” lies Buffy.
Dawn looks around the living room. The radio tuned to the salsa station in the kitchen, and the stereo in the living room are playing at full volume now too.
Dawn takes one of Buffy’s axes, and smashes the TV and the stereo. She moves into the kitchen to get the radio there.
Dawn sees that the microwave is on too, and it’s starting to smoke. She moves toward it with her axe.
The microwave explodes before Dawn gets to it. Dawn steps quickly back, trying to avoid stepping on the bits of broken glass showering down around her bare feet on the floor.
The radio changes stations. A familiar voice comes out of it. “Dawn?” It switches back to the salsa music.
Dawn stands holding the axe, and staring at the radio. “Mom?”
Holden is still trying to get Buffy to remember him. Nothing connects until he tells her about the time she was helping him move the lighting board during the school production of Pippin, and he dropped it on her foot. She remembers that. She apologises for not recognising him earlier. “Your face…” She waves her hand in front of her face. “…all demon, and I think you’ve filled out a lot.”
“Oh, yeah, well, I got into tae kwon do in a big way at Dartmouth,” says Holden.
“Well, that’s great,” says Buffy. “So what have you been up to?”
“Ah, well, apparently dying.” Holden laughs. “Uh, no, but other stuff. Um, you know, majoring in psych, really liking that.” He