WWDD: S3E01 “ANNE”

The smell of JanSport is in the air. Trapper keepers across Sunnydale are being bestickered with Lisa Frank paraphernalia and stuffed with Gelly R@ll pens. Dawn’s own stickers remain unopened—holding out hope that Buffy might show up for their back-to-school ritual. Dawn had assumed the adults would know what to do when Buffy left. Instead, Joyce spends the summer organizing and reorganizing the house, freezing at every ring or knock, sometimes crying afterward, while Mr. Giles keeps coming over with hopeful, but ultimately empty leads. Each time, it's like losing Buffy all over again.

Worse, Buffy has inexplicably taken some of Dawn’s stuffed animals! In return, Dawn has claimed Buffy’s discman and cordless phone, which she keeps charged beside her bed. For the first week of school, Dawn visits the library instead of coming home, secretly hoping to find Buffy training with Mr. Giles like nothing ever happened.

One afternoon, Mr. Giles leaves to follow another lead, telling Dawn to stay with Willow and Xander, who are discussing their summer slaying efficiency. Dawn eagerly offers to help (she’s practically a teenager!) so Willow puts her on phone duty. An old English man calls to invite Mr. Giles to a retreat. She agrees to pass along the message, but then Xander assigns her the considerable task of devising Scooby codenames, and the English man is promptly forgotten. When Joyce picks her up, Dawn starts sharing codenames. She gets through “Nighthawk” before noticing Joyce barely listening.

At home, Dawn darts to her room, drowning out the sounds of a Buffyless house with “As Long As You Love Me” through foam-covered headphones. It’s so loud, she misses the knock at the front door. When a figure appears in her doorway, Dawn assumes it's Joyce. She turns, then freezes. Buffy. Her eyes widen as a summer’s worth of unprocessed emotions give way to overwhelming relief. Tears well up, and all she can manage is a single, shaky question: “What are you doing here?”