Buffy let out an enraged roar of fury and frustration when she finally managed to dust the last of her attackers and turned to find that Spike had gone. She had slain over thirty vampires that night, and still it was not enough. Her rage seemed to know no end; she was still determined to make her mother’s killer pay. If Spike hadn’t killed her mother, then he knew who had, and he was going to tell her, no matter what she had to do to him to make him.

Whoever it was, her mother’s killer was going to…

Her mother’s killer….

Her mother’s…

“No,” she moaned, sinking to her knees, heedless of the ashes that clung to her jeans, the remains of the vengeful fury that had fled her in an instant as the truth of what had happened struck her anew. “Mommy, mommy! No!” All at once it hit her, in the absence of anything left to vent her rage upon, and she was forced to face the reality, and the pain.

She wept bitterly then, on the floor of the destroyed convenience store, for her beloved mother whom she would never see again, for her friends who had also lost loved ones, lost so much, due to her own selfishness, for her little sister who had lost absolutely everything in the space of a single year of her life…

*Dawn.* She sat up suddenly, her eyes wide and stricken. In all her pain of finding out that she had lost her mother, her little sister had escaped her thoughts entirely until that moment. *God, Dawnie! What she must be going through right now…!* Suddenly all she knew was that she had to get to her sister, had to see her, talk to her. With their mother gone, Buffy was all that the girl had left.

And Dawn was all that *she* had left.

If she even still had her at all.

She leapt to her feet and rushed from the deserted store into the night. Apparently, word had quickly spread that the original Slayer was back in town, because she did not face any more vampire attacks on her way home. She reached the porch and pounded on the locked door, desperate not in fear, but in her desire to get to her sister…

Xander answered the door silently, and looked at her for a moment before stepping aside to let her come in. It was clear from her dirty, disheveled appearance and the massive amounts of vampire dust that coated her skin and clothes, that she had created an utter vampire massacre that night. She must have killed dozens of them! Xander realized, in a sort of awe.

It was clear, however, from the lost and disappointed look in her eyes, that she had *not* killed the one she had sought.

He wordlessly put an arm around her and led her into the living room, where Willow sat on the sofa, not looking up at her, just staring straight ahead. Tentatively, Buffy went to sit down beside her, carefully looking at Xander and not Willow as she spoke.

“Where’s Dawn?” she asked softly, suddenly painfully aware that her sister might very well not *want* to see her.

“Upstairs,” Xander replied quietly. “Taking a shower. She’ll be down in a little while.”

Buffy nodded slowly, feeling drained. She wanted to ask how her sister had taken the news of her return, but then thought better of it. The answer might be too painful for her. Maybe it would be better to go in unprepared, than to hear an answer that would make her lose her nerve completely.

Reluctantly, she turned her head to look at her other friend, slowly, terrified of what she would see in Willow’s eyes, yet desperate to make her see how sorry she was, to somehow attempt to make things right between them again.

Suddenly, Willow looked up to meet her gaze, and Buffy fought to force herself not to look away from the depths of pain and anger that showed clearly through her tears.

“You shouldn’t have left,” Willow repeated her earlier assertion, in a voice that was trembling with emotion, but controlled. “If you hadn’t…there’s a very good chance that Oz would still be alive. And that makes me want to hate you, Buffy.”

Buffy flinched from the calm, matter-of-fact statement. Angry, raging shouts could have been spoken in an emotional outburst and not really meant; Willow’s certain demeanor told Buffy that she meant every word with everything in her. She opened her mouth to apologize, to explain, but Willow held up a hand to stop her.

“But,” she went on with a heavy sigh, then paused for a moment. Her eyes softened a little and welled with tears as she whispered, “You couldn’t possibly have known that. You didn’t know what would happen if you left. You must have had your reasons for leaving, and…and if it wasn’t for you, I – I wouldn’t have lived long enough to even *meet* Oz.”

She paused for a moment to let her meaning sink in before reaching out a cautious hand to close tenderly around Buffy’s as her tears fell to streak her sorrowful face. “I’m angry, and this – this…*hurts*,” she struggled to get the words out, stopping again for a moment before going on, “But I *love* you, Buffy. And we’re gonna get through this.”

Suddenly, the unexpected gentleness and forgiveness was too much for Buffy, and she found herself in a fresh bout of tears, this time of tremendous relief and gratitude that mingled with her profound sorrow. After her initial reaction to Buffy’s sudden return, she had not expected Willow to forgive her so soon – maybe even not at all.

When Buffy dissolved into tears, Willow immediately moved forward to take her into her arms, holding her gently but silently until her tears began to subside again. Willow had told Buffy exactly how she felt, and while a part of her could not help but blame her friend for so much of what had happened, a very strong part of her could not sit by and watch as Buffy suffered under what was probably the deepest loss of her life thus far.

Xander stood hovering anxiously beside the couch where they sat, unsure if he was needed to do anything for either of them, but wanting to help in any way he could. The whole situation was just so much bigger, so much more intense, than anything they had ever faced before, and they were all quite simply at a complete and utter loss.

After a little while, once Buffy seemed to have regained control of her emotions, he sat slowly down in the empty spot on the sofa beside them, and asked her softly, “Did you find Spike?”

Buffy was silent for a moment, sniffing back the last of her tears – for the moment, anyway – before nodding. “I did.”

When she didn’t seem about to volunteer anything further, he prompted her gently, “And?”

“We fought. But another vampire attacked me, and he got away,” she grimaced at the memory. “Well, actually…more like a *dozen* other vampires attacked me.”

“Just like Spike,” Xander muttered, anger and hatred seething in his voice. “Coward. He’s got no problem attacking helpless people in their own homes, but give him a *real* fight, and he takes off.”

There was silence for a moment as Buffy considered how much to tell her friends, before beginning cautiously, “He said he didn’t kill her.”

Xander gave her a disbelieving look, as she had expected. “Buffy…” he began patiently, “…of *course* he said he didn’t do it. You were probably on top of him holding a stake to his heart! Right?”

Buffy frowned, considering the validity of his point. “Actually…yeah,” she admitted. She paused. “I mean, he’s still a vampire and he’s still working with Faith, so either way, it looks like eventually I’m gonna end up dusting him,” she pointed out. Her expression became solemn and intense as she met Xander’s eyes and went on, “But if he’s *not* the one who did it…I don’t want the vampire who killed my mother to get away with it. I need to know for sure, Xander.”

His dark brown eyes searched hers, nodding slowly, but he didn’t say a word.

“He said…” Buffy began again, somewhat haltingly, as she tried to remember her conversation with Spike through the tumultuous thoughts and emotions that flooded her mind. “Is there any way someone might have tricked her? She might have invited someone into the house, not knowing they were a vamp? Is that possible?” she asked, looking between her two friends questioningly.

“No.” Willow was emphatic. “We all talked about it, and she knew better, Buffy. She knew not to ever speak the words of an invitation to someone she didn’t know. There is no way she would have invited anyone in.”

Buffy considered that for a moment, and then her eyes widened as a new thought occurred to her. She looked back at Willow and asked in a dark voice, “What about someone she *did* know? I mean, if you guys have been as isolated as it sounds like, we really have no way of knowing *who* they could have turned by now, do we?”

Neither of her friends had any answer for that. It was something that had not occurred to them.

Buffy sighed deeply, leaning forward and resting her head in her hands. “Maybe Spike’s telling the truth. Maybe he’s lying. I don’t know,” she admitted, her voice coming out in a choked whimper. She was simply overwhelmed by the unbelievable emotional trauma that this day had been for her.

And it wasn’t over yet.

At a slight sound of movement from across the room, Buffy raised her head toward the stairs, her heart skipping a beat and her breath freezing in her throat; she already knew who it would be.

Dawn stood at the base of the stairs, staring wide-eyed and solemn at her older sister. She did not move or speak, seemingly stunned by the realization that her sister was actually there, after so long. She looked impossibly young and vulnerable in her soft cotton pajamas, her long, straight hair still damp from her shower.

Slowly, still scarcely daring to breathe, Buffy rose to her feet and approached her sister, moving cautiously, as if approaching a small frightened creature that might bolt at any sudden movement.

“Dawnie,” she whispered, holding her hands out in a gesture that was part comforting and part pleading as she drew nearer to the bottom of the stairs, where her sister still stood, watching her and not moving or speaking at all. “Dawnie, I’m so sorry.”

She stopped a couple of feet from her sister, searching her wide, fearful eyes with her own tear-filled emerald gaze. “Please…” she whispered. “Please, I’m so, so sorry…”

Dawn just stared at her, and to her dismay, Buffy could see overwhelming hurt and fury rising in her expression, as tears filled her eyes and her lower lip began to tremble with the emotions she tried to hold back.

Suddenly, without warning, Dawn drew back her hand and gave her sister a hard, resounding slap across her face, hard enough to drive the older, stronger girl’s head to the side with the force of the blow.

A loaded silence fell over the room with the impact of what had just happened. Willow and Xander sat frozen where they were on the sofa, understanding why Dawn had done what she had done, as her pain was an intensified version of their own – yet still hardly able to believe that she had actually done it. Neither wanted to move, make a sound, even breathe, aware that they were accidentally intruding on a very powerful, personal moment between the two sisters – if an extremely volatile one.

Buffy stood there for a moment, not moving, not even turning her head back to look at her sister. The defeated fall of her shoulders, the pained expression on her face, said that she felt she deserved the blow.

“I hate you,” Dawn said suddenly in a raw, pain-filled whisper, and Buffy flinched at the harsh words, infinitely more painful than the blow had been.

For a very long moment, neither sister moved or made a sound. Buffy swallowed hard, her eyes closed against the pain of her sister’s honest feelings, and the overwhelming shame of her own sense of guilt and responsibility for what had happened in her absence.

A single tear pressed its way out from one closed eye and fell down her cheek. And in the next moment, the powerful, capable Slayer had once again fallen apart, dropping to the floor, consumed by uncontrollable sobs of emotional agony.

At that moment, Buffy truly felt that she had lost everything.

For a moment, Dawn just stood there and looked on as her sister fell apart before her eyes, on the floor at her feet. Then, her fiercely resolute expression began to waver, and then crumpled completely, and the child fell to her knees beside her sister, throwing her arms around her and holding her, even as her own sobs shook her small body.

“Buffy,” she sobbed. “Oh, Buffy, Buffy…” She couldn’t give words to the anguish she was feeling, the anger, the pain, the relief at her sister’s return, all mingled inside her into an indistinguishable, uncontrollable emotion.

Instinctively, without having to think about it, Buffy raised her arms and wrapped them in turn around her little sister, and held her back. They knelt there on the floor together for a very long time, just holding each other, sobbing out their pain in each other’s arms. For beyond the burdens of anger, pain, blame, lay something deeper, and some instinctive thing in each of them recognized that at that moment, those painful emotions needed to be set aside. No matter what had happened between them, what failures and hurts lay in the past, they had to lay them down and support each other through this ordeal.

They were all each other had left.