Fanfiction: Requiem

REQUIEM: REMEMBRANCE

What is the driving force behind a human being’s will to live? Is it lust? Hatred? A simple desire for self-preservation? None of the above. Subconsciously, we all desire the same thing: companionship. The company of someone we consider to be a true equal. Male or female, it doesn’t really matter; it’s somehow comforting just to know that no matter who you are, what you like to do, who you hate or love, there will undoubtedly be at least one other person who shares the same opinions, hobbies, and tastes. Odds are that you will never meet a person that fits such discriminating criteria, and yet…we still believe, and we still keep looking, searching our entire lives for true acceptance and recognition in a world full of spite and scorn. It’s why we go through the emotional turmoil time and time again, though we should know better. We should know not to be so na�ve this time, know not to let our feelings take advantage of us that time. But imagine for a moment that you had found such a person: someone who could finish your sentences, understand your innermost feelings without saying a word, and always be there despite the unfavorable circumstances. Imagine that after all the previous failures in the search, the regrets, and the broken-hearted nights, that you were finally…happy. Complete. When that person came around, you could forget yourself, even if only for a few precious minutes. Now imagine that that person, your one true love, your one match in the entire world, died fighting for your personal cause. Worse than putting him or her in the path of danger, your quest to right the wrongs of the world cost a life that could never be duplicated, no matter how long and hard you searched afterwards. How would you feel? Sick? Sad? Anything and everything, a maelstrom of feelings with no outlet? You’d be hollow inside, missing the other half of yourself that made you whole. You’d question yourself incessantly, unable to escape the feeling that somehow, someway, your partner would be fine if only you’d done something differently. You’d know that every time your mind started to wander, it would remember.

Memories.

To control the flow of the mind’s recollections requires a strength and focus of will that few possess. Some can shut out the bad times, repressing the past defeats and agonies while somehow managing to cling to the better days, as if their entire lives consist of one never ending moment of happiness. However, those able to fully repress unwanted memories constitute a relatively small portion of the population, continuing on without notice of their churning subconscious thoughts while the rest of humanity struggles to forget the ghosts of the mind.

Buffy Anne Summers was part of the latter category.

Her life had been a story of loss, and though she shouldn’t have been surprised when things turned out poorly once more, she couldn’t seem to alleviate the pain that kept washing over her. Physical pain could be dealt with; emotional pain was something else entirely, a creature that couldn’t be easily controlled or drowned out. It was driving her insane. She knew that feeling this way was somewhat selfish, especially since so many others had been lost in the final battle against The First Evil. But Spike was…different. Spike could have prevented his own demise, and yet he had chosen to sacrifice himself to save Buffy and everyone else.

I want to see how it ends

Who would have known that William the Bloody, one of the most feared vampires of the last two centuries, nicknamed “Spike” for torturing his victims with railroad spikes, would ultimately journey to a different dimension to retrieve his own soul and then eventually find absolution in martyrdom? A vampire sacrificing himself in order to spare those whom he had previously despised. Like a fairytale, a story told to children to teach the lesson that people could change if only they possessed the desire to be different. To be better. To selflessly put their own safety behind that of those they cared for.

For me, Buffy thought. She sat alone in her hotel room, not having the motivation to do anything else but sit and contemplate what could have been…and what could now never be. So much had changed over the course of that single day. Looking back, it seemed more like a dream than an actual event: screams of girls getting torn to shreds by an entire undead army of Ubervamps, Anya killed while trying to protect Andrew, Spike’s sacrifice and the subsequent destruction of the entire town of Sunnydale, now just a crater in the ground, an unremarkable landmark that did little to suggest the important events that had occurred there over the past seven years. Loves, losses, high school, college, uncountable violent struggles against evils that had finally been put to rest, buried under millions of tons of rubble and dirt.

I love you

No, you don’t. But thanks for sayin’ it.

Did Buffy love Spike? Yes, though she had a hard time admitting it to herself before and even after the battle. Did Spike know it? Probably. But even in his final moment, he downplayed that which was most important to him for the sake of appearing calm and collected, not wanting to waste the short time he had left by giving himself over to his emotions. A small part of Buffy recognized this and silently thanked Spike. However, a larger part still felt empty, as if Spike had constituted a part of her physical self, a place in her heart without which she turned lifeless, a husk of who she used to be.

“Hey,” Willow quietly said, as she opened the door and walked into the room, closing it behind her. Since things had changed, Buffy treasured her best friend more than ever. If one person had steadfastly stuck by Buffy through all the struggles, fights, and heartaches, it was Willow. And now here she was, Willow, hair red as ever, clothed a simple, somber ensemble of dark hues. Hey eyes took on a concerned look. “Are you feeling any better?”

“A little,” Buffy replied as Willow sat down next to her on the bed. She just stared at the ground, playing absently with her hands in her lap. “I mean, I want to feel better. I just…I just need some time to think things through, you know? So much is different now.”

“You’re telling me,” said Willow, her voice becoming slightly more animated as she tried her best to cheer the Slayer up. “All the potential Slayers now have the same strength as you and Faith, the Hellmouth is closed, no more Sunnydale, we’re living in a hotel, we have-“

“Information overload, Will. I know what’s different.” Buffy finally brought her head up and met her friend’s gaze. “At first it seemed like things would be simpler, but I’m beginning to think that things have become more complicated. My mind just can’t wrap itself around the fact that…that Spike’s gone for good.”

“He did it for you, Buffy,” the Wicca responded. “That’s what he wanted in the end: to save you.”

“Am I worth it?”

“What?”

“Do you think that I’m more deserving of life than Spike? Did he make the right choice?” Buffy asked, shaking her head. “I feel like maybe he could’ve done more good in the future than I will. That he wasted himself.”

Willow moved closer, until she was right beside Buffy. “I think you’re missing the point,” she said. Buffy’s eyes flashed for a moment, but Willow wasn’t phased. “The point isn’t whether or you or Spike would do more good in the future, and it isn’t whether he made the right choice. It’s that he made his choice. It’s that he thought you were worth saving. And that’s all that matters, right?” Buffy didn’t respond. She had reverted to staring at the ground, so Willow asked again. “Right?” When Buffy looked up this time, her eyes were glistening with tears. She tried to blink them away, but they spilled down her cheeks instead, causing her to start sobbing. Willow wrapped her arms around her best friend.

She continued talking, trying to soothe Buffy as she continued to hold her. “You shouldn’t feel guilty, Buffy. It’s not a question of who’s more worthy, or of right and wrong. Spike’s last choice was to sacrifice himself so you, and us, could escape. Feeling like that choice wasn’t correct only cheapens what he did.”

“I know, I know,” Buffy mumbled, crying into Willow’s shoulder, shaking with repressed sadness. She shook as her words came out in ragged gasps. “But it’s not fair! I wasn’t ready for this!”

“You’ll always have good memories of the time you two spent together,” Willow answered, breaking the embrace and wiping Buffy’s tears away with the back of her hand. “Whenever you feel like it’s too much, like you can’t take it anymore, when you lose hope in yourself, just remember Spike.” Buffy sniffled, but didn’t allow any more tears to fall from her red-rimmed eyes. “His funny accent, the stupid things he did…just remember him, and you’ll pull through. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known, and I think that Spike felt the same way I do.”

Buffy appeared as though she were about to speak, but then she just leaned over and hugged Willow instead.

* * *

“Xander, it’s your turn.”

No answer.

“Xander…the Empire won’t wait forever, you know.”

“What? Oh, sorry.”

In the room across the hall, Xander and Andrew were engaged in a not-so-rousing game of Star Wars: The Collectible Card Game. Seated at the small table, each player faced a dazzling array of starships, droids, dark and light Force users, and infantry. Xander glanced at his cards, a motley collection of worthless items: a landspeeder, a single Rebel soldier, and one R2 droid. Andrew had laid down his cards already: a Star Destroyer, the highly-prized Darth Vader, and a newly-released card that added power to all units. Xander sighed and tossed his cards on the table.

“I give, Andrew,” he said, not really caring how the game had turned out. Other things were on his mind. “You win.”

Andrew summoned his most evil laugh. “The Empire and the dark side triumph again! Do you hear the lamentations of the women? Do you?” When he noticed that Xander was blankly turned towards the window, Andrew dropped the voice. “Is something wrong?”

“I’m fine,” Xander said, his voice utterly devoid of emotion. “Good game.”

Not one to give up so easily, Andrew scooted his chair closer to Xander’s so he could look out the window, too. “I don’t need the Force to figure out that something’s bothering you. Sometimes?I’ve heard that sometimes it’s better to talk it out.”

“Sometimes,” Xander responded, still only paying marginal attention to Andrew, who noted this and moved his chair once more, so that he was now sitting directly in front of the window, blocking Xander’s view of the outside world. “You’re in front of the window. Clever.”

“Just pay attention for a sec, okay?” Andrew asked, the late afternoon sun silhouetting him against the window. “I know I’m not the most obvious choice for your trust, but I want to help, if you let me. Bottling up emotions doesn’t do anything but make the downward spiral steeper.”

“So Confucius says,” said Xander, sighing and giving in to Andrew’s request. “I was thinking about Anya again-and from the look on your face, I guess you knew that-but Anya’s been such a constant in my life, you know? Something to rely upon, even if relying on her wasn’t always the smartest of choices. I remember this one time, I wanted her to come to a Halloween party with me, and she showed up in that ridiculous bunny suit. You’ve seen it. It’s atrocious. But that’s just the way she was: full of good intentions, even if they came out a little skewed sometimes. And I loved her for being like that. Now I don’t know if I’ll ever have that again, and it scares me, Andrew.”

“Being alone is never easy,” Andrew began, “but everyone goes through it. Comfort in companionship isn’t guaranteed, and it isn’t even likely from what I’ve seen. It might not occur to most people, but what defines you is how you deal with those periods where you have no one but yourself. When everything else is stripped away, what’s left? You. It’s like the Jedi credo: no family, no marriage, no children. No emotion. Surviving day by day simply by using your own talents; relying on yourself instead of depending on others. So what will you do when you’re all you’ve got, Xander Harris?”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know if I can answer that yet.” Xander was a whirl of feelings, and most of them just made him more depressed. Anya had died saving Andrew’s life. That was her last act. And Andrew was actually starting to make sense, something that was almost as worrying as losing Anya. The Empire’s greatest advocate continued onward with his train of thought.

“Just the fact that you can admit that is a start. I can understand why you feel down. Not like you lost an entire planet like Alderaan or anything, but still, from the little time I spent with her, Anya really seemed like a special girl. And I’m not just saying that to make you feel better. Loss is just…a part of life. And like I said, it’s how you deal with loss and loneliness that makes you who you are. I think you can pull through this. I think Anya would’ve wanted you to pull through this.”

Xander met Andrew’s unflinchingly sincere eyes and knew that he spoke the truth. True, Anya was gone, and she held a place in Xander’s heart that could never be touched. But feeling sorry for himself would only make his situation worse. At least he could say that he had had the opportunity to be Anya’s best friend for nearly four years, four years filled with memories that no one could ever take away. The tangible could be stolen, as Anya was. But he would always be able to remember her, and through that, she would be kept alive. In his mind. In his heart. A flame that could never be extinguished.

“Andrew,” Xander said, standing up and extending his hand, “thanks for your help. I appreciate it.”

Andrew took Xander’s hand in his own and shook it. “No problem,” he said, releasing Xander’s hand and looking back towards the card game, lying disheveled on the table. “You up for a rematch, Rebel scum?”

Xander smiled, and then his smile broke into a laugh.

“You’re on, Sith spawn!”

* * *

Faith had chosen a room on an entirely different floor of the hotel, preferring to be by herself even though she knew the dangers of loneliness all too well. She was still uncomfortable and unconfident being around the Scoobies after everything that had happened in the past; betrayals on both sides were still fresh in her mind despite all the time that had elapsed. Wounds that would never heal, kept fresh by daily reminders of the world and its torments. Never one to get along with anybody for very long, she’d purposely kept herself separate to save her from the constant reminder of what she’d never had and probably never would have.

Sitting on the floor, staring at the ceiling, she absently ran her fingers through her dark hair, trying not to fall into the tempting repetition that was her dismal view of life. After her experience in prison, years of relative solitude, she needed to relearn her communication skills so she could at least get some of the weight off her shoulders. Not ever one to open herself up, and thus invite in pain and neglect, she wanted to try to be different now that she had a second chance, a new life away from prison. But the question wasn’t whether she would change; it was if she could.

A tentative knock at the door shook her from her sullen reverie. In her mind, she quickly ran through a list of names, people who might come to see her, and she could only think of one who would be so bold.

“Yeah?” she asked, raising her voice to be heard through the door. She did not get up.

“Faith?” asked a masculine voice. “Can I come in?”

Robin Wood.

Faith closed her eyes for a few seconds, then reopened them to continue her inspection of the ceiling and its highly uninteresting, off-white features. “I guess,” she replied, still making no attempt to get up and open the door. “It’s open.”

Robin hesitantly opened the door, poked his head inside, looked around, then came entirely into the room and shut the door, sealing himself in with Faith for a conversation she was absolutely certain she did not want to have right now. Though she wouldn’t tilt her head to make eye contact with him, she could see his dark skin in her peripheral vision. Chocolate. Mocha. Mahogany. He moved uncertainly, shuffling his feet just a bit, before deciding to sit on the bed directly over Faith’s prone body. A short, uncomfortable silence followed. He’d taken a horrible beating in the final battle against the First, and he was still not completely healed. His breathing created a low, rasping sound, the result of numerous blows to his rib cage.

“Why are the drapes drawn shut?” Robin asked, more to get a conversation started than out of any real curiosity. Besides, he knew the answer already.

“I like the dark,” Faith said, offering up no more information. She suddenly felt the need to itch her leg, but she resisted the temptation, preferring to remain stoic and unfeeling in Robin’s presence. Stupid jeans.

“I came by to see how you were doing.” Apparently, Robin had decided to continue despite Faith’s icy response.

“Good. Great. In fact, I’ll even throw in a ‘five by five’ just for the hell of it.”

Robin barely kept himself from flinching.

“Do you want to tell me what’s bothering you?” he persisted, intent on getting a more sincere response.

“No.”

“How’s the ceiling doing?”

“The sheer lack of creativity in that question amazes me,” Faith responded, noting Robin’s sarcasm and pointedly ignoring it. Please just go away.

Robin took a deep breath. “Why are you always like this?” he said, looking down at Faith’s blank face.

“Like what, Robin?” Irritation. Annoyance. A face that showed none of it.

“Don’t play dumb with me, Faith. You know exactly what I’m talking about. I’m talking about your attitude, this whole ‘leave me alone, I’d like to shut everyone out now’ flow you’ve got going. I hate to say, but it’s not working real well for you.”

Faith was on her feet in an instant, fire in her eyes and anger in her tone. “Don’t assume that you know what I’m about,” she said, her voice becoming slightly louder. “You assume to know things that you couldn’t possibly understand.”

“You’re right,” Robin said, speaking slowly and clearly so as to not aggravate the Slayer any more than he already had, “but I’d like to understand what you’re about. The problem is that I don’t think you’ll let me.”

“Just drop it, Robin. Drop it.” Faith moved over to the window, even though through the drapes she could see nothing. She refused to speak directly to Robin any longer. “This whole conversation is headed for disaster.”

“Because you want it to be that way.”

“I won’t change myself to please you.”

“I’m not asking for you to change. I’m asking for you to give me a chance.”

“We’ve been over this before, and it was a mistake. You almost died a few days ago.” Faith turned around, desperately trying to keep her hair-trigger temper in check. Though they were separated by at least five feet of air, Robin could almost feel the tension radiating from her. “Everything I’ve ever loved has been taken from me! And it won’t happen again.”

“I can understand that you’re scared,” Robin soothed, “but it’s something you have to deal with.”

“Wrong,” Faith responded, turning her back on him once again. “You deal with it.”

“I know what it’s like to feel loss. I lost my mother when-“

“At least your mother loved you,” Faith said, bitterness fresh on her lips. “Sure, you lost her, and I’m sorry that happened. But tell me: did you mom like to hit you? Abuse you for no reason other than the fact that you were unlucky enough to be her son? Bring over boyfriends that would degrade and ridicule you because you were little, and you were young, and you were fucking stupid, Robin?” The former principal of Sunnydale High unconsciously scooted a few inches backwards when Faith left the window and came slowly pacing towards him. “Do you know what a beer bottle feels like when it hits your head? To be left bleeding on the ground, hating yourself, hating your mom, hating the entire god damned world because it’ll never get better?” Faith brought her hand up to her eyes, quickly wiping away tears before they had a chance to fall, trying to wipe away the memories as well. “I’m sorry that I’m like this, okay? I hate that I’m too weak to change my life, but that’s my problem. So please stop trying to make it yours.”

Robin looked at Faith, the girl he loved, her eyes glistening and lips trembling as a result of all that had gone tragically wrong in her life, and he was about to say something else, but he shut his mouth and broke off eye contact with her instead.

Faith moved closer and put her hand on his shoulder for a short moment. Then she was at the door, and she was gone, shutting it without a sound, as if she’d never even been there.

* * *

“Giles, take me shopping.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“You’re no fun.”

“So I’ve been told. On numerous occasions.”

Rupert Giles and Dawn Summers were sitting at a table under a large umbrella near the hotel pool. Buffy’s ex-Watcher was immersed in a new book on demonology that the Watcher in Cleveland had let him borrow. Buffy’s sister had had enough of demons for one lifetime; there were more important things to be done now. Like shopping.

“You know,” Dawn continued, her previous unsuccessful attempt already forgotten, “you can read and take me shopping. Like simultaneously. I can just direct you with a kiddie-leash or something so you don’t bump into things.”

Giles rolled his eyes and managed to tear his gaze away from the book. He pointed out towards the pool. “Can’t you just go swimming? Americans like to swim, don’t they?” His hopes for an easy solution were dashed a second later by the teenager’s response.

“It’s too hot,” Dawn said.

“What?” Giles had incredulity written all over his face. “Too hot to go swimming?”

“Did I stutter?” Dawn dryly responded, giving Giles the evil eye, willing him to take her to the mall. “Just take me, and I’ll shut up. Promise.”

The unbeatable combination of the California heat and the California teenage attitude finally defeated Giles. He marked his place with his bookmark and shut the book, placing it on the table. “Fine, I will take you to the mall,” he said. Dawn was glad to hear this, but she didn’t like the way Giles’s eyes were shimmering.

“You have Mischief Face,” she said, warily narrowing her eyes. “I suppose you want a compromise, you evil ex-Watcher?”

Giles cleaned his glasses on his white t-shirt. When he put them back on, he stated his conditions. “Someone else has to go.” He crossed his hands on his chest. “If you can persuade someone else to come along, then yes, I will take you to the mall. But I need another person to keep me from going quite insane while I’m surrounded by the burgeoning population of insolent teenagers that inhabit this state.”

“Burg-a-what?” Dawn’s eyes were wide with incomprehension.

“Just find someone else to go. I don’t care who.”

“Really? Anyone?”

“Yes, anyone.”

Dawn smirked and started walking towards the hotel lobby. Giles reopened his book and sighed.

* * *

Everyone wanted to go. After being confined to the hotel for a few unendurable days, the outside world had started to sound like the Elysian Fields. Dawn went on a mission, visiting every room to gather as many of the group as possible. The other girls who had been staying with the Scoobies had all gone back to their respective homes, full of Slayer power and the knowledge of how to properly utilize it, so that limited her selection of shopping partners, but she was not to be denied.

Buffy and Willow had been easiest to convince, since they had jokingly discussed visiting a mall right before the battle with the First. Xander and Andrew were at a stalemate in their Star Wars game, and they figured they could at least check out the comic book store at the mall if nothing else. Robin Wood had been found in Faith’s room, and he reluctantly agreed after admitting that getting out would do his spirits some good. No one knew where Faith had gone, but as they were all preparing to leave, they found her sitting on a curb outside the hotel. She eyed the group while Buffy-Dawn’s peppy demeanor not being the ideal personality for dealing with Faith-tried to convince the brown-haired Slayer to visit the mall, at least for a few minutes. Faith’s dour mood was evident in the half-hearted shrug she gave, and Buffy grabbed her hand and led her to the van that Giles had rented.

Everyone struggled to squeeze in, Faith making it perfectly clear that she did not wish to be anywhere near Robin by deliberately sitting in the front seat with Giles.

Giles started up the van and pulled out of the parking lot into the fast-approaching dusk. As they passed the front of the hotel, Buffy caught the briefest glimpse of a tall, blonde-haired specter from the past staring at her from across the street, but when she looked again, the apparition had vanished.

REQUIEM: REACTION

Reaction is everything. Reactions will save you or damn you. They’re your best friend and your worst enemy. No matter how fast or far you run, you can never escape the reality of reaction. Even running is a reaction to something, right? Everyone would like to have control over their reactions, but the sad truth is that most of us are unable to alter impulses that come too quickly to analyze, and by the time we realize what we’ve done, the action is over and we’re either glad or sorry, happy that we made the right choice or disappointed that we made the wrong one. Think back to a time when you reacted unwisely; think back years, months, days, minutes. You’ve undoubtedly caused pain to yourself or others at some point. You’ve got skeletons in your closet, as do we all. But how would things be if you could’ve reacted differently? What if you could somehow know the outcome of a situation beforehand? Wouldn’t that be nice? To have the decision made in advance, all ready to go as soon as the world came crumbling down around your feet. A nice story, but unrealistic. Ultimately, we’re slaves to our subconscious reactions, unable to stop ourselves from acting out of fear or anger, lust or revenge. And no one can control their responses indefinitely; everyone has a breaking point, whether they’ll admit it or not. In the end, the real question is: when things are out of control…how will you react?

Buffy reacted so quickly that everyone was amazed.

“There it is! Turn here!” she practically yelled, reaching up from the back seat to yank on Giles’s shirt. “You’ll miss the mall, Giles! Turn!”

Giles maneuvered the van in a way that its engineers surely would never have considered in order to turn where Buffy had pointed. The wheels on the left side went over the curb, tossing everyone forward, as Giles uttered some English expletives that no one else understood. Finally, however, he slammed on the brakes, halting the van perfectly within a designated parking space. Turning his head over his shoulder, Giles was about to say something about his driving ability, but half the van had already emptied. He spied Buffy, Willow, and Dawn, already halfway across the parking lot, making fast for one of the many mall entrances. Andrew and Xander quickly followed, as did Robin, closing the sliding door behind him. Slightly put off that he had received no commendations, Giles looked to Faith, who gave him a small, unhappy shrug. Giles noticed that she hadn’t even been wearing her seat belt, surely not a wise decision considering the Evel Knievel-style antics he’d just performed.

“You know,” he began, trying to be helpful as he removed the keys from the ignition, “safety belts are installed for a reason.”

Faith halfheartedly checked her unused seat belt. She hadn’t even realized that it was there. She gave another little shrug and exited the van, followed closely by Giles, who intended to keep an eye on the brown-haired Slayer.

Buffy, at the head of the pack, was relieved to be taking this little trip to the mall. For the past few days, she’d moped about, feeling sorry for herself, and this was a good way to get her mind away from the Spike situation. Dawn, almost as eager, but for completely different reasons-she was just there to shop without any other agenda-was trailing only a foot or so behind her older sister. Willow, with an excited smile across her face, was next to Dawn. No words were necessary to describe shopping bliss, so none of the trio spoke, preferring to silently worship the temple to consumerism instead.

As they approached the high glass doors, Buffy saw the same blonde man from the hotel in the reflection that the glass showed her. She pondered it for a moment, confused. He was…blurry. She kept walking as she noted that the figure’s edges seemed to fade in and out of the night, making him appear fuzzy. His face was obscured in shadow. Her hand touched the door as the face came sharply into focus for one limitless moment, and she stopped. The door had gone ice cold beneath her fingertips.

Buffy whirled around, searching the night-bathed parking lot for the man, but he was nowhere to be found. Dawn and Willow looked over their shoulders, expecting to see something, too, but when nothing presented itself except Xander’s goofy wave, they turned back to Buffy, waiting for an explanation. When none immediately came, Dawn pressed the issue.

“What’re you gawking at, Buffy?” she asked, the initial confusion quickly turning into impatience. The mall would be closing in about two hours, barely enough time for shopping.

“I thought-I mean-you didn’t see?” Buffy’s eyes kept darting back and forth. “You didn’t see…him?”

“See who?” Willow returned, thinking that perhaps Buffy had seen someone dangerous. “A demon?”

Buffy silently surveyed the parking lot from left to right one last time, her eyes tracking every miniscule movement. But the man had vanished completely, leaving no trace. “It was nothing,” she said, lowering her head and turning again for the door. “My mistake.” She walked through the entrance without looking back. Willow and Dawn, suspecting nothing more than usual Slayer paranoia, were right behind her.

* * *

“I didn’t know such places existed.”

“For once, Andrew, I agree with you.”

The un-dynamic duo of Xander and Andrew were standing in front of the comic book store, gazing in awe at its sheer grandeur. Their heads turned up to read the glowing neon sign which proclaimed this testament to the undying fortitude of the comic book industry to be “Comics or Death”.

“Doesn’t leave much room for negotiation,” Xander commented.

“Who cares?” Andrew said, digging into his pockets and bringing up a collection of bills that had to add up to at least twenty dollars. “It’s comics for us!”

Laughing like small school children, the pair ran full-tilt into Comics or Death, prepared to gorge themselves on comic goodness.

* * *

Faith and Giles walked side by side through the mall, which was one of the most lavish that Giles had seen in America. Considering that he’d seen only one other mall, the now below-sea-level Sunnydale complex, that wasn’t saying much. But it looked expensive. He even saw a number of things that interested him, a highly unusual occurrence, and he was about to check out a store specializing in the restoration of ancient texts when he realized that that would leave Faith by herself. Again. She hadn’t been enthralled with the mall in even the slightest way; she steadfastly refused to even consider the stores, preferring to examine the floor pattern instead. The ex-Watcher knew that something was troubling her, and he wanted to help. Whether Faith would accept said help was a different matter. Giles decided to go ahead and offer it anyhow.

“Is something the matter, Faith?”

They continued their slow walk through the lower floor. The mall was only sparsely populated, but that was to be expected considering the late hour. Softly glowing lights gave the place an unusually cozy atmosphere, even with the deep shadows that such lights tend to cast. Low murmurs of conversations drifted in and out, an endless procession of communication. A security guard stood at a railing on the upper floor, scrutinizing the proceedings on the lower level.

“Nothing’s the matter,” she said, not even turning to regard Giles, intent as she was upon the floor. When Giles had to grab her shoulder to steer her around a small palm tree in a rather ornate concrete pot, she didn’t even seem to notice, offering no thanks and not bothering to shrug off the physical contact. He directed her to a bench beside the pot, sitting her down. She clasped her hands together as her hair fell about her face due to the low angle of her head.

“Obviously something is bothering you,” he persisted, taking a seat next to her so he could at least have a better view of her facial expressions. “I was a Watcher; we’re trained to recognize such things, although in this case I think that my close observational skills weren’t necessary. Both Buffy and Principal Wood expressed concern for you in the aftermath of the battle.”

The small, white lights intertwined within the palm tree, which was a good seven feet tall, gently cascaded ambience over Faith as Giles waited for an answer. “Sorry to be such a drag, Giles, but I’m fine, really. Just thinking about stuff.”

“Is this ‘stuff’ bothering you?”

There was a slight pause before Faith responded by nodding her head, looking very much like a little girl in a young woman’s body.

“And you’d prefer not to share, I take it?”

Faith shook her head no.

Giles sighed. He couldn’t help if he didn’t know what the problem was, and Faith had always preferred to keep her turmoil to herself in the past. She seemed to be contemplating something, but Giles couldn’t put his finger on what that might be. So he decided to cheer her up with bribery.

“How about this?” he said, his English accent becoming livelier. He put on his best smile, trying to play the generous father figure that Faith had never known, even though Faith didn’t notice. “I’ll buy you a present. Surely there must be something in this place that would make you at least a tad happier?”

Faith slowly turned her head to study Giles’s upbeat face. She was about to politely tell him that the offer was nice, but that she couldn’t accept, when she spied Robin striding towards her from over Giles’s shoulder. He was still far enough away for her to pretend that she hadn’t seen him.

“Giles, that is so nice of you,” she said, her tone completely reversed, as she stood up and grabbed his hand, hauling him to his feet. “Let’s go into this big store here, uh, ‘Antiques.’ Lots of fun in there.” Lots of places to hide, she thought. They ducked into the store and out of Robin’s sight.

* * *

The highly-trained shopping trio of Buffy, Dawn, and Willow were in the midst of deciding what stores to visit next. In a scenario that completely defied the laws of time, they’d already gone to three stores, each picking out an assortment of clothes, shoes, and accessories, at least enough to fill the entire back portion of the van. This amazingly rapid advance was due to two things: first, all three knew how to move around any mall, no matter if they’d been there before or not, and secondly, the mall had been steadily emptying since they arrived. Buffy was especially concerned about the latter; it was unusual for a mall to be so empty, and from the time on Willow’s watch, there was still an hour to go before closing. Strange. In the past thirty minutes or so, she’d only noticed a dozen or so other shoppers, but she kept her suspicions to herself, not wanting to spread her paranoia around. Although, she knew that paranoia only applied when fears were unfounded…

“I say we go to the GAP,” Dawn said, voice muffled because her head was virtually inside one of her bags as she rooted through her new collection. She came up holding a pair of small, pink earrings in the shape of stars, giving them a quick once-over before tossing them back inside. “What do you guys think?”

“Ooh, the GAP.” Willow was excited just to be in a mall. The stores were simply added bonuses. “I like the GAP. It’s so…GAP-like.”

“That’s fine,” Buffy chimed in, but her attention was elsewhere. A mall security guard, in a black outfit with matching hat, walked past the girls. He stared at them a little too intently for Buffy’s liking, and she turned around so she could follow his movements. She watched as he waved across the empty expanse between the right and left sides of the second floor to another guard, who responded in turn. They took out their walkie-talkies and began conversing animatedly. Buffy, despite her misgivings, couldn’t find anything outright evil about the guards, so she turned back to Dawn and Willow, just missing as one of the guards pointed in her direction, nodding his head as he did so. “Let’s get going. This place gives me a wiggins.”

“I think it’s a nice mall,” Dawn argued, lugging her bags along as the trio started walking towards the GAP.

“I have to agree with Dawn, Buffy,” the Wicca responded. “Nice stores, good selection, and it’s almost empty, which is nice. Why are you freaked by it?”

“I’ve been having a weird day,” the Slayer said, as the group rounded a corner and came within sight of their target. “It’s probably nothing. Just the old Spider-sense thing acting up, you know?”

Willow made a conciliatory “mm-hm” sound as she followed Dawn into the GAP. Buffy was about to do the same when she got the unmistakable feeling that someone, or something, was watching her. She called out to her sister and her best friend that she’d be right back, and she left her bag at the entrance, unconcerned about thieves in this unpopulated place. She glanced left, then right, but when she saw nothing, she stepped forward a few feet and looked over the waist-high railing down to the lower floor. And there, hovering in a particularly dark space between the gentle lights was the blurry apparition, the one that wouldn’t leave her alone. Buffy had a sinking feeling that she was somehow privy to seeing him when no one else could; it was as if he appeared for her, and her alone, and she was absolutely certain that he was from a completely different dimension, because she’d seen his face?

“Hey!” she called, leaning precariously over the railing. When there was no response, she tried again, but still no luck. The blurry apparition hovered in place a moment more, then it slowly floated down a dim hallway towards an emergency exit. Cursing under her breath, Buffy made sure no one was looking-especially those creepy security guards-then she vaulted over the railing and fell a good fifteen feet straight down to the floor. Landing with a dull thud, her legs absorbed the shock of impact perfectly, and then she was up and running towards the blurry vision that taunted and tempted her at every turn. Her Slayer powers propelled her down the hall, but just before she was about to reach out and make a grab for what she knew was intangible, the vision vanished through a wall, leaving Buffy alone in the hallway. The sparse lights flickered on and off, a strobe effect that cast the entire space in a demonic playground of shifting light and nightmare shadows. Buffy hesitantly made her way forward, trying to locate the exact space where the blurry man had disappeared.

Running her hand along with wall, she came upon a door, apparently a bathroom if its sign was to be believed. She tried the handle. Locked. She jiggled it harder, somehow feeling that the answers she needed were inside, but it wouldn’t give. Buffy took a deep breath and applied more pressure, and the handle simply broke off in her hand. She let it drop to the floor, where it was lost amongst the hallway’s ocean of darkness. A bit of a push made the door swing open, and Buffy quickly stepped inside, closing it behind her. The only sound she could make out was her own breathing. There was no light at all; the bathroom was absolutely dark, and though Slayers had excellent eyesight, their vision was not designed as a vampire’s was-to see in a total absence of natural light.

Frightened in spite of her supernatural strength, Buffy did the only thing that she could and ran her hands along the walls, hoping to come across some kind of switch that would turn on the lights. Not finding one, she moved slightly to the right and tried again, this time coming in contact with a switch.

She flicked it up. The dim lights came on. And Buffy found herself face to face with Spike.

* * *

Andrew tugged on Xander’s shirt.

“Have you noticed that no one else has been in here for over a half hour?” he asked, taking in the store’s abandoned aisles.

Xander didn’t look up from the comic he was flipping through. “Comic book stores are never the most popular places. It’s not a big deal, trust me.”

“But…um,” Andrew continued, “even the clerk left.” This got Xander’s attention, and he put the comic back. “We’re completely alone.”

“I take it back; this is pretty weird.”

They listened for a moment, trying to detect any of the sounds that a normal mall would make: crowds of people talking, music from overhead speakers, shoes squeaking on the floor, but all they could make out was absolute silence.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Xander said.

“Just like in The Empire Strikes Back when the Millennium Falcon lands on that huge asteroid that turns out to be a space slug and Princess Leia says-“

“Not a good time, Andrew,” Xander interrupted. Besides, he knew the story already. “We really need to find Buffy. Or Faith. They’ll probably know what’s going on. So let’s go.”

“Can’t we take some comics with us?” Andrew asked, eyeing the empty clerk’s desk.

“No. The mystery of the freakishly empty mall is more important right now. Come on.”

As they walked out of Comics or Death, Xander’s attention was drawn to a solitary security guard across the walkway. The guard openly stared back, and Xander was forced to look away. Taking out his walkie-talkie, the guard said a few words into it and started to follow Xander and Andrew. His mouth formed an inhumanly large smile.

* * *

“I didn’t know you liked antiques,” Giles said, perusing the aisles of the antique store.

Faith forced herself to smile. “Oh, yeah, I love ‘em. Can never get enough of random shit from half a century ago, y’know?” When Giles nodded politely and went back to picking up old baubles, Faith ducked around a corner so she could be by herself for a few minutes. It was nice of Giles to look out for her, but she wasn’t used to so much constant attention. It was scary. Someone watching your every move, listening to every word you say, always thinking you’re on the brink of some catastrophic breakdown…

Well, Giles is probably right about the breakdown part.

She sighed and wrapped her arms around herself, a subconscious plea for protection and care. As she walked through the collection of antiques, her eyes lazily examined the items for sale. Old toys, furniture, and clothes held little to no interest for Faith. Never one to get sentimental about material things, she didn’t see the purpose of wasting money on old stuff when you could buy it new instead. But at least she didn’t have to think about Robin when her mind was occupied with criticizing peoples’ strange taste for American nostalgia. She passed a few more items until she stopped at a small dresser with a silver necklace dangling off the end. Crouching down to get a better look at it, she noticed that it depicted a heart being stabbed with a knife. Broken heart? Unrequited love? Complete hatred? Faith didn’t know what the necklace was trying to convey, but she liked its sad, bitter display and raw emotion. Without a second thought, she picked it up and shoved it in her pocket, not wanting Giles to have to pay for it, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to buy it herself.

This can be my bad luck token. It’ll stand for my little failures in life. And screw it, I’m putting it on.

The necklace was removed from her pocket and around her neck within a matter of seconds. Faith appreciated its antiquity, the fact that someone so long ago had shared her own experiences with life and love. She tucked it within her shirt so it would be out of view. No use getting caught for shoplifting, or of letting anyone else know she’d found something special to wear.

They’d probably just make fun of me anyway.

“Find anything you like?” Giles came around the corner, disturbing Faith’s internal monologue. He had something clutched in his left hand, but she couldn’t make out what it was. “It’s on me, remember?”

“Thanks, Giles,” Faith replied, again wrapping her arms around herself, “but I didn’t find anything. I appreciate the offer, though.”

Giles’s smile turned into a slight frown, but it was immediately replaced a moment later by an even wider smile. “Be that as it may, I may have found something you’ll appreciate.” He handed Faith the object that he’d been holding.

“What is it?”

“A picture. Of someone from your past.”

“Huh? I don’t-”

Oh, god. It’s Mayor Wilkins.

Faith instinctively brought the picture closer to her face for a better inspection. And there, right in the middle of a picture so old that it had turned completely brown, was Richard Wilkins III. After the First had attempted to use Faith’s lingering memories of the mayor against her, Faith found it hard to accept the picture as truth and not simply an illusion.

“Where-where did you find this?” she asked, barely able to get the words out.

Giles pointed to a general area of the store, but Faith’s attention was still riveted on the picture. She could accept that Mayor Wilkins had been evil and intent on murdering every man, woman, and child in Sunnydale, but he was still one of the only people to ever treat Faith with respect and compassion, and she continued to feel indebted to him for that.

“Why is he in this picture?” she asked, this time paying attention to Giles’s response.

“Well, as far as I can tell, Mayor Wilkins made allies of the surrounding cities when he first built Sunnydale. This event in the picture appears to be some kind of christening of the town that we are now standing in, and that would explain all the other people in the picture.” Giles scratched his head. “I think.”

Faith, her eyes moist, reached up and hugged Giles, the picture firmly in her grip. When she let go, she sniffled a bit and returned to her new picture. Giles put his arm around her shoulders and started to lead her to the cash register, glad that he’d made a difference in Faith’s day. But when they got to the front of the store, the old lady whom they’d seen behind the register upon entering was nowhere to be found.

“Where’s the bloody teller?” Giles asked no one in particular.

They waited for a few minutes, but no one came. Giles began ushering Faith out of the store, not caring whether or not he’d paid for the picture. Just before they were about to step back into the main area of the mall, a black-clad security guard came walking up. He smiled. Giles smiled. Faith made a face, holding the picture to her chest, daring the guard to try and take it from her. But the guard just smiled some more and strode into the empty antiques store, disappearing into its nostalgic depths. Faith grinned triumphantly, but she noticed something strange a moment later.

“Giles, where is everyone?”

The former Watcher appeared flustered as he searched one way, then the other for any sign of life. He spotted another security guard, who also vanished into a store, but no one else.

“That’s a good question,” he answered, scratching his head again.

“Maybe we should find the others,” Faith said. “Is the mall closing?”

Giles checked his watch. “Almost, but that doesn’t explain the total absence of customers. Something’s not right. Let’s go find Buffy.”

And with that, Giles, Faith, a picture, and a secret necklace wandered away from the antiques store, where the guard they’d seen disappear was standing in plain view. Watching. Waiting.

* * *

Dawn and Willow were having a similar revelation in the GAP at the same moment. It was eerie; the music kept playing, and the lights stayed on, but no one was in sight. Customers and employees alike had simply vanished without a trace. Buffy’s younger sister decided not to worry about something that she had no control over and started stuffing items into her already bulging bags. Willow, on the other hand, was more concerned. After so many years of fighting by Buffy’s side, she knew when trouble was afoot.

“This is awesome!” Dawn noted, picking a red blouse from its rack. “What do you think of this? Cute? Or too gaudy?”

“I think,” Willow responded, “that something bad is going on here. We need to find Buffy, or-and I can’t believe I’m saying this-even Faith. This is just too weird.” She took the blouse from an objectionable Dawn and hung it back up. “And don’t steal.”

Dawn was about to grab the blouse again just to irritate the witch, but they both turned towards the entrance of the store as Xander and Andrew came skidding to a halt, out of breath from running.

“Where’s Buffy?” Xander asked between breaths. Andrew just sat down.

“I was about to ask you the same thing,” Willow said. “This is turning into the Mall of Doom. Whose idea was this, anyway?”

Dawn sheepishly tried to become invisible.

“It doesn’t matter who thought of it,” said Xander, checking over his shoulder as he spoke to make sure that no people had magically appeared out of thin air. None had. “We just need to get the hell out of Dodge. Do you have any idea where Buffy went?”

Willow thought back. “She said something like, ‘I’ll be right back,’ and that was the last I heard from her. Those are her bags by your feet. Your guess is as good as mine.”

“My guess is probably a lot worse, actually.”

Dawn finally entered the conversation again. “Do you guys always talk this much when you’re in trouble? We could’ve been out of the mall by now, you know.”

“Either way,” Willow continued, acting as if Dawn hadn’t spoken, “strength in numbers is our best bet. You haven’t seen Faith, either, I take it?”

“She was with Giles, I think,” Andrew added from his spot on the floor. “Um?I think Principal Wood was wandering around by himself like a lost nerf from Alderaan, though.”

Only Xander understood the reference, but the girls got the gist anyhow.

“He’s a good fighter, right?” Dawn was looking for acknowledgement from someone, even Andrew, at this point. “I mean, he can take care of himself?”

“He was pretty beat up in the fight against the First,” Andrew said. “He almost died.”

Willow, Xander, and Dawn exchanged worried glances.

* * *

Robin had been morosely walking from store to store with no real agenda in mind. He hadn’t even entered any of them; he was content just to hang his head and think things over, especially things that dealt with Faith. More than anything, he wanted Faith to be comfortable around him, but her natural defenses were so high that deconstructing them brick by brick would take a lifetime. After he had seen Faith pull Giles into the antiques store, he knew that he could not win against her burning desire to protect herself from pain, so he hadn’t bothered pressing the issue by following her inside.

He had analyzed the situation from every possible angle, trying to discover whether he could’ve done something differently; a word or an action that would have prevented the relationship from disintegrating into something that could barely even be considered friendship.

Faith occupied Robin’s thoughts to such an extent that he could think of little else. He did not notice the startling lack of people in the mall. He did not notice the dead silence or the guards that occasionally walked past. He wasn’t paying attention when several guards began following him at a distance. At one point, he heard their footfalls behind him, but when he turned around, only emptiness greeted him. Warily observing the mall out of the corner of his eye, he began walking again, uncertain of what was transpiring.

The next time he heard footsteps, he ignored them.

What he couldn’t ignore was the blow to the back of his head that came a moment later. Stars erupted in front of his eyes as he fell to the floor, landing heavily on his stomach. His unhealed injuries from earlier that week flared in response to the blunt trauma, but he forced himself to roll over so that he could block the next attack.

No attack came. Robin unconsciously began scooting backward as three guards with the snarling, animalistic faces of vampires growled at him.

“Didn’t expect vampires to be running a mall, did you?” the one in the center asked, his yellow eyes drilling into Robin’s. “Think you’re hot shit, running around with the Slayer?”

Robin spat at the vamps, unable to speak but unwilling to be inactive. The center vamp, the leader, smiled and kicked Robin directly in the ribs with nearly enough force to fracture them. Robin writhed on the ground, clutching at his side, as the vamps laughed maliciously.

“We’ve heard the most disturbing rumor,” the leader continued, leaving Robin on the ground. “Apparently, the Hellmouth in Sunnydale collapsed on itself a few days ago. Now, I don’t know how that’s possible, but if it’s true, I bet that little blonde-haired bitch was behind it.” He dusted off his uniform. “Yeah, we know all about Buffy. Tonight, she dies for what she did. And since you’re right here, you can act as bait.” He leaned in close to Robin’s prone form. “How does that sound, sweetheart?”

Robin, never one to give up easily, delivered a backhanded blow to the leader’s face, knocking him backward. The other two vamps were on him immediately. The last thing he saw was a boot coming towards his face.

* * *

“B-but, it can’t be. I thought-I mean, I saw-you’re dead. You’re not real.”

Buffy, reacting adversely to the appearance of the thing that looked like Spike, had pushed herself up against the wall in the shadowy bathroom. Her mind was moving at a million miles per hour, and yet her lips couldn’t seem to form the words properly.

Spike smiled a bit, but he didn’t move any closer, not wanting to risk scaring Buffy any worse than he already had. “As far as I can tell, Buffy,” he started, “I’ve been dead as long as you’ve known me.”

“That’s not-“

“Hold on, love. Let me finish.” He took a small step forward, holding his hands up to show that he meant no harm. “Yeah, I guess you could say I died. I got dusted. Ceased to exist, y’know?” Buffy slowly nodded her head, her eyes wide. The low light turned Spike’s handsome face into one cut from stone. “So it was Hell for me, and it was the least sodding fun I’ve ever had. Terrible. Pain and all that ‘eternal damnation’ gets bloody boring after a while. I guess the cosmic balance is still over in the negative column for me, which is why I didn’t get the whole ‘poppies and posies’ place that you told me about.”

“You’re…really you,” Buffy said, realization dawning on her face. She had barely been listening to a word he’d said. Every detail was exactly as she remembered, from his bleached-blonde hair to his dusty overcoat.

Spike looked at his hands, then back at Buffy. “Last time I checked, yeah. But, to make an incredibly long story incredibly short, I was released. And,” he said, putting on his biggest smile, “here I am.”

Buffy rushed forward to hug Spike, but her arms passed right through him. She involuntarily gasped at the sensation of having her arms inside the image of Spike, but she quickly pulled away from him again.

“You’re here…just not…here,” she said.

Spike put on his best hurt face. “Hey, I’m workin’ on it! Can’t have everything all at once, now, can we? Bollocks. Anyways,” he said, annoyed that he’d gotten off-topic, “your friends are in trouble. I was released to make sure that you save them. And yourself.”

Buffy was still openly staring. “You know that I love you, don’t you? Why did you say that I didn’t love you right before you died?”

Spike rolled his eyes. “Focus, Slayer. Trouble! Danger! Friends! Vampires! We can do the whole ‘lovey-dovey’ thing as soon as this is taken care of, I promise.”

“Fine,” said Buffy, obviously discontent with the situation, “but this doesn’t make sense. Why would you be released to ensure that I stay alive?”

“The higher-ups in Hell love you, Buffy. You’ve sent more demons there in the past few years than anyone else. You have to live so demons go to Hell.” Spike sounded confused at the last part. “At least that’s what I was told. Either way, I’m here, you’re here, and you need to go now. We’ll talk later; technically, I think I’m supposed to go back to Hell after this, but they can sod off without me. I’m back. For good.”

Buffy, trying desperately to keep from making another move to grab what she knew wasn’t really there, nodded her head. The whole situation was so overwhelming that all she wanted to do was just sit down. But she couldn’t. Not yet.

“So what’s the what, then?” she quietly asked, pulling herself together.

“Oh, some stupid wanker vampires dressed up as mall security guards or something. Not the most clever vampires, either, but there’s lots of them. At least twenty, maybe more, depending on whether or not Faith’s gotten into the action yet.”

“Okay. So…I guess I should go now.”

“Yeah.”

“All right.”

Buffy turned and opened the door, but before she stepped through, she had one last thing to say. “Spike?” The vampire regarded his blonde-haired lover with honest eyes. “Don’t leave me again, okay?”

Spike smiled and put his hands in the pockets of his overcoat. “Not if I can help it, love. Not if I can help it.”

* * *

The GAP had turned into the unofficial headquarters for the rest of the crew. Having not seen Buffy for the better part of the past half hour, they all figured it would be best to stay together in one location to avoid casualties. Faith and Giles had shown up only a few minutes after Xander and Andrew, but that still left Robin and Buffy out in the mall somewhere.

“No one’s seen Robin?” Faith asked for the fifth time, obviously concerned but unwilling to put her feelings into a more blatant statement of longing. She’d almost watched him die before, and if she had anything to say about it, she would never come that close to losing him again. Unaware that she was biting the nails of her left hand, she waited for an answer.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Giles said, still trying to be comforting.

No one else said anything. Xander and Andrew had taken positions at the front of the store, keeping a lookout for anyone else. Willow and Giles were discussing some sort of plan, but without Buffy and Robin, they couldn’t do much besides wait. Leaving was out of the question.

Xander turned away from the entrance to speak. “Maybe I’m just going crazy, but wouldn’t it be better to at least be searching for the others? The odds of either of them just randomly chancing upon the GAP are pretty slim.” He adjusted his eye patch. “If we just stay here, we’re cornered. At least out in the mall we have a chance to fight. Or run away.”

“Tactically, that makes sense,” Andrew said, nodding.

“What do you know about tactics, Andrew?” Giles replied, raising an eyebrow.

“I’ve watched the crew of the Enterprise go through situations just like this one,” the Trekkie argued. “They always try not to get cornered in one area. That’s just bad.”

“He’s got a point,” Faith said, already moving to leave, propelled by her concern for Robin. Buffy could take care of herself; Robin, still healing from his recent wounds, was another matter. “Let’s move.”

“I’ll second that notion,” Willow stated, going to stand by Faith. “But does anyone even know what’s going on? This whole place feels icky, but I can’t figure out why.”

Dawn’s sarcastic reply came first. “Um, could it be because of the entire lack of people?”

Willow shot Buffy’s sister a look. “It’s more than that. Someone has to be behind the absence of customers and employees. It’s unnatural. And just plain old irresponsible. Shame on the mall staff.”

“Well,” Giles said, placing his glasses higher up on the bridge of his nose, “I can’t figure out the situation, either, but if we’re all agreed, we should be off.”

“Not so fast.”

Everyone turned to stare at one of the mall security guards, smiling smugly.

“You’re friends of Buffy’s, right?” he asked, reaching for his walkie-talkie.

Faith immediately stood up a bit taller. “What’s it to you?” she asked, tensing up and preparing to fight. She didn’t want to blatantly attack a guard that hadn’t done anything wrong, but she got the impression that this guy was up to things that were a few county lines over from good. “Mind telling us what’s goin’ on, asshole?”

The guard brought the walkie-talkie up to his mouth, but he hadn’t pressed the transmit button yet. “Don’t you worry about that,” he said, his face transforming into that of a vampire. He snarled, flashing his fangs, and began quickly speaking into the mouthpiece.

Faith bolted forward, but at that exact moment, a blur came hurtling from the aisle outside and tackled the vampire to the ground, scattering the walkie-talkie.

“Hey, guys,” said Buffy Summers, on her feet already and preparing to dust the vamp. She gave a little smile to the group. “Miss me?”

The vampire lunged forward, arms out, reaching for Buffy’s throat. The Slayer easily avoided the clumsy attempt. Having battled the ultra-tough Ubervamps for the past few weeks, a single, normal vampire seemed even more pathetic than usual. But as she pushed the vamp to the ground a second time, she realized that she hadn’t thought to bring along any stakes. With the Hellmouth closed, it hadn’t even occurred to her that they might run into vampires, let alone an entire cadre of them. Buffy looked to Faith for assistance, making a stabbing motion with her hand. As the vampire got up once more, this time in a fighting stance, Faith ran back into the store, searching for anything made of wood.

Security-vamp tried the cautious approach this time, jabbing instead of charging. Buffy blocked the blows easily. She slowly sidestepped so that eventually she was facing the GAP and the vampire had his back to it. Jumping over a low, sweeping kick, Buffy glanced into the store just as Faith snapped a wooden hanger over her knee, breaking it into two jagged pieces. She tossed one to Buffy and kept the other for herself, trying to get an angle on the vamp’s heart. Just as she was about to make an attempt to stake him from behind, Faith noticed another security-vamp running towards the store. Deciding to let Buffy handle the first vamp, Faith moved into position to intercept the second.

The newcomer delivered a perfect snap kick that would’ve broken Faith’s nose had she not blocked. The sheer force of the kick drove her backwards even through her block, though, until she had her back to the railing, a lucky break that barely saved her from falling to the ground floor. Her antagonist came at her again, and she ducked under his punch to get away from the railing. Off-balance, the vamp turned just a bit too slowly and received a hanger through the heart instead of another chance to fight. Faith saw Buffy deliver a vicious roundhouse kick to her vamp’s knee, sending him to the ground yet again. She quickly staked him with the other half of Faith’s hanger amidst a cloud of dust. “That was fun,” Faith said, admiring her improvised stake. “Let’s do more.”

Buffy coughed and started to dust herself off as the rest of the group came to stand outside the store.

“You’re kidding,” Giles said, outraged. “A mall security force comprised of vampires? What’s the world coming to?”

“Next it’ll be Vampire Car Wash,” said Xander. “Then Vampire Circus.”

“Will the elephants at the circus be vampires, too?” Andrew asked, hands in his pockets.

Everyone gave him exasperated looks. He shrugged his shoulders in response.

“How is this even possible?” This from Willow. “A mall full of vampires?”

“I imagine it’s quite a good set up, actually,” Giles explained. “An endless procession of people to feed on, and most of them would never suspect the guards of being involved in strange, blood-sucking murders. The vampires must wait until the mall closes, then they pick off any stragglers who haven’t left yet.”

Faith interrupted. “This is a great explanation and all, but Robin’s still in the mall somewhere. We need to find him. Now.”

“Agreed,” Buffy said. “First things first, though. We need better weapons than these hangers. Dawn? You always pay attention to how malls are planned. Where’s the sporting goods store?”

“Oh! I know this!” Dawn scrunched up her face, thinking of the location. “It’s near that weird Hot Topic store in the South Wing, I think.”

“So we hit that first, pick up whatever we need, and then we find Robin?” Faith asked, anxious to get moving. She would’ve taken on the vampires without weapons in her desire to find Robin, but she knew the chances of winning without them were nearly nonexistent.

“Right,” Buffy replied. “And we need to hurry.”

They all took off running through the empty mall, Faith and Buffy in the lead.

* * *

One short minute later-courtesy of empty walkways and sprinting-they arrived at the sporting goods store. Faith wasted no time; she immediately headed over to the glass cabinet where the hunting knives were kept and shattered it into hundreds of pieces with her elbow. Some of the glass cut her bare arm, but she didn’t even notice, too busy picking out the best knives: one large, serrated six-inch blade for massive damage and a smaller, compact knife that she put inside her back pocket as a last resort.

Buffy, always one to try for the quickest possible kill, set about finding herself some makeshift stakes. Bats were probably too large to get through a vamp’s chest; knives were messy and weren’t really ideal unless used for decapitation, and Buffy, unlike Faith, would rather have a cleaner dusting anyway; there was a sophisticated-looking bow and arrow set, which could cause some damage, but it was much more difficult to fire than the crossbow that Buffy preferred. Thinking that nothing in the store would suit her purposes, she was about to give up when she spied a wooded training staff hanging on the wall over the register. She quickly retrieved it and gave it a few spins to test its balance and sturdiness. It would do, but it needed some slight modification first. Within minutes, Buffy had whittled away the ends of the staff into sharpened points with one of the knives that Faith had neglected to pick up. Now it was a staff and a double-edged stake, as well. Perfect.

Xander opted for a wooden baseball bat since stakes never seemed to work properly for him. This way he could pummel the vamps until Buffy or Faith could finish them off. Andrew, apparently deciding that phasers and blaster rifles were not standard sporting goods fare, copied Xander and took a bat, too. Giles picked up the bow that Buffy had neglected. He was a bit rusty with his archery skills, but he figured that even if he couldn’t get a killing shot, he could at least distract or possibly disable some of the vampires. Without heavier weaponry like swords, he knew it would be pointless for him to try to keep up with the two Slayers in the thick of the battle.

Dawn, arguably the least effective in combat, didn’t know what part she would take in the fight, so she grabbed a lightweight pool cue. Not a weapon that would do any significant damage, but it would be sufficient to give a vamp a good thrashing before one of the others could help her out. Willow stood by and watched everyone frantically run about the store. She had no need for physical weapons since she’d memorized most of the more potent anti-vampire spells over the past years. Simple spells such as casting fire were easy to conjure and worked well, and that was all she needed, along with a few other surprises she had up her sleeve.

“Let’s get this party started,” Faith said, the large knife held casually in her right hand. She instinctively held it upright in a traditional knife-fighter’s stance; anyone who entered a fight holding a knife downward was either inept, downright stupid, or both. Held downward, a knife could accomplish little but superficial slash wounds since it lacked the leverage to do any deeper damage. Faith knew that a knife held point up was much more effective for killing blows, such as driving the tip straight into an opponent’s stomach to shred his or her internal organs.

Buffy, all business, led the rest of the group towards Faith. “Okay, here’s the plan,” she began. “No one makes a move until we figure out what the vamps are up to. If we hit them too soon, they might kill Robin in retaliation, so everyone keep calm. Giles, I want you on the upper level. Keep the vamps distracted with arrows. Dawn and Willow will cover your back up there. I assume distance isn’t a problem for your spells, Wil?”

“What? Distance? A problem for me?” the Wicca quipped. “Don’t bet on it, mister.”

“Good,” Buffy responded, turning to Xander and Andrew. “You two are coming down to the ground floor with me and Faith. And I think that just about covers it. Questions? No? All right. Let’s do this.”

The group exited the store, heading for the exact center of the mall, where they all assumed the vampires would be waiting. Not wanting to fight individually, the vamps would probably now resort to the numbers game, intent on overwhelming any resistance that Buffy and Co. could muster. Giles, Willow, and Dawn broke off from the main group upon reaching the wide, open area that overlooked the main plaza of the lower level. The four wings of the mall-one for each direction of the compass-all converged at the plaza, easily the largest single area of the entire structure. A fountain bubbled in the very center, surrounded by classy black benches that were made of metal. Spreading out from the fountain in a large circle were a bunch of the small palm trees, lights twinkling from their concrete pots. And there, encircling the fountain, were the vampires, intimidating in their identical uniforms, making them seem even less human than usual.

Giles and his two cohorts stayed low to avoid being noticed while the remaining four fighters walked tall to attract the attention of the vamps. Buffy led her group to an escalator, doing a quick head count of their enemies as she and the others were carried downward. She counted at least twenty, and assuming that the vamps had at least a small back-up plan, that made the total probably somewhere in the area of twenty five. Not really the odds that Buffy was hoping for. Although regular vampires were almost ridiculously easy to defeat after the Ubervamp ordeal, taking on five or six of them at a time would still be an extremely difficult endeavor.

“Well what have we here?” one of the vampires, most likely the leader, mockingly called out. “Lost your way, Little Red Riding Hood?”

Buffy stopped walking about fifteen feet from the security-vamps. She heard Faith, Xander, and Andrew fan out to the sides, staying close. “That’s a new one,” Buffy retaliated. “And what do you know? I’m not even wearing red.”

Some of the vampires growled in the backs of their throats, a low, disturbing sound, but the leader held up a hand for silence, leaving the trickling fountain water as the only sound in the otherwise deserted mall. Buffy pointedly made a motion as if she were looking at an imaginary watch, then she yawned, trying to force the vampires to admitting whether they’d captured Robin or not.

“Think you’re funny, Slayer?”

“Not funny. Bored.”

This time it was the leader who growled, his arms quivering with rage. “Fine. You want to play rough?” he asked. He turned his head to the side and yelled, “Bring him out!”

From the left side of the plaza came three more security-vamps, hauling a barely conscious Robin Wood behind them. Faith started forward, murder in her eyes and in her heart, but Buffy grabbed her arm, mouthing “wait” when Faith angrily turned around. Buffy noticed that Faith’s breathing had quickened in only those few seconds; she was a barely-contained ball of anger now that she’d seen what the vamps had done to Robin, but even Faith couldn’t last long if she rushed over twenty vampires at once. The trio of vampires deposited Robin at the leader’s feet. Buffy cringed; Robin was bleeding from his nose and mouth, not to mention a gash that had opened up on his forehead. His eyes flickered open, but they didn’t focus on anything. His breath was shallow, and he was holding his side as if he’d received a blow to his ribs.

“Still bored?” the leader taunted, a smile playing across his demonic face. “I guarantee you that we weren’t when we kicked the shit out of your friend here. It was more fun than I’ve had in a good, long while.”

Faith tried to reason with the leader, trying to contain her rage. “He’s not a part of the fight. Just let him go.”

“I have a better idea.” With that, the leader grabbed Robin by the shirt and roughly hauled him to his feet. He wrapped his left arm around Robin’s throat, holding him in place. “How about watching this guy die?”

The leader gave a short, malicious laugh and sunk his fangs directly into Robin’s neck. Faith was already in motion, halfway to the leader before his teeth had even sunk in. Buffy was a step behind, followed by Xander and Andrew. The vampires closed in on the small group. The battle was on.

* * *

In one instant, the leader of the vampires was tearing the flesh and drinking the blood of the man that the Slayer had been so adamant about saving. The next instant, he felt a cold, solid object slide underneath his rib cage. He broke contact with the limp man, allowing him to fall to the floor with a thud. The leader looked down at his ribs, and there, wedged upward, was the bottom of a knife blade, its handle held by a slender, trembling hand.

“You like that feeling?” Faith asked, her eyes wet with emotion and rage. “That’s just the beginning, motherfucker.”

With that, Faith twisted the knife and yanked it free, amidst a spray of dark, vampiric blood. The leader howled and fell to the ground in a heap, clutching his bloody side. Faith, unconcerned about the coming opposition, leaped down on top of the vampire, intending to keep stabbing until there was nothing left but mangled skin and viscera.

But before she could take her revenge, six vampires running with supernatural speed, not content to take Faith one at a time, converged and tackled her off the leader and down to the hard, tiled floor.

* * *

Buffy saw Faith go down, but she wasn’t in a position to help her at the moment, concerned as she was with eight security-vamps. The other ten or so vampires had most likely broken off from the main group to attack Xander and Andrew, who were hopefully able to handle the onslaught with the help of Giles and Willow.

She snapped her attention back to her present predicament: how to defend herself against eight enemies. Her mind was running through possible plans of action when the vamps suddenly closed in a circle, intending to trap her with their superior numbers. Buffy instinctively swung her sharpened staff in a wide arc, cutting the chests of several vamps and sending the others backward in an uncoordinated retreat.

“What, you guys just attack with no opening insult?” Buffy mocked, keeping her foes at bay with the staff. She occasionally tried for a quick staking, but the vamps had learned their lesson and kept jumping backwards to avoid getting dusted. Buffy decided to press the issue, hoping to draw a few of them closer. “You guys suck at being vampires. Can’t even take on one little Slayer. It’s just-“

She had to cut the finish of her insult short as one vamp stepped forward, fangs dripping spittle. He opened with a roundhouse kick that Buffy ducked. She delivered a kick of her own when the vamp recovered, sending him flying into several of his companions. That was the opening she needed. Instead of charging forward to attack the ones that were stunned from the attack, she moved directly backward, easily staking a vamp that hadn’t anticipated Buffy’s move. She drove her staff through his chest and directly into his heart, instantly dusting him and leaving her with one less vamp to fight.

Noticing another vamp closing in from her left, she swung her staff upward, the pointed edge catching the undead security guard right under the chin, the soft tissue there no match for the sharpened wood. His throat gushed blood as he frantically clutched at his neck, trying to stop the flow. He stumbled backwards right into one of the potted palm trees; Buffy followed him and skewered him with the staff, momentarily pinning him against the cement pot before he disintegrated in a shower of dust. She was in the process of turning around when she was roughly shoved into the pot by another vamp, this one female. Buffy’s head connected with the solid pot, making an audible cracking sound and plunging her into unconsciousness for a split second. When her eyes focused a moment later, she discovered that she’d dropped her staff, leaving her with no weapon against the remaining vampires that were closing in fast.

* * *

Giles and Willow, meanwhile, had their hands full on the second floor. From their viewpoint, the battle was extremely surreal; because the mall was so big, the sounds of the fighting just rebounded off into nothingness. Usually the fights they’d been in were noisy and frantic, but this one appeared to be progressing in slow motion so far below. This didn’t stop either one of them from moving quickly, however. Giles had managed to dust one vamp that had been harassing Xander, and he’d also managed to distract a few others with non-fatal shots. Willow had spent most of her time using her magic to levitate Robin Wood up to the second floor. Since he was barely conscious after getting bit, Willow thought it would be best to get him away from the fighting, lest he become an easy kill for a vampire. He now lay some feet away, attended by Dawn. The witch turned her attention back to the melee going on below, trying to see where to direct her spells.

She saw Faith struggling underneath at least five vamps, Buffy cornered by about the same number, and Xander and Andrew fighting back to back with their baseball bats against seven or eight. Something didn’t make sense.

“Giles!” she said loudly to get the ex-Watcher’s attention. “Weren’t there more vampires just a second ago?”

“What?” Giles returned, loosing another arrow, this one going clean through the head of one of Buffy’s vampires, sending small bits of bone, blood, and brain matter all over the floor. The vamp went down, bleeding profusely from his head, but he was up a second later, still intent on the ultimate prize: the original Slayer.

“We’ve got vamps missing in action, Giles!” Willow repeated. “There were-“

“Oh, bloody hell.”

Willow followed Giles’s pointed finger and saw four vampires leaping up the escalator, jumping farther than any human possibly could, uniform both in their outfits and their actions. They reached the top and began running, intent on destroying the distracting humans that had been pestering them from above.

Giles frantically notched another arrow. Willow raised her hands and started a spell.

* * *

“We’re gonna die, Xander! Like the Rebel forces at the Battle of Hoth!”

Andrew desperately swung his bat and connected with a vampire’s face, sending it spinning in an ornate spiral before it crashed to the ground. He held the bat straight out, trying to keep other vampires at bay.

“Shut up, Andrew!” said Xander, dealing with the vampires on his side. Standing back to back afforded the duo a small measure of security, but they were also dealing with too many vampires to really be effective. Lacking superhuman Slayer traits or Wiccan magic, they could only rely on their fighting skills and each other-which wasn’t that big of a comfort to either of them. To make matters worse, Xander’s field of vision was limited due to his eye patch, and he had to compensate by moving his head back and forth constantly to keep all the vampires in his view.

“Where’s Buffy? Where’s Faith?” Andrew’s voice was high-pitched. “We need a Slayer!”

“I know, Andrew! Shut up!”

As several vampires collaborated to form a single charge, a huge fireball flew down from the upper level, crashing into the vampires and lighting them all on fire. Everyone, vampire and human alike, stared at the spectacle. The fireball, which turned out to be a vampire covered in flames, got up and stumbled about, waving its arms and screaming in agony. Xander looked up and saw Willow casting spells while Giles wrestled with three other vampires. This soon-to-be-dust vampire must have fallen over the railing all the way to the floor in confusion after being lit aflame by Willow’s fire incantation.

The other vampires that had been unlucky enough to be the landing pads for the moving fireball were all rolling on the ground in pain, trying to extinguish the flames before they grew too big. Xander-and everyone else in the immediate area, alive and undead-watched as the flaming vampire that had started it all ran across the plaza in the general direction of the fountain. He ricocheted off benches, palm trees, and even some vampires that were closing in on Buffy before turning into ashes mere feet from his goal.

Now there were many vampires on fire due to the stupidity of one.

Xander and Andrew hefted their bats and started capitalizing on the distraction.

* * *

Faith was being crushed by the collective weight of numerous vampires. Her hands were pinned beneath her chest, preventing her from using them to gain some sort of leverage. The bloody knife she’d been clutching had scattered under a bench, too far out of reach for her liking. She felt a crushing blow come down on her kidneys, most likely a knee or elbow, and she winced, struggling to free herself. Grunting with exertion, using all of her strength, she lifted herself and the vampires off the ground, but only for a moment. However, that one moment was enough time for her to free her right hand, allowing her to move it in a limited space. She immediately began inching it towards her back pocket, intent on getting to her last-resort knife.

Her hand was almost there when a fist came down and slammed her head against the floor. Stars erupted in front of her eyes, and she could feel the unmistakable stickiness of her own blood running down the side of her face. Blinking rapidly to clear her vision, harboring the pain and using it to fuel her anger, she finally came in contact with the knife, and her fingers wrapped around its handle. But before she could get it free, a hot, musty voice breathed into her ear.

“C’mon, girlie,” the female voice said. Faith felt a hand caressing her neck. She tried to get rid of it, but couldn’t move far enough. “All outnumbered, and nothing you can do about it. You humans…you never learn.”

The vampire gave Faith’s neck a slow lick, savoring the taste. Through her tongue, she could feel Faith’s pulse.

“There’s nowhere you can go, honey,” the female continued, her breath moist and warm in Faith’s ear. “We’ve got you trapped. And it looks like I get to have the first taste, you poor, sad, little girl.”

Faith felt the needle-like tips of the vamp’s fangs on her neck. She put all her remaining strength into one colossal effort to free herself, but she felt suddenly weak. In one eternally long moment, the vampire pierced Faith’s skin and deeply sunk her fangs into Faith’s neck, slowly sucking the hot blood of a Slayer. The vampire was even pulling on Faith’s necklace, strangling her victim even as she fed. Faith, clenching her teeth against the pain of having her blood literally sucked from her body, knew she had precious little time. She could already feel her own blood spilling from the vampire’s mouth and over her exposed neck, turning her necklace’s silvery finish dark crimson.

She forced herself to look straight ahead, trying to focus on getting the knife out. But there, standing not ten feet away, was someone who couldn’t possibly be alive.

Spike? Faith thought, her hand still trying to wriggle free of her pocket. I’m hallucinating. That’s it. Hallucination, then death, and bye-bye Faith.

Spike was staring straight into her eyes, and suddenly she heard his voice in her head. Time seemed to slow as the words, clear as if they’d been spoken aloud, entered her mind.

You had the power to walk away anytime, came Spike’s voice. Nothin’ to stop you.

Faith, her mind cloudy, thought the words familiar, and she closed her eyes. Instantly, she knew her response: I stopped me. I got…dangerous…for a while. She opened her eyes, meeting Spike’s unflinching gaze as her blood pooled around her head.

You over it? he asked, in Faith’s head, his mouth not moving as he stood silently against the wall.

More or less, Faith heard herself say in that other place. She knew that this wasn’t right. Everything was moving too slowly, and Spike’s presence spoke for itself.

What’s the less?

The usual stuff. It’s all old hat, man. Just don’t forget who’s on top.

That, I suspect, would be you, Spike continued, his eyes boring into Faith’s as she was quietly being killed.

You got that right, she replied, still not saying a word. She could feel her life ebbing. What the hell was going on?

Then show me.

What?

I said show me. Show me what you’re bloody capable of. Show me the drive that puts you on top. Show me what made you so sodding dangerous. Let’s see a good spot of violence, love. Do it.

Spike disappeared from the mall, his image deteriorating as Faith watched, awestruck. Strangely motivated to survive, she felt herself grasping the knife, and she realized that she had to make every movement and every moment count. She wrenched the knife free of her pocket.

As her vision was beginning to go black, Faith somehow found the strength to reach around and violently jam the blade directly into the vampire’s right eye.

Faith screamed in pain as the vampire’s fangs were torn out of her neck, causing more blood to spill out of the two wounds there. But Faith’s scream was completely drowned out by the female vampire’s. All the security-vamps leapt away from Faith as they stared, horrified, at the small knife sticking out of the eye socket of their companion. The vamp’s yell was so loud that Faith instinctively covered her ears as she hauled herself under a bench for safety, in no condition to fight a puppy much less an entire cadre of vampires. Hands trembling, unsure of whether to leave the knife in or pull it out, the vamp was bleeding profusely, the blood flowing freely down her face and onto the floor. The other vampires that had been attacking Faith forgot she even existed, morbidly fascinated by the grim spectacle that had been Faith’s last, desperate bid for life.

The female fell to the floor, writhing in pain, her immortality more of a curse tonight that it had ever been before.

“Take it out!” she screamed at her friends. “Take it out!”

Faith closed her eyes against the sight as the vamp’s right eye was crudely torn from its socket amidst an obscene spray of gore.

* * *

On the other side of the plaza, Buffy had been capitalizing on the distraction that the flaming vampire had caused. He’d bumped into a few of her attackers, but unfortunately they’d been able to douse the flames by quickly jumping into the fountain. Now Buffy was facing wet, enraged security-vamps, but she’d been able to reclaim her weapon during the chaos, and now the odds were firmly in her favor once more. Previously, she had been able to dust two vamps; that was nothing compared to what she did next.

Hearing Faith’s scream over the cacophony, not content to play defense again, Buffy rushed forward, swinging the staff like a bat and catching one wet vamp in the face, sending an explosion of blood and water into the air. He spun into the vamp next to him, sending them both the ground, and Buffy moved on, heading towards a trio who had positioned themselves around one of the black benches. Two of the three opted for side kicks that Buffy backed away from, the third hopping up on the bench in preparation for a flying snap kick. Noting the opening, Buffy planted the staff firmly on the ground, slightly blunting one of the sharpened edges as she did so, and launched an immense kick that connected with the vamp’s chest, sending her flying off the bench and directly into a cement pot. Buffy heard a distinct crunching sound, most likely the vamp’s spine cracking under the punishment.

The other two vamps rushed forward as Buffy ducked, grabbing the staff in the center and pushing it forward into the vampires’ stomachs. They both doubled over, and Buffy staked one of them in the back, sending dust all over the floor, as she drove her knee into the face of the other, shattering his nose and sending blood everywhere. Supernatural senses working overtime in her desire to help Faith, Buffy heard a heavy footfall behind her, and without even looking, she drove the staff backward, feeling it come in contact with something solid. She turned, seeing a vampire clutching at his stomach and the staff sticking out of it. Forcefully ripping it free, she used her other hand to throw the vamp face-first into the steel bench. His head ricocheted off with a clang as his body landed right next to the vamp with the broken nose.

Buffy twirled the staff as she turned to face what was left of the other vampires she’d been fighting. The ones she’d injured would be out for at least a few moments more, affording her enough time to take care of the ones that were still a threat. One of them, the one that Buffy had struck across the face, made a feint, and Buffy fell for it, going to block a blow that never came. Instead, she was viciously punched in the face by a vamp that had cleverly been flanking her. She rolled with the punch to lessen the shock, remembering to keep the staff firmly in hand. Her mouth busted open, and she felt a steady trickle of blood down her chin, but she ignored it, going on the offensive once more. Using their own tactics against them, Buffy feinted as if she was going to stake the vamp who’d hit her, but instead, she lunged the other way and cleanly dusted the male she’d previously hit in the face.

Quickly reversing her direction, she moved out of the way just in time as one vamp dived past, looking for a tackle and finding nothing but air. He stunned himself by careening into the fountain’s concrete base, and before he could regain his footing, Buffy had stabbed him through the heart, ending his stint as one of the world’s worst security guards. She absentmindedly wiped her mouth as she considered her next move. None of the vamps seemed to be in any mood to make an attack. She found several still on the floor, bleeding from their wounds or otherwise incapacitated. Only two were standing, glaring at her through their demonic eyes. That just wouldn’t do.

“Bring it on,” Buffy taunted, putting the staff through an intricate series of movements that showed her ease with the weapon. “Don’t be scared. Unlike you, I don’t bite.”

Neither vamp made a move, so Buffy sighed, rolling her eyes. She chanced a fast look at how the others were doing. Faith appeared to be safe for the moment, huddled under a bench as approximately six vampires gawked at the blood-soaked area where a seventh vamp was rolling on the ground, screaming in utter torment. Buffy noticed that one of the vamp’s eyes was missing, and she immediately decided to check on Xander and Andrew instead. Amazingly, the two were doing quite well for themselves, only having to contend with about two vamps apiece by this time. Feeling that they must’ve had some help from Giles and Willow, Buffy looked up to the second floor. Giles was in the midst of a fist fight with one vamp and another, on fire, was running all over the balcony. Willow, her hands aimed at the vamps harassing Xander and Andrew, caught Buffy’s eye and gave a hurried thumbs-up before launching a shockwave that sent a vampire crashing through a plate-glass display window.

Buffy considered her foes once more, decided that they were too cowardly to attack, and just hurled the staff with all her strength right into the chest of one. His confused face disappeared a moment later as he collapsed into a small pile of dust. The staff clattered to the floor. The remaining vampire looked at the staff. He looked at Buffy. Buffy shrugged her shoulders. The vampire looked at the staff again, weighing his options. Apparently thinking that using the staff against the Slayer would be a bad idea, he left the weapon on the ground and came at Buffy using traditional techniques instead. She managed to block all of his strikes until he unexpectedly altered his methods and drove a knee into her stomach. She couldn’t help but fall to her knees, all the air having been driven from her lungs. The vamp, pressing his luck, went for a swift roundhouse kick that would’ve knocked Buffy out, but she brought her forearms up and blocked at the last second.

Angered that his attack hadn’t worked, the security-vamp reached down with both hands, intent on lifting Buffy by her hair so that he could bite her neck. Buffy waited until the last possible second, then, with a speed that defied normal human abilities, she grabbed one finger on each of the vamp’s hands and snapped them. A silent scream came from the vampire’s mouth as he regarded his mangled hands. Buffy spun in a circle, toppling him off his feet with a sweeping kick. He fell hard, cracking the back of his head on the immovable floor. Not wasting any time, Buffy grabbed her staff, and, feeling particularly angry, gave it a brutal golf-like swing that shattered most of the vamp’s precious teeth. He coughed blood and Buffy put him out of his misery.

* * *

The security-vamp leader had been attempting to navigate his way through the different fights without getting staked, bludgeoned, or stabbed-again. His side had nearly stopped bleeding from Faith’s knife strike, but it was extremely tender and caused him pain every time he moved even an inch. He’d managed to avoid Xander and Andrew’s slug-a-thon on the far side of the plaza, he’d snuck behind Buffy’s back as she was busy staking another vampire, and he had no intention of heading upstairs to tangle with the fearsome Witch and Watcher tag-team. That just left the brown-haired girl. She was lying on her side under a bench, bleeding from various wounds, attempting to avoid any further contact with the undead security force, which had severely dwindled in number since the fight began. Fewer than twelve vamps were left out of a group that had consisted of nearly twenty five, and most of these twelve were either in the process of being dusted or crippled in some way or another.

Making his way around the outer perimeter of the plaza, staying well away from the fighting, the leader began making his way towards Faith. He would have his revenge on the girl who had ruined his hard work; he’d rip her throat out. As he approached her position, he noticed that her attention was focused solely on the few vampires trying to get her out from under the bench. She was doing an admirable job of keeping them at bay with desperate kicks while she held her hand to her bleeding neck wound. Her other hand was holding something, but he couldn’t make it out. Whatever it was, it was irrelevant. He began striding towards the bench, intending to take her completely by surprise. He was just about to reach out and grab her when a voice interrupted his plan.

“Hey, mate,” the voice said. The leader turned around. A man in a dusty black trench coat was staring him down. “I have two words for you: sod off.”

“Fuck you,” the leader retorted, snarling, his blood lust far from satisfied. “Who the hell are you anyway? Where’d you come from?”

“I’m no one,” the blonde-haired man said. “At least that’s what my sodding teachers always told me. But I’m not who you should be worrying about.”

“Oh, really?” said the vampire, snorting his irritation with this new person that spoke way too much. “Then who should I worry about, you damn Brit?”

The man just inclined his head, nodding at someone.

“Her,” he said, smirking.

Immediately realizing his mistake, the leader spun around, only to come face to face with a bloody, ravaged, and very, very pissed off Slayer. He saw that the other, blonde-haired Slayer was taking care of the vamps that had been pestering the brown-haired one. Before he could react, Faith shoved the object she’d been holding in her other hand directly into his chest, driving straight through his ribcage until the point of the knife had exited his back. Trying to stumble backwards but unable to do so because Faith was still holding the knife handle tightly in her hand, he dumbly stared down at the blood gushing from his chest.

“Remember when I said that what I did to you before was only the beginning?” Faith asked, a look of absolute hatred on her face. She began slowly twisting the knife, using what was left of her strength to open the wound to disgusting proportions. The leader screamed and lashed out at Faith, but she didn’t even blink when he struck her across the face. Instead, she pushed the six-inch blade a bit farther in and gave it one last, savage twist, tearing through bone and internal organs. Blood splashed all over the front of her shirt, but she didn’t even notice, never taking her eyes from the vampire’s. “Well this is the end, fucker.”

With that, Faith began pulling out the knife inch by agonizing inch. The only thing holding the leader on his feet at this point was Faith’s sheer willpower, not allowing her enemy even the small comfort of being able to roll on the floor. She could feel the knife’s serrated edges ripping and shredding the leader’s skin as she withdrew it. His blood was everywhere; though vampires couldn’t technically die from blood loss, they could be made so weak that death seemed like a blessing. Her shoes, her pants, her shirt, her hands…everything was literally soaked in gore, but she reveled in it, taking her revenge on the vampire who had tried to kill Robin, the one person she cared about more than anything else in the whole world. In a final effort, Faith yanked the knife free as she fell to the ground, too weak from her own injuries to do anything else.

The leader, convulsing from the pain of having a knife shoved completely through his chest, collapsed in a crimson heap, blood running from his mouth as well as his midsection. His blank eyes stared up at the ceiling. Spike sauntered over and surveyed the damage that only Faith was capable of. He could actually see the tiled floor through the hole in the vampire’s chest. The vampire reached up, trying to grab Spike’s leg for comfort, but his hand passed right through Spike’s incorporeal form. Spike was no stranger to violence considering his checkered past, but even his worst acts of torture would be hard-pressed to compete with what Faith had done. The wound was actually filling with blood, so huge was the hole. Spike just shook his head, looking over to where a blood-soaked Faith was curled up in a ball on the floor some feet away. Seeing that she was out of trouble for the moment, his attention came back to the husk of a vampire that was mumbling incoherently as blood bubbled up from his mouth.

“Bloody Yank vampires,” Spike said, shaking his head and disappearing once more.

The vampires were being systematically destroyed. Xander and Andrew, screaming like maniacs and waving their bats in the air, had actually chased a few vamps up the escalator right into one of Willow’s well-timed fire spells. Giles, wielding one of his arrows, had joined Buffy in dispensing of the last of the vampires near the fountain. Spike, unsurprisingly, was nowhere to be seen, but then again, only Buffy actually knew that he was back; Faith, still bleeding on the floor, thought him a hallucination. Dawn had done an admirable job of protecting Robin, smacking one or two vamps in the face when they got past Giles and Willow.

As Buffy dusted yet another vamp, she surveyed the carnage that surrounded the group. Broken glass and broken bodies were strewn about, Faith’s among them. Numerous injured vampires were wailing in pain, injuries too severe to be shrugged aside. Some stores had had their glass windows shattered courtesy of Willow’s powerful shock waves. The fountain’s previously pristine water had turned a rather repulsive red color due to all the blood that had been spilled in it. Scorch marks from flaming bodies were all over the floor, not to mention huge smears and puddles of blood. The entire plaza was an irreparable catastrophe.

Giles stuck his improvised arrow-stake into a vampire’s chest not three feet away. He flashed a small, somber smile before moving on to his next target. Buffy dropped her staff; it clattered to the floor. Exhausted and still bleeding from her mouth, she wandered over to the bench nearest to Faith and sat down. Faith, hearing the noise of Buffy’s footsteps, opened her eyes and gazed up at her friend.

“Faith, are you-“

“Is Robin okay?” Faith interrupted.

“He’ll pull through,” Buffy said, noticing that Dawn had propped Robin up against the railing on the second floor. “He looks better than you do at this point. Are you all right, Faith?” Buffy reached down to grab Faith’s shoulder, and for once, Faith didn’t shrug it off.

“You know me, B.,” Faith said, trying to smile and failing miserably. She spit up a bit of blood. “Five by five, all day, everyday.”

“Still, we should probably get you to a hospital.”

“Did we win?” Faith asked, closing her eyes again.

Buffy looked around again before answering. She saw Giles toss one vamp face-first into a garbage can and then stake it with his arrow. He started looking for more vamps, realized there were none, and started walking towards Buffy. Willow was riding the escalator down to the bottom floor, leaving Andrew, Xander, Dawn, and Robin up above. There were no more vampires to be seen, except…

“Yeah,” Buffy finally answered. “We won.”

“Do you…do you see the vamp that bit Robin anywhere? Did someone dust him?”

Faith’s eyes remained closed, but the concern in her voice made Buffy realize how violently Faith would fight to protect those that she cared for.

“He’s over there,” Buffy quietly said, helping Faith turn in the direction of the gruesome, bloody body that was trying to crawl away. Buffy had purposely left that one alone, feeling that Faith would need some sort of closure, considering that the vamp had nearly killed Robin. Buffy passed no judgment on what Faith had done to that vamp; put in Faith’s position, Buffy knew she would have done the same thing.

“Give me a stake, B.”

Buffy motioned for Giles to bring her the staff. The ex-Watcher obliged, handing Buffy the staff and wincing at Faith’s battered form at the same time. Buffy cleanly snapped one of the sharpened ends off the staff and knelt down to place it in Faith’s hand. Willow came walking up at that moment, concerned for the bloody mess that was probably the most dangerous Slayer in the world. Faith, her hand wrapped around the stake, managed to get to her hands and knees, her motives all too clear. They all watched silently as Faith, unable to stand, crawled towards what was left of the vampire that had caused her so much emotional distress.

Leaving a small trail of blood in her wake, she finally made it to the vampire, who was using his hands to pull himself across the floor. Faith’s left hand wrapped around the vamp’s ankle, holding him in place. He turned his head to look over his shoulder, terrified that Faith had come back to torment him again. The two, battered and beaten, stared at each other for one timeless second…then Faith lifted her right arm as high as it would go and drove the stake straight through the vampire’s back and into his pulsing heart. He made a choking sound, his eyes rolling back in his head as he quietly dissipated into dust. Faith, having avenged Robin, dropped the stake and fell into unconsciousness.

Buffy, Willow, and Giles rushed forward to make sure that Faith hadn’t killed herself through overexertion. Anyone in such a state should have been saving his or her energy, but Faith wasn’t just anyone. She would always fight and never quit until her task was finished. And now it was.

* * *

Outside, Spike was enjoying his first night back on Earth. Though he couldn’t actually feel or smell anything due to his ghost-like form, he could tell that the night was nice. The leaves were rustling in the trees, indicating a crisp summer breeze, one that pushed small pieces of garbage absently through the deserted parking lot. A half-full moon hung peacefully in the starry sky, shedding dream-like rays across the urban landscape.

Spike suddenly felt the need for a cigarette, then cursed his intangible form when he realized he wouldn’t even be able to pick one up. The doors of the mall swung open, and he directed his attention to the people coming out.

Andrew and Willow came out first, holding the doors for everyone else. Dawn followed next, dragging several full bags of stolen merchandise. No one had been able to convince her that stealing was wrong, their logic lost on Dawn’s teenage mind. Besides, she figured that she’d earned it, considering the “emotional scarring”-as she called it-that she’d been subjected to. Xander came next, apparently advocating Dawn’s opinion on stealing by hauling a small fortune in comics for himself and Andrew. Last out were Buffy and Giles, supporting Faith and Robin, respectively. Spike was amazed that Faith was even able to walk after all the blood she’d lost, but then again, her drive was so strong that he should’ve known better than to doubt her ability.

They all passed by, a procession of some of the best, most dedicated people he had ever known. They took their beatings and their faults in stride, always striving to make themselves-and the world-better bit by bit. No one noticed Spike, cloaked in darkness, wrapped in his thoughts. As everyone trailed away towards the distant van, he noticed that Robin and Faith, although they were both exhausted and bloody, had moved close together so that they were able to wrap their hands together as they limped into the distance. Spike smiled, glad that at least one good thing had arisen out of all the fighting and two near-deaths.

He gave one last, long look at Buffy before melting into obscurity. He knew she loved him. And he loved her.

“Be seein’ you, love,” he said, evanescing into the night. “Be seein’ you soon.”

THE END

Eliza Dushku - Faith Lehane

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Fanfiction: Requiem

REQUIEM: REMEMBRANCE

REQUIEM: REACTION