Dream sequence: We see a billard table from above, with a game in progress. An indeterminable player sinks all the different balls, one after the other. We move down to table level and fly through the balls on the table. We can hear murmuring of many people. Whenever we approach one of the balls, we slow down and it's identified (Buffy - 8, Willow - 11, Xander - 13, Dawn - 7, Angel - 2, Spike - 3, Riley - 10, Jenny - 14, Giles - 1, Cordy - 4, Amy - 6): the murmuring fades a bit and the voice of the person associated with the ball can be heard, delivering one of the character's trademarked lines from the show. We hear shots being made, see balls move past us, into pockets. We get a short glimpse at the player's cue and arms. Finally, the cue ball approaches the camera. On its last spin, right before it hits the camera, it becomes an eye.
We pull back from Buffy's now open left eye, to reveal her face, her upper body, lying in a bed. She sits up. The bedroom is only dimly lit, and it's not the one we know from the show. It's simply furnished, with the bed, a closet and a chest of drawers. There's nothing personal, though.
She woke up from the dream in the middle of the night.
We follow her gaze to the door. Muffled female voices can be heard from the door. It's a new (late) arrival.
Outside, we see two pair of feet coming up the stairs, stopping in front of a room. We pan up to see Buffy, peeking at the hall through the crack of her door. Her POV: She just sees Melissa's back, she's leading someone into the room diagonally opposite, but we can't determine who it is.
+----======----+---=====---=====---+---=====---=====----+
| | | +--+ | bathtub |
= | +-----| () | |
= | Anne | | +-----------=
= | | | =
| Melissa |---+ | bed | bathroom =
| | | \ | | / =
| |cl.| \ | | / +---------|
= | | \ | | / | ( ) ( ) |
= +------ --------+- +-------------+
= \ \ |closet |
| \ \ |_______|
| \ \ =
+---+ +----+---=---=---=---=---+------+ =
| | |------| =
= | =------| Danielle |
= | |------| |
= | (hall) =------|-----+ |
| studio | |------| | =
| | =------| | =
= | +---=---=---+------+ bed | =
= | | | | | | | |\-----| | |
= | | | | | | | | |\---| | |
| | | | | | | | | | |\-| | |
+----======----+- -+-----------+------+---=======---+
(entrance)
Inside her room again, she closes the door. She goes back to bed, and quickly falls asleep again.
Next morning:
We're in L.A.; we see an old house, but in good shape. A sign says "Melissa's."
V.O. Buffy introducing house and Melissa. ("The world is a not so nice place sometimes, it's full of reasons for running away. The ..., the father who... Or the one girl in all the world who's in love with her be... biology teacher. And where do all those run-aways run to? Well, I'm not sure, but sometimes it seems they're all coming to L.A. Why else would there be something like Melissa's? But even if there weren't any reasons for running away, Melissa would be reason enough.")
Melissa, an old woman with silvery hair and blue vivid eyes that belie her age is running a diner with a boarding-house here. She's letting rooms to runaways. The girls help in the diner, the boys do maintenance for the house. Buffy knows it from old times (she ran away once when she saw first vampires?).
Buffy is serving customers, talking to Melissa about this night's newcomer.
Buffy
and Melissa are playing the "letter game" ("D" as in
Danielle).
Melissa: "You're curious."
Buffy: "Yeah. I kinda liked her voice. It reminded me of..." (Beat) "...someone."
Melissa: "I let her sleep. She came rather late, and I thought I'd better let her get accustomed before
she starts working."
Willow coming down the stairs.
Melissa introduces them to each other as sisters ("Anne" and "Danielle"), it's her habit to have the house full of "her" children, who are 'siblings' consequently.
Scenes of their new life:
working together in the diner for rent, laughing with each other, making puns, renewing their friendship.
Willow nostalgically looking at picture of her and Buffy in better times, talk about "friends".
Melissa comes in.
Melissa: "So many hidden emotions. Fear, hope, love."
They don't respond.
Melissa: "You know, life's a quest. Many people believe it's a quest for recognition, or money. A struggle for a position on the great ladder. I don't believe in that.
Oh, I believe that life is a quest. But we aren't looking for something, we're looking for someone on that quest. We know, we feel that there's this someone out there, who we're absolutely comfortable with, who's making us laugh sometimes and sometimes cry, who's making us complete."
Willow: "Our soulmate?"
Melissa: "Yes, that's a good term."
Buffy: "But how do we find the one?"
Melissa: "That's the crux. There's so many people you know, and so much more you don't know. Who could it be? The dark, brooding, handsome guy you meet in a dark alley one night? The guy playing bass in the band playing in your favorite club one night? And what if the one's not living in your town at all, or not even in your country?
The sad thing is, many people search for their soulmate their whole life, and yet don't find it. Sometimes because they don't meet the one. Sometimes because they don't recognize the one. Sometimes because they're afraid. Sometimes because they're already with someone who they believe to be their soulmate, but who isn't. Sometimes because circumstances aren't convenient. There's so much that can go wrong..."
Willow: "Sounds as if it were impossible..."
Melissa: "One might think that... It's hard at least. But sometimes -- very, very rarely -- it happens that two people meet each other for the first time and immediately bond. It's not necessarily the 'love at first sight' we know, because there isn't love involved, not consciously at least. Often it's more like a deep friendship, built on mutual trust and understanding. But either way, love or friendship, it's just the expression of the bond they share.
These are lucky people. They mightn't realize it, but they don't need to search anymore. They've found each other. Oh, there's diversions, other lovers, break-ups, reconciliations, running-aways..."
They're looking anywhere but at each other.
Melissa: "...but they're bound. Forever."
Buffy: "And did you...?"
Melissa: "Experience such a bond? Yes..."
Buffy: "And who was he?"
She smirks.
Melissa: "Her name was Doreen, she was eighteen like me and had moved into the neighborhood. As it turned out, she also was in my arts class."
Buffy: "Oh..."
Willow: "OH!"
Melissa: "It just felt right when she was around. We could talk about everything. She could make me laugh, and was there to comfort me when I was sad. And she was so beautiful. I could sit there and just look at her for hours, sleeping or drawing something, or whatever... And the best thing is that she felt the same about me, right from the start."
Willow: "And did you two come together?"
She's looking into the distance, a past life far away.
Melissa: "We went out, secretely, because no one was allowed to know about us. We had a great time, and our families got accustomed to the fact that we were inseparable. We thought that someday, we could tell them about the nature of our bond.
But there was something I didn't know... and neither did she. She was ill. Fatally ill. Someday, she broke down and coughed up a lot of blood. She was so weak afterwards, so fragile. She'd always been slender, but when her illness broke out... I took care of her, was always at her side. Somehow we were even more inseperable... But I couldn't help her. Noone could... She died of tuberculosis two weeks after her nineteenth birthday."
Willow: "Oh God..."
Melissa: "Carpe diem, they say. Seize the day. We thought we had all the time in the world. But life's a bitch sometimes."
Beat.
Melissa (quizzically): "But it's not too late now, never too late." She wipes her wet eyes.
Melissa: "Enough story-telling. What about a little diversion for my daughters? I'll do the rest of the dishes alone, while you two go out and do something for heart and soul? A night at the movies, maybe?"
They look at each other and say in unison: "Okay, mom!"
Buffy: "And thank you for telling us... about Doreen and you."
Flashback: Willow walking around in L.A. by night, coming to Anne's East Hill Teen Center. She's already full, but points out Willow could try "Melissa's".
Someone is following her.
Getting ready for their "date", dressing up.
"Have a good time!" Melissa waves them goodbye, goes back into the house. Suddenly, she feels like she isn't alone anymore. Maybe the girls forgot something and came back? "Hello?" She hears something, turns around and her eyes go wide with fear.
Going to the movies, Buffy and Willow having fun.
When coming back:
- the house is a mess
- they find Melissa's body
- the demon is still in the house
- Buffy kills him
- the police arrive
- they run
Detective Kate Lockley is in charge of the investigation.
Her POV: finds body, strong emotional reaction.
There are traces (slime) of unknown being (demon) and what Buffy and Willow had to leave behind. They are suspects, at least witnesses.
Later scene:
They find out that Melissa was dead for at least an hour, but no more than two hours. Buffy and Willow were at the cinema at the time, there's plenty of witnesses for that. The cashier and the usher both could see the entrance to the cinema, and no-one came out during the presentation. There's an emergency exit, but it would have triggered an alarm, which it didn't.
Later scene:
Kate getting really drunk. She gets a phone call.
Fleeing: from the police, from the council, from their problems, from their feelings.
They flee in a greyhound bound for San Francisco. Entering the bus, getting some adjacent seats in the back of the bus.
There's a man in the bus we'll see again later.
Flashback:
Willow is visited by the police. She's wanted for hacking. The officers talk to her parents.
After they're gone, her father throws her out of the house.
Ira: "You. Whoever you are, leave this house. You aren't my daughter. My daughter wouldn't do anything like that. My daughter isn't a... criminal."
Sheila: "Maybe it's that 'friend' of yours, Bunny... She's having a bad influence on you."
Willow: "Her name is Buffy, mom, and she's my best friend ever."
Ira: "How could you do that to me? The police, in this honorable house?"
Willow: "Dad! It's not that..."
Ira: "I don't care whether they have proof. Leave!"
Sheila: "Ira, please..."
Her parents standing in the door frame, her mother crying, her father grim. Willow stuffing clothing and stuff in a bag.
(V.O.) Willow mocking her father:
"Ira Rosenberg's daughter wouldn't do that. Ira Rosenberg's daughter wouldn't fall in love with..." (stopping herself)
Willow: "I didn't know where to go. My best friend was gone, or maybe dead, Xander was on vacation with his parents..."
Buffy: "Oz?"
"Oz..." Willow sighs. "There's something you don't know about Oz and I..."
(to back of the bus)
Willow: "I told him that I loved him, that I enjoyed being with him, but that I realized one day that I wasn't in love with him... We split up, Anne. Two days before I left Sunnydale."
(she's crying)
Buffy: "Oh god, Will, I'm sorry..."
(hug)
Willow: "It's okay. I thought I could deal with his werewolf nature. There were so many questions I had in mind. What would happen if he really hurt someone again? Me maybe... And what would happen when this really hot werewolf girl would come along? He couldn't answer them. I thought our love would be stronger... I would be stronger. But I was wrong."
(teary smile)
Flashback: Blending over to Buffy's teary face. Buffy is leaving Sunnydale in the bus after she killed Angel. She's looking at her friends outside the bus's window.
They have breakfast at a diner near a highway in the outskirts of S.F.
We see a man who's been in the bus before.
A police officer comes in, not really looking after them, but they feel caught and flee.
They steal a car. (License plate exchange?)
They are being followed on the highway (and it's not the cops), but manage to shake off their pursuers.
Parking the stolen car near a motel, going into another motel.
First kiss. A friendship is lost, but a lover is won.
Willow: "I think...I need to grieve for a bit."
Buffy: "I know."
Willow: "You do?"
Buffy: "I feel it too. Our friendship is over. No matter where we go from here, what we
had before is gone forever."
No more fleeing. They finally admit their feelings, and they'll fight.
Mochas, analysis of situation.
Cause of Anne's problems revealed: the Council's after her. They followed Willow, thinking she would lead them to Buffy's whereabouts. Willow accidentally did so by coming to "Melissa's".
Demon was not supposed to kill her, but to take her haven away, to drive her back home.
Several flashbacks: They identify the Agents who followed them: One that followed Willow from East Hill to Melissa's, one that followed them to the cinema, the one in the bus and in the diner in S.F..
Buying some supplies.
They're caught by a Council Agent, which turns out to be the number two after Travers. He manages to make a phone call before they capture him. (intercut with Travers on the other side)
Buffy: "We can't stay here. They'll be here soon, the whole town will be flooded by them."
Willow: "But where can we go?"
Buffy: "Let me think..."
Hut of Buffy's father? Uncle?
In a hut. Rain. (Oregon or Northern California?)
Buffy telling Willow that she's over Angel now. She loved him, but that love died. Not when he was killed by her own hand -- no, back when he did all those horrible things. Especially to her.
And it was until the moment Willow came down that stairs that she realized what she was subconsciously thinking for a long time: How important Willow is in her life.
It also becomes clear that they both split up with their boyfriends because they couldn't handle their demoniacal nature.
Willow reading from her diary: (V.O.)
"You're like a river, winding its way through the land, from the mountains to the sea. Meandering through the countryside, you're flowing slowly sometimes, and sometimes fast. In one moment, you're a thundering waterfall (I can almost feel the spray). In another you're a country's lifeline, irrigating a desert full of thirsting flowers.
You know, being with you (or should I say: standing beside you) brings out the best of me. I've grown so much since I know you. I'm not the shy, geeky girl anymore that I once was (a thirsting tree?). Because I now know who I am, through you, and where I am: beside you.
[blending over to another part of diary entry]
When we're together, and others are there as well, it's like swimming with the current. They all get a part of you: your smile, your advice, your helping hand.
But I know, deep inside, that I want more. That's a part of me I don't allow to come to the surface. Certainly not when others are near, and not even when we're alone. That's the me that is longing to drown in the beauty that is you. Longing to drown in your eyes, those brown orbs of a depth that I can't even imagine. Longing to drown in the shampoo scent of your golden hair. Longing to drown in an endless moment kissing your luscious lips. Longing, sometimes, to drown in your sex, your waters engulfing me.
They still may have your smile, your advice, your helping hand. But I--I would like to have your heart.
The heart of a river."
Flashback, while they talk: We see them having a walk in the still wet forest, raindrops still falling down from the leaves.
Intermixed with: Willow braiding Buffy's hair. Willow finishes the braiding. They stand up and go to the window. Buffy holding Willow, wraps her arms around her from behind.
Panning back from the two, standing at a window blurred from the rain. Panning through the window.
Buffy: "You have it, you know."
Willow: "What?"
Buffy: "My heart."
Setting up a trap for the Council, exchange of captive against the assurance that the council will never interfere with Buffy's life again.
An old factory.
Surveillance equipment. Headset for Buffy. Willow somewhere with her notebook, telling Buffy where the Council agents are and what they're doing.
During the exchange, Willow is caught by Travers, who finds her in the building.
Buffy: "You wanted me, you've got me. So let her go!"
(Travers talking about how they arranged Melissa's death.)
Number 2: "You were right. You have to take away her haven. But it wasn't Melissa's Diner. It's the redhead."
Buffy: "What do you want?"
Travers: "What we want... We want you to obey our orders, without questioning our authority or that of your watcher. We want you to return to Sunnydale, to resume your duties there. And if that duty is to kill a 200-year old vampire that you seem to have a kind of 'connection' to, you will do it, because it's your duty, because we - through your watcher - told you so. You will do it, and you will live with it, girl. There isn't going to be anything like a 'Slayer insurrection' ever again. And to make really sure that you understand this, girl, think of that redhead here. Remember that we know what she is to you."
Buffy: "Now that I think about it... I was wrong. You haven't got me, I've got you!"
Plan B: police appears on scene. Buffy arranged this, unbeknown to Willow.
Flashback:
Phone call.
Buffy: "You'll find the people responsible for Melissa's death at the factory."
We see Buffy preparate her captive's jacket with the demon
slime.
Gun fight.
Travers manages to escape and he has Willow, Buffy follows them.
Car chase.
Travers' car crashes into something.
Travers is dead, Buffy thinks she's lost Willow, but she's crawling out of the burning wreck unhurt. Buffy pulls her away. The car blows up.
We black out on their dirty, sweaty faces, looking into the fire.
On a graveyard.
Buffy and Willow having a walk. Buffy's wearing something black, Willow something red and white.
"The council, they have to keep their profile low for quite some time, I suppose."
They meet Kate at Melissa's grave. They are surprised, but she just points to the gravestone:
MELISSA LOCKLEY
1926-1997
"She was my aunt," she just says, then leaves.
Buffy places a single white rose on the grave. Willow places a pebble on the gravestone.
Buffy takes Willow's hand.
["Lucky" by Bif Naked is played in the background.]
Willow: (V.O.) "When she came and sat down next to me at the fountain quad, I felt so good inside that this beautiful girl wanted to be friends with me. She looked past my clothes and everything and saw me for who I am. The more time we spent together, the more my feelings for her changed. I began loving her in a more than a friend way. Finally, I found the courage to reveal my feelings to her, only to learn that she feels the same... I'm lucky."
Buffy: (V.O.) "You said life's a quest, a never-ending search for Mr. or Ms. Right... So the world is full of blonde boys who wanna be with brunette girls, and brunette girls who wanna be with black-haired boys. Oh, every now and then there's a blonde girl who wants to be with a brunette girl, but... basically that's it. And the fact that I actually wanted to be with a certain redhead, and that redhead wanted to be with me, and we're together now... I'm lucky."
They kiss.
We pull back and the camera moves up, looking down. The graveyard becomes a blurry green plain. It morphs into the billard table from Buffy's dream. Buffy becomes the black eight ball, Willow the red'n'white eleven. They're the only ones left on the billard table, lying next to each other near the middle. The cue ball slowly moves away from them and drops into a pocket.
Black out.
[Grrr...arrgh!]
THE END