"I think maybe only if you're any good at it. I dunno, though."

"You're pretty good at it. Sunnydale's death rate has never been this low."

"No, that's the other thing, the thing where sometimes everything ends up nicer if you're good enough at killing people who need to be killed. Someday I wanna be good enough at things that I don't have to just kill everyone who hasn't decided to play nice yet. But for now - well. Billy's alive. And the rest of the town. So that's something, I guess."

"Sure looks like something from here."

When they've wrapped up the tactical breakdown, she goes to do the other thing that she really needs to do.

She heads for Zeke's crypt and politely knocks on the door.

He opens it.

"Hey Karen!"

"Hey Zeke." And she hugs him, because she's worried that if she starts by saying anything she'll get it wrong. "You're really, really cool."

—he grins.

"Awwwwww," he says, hugging back. "Thanks. You too. I dunno what the fuck was going on with that entire thing but it seemed like you got through it pretty good."

"It was insane. There was this little boy in a coma who accidentally made the nightmares of everyone in the entire city come to life, and it turns out that some people have scarier nightmares than you and me do. But I made it through OK, yeah. Well, I did die, but only the once, and I came back in one piece all right."

"Good! You not being dead is very good."

"I do enjoy not being dead! - man, I'm really wish I hadn't had to put you in danger like that, I didn't mean for you to get stabbed and stuff."

"I'm assuming it was like a super important rock." He definitely doesn't seem mad about it. Also he's still hugging her.

"Yeah, it was super important. If the wrong person had had it and known how to use it - I don't really know what would have happened, but it would have been really bad. Turns out I was a little bit confused about who all the wrong people were, but - I knew you weren't one of them, anyway."

"Awwwww. I'm—yeah. I dunno about my rightness as a person in like a cosmic sense, but you got me a shirt that says Evil Fiend on it for Christmas and apparently that was the secret key to my everlasting friendship."

She laughs. "I'm glad you liked it. And yeah, I think - I dunno. I was thinking about this a couple hours ago, about whether there's actually any sort of clean break between good people and bad people, or whether people even come in good and bad, and - it's all complicated. I'll figure it out properly later. But when I had to give the rock to someone I knew right away that you were a safe person to give it to, and that's pretty neat, all things considered."

"I'm glad. Please do not get me stabbed by alarmingly tall pretty men on the regular, but if you have any more super important rocks to hide, I'm your guy. Although I'll have to get smarter with the next one because I won't have a hundred-fifty-year-old recurring nightmare right there to stash it in."

"The alarmingly tall pretty men are usually chill. And yeah, I won't. I know you got yourself into this situation because you wanted to not be in danger, so I feel like it'd be super rude to use it as an excuse to get you into more danger. It's just good to know who I have when the world is ending. - uh, I brought you some extra blood, but you're gonna need to stop hugging me for a second for me to get it out of my backpack."

He lets go, giggling.

"You seemed like you needed about a thousand hugs last time I saw you, so I wanna make sure you're all caught up."

She digs a thermos out of her backpack and gives it to him.

"...yeah, I kinda did. I'd just gotten back from hell. Probably not real hell, I'm sure it was just nightmare hell, but nightmare hell? Still not very fun."

"Thanks," he says, accepting it. "You know, nightmare hell almost sounds like it might be worse than regular hell because it's like specifically out to get you? Whereas regular hell is usually just on fire and full of demons, or whatever."

"Yeah, I dunno what regular hell is like. If there is a single regular hell. I got to be cool, though. I might've looked pretty bad, but you should've seen the other guy." She pauses. "Nightmare hell was pretty big on telling me that all my friends were secretly out to get me. And... I think last week I was scared of that? And I think now I'm just... not."

"Well. I'm glad you got to be cool. And I'm glad you know you can count on your friends."

He puts the thermos down and hugs her again.

"Yeah. It's neat."