At night in a mortuary in Sunnydale, Buffy, Xander and I hopped out of three coffins with flashlights.
"Hey," Xander told us.
Buffy jumped slightly. "Sorry."
"33 minutes," I told them.
"Since when do we go through all this trouble for one lousy vampire?" Xander asked. "Excuse me, one lousy potential vampire?"
"Vampire by vampire," I told them. "It's the only way I know how."
There was a knocking sound from one of the smaller coffins. We walked closer to open it.
Dawn was inside, fairly cramped, gasping for air, getting out. "I think this thing has a freaking child lock on it,"
"Shh," I told her.
"You know, I'm not the shortest one here," Dawn told us. "I don't know why I had to be in the kid coffin."
"Look, I know it's our job..." Buffy trailed off.
"No, no, I'm sorry," Xander told us. "I wanna help. I guess I've been a bit stressed out lately. I'm sorry I took it out on you."
"No big," I told them. "Been kinda stressed myself."
"Well, the whole Willow sitch is not unstressifying," Dawn told us. "I mean, she's here, but not 'part of the gang' here and hopefully not 'under my feet here in another time dimension' here."
"There's Willow," Buffy told us. "There's the looming humongo bad. And it's a school night. I should be home in bed, cuddled up to my insomnia, and worrying about how I'm gonna mess up tomorrow."
"You'll be fine," I told her. "You'll be a great counselor."
"It's my first week actually talking to the kids," Buffy told us. "What if their problems are all weird and tricky?"
"I think you underestimate your familiarity with the world of weird and tricky," Xander told her. "This job's perfect for you."
"Check out perfect me," Buffy told us.
I walked toward the casket containing a dead woman, with them following, shining the flashlight in the dead woman's face, inspecting her, the potential vampire. "Taking my sister on an educational outing to the--"
"Dead body," Dawn finished.
"I don't know," Xander told us. "Amateur opinion here, but she looks dead. I mean like natural causes dead."
"The paper said she had unusual cuts and contusions on her neck," I told them, shining the flashlight on the dead woman's neck, and right below her pearl necklace there were two puncture wounds that had been stitched up.
"Maybe she cut herself shaving and then died naturally of embarrassment," Xander told us.
Buffy handed her flashlight to Xander.
Dawn frowned. "She looks... peaceful."
The woman opened her eyes, shifted like a vampire. "I am not peaceful."
"That, I can help with," I told her, taking out a stake, plunging it into the woman's heart, turning her into dust. "I always thought closed caskets were more tasteful anyway."
I closed the lid to the woman's casket.
~~~~~~~
Willow, Xander and I were walking through a park the next day, talking about Buffy at her job.
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Fight to the Finish (BTVS, Book Seven)
FanfictionZoey Francis is the Slayer of about five years, and she has the sister of Dawn Francis, and the mother of Layla Francis. She died a year ago to protect her sister Dawn from death and was brought back by her friends, torn away from Heaven and sent to...
