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Five years ago, Sunnydale:

Dressed in black from head to toe, little Buffy Summers stood alone on the damp grass of her front yard. Her beautiful blonde hair pulled tightly back in a french braid away from her face as it clung to her head in a wet mixture of rain and hair spray. Her normally tanned face looked pale and flushed in the darkened skylight, and her hazel eyes, once so fully of life, looked empty and void of all emotion.

The wind ruffled a few strands of hair that had managed to escape the confines of the black hair tie. A thick, gray cloud hung over her head, swallowing the small town of Sunnydale into a gloomy darkness. It was that pregnant moment in which the sky would decide if it would allow rain to fall or not. But Buffy didn't notice this. She was too lost in her own thoughts, that were even gloomier than the settling obscurity.

A few drops of rain splattered here and there, cautiously, as if testing the ground first. They darkened the cool concrete to another indescribable shade of oatmeal, and Buffy’s hair to a dirty blonde. Thunder boomed loudly through the heavens, rumbling it for thousands of miles. The petite girl did not pay notice to this, either, though, and remained still in the rain.

"Buffy, dear, you ready to go?" Her mother asked, putting a gentle, reassuring hand on her eldest daughter’s shoulder. "You don’t want to be late, do you?"

Buffy finally looked up from her shoes, and gave her mother a worried glance. "What do I say to William, mom?" She asked, needing direction from someone.

"I’m not sure, honey. Just be there for him. He needs you, okay?"

Buffy nodded and grasped her mother’s hand tightly. She was lead down the sidewalk and to a big black car that had chrome that glistened in the heavy rain fall. Buffy’s attention was drawn to the purple flag attached to the front antenna on the hood. It waved violently in the wind, and made a slapping sound, as it hit the thin metal that held it in it’s place. ‘Funeral’ it read in large bold print. God, how Buffy hated that word right now.

"Rain, rain go away. Come again another day." An approaching voice sing-songed behind Buffy and her mother. They turned to see who it was.

"Dawn Marie Summers!" Buffy’s mother scolded her. "What on earth do you think you’re doing, singing at a time like this?!"

Dawn at least had the decency to look ashamed, and gave her mother and older sister an apologetic look. "But it’s rain' in, momma, and I want it ‘t stop." She responded with such innocence, that the older woman caved and instantly felt bad about snapping at her. She kept forgetting that Dawn was so young and didn’t understand what had really happened.

"I know, baby. But now’s not the time to be singing about such things. The Giles family needs for us to be strong and help them get through this tough time." Joyce explained gently, hoping that her youngest was processing what she was telling her.

"I’m sorry. I won’t sing no more. I want to help the Gileses out too." She recanted, smiling an naive smile, one that could only belong to little Dawnie Summers.

"It’s okay, sweetie. Now go get in the car, you’re gonna chat cold." Her mother chided her, light-heartedly.

Dawn raced past then to the waiting car, wanting to get a seat by the window. She too, was dressed in the darkest shade of black to be found in a crayon box. Her new noir strap-on Mary-Janes clicked with each step she took. Oddly full of energy for such a saddening event, the eight year old did not fully understand the meaning of the word death, as to pay the proper respect to lost loved ones.

But Buffy knew. She understood what dying meant. She knew it meant that you would never wake up to the alarm clock every morning, or brush your hair with your favorite brush that was given to you as a gift. It meant there would be no more fun days, in which children would laugh and act as children do, screaming at the top of their lungs and running about. It meant that you would never drink fruit punch ever again, or laugh, or cry, or yawn. No, Jenny would never do any of these things ever again.

She was dead.

~*~*~*~

With a name like Sunnydale, you would think that the town never saw a single cloud in the sky- and on a normal day, no one would. The Californian sky was usually filled with laughter, like a little child at the fair, during most of the year. So clear and sunny, with lovely streaks of blue and white. It painted a never-ending canvas of happiness for all to see, on a normal day. But this was not a normal day.

Today the thick clouds rolled in like huge tsunamis, thrashing wildly about, spreading it’s gloom for miles. Dreadful and gray, they were, like big puffs of rain-filled marshmallows, sticking together so closely that nearly all the sun’s rays were hidden from view.

The weather of the past month had been a disaster, and rightly so. It seemed so appropriate for such a melancholic time as a death. The sun seemed to understand the small circle of friends’ need for cloudiness, not rising for more than moments throughout the whole day. Or maybe it was just too ashamed to show it’s beautiful, bright, happy face, when all the children of Revello Drive where grieving so, and couldn’t even manage a genuine smile, let alone feel anything closely resembling happiness. No matter the reason, it never rose on the day of April 6th. The day Jenny’s husband, birth child, and step son, would lay her down six feet under to rest in peace at last.

Jennifer Giles hid her illness well. She never missed a day of teaching computer science class at Sunnydale High School, and always had the time and energy to spend quality time with her family and friends. She still did the house work every evening, and helped all four children with their homework regularly. She and Mr. Giles even went out to dinner every Friday night.

Some would say that her passing wasn’t extremely unexpected. She had been sick for weeks. But to the people closest to her, it was. She had been through a very courageous battle with the brain tumor, and had tried every treatment available to her. She sat through hours of radiation and being poked repeatedly with every needle known to man. Giles even hired the best brain surgeon in the country to try and remove the growth through surgery.

But in the end, nothing would be enough to safe her life.

Some of the treatments worked for a while, but the cancer would never be completely gone. Too much radiation could kill her, and too many needles gave her arms bruises that would last for weeks. The only logical option was surgery.

Dr. Wesley Wyndham-Pryce was the leading brain surgeon in the whole country and was the best at what he did. His strong English accent and thin framed glasses gave him the appearance of a wealth man, who was wise beyond his years. He only took the cases that no one else would, and was renowned in his field for his track record. He had never lost a patient yet. Everyone trusted him for one reason alone: he hated to fail.

The surgery went well, and everything checked out fine. Jenny was released within the same week. Finally it seemed that the gray cloud that had settled over the Giles household had lifted. But just when things were looking up, tragedy struck when they least expected it to.

The doctors said that it was an aneurysm. A rupture of blood vessels in the brain, probably due to complications in surgery. She more than likely felt little or no pain and passed out as it happened. Even if someone would have found her sooner, there was nothing the could have done. And poor William had been the one to find her cold, lifeless body on the couch in their living room.

Joyce and Hank knew of their neighbor’s illness, but felt it best not to mention it to Buffy or Dawn. They were afraid what kind of anguish would come of it, and they wanted to save their girls’ present pain.

William and Liam had both known of their mother’s predicament, and both dealt with it in different ways. Liam seemed to not care about anything anymore and his attitude took a turn for the worse. He hung out with the wrong people and was brought home by the Sunnydale P.D. at least once a week. His once high grades dropped like the stock market crash of the 1920's. Everything the Liam Giles had ever worked for seemed to fade away into nothing. And Liam too slowly faded-Into Angel. Jenny used to call him that when he was a baby.

William had become more and more involved with his studies, and rarely had time for anything else. This was the way he liked it. If he kept himself busy enough, he didn’t have to think about what had actually happened to his stepmother. He had already lost one mother to cancer, he didn't think he could deal with losing another. He and Buffy still remained close, and it was easier to be around her than anyone else. She understood him and never judged him for anything he said. She was his one true friend.

And he loved her all the more for it.
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