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The SETI Slayers | Fanfic
| Spiral | The Gift |
Gronx and Murk hurry through Glory’s apartment supervising the other minions hard at work packing her things. Gronx wonders why they are doing this. They should have been out of there long ago.
“The Glorious One, having acquired much in this world, doesn’t exactly travel lightly,” says Murk quietly.
He wasn’t quiet enough. Glory—who is getting fitted for a new gown in the next room—has heard them talking, and summons them into her presence.
Gronx and Murk hurry to comply. “’Twas he who blasphemed, Your Magnificence,” says Gronx.
“Spurred on by treacherous urging!” says Murk.
Glory tells them to relax. She isn’t going to kill them, even though she doesn’t understand why.
“In mercy does your power lie?” suggests Gronx.
“No, brainless. In torture, death, and chaos does my power lie.” Glory sends Gronx and Murk away, takes off the gown—dropping it into the hands of the minions working on its hem—and steps down off her pedestal. Her hour is at hand. After an eternity—well, twenty-five years—she’s about to go home and rain down slaughter, mayhem and bloodshed on everything she surveys. She drops down onto the sofa. “So, how come I ain’t happy? I’ve got everything I ever wanted. Still…something’s off. I don’t know.” She turns her head and looks at someone on the other side of the room. “What do you think?”
Dawn can’t answer. She’s sitting tied and gagged in a chair, looking terrified.
Spike comes back into the abandoned garage and tells everyone that he’s gotten Ben’s car hot wired. It’s time to be going. Xander is good to go. He looks over at Giles and asks how he’s doing. Anya helps Giles sit up as he tells them not to worry about him. He asks how Buffy’s doing.
Buffy is sitting motionless on a ragged sofa, staring into space, not noticing anything that is going on around her. She’s been like that for nearly half an hour now. Spike asks if she’s going to be okay.
Xander tells Willow to try again. Willow doesn’t think it will do any good, but she bends down in front of her friend. “Can you hear me?” she asks. “Buffy…Buffy…Buffy?”
Everyone looks at Buffy, who still isn’t reacting to anything or anyone around her. No one is sure what to do, or if it’s even safe to try to move her.
Spike doesn’t think they have time to be gentle with Buffy. They have to snap her out of it. He grabs Buffy by the shoulders and shakes and yells at her. No one else thinks that’s a good idea, and they try to stop him.
“Come on, people, girl’s endowed with Slayer strength. It’s hardly the time to get dainty. Buffy!” Spike shakes her harder.
“We tried that,” says Xander.
Spike pulls back a bit and slaps Buffy, and then cries out in pain and grabs his own head.
“We didn’t try that.” says Anya.
Xander pulls Spike away from Buffy while he’s still holding his head. “Are you insane? We could be dealing with neurological damage here. You want to kill her?”
“We have to do something,” says Spike. “I can’t just sit here watching. You waste time with kid gloves. I’m willing to wager, when all’s said and done, Buffy likes it rough.” Xander punches him.
Willow spins away from Buffy and stares at Spike and Xander. “Separate!” Spike and Xander are pulled apart. She looks back and forth between them, and then starts to speak in a very determined voice. “Buffy’s out. Glory has Dawn. Sometime real soon, she’s going to use Dawn to tear down the barrier between every dimension there is, so if you two want to fight, you do it after the world ends. Okay?”
Willow looks back and forth between Spike and Xander, waiting to see if they have any objections. They don’t. “All right. First, we head back to Sunnydale. Xander’ll take Giles to a hospital. Anya’s looking after Tara, and, Spike, you find Glory. Check her apartment, see if she’s still there.” She stares at Spike. “Try anything stupid like payback…and I will get very cranky. Everyone clear?” She looks around, and Anya raises her hand. “Anya?”
“Um…W-what will you do?”
“I’ll help Buffy.”
Spike has another question. “Now, uh…don’t turn me into a horned toad for asking, but… What if we come across Ben?”
“I don’t think a doctor’s what Buffy needs right now,” says Willow.
“Well, yeah,” says Spike. “Especially not one who also happens to be Glory.” Everyone looks at Spike like he suddenly grew horns or something.
“What do you mean?” asks Giles.
“You know. Ben is Glory,” says Spike.
No one understands what Spike’s saying. Does he mean that Ben and Glory are working together or something?
“No. No. Ben is Glory. Glory’s Ben,” says Spike. “They’re one and the same.”
“When did all this happen?” asks Anya.
“Not one hour ago,” says Spike. “Right here, before your very eyes. Ben came, turned into Glory, snatched the kid, and pftt! Vanished. Remember? You do remember?” Everyone continues to look at him as if he’s speaking some strange language. “Is everyone here very stoned? Ben! Glory! He’s a doctor! She’s the Beast! Two entirely separate entities sharing one body. It’s like a bloody sitcom. Surely you remember.”
Xander is struggling to understand. “So you’re saying…Ben and Glory…”
“Have a connection,” says Anya.
“Yes. Obviously,” says Giles, “But what kind?”
Spike figures out what’s going on. Glory has worked some kind of magic, so that anyone who witnesses the transformation instantly forgets it, but he’s immune because he’s a vampire. Willow is starting figure it out. “So…Ben and Glory…a-are the same person?”
“Glory can turn into Ben, and Ben turns back into Glory,” says Xander.
“And anyone who sees it instantly forgets,” says Anya.
Spike sighs in relief, places a finger on his nose and points to Anya. “And a kewpie doll for the lady.”
“Excellent,” says Giles. “Now…do we suspect there may be some kind of connection between Ben and Glory?” Everyone looks toward Spike expectantly. Spike sighs.
A man puts down his arc welder, and lifts his mask. He is one of the patients who escaped from the hospital, the crazy man who saw Dawn outside the Magic Box. He sees Glory coming toward him, dragging Dawn, and followed by some of her minions. He kneels down on the ground and bows to them. “The Key!”
More workers see them approaching and down their tools and bow to Dawn. “The Key! The Key!”
Glory drags Dawn through the bowing people, and into the construction site’s office. “Unbelievable how annoying the groupies can be.” She shoves Dawn into a chair.
Gronx and Murk tell Glory that it’s because they know that the portal will be opening tonight, but Glory doesn’t care. She is more interested in what another minion—of the same species, but taller than the others and dressed in a priest’s robes—is up to. She asks him what he’s doing.
He has been marking Dawn’s forehead. “I must anoint the Key.”
Glory doesn’t want him doing that now. She tells him and the other minions to get out. He starts to object.
“Get out! Get out! Get out!” screams Glory, and the minions all retreat from the room.
Glory grabs a kleenex tissue and wipes Dawn’s forehead with it. She just smudges the mark so she moistens the kleenex by licking it, and rubs again. “You know…you recapture your godhood and unleash armageddon, and all of a sudden everybody wants to be a part of the inner circle. You okay?”
“I want to go home,” says Dawn.
Glory pulls another chair over in front of Dawn and sits on the back of it. “Sweetie…you’re about to. Not that fake suburban nightmare the monks cooked up for you. I mean your real home. As the Key! You fit in a lock. Well, it’s like a lock. Hey…you want a pizza?”
Dawn doesn’t want a pizza, or a pillow, or any of the other things that Glory offers to make her more comfortable. Glory asks her if she’s nervous.
“Yes,” says Dawn.
Glory sits in the chair. “I know how you feel. It is your last night. As—you know—a human. This body?” She grabs Dawn’s wrist and gives it a shake. “It’s just a rental, Dawnie. Being human—it’s like a costume for girls like you and me. Being something else—that’s what we are.”
“Don’t,” says Dawn quietly through gritted teeth.
“What?” asks Glory.
“Don’t call me ‘Dawnie.’”
Glory sits back in her chair. “Wow. You know, that actually hurt my feelings.”
“I’m sorry.”
Glory holds up a hand. “Not the point.” She gets out of her chair and starts pacing around the office. “I’m just thinking: here I am, trying to make you feel better, when…comforting others…not part of my life. And I’m doing it…so I can stop feeling so…um…” She snaps her fingers. “Help me out.”
“Guilty?” asks Dawn.
That’s the word Glory was looking for. This is a new experience for her. She doesn’t feel guilt. She’s a god, above all that. She turns on Dawn. “You. You did this to me, didn’t you? Some sort of spell. You’ve been hanging with the wicca. You could have— but no. Not magic. It’s something else. Still, it is you doing this.”
Dawn tells Glory she isn’t doing anything but Glory doesn’t believe her. She calls her minions back into the office. “Anoint this thing now!” she orders the priest.
“You know what they’re all chanting for out there, Dawnie? Blood. ’Cause we found out your blood is the key to the Key. All I got to do is bleed you dry, the portal opens up, and I can go home. So knock yourself out, girlfriend. Make me feel bad as you can. ’Cause tomorrow…you bleed, little girl.”
Willow gives Anya some last minute instructions on the care of Tara. There are some pills in her knapsack. Half of one every two hours keeps Tara pretty mellow. Anya is a little surprised that Willow thinks she may be gone that long. She is also worried. What Willow is planning to do is pretty dangerous. To Buffy and to Willow.
“Wish me luck?” asks Willow.
“Okay.” Anya gives Willow a hearty pat on the arm. “Good Luck!”
Willow thanks Anya, and says goodby to Tara. She promises to be back soon, and gives her a kiss on the forehead. She gathers up some candles off the kitchen table and goes into Xander’s bedroom.
“Good luck,” says Anya quietly.
Willow sets out the candles on Xander’s bedside tables, and lights them. She sits on the corner of the bed and looks at Buffy. She is seated motionless in a chair facing Willow, and she still isn’t showing any sign that she’s aware of her surroundings. The two of them sit staring at each other.
Willow finds herself standing in a brightly painted house. The tables around her are covered with an eclectic mixture of modern and primitive sculpture. The furniture is has a lot of chrome and glass in it. She walks though the house looking around.
“Hi Willow,” says someone behind her. Willow turns around and sees a young girl, about five years old, sitting at a play table holding a doll. She has blonde hair pulled back in a couple of pony tails.
“Hello Buffy.”
Spike kicks open the door into Glory’s apartment. He looks through it cautiously. There is no one in sight. He steps into the apartment and lights up a cigarette. There’s a circle of burnt out candles in the center of the floor.
Spike looks around. The place is a mess, but there’s no one there. He’s about to go when something catches his eye. There’s a door under the stairs. Spike opens it and steps through. He finds himself in a small, sparsely furnished room, with a sink, and a bed. There are medical books on the bedside table. He sees a set of doctor’s scrubs with Ben’s name tag on them.
The young Buffy wonders what Willow is doing there. Willow is wondering the same thing about Buffy.
“I like it here,” says Buffy.
Willow kneels in front of her. “But…you know we need you. You have to come out.”
“Why?” asks Buffy.
“To be with your friends.”
“It’s a big day for me,” says Buffy.
The front door opens. “Hello!” calls out Joyce.
Buffy jumps up, hands her doll to Willow and runs to the door to greet her Mommy and Daddy.
Joyce is carrying a baby. “Are you ready to meet your new baby sister?” she asks Buffy.
Buffy steps back, and hugs herself. “Oh, come on now, Buffy,” says her father. “She’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“Who’s afraid?”
“Don’t you want to be the big sister?” asks Joyce.
“No. I want to be the baby,” says Buffy. “You’re going to pay more attention to her and forget all about me.”
Joyce kneels down in front of Buffy so she can see the baby. Buffy turns to Willow. “Doesn’t she look funny? Like a wrinkly old grandpa.”
Joyce hands the baby to Buffy, and shows her how to hold her. “We’re calling her Dawn.”
Buffy does a complete about face in her attitude toward her new sister. “I…I could be the one to look after her sometimes, if you need a helper. Mom? Can I take care of her?”
“Yes, Buffy, you can take care of her,” says Joyce.
Willow hears something moving behind her, and turns around. She sees Buffy in the Magic Box putting a book on a shelf. Buffy stops for a second in thought.
Willow is in the desert at night, standing before a fire. “O…kay.”
Xander helps Giles put on his jacket as they leave an examining room in the hospital. Xander asks him how he’s doing.
“It only hurts while I answer pointless questions,” says Giles. “Where’s Buffy?”
Xander tells Giles about Willow going into Buffy’s mind to try and bring her back. Giles thinks that’s extraordinarily advanced magic for Willow. He suggests that they should check in on Glory’s other victims while they are there. Xander’s already done that, and found that the psychiatric ward is empty.
They spot Spike coming around the corner down the hall. He snags a bag of blood off a cart as he comes toward them and puts it into his pocket. He tells them that Glory has cleared out of her apartment, but he knows a demon who might be able to tell them something. While he talks he pulls out another cigarette, and lights up—while standing under a “No Smoking” sign. He asks Xander to come with him. They will meet up with Giles back at the shop later.
Spike and Xander head off down the hall, with Xander coughing from Spike’s cigarette smoke.
“Found Ben’s room at Glory’s,” says Spike. “Didn’t learn much.”
“Wait, wait, wait, wait,” says Xander. “Ben? At Glory’s? You’re saying all this time he’s been subletting from her?”
“This…is going to be worth it.” Spike swats Xander on the back of the head.
“Ow!” they yell and grab at their heads.
“Last time,” says Spike. “From the top.”
“I’m hating this Murk!” says Glory.
Murk wonders just what “this” might be.
“Memories. I’m starting to remember the things Ben did, people he spoke with, stuff he wore.” Glory turns to Dawn. “Kid. I came— He came to see you, didn’t he?”
“Ben?”
“Yeah, Ben! You called him to the desert when you were hiding from me. And he came. And then he was me. You remember?”
“Yes.”
Glory spins back to Murk. “See? She’s not supposed to remember that. Nobody should! The cloak between Ben and me is fading. I almost helped her! He…I wanted to.” She turns to the priest and grabs him by his lapels. “I can’t do this! Get him out of me.”
“W-what?” asks the priest.
“Ben. The human meat sack who’s infecting me. Do your mojo. Make an incision or removal or whatever you’ve got to do. Help me. I’m…I’m thinking Ben’s thoughts, and I’m feeling his feelings… And—uhh! I— uhh!”
Glory transforms into Ben. “Can’t kill the girl!”
Glory gets control again, but the effort weakens her, and she collapses to the floor. “Damn it. Uhh… Help me.”
There is nothing the priest can do. “You risk terrible magics in opening the portal. Nothing comes without a price. This…is yours.”
Glory gets back to her feet. “Gods don’t pay.” She grabs Dawn by the throat and picks her up out of her chair. “We do this now.”
Willow looks at the figure crouching beyond the fire. “Hey,I know you. You’re—you’re the first original Slayer who tried killing us all in our dreams… How’ve you been?”
“Death is your gift,” says the First Slayer.
“Death is my gift?” asks Buffy.
“Wait. Death is her what?” asks Willow.
“Death is your gift,” says the First Slayer.
Willow turns and sees Buffy in the Magic Box, putting the book on the shelf. She looks the other way and sees another Buffy walking down the upstairs hallway of her house toward her mother’s room. “Where are you going?”
“Glorificus! Wait!” says Murk. “Kill the Key now, and all will be lost.”
“We’ll be stuck on this mortal plane forever,” says Gronx.
Glory releases Dawn. “All right. You’re right. It’s cool. I’m just a little emotional right now. Which—if you’re into irony—funny. Leave. We need a little girl time.”
The minions are a little slow going, and Glory shoos them away. “Good-bye.” She turns back to Dawn after they’ve gone. “How do they do it?”
Dawn rubs her throat. “Do what?”
“People,” says Glory. “How do they function here like this in the world with all this bile running through them? Every day, it’s whoo! You have no control. They’re not even animals. They’re just these meat baggy slaves to—to hormones and pheromones and their…and their feelings. Hate ’em. I mean, really. Is this what the poets go on about? This? Call me crazy, but as hard core drugs go, human emotion is just useless. People are puppets, everyone getting jerked around by what they’re feeling. Am I wrong? Really. I want to know.”
Dawn doesn’t say anything.
“Going to bleed you either way.”
“Depends on the person,” says Dawn.
“So you’re saying some people like this.”
“Some.”
“Funny… ’cause I look around at this world you’re so eager to be a part of, and all I see is six billion lunatics looking for the fastest ride out. Who’s not crazy? Look around. Everyone’s drinking, smoking, shooting up, shooting each other, or just plain screwing their brains out ’cause they don’t want ’em anymore. I’m crazy? Honey, I’m the original one-eyed chicklet in the kingdom of the blind, ’cause at least I admit the world makes me nuts. Name one person who can take it here. That’s all I’m asking. Name one.”
“Buffy,” says Dawn.
Buffy sits motionless in the chair in Xander’s room.
Willow follows Buffy into Joyce’s bedroom. “I can’t keep following you around like this, Buffy. We have to go. You have to talk to…” The carpet in Joyce’s room has been replaced by grass, and there is a mound of earth with a headstone reading Joyce Summers, 1958 - 2001 where the bed should be. “…me. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” says Buffy. “Death is my gift.”
“Yeah, I keep hearing that, but…I’m not exactly sure what it means.”
“It’s really not that complicated.” Buffy goes through the door into Dawn’s room. “It’s what I do.”
Dawn is lying on her bed, softly weeping. She doesn’t react to Buffy at all as she sits down beside her.
“Come on, you’ve known me for how long?” asks Buffy. “It’s what I’m here for. It’s all I am.” She picks up a pillow and puts it over Dawn’s face.
“Buffy, stop!” says Willow. “No! God, no!”
Buffy holds the pillow over Dawn’s face while she struggles. Buffy looks up at Willow. “What? I keep telling you, Will… I figured it out. Death is my gift.” Dawn goes limp.
Glory feels Ben trying to take over again, but this time she can’t hold him back. She transforms into Ben, and looks at Dawn. He asks her if Glory’s hurt her.
Dawn tells Ben she’s fine, but she really needs to get out of there. Ben has stopped paying attention to her. He’s looking at his hands. She asks him what’s wrong.
“Where is it?” asks Ben. “All the blood. I can feel it… still warm and…wet…and Glory. Oh, god. She slaughtered hundreds of men. I can feel them…breaking. I’m remembering her, aren’t I? The things she’s done…things she’s going to do.”
“I know,” says Dawn. “S-she told me. I think…whatever the magic is that keeps you guys apart, it’s starting to break down. Ben, Glory could come back any minute.”
“How could she do this?”
“I don’t know,” says Dawn, “But we have to get out of here and find Buffy.”
“No!” says Ben. “I mean, I have a job. I have a life. And Glory? She never once thinks about me in all this.”
There is a knock at the door. “Help me,” pleads Dawn.
“How?” asks Ben.
The priest calls for Glory through the door. “Is everything all right?” Ben opens it. “You’re not—”
Ben grabs the priest, pulls him into the room and knocks him to the floor with a head butt. He tries to get up again but Ben punches him down again.
Ben looks at Dawn. “I’ll take you as far as I can. Ditch you before she comes back.”
“Okay…now this is weird,” says Willow. She’s back where she started with a five year old Buffy playing with her doll.
“Hi, Willow. What are you doing here?” asks Buffy.
“Actually, I’m looking for you…here. Again.”
Buffy asks Willow if she likes dolls. Willow kneels down in front of her. “No…and I think we already deja’d this vu.”
Buffy giggles. “You talk funny.”
“Yes,” says Willow. “As you’ll tell me again when we’re older and in chem class. Buffy, what are we doing here?”
Buffy asks if Willow doesn’t like it here, but Willow doesn’t think they have time for this.
They are interrupted by the opening of the door. Buffy jumps up, hands her doll off to Willow, and runs to greet her parents. Willow watches again as Buffy meets her baby sister for the first time.
Willow hears the noise behind her, and turns to see Buffy placing the book on the shelf in the Magic Box. She looks back at the young Buffy, holding her baby sister. “I could be the one to look after her sometimes.”
Doc looks up from the book he’s reading by the fire in his apartment when he hears a knock on the door. He calls out for them to come in, his door is never locked. Spike opens the door and enters, followed by Xander. Doc asks if they’d like some cocoa.
“No,” says Spike. “We need information. We need—”
“Ben’s Glory!” blurts out Xander.
“Who’s what?” asks Doc.
“Look at this— Special Ed remembers,” says Spike.
“Yeah…I do. Ben’s Glory, and Glory’s Ben. It’s like this fog’s lifting.”
“Wonderful…but not why we’re here.” Spike turns back to Doc. “Hellgod type…name of Glory.”
“A.K.A. Ben,” says Xander.
“Has gone missing,” says Spike “She’s brewing up some major league bad. And she’s nicked the Slayer’s kid sister in the bargain.”
“Hmm. That girl you brought here. Sweet little thing. How’d things work out with her Mom? Changed her mind, didn’t she?”
“Yeah. You got any idea where Glory would take her?”
At first Doc doesn’t seem to know who Spike’s talking about, but then he realizes it’s Glorificus. His advice is for them to stay far away from her. Spike would like to do that, but he can’t.
As he talks Doc gets up, walks around his desk, and stops in front of it. He still can’t tell them anything. “I’m a small town guy. This Glorificus…if it is her. Whoo. She’s big city.”
“She’s got Dawn,” says Spike.
Doc might know someone who knows someone in China that might be able to help them.
Spike doesn’t think that’s going to be much help. He also thinks Doc is lying. He’s noticed that Doc hasn’t moved from the spot he stopped in front of his desk. “I believe you’re standing right in front of the very thing we need.”
Doc springs into motion, moving faster than you would believe someone his apparent age could move. He darts past Spike and grabs a sword. He swings it around and Spike pulls back just in time to avoid being decapitated.
Doc holds his sword pointed Spike’s throat. “Idiot.” he whispers.
Spike bats the sword away, but Doc knocks him back into a stack of books, and Spike falls to the floor. Xander starts to move toward them, but Doc’s tongue darts out. It’s over ten feet long, and knocks Xander back.
Doc stands over Spike. “You think only underworld bottom feeders worship the Beast?” He kicks Spike in the head. He grabs a wooden box off his desk and throws it in the fire before going back and pouncing on top Spike again. “Her day is coming, boys! And when she returns, then you’re going to see something!”
Xander gets back to his feet and kicks Doc off Spike. He and Doc struggle together on the floor while Spike retrieves the box out of the fire. Xander grabs the sword off the floor and plunges it into Doc’s chest. Blue blood spurts up into his face.
Xander turns to Spike, who is holding the box he retrieved from the fire. “What do we got?”
Spike looks at Doc lying on the floor with the sword sticking out of his chest. “Something worth dying for.” He and Xander leave the apartment.
Doc’s eyes snap open.
Buffy walks down the upstairs hallway toward her mother’s room. Willow tells her to stop and talk to her, but she keeps going.
Willow moves in front of her and blocks her way. “Buffy. You have to stop doing this.”
“Doing what?” asks Buffy.
“Killing Dawn.”
“Why?” asks Buffy.
“Because this never happened. You never killed your sister.”
“Will, I did this.”
“In your imagination,” says Willow. “None of this is real. You’re stuck in some kind of loop.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Excuse me.” Buffy goes around Willow into her mother’s room.
“Buffy, why are you doing this?”
Dawn and Ben move down Sunnydale’s main street together. They duck into an alley when they see some of Glory’s minions. Ben tells her to keep still, and carefully peers out of the alley to see if they were spotted. He turns back to Dawn and she bashes him over the head with a bundle of heavy chain she found in the alley. Ben goes down.
Dawn drops the chains beside him. “I’m sorry.” She steps over his unconscious body.
Glory sits up behind Dawn. “Sorry? That actually hurt, you prepubescent puke!”
Glory holds the chains. “Okay, first thought, just totally spontaneous, unfiltered, off the top of my head—Ow!” She tosses the chains aside. “You hit Ben in his soft human head, and I remember the pain.” She grabs Dawn by the arm, twists it around behind her back, and pushes her farther into the alley. “You probably think I won’t waste any precious blood of yours till tonight. You’re right. But I know a thousand ways to hurt you…” She backs Dawn up against the wall. “…that won’t spill a drop.
“And you know those pesky feelings I’ve been having, like guilt, empathy? I swear I’m going to take ’em and mash ’em back down where they belong. Okay? Now, let’s have big girl fun…” Glory grabs Dawn by the chin. “…just you and— uhh! Leave her alone. Oh, for—”
Ben takes over again. “I said leave her alone.”
Dawn watches Glory and Ben fight for control of their body, transforming back and forth as they argue.
Glory is surprised that Ben decided to start growing a backbone this late in the game. “Get over yourself, Ben! This is the way things are— I’m strong, you’re weak.” She laughs. “This is reality. Stop trying to infect me with your—”
“Do you ever stop talking?” asks Ben. “I don’t know which is worse— waking up in a dress, not knowing where I’ve been, or having to hear all your self-involved ranting!”
Dawn tries to take advantage of their distraction with each other to get away, but Glory grabs her, and tosses her across the alley into a dumpster. “No, no, no! Stick around, chica.” Dawn collapses down onto the ground.
“I won’t let you hurt her, Glory.”
“Ohh! Shut your hole, you sanctimonious little meat worm,” says Glory “I’m going home no matter what you do.”
Ben grabs a bottle by the neck, and smashes it. He bends over Dawn and holds the broken edge to her throat. “You really think I’ll just let that happen?”
Glory pulls away from Dawn. “Benjamin, what are you doing?”
“You need her blood?” Ben moves toward Dawn again, “When I’m through, there won’t be enough left to fill a bottle cap. Then you, hellbitch, have nowhere left—”
“—to go.” Glory takes possession of their body again, grabs Dawn, throws her across the alley and tosses the bottle away. Dawn struggles to sit up. “You can’t hurt her, and you know it, Ben. I know it because I feel what you’re feeling. Scared. Shh! Shh! It’s okay. You don’t want to die. Who would?” She chuckles. “I don’t.”
“You can’t. You’re immortal,” says Ben.
“Nobody has to die here, Ben. Just let me bleed the girl and go home. Everything’ll work out fine.”
“Do you really believe, with all I know, that you can trick me?”
“Stop…and think, baby,” says Glory. “We bleed the kid, return me to my seat of power. I become a god again.”
“And I disappear.”
“Ooh, unless somebody up there likes you,” says Glory. “Give up the girl…I could like you a lot.”
Ben refuses to make a deal. Even if Glory makes him immortal. He grabs Dawn by the arm and lifts her to her feet “I believe you. That’s not the problem. You make me immortal. Then what? I have to kill her to do it, and I won’t be able to live with that, not even for a day. Forget about eternity.”
Glory spins Dawn around, and throws her to the ground again. “Baby, baby, baby Ben. Why do you worry so much? When you’re immortal, all this crap you’ve been carrying around inside—the guilt, the anger, the crazy-making pain—ooh, it all just melts away like ice cream.” She leans against the wall, losing strength. “Trust me. When all this is over, I can set you up real nice. I’m making it easy. It’s you…or the girl.”
She sags to the ground and transforms back into Ben. “I can’t accept that.”
“Accept it. I’m a god, stupid,” says Glory, but she loses control again.
Ben sits for a moment, and then gets up and goes to Dawn. He holds out his hand to help her up. She starts to put out her arm.
“I’m sorry.” Ben grabs Dawn’s arm, and yanks her to her feet. He drags her out of the alley to some of Glory’s waiting minions. “Don’t make this harder than it already is. I’m sorry. I got no choice. It’s you or me.”
Willow follows Buffy through the door from her mother’s room into Dawn’s. She tells Buffy to leave Dawn alone. “What is this?”
“My gift,” says Buffy. “This is what I do.”
“I’m not talking about this,” says Willow. “I’m talking about…this.” They are back in the Magic Box watching a second Buffy put a book on the shelf.
“Right here, it happened. I know it’s something small, but…it’s something. What?” asks Willow.
Buffy doesn’t want to go there, but Willow knows that there is some reason that Buffy keeps coming back to this moment. “And you wouldn’t be doing that if you weren’t trying to show me something. Buffy, come on. It’s your brain. Just tell me.” Buffy puts the book on the shelf again. “What happened here?”
“This was when I quit, Will,” says the Buffy by the bookshelf.
“Just for a second,” says the other Buffy. The two Buffies take turns talking.
“I remember. I was in the magic shop. “
“I put a book back for Giles.”
“Nothing special about it. And then it hit me.”
“What hit you?” asks Willow.
“I can’t beat Glory.”
“Glory’s going to win.” It was something that Buffy didn’t just know. She felt it. “And in that second of knowing it, Will…”
“I wanted it to happen.”
“I wanted it over. This is—all of this—it’s too much for me.”
“I just wanted it over.”
“If Glory wins…then Dawn dies.”
“And I would grieve. People would feel sorry for me. But it would be over. And I imagined what a relief it would be.” Willow looks at Buffy putting the book on the shelf again. “I killed Dawn.”
“Is that what you think?” asks Willow.
“My thinking it made it happen. Some part of me wanted it. And in the moment, Glory took Dawn…”
“I know I could’ve done something better. But I didn’t. I was off by some fraction of a second.”
“And this is why…”
“I killed my sister.”
“I think Spike was right back at the gas station,” says Willow. “Snap out of it!”
Both Buffies turn and look at Willow. “What?”
“All this…it has a name,” says Willow. “It’s called guilt. It’s a feeling, and it’s important, but it’s not more than that, Buffy.” She looks at the other Buffy by the bookshelf. “Buffies. You’ve carried the weight of the world on your shoulders since high school, and I—I know you didn’t ask for this, but…you do it…every day, and so, you wanted out for one second. So what?”
“I got Dawn killed,” says Buffy.
“Hello! Your sister—not dead yet! But she will be if you stay locked inside here and never come back to us.”
“And what if I can’t?” asks Buffy.
“Then I guess you’re right…and you did kill your sister.” Willow turns away from the two Buffies and walks toward the front door.
“Wait. Where are you going?” asks Buffy.
Willow stops and looks back at Buffy. “Where you’re needed. Are you coming?” Buffy turns and looks at herself putting the book on the shelf. The bookshelf Buffy turns and looks at Willow.
Buffy jerks in her chair in Xander’s bedroom, and looks around. She starts to cry. She leans forward and puts her face in her hands. Willow goes to her and hugs her.
Giles looks up when he hears the front door of the Magic Box open. He sees Buffy come in, followed by Willow, Tara, and Anya.
“Hear you found the ritual text?” asks Buffy.
Giles has something like that. He, Xander and Spike have the box they recovered from Doc, and the scrolls that were inside it spread out on the round table in front of them.
“Did you know that…Ben is Glory?” asks Xander.
“So I’m told,” says Buffy. “What do we know?”
Giles is rather reluctant to talk about that. “Well, uh…according to these scrolls, all right, it’s possible for Glory to be stopped. I’m—I’m afraid it’s, um… B-Buffy, I’ve—I’ve read these things very carefully, and there’s not much margin for error. You understand what I’m saying?”
“Might help if you actually said it,” says Buffy.
Giles sits back down at the table. “Um…Glory…plans to open a…dimensional portal by way of a ritual bloodletting.”
“Dawn’s blood,” says Buffy.
“Yes,” says Giles. “Once the blood is shed at a certain time and place, the fabric which separates all realities will be ripped apart. Dimensions will pour into one another, with no barriers to stop them. Reality as we know it will be destroyed, and…chaos will reign on Earth.”
“So how do we stop it?” asks Buffy.
“The portal will only close once the blood is stopped,” says Giles. “And the only way for that to happen is, um… Buffy, the only way is to kill Dawn.”