It’s been weeks. Between the Cotswolds and Santa Rosita and Dawn and Xander and Giles, it’s been a good long while, and now, exhausted, Buffy Summers wants her own bed, in her own room, in her own apartment.

She climbs up the stairs, yawning. She’s too tired to care that the elevator is out of order, again. She counts her steps lazily as she walks, just to keep herself awake.

She reaches her floor, walks slowly towards the door, a bit like a zombie. She pulls her key out, half-heartedly, and forces her arm to the lock.

Exhausted. Want to sleep. Want to hibernate.

I missed you so much, apartment. With Anaheed still in Santa Rosita, and Tumble barely verbal, you’re my peaceful oasis of…

“Hey Buffy! Meet our new roommates. Brandon and Brody. They’re interning with Theo Daniels’ start-up.”

She looks up and is forced awake by the sight in front of her. Either Brandon or Brody, whichever, is upside down, keg of beer on the floor, tube in his mouth, the others encouraging him to chug. Buffy doesn’t say a word, and the boys go silent. She walks over to Tumble, doesn’t introduce herself to the others, and grabs her roommate by his arm. She walks him towards her bedroom. “Talk. Private. Now.”

In her room, she doesn’t have to ask before the words begin to tumble out of Tumble’s mouth. “Anaheed moved out. Which means new lease. Which means the landlord can raise our rent to market value. Have you seen the housing prices in this town? Even with both of them, we can barely afford this place. They’re not bad guys – if you can get past their institutionalised white male privilege.”

Buffy stops and stares at him for a second. He thinks she’s going to yell, but she’s too tired. She speaks calmly and clearly, reminding herself that none of this is her roommate’s fault. But that does force her to make a decision.

“I get it. I do. I’m not mad. But despite my youth, I’m too old for this crap.” She looks regretfully at Tumble. “I’m giving notice.”

A few days later, Buffy is yelling in frustration at sister Dawn in the apartment she shared with Xander Harris. The key word Buffy hears: “shared,” past tense.

“Are you insane? You gave notice? Before you found new places? Do you know what it costs to live in this town? I do…” She hesitates before choosing her next words. “Now.”

Dawn remains unconcerned. Her voice is calm and logical. “Well, I mean, it’d be kinda weird for us to keep living together when we’re… y’know, working things out.”

Xander has listened to the Summers girls and has paid attention to Buffy’s dramatic entrance. He swipes across on his phone, researching. “I’ve got gobs of construction work lined up. How expensive can it… MIGHTY SARLACC!”

Buffy looks at him with “I know” plastered on her face in shock. “I know! And it’s like Shark Week out there! Tumble posted my room on Clem’s List at nine. By ten, we had an army of hipsters beating down the door!”

Xander stops her with a question. “Wait. I thought you made a small fortune at that bodyguard job?” Buffy sighs at him, folding her arms. “Small fortune met student loan. Both got much smaller. Keeps the wolves from the gate, but if I’m gonna be a Slayer full time, I gotta budget.”

A noise behind them signifies the entrance of Rupert Giles, busy fiddling with a bow tie under his collar. He’s dressed as he used to, which is funny to Buffy, now looking at his youthful face. Xander, however, believes that he’s the solution to their dilemma!

“Wait! Giles! Our wealthy English sugar da… friend! We’ve got a bit of a problem.”

Giles doesn’t stop adjusting his tie or look up at Xander as he speaks. There’s a veiled current of edgy sarcasm in his tone. “Yes, your shouting tends to carry. But I’m afraid my holdings are far from liquid at the moment. Shockingly enough, I’m having trouble convincing the banks that I am a legally dead middle-aged librarian.”

He reaches for a pile of papers that he’d left on the counter. “Your friend, Detective Dowling, is trying to help,” he says, riffling through the papers. “But supernatural alteration is a new and nebulous area of the law.” Turning to Buffy, he sighs. “I’d hoped Riley could appeal to his governmental contacts. Unfortunately, he is unreachable. A top-secret mission, I gather.”

Dawn asks them all why they’re so worried, just as Andrew walks through the door. “Everyone calm down. We’ve got a month to figure something out. I can apply for on-campus housing… Andrew, how’s rent in Oakland?”

In a highly dramatic way, Andrew gesticulates to the air. “Rising!” Then he picks up on the situation and, more quietly, asks: “You gave notice without a new place locked down? Interesting choice.”

Buffy puts her hand to her forehead, rubbing it. Stress headache, incoming. “If I have to stay with Tumble and the Bros much longer, there might be non-vampire staking.”

Andrew, pleased as punch, declares to no one in particular that “I have futons.”

Buffy turns to him, slight derogatory tone in her voice. “Andrew… The last time I was unconscious around you, I woke up a pregnant robot.”

Picking up on the tone, Andrew instantly looks bad, and starts to stutter. “Ah, yes. I can see how that would lead to unresolved trust issues. I’m, uh, sorry, if I haven’t said it lately.” Buffy waves him off, a look of apology on her own face. She didn’t mean to snap. “You have. Let’s not dwell. But I need a long-term solution.”

A ringing phone on the counter gets their attention. Giles struggles to reach the counter where it is, but manages eventually, with no small amount of grumbling. “Ah, that’s Willow. She’s helping me document my ‘digital trail.’ Excuse me. We’re meeting Dowling shortly.”

Buffy looks at him as he heads for the door. “Ask him about sudden vacancies. Maybe the cops have the inside scoop.”

“They gave notice? Without lining up a new place?” Willow is aghast. “Why would anyone do that?”

Giles looks at her with no explanation. “To be fair, I also didn’t realise the implications.”

Willow shakes her head. “Rents here are crazy pants. If I don’t find a job soon, I’ll be out on the street myself.” Giles turns to her, as they wait by a crosswalk. “Buffy said you had a job. As she put it: ‘Something grown-up with pantsuits.’”

Willow pulls a face for a moment. “Turns out they frown on employees going walkabout in mystic dimensions for weeks on end. But I know computers. I’ll be okay. I hope. Uh, I’ve been looking into your problem. The re-aging thing.”

Giles turns to her with vehemence in his voice. “No. Resurrection was quite enough, thank you. I don’t wish to be meddled with magically any further.”

Willow smiles. “Good, because who you are now is kinda all tied in with your resurrection. If we mess with you, it might unravel everything and you could die.”

Giles nods, slowly. “Ah. All the more reason then.”

Willow smiles at him some more, laughing. “Ha! I thought you’d be upset, but I should’ve known. You’re Giles. You don’t care about superficial stuff. You know it’s who you are inside that counts.”

As he walks off, Giles mouths back to her, but she can’t see the annoyance on his face. “Yes. Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

A few minutes later, in a diner, Willow, Giles and Dowling sit at a booth. Dowling has just flicked through the top of Giles’s paperwork, but he’s shaking his head as Willow looks at him, slightly stunned. “We’ve got his entire life history here. And it’s still not enough?”

Dowling looks at her with regret. “It might be… eventually. The courts are figuring it out. But, I’ll be honest, it’s a mess. Sorry. I really wish I could do more.”

Giles sighs, but doesn’t seem angry or annoyed. Just fed up. “Not at all. I’m grateful for your help.”

Dowling smiles and then turns to his bag. “But there is something I can do. I just thought of a lead for your other problem.” He pulls a police file out of his bag and places it on the table gently. He looks around, making sure Giles and Willow see the ‘classified’ at the top and makes sure no one else is listening, just in case.

“This lady’s been calling supernatural crimes. We can’t help her. Maybe you can. She owns a building on the edge of the Tenderloin. What used to be a sketchy area, but it’s gentrifying. Except her building – because it’s haunted.”

He closes the file and pushes it quietly towards Willow. “We’re a new department, understaffed,” he explains. “We have to prioritise where people’s lives are in danger.”

Willow opens the file, less worried than Dowling. She flicks through several pages, skimming quickly. She looks up at the detective with a smile. He continues to tell them of the building’s past.

“This place has a grisly history. Twenty-five kids disappeared over three decades. We think a serial killer might’ve been active then. But lately, it’s just scary sights and sounds, so it’s on our back burner. The landlady’s desperate. If you can help, there’s your vacancy.”

Willow finishes with the file and closes it. “Sounds pretty straightforward. Old crime scene, ghosts who can’t move on, lashing out. Those poor kids.”

Giles nods. “A simple exorcism. I’ve done dozens. We can help the departed, the living, and ourselves. Thank you, Detective. Allow me to buy you another stout.” He calls for the waiter, loudly, and several other patrons turn to look at him. Dowling gets up from his chair and looks at Giles, placing his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“Let me. Or I might have to arrest you.”

Giles looks down and speaks quietly. Now he is annoyed. “Yes, right. Bugger.”

Later, after the sun has gone down, Buffy, Giles, Dawn and Spike are outside a dark apartment building. It’s old, with fire escapes climbing the outside, like scaffolding keeping it stable. Dawn looks up at it in surprise and speaks, with dripping sarcasm.

“What a cool, old building.”

Buffy turns and smiles, correcting her sister. “Cool, old, haunted building, Dawnie.” She turns to the landlady, looking at them all with a fixed glare. “So if we fix it, we live here free?”

The landlady is a robust woman, with large hair and pointy glasses on her pointed nose. “Try cheap. For San Francisco. Final offer. I can always sell it to a German hedge fund. They don’t know from haunting.”

Giles stops her before she can change her mind. “We have an agreement, Madam. What can you tell me about the history?”

She smiles, but it’s a crooked smile. She doesn’t want to be here, clearly. “Not much. Inherited it from my dad. He rented to immigrants, mostly.” There’s a bile to her tone. “I been going upscale. Techies, trust-fund hippies. And it was fine until a few weeks ago. Then, WHAM, like a horror flick.”

Giles looks at her, completely unimpressed. He finds the woman ghastly. “And the, ah, serial killer?”

She points down at Giles and yells at him loudly. She clearly doesn’t care that he looks like a twelve-year-old. “Don’t you say that. They never found bodies. Ask me, the kids ran away. You know what those people are like!”

Spike watches, grinning, as her friendly façade, small though it was, slips entirely. “I’m an immigrant. What are we like?”

She turns to Spike, enraged. “Listen, Mr. Politically Correct police. I got other buildings. So either we fix this one, and we got a deal, or get out of my hair. And see if anyone else in this city will rent to a gang of weirdos like you.”

With that, she storms off, presumably in the direction of her own home.

As the four enter the building, they immediately find themselves in the hallway, stairs before them, apartment doors to the left and right. Dawn does not think annoying the landlady is a good start to their renting and looks at Spike. “Way to go, Spike.”

Spike shrugs her off. “Eh. More bark than bite. I need a place to live as bad as the rest of you. One more day on Wells’ futon and I may beat him to death with his vintage twelve-inch Boba Fett complete with Wookiee scalps and God kill me now.”

Buffy smiles at Spike’s annoyance, but then puts her focus on what’s ahead. She’s pulled the Scythe from its bag and has it in her hands, ready for anything.

“Sounds like things got bad here when we kick-started magic again. Just once, I’d love for something not to be my fault.”

Once they reach the centre of the building, Giles offers her encouragement. “No one’s been hurt. And it’s easily solved.” He immediately finds a spot on the floor and pulls out his book from his bag. He begins to pull out ingredients for the exorcism. Dawn looks down at him, a hint of concern in her voice. “Um… You don’t want to wait for Willow?”

Giles doesn’t look up. “She had that job interview. You don’t have to stay if…” Dawn stops him, mid-sentence, shaking her head and waving her concerns away with her hand. “Nah, it’s cool. Xander’ll be home soon, and well, it’s a little weird being alone with him.”

Spike looks at her, gently probing. “He hasn’t been dodgy?”

Dawn looks horrified. “God, no. Just the opposite. He gets dressed in the bathroom, like I can’t remember what he looks like naked…” Realising the personal nature of the conversation, Dawn stops talking, goes slightly red and looks down at Giles. “Um, can we do the ghost thing now?”

Giles ignores everything he’s heard, having had years of practice. “Certainly. If you’ll help me with the ritual adornments.” He turns to Buffy and points in the opposite direction from where they entered. “Buffy, Spike, if you would keep an eye out for any threats.”

Dawn calls after them as they head towards the door. “But don’t be mean. They’re scared little kid ghosts.”

Spike isn’t sure if she’s serious, but chuckles at the comment. “I shall croon lullabies as I beat the ectoplasm out of them, all right?”

As Buffy and Spike surround him, and Dawn spreads incense around the room, Giles looks down at his book and shouts out in Latin. “Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus.”

For a moment nothing seems to happen. There’s silence. Then, impossibly, from what feels like inside the building, a deep rumbling can be heard. In seconds, the whole room is crumbling, the walls cracking and the floor splintering. Buffy turns to Giles. “Is that an earthquake or…”

From the centre of the room, the floor beneath them caves in. A mass of eyeballs stares back at them, making a gurgling sound. Tentacles come up from around the horrific sight and start to surround the Scoobies, Spike yelling “Bloody hell!” loudly as he moves.

Buffy raises the Scythe in her hands, ready. “That does not look like a ghost kid!” Spike smiles and grins, swings his axe around his head, preparing to strike. “Better. Something I can slice up.”

But Giles yells a warning as he tries to reach Dawn, who’s in the grips of a tentacle. “No! Don’t get any of its ichor on you or…”

Spike looks over at Giles, but has lost sight of him in the confusion. “What’s that now?” And then Spike too is gone.

Buffy looks over at Dawn, struggling to free herself. She reaches her hand towards her sister, and Dawn does the same. They say each other’s name at the same time.

And then everything goes dark.

“Buffy…”

She hears it from nowhere. Her name being called. She knows that voice, doesn’t she?

“Buffy!”

Louder now. More urgent. Danger? Trouble? Is that Dawn?

“Hello! Dinner’s ready! You are such a flake!”

And then Buffy Summers is awake. Her eyes open slowly, struggling to adjust to the sunlight in the mid-afternoon sky. She sees the lawn in front of her, green and somehow familiar. The path. The steps. The door with the glass panels in it.

Impossibly, but in a way that feels all too real and all too right, Buffy finds herself staring at Dawn. Her sister is 11 years old. Far younger than she should be, Buffy thinks. Looking down, she sees her sixteen-year old self. She looks at the house, confused.

When did we move here, again? 1997?

Dawn stands on the steps of 1630 Revello Drive, hands on her hips, definitely eleven. And, as usual, Buffy sighs, she’s shouting.

“Dawn? You’re so…”

What was she going to say? Buffy Summers forgets instantly as another voice comes at her through the air, as if it’s being sung on the breeze. And God, yes, does Buffy know that voice.

“So what, honey? Don’t call your sister names. You know I hate it when you fight.”

Buffy locks eyes with Joyce Summers to prove her theory. But it’s her. Real. Right there in front of her. She speaks quietly, scared that if she speaks too loudly, the image of Joyce may disappear.

“Mom?”

And the smile is enough. She needs no more. She bounds up the garden path and passes the 11 year-old Dawn on one side. She grabs her mother into a huge hug and doesn’t let go. Joyce is taken completely by surprise and gasps at the sudden bear hug.

“Mom!”

Buffy stays in her mother’s arms for a moment, taking it in. She closes her eyes. She doesn’t want to be anywhere else. Nowhere. This is it. She’ll stay here forever. And then another voice. It’s happy, which sounds abnormal to Buffy’s memories, but she ignores it. She recognises it of course, but when she turns to look at the voice’s owner, she’s surprised by her own emotion.

“What’s all the commotion?”

Hank Summers has walked out of the front door, joining his family. Home-made sliders on a tray.

“Dad? You’re here! Mom, you’re… we’re… we’re all together?”

Hank looks at his daughter, mystified. He ruffles her hair.

“Kinda how families are supposed to work, kiddo.”

Buffy knows this is home. Knows this is where she is supposed to be. She knows something is different though. She looks across the street, but despite what she thought she’d see, it’s different.

“Where are we?”

Her father puts his arms around her and Dawn, Joyce at their side. They look out and take in the neighbours. The young boy playing with his plane. The Englishman, polite and proper across the way, reading and caring for his elderly mom.

“Now, that’s a silly question.”

Buffy closes her eyes, feels the sun on her face and reopens them. The street is still there. Which means her father is right. In fact, she never doubts her dad does she? So why start now?

“We’re home. We’re all home.”

Across the street, the bustle of daily life continues. 12 year-old Rupert spins and weaves on his front lawn, suburbia stretched beyond him. He’s got a pilot’s helmet on his head, an old aviator’s cap. As he motions the plane over his fence, around the garden and into the street beyond, he nearly collides with his next door neighbour.

“Mind yourself, young Master Giles! Got a new model plane, have we?”

William regards the boy with curious eyes. He thinks he should be taller. But ensuring his handsome tailored jacket is fastened and his short brown hair combed to perfection, William engages with the boy, although he doesn’t know why.

“It’s a Spitfire. Father helped me build it. Tonight, we’re starting a BF-110 Messerschmitt!”

“Well, that’s smashing. No school for you today?”

The boy looks up at his fellow Englishman, completely aghast.

“Don’t be daft. No one has to go to school unless they want to.”

William becomes quite flustered. How could he have forgotten that?

“Yes. Quite right. How odd. Why would I have thought otherwise?”

And then a call from his home, a call from the most wonderful person. William instantly smiles as he recognises Anne Pratt’s singsong tone.

“Oh, William!”

William excuses himself from the young Rupert, who continues now, racing off down the street, his plane tackling the unseen enemy in his hands. William smiles and then turns to his mother, who’s on a rocking chair on the front porch, just out of the grasp of the intense heat of the sun.

“I could use a lie-down. Read me one of your lovely poems, will you, before your lovestruck lasses come courting?”

“Of course, Mother. There’s nothing I’d like more.”

Buffy finds herself staring at the neighbours. She knows them. Of course, she does. She sees them everyday. But shouldn’t they be doing something different? Look different? Her father’s voice snaps her out of her thoughts.

“Buffy? Are you okay?”

“I just… I feel like there’s something I was supposed to do. Something I was responsible for.”

“You’re a teenage girl. Your only responsibilities are homework and cheerleading. Not a bad life, am I right?”

“Yeah. You are. I’m just being silly. Who complains about not having any worries?”

And, with Dawn ahead of him, Joyce smiling at his side, Hank Summers puts his arms around his eldest daughter and walks her into the house.

Xander is concerned as he and Willow walk towards the apartment block. They’re slightly late as Xander had an appointment he couldn’t avoid. He regards his phone angrily as he stops yet another attempt to call Buffy.

“Can’t raise any of them. At first I thought it was because all we can afford are these cheap off-brand phones, but now I’m worried. This serial killer was active for, like, decades. Maybe it was a demon, or…”

Willow interrupts him, gently. “I’m not even sure there was a serial killer. Dowling sent me the case files on the missing kids. They could’ve run away. All were going through some family trauma: abuse, addiction, homelessness, divorce…”

Xander sighs. “I wish my parents had gotten divorced. But they felt it was important for me to have a stable environment of continuous drunken arguments.” He stops and checks his phone. “This is it. Can’t tell if anyone’s inside. Door’s open though.”

Xander heads up the building’s steps and heads through the door. Willow calls after him as he approaches the threshold.

“I’m picking up something. A weird energy. Not from this plane. Listen, I did some research: I’ve got a theory, that’s there’s a demon…”

“Hold on. I heard a voice. Dawn?”

Willow grabs her friend’s arm when she sees a tentacle. She’s too late to stop it though, as it reaches out for them both. “Xander, wait! We don’t know what’s in there…”

“Mom? Dad?”

Xander finds himself home, his house in Sunnydale. But the basement door is closed and he’s upstairs. In the dining area. And something smells… good? Unusual.

He turns and finds his parents sitting down at the table. Something is wrong, he thinks. They’re quiet.

“Sit down, son! We want to know all about your day.”

“It’s so wonderful. You’re going to have a Dungeons and Dragons-theme Prom! I can’t wait to design your formal wizard’s robes, and Cordelia’s sexy witch outfit.”

Xander stops. Looks at his mother and then at his father.

“Hold up. Mom, you cooked? Dad… you’re not in a drunken, abusive rage? Mom, you’re not screaming. Or throwing cutlery.”

“Of course not, son. We’ve seen the error of our ways.”

“We’ve decided to be the happy, loving, supportive family you always deserved.”

Xander looks at them with a smile. Everything he’s ever wanted his parents to say has just been said to him. He stares for another few seconds, taking it in, looking around.

Then he smirks straight at his parents.

“Oh, this is all fake.”

On the front porch of 1630, across the street, Joyce and Hank are sitting with Buffy, enjoying cocoa in the peaceful evening air.

“Nice night, isn’t it sweetie?”

Buffy agrees with her mother.

“It’s perfect. We’re all here, safe and happy. No worries, no stress… I can’t remember the last time I felt so… peaceful?”

As she finishes her sentence, she looks across the street. She sees one of her neighbours, a boy from school she barely sees. He’s angry, at odds with the calm of the rest of the area, and shouting back at someone inside the house. Buffy realises she has never noticed the house before.

“GET AWAY FROM ME, REPLICANTS!”

Buffy doesn’t understand what he’s on about and is struggling, in all honesty, to work out why anyone would speak to one of their parents like that.

“I know him. He’s one of those weird kids I don’t hang out with. Why am I worried about him?”

Hank places his hands on Buffy’s shoulders, reassuringly.

“Because he’s bad news, baby. Someone who doesn’t belong here.”

Joyce is next to him now, suddenly and from nowhere. They stand together and united, which sparks something in Buffy’s head. They’re too close, their shoulders touching. Joyce’s tone is soft when she speaks.

“Oh, honey. If we don’t do something, he’s going to take you away from us.”

Buffy looks at her parents, confused.

“But I just found you… didn’t I? Wait… Mom… Why do I feel like I lost you?”

Joyce comes closer to her daughter now, puts her hands to Buffy’s side and stares her in the eyes. Her voice is gentle. A little too persuasive?

“Everyone’s afraid of losing their family. It’s a horrible thing that should never happen to anybody. But people like that Harris boy set a bad example.”

Hank is behind Joyce now. He has something in his hands.

“I know you’d do anything for your mom. You understand what that means, don’t you, princess?”

He shows her the object in his hands. It’s an axe of some kind, with a wooden handle. Buffy thinks for a moment that the whole thing looks ridiculous.

“You have to kill him.”

And as her father gives her the axe, Buffy Summers hears his words and tightens her grip.

Across the street, Xander looks up and down in either direction, searching for something familiar in the trap he finds himself. He spots Willow approaching, looking as she did in high school, back when she was his study buddy. Back before Buffy, when it was just the two of them.

“Willow! Is that really you, or are you some kind of pod person too?”

Willow looks at him. He looks younger than she expected too.

“I think I know what you mean? My mom was trying to get me to do homework on some ancient computer. I didn’t want to say anything, but it felt wrong. And there were posters of boy bands on my wall and that felt wronger?”

Xander looks at her and smiles.

“Well, duh! That’s because you’re gayer than gay. And why didn’t you say anything? It’s been a Hell of a long time since you were afraid to speak your mind!”

Willow realises how right he is.

“It has, hasn’t it? And you. Something is missing from your face.”

She holds her hand up, points and encircles his eyes with a point in the air.

“Like, right here.”

Xander feels like shouting ‘eureka!”

“My eye patch! I remember! Okay. I get it now. We got retconned back to who we were in high school.”

“Ugh! I mean, I loved a lot about those days, but I really don’t miss them.”

“Ditto. I think that’s why we’re not buying into the whole Matrix of this place.”

“I feel like there was something I really needed to tell you.”

Willow bounces on the spot, trying to recall what she knows. Neither of them see Buffy coming towards them, Scythe in her hands, determination on her face. Willow then yells, loudly.

“Eureka! I found out about something called a Hamelin Demon. It’s parasitic, well, probably more symbiotic. It targets kids who are on the verge of losing their childhoods…”

Xander looks at Willow for a moment, realising they now look as they’re supposed to. His eye-patch is back. Willow’s clothes are different. And Buffy is coming at him, swinging her Scythe.

He screams.

But the Scythe doesn’t connect with Xander. Or with Willow. It clunks hard on the floor, Buffy screaming at it in defiance.

“No! I won’t hurt them!”

Xander is quick to speak, convincing the Slayer who they are.

“Buffy, it’s us! Willow and Xander!”

Willow joins in.

“She’s still confused. I need to remember my spells.”

Buffy waves her hands and breathes in deeply. She looks at them now and sees them. Her best friends. Always. And they were in San Francisco. She looks around the street, then back at her clothes. They’ve changed. She’s modern-day Buffy Summers again.

“I know who you are. Now that I see you like this, I know.”

She turns to her parents, still sitting, still smiling, on the front porch. It looks creepy to Buffy now. She yells at the pair, pointing.

“They’re my friends. They’re always there for me.”

Now, she feels anger and, upset, points specifically past Joyce and straight to her father.

“You never are, Dad. You never have been, no matter how much I need you.”

Hank looks back at her now. She looks at him without saying a word, waiting for a reaction. And then it comes, with a sweet, sickly smile stretched on her father’s face.

“Oh Buffy. I’m so disappointed in you.”

Joyce stands between them, a last ditch attempt to sway the Slayer back into the illusion.

“Sweetheart, I’m not saying we’re perfect. But we could be happy together. If you just stop this, you could have your family back.”

Buffy doesn’t cry, although she has to hold the tears back. She speaks to her parents calmly.

“That’s what I want, more than anything in the world. So, I don’t have a choice, do I? I have to do what you said.”

She raises the Scythe in her hands. The two parents have now merged, their flesh fused together at the shoulders. Their faces are unfamiliar to her now.

“To whatever you are. So I can get my real family back.”

And then, she swings her Scythe at her parent’s heads.

“Son, be a dear and close the curtains. I can’t hear poetry over that infernal racket.”

Across the road in the Pratt house, Anne tells William to come away from the windows. He does as she says, putting the nets back and responding to his mother instantly. But then he looks through one last time and sees his neighbour, attacking her parents with a large axe-like weapon. He defies his mother and feels the need to explain himself.

“Just a moment, mum. That blond girl. I feel as if she’s important.”

Anne doesn’t look at her son when she speaks, a harshness that seems familiar to William.

“You and your girls. You moon over little tarts who don’t deserve your love and they break your heart, don’t they? You don’t need them. Just me.”

William turns to her now, a weariness on his features.

“That’s not what you used to say. You adored my love poems. You said it’s all that matters. That I’d find the one someday, and we’d be happy. Mother, I look at her, and I think…”

Anne loses her temper now, raising her voice and pointing at her son.

“Stuff and nonsense. I insist you come away from there this instant, and I will brook no disobedience!”

William is taken aback by the shouting and cringes away from his mother. It feels strange to him though…

“Don’t be cross with me, mum. It’s unlike you. It’s ugly. Makes me think of…”

An image in his mind. His mother. Attacking him with her words and her sharp teeth. Then it’s gone and he looks at his mother. His face changes, his own teeth sharpening, and William Pratt is no longer present.

Spike turns to his mother, venom in his voice.

“Bad things. We’re all bad things, aren’t we?”

He grabs at his mother, ripping at her with his bare hands. She yells at him, tries to fight back, screaming at him to stop.

“William! This is not how I raised you!”

Spike continues to rip at the form in front of him, which has begun to change with every blow, no longer resembling anything remotely human. Once it’s clear that whatever it was is not moving again, Spike just continues to punch, over and over.

“No. You coddled me. Filled my head with impossible dreams. Made me weak. Set me up for the world to crush me. I had to be strong to survive! I had to change! IT’S YOUR FAULT I’M LIKE THIS!”

The creature, whatever it was, twitches on the floor, a pile of goo. Spike shouts at it in triumph.

“YOU’RE NOT MY MUM!”

Then he looks around at the 19th Century around him, the house that is so familiar. He looks down at what’s left of his mother, tears in his eyes and he sobs quietly.

“You’re not my mum.”

Inside 1630, Hank and Joyce, having failed to convince Buffy, have turned to Dawn, but the younger Summers has woken up on her own.

“Dawn, we’re your parents! Help us!”

“No, Buffy’s right. You’re fake. This is all fake. I’m done pretending. I want what’s real. Even if it hurts.”

A few minutes later, Buffy and Dawn join Xander, Willow and Spike on the street outside. They look at each other and smile. Relief fills their faces.

“Right. I remember now. We’re in that bloody building.”

Willow has more information to share.

“Actually, I think we’re in a Hell dimension where the demon infesting the building lives. The apartment itself is just a gateway. But according to the research I did, we can get back. We just have to refuse to accept the reality the demon’s created.”

Xander is delighted.

“Done and done. I mean, we’re here, right? Fighting for the truth, embracing who we are, like mature adults do?”

But something has bothered Buffy. She looks around at her friends and then back to the houses. Something is missing.

Something really important.

“Wait. Where’s…”

A small British voice comes up the street behind them, and they turn to find a group of children, marching behind a powered up Giles. His hands are glistening with magical energy and he’s shouting at them now, angrily.

“You. You’ll ruin everything. But we won’t let you.”

The children and Giles reach the Scoobies, surrounding them, closing them in. Spike yells for Willow to help.

“Bloody Hell! Willow, get the little bleeders off!”

“I’m still having trouble remembering spells!”

Buffy has a better idea however, and grabs Giles by the arm. She then yells at him.

“Giles, stop!”

He does for a moment and looks up at her. Remarkably, so do all the other children.

“I know it feels like the demon gave you a gift by bringing you here. A safe place. But what it really did is steal you… and steal something from you. Something important.”

The children try to get at the Scythe, thinking removing it will help them. Buffy lets go of it and carries on talking, watching as two of them grapple for possession of the weapon.

“Life is about getting to find out what you can do, who you could be, how strong you really are… That there’ll be people who want to help you and that you can help them. And you know the best part? If the family you were born with can’t or won’t back you up, you can make your own. One that will love you so much. But to have a shot at that, you have to take a chance.”

The children drop the Scythe, listening to Buffy’s every word. They turn to her and take her hand. Her way is better.

But Giles is still shouting. He refuses to let his illusion be shattered. He charges at Buffy, but the children surround her now, eager to move on, back to the real world.

They’re not ghosts, Buffy has realised. They’re trapped here. Like we were.

As Buffy looks at Giles, he sees a look of apology on her face.

“No! I did all that. I never got to be a boy! This is my chance! Please, don’t take it from me.”

Giles can barely see Buffy now. He can see a bright light, and all of reality, everything around him, shattering like inter-dimensional glass.

As it surrounds him, Giles whispers, tears in his eyes, and a quiver in his voice.

“I don’t want to go.”

Some time later, in an alleyway behind the apartment building, Buffy walks towards the group, emergency services already on hand, helping the children. “Dowling says most of the kids have surviving family. With the news coverage they’re already getting, their future looks bright. He’s keeping us out of it.”

Giles is relieved with that. “Thank Heaven for small favours.”

Spike, keeping to the shadows in the sunlight, looks at Giles and tries to reassure him. “Steady on, little man. What happened in that dream world don’t mean a thing. Isn’t that right, red?”

Willow smiles, putting her hand on Giles shoulder. “Totally. You can’t beat yourself up. You were under the demon’s influence.”

But Giles still looks glum and kicks his shoes on the floor as he stares down at the ground, embarrassed.

“And the only one who couldn’t shrug it off. I was denied a proper childhood when Father sent me to the Watcher Academy. It seems I never acknowledged how much that marked me. I suppose I’ll need to learn new ways to come to grips with feelings I suppressed the first time around.”

“Yes. And quickly.”

A voice behind them makes them all turn. Buffy primes herself. The voice has already made her teeth ache.

D’Hoffryn stands before them, regal as ever, but a look of warning on his face. He looks concerned. Really concerned.

“For with magic returned, the barriers between worlds are weakened. Wisdom is required to determine how best to prevent an incursion of…”

Buffy interrupts him, angry at the intrusion. “Hey, D’Hoffryn. Some of us have souls, and we’ve just had them stomped on, so tell you’re Magic Council we’re gonna need some time…”

But this time, Giles stops her. He looks up at D’Hoffryn and then looks back to the ground. He shakes his head and then looks at the demon lord.

“No. It’s fine. After all… Will anything truly be different tomorrow?”