Summer is going to go with Spike and Dawn. She doesn't want to -- not really. But she has a feeling that she should, and Dawn tells her that slayers have to go with their gut instincts.

"Great," Summer says to her. "My gut instinct tells me that I totally need a new eye shadow from MAC."

Dawn rolls her eyes. "You're so annoying." She puts her finger into her book to hold her place. Glorificus: The Oh-So-Great-And-Terribly-Shiny-One; Summer thinks that there are a lot of hyphens for such a stupid title.

Not like Summer can talk. Her reading lately hasn't been Cosmo or Vogue, but boring diaries written by old British men who spelled worse than Coop.

"Shut up," says Summer. She's laying on the floor; Dawn is on her bed. She's staring up at the ceiling, but she can still see Dawn out of the corner of her eye -- and, actually, she can kind of see all of what Dawn is doing and anticipate everything she does. It's like once she was told that she had all these weirdo comic book superhero powers, she realized it, and started, like, using them.

Dawn stares hard at her, and then says, "Your gut should always be right -- except if you're evil. And then you're going to be. You know. Evil."

Summer rolls over onto her side and then rolls her eyes at Dawn. "Thanks," she says. "I feel a lot better."

"Anytime," says Dawn, and smirks, and goes back to her book.

Summer stares at her for another minute. They look kind of similar, have a similar skin texture and similarly shaped eyes and everything. In another dimension, Dawn could be Summer's sister. According to Dawn, there are totally other dimensions and everything, so maybe she really is. Maybe there's a dimension where Summer never started dating Cohen -- a dimension where Coop never got all alky -- a dimension where Summer got Ryan and Coop got Cohen --

Summer rolls up to her feet and says, "I'm going out. Be back later."

"Okay," says Dawn, not even looking up from her book.

It's pretty weird having her in the house; Summer's dad doesn't even notice that they've got guests and that one of those guests drinks blood from Summer's mother's antique china cups and that another of those guests is, like, a mystical energy force molded into the shape of someone who could be Summer's sister in another dimension.

Maybe there's a dimension where Summer's mother is still alive.

Summer bites her lip and climbs into her car. She could just sit in the car, in the air conditioning, listening to the commercials on the radio for diet pills and mattresses with adjustable whatevers that made them softer or harder.

Or she could go somewhere. The pier. The Cohens'. If she's leaving, she should say goodbye. Her dad thinks she's going on a European tour; she'll have to stop over in London for at least a day to say hello to the monster's family -- but then. Then. Straight to Africa. Do not pass Paris, do not collect any pairs of custom made shoes.

Summer wonders what it will be like when she can't just decide to get a facial and then go get one. What will it be like without a car? Without Tampax? Without ready access to mochaccinos and milk chocolate and emery boards?

She points the car toward Coop's house, but when she gets there, she can't get herself to step out of the car. Coop came back from her family vacation worse than when she left, and Summer really wants to put off saying goodbye to her -- until maybe after she'd left.

But then the door is opening and Julie Cooper is stepping out into the twilight. Summer pastes a smile onto her face.

"Hi, Mrs. Nichol," she says brightly, jumping out of the car. "I'm here to see Marissa. Is she around?"

"She's moping." Julie Cooper -- Summer will never be able to really think of her as anyone other than Julie Cooper, even though she's got her face on magazines and the richest man in Newport dangling from her wedding finger. "Maybe you can convince her that she and Ryan made a horrible couple."

"She's still -- about that?" asks Summer. It's been weeks -- months. Almost a year!

Julie Cooper rolls her eyes and crosses her arms over her chest. "It's nice to see you, Summer," she says. "Go on in." Then she sighs, and Summer tilts her head, and the light hits Julie Cooper's face in the wrong way, and Summer realizes that Julie is getting old. The kind of old that even Botox couldn't fix -- if she was going to use Botox, which Summer hoped not, because ew.

When Summer walks into Coop's room, she's kind of overcome by the smell.

"Phew, Coop, what'd you do? Have a frat party in here this morning?" Summer strides over to the window and throws it open, then the next, then the next, until the fading sunlight is streaming in and the wind is blowing through. Well, breeze. But it's enough to kind of get rid of a little of the smell. Coop's curled up with a flask.

"Come on, Coop," says Summer. "This is so gross."

"I miss Ryan," says Marissa. She drags herself into a sitting position. She's got mascara under her eyes and her hair is tangled. Summer takes a deep breath of fresh air, then gets onto Coop's bed, and picks up her hairbrush, and begins to brush Coop's long hair, just like Summer's mother did for her when she was a little girl.

"I miss Ryan," Marissa says again, and her shoulders start to shake. Summer keeps stroking her hair with the brush, tugging through the tangles from the bottom up. She looks down at Coop's hair -- it's kind of greasy, needs to be washed, smells like vodka. When she looks up again, it's totally night.

She takes a breath, starts on the next section. Marissa is talking about Ryan, and Summer feels like she's going to throw up. Her hands start to shake, and then her stomach cramps. Her fingers spasm around the handle of the hair brush.

"And -- and -- and Alex, you know?" says Marissa, and sniffs in.

"Poor Coop," says Summer as soothingly as she can. She runs her fingernails through Coop's hair, and Coop sniffles again. "But it'll be okay."

"Nothing will ever be okay again!" says Coop, and she throws the flask against the wall, and starts to cry for real, hard. Summer reaches over, into the bedside drawer, where Coop always keeps tissues for when she watches sad movies late at night. They're almost all gone, but Summer pulls out the last handful, and carefully wipes Coop's eyes. Her hands are still shaking, but she forces herself to pull it together. The fumes aren't that bad, and it's not like she's really been able to eat since -- since -- since she found out. About the thing.

While she wipes up Coop's tears, she also wipes up the mascara and eyeliner that are under Coop's eyes, and then Coop looks a lot better. Younger. Softer. Less drunk.

"Hello, pets!" The door of Coop's room swings open and Spike stands there, backlit by the light from the hall. His mouth is red. Summer's stomach cramps again, and she winces.

"Spike, what are you doing?"

"Well, now, this twit's mother just invited me right in, didn't she!" Spike saunters into Coop's room, his stupid coat flapping. Summer can't believe she ever thought his coat was cool. Spike is stupid and a total creep, and also a bad evil horrible baby-killing vampire. She's not sure why he's allowed to stay alive and hang out with Dawn, but it has something to do with Dawn's sister and those other British guys, the ones who are always watching or whatever.

Summer is totally bored by the whole thing.

"Please tell me that you didn't eat Julie Cooper," says Summer. She's totally annoyed.

"Not eat, exactly," says Spike. Coop stares up at him dumbly. "And who are you?"

"This is my best friend," says Summer, and wraps one arm around Coop's neck. "Stay away from her. You can't eat her."

"I can eat anyone I want to," says Spike. "I'm a big bad killing machine!"

"You wish," says Summer, even though she knows what he says is true. That doesn't mean she has to give him the satisfaction of letting him know that.

Half the time she can't tell if he really wants to kill her, or if he's just being stupid and annoying like every other boy in the whole world ever.

"Who is this?" says Coop. "Do you have a new boyfriend."

"Coop! Ew!" Summer pulls away. Spike rolls his eyes.

"Come on, pet," he says to her. "Time's wasting."

"Wasting for what?" says Summer. She's not going anywhere -- Coop obviously needs her, especially with her mom being all vamped up or whatever Spike did to her.

"Time to patrol," says Spike, and he sounds so annoyed, like Summer is supposed to know without being told what to do. Her stomach still hurts, but the pain recedes a little as Spike pulls out a cigarette and lights it and hands it to her. She takes it.

"Summer!" gasps Coop. "You're smoking again!"

"Yeah," says Summer. She takes a deep drag; it helps the cramps a little, and then a lot, and then she feels normal. She glares at Spike. "You are so annoying."

"Come on with me," says Spike. "I didn't really hurt your friend's mother."

"I know, because if you did, I'd kill you."

"You can't kill me. You need me."

"I don't need anyone," says Summer.

"You need me," says Coop, and Summer looks down at her. That's so totally untrue, Summer can't even begin to address it. She opens her mouth, then closes it again.

"I am totally leaving," says Summer. "Like, almost forever, I think."

"What?" Coop pulls away and looks like she might seriously start crying again. "What? You can't leave me!"

"I have so much to do in, like, the world," says Summer. "I'm not sure how to explain it."

"Explain it!" orders Coop, but her voice is shaky, so it's not really impressive. Plus she smells like alcohol. That really cuts down on her authority, Summer figures. She takes another drag on the smoke.

Spike is leaning against the door, licking his fingers.

"It's like this," he says, and Summer cringes. "Vampires and demons and all that? Real. And I'm a vampire." His face shifts, his forehead gets bumpy, and Coop's eyes get wide and scared. Summer scowls at him.

"Cut that out," she snaps, and stands up. "Coop, I am really gonna miss you -- but --"

Coop starts to scream, really loudly. Spike looks at Summer and sighs. "See what you did, pet? This sort of thing never works out for the best."

"I hate you," says Summer, loud enough to be heard over Coop's screaming -- call 911, tell the police, get Ryan, he'll save us.

"That's okay," says Spike, and the cigarette is hanging out of the corner of his mouth and his coat flaps as he steps forward, reaches out, and breaks Marissa's neck. It's totally a weird wet squishy crack, not like what television makes it seem, and Marissa flops back onto the bed.

"Hate to waste good food," says Spike, "but we'd best be going, slayer."

Summer closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. Then she opens her eyes and reaches out her hand and closes Coop's eyes for her. She feels like maybe if this is what being on the side of the good guys is like, she really doesn't want to meet the bad guys. Like, ever.

Especially if they're all bumpy like Spike.

She gets up and follows Spike out the door. "Did you really have to kill her?" she says as they walk down the stairs.

"No," says Spike. "I told you -- I'm the big bad, baby."

"I hate you," Summer says woodenly. Her heart hurts, like when her mother died, like when her father got remarried, like when Coop took all those pills in TJ.

As they reach the front door, Julie Cooper staggers into the foyer, her hand to her neck, her forehead all bumpy.

"You turned her?" says Summer angrily. "What's wrong with you?"

"I'm a forward thinking vampire," says Spike. "I got lots of brains. That one there? She'll be a good ally."

"She's crazy!" says Summer.

"Summer, darling, that's not a nice thing to say," says Julie, but her voice is all weird, all deep and husky. When she pulls her hand away from her neck, her neck is totally healed.

"They make the best vampires. Go on upstairs, pet," says Spike to Julie. "I left you a present." Julie grins and it's scary. Summer shudders, and her stomach seizes. She takes another long drag on the cigarette, pulls in so much smoke that her throat hurts.

Spike grinds out the butt of his cigarette on the imported marble floor of the Nichols' foyer, and leaves the house. Summer looks at Julie, feels the stake Dawn insisted she always tuck into her sleeve, and follows Spike out. She -- she just can't. Not today.