Summer is going to go with Spike and Dawn. She doesn't want to, not really, but she doesn't have a reason for not going, just a feeling.

Dawn tells her that she has to go with her gut on everything, because her gut will tell her what to do, and will be right -- unless she's evil. Summer thinks that this whole gut thing could be useful in arguments: No. We have to have salmon for dinner, my gut told me. Buy me that Prada bag. Yeah, my gut totally says I have to have it.

"Great," says Summer. "I feel a lot better."

Dawn shrugs. She's sitting in the center of Summer's bed, reading Glorificus the Mighty and Shiny (And Well-Shod). Supposedly, Dawn is made of energy and was created to open up the door between dimensions. Summer thinks that's probably a load of crap, since Dawn looks like a normal teenager. Of course, that guy Spike doesn't look like a vampire and Summer doesn't look like she's a vampire slayer and --

The world is, like, upside-down. Plus Dawn is older than she is, which just seems wrong somehow.

Summer pulls out of the lotus position she'd forced herself into -- yoga was not helping at all.

"I'm going to go," says Summer. "I'll be back later."

"Take a stake if you're going to be out after sunset," Dawn reminds her, and Summer grits her teeth before replying.

"Okay," she says, and grabs one off the top of her bureau. She leaves the house without even checking her lipstick, that's how she knows she's really fucked up. Of course, she's leaving Newport, going to fucking Africa of all places, never to return. Probably to die. Summer has the feeling that dying is what happens to most of the people who hook up with Dawn.

Summer gets into her car and just drives around. It's not like she can go anywhere -- she's wearing sweatpants and a tank top and a sweatshirt, and sneakers, and her hair is in a ponytail, high on the top of her head. And -- she checks her face in the rearview mirror -- all her lipstick is gone and her eyeliner is kind of smudged.

She drives to the beach and sits on the edge of one of the piers, dangles her feet down. They don't quite reach the water. She leans against one of the wooden beams, sighs, stares out over the water. The sun is setting, and she can see people on the boats eating, drinking, laughing, dancing.

They dance while vampires roam California, demons cause apocalypses, and Coop becomes a total lesbian and then not again. Summer is pretty sure this is not the natural order of things, but Dawn assures her that demons have been around longer than humans, and slayers have been around almost as long.

But Dawn is, like, mystical energy, so Summer's not sure she can be trusted.

Summer closes her eyes and breathes in the salt air, lets the wind blow through her hair without worrying that it's going to frizz. This time next week, she's going to be in Africa. Or something. Meeting Dawn's boyfriend or whoever he is. Summer's pretty sure Dawn wants him to be her boyfriend, but that he's not. Summer's got an eye for this kind of thing. Summer's also pretty sure that maybe Spike and Dawn are sleeping together, but that's a little harder to read, because Spike's not human.

Neither is Dawn, Summer reminds herself.

Maybe this kind of thing is a real explanation for Cohen. Summer considers that for a moment and then discards it. If anything, Seth is a total example of humanity.

Summer can't decide if she's going to miss him or not once she's on the other side of the world.

There's noise behind her; Summer leaps up, the stake coming into her hand automatically. She whirls around, and is totally poised to stab some creepy vampire in the heart, but it's just Ryan.

"Hey," he says, and puts his hands into the pockets of his sweatshirt.

She lowers the stake, feeling kind of silly. But if he had been a bloodsucking fiend from beyond the grave or whatever? She'd have been all over it.

"Hey," she says. She doesn't turn around and sit back down. Dawn warned her: once the sun goes down and there's no direct sunlight left, don't turn your back on anyone. Ever. Not even me. Not even Spike.

Spike had glared at them both, and stormed out of the room, his cool coat flapping around. He spent a lot of time flapping his coat and smoking. That was, like, what the badass vampires did, Summer figured, since one wrong move and the cigarette would light him on fire.

Ryan walks forward to her, sits down on the edge of the pier, and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. Summer waits for a moment, then tucks the stake into her sleeve and sits down next to him. He offers her a cigarette and she takes it, and he lights it for her.

She inhales deeply. Newport Lights. It is funny.

"I heard Lindsay left. I thought, you know... that you guys were happy or whatever," says Summer. Ryan grunts. She keeps going. "I'm leaving, too. I guess you knew that, probably Seth told you." Ryan grunts again, and blows smoke out of his nose. "I've got this whole superpower thing to deal with. I thought maybe Seth would have some advice. He made me watch that Kiefer Sutherland movie with the worms." Summer shudders just remembering. "There was a lot of misused eyeliner."

"Yeah," says Ryan, finally fucking talking. Summer glares at him. He could, like, participate in the fucking conversation. God, would it kill him?

"I'm going to Africa or something. You know that weird guy who came and tried to take Dawn away when we were out at that crater? I have to learn about him or something. Plus Dawn's boyfriend is there. And, like, some magic? Whatever, it's all so stupid." Summer takes a long drag on her cigarette and stares out over the ocean. Some time between when Ryan lit her cigarette and right at this moment, the sun went totally down and lights came on and everything twinkled.

It looks kind of creepy, actually.

"You don't have to go," says Ryan. He looks at Summer and she catches him and they stare at each other. She kind of wishes things had been different, because she thinks maybe they could have gotten along really well. Maybe not, though. Ryan is fucking weird, and he's got this horrible need to save everyone. And Summer Roberts? Has never needed saving.

"Yeah, I do have to go."

"What does your dad think?"

"He thinks it's a great way for me to learn about other cultures." Summer rolls her eyes. Ryan is still staring at her and she's still staring back. She looks away, down at her feet. Her sneakers have pink laces in them, and her tank top is maroon. It doesn't exactly seem so important anymore, but it still bothers her. Also, without the sun, she's cold, cold right through her sweatshirt. And her stomach is starting to hurt.

"Marissa is going to miss you." Ryan flicks his cigarette into the water. Summer cringes, then takes the last drag off hers and does the same.

"Coop will be okay, I'm sure. Especially now --" Especially now that Lindsay is gone, she wants to say, but that would be rude. Besides, Ryan and Coop were a horrible couple, just like her and Seth. Some things sounded really good, but didn't work in, like, reality.

Any reality.

"We'll see." Ryan pulls out the pack of cigarettes again, turns it over and over in his hands, and Summer is totally riveted by his hands and overcome by the ridiculousness of what her life has turned into -- and also overcome by the realization that she's not ever going to be able to have a manicure in Africa, because she's going to be in the desert with a bunch of fucking native tribes or something.

And she's probably going to die before she ever has sex again.

"I'm probably going to die before I have sex again," she says, then blushes a little.

Ryan looks at her sharply, then pulls out two cigarettes, lights them both, and hands her one.

She takes the cigarette and puts it to her mouth. It's wet, like he licked the filter. Gross.

Ryan doesn't say anything.

"That wasn't like a hint or anything," says Summer. "Whatever." Her stomach cramps up a little -- fucking hell, will anything go right? She can't get her period right before she leaves for a third world country.

She leans over a little with one arm around her stomach.

"I didn't think..." Ryan trails off and looks at her. "You okay?"

"No," she gasps. "What the fuck?" She looks at him and he's smiling a little funny. She puts the cigarette into her mouth, breathes through her nose, and lets the stake slide out from her sleeve.

"Sorry," he says. "I didn't think it would matter."

"It totally matters," she says around the cigarette, which ends up falling out of her mouth anyway, into the ocean. She stabs Ryan through the heart, and he's got a weird and wistful smile on his face, and then he's dust.

Summer totally didn't think it would really work.

"That was my first slaying," she said out loud.

"At least you didn't sleep with him first," says a voice behind her. She jumps up, but it's just Spike. He makes her stomach ache too, but it's a low ache, a thrumming, and it's kind of hot. Except for how it's totally fucking gross.

"So is there some kind of outbreak?" she asks, but Spike ignores her.

"Slayers sleeping with vampires, there's a whole long history." He leers at her. "But it's right complicated, and you shouldn't get involved. You're not quite a real slayer yet anyway."

"I am too," she says, even though she doesn't want to be. But she's weirdly defensive of her new place in life, and she will not be criticized by a vampire, not even a hot British one in a great coat.

"Not," says Spike, and laughs. "Come on, let's go."

"What am I supposed to tell Cohen?" she says, walking toward Spike. "I just totally staked his best friend."

Spike shrugs. "People will see what they want," he says as she unlocks the car. "They'll just think he's run off or sommat."

"Yeah, whatever," says Summer. She just killed her best friend's ex-boyfriend and her ex-boyfriend's best friend.

"Not like you'll be around much longer anyway," Spike continues once he's settled himself in her front seat. His legs are too long for her car.

"Whatever," she says again, and starts the car. "Where are we going?"

"I'm hungry. I need a bite to eat." He leers at her again, and she ignores him.

"There's a blood bank on --"

"That's fine," he says. She turns the car. He puts on the radio, puts it to the station Marissa and Seth like, the punky one. She sighs. It's like her life is totally replaying itself over again, with different people who do the same things.

"I am never going to have sex again, am I?"

"Well, I dunno," says Spike. "Lots o'demons want to do a slayer."

"I don't want to do a demon," says Summer, and hates that she sounds whiny. She wants to do Seth. Except not Seth, because he was so fucking boring.

"You'll change your tune when you see how fragile humans really are," Spike says. He rolls down his window and flicks his cigarette out.

"Give me one of those," she says, and he does, which is nice, and he even lights it for her at the red light. "Do you think there are a lot of vampires in Newport?"

"Look at it this way, Sum," says Spike, and she hates when people shorten her name, but when he does it, it sounds kind of... sexy. "That boy was turned as a warning to you -- get out of town, leave us alone, we don't need a slayer. That kind of backwards thinking is what gets most vamps killed. Me, I'm a forward thinking sort of vampire. Lots o'brains."

"Yeah, I can see that," she says.

"You're leaving town," he says. "Don't start something you can't finish. They'll kill your family, your friends, everyone. Leave you with nothing."

"They'll leave me with nothing? But I'm leaving," she protests, and he snickers.

"You'll come back." Spike slouches down in the seat as much as he can. "You can fight them when you get back, if you want."

Summer rolls her eyes. "Thanks for being totally cryptic and unhelpful," she says, but Spike just turns the radio up.