From out of the blackness, she hears something, a whisper, very far away.

The sound slowly takes form, becomes a solid noun, one word, four syllables. She thinks it’s her name.

“Illyria…”

Now she knows it’s her name. The darkness becomes brighter. The sounds-that-are-words become clearer now.

“Can you hear me?”

“She’s waking up.”

When the dark haze finally lifts, she sees and instantly remembers her companions. Eldre Koh and Buffy Summers, both her peers on the Magic Council, are looking down at her, as she reclaims her awareness of the world around her.

But they’re looking at her oddly, she thinks. Why? And then she realises: the Blue is gone. In fact, if it wasn’t for the outfit she has on, she looks exactly like Fred Burkle, the shell she inhabits. “What happened?” she asks, out of now-hazel eyes.

“We got zapped to the wrong place,” Buffy tells her, helping her sit up. Illyria nods, the memory returning. “I waited too long to teleport you. I lost concentration and… he took it.” She gets up, anger in her tone now. “A mortal. Took my power.” Buffy reminds her that she’s been depowered before, but Illyria looks down at her hands: this time feels different, she tells the Slayer.

Koh looks about, inquiring after the Council, but the small girl with the red balloon is the only one in view. “They fled,” the balloon tells them. “The Council’s mission is to protect what little magic remains. We cannot do that if the Siphon steals ours. The Council is regrouping, without you,” the balloon says, when suddenly the girl lets go of the balloon and it floats off into the sky. When Koh asks about the information he is owed, the balloon calls back down to him from high above. “No promises have been broken. You failed. Now I must join the others.”

The little girl vanishes in a blue light, drawing their gaze. The balloon is long gone by the time they turn around again. Buffy is adamant to Koh: they have bigger problems than his jailer right now. “We failed big time.” She apologises to Illyria, who tells her it’s unnecessary. She is more concerned with what Severin will do with her powers.

He could be anywhere. Or in any time. Undoing everything and everything that might lead to his girlfriend’s death. “What happens if Severin succeeds? Paradox? New timeline? Or something else that’s going to make my head hurt?” Buffy turns to Illyria, the science escaping her.

The Old One tilts her head. “Under the best of circumstances, undoing the past could lead to a minor apocalypse.”

Buffy lets out a deep sigh. “I thought shattering the Seed meant I could delete the A-Word from my vocabulary.” She turns to her companions. “I don’t have a lot of faith in the Council to stop Severin – not when they run from the fight. And since I’ve got more experience than anyone I know with end-of-the-worlds, I’m not going to sit this one out.”

Illyria and Koh hear her and silently agree. She can see it in their eyes. “We’re going to need help,” Buffy tells them. Illyria tilts her head once more: “Who will help us?” Buffy doesn’t look back at her as she begins walking away.

“My friends,” she declares, her belief renewed.

In Andrew Wells‘ basement lab, Dawn is lying down on a bed. The bed next to her is occupied by the BuffyBot, still inert and missing her arm from her last adventure. He’s hooked up the two to the transfer device and the device is ready. He turns to Xander, who’s next to Dawn, unable to take his eye off her.

“You want me to go through with this, right? You sure Buffy’s gonna be okay with it?” Andrew doesn’t want to annoy Buffy. Not again. “I mean, once I’ve stabilised her, I’ll build a DawnBot, or a Mecha Dawn, or whatever you want to call it.”

Xander still doesn’t move. “I don’t care about the Bot. I just want her to be okay.” He pulls her hand to his cheek. It’s only then that he turns to Andrew. “Do it.”

And Andrew reaches for the switch.

In the warehouse depot, the nest of the Uberzompires where Buffy disappeared, Billy Lane and Anaheed are just finishing the job. They’ve managed to take out the whole nest it seems, and finally plunge their stakes into the hearts of the remaining two.

As the dust rises above them, Anaheed pats herself down. “You’re good,” she tells Billy, impressed.

Billy can’t help but be slightly annoyed back. “You mean for someone who’s not really a Slayer? Unlike you.” He turns to her angrily, holding his stake in her direction, pointing the sharp end at her. “Does Buffy know you’re packing wood?” he asks, and then immediately curses the wording.

“I served with the Chicago Squad, so I never actually met Buffy face-to-face. She thinks I belong to the unchosen masses.” Billy’s not happy with the deception; so she’s watching Buffy?

Anaheed tells him to relax. “Contrary  to popular belief, some of the Slayer army actually stayed loyal to Buffy. We worried the rest of the world wouldn’t be so understanding. We were right.” She snatches the stake off Billy, power and authority in her stance and eyes now.

“My mission is to protect Buffy.” Billy looks at her, so Anaheed tells him more. “From late rent. Angry roomies. Funky milk in the fridge. And all the other privileges that come with being broke and twenty-something. And it worked: I eased Tumble into the idea that we were living with a Slayer.” She starts listing things on her fingers as she continues.

“I ‘found’ her stash of weapons,” she exclaims with air-quotes, “to get Tumble comfortable having sharp, pointy objects in the house. And do not ask me how many times I have paid Buffy’s share of the rent.”

Billy takes all of the information in, but also has more questions. If Anaheed is the good guy, why was she creeping around Buffy’s room? Then it’s Anaheed’s turn to look at him with unease: “Because I was suspicious of you.“

Billy looks taken aback by that, but Anaheed quickly changes her tone, putting her arm around the teenager. “But since you risked your life walking into a vamp nest twice, I’m thinking we’re both the good guy.” She walks him towards the entrance of the building, where beyond the shutters, the sun is slowly starting to rise.

In Buffy’s apartment, Buffy and Illyria use the fire-escape to get into her room through her window. They collide with each other and both hit the floor with a thud. Koh comes in, a motion of calm and ease, behind them. Buffy turns to Illyria and apologises for the awkward entrance: her roommates don’t like it when she brings her work home. Illyria rubs her head and sits down. “I don’t like feeling this way.”

Buffy moves to her bed, looking around, checking her desk for her phone. “I thought Billy would be home. Let me find my phone to put out an SOS.” As she removes her bed clothes to search, she catches sight of Illyria, who’s looking at her non-blue form in the mirror. She brings her gloved hand up to touch the human looking face, Fred’s face, staring back at her, her voice lacking the distinct power that normally threads through it. “I should be dead,” she says.

Buffy stops what she’s doing and reaches out, putting both her hands on Illyria’s arms. “Not on my watch. Okay, I usually do kill demons on my watch, but right now I’m not going to let you end anything before we stop Severin.”

She turns the mirror, so that the reflection is turned away. “Maybe you can’t get all time bendy, or throw a two-ton punch, but Severin stole your powers – which makes you an expert on how to stop him. And if you’re feeling self-conscious about the hair, I could probably find some blue Loreal,” she jokes. Illyria doesn’t laugh, obviously.

“You misunderstand me Slayer. I do not want to end my existence. I should be dead. This body is a vessel. When the Siphon ripped my power from me, it should have left a hollow shell behind.”

Buffy realises what she means. “Like all the zompires Sev killed, like his girlfriend… so what makes you different?”

“A question I would like answered as well.”

A voice from outside the room suddenly calls Buffy’s name. As Tumble opens the door, he takes one look at Koh standing by the door and, surprisingly, takes it all in his stride. “Whoa. Sorry. I’ll come back.” He turns to leave, and then re-enters quickly. “And don’t worry, I’m totally down with the whole Fifty Shades of Demon Thing.”

Buffy is horrified by the inference. “What! No! Wait! There is an unusual amount of leather in this room, so I understand the confusion, but this is a perfectly innocent discussion about an impending time apocalypse.” Tumble looks at her. “If it ends in ‘pocalypse’ that’s bad right? Is that why Xander keeps leaving messages? You have got to stop losing your cell.” He hands Buffy the phone that’s in his hands – and she instantly activates the voice call.

“Dawn” she notes and leaves the room.

“Is it working?”

It’s not the first time in the last twenty minutes that Xander has asked Andrew this question. But then he asks another one. “Whose hand should I be holding?” Andrew continues to look at his equipment, taking in the readings he can see on his monitor.

“Why aren’t you saying something annoying and inappropriate? No Invasion of the Body Snatchers reference? Freaky Friday? The friggin CHANGE-UP?” When Andrew still doesn’t say anything, Xander asks the one question that he didn’t want to ask.

“What’s wrong?”

In the hospital, Detective Robert Dowling is comatose, still wired up. Anaheed and Billy are by his side, reviewing the footage Billy found of Buffy disappearing, from the CCTV. “I know her.” Anaheed says, pointing at the tablet in her hand. “Before the portal, Buffy was distracted by her.” Dowling suddenly speaks, coming out of his sleep slowly. “That’s what Buffy said,” he murmurs.

Billy is stunned Robert’s awake, but he tells them that it’s mainly because the very strong painkillers have worn off. He’s awake until they kick in, which is hopefully soon. Billy smiles, but then it disappears. He looks at the floor, instantly apologising for not being able to help Dowling the night before. The officer turns to him and waves him away. “Don’t blame yourself. I’ve been down that road, and it doesn’t lead any place helpful. Whatever you’re feeling, put it into the work.” He asks Anaheed if she knew the zompire, and Anaheed nods slowly, making certain she’s right.

“Tessa Freer. She was on Rona’s Squad with me. She ditched the Slayer army to follow Simone Doffler on her world tour of mayhem.”

Dowling is instantly concerned. “A Slayer-Zompire hybrid? Is that even possible?” Billy doesn’t see why not, but the question then becomes, how did Tessa Freer get sired?

Somewhere, at an undisclosed location, one of the Slayers is in a dark room. She calls out into the darkness, petrified, but not crying. Confused, but not beaten. “Why are you doing this? I followed you when you walked away from Buffy! I’ve been with you from the beginning!”

A voice shouts back at her. “Then shut up and be a good soldier.” Out of the shadows, just out of reach, chained to the opposite wall, is a zompire, ravenously hungry, out of control and raging. It looks hungrily at the Slayer and then it’s chain is yanked and it instinctively, as if following a signal, takes a bite of it’s own wrist, blood dripping down over his arm and hitting the dirt on the floor, mixing with the dust.

“No! Please?” The Slayer begs, but the chain is released from it’s hold and the zompire comes towards her, grabbing a hold of her with one arm, and thrusting it’s bloodied wrist straight into the Slayer’s open mouth, forcing her to swallow. Then, as if it’s completed a task, it’s yanked back by the voice.

“I need to be stronger than Summers,” says Simone, coming out of the shadows with a twisted, evil grin on her face. She’s clearly relishing this. “And I’m not going to experiment on myself.”

In Andrew’s lab, Buffy is looking at Dawn, glum, with concern etched all over her face. Her skin is pale, but not as pale as Dawn’s. Looking at her unmoving and unconscious form on the bed, cold and stiff, she almost looks like she’s already gone. Buffy shakes herself out of her thoughts, as Andrew explains the situation.

“We tried to transfer her consciousness to the BuffyBot, but its not working. And if we don’t figure out why soon, Dawn is going to…” He breaks off, unable to finish the sentence, verbalise the grim thought. Buffy’s temper comes out and completes it for him.

“If the next words out of your mouth aren’t “be” and “okay,” preferably in that order, stop talking,” Buffy orders him, harsher than she intended. He backs away, arms up in defence. More scared of her than he should be.

Illyria has been staring at the equipment since she arrived. Finally, after twenty-five minutes of not moving, she tilts her head at the screen and speaks. “These are not brain waves. This is mystical energy. And it is leaving her body.”

Buffy and Xander are both stunned, turning to each other sharply and both saying the words at the same time. “The Key.”

Buffy turns to Illyria and explains: “Way back, when I was an only child, some monks were trying to protect a mystical key made of living energy. When they couldn’t keep it from a demon named Glorificus – who, sidebar, might have run in the same circles you did – they turned the Key into my sister. So I would protect her.” She turns away. “Which I should have been doing instead of playing magic police with you.”

Illyria seems assured that it wouldn’t have made any difference whether Buffy had been present or not. Xander is confused though. “Those monks turned the Key into Dawn – flesh and blood and bone and organs and lots of other squishy stuff. The point is, she’s real.”

Illyria looks at him. “Thanks to magic. And the magic that was left inside her is now fading.” Buffy looks up at her in anger. “Why? Severin? Did he do this?”

Illyria doesn’t shake her head. “This has nothing to do with the Siphon.” Buffy thinks for a moment, still angry, but then stops in mid-thought. “Oh,” she says, bringing her hand to her mouth in shock.

“Dawn’s dying because I destroyed the Seed.”

In the darkness of Simone Doffler’s lair, she looks at the newly sired Slayer Zompire. After taking a moment to stare, almost admiring what she’s done, Simone stakes the vamp and it explodes into dust. Severin comes up behind her in the dark. “Still playing with vampires?”

She lets the dust swirl around her and then looks at the door where Severin has entered the room, the room beyond full of bright sunlight. “No matter how many times you try, they’re all going to be duds.”

Simone walks over to him, grinning at his blue hair, stolen from Illyria. She touches her bright pink hair and smiles. “Copycat. Why are you still here?”

“You mean why am I still now? Travelling through time’s harder than I thought. Even with all the mojo I collected, I haven’t enough power to change what I ate for breakfast. I need more.” He leers at her, his body glowing and sparking with blue, and gets right up in her face. “And you’re going to help me get it.”

Simone scoffs. Why would she do that? Severin grins.

“You want to be the only vampire that Buffy can’t slay? You’re going to need my help.”

On the rooftop of Andrew’s building, Xander is staring out at San Francisco, listening to the sounds of the city. Silently, Buffy comes out onto the roof to join him. He doesn’t turn around.

“I should have been here sooner, Xan.”

She moves closer until she’s beside him. “But we’re going to fix this.”

She puts her hand on top of his. “Now’s the part when you agree with me so we can start to make a…”

Suddenly, with a vicious swipe, Xander pulls away from her, shouting in her face. “Get off!”

Buffy is taken completely by surprise and calls his name in concern. Xander turns away from her and with a sickening squelch punches the nearest wall, clearly concrete. “I can’t lose her,” he shouts loudly and proceeds to continue punching.

His hand is a bloody mess and he’s hit the wall until it’s cracked, as Buffy grabs a hold of him by his chest and slams his body to the floor. She lands astride him, keeping him pinned.

“Get. Off. Me.” He spits out the words. He can’t stand the sight of her. Buffy has never seen him this angry. “You think this is my fault, don’t you?”

She gets up when he doesn’t answer. She already knows she’s right.

“I’m not the only one,” Xander spits out. “And if you came up here hoping it’d let you off the hook for what’s happening to your sister, I’m just going to put you right back on it. Buffy, we’re going to lose Dawn.”

Buffy is angry herself now, but not at him. “Because I destroyed the Seed. I know. I already covered that downstairs.”

She comes closer to him and, deciding it’s her turn, starts to shout at him.

“But here’s the giant asterisk that goes after that sentence. If I hadn’t destroyed the Seed, the world would have ended in a blaze of Twilight-fuelled Armageddon. And your relationship with Dawn would have been reduced to a couple of days of what-might-have-been. No cosy apartment. No ‘Hi-Honey-I’m-Home’. No happy little life together. I gave you more time Xander! So let’s focus on the conversation that really matters.”

She looks at him, her eyes locked, her gaze determined. “How to save Dawn’s life now.”

Xander turns away, returns to looking out at the city by the rooftop’s edge.

“Nice speech, Buffy. You’re right. I can’t blame you for what happened after the Seed. But I can blame you for what happened before.” He turns to her. Buffy looks at Xander, confused.

“What?”

“You really never thought this through?” He’s in her face again now, his hand still dripping with blood. “If you and Angel hadn’t boned a new universe into existence, the Seed of Everything’s-Going-To-Go-To-Hell-If-You-Smash-It never would’ve needed to be smashed. And Dawn would still be a real girl whose battery isn’t running out of juice.” He starts to cry now, exhausted as well as angry.

Buffy, voice softer now, looks at him thoughtfully. “What happened with Twilight… it involved a lot of things that were out of my control.”

Xander nods. “Yeah, I get it. The universe gave you and Angel so much mystical mojo, neither one of you could keep it in your superpowered pants,” he adds, not convinced by Buffy’s words.

“Xander, it was prophecy. Millennia in the making. Everything I did that led up to it… I didn’t know what it was adding up to. If Giles had warned me…”

“Do not say it.” Xander’s words are cold as he threatens her.

“Xander, I was just trying to save the world.”

He’s too angry now, raising his bloodied hands and pointed at her to stop.

“It always starts with you trying to save the world, Buffy. But that doesn’t change the fact that every time you save it, somehow the world just keeps getting worse. So you won’t blame me if I try to save Dawn without your help. Because, right now, I can’t face things getting any worse than they already are.”

He walks away to go back inside. After a moment, she calls after him saying his name, as if it’s a command.

“Xander, be mad. Blame me. But Dawn is my sister. And you are not doing this without me.”