She grabs Captain Oats and Princess Sparkle -- she's only there because she'd brought Princess Sparkle over for a visit so that she and Captain Oats could make out while Summer made out with Seth. And, looking around wildly, she grabs Seth's skateboard, and his Members Only jacket, which he'd thrown onto his desk chair.

She doesn't know what Seth grabs, because by the time she gets downstairs and stands outside to watch the house collapse, Seth isn't with her anymore. He'd dropped her hand and told her to run ahead, and then -- and then he was gone.

The house falls in a storm of fire, and Summer begins to cough, and bends over. The heat is totally intense, like her hair is going to melt off or something, and her hands are burning, and the metal of the skateboard hurts where it presses under her arm.

And then someone grabs her and pulls her away and pushes her into the car -- Mrs. Cohen's Range Rover -- and it's dark outside, pitch black.

Summer looks over at the driver's seat.

"We're getting out of town," says Mr. Cohen grimly, and Summer's mouth drops open when he uses his Swiss Army knife to crack open the dashboard and pull out wires and start the car without a key.

"I thought -- um -- that you can't do that to cars anymore," says Summer. She feels totally lame. What she should say is, "What about everybody else?" but it's pretty obvious that everybody else is, like, dead.

"I can," says Mr. Cohen, and then they drive away from the smoke and the fire, and every house they pass is on fire, so it isn't really pitch black out, because the fires light up the sky.

**

There are cars all over the road, and at one point they drive on the beach, and they drive on sidewalks.

Princess Sparkle melted a little to Summer's hand; her palm bleeds when she pulls Princess Sparkle away to set her on the floor, on top of the skateboard. She puts Captain Oats next to Princess Sparkle, spreads Seth's jacket over her bare legs, and watches out the window as they drive away from everything.

**

They are already outside Newport Beach when Summer starts coughing and can't stop. Mr. Cohen is totally focused on driving, but he jerks his hand, and it takes three times before Summer realizes that he wants her to look at the back seat -- gallon jugs of water and boxes of Powerbars, ew. But it's better than nothing, so she takes a jug of water and a Powerbar -- peanut butter flavored, gross, but better than the plain or whatever.

"So you were, like, expecting this?" she asks him.

"Shh," he says, and they round a particularly nasty curve, which spills water all over her, and the skateboard, and everything.

She wipes the water off Princess Sparkle with the hem of her tank top.

They're way out of Orange County and into the freaking desert when Mr. Cohen speaks again.

"One of my colleagues called and warned me," he says, and shakes his head and presses his lips together. "I didn't believe him."

"You put the water back there." Summer looks in the back again. There's an awful lot of water.

"Ryan did that." Mr. Cohen stops and sighs, and Summer waits. She thinks about Ryan. Was he in the pool house? Was he at Coop's house? Had he been waiting for Mr. Cohen to save him?

No, Ryan would never. If Ryan could have gotten out, he would have.

"What happened?" asks Summer. "Where are we going?"

Mr. Cohen leans back and takes his hands off the wheel, and Summer watches as it moves itself. "I have no idea, Summer, but feel free to hazard a guess."

Summer just keeps watching the steering wheel.

**

Summer sleeps with her head against the hot glass of the window and wakes up with a red mark on her forehead, like a sunburn.

They're passing through L.A., and it's all fire. They're going further and further north, and it's, like, totally weird. When Summer looks out the window, she sees weird shapes that she doesn’t recognize, and she doesn't think this is cool at all. Plus, there are other cars on the road with sleeping drivers -- and some cars on the road with people who are dead in them. If she squints, she can sometimes see a body thrown over the hood of a car, stomach and intestines everywhere.

It's so gross, she can't stand it.

Mr. Cohen is asleep against his window.

She cranes her neck -- the gas tank is empty. She has no idea what's going on, and she's scared. She tries not to make any noise when she cries, but she can't help gasping a little, and sniffing, so she crawls out of her seat and curls up in the back. The seat smells like Seth and Ryan and Coop, and they're probably all dead, and her nose is all snotty, and it's disgusting, and outside the car is desert, desert everywhere.

**

Summer wakes up and it takes her a moment to remember where she is and what's happening. She woke up because the car stopped -- the car stopped!

"Mr. Cohen?" She moves forward, toward the front of the car, and Mr. Cohen is still asleep. She shakes his shoulder with her bad hand, and hisses in pain. "Mr. Cohen!"

He doesn't move or open his eyes.

"HEY!"

There's a banging on the passenger side window, and she turns. It's dark outside, but there's a small light, and a face.

Summer screams, really loud, even though she doesn't mean to. Then the car door is open and a man is stepping in, a man with really broad shoulders and a grim mouth and an eye-patch, like every scary movie Summer never wanted to watch.

"This is all you have?" he says, and gestures to the water and Powerbars.

"I -- I didn't know," whispers Summer. "I didn't know."

"It's -- shit." The man moves out of the car as Summer starts to cry again, but her tears won't actually fall; she's too dehydrated. She has a headache. She wants to go home. She needs a manicure, and a bandage for her hand, where the plastic is stuck to it, and she wants Giorgio to give her a two hour massage.

Another person climbs into the car, a teenage girl with long brown hair. She's probably around Summer's age.

"My name is Dawn," she says. "Come out of the car. It's going to be okay."

"Are you kidding?" says Summer. "It's going to be okay? What is wrong with you?" She flings out a hand and hits Mr. Cohen's shoulder. He moves a little, but doesn't wake up. "He's not waking up! His house collapsed! Everyone is totally dead and you think it's going to be okay!"

The girl -- Dawn -- rolls her eyes. "It's just the apocalypse," she says. "Again."

"Again? Again!" Summer is shrieking.

"Get out of the car," orders the girl. "We don't have time for this. There are a lot of other people here who need our help. Let's go."

"You can't tell me what to do!" Summer crosses her arms over her chest. "And I'm not leaving Mr. Cohen."

"He's dead," says Dawn. "He's been dead. The magic killed him. And I'm really sorry, but we have to go now. We've already been here too long."

"He's dead? What?" Summer looks back at Mr. Cohen; there's blood coming out of his eyes.

"Some people just can't handle it," says Dawn impatiently. "Let's go." She backs out of the car and Summer moves toward the darkness.

**

The man is Xander, which is so 1999, and he doesn't talk. He glares at Summer's skateboard and ponies, but doesn't say anything mean. He and Dawn carry the water and Powerbars. Dawn talks a lot, enough for all of them. Summer explains a little about Mr. Cohen and how he was a lawyer and how someone called him -- and she doesn't know the whole story, so she can't tell it.

Dawn and Xander have a school bus. There's a woman standing on her head, staring out the back window. She has blue skin, and she's naked. Summer looks away from her.

"That's Illyria," says Dawn, like it's totally normal for a naked blue person to be upside-down.

Summer shrugs like it's normal for her too.

Her hand is bleeding, but that's okay, cause it reminds her that she's alive. Which she doesn't think she wants to be, but whatever.

It's not like she's ever had a choice about anything anyway.

**

"I have to pee," says Summer.

"Hold it," says Xander.

Dawn gives her a thermos. "Drink this," she says. "It flushes your system. It's -- well -- you don't --"

"It's magic?" says Summer, like she doesn't believe Dawn. Which she doesn't, thanks, because she knows magic doesn't exist. If magic existed, Seth would have gotten out of the house and would be with her right now, on his stupid skateboard, with his stupid iPod, holding Captain Oats.

"It's magic," says Dawn. She seems relieved to not have to explain. Summer drinks the liquid -- it tastes like Kool Aid. The purple kind that Coop liked to mix with vodka. But she doesn't have to pee anymore, so okay.

"Do you have any magic Xanax?" she asks Dawn.

**

Dawn talks all the time. She never shuts up. She tells Summer about vampires and demons and girls who are chosen to kill them and how she's only been alive for a few years because before that she was mystical energy. Summer thinks that's pretty cool, if it's true. She could be kidnapped by a crazy cult and the Kool Aid could have been poison.

So Summer says, "What's happening now?" and Dawn gives her a long explanation about secret societies and control of the world and the apocalypse.

When Dawn is finished, Summer says, "Hm."

She runs her fingers over the stickers on the skateboard, and feels weirdly empty. She wishes she missed Seth more, but he'd just make the end of the world more complicated. She wants him here -- but she doesn't.

Xander catches her eye in the rearview mirror. "The world ends a couple of times a year," he says. "Most of the time we stop it -- this time we didn't."

"Okay," says Summer. "That's, like, weird, but whatever."

Dawn looks at her for a long time. Summer looks back at her. Dawn says, "You totally are like my sister."

And Xander just stares.

**

They stop and pick up more people along the way -- a kid who can't be older than one or something, who immediately falls asleep against Summer's neck, and an old old man who looks like he's dying, and a girl with red hair who says, "I've been waiting," in a very disapproving voice, but no one answers her. No one even looks at her; it's like she doesn't exist or something, which is creepy.

She says to Dawn, "Who is the girl?" and Dawn says, impatiently, "I told you -- that's Illyria. She helped fight back the Black --"

"No, the other girl."

Dawn points to the child on Summer's lap. "She said her name is LaShawna."

"No -- the --" Summer cuts herself off and sighs. Then the bus swerves and jerks to a stop, and she puts out her bleeding hand to brace herself, and cries out in pain.

"Who else is on the bus?" says Xander. His voice is hard. He's totally cute for an old guy, or he would be, maybe, if he smiled a little. He reminds Summer of Seth and makes her throat ache.

"Someone with red hair. A girl. Tall. Skinny. She's sitting right there," says Summer, after she's caught her breath. Xander doesn't have any patience for her pain, and that is so annoying. Like, hello, her hand is going to be, like, gangrenous!

"Anya," whispers Dawn and Xander at the same time.

Summer turns to the girl. "Anya?" she says.

"Yes, of course, who else would it be?" The girl rolls her eyes. "Humans. Always needing to state --"

"No one else can see you," says Summer.

"Anya's dead," says Xander.

LaShawna is still asleep. The old man is watching them with wide eyes.

"You're dead," Summer says to Anya.

"Like that would ever stop me from being with Xander? Please." Anya folds her arms over her chest. She's wearing the best shoes Summer has ever seen -- they have a really high heel, and a round toe, and are made of shiny red material.

"We need to find a place to start a fire," says Dawn. She and Xander are exchanging looks like how Summer and Coop used to -- talking without words. Maybe really talking without words, how is Summer supposed to know.

"I hate this," says Summer.

Anya leans across the aisle and pats her arm. Anya's hand is cold, freezing cold, and sinks a little into Summer's skin. "At least you're not dead," says Anya, and she doesn't sound sympathetic at all.

**

There are a lot of dead children in cars. Summer looks away from them. Xander examines every single one with the same look on his face that Mr. Cohen always had when he talked about Ryan and Marissa.

There are a lot of alive children who run away from them.

Summer says, "Stop -- Xander --"

Xander says, "We can't save them all."

Dawn is disapproving, but when Summer rolls her eyes at Dawn, and Dawn glares at her, Summer realizes that Dawn is annoyed with her.

They stop to sleep, because Xander doesn't want anyone else to drive, and Dawn hisses, "It's hard enough without you making him feel bad."

Dawn falls asleep right after that, a frown on her face, and she mumbles in languages Summer doesn't know. Summer can't sleep because she keeps thinking about children running around by themselves; it's almost a relief when LaShawna wakes up and demands to be entertained. Summer can sleep while Xander drives, anyway; she doesn't do much of anything else.

**

They pick up another passenger -- it's Luke.

Summer's lost track of how long they've been driving -- there's no sunrise or sunset, and she wasn't wearing a watch or carrying her cell phone. There's no way to tell time, like time even matters anymore.

Luke jumps out of the car and races toward the bus, and they barely stop to let him on. "Keep going!" he yells. "There's some kind of weirdo out there!"

Summer presses her face to the glass and looks at the car as they drive by. She doesn't know the woman who was driving. Whoever it was is bleeding from her eyes, just like Mr. Cohen, and she's pregnant. There's yelling from outside the bus, and Summer gets a look at the people chasing them. They're, like, dressed up as Klingons or something.

She hugs LaShawna tighter.

"Just like vampires," says Anya dismissively. "No subtlety."

"So you're not a vampire?" says Summer.

"Please." Anya rolls her eyes. "I am a vengeance demon."

Summer wants to know more, because it sounds like a viable career path for her now that she won't ever graduate from high school and marry a rich man, but that's when Luke spots her.

"Yo, Summer, excellent!" he says, and jogs down the aisle to sit next to her. "Hey, is that Ryan and Theresa's kid?"

**

Summer hands LaShawna off to the old man when they stop a few hours later to build a fire.

"According to the GPS," says Xander, "we're a little outside Canada. We should come to the border soon." He squats and lights the fire with a Zippo.

Summer puts down the skateboard next to him, and sits on it. Her legs are a little cold, or maybe she feels exposed -- she doesn't know. She drapes Seth's jacket over her knees. "Are we going to Canada? I've never been there."

"From Canada we can get to England." Xander looks down at the GPS tracking thingy again. "We need to get to England."

Dawn sniffs. "Like they're going to know what to do?"

"See if you can contact them again," Xander instructs. "They know we're out here -- Willow is waiting to hear from us. She's expecting us. We just need to be in places where they --"

"Oh, fine." Dawn rolls her eyes.

Xander looks at her for a long time before walking away.

Summer runs her fingers through the grass; it's wet. "How come we haven't found more people?" she asks. A lot of children. A lot of children. Not so many adults.

"Because people are stupid," says Dawn. "They don't want to leave their stuff. They don't care about the end of the world. They don't notice." She sounds totally bitter. Summer knows how that goes.

"I totally understand," she says.

Anya comes up and squats next to her.

"Uh. Anya?" says Summer. "Did you need something."

Dawn looks at Summer. "Is she here?"

"Yes, I'm here," snaps Anya.

"Yes," says Summer.

"Tell her I miss her." Dawn turns her head and rubs her sleeve over her eyes.

"I can hear you!" yells Anya. "Humans! All of you! So stupid and fragile and --" Anya bursts into tears and disappears.

"I'm worried that she's evil," says Dawn. She's pulling up handfuls of grass and stacking them up.

"I heard that!" comes Anya's voice.

"She heard that," says Summer.

"There's an evil thing called the First Evil. We totally defeated it last year. It appears as dead people -- or people who have died, anyway." Summer doesn't ask what the difference is. "It's hard to tell if dead people are really ghosts, or the evil thing trying to make us crazy." Dawn finishes stacking up her grass exactly the way she wants it. "I need you to be totally quiet. I'm still not very good at this."

"What are you doing?" asks Summer. She totally needs a magical Xanax, like, stat. Or some magical vodka-Kool Aid.

"Sumerian magic."

"Of course, magic."

"Libanomancy," says Dawn. "Divination by smoke. Ready?"

Summer nods and Dawn throws a handful of grass on the fire, and it explodes. There's smoke everywhere, and Summer can't breathe, and Seth's hand slides out of hers, and she's stumbling out of the house, and it's falling down and --

**

Seth's holding her, really tightly. "I love you," he whispers into her hair. "Please -- tell me Ryan and Marissa --"

Summer looks up at him. He's crying. "Seth," she says. "Oh, Seth..."

She feels heavy in his arms. Their bed is so big, filled with pillows. The low hum of the humidifier is comforting.

"They can get divorced if they want to. They did this all the time in high school," Seth continues. "It never meant me and you had to break up."

"Seth, Seth, I am not leaving you just because Coop is leaving Ryan," says Summer, and runs her hands over his face, over his eyebrows that turned out to be just like his father's --

**

"I love you," says Seth. He's standing on top of the coffee counter and he looks like an idiot, and Summer is staring up at him.

"Cohen," she hisses. "Get down. Get down. You are embarrassing me!"

"I love you, Summer Roberts!" he yells and flings his arms wide.

"You are sick," she says. "How could you do this to me? You are totally humiliating me in front of the entire school. Cohen! Get down!"

But he doesn't, so she turns and walks away, rolls her eyes at people as she leaves, doesn't look back. Who does he think he is to do that to her? Nobody humiliates Summer Roberts like that -- nobody. Especially not a big dork like Seth Cohen. Ew!

**

"Summer. Summer. Summer." Seth chants her name over and over again. Sweat runs down her face and burns her eyes and is salty on her tongue. Seth kisses her, whispers her name into her mouth, onto her lips, and holds her tighter, rolling them over so she's on top.

**

Summer is looking for her mother, looking everywhere, but she's not -- there's so much smoke, there's a fire, her legs aren't long enough, she can't run fast enough. "Mommy!" she yells. "Mommy!"

"Honey, I'm right here."

Summer sits up in bed, sweating, panting, choking. She pulls at the neck of her nightgown frantically.

Her mother's fingers are cool against her sweaty forehead, brushing her hair away from her face, unbuttoning her nightgown. "It's okay, honey," she soothes. "I'm here."

Summer pushes her face into her mother's neck and breathes in her scent -- but it's not right. Something isn't right. Her mother always wore Chanel No. 5, always, and this woman isn't -- this woman smells like --

She pulls away and looks up. This woman has a kind face, and curly blonde hair, and she's not Summer's mother.

"Who are you?" demands Summer.

"Honey?" The woman pushes Summer's hair away from her face again, and that's wrong too, because Summer never had bangs. "Buffy, are you okay?"

"Buffy? My name is Summer."

The woman looks more and more concerned. "Buffy, what's going on? You just had a bad dream -- were you dreaming about vampires again? They're not real, we talked about this --"

"Vampires are real," insists Summer, feeling more and more out of control every second. "My name is Summer, not Buffy, and --"

"Buffy, just wait right here. I'm going to call the doctor again, and we'll --"

**

Summer's life has been reduced to instances of waking up and falling asleep and being knocked unconscious. When she wakes up this time, she's in someone's arms.

"Seth," she says.

"Guess again."

"Luke? Ew!" She pushes away and sits up. Like, if anyone found out that Luke was, like, holding her? She'd be the laughingstock of --

"Xander." He shows her his palms, and smiles a little. Well, curls up the side of his mouth anyway, which is more than she's ever seen him do.

"Xander," she repeats, and looks down at her hands. They're her hands. She feels her face -- it's her face. Her own hair. She runs her hand over the side of her left breast, where she had the mole removed from. Her own scar.

"I brought your skateboard." He holds it out to her, but it falls when she tries to take it. He picks it back up and tucks it under his arm. "It's okay. I'll hold onto it. I used to have one of these..." He trails off and stares down at it. Then, "Who's Seth?" too casually.

"My boyfriend." She sits up unsteadily, pushes to her feet. Xander grabs her arm and helps her and she leans on him. He smells like sweat, which, gross, but... not.

"Mr. Cohen?"

"His father. The guy -- driving." She swallows hard. Her mouth is dry. Xander hands her a bottle of the purple stuff. She drinks half the bottle in one go. It's thicker than usual, like syrup. She doesn't have to pee anymore, and her headache subsides to a throbbing instead of a pounding. Her mouth is still dry, though. So annoying.

"How do you know Buffy?" He takes the bottle back and drinks from it, and Summer flashes to all the times she and Coop passed bottles of vodka-laced grape Kool Aid back and forth at school, and her heart hurts, but just for a second.

"I don't. The smoke --" Summer sees black spots in front of her eyes and can feel herself falling. Xander catches her, she can smell him, and carries her to the bus. She isn't unconscious, though, for once.

"Wake up," says Anya impatiently. "Tell him to put you down! I did not give permission for this touching!"

"Anya says..." murmurs Summer, and Xander goes still, and his arms tighten around her.

"Anya," he says.

"Yes, Anya!" says Anya. She puts her hands on her hips and glares at Summer and Xander. Summer glares back, even though she can't muster up enough energy to even fake a rage blackout. Then Anya looks calculating, like how Mrs. Cooper-Nichol used to look, and Summer feels Anya's hands on her skin, pushing her arms around Xander's neck.

"Kiss him already," says Anya. "You're going to anyway, didn't you see that in the smoke? He needs an orgasm buddy now that I'm gone, you'll do better than Buffy anyway --"

But instead of kissing Xander, Summer puts her face into his neck like she used to do with Cohen, and breathes against his skin, and his fingers dig into her and leave bruises. When he puts her down inside the bus, he doesn't look at her.

**

Dawn apologizes about a thousand times, which secretly makes Summer feel really happy, and Xander goes back to ignoring her, and Anya makes disapproving noises. The old man is named Juan, and it turns out that LaShawna loves him, which, good, but still! She was Summer's first, and now she's not.

There haven't been any other people, but they haven't been on the main roads. There was no one at the Canadian border to check their passports, and Summer is sick of eating Powerbars.

They haven't even seen any more vampires or anything.

And Luke is really annoying. He keeps making them stop so he can have bathroom breaks, and Xander warns him that at some point he's going to end up dead, but Luke doesn't care.

He never did take anything seriously.

**

"I always wanted to go to England," Summer says to Juan.

"England, si," he says, smiling at her. LaShawna is chewing on one of his fingers and beaming.

"Yeah, England, whatever," says Summer.

"Whatever," repeats Juan.

"Mughghulg!" says LaShawna.

Luke is snoring.

Illyria is still on her head. She hasn't moved since Xander and Dawn picked Summer up.

Somehow Summer feels like being the first one makes her special, but that's probably not true. Summer is never special. Coop is the special one, the one everyone pays attention to. That bitch Taylor was right about one thing -- Coop was the popular one, the one with the dangerous boyfriend and perfect skin and impossibly freaking dramatic life, like some kind of telenovela or a movie, nothing like Summer's life, with a dorky boyfriend and a pill-popping stepmother and an absent father and -- nothing.

And nothing.

**

They stop to sleep, and Luke goes to the bathroom and doesn't come back all night. Xander won't send anyone to look for him, and they don't have a fire that night -- they sleep on the bus. Summer wraps LaShawna in Seth's jacket, and wraps herself in one of the fleece blankets that Xander brought back from an abandoned Target. It smells like blood, but Summer can't sleep anyway, so the smell doesn't give her bad dreams.

And Luke doesn't come back.

And Summer is relieved.

**

"So this is Canada." Summer is sitting diagonal from Xander, looking out the front window. Dawn is doing something in the back of the bus -- it involves divination, so Summer is staying away. Her stomach hurts every time she thinks about what happened with the smoke-ogomy or whatever, so she doesn't think about it.

Sometimes she can't help it, though.

"Yup," says Xander.

Summer leans forward and turns the radio on, flips through stations, even though she knows that she's only going to hear static.

"You're only going to get static," says Xander.

"I know," says Summer.

"Okay." He keeps his tone mild when dealing with her now. She turns the radio off and flops back into her seat, crossing her legs indian style.

Next to her, Anya says, "Don't let him get away with that! Show him who's boss. He likes to be told what to do. You should --"

"Shut up," says Summer, flushing. Last night she couldn't sleep, so Anya described to her Xander's favorite sex positions.

"Sorry." Xander's tone is still mild.

"Not you," says Summer. "Anya."

"Oh."

They have this conversation three or four times every day. If Summer wasn't with people who believed in ghosts, they'd've thrown her out of the bus for being crazy by now -- she talks to herself, and is constantly slapping at hands that aren't there for touching her hair, and she can't sleep. Her eyes are red.

Xander should know by now, thinks Summer bitterly, that she's never talking to him.

"He's very good at giving orgasms," says Anya. "I think that's what this trip is missing."

"What..." Xander looks over at Summer. "What's she saying?"

"She thinks we need to have an orgy. That's what this trip is missing," Summer quotes.

"An orgy! Never!" Anya sniffs, and tosses her hair. She uncrosses her legs, and Summer can't help but stare -- she has long, long, pale legs, and always wears the red shoes. "That child shouldn't be allowed to participate. She's --"

"Stop! Stop!" cries Summer. "Like, ew. Oh my god, you're, like, a total pervert. Just stop it!"

Xander laughs -- he laughs. "That's my Anya," he says fondly, and smiles.

He looks like Seth when he smiles.

Summer uncrosses her legs and puts her feet down onto the skateboard. It moves under her feet a little.

Captain Oats and Princess Sparkle have been tied into harnesses and are hanging from the rear view mirror. She watches them and sways with them and ignores Anya's chatter as best she can.

**

Summer can't sleep except while the bus is moving. She spends most "nights" watching everyone else, and letting LaShawna suck grape Kool Aid magic off her fingers. Anya talks to her through the night, tells her things she doesn't want to know -- mostly about running a magic store, but also about Xander and how they used to sleep together, but Xander was always in love with Buffy.

Buffy. Summer wonders if Xander sees Buffy when he looks at her -- Dawn's older sister. And it has to be Dawn's older sister that keeps Xander and Dawn together. Dawn is magic, or so she says, but what is Xander's deal?

Xander kind of reminds Summer of Seth. Or maybe he reminds her of Mr. Cohen. She doesn't know. It's all tangled up in her head -- she can't draw lines from last week to this week, because they're not even in, like, the same reality anymore. Last week she had a best friend and a boyfriend and a home and a mortal enemy -- and this week she has, like, a school bus and a baby and a crush on a guy who fights demons.

**

They're heading east now, toward, like, Whiny Pigs or something. Summer isn't sure how exactly they are supposed to get over to England from Canada, but whatever. It's still dark. There are fires everywhere, and noise, now, and they get chased more and more often. Xander gets more and more grim.

Juan dies one day, sitting on the bus. His body just falls over.

LaShawna won't stop crying.

Xander breaks into a supermarket and steals a bunch of food. It smells like death inside the supermarket, and it's splattered with blood. Summer doesn't look, just rocks LaShawna.

They run into people sometimes, people who refuse to join them. A Mountie who is totally hot, and a cop from Chicago who've teamed up -- Summer gives them the last of the peanut butter Powerbars, and the Mountie gives her something called pemmican, which is so gross she can't even begin. She gives it to LaShawna to chew on. There's the group of hunters who've switched from hunting caribou or something to hunting demons. There's the three old women who are at least fifty living on a farm surrounded by a fire that burns all the time -- when they want to leave or people want to come in, they cut a doorway into the fire.

Summer is totally used to magic now.

A group of seven people -- Dawn calls them Apocaloser Christians -- try to burn Summer and Dawn at the stake; Xander finds them just in time and cuts the heads off two of them -- the rest back off.

Summer watches him swing his sword and thinks about how much he looks like Seth, even with the eye-patch.

**

Illyria is still standing on her head.

**

Sometimes Summer misses Coop, but not very often, and she feels kind of bad about that. Her life seems a lot calmer now, without Coop and Ryan and everything to always be, like, making noise.

**

"Here we are," says Xander, and stops the bus.

"This is the American Consulate," says Summer.

"You can read!" says Dawn, and pats her on the shoulder. Summer slaps her hand away. Dawn is like the younger sister she never had -- except they're almost the same age. But Dawn seems like she's everyone's younger sister or something.

Summer asked Anya once if Dawn and Xander were a couple, and Anya said, "A couple of what?"

Summer didn't think that was funny. She still doesn't. It like, just because Xander was -- is -- in love with Dawn's sister didn't mean he couldn't still be, like, with Dawn. Hello, didn't Anya ever watch The Valley?

"There's a Hell Mouth here," says Xander. He reaches under the driver's seat of the bus and tosses Summer a stake. She's killed three vampires -- nothing compared to Xander and Dawn, but not too shabby. It sort of comes naturally to her, like picking out the right shade of nail polish, or finding the dorkiest loser ever to date.

"Oh, right, a Hell Mouth. Of course." Summer rolls her eyes. "Do you think we could eat something that doesn't come from a can tonight?"

"We can't start a fire," says Xander. "You know that."

Summer sighs, a deep and long sigh, and Xander ignores her.

"Tell him what to do," says Anya in Summer's ear. Summer feels the chill of Anya's body pressed against her back. "He likes that."

"Anya says I should tell you what to do," says Summer.

"I'll tell you what to do," replies Xander. "Don't sass me, young lady."

"Xander, you sounded just like Mom!" calls Dawn. She's outside with LaShawna. It's actually, like, twilight here. There are stars.

Summer looks up at the sky.

**

There really is, like, a giant pit that leads into Hell underneath the American Consulate in Ottawa. That's pretty weird.

Summer sits next to it with LaShawna and watches Xander and Dawn set up some kind of circle. LaShawna is totally fascinated by her own toes. Summer wonders if she was that easily entertained when she was one.

"We're going to shut it down," explains Dawn.

"Is that why we spent three weeks in a school bus?" Summer raises her eyebrows and bites off another piece of a peanut butter cookie flavored Luna bar. It's kind of stale, but it's way better than a Powerbar. God, what she wouldn't give for a giant mocha latte as big as her head, with whole milk and whipped cream, but no foam, and a shot or two of hazelnut or peppermint syrup. She's drooling just thinking about it.

"Next stop is Cleveland." Xander dusts off his hands and stands. "Eventually the Watchers' Council is going to figure out what we're doing and find us, and get us to England and out of here."

"Uh-huh," says Summer. "So what do I have to do to get a freaking latte around here before then?"

Anya appears in front of her, smiling in a very disturbing way. "Kill Xander," she says, and sips what looks like an iced latte. Oooh, iced latte.

"Kill Xander?" Summer's eyes immediately flick up and down Anya -- she's not wearing the red shoes anymore. She's wearing sandals that show off a perfect pedicure. Summer is totally jealous -- she used to have those sandals. She used to have that pedicure. Now she has short fingernails and a stake and a can of chick peas.

"Huh?" Xander looks over at her. He's got a box of salt in his hands. He's too thin.

"Anya just said --"

"Shh!" Anya holds a finger to her lips. "Don't tell anyone. It will be our secret."

"Xander," says Summer. "Xander! Anya's going crazy."

"Anya's dead," says Dawn. She doesn't even look up from the symbols she's drawing on the ground -- triangles and lines that are supposed to mean something. It's like some kind of demented geometry class hell. "She can't be any crazier dead than she was when she was alive."

"Bitch," spits Anya in Dawn's direction, then whirls back around to Summer. "Don't tell them, you'll regret it."

"Uh --"

And then Xander is at her side, kneeling next to her, holding her hair back while she throws up. And throws up. And throws up. Peanut butter luna bar and purple Kool Aid stuff, so disgusting. Xander rubs her back in circles and doesn't say anything while her stomach convulses, then he takes off the plaid shirt he always wears and uses it to wipe off her mouth.

Dawn hands him a bottle of water and he hands it to her. "Spit first," he advises. "I used to be a bartender, I know all about puking."

"You were a bartender?" whispers Summer. Her throat is sore, hurts. She swishes the water in her mouth and spits. Her puke is all over the weird metal cover of the Hell Mouth.

"Ah, many lifetimes ago." Xander smiles at her and his eye crinkles. "I was also a soldier in Vietnam."

"Uh-huh." Summer takes another sip of the water, swallows this time. "What was Dawn?"

"I was mystical energy used to unlock a portal into a hell dimension that would suck Earth into pretty much Mount Doom," says Dawn. She still doesn't look up.

"Mount Doom? That's in Middle Earth, right?" Summer takes a deep breath, and then another, and then another. "My boyfriend was the king geek in our high school. Actually, the other dorks made fun of him, so he was, like, the dorkiest."

"Me too," says Xander. He takes the water away from her and takes a sip for himself. "Wanna tell me what just happened there, B -- Summer?"

"Buh?" she repeats. "Am I that much like her?"

"Like who?" Xander plays dumb, but Summer isn't buying it; if there's one thing she knows about, it's playing dumb.

"Buffy. Dawn's sister. She was your girlfriend right? Before Anya? After Anya? It's okay, you look like my boyfriend. It's like fate or something."

Xander shakes his head. "She wasn't my girlfriend -- although not for lack of trying on my part, I guess."

"Anya told me to kill you. She said --" Summer feels her stomach convulse again, and closes her eyes. "She said that if I killed you, I'd get a latte. Like, the world would go back to normal."

"The First Evil," says Xander, and he's back to being the grim guy who made her get out of Mrs. Cohen's Range Rover. It feels like it was a million years ago. Three weeks.

Summer is wearing underpants, socks, and sneakers that she stole from a Wal Mart. She hasn't washed her hair in three weeks, because there's no running water and they have to save the bottled water for drinking. She wipes her face down every morning with these little pads that she found in a Target -- they're "refresher pads". She had a packet once, before the Apocalypse, or whatever, but hers came from the Elizabeth Arden counter and cost more than the entire outfit she's wearing now. If she'd paid for this outfit, anyway.

Xander rubs her back one last time, and then walks over to Dawn. "Ready, Dawnie?"

"Don't call me that, Alexander LaVelle," says Dawn. She stands up. "Okay, the cuneiform's ready."

"Summer, you and LaShawna back up a little," directs Xander. Summer backs up. Her stomach is cramping. Oh, God, Seth. Ryan. Coop. Harbor School and the carnival and Mrs. Cooper-Nichol and Mr. Cohen. Her dad. Even her step mom. Luke. Juan.

Shit.

**

Illyria descends from the bus. "The power calls to me," she says. Her voice thrums everywhere inside Summer.

Anya stands in front of Illyria. "You can't beat me," she taunts.

"You are not powerful. I am," says Illyria, and punches Anya in the face. Anya stumbles backwards and sneers, and turns into a girl who looks a little like Summer, but not really. Only because Summer is looking for it. Only because Summer wonders if she's really dead sometimes.

Illyria keeps walking, gliding, toward the Hell Mouth, and joins her voice to Xander and Dawn's -- but instead of chanting in a weird language Summer doesn't think she's ever heard before, Illyria screams.

Summer wants to know what happened to Anya's ghost, if she's been taken over by evil. The silence is kind of weird. Not that Summer misses Anya, not exactly, but she'd kind of gotten used to someone talking to her all the time.

Now there's just silence.

**

They camp in the Consulate -- it's Summer's idea. "There's no reason for us to sleep outside or in the bus when there are a bunch of beds here," she argues, and Dawn agrees. So does Illyria.

"I don't require sleep, but the human makes a good point. This is a defensible positon. If anyone dares attack me! I am a god! You humans --"

"Yeah, yeah, heard it already," says Dawn, and takes Xander's Swiss Army knife -- Mr. Cohen's Swiss Army knife, Summer realizes dazedly -- and slices open her palm.

Summer watches Dawn spatter blood over doors and windows, and offers her own palm.

"Take my blood too," says Summer.

"Your blood isn't as powerful as mine," Dawn explains.

"I can do that smokeomagic thing," says Summer. "Plus, evil wants me on its side. I am totally powerful. Take my blood."

And then Xander grabs the knife and says loudly, "Great merciful Zeus!" -- and for a split second, maybe even a whole moment, Summer thinks Xander is going to kill her -- but he just slits her palm open, her bad palm where Princess Sparkle melted to her skin a little bit, and rubs her hand against Dawn's.

"There," he says. "Now you're sisters. Use her blood."

Then he goes back to putting blankets over the windows.

**

Summer is in a room all by herself. She rubs her fingers over the palm of her right hand -- the healing burn from Princess Sparkle is gone. The cut where Xander rubbed Dawn's blood is gone. The scar from where Summer had that ugly mole removed when she was, like, twelve, is gone. The scar on Summer's ankle that she got when she first learned how to shave her legs is gone. The stretch marks on the tops of her thighs are gone, and so are the calluses on her feet from going without shoes for days. The red mark on her forehead where she hit her head somewhere and didn't notice is gone.

Dawn is magic. Why is Summer surprised?

She turns over in the bed, and feels the sheets swish on her body, then turns over again so she's on her back again, staring at the ceiling.

Illyria has taken LaShawna -- "Small humans," Illyria had said and touched LaShawna's nose. LaShawna grabbed Illyria's finger and began to chew on it. "Interesting."

Summer wasn't sure that was a good idea, but it's too late to say something now. Now that she's all alone in a dark room, on a bed -- it's nice, and she's thrilled to be in a bed, but... She's alone for the first time in three weeks.

When Anya appears, Summer screams, and it's only moments before Xander throws open the door.

He's holding the sword in one hand and a gun in the other, and he's not wearing a shirt. He's still wearing the eye-patch, though. Sometimes Summer doesn't notice it -- but sometimes she does.

"What?" he pants.

"Anya." Summer's voice is small. She feels like an idiot.

"Given anymore thought to my offer?" Anya drawls. She doesn't sound like herself -- her speech is usually stilted, like Summer's was when she tried to learn Spanish. Now she's smooth, like she's been speaking English forever. Summer doesn't like it -- Summer misses Anya's weird, broken syntax. Or whatever it's called.

"No," says Summer.

"No whaaaaaaat?" sings not-Anya

"No I'm not going to kill you just for a latte."

Xander leans against the doorway, on the sword, and lets the gun drop to his side. "Well, that's a relief. I rate higher than Starbucks."

"Just a little, though," says Summer, and rubs her eyes -- something she never would have done three weeks ago, cause it causes wrinkles. But who cares about wrinkles when the world is ending?

"You -- ah -- um." Xander waves the gun at her, and Summer realizes she's let the sheet drop down, and Xander can see her breasts.

Not-Anya laughs from her perch at the end of the bed. "He likes breasts," she says to Summer. "He always hated that my were soooo small." She cups her breasts in her hands, which Summer notices are not that small at all, and suddenly she's naked from the waist up. Summer stares at her -- she has those pink puffy nipples that Summer always wanted.

"Summer. Summer." Xander's next to her, and Summer looks at him. He has small nipples, brown, and no chest hair. He's totally ripped, though, lots of muscle.

She looks up at him.

"Touch yourself," says not-Anya, and spreads her legs. She's hovering in midair.

"Anya is --" Summer's mouth is dry. "Xander --"

"You don't look that much like her," says Xander. "It's just your attitude."

"You look a lot like Seth," she says, "but your, like, attitude? Is totally different."

"I had the same skateboard," says Xander. He's moving closer and closer to her. Summer ignores not-Anya, and moves closer to Xander. She's clutching the sheet to her chest, and when he gets to her, he puts his hand over one of hers.

She lets him move her hand down.

"Do it!" says not-Anya, so loud Summer can't ignore her.

"If Anya wants us to do this, and she's evil --"

Xander looks like he's in pain, the way Coop used to look -- used to look. Summer pushes back the tears.

"Whatever, Alexander LaVelle," says Summer. She opens her hand under his and lets the sheet drop.

Not-Anya huffs out an annoyed breath and disappears, and as soon as she's gone, Summer leans forward and kisses Xander. He tastes like blood and smoke -- her stomach twists -- and purple Kool Aid and vodka.

"You have vodka?" she says when he pulls away.

"I'll share later," he says, and wraps an arm around her waist, and jerks her to him. His skin is hot everywhere, and he kisses her, touches her, makes love to her like the world is going to end when they're finished.

And, for all Summer knows, it will.