Nervousness was quickly approaching terror as the little redhead made her way quickly down the sidewalk, toward the house. It was quickly growing dark; she had not meant to be gone this long. She had made the routine trip to the grocery store to get supplies for the household for the coming week, only to find the store packed, the lines much longer than she had expected as dozens of people waited impatiently, in a hurry to get home before the sun set.
People were finally catching on to the key to survival in the town -- you had to beat the darkness home.
So it was that when she finally left the store, the sun was already setting in the distance. She had at best fifteen minutes to walk the quarter mile or so back to the house before the vampires came out in full force -- and she had two very heavy sacks of groceries to carry.
As the last faint rays of light disappeared over the horizon, the house finally came into view. She desperately tried to quicken her pace, slowed down by the weight of the bags she carried. Just as she reached the walkway up to the porch, a dark shadow fell across her, stepping into her path, and she dropped the bags, fearfully trying to prepare to defend herself.
"Well, what have we here?" the vampire in front of her sneered. He was big, with dark greasy hair and dressed in an old Aerosmith t-shirt and tattered jeans. "Aren't you out a little late, little girl?"
Glancing around, seeing no one nearby to help her, realizing that he had just cut off her path to the warm safety of the house, the redhead let out a little whimper of dismay. "J-just a *little* late," she pointed out with a grimace, her voice coming out as a pleading little squeak.
"Late enough," the vampire laughed, grabbing her by the arms and pulling her closer to him. She struggled, but he was far too strong, and she could not break his hold as he lowered his fangs to her throat.
*This is it,* she realized with rising panic. *After all this time, it's really over. I am really going to...*
The thought was not even completed before the bruising grip on her arms vanished in a cloud of dust, revealing the anxious face of her best friend, hastily replacing his stake in his back pocket, where the vampire had stood only moments before.
"You okay, Will?" Xander asked her urgently, moving forward to take her arms in much the same way the vampire had done -- but with much different intent.
Trembling with the shock and terror of what had just happened, Willow nodded hurriedly.
"Come on, let's get inside," Xander urged her gently, giving her a light push toward the open door, glancing warily around as he leaned down to pick up the forgotten groceries. He followed her quickly up the walk, asking, "Just the one this time?"
"Yeah. I don't think there were any more," she said, beginning to get control of her emotions again.
"There will be," he said ominously, pulling the door firmly shut behind them as they entered the safety of the house, where whatever lurked out there in the darkness was not welcome, and therefore could not follow.
"What happened?" a small, frightened voice asked them from the bottom of the stairs.
"It's okay, Dawnie," Willow quickly told her, as they turned to face Buffy's little sister, staring at them with wide, serious eyes. Willow's own fears were forgotten in an instant as she hurried to reassure the shaken twelve-year-old. Dawn had lost far too much in the past year, and was constantly afraid that something else was going to happen to once again shatter her fragile world.
It had all started when Buffy had left. Her sister had taken it very hard, as had her mother and -- well, everyone, really. And they had not known it at the time, but Buffy's disappearance was the beginning of the end.
The next to go was Giles. Only a few weeks after his Slayer vanished into thin air, the Watcher's Council had arranged for his deportment back to England. He had of course wanted to stay; Buffy had not been the only one he watched over for a very long time. But there was no option, no choice in the matter. What the Council wanted, they made happen. Period.
That first change had been hard on the Scoobies, but not so difficult for Dawn, who hadn't even known the Watcher.
Then the Slayer that had been called to replace Kendra had shown up in a blaze of glory, during one of the hectic disasters that were the Scoobies' feeble attempts to patrol in Buffy's absence. She had leapt into the fray and with a frenzied blur of black leather and a couple of expertly wielded stakes, easily dispatched the gang of vampires that had surrounded them.
At first, Faith had seemed like the answer to their prayers. She had immediately gotten right down to business with the slayage, making short work of several large vampire nests that had sprung up when word got out that Buffy had left town. But gradually, her attitude and demeanor seemed to change, and Buffy's friends began to notice aspects of her personality that were quite disturbing.
Faith seemed to enjoy the thrill of her supernatural power just a *little* too much.
Still, they were just so grateful to have someone there to help protect them and the rest of Sunnydale that they did not realize how dangerous she was becoming.
Until she stopped *slaying* the vampires and started *recruiting* them instead, allowing them to do as they pleased as long as they did what she said.
Until she started using her power to *take* what she wanted, whenever she wanted, beginning her own little reign of terror over the entire town.
Until it was too late.
Now, Sunnydale was not safe for anyone anymore, unless they were in line with Faith and her desires. Innocent citizens were forced to keep to their homes after dark to avoid the vampires in her service that freely roamed the streets at night in packs -- often led by Faith's right-hand man, so to speak -- a familiar enemy who had returned to Sunnydale shortly after Buffy had left, and had somehow managed to get into the good graces of the new Slayer.
Spike.
Besides Faith, it was Spike that they held most responsible for so many of the losses they had faced since Buffy had left.
The first had been Cordelia.
She had been late coming home one night and was set upon by one of Faith’s gangs. Her lifeless, violated body had been found the next morning, left heedlessly lying in the street for anyone to see; they had not even bothered to try to hide it. They *wanted* it to be found – a powerful message to Sunnydale’s citizens of just who was in control now.
Xander had been beside himself, heart-broken with grief – and blinded by rage. After a brief little planning session between him and Oz, they two had decided to storm the old house on the edge of town where Faith had set up headquarters.
Oz was angrier than Xander had ever seen him, he somehow noticed through the haze of the pain he was in. He could see in the older boy’s eyes that he was thinking of how he would have felt if it had been Willow and not Cordelia, slain without mercy for no crime at all.
It was the night of the full moon.
Xander had taken with him a few weapons he had “liberated” from the army supply with the rocket launcher the year before – weapons he had procured with Cordy’s help, he remembered with tears streaking his face as he loaded and prepared them. He had never take a human life, but he intended to that night. Faith was going to pay.
They had blasted their way into the mansion, just before sunset, shooting indiscriminately at the vampire gangsters that guarded the doors. They had used the element of surprise and sheer force fueled by rage to make it through the huge house to where Faith and her second-in-command were deep in discussion.
Confusion had taken control when Oz had changed, becoming the wolf and falling upon the nearest object of his rage – Spike. He had put up a terrific fight, while Xander went after Faith, showering a rain of bullets on her vampire minions who tried to protect her. It didn’t kill them, but it did put them temporarily out of commission long enough for him to whip out a stake and finish them off, one after another. In the wild melee, Xander simply saw red, and was as wild a creature as Oz, releasing a violent fury in the wake of which only he, Faith, and Spike were left standing.
Oz was dead, still in his wolf form on the floor. The vampire had snapped his neck.
His rage temporarily sated, Xander had realized that he did not stand a chance against the Slayer and the vampire master he now faced. In his fear combined with the shock that his friend was actually dead, he had fled the mansion, not daring to look to see if he was being pursued. Just outside, he tripped over a fallen figure, bleeding from a bullet wound in the chest.
A still, silent…*warm* figure.
*Warm*! Xander realized with a painful jolt that not all of Faith’s henchmen were vampires – and he had taken this one’s life! Panicked as much by that fact as by the threat of his own death, he had stumbled to his feet and run desperately back to the house.
Willow had met him at the door, a terrible fear in her eyes, made worse to his eyes by the fact that he knew he had to confirm what she feared to be true. He was shaking violently, gasping for breath and trying to calm the terrified thoughts that circled around and around in his head.
*Oz is dead…Oz is dead! I killed a man. Oz is dead! Oh, my *God*, I killed someone!*
Overwhelmed, unable to bring himself to tell her the truth under the awful burden of facing it himself, he broke down in deep, painful sobs that racked his body. Automatically she put her arms around him, her eyes widening in shock as her mind took in the details her heart would not let it process. The blood that stained Xander’s clothing, the stricken look of devastation in his eyes – and worst of all, the unexplained absence of the man she loved.
They had both fallen to pieces in that moment, on the floor just across the line of safety into the house, with the door still open revealing their pain to anyone who might happen by. They clung to each other, each mourning their own terrible loss as well as that of the other, unbelievable devastation in the space of a single day in which each of them had lost their first love.
Dawn had taken it hard, too, when they had finally told her. Oz and Cordelia had both been around enough for her to grow comfortable with them and feel a certain bond, though she really barely knew Oz, and thought that she despised Cordelia – until she found out that she was dead.
The little girl had gone to her room and locked herself in, not coming out for hours, not answering her mother’s attempts to enter and comfort her. But Joyce told them later that she had been able to hear her soft, frightened sobs though the closed door, and knew that she was wondering what piece of her ravaged world would be snatched away next. Just when it seemed that they had nothing left to lose…
They found out the hard way that they did.
A few evenings later, Xander got a phone call from a very frightened Dawn, calling from a pay phone outside her school. It was already after six o’clock, and the sun would be setting soon – and Joyce had not shown up to pick up her youngest daughter.
Xander had rushed to pick up Dawn and had taken her home, going in with her to see if Joyce was there and okay. If he had been thinking beyond the simple worry that consumed him at the behavior that was very unlike Joyce of leaving Dawn at school, he would have thought to check the house before allowing Dawn to go in. For the rest of his life, he would regret that careless mistake.
Because Joyce was indeed there.
And she was not okay.
The horrific sight of her mangled, brutalized body lying on the living room sofa in a mockery of rest would haunt Xander to his grave. He could not even imagine the devastation that it wrought in little Dawn.
She had absolutely lost it. Before he could stop her she had fallen on top of her mother’s cold, lifeless body, pulling her against her chest and screaming, sobbing for her. She begged her to be okay, not to leave her, trying desperately to rouse her though it was obvious from her open, lifeless eyes and the massive amount of blood surrounding her that she was already gone. By the time he could gather his wits enough to drag her away from the body as gently as he could, she was soaked in her mother’s blood, and half out of her mind with shock and grief.
Near Joyce’s body was a note, reading simply, “If you mess with us again, the kid will be next.”
Thankfully, Xander, not Dawn, found the note, which marked the incident clearly as retaliation for the minor damage he and Oz had done to Faith’s ranks a few nights before. A furious but impotent rage filled Xander, for he knew who had done this, but knew that to do anything about it would be to risk Dawn’s life. The deep puncture wounds on Joyce’s throat confirmed his assumption that it had been a vampire that had done this.
Only one vampire currently had an invitation to the Summers’ home – the vampire that Buffy had foolishly invited in before she had left, and that they had neglected to uninvited, for some reason, not even really remembering that Buffy had invited him until now, when it was too late.
Spike.
Then and there, Xander decided that he would wait for his chance. Prepare. Watch. And one day, he would get the opportunity he craved.
And Spike would die, slowly and in agony, and begging for the death that Xander would gladly grant him.
After Joyce’s death, the remaining Scoobies, Willow and Xander, had moved into the Summers’ house with Dawn, because she was alone now and her father could not be reached, and also because they felt that they would be safer together than separated.
It was unspoken but understood between them that the wisest thing to do at that point was to just lay low for a while, not to draw any unwanted attention from Faith and her thugs. They stayed in after dark, and kept to themselves, and took care of Dawn, who now had no one left in the world but them.
And the evil that Faith allowed, embraced even, ran rampant over Sunnydale. The police were a thing of the past. What use were guns and bullets against an army of vampires? Anyone with any sense had fled Sunnydale at the first inkling of what was going on. But there were enough brave or foolish souls remaining to keep the little town functioning – barely – under the façade of living that filled the days, to make up for the sounds of screaming and terror that they tried to ignore at night.
And though it also went unspoken, Willow and Xander knew why they were among them – why they didn’t just take Dawn and get as far from this nightmare as they possibly could. They held a secret hope between them, though they knew it grew less likely with each passing day that denied it.
They secretly, desperately hoped, that someday Buffy would return.
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