Author's note: Sorry this is a little late. But after what happened this week (I had friends and family in NYC, the Pentagon, and western PA who are all okay, thank God), I'm sure you understand.

Chapter Three: Stay Away

Used to be that I could actually make it through the night with a normal, non-prophetic dream. You know ... shopping on Bill Gates' credit cards. Forever on a beach in Mexico with Keanu. Finding out Christina Aguilera's really a demon and I'm allowed to hack her to pieces with a mace.

You know. Normal stuff.

Not monks.

Theoretically, I should never dream of monks. Ever, ever, ever. Absolutely no monks in my head. Unless, of course, they're marrying me and someone who looks suspiciously like Billy Idol. (Yeah, I know, the relationship just got its toddling legs. I said dreams, all right?)

But then again, saying I should never dream of monks? Kind of ignores the whole Slayer gig.

Okay, so, two monks. One kind of scrawny and pale, one chunky and pig-eyed. Figure the Laurel and Hardy of the religious crowd. And they're in Dawn's room, sitting sedately, brown cloth spread across her light blue bedspread, tiny glass vials in their hands.

But it's just ... weird. Majorly creepy. Because, hey, no Dawn stuff. Oh, sure, the bed's there. But it's hiding behind old wooden crates and boxes of winter clothes, the walls bare and the air thick with sunlit dust. I'm guessing this is the way it looked before the Key mojo got worked all over my life.

But still, monk infestation.

They raise the vials in their hands to one another in a cutesy tea-party toast. "Bound by pain," the Laurel-monk says.

"Bound by fear," the Hardy monk says.

"It has begun."

"All will be altered."

"The Key will be made flesh."

"And blood."

"And the prophecy will come to pass."

"Amen."

Can I just say, totally impressed with the solemn attitudes? I'm thinking prayer vigil. How 'bout you?

"Well, aren't we melodramatic?"

The voice comes from the doorway, out of my dream point of view, and both monks look up expectantly. Okay, come on, turn the camera around, guys ...

Oh.

It's that Doc guy. The one from the tower. The one from last night.

Gee, talk about looking harmless. It wasn't like I got all that good a look at the guy when I was throwing him off Glory's tower, and last night, I was too busy getting a decorative bruise the size and shape of a two-by-four across my stomach.

But now, he just looks so ... grandpa. No two ways about it. Just someone's cutesy old Uncle Morty in a monk costume, a gentle smile on his face.

Okay, not getting the evil-guy-as-holy-guy reference.

The other monks glare at him, and he rolls his eyes behind those tiny John Lennon glasses that went out of fashion years ago. "Oh, really. Don't look at me like that. Just because I'm not about to get moody doesn't mean you have to. Now, where are my sources?"

His pleasant voice wipes the condescending smirks off the faces of the other two monks, and they eagerly hand him the itsy bitsy vials. He holds them up to the light, and that's when I notice the maroon tint to the liquid inside.

Eww. Sample size bottles of blood. Well, that'll come in handy at Sam's Club, won't it?

"This doesn't seem like very much," he says in this dry tone of voice. Something about the way he says it seems to mortally offend Hardy-monk, who practically smacks his own chest with a plump hand in shock.

"Much is not needed," Hardy-monk blurts out.

Laurel-monk follows up with a, "We can get more."

You'd think his buddy had told him the whopper of all giggle-worthy jokes, 'cause Laurel-monk makes this noise that sounds a hell of a lot like a hyena mating call. "The subjects were quite willing," he wheezes in between inhuman howls.

Subjects? Willing? Ooky feeling alert at twelve o'clock.

Doc cocks an eyebrow at that, and this weird little smile crosses his face. "I'd be, too, if I were delusional," he says, and whatever humor he's got going is replaced by that creepy pleasant attitude as he slips the vials into his robes and claps his hands together. "Well, let's get this show on the road, shall we? I'm late for a domino tournament."

The other two shoot to their feet, and the Hardy-monk perks up. "Oh, really? Can I come?"

"Fool," the Laurel-monk sneers derisively. "We've got bowling tonight."

Ooo-kay.

So then Doc walks out, two monk-shaped puppies on his tail, and that's right about the time the dream gets interrupted by --

"Grace!"

And then I wake up.

As if I weren't already bugging over the dream. For a sec there, I'd been positive I was actually going to have to go with the monks. Bowling and domino tournaments? Not a chance.

"Grace, wake up!"

No, I don't want to wake up. When I wake up, I'm awake when things happen. That's not good. Or at least, it hasn't been recently.

I bury my head deeper in my pillow, but that doesn't stop the teenager currently using my mattress as a trampoline from driving all thoughts of sleep from my head. Oh, sure, the thoughts of torture are still there, but sleep's slowly losing its appeal.

I finally blink awake and look up to see a pair of clear blue eyes staring down at me. And the eyes are connected to a head, and the head is connected to already washed hair and a huge smile and a fully dressed Dawn.

Not to sound all Jedi here, but I've got a bad feeling about this.

"Hey. Want to go hit things with me?"

Now here's what gets me.

Slayer dreams? Prophetic. From the Latin, "proph" meaning "lame, annoying demons" and "etic" meaning "who will probably be attacking me at the most aggravating time imaginable. If I'm really unlucky, during a date."

But the big part you should notice? "Will be." As in, hasn't happened yet.

And as I'm clipping my hair back from my face, all I'm thinking is, "Call me crazy, but the monk thing? Sure doesn't feel prophetic."

It doesn't, you know? It feels like a scene chopped out of a movie I saw on video last summer.

I'd gotten out of the house before Dawn had starting pummeling me, since morningtime pummeling wasn't something I was looking forward to. She was just so ... excited. It was like, "Look, Mom! I can make major contusions!"

But as I head towards Xander's apartment, all I can think is, no telling anyone about Dawn. Especially Giles. Drooly British guys ... so not something I want to deal with today.

I've got to tell someone, though. Dawn's got Slayer powers, and she didn't get the decoder ring and the membership card. Something's seriously up with that, and it can't possibly be of the good. If five years on the Hellmouth has taught me anything, it's that suddenly acquiring kooky powers is never good.

So I figure, Spike first. Eliminate the worry, you know?

Yeah, I know. How weird is that? Last week, my biggest priority on the Spike front was making sure he knew that Buffy nookie was totally out of the question.

Of course, then I slept with him. But still. When I said it, I really, really meant it.

As soon as I get to the front door of Xander's apartment, I pound on it a couple of times, fully expecting to get a faceful of snarky blond vampire. But it's Xander at the door, all scruffy and just woken up in slouchy sweats and no shirt. Yeouch. Now I know how he gets Anya so hot and bothered.

Oh, God.

Now I'm having Xander-sex flashbacks. You know, I'd been trying to keep the Xander-sex memories to a bare minimum for the past few days, but talk about impossible when I've got lifting-heavy-objects abs in my face.

I keep this up, I'll think twice about bleachy bloodsucker smoochies.

Ummm ...

Nah.

"Hey," Xander says, a little too cheerfully. "If it isn't my special squished-together buddy." Xander gives me a good, old-fashioned friendly punch in the arm. Everybody keeps up with the violence, and I swear I'm becoming a pacifist. He bows and extends his arm, doing the exaggerated gentleman thing.

I smile as I pass him going in, but I'm still a little squirmy about his attitude towards the whole Siamese Slayer thing. Truth is, I think Xander glazes over the part of me that's Faith when he looks at me. All that really matters to the guy is that somewhere in here is what's left of Buffy.

Whatever keeps you sane, right?

Hey, Xander, I say, asking him if Spike's up and around.

Xander shakes his head as we walk into the kitchen. "Nope. He's dead."

Okay. Wha-huh?

Xander squirms from the look on my face and turns away to get a bowl out of the cabinet. A box of Fruity Pebbles and the milk are already out on the table. "Well, he is," he says defensively. "I have a corpse in my apartment. It's so disgusting. Other people don't have corpses in their spare bedrooms."

Oh, really? I ask how long he's lived in this town.

He rolls his eyes at that, then heads over to the spare bedroom and nudges the door open a crack. Both of us peek in, and even in the darkness the closed blinds allow, Spike's not all that hard to spot. You know those glow-in-the-dark stars people put on their bedroom ceilings? They don't have anything on vamps. You try being that pale and not glowing in the dark a little.

The two of us stare at him, so still, so dead, and Xander whispers, "You know, I've never actually seen a bloodsucker sleeping. He's sorta ... peaceful."

You know, I really wonder about Xander sometimes. Like now.

"Hey, want to see a neat trick?"

I eye him warily. This better not involve ...

That. This better not involve that.

I groan as quietly as I can when Xander snatches one of Anya's compacts off the kitchen counter, ducks into Spike's bedroom, and says, "Voila, no fogging up the mirror," while proving that yes, there is no fog on the mirror.

You've got to be kidding me. I'm not watching this. Nope. Good girlfriends don't let their best friends prove they're necrophiliacs.

Xander stares at me in total disbelief as I head back into the kitchen and he bends over Spike's prone body. I half-expect the guy to wake up and grab onto Xand just to spook him. "What? Like you've never done it."

I haven't, I say, plucking an apple out of the fruit bowl in the center of the kitchen table and taking a bite. Past apple chunks, I add, Vampires don't breathe. Me, one. Curiosity, a big, fat zero. Now get out of Spike's bedroom.

"Actually, it's my name on the lease --"

I yelp out his name, trying to sound as Slayery and in control as I can.

He flinches at that, nearly dropping the compact in his hands, and I could swear I see the corners of Spike's lips twitching as if he's about to burst out laughing. "Right. Vacating the premises," Xander says, muttering under his breath as he leaves, "Even if there are my premises."

As soon as the door shuts behind him, I've just got to ask. I mean, come on, you've got to be sufferin' through the wonderin', too. So I say, Why are you even letting him stay with you? I thought you had a strictly no-dead guy rule.

Honestly? I think Spike's rubbing off on the guy. My theory is that Spike and Xander have been in the middle of their own private buddy movie for the past few weeks.

But hey, maybe that's just me.

"I do," Xander says, as he passes me on the way to tasty cereal goodness. "But we got this great deal on this recently emptied two-bedroom, and we were going to take Dawn in, but then you had to come back and be all alive. Bad, bad Slayer."

Hey, get your own Dawn, I say.

Xander smirks as he cocks his head in the direction of Spike's bedroom. "I did that. This Dawn smokes like a chimney and leaves hair dye stains on the wallpaper. Want to trade?"

Not a chance.

I finish up the apple as he tosses together his complicated breakfast cereal recipe. "So, what's up?" he asks. "We going a'fightin' a big evil badness?"

What am I supposed to say? My sister's a Slayer, then my sister's not a Slayer, and then I have monks? Oh, yeah, that'll go over really well.

Not that I know of, I say with a shrug.

Xander stops shoveling soggy Fruity Pebbles into his mouth long enough to say, "Well, good, because today, I was planning on a'fightin' a big evil belt sander, and frankly, that's about all I can handle."

Yeah, I'll second that.

But a part of me's gotta know if he's spotted any of Dawn's neat new party tricks. So I ask Xander if he's noticed anything wrong with Dawn.

He frowns, confusion all over the place, and says, "You mean outside of the dimension-opening boo-boos? No. Why?"

All right, bite back the sigh of relief, Gracie.

No reason, I say with a plastered-on smile.

Yeah, right.

"You dreamed of monks?"

It sounds so weird when Giles says it like that.

Okay, let's face it. It'd sound weird if Giles said it in a drunken slur, an Irish brogue, or Pig Latin. But add the look of pleasant intellectual surprise and that strand of pre-research drool and Giles is gettin' positively frantic.

I quit flipping through one of Giles' more dusty research books and say, It's not like I got to pick out the topic, Giles. If I did, I would have woken up holding an ax over Dawn's Christina Aguilera CD.

He stares at me questionably for a good four seconds before I tell him not to ask.

"Yes, well." He clears his throat and comes out from behind the counter of the magic shop. His gaze flashes quickly towards Anya, who stands on the other side of the store prodding some poor schlup into another sale, then sits down at the table beside me. "It sounds to me as if you were dreaming up something prophetic regarding the monks who created Dawn."

As opposed to all those other monks I know, I say, which gets a cocked eyebrow out of Giles.

I guess I could leave off at that, some nice, normal everyday monk humor, but fact is, ever since last night's big revelation with Dawn and the Slayer powers, I'm figuring this means something huge. Something I can't pick up because Giles' job is to know everything and I'm just supposed to hit anything with teeth bigger than mine.

And the Doc angle? Bugging me to no end. I mean, I know I was sort of dead at the time, but you'd think the rest of the gang would have noticed the slightly alive demon scurrying away and have exacted some quality revenge on his ass and my behalf.

Last night, he whacks me one, and then he shows up on the dream theater. Call me crazy, but I'm guessing the two cameos go hand in hand.

I ask, But doesn't it sound off to you? I mean, they were in Dawn's room, but she didn't exist yet. It was like I was having a Slayer dream, but backwards. He gives me another "wha-huh?" look, and I add, You know what I mean.

"Quite." Ooo, dry English wit in full effect. "I certainly could see why you'd think it was a dream of past events rather than future ones. There's quite a lot of sense to that line of reasoning."

But I've never had a dream of the past before, I say. Just, you know, dreams of the future. Unfortunately, without lottery numbers, but still.

For a second, Giles says nothing, and I'm pretty sure I've lost him. I'm also pretty sure that if I listen hard enough at Giles' ear, I'll hear the squeak of a metal exercise wheel as a hamster runs in it. He's just got that hamster-thinkin' look on his face ...

... which he promptly snaps out of. Now he's got that "If you want, I'll say Eureka" look on his face. All in all, his two most-used looks. "Perhaps it's a side effect to merging souls. The combined power of two Slayers resulting in far more intense and far-reaching visionary dreams. I'll have to do research, of course, but it does sounds fascinating."

If I look close enough, I can see the drool. I bite back my yack at his excited reaction as I hop up on the counter, legs dangling, and say, Okay, while you're being fascinated, I'm being creeped out.

He glances over at me, shrugging as he says, "Fair enough."

Squirming, I ask about Doc.

Giles lifts his gaze from what he's doing, staring me down, then reaches out and squeezes my hand gently. "We'll figure it out," he says.

"Buffy? You in here?"

I can't help but hang my head. Oh, faboo. The OshKoshBeSlayer.

I ignore my sister's bright, shining expression and look over at my Watcher. Giles, I ask, would you be totally annoyed if I got a big flashing neon sign on my head that said, 'My name is Grace now'?

He spooks at that. "Surely you're joking. Neon, with your coloring?"

I kid you not.

It takes him a sec, but it finally hits Giles what he'd said, and he pales as he says, "Good Lord. I have to get away from you right now."

Exit, Giles. Stage ... um ... northwest? I dunno. Place Giles behind counter. Put him on his knees. Let him dig through a box of icky things I'd rather not mention for fear of testing the old gag reflex. Now you're set.

And then there's Dawn, who Tiggers her way over to me. "Hey," she says, a beaming smile on her face as she punches me in the arm.

I think I'm unintentionally flashing the patented Faith Demonic Twinkle in the Eye, because Dawn flinches a little as I cross my arms and tell her to stop it.

She bats her eyelashes over her clear, innocent blue eyes as she says, "Stop what? I'm only punchin'. Friends punch arms."

Well, in that case ...

Okay, I say with a shrug, and punch her one in the arm. I don't even bother holding back -- if last night was any indication, she can take it.

Then again, maybe not.

Of course, I'm fairly sure a big part of her shocked wince is just for show. This is why Dawn doesn't play poker. "Ow! Stop it."

"Yes, please," Giles says, his accented voice drifting up from behind the counter.

Dawn's still rubbing at the spot on her arm where I hit her, which'll probably be a couple of colors not found in nature any minute now, when she says, "Okay. Fine. No present for you."

I'm sorry. I don't care if I've got bigger things to worry about. I hear "presents," my ears perk up, I start sniffing the air ... it's just not a pretty picture.

I ask hopefully, I get a present?

Dawn's smile could light the western seaboard, it's so bright. "Sure. It was your birthday yesterday. Sort of. Hence, presents."

Ooo, good point. I like that. I wonder if I can milk the multiple personality gig for more presents. Let's see ... Faith's birthday, my birthday, Buffy's birthday, whatever official birthday the Watchers decide fits into their paperwork ...

Oh, God. I sound like Anya. Not that that thought's stopped the bouncy excitement or the little girly squeaks I've been making.

Don't look at me like that. I'm pretty sure I'm owed a spare birthday for the last one Buffy had where her sister decided to slice and dice herself and the last one Faith spent fending off a Sharok demon and its seven tongues while in jail.

Even Giles agrees with me. He pops up from behind the counter and blinks in total confusion. "We were supposed to get presents?"

You can shop for me later, I say, reaching behind the counter and pushing him back down, then turn back to Dawn. I think I'm giggling. I don't giggle. This is ridiculous. What'd ya get me, I ask. Is it a pony? Huh? Huh?

Dawn gives me a second to calm down -- not like I do much of it -- then bounds back over to the front door and drags in some poor guy from outside. As soon as she pulls him down to the lower level, she raises up in her arms in perfect Vanna fashion and says, "Ta, da!"

All I can do is blink. Hey, look, my eyelids work.

Okay, I did wake up after the monk dream, right?

To be honest, as I stare at him, I'm not really sure this is a dream or a nightmare. 'Cause dream implies happy, fuzzy thoughts, and I'm having a couple of those. And nightmare implies equal parts fear and revulsion. Fear, check. Revulsion ... well, sort of checked. The Faith part of me's feelin' pretty nasty right now, and not in a good way.

Actually, the Faith part of me's on a hysterical laughing streak. But there I go with the digressing.

I'm not sure how to react. So I do what any normal person in my situation would do -- turn to Dawn and ask where my pony is.

Dawn's smile wavers only slightly at that, only falling off her face completely when Riley glances from me to Dawn and asks my sister, "Where's Buffy?"

So let's see. Defeated a hellgod. Died to save the world. Started falling for a nice, good-looking corpse.

Ha, I was right! I did absolutely nothing to deserve this.