"Good," he said curtly, with the unnatural composure she wanted to rip from him. "But you're still not--"

Rebounding upwards, she cross-blocked his staff with one arm and punched his chest. He fell back a step. 

"--giving it--"

She tried to knee him, but his staff swept down like a clock hand and all she got was a kneecapping bang. 

"--your full effort." 

Fiercely, she yanked the stick away from him, snapped it in two across her upthrust thigh, and tossed the pieces aside. 

Spike tipped his head an inch and looked at her, annoyance straining the mask of patience he wore for their sessions. "If you're through warming up and breaking your toys," he said. And vamped to finish the thought: "We'll move on to the hand-to-hand." 

He leapt for her and she planted her feet and turned her shoulder to him instinctively, letting his weight surf across her as she curled in on herself and flipped him off with a flex of her back. He fell and twisted right-side up smoothly as a cat to meet her follow-up. She peppered fast blows to his chest and face which he blocked with equal speed, then he danced back, spun fast and kicked her hard enough to send her flying. 

"Shift your weight," Spike said as she jumped up slightly off balance. He was still irritatingly calm and he was definitely not sweating, even though his black tee clung to him like a second skin. They circled each other widely, each looking for a point of attack, the only sound in the big room their feet sliding across the mat, her breaths. Buffy kept her eyes locked to his, trying to read the next move there, knowing better than to believe the lying movements of his body. His eyes told her more, even framed by demon, a strange face that had become familiar; though there were times like now, seeing its ridged sinistry in dusty, filtered sunlight and in this mundane room, when she felt she might have fallen asleep, slipped into another world where nightmares walked by day. 

Oh, wait. That was this world. 

Maybe she dreamed her life. 

"Steady," he said in a lulling voice, and then flung her across the room. For that, she flung him back. 

Time kept changing speeds, blending blurs with the illusion of slowness, pulling at her like taffy and then gradually evening out until Buffy was moving in the zone, like Keanu Reeves in The Matrix but with no special effects to distract her. Nothing existed beyond this circle of struggle; nothing needed to be done except breathe and fight. Her focus narrowed to a flow of moves--blow, parry, back thrust kick, side-step, spin, side thrust kick--and to the muted slaps of feet on mat, the thunk of bodies falling, the smack of flesh striking flesh. 

"Give it to me, Slayer," he challenged, and her hand closed around an imaginary stake. When she got a killing blow in through his defenses, he accepted it, and they broke and began again. When he got one of his own in, shock and fear wrenched her for a moment, before she forced herself to accept it. Begin again. Frustration built and she rode it out grimly. It was about winning, it always was; but she was winning through learning. It didn't make her dead here and now, just because he could get a blow in. Didn't make her dead. Because he was the one vampire who would never kill her. 

He feinted suddenly and, turning her head quickly to track him, a piece of sweat-slicked hair whipped across her eye, distracting her with a lash of pain and blindness, and she hesitated. A second later a hand grasped her throat hard enough to cut off her breath, and another drove up under her ribs, miming a stab. Not the gentle kind of mime, either. But he released her quickly. 

"Game over," Spike said, demon sliding away to leave his face smooth as any living man's. 

Buffy thought she heard disapproval in his voice, and that was unacceptable. "Again," she gasped angrily, tossing hair out of her eyes and tensing with arms upraised to begin anew. 

"That's two hours." He stepped back, leaving himself open with hands at his sides, but fingers fanned like weapons at the ready. The set to his face told her to stand down. "Don't want to drain your batteries." 

Muscles trembling and ticking, Buffy clenched her fists harder for a moment; then forced herself to let go. "It's this--this damn hair," she said, feeling a wild rage surge up inside as she shoved the offending strands off her face. "It's too short to pull back and too long for fighting and that's it. I'm cutting it again." 

"Up to you, pet." Spike walked over to pick up a towel, and tossed it to her. Following, she caught it and rubbed the rough material over her face. "Though you know I like a bit more to grab onto." 

She surfaced from the towel and glared at him. "I could say the same," she snapped. 

Any normal man would have been mortally insulted, but he was just too cocky, and hell, Buffy thought, hating Freud with a passion. 

"Oooh hoo hoo," he laughed, face broadening in amusement. "Not what you said the other night." 

"Whatever I said, I'm sure I was lying." 

He pursed his lips. "Mmm. 'Fraid I can't believe that, sweetheart," he said, eyeing her intimately. "No," he decided with a smirk. "I dare say I'm giving you plenty, if those precious little meows you make are anythin' to go by." 

"I don't meow!" she said, and punched him hard in the nose. 

"Ow." He stared at her as if she were bonkers, then the knowing smile crept slowly back into his lips. "PMS time again, innit?" His tone suggested everything was clicking into place. "Biggest no-brainer of medical discoveries in the last century, that was." 

"You know what you get if you cross a slayer with PMS?" she asked, then punched his nose again. 

"Bloody hell!" he barked. 

"Exactly." 

And thus my grand exit, she thought with satisfaction as she grabbed her bottled water and headed into the front of the magic shop. Suddenly she felt far more cheerful. The others were gathered around the table, her own little Scooby gang. All but Anya, who perched nearby on a stool doing a highly unnecessary inventory of dried geckos and other whatnots. She'd tried earlier to rope in Buffy, but pleading work-out time had secured a pass on that fun project. 

Willow was bent over her laptop, a picture of serene redheadedness, absorbed in what could have been any possible number of things--homework, spells, web design--any one of which Buffy felt sure would make her eyes glaze over if details were provided. Probably homework, she thought; it was soon enough for homework, wasn't it? Buffy felt a pang. Homework, fresh binders, sharpened pencils...homework, essays, algebra. No. Cancel pang. She didn't miss it. But she liked seeing the stack of textbooks on the table around Willow and Tara; the continuity and normalcy of schoolwork, its schedules, made her feel anchored to something bigger and simpler than good and evil, even if vamps treated school bells like dinner bells. And Willow and Tara themselves--they were anchory too. Buffy held this belief with great optimism; at the end of summer the two women had returned from Taos tanned and smiling, wearing matching beaded bracelets and sharing a mellow vibe between them that said better times lay ahead. 

Buffy took a seat at the table, stretching a bit as her muscles cooled off. 

"Well, aren't we a sweaty betty," said Xander, looking up from his magazine and eyeing her. Buffy could hear the attempt at good humor in his voice, and the undercurrent of something else which had to do with her and Spike and resentment and other dark and twisty feelings he'd been sharing and she'd been steadily ignoring for the past three months. 

"I know," she said, looking down at herself with a grimace. "I wish we could install a shower in this place. Ooh, and a sauna," she added, as happy-fantasy-thought struck her. 

"It would be kinda nice to have a kitchen," Willow mused, looking up from her computer. "To do stove-top spells." 

"And bake brownies," piped up Tara. 

"Let's not forget the importance of those." Xander gave a smart nod of respect to Tara, who grinned back. 

"Oh, and hey, we could get a bread maker," said Willow, getting into the spirit. "And fill the store that wafty fresh-bread smell. We could give bread away to the customers, bountiful bread for the poor--or, we hope, the not-so-poor; because, you know, customers." 

"They should be spendy with the money," affirmed Tara understandingly. 

Xander gave Willow a quirky look from under his brows. "Say you didn't know us. Would you want snacks from a place that sells newt eyes and ground centipede?"

"Me personally?" said Willow, sliding out a little grin. 

"You do have a point." Xander paused. "Say you weren't us--"

"Enough!" said Anya, who'd come to hover nervously next to the table. "No bread makers, no kitchens, no showers. These things cost--"

"Money," finished, Tara, Xander, and Willow. Buffy ducked her head to hide a smile. 

"Oh, fine," said Anya, hurt. "I've become predictable, haven't I. You can say it. Good old Anya, always thinking about the money. Money, money, money. Well, if I didn't, do you know where you'd all be right now? You'd all be sitting around a cardboard box in an alley, with strange men coming up for hand-outs, but you wouldn't be able to give them any, because you'd have nothing in your pockets but lint and sorrow. And possibly a tic-tac." 

"Well, we do have houses," said Willow dryly, while Buffy mouthed silently to Xander, lint and sorrow?

"Well, really, let's just consider that a moment, shall we?" began Anya. 

"Uh, let's not," Buffy broke in quickly, not wanting to get the two of them started, particularly when it concerned the subject of her house. "Anya's right." 

That gave everyone pause. 

"Of course I am," said Anya, then looked to Buffy. "How am I right this time? Please, be precise." 

Buffy looked around the table, communicating with her eyes her earnestness so that everyone knew she wasn't just blowing hot air to shut Anya up. "If she wasn't so good with money, I'd certainly be living out of a box right now." Or possibly a crypt, she thought. She'd thanked Anya often, and sometimes so profusely as to be embarrassing for them both, but she'd never done so in front of the others. "All those investments and funds and IRAs and SLAs--"

"Symbionese Liberation Army?" said Willow with raised brows. 

"--and stuff. I could never in a million years have figured out all of that," Buffy admitted. 

"And if Giles wasn't sending a check every month from the profits of his half of the business, I wouldn't have anything to invest for you." Anya smiled brightly with the kind of pleasure that comes from delivering the answer to a math equation. 

The blow of embarrassment was familiar, and Buffy managed to smile it off with only some difficulty. It wasn't as if they didn't all know her situation. She glanced around the table again to make sure no one was about to jump down Anya's throat on her behalf. Xander looked pained, and Willow faintly disgusted, but she met Buffy's eyes and clearly resigned herself to silence. 

"Yes," said Buffy into the small, uncomfortable silence. "That's true. Anyway, thank you, Anya." She smiled up at the woman, humbling down some pie. "You've really made all the difference." 

"You're welcome," said Anya buoyantly, as if she were experiencing a minty-fresh sensation of destiny fulfilled. Fairly jittering with energy, she smiled around at them, fluffed her hair, and with pride and happiness said, "I'm going to go sell some very expensive crystals now to that lady with the hideous dress." And she turned on her heel and strode gracefully off. 

"That's my girlfriend," said Xander, face softening a bit with a rueful smile as he watched her go. And he too sounded strangely proud. 

"Quite the little money-box, isn't she," said Spike, coming up with a mug of blood and sitting down next to Buffy with a strong smell of cigarette smoke. He draped his coat over one thigh and leaned back in his chair. "You ought to see 'bout clonin' her. If they can do it with sheep, Red here should be able to make it so with magic and a snip of hair." 

"Thanks," said Xander with forced politeness, "but I've got enough on my hands as it is." 

"Know what you mean," said Spike, directing a small, sidelong scowl Buffy's way. 

And Buffy, seeing Xander winding up to strike, said quickly, "Wow, look at the time. Dawn will be getting back soon and I, I really stink, so I'd better go, go home, go shower." Go, dear god, she told herself, standing. "Anyone want to ride with?" She glanced at Willow. "Will?"

Willow glanced up, one brow raised, and gave a tiny, polite smile. Everyone was being oh so polite, Buffy couldn't help but notice. "No, I'll catch a ride with Tara." 

She turned an inquiring look on Spike, feeling highly conscious of Xander's gaze and everyone's listening ears. "You coming?"

"Got things to do," he said curtly. 

Oh fine, Buffy thought. Be the sulky vampire. She stood there for another moment, frustrated by everyone's silence, at the broody energy that hadn't seemed quite so palpable when she first came in the room. She wanted to say something to crack open the tension, but didn't know what or how. She spoke her mind when necessary, when she had to be Buffy the Slayer, but over the past few years it had somehow grown harder to be Buffy the Summers. Too many things were unspoken when it came to her friends, maybe even unspeakable. Her friends were family; families, from her experience, dredged up unspeakable subjects only to fight about them. No more fighting in the family, Buffy had vowed to herself after Spike's return; and she'd drawn them all into a compact, persuading them of its risks. Fighting broke everything to pieces, and they had to stick together. 

And yet, the compact wasn't quite working as she'd hoped; and sometimes her friends seemed more distant than ever before. 

I really hate this time of the month, Buffy thought. And, feeling not entirely unsulky herself, she left. 

Spike made a point of staying around long enough to finish his blood, despite the strain. The Scoobies didn't exactly make a vamp feel welcome; and in the three months since his return to Sunnydale they hadn't softened to him much. Not long after he'd come back, Buffy told him she'd laid down the law. Sat the lot of them down, apparently, told them to suck it up and lay off him. He'd felt smug as hell for all of about a day, just thinking about that scene and wishing he'd been a fly on the wall; but if he'd known she was going to do it beforehand, he'd probably have tried to stop her. It didn't exactly help his case. 

On the other hand, what case? He didn't give a toss. Nothing was going to win over Buffy's friends, except maybe the one thing he didn't have. 

If I had a soul, I'd still cheerfully thrash the lot of you, Spike thought, looking around the table of cranky sidekicks. 

Well, not Tara, he decided grudgingly, sparing her from imaginary violence on his whim at the sight of her earnest face bent over a textbook. She and Red had their whole good-witch, bad-witch game down pat and who the hell knew how serious they were about it, but good-witch always had a sympathetic smile for him when things got rough. 

"I'm off," he said, standing and pulling on his coat. He paused, waiting to see if they'd farewell him, but Xander and Willow didn't raise their eyes from their reading and even Tara was quiet. "Don't get all mawkish," Spike said irritably. "Hate these long good-byes." 

And then Tara did save him, talking to him like you'd talk to a friend, making him feel grateful and faintly disgusted for that gratitude. "What are you up to tonight?" She was looking up at him kind-eyed. Even made it sound like she cared. He was a bit surprised. 

"Oh, got a few errands to run. Visit the butcher's." And the blood-bank. "Liquor store." After it closed, of course. "Then thought I might stop by this new candle shop they've got out by the mall." To which he had a big key shaped like a tire iron. "Running low." 

"Blood, booze, and candles," said Xander, shaking his head once. "It's a simple, minimalist life you have, Spike." 

Spike stared at Xander, trying to puzzle out if that was insult or compliment, and Xander stared back with a dawning frown that suggested he didn't know either. 

"Right," Spike said. "See you." And as he walked toward the basement where he could catch the sewer tunnel home, he thought see you and laughed at himself bitterly. Bloody hell. I'm gettin' all mannered. Next thing you know I'll be bakin' them biscuits. 

It really was enough to drive a vamp to drink, and Spike resolved to get two cases of whisky this week instead of one. 

Xander watched Spike exit, and as the basement door shut behind him looked at the others. "Is it just me, or is Spike getting a little..." He hesitated. 

"Friendlier?" suggested Tara

"I was going to say 'scarier', but in the Better Homes and Vampires sense. I mean, designer candles." He delivered a short, scoffing laugh. "That's such a yuppie thing." 

"I like candles," Willow said, giving Xander an annoyed look. 

"Well, it's a witchy thing too," Xander back-pedaled. "That goes without saying. But you girls use them for practical reasons." No I did not just say 'girls', he thought, as Willow's eyebrows lowered like two little red guillotine blades. Oh, man, I am so screwed. 

"Have you seen his crypt lately--the downstairs?" asked Tara, luckily before Willow could take his head off for the remark. "He has plants." 

"Plants?" Xander seized the diversion and boggled. "As in living things that grow? Now that's just wrong." 

"He has all these little UV lights hooked up," said Tara. "It actually looks really nice." 

"Downstairs in Spike's crypt?" said Willow, turning to stare at Tara with confused hurt in her eyes. "What were you doing down there? And why didn't you tell me you'd gone to visit him?"

Tara blinked. "Oh, it was nothing. He just left some blood at the apartment one night right after we got back." She seemed to be realizing and regretting her words even while she spoke them. "You and I, I mean, after we got back from our trip. He put it in the fridge to keep cool and then forgot it, and, um, this really isn't coming out well." 

"He was at your apartment?" said Willow, even more incredulously. "With blood?"

"Willow," said Tara, her voice gentling and firming at the same time. "It was nothing. He was just stopping by on his way home. He wanted to borrow some ingredients for a no-pest spell." She glanced at Xander. "Rats," she confided. 

"Huh. I thought vamps liked rats. Tasty snacks, like Little Debbies, but with juicy veins and fast little legs." Eww, he thought, and wished for the good old days when such a remark would have caught Willow's attention, when she would have responded by saying, 'Okay, that mental image will resist my brain scrubbies for quite a while.' Instead, she was still frowning at Tara, looking all lesbo co-dependent and scary. 

"Well, I think maybe there can be such a thing as too much rat." Tara smiled at him in a very direct way, clearly unwanting to meet Willow's accusative eyes. 

Okay, conversation has hit the ice berg, is sinking fast. To the lifeboats, Xander thought. "Too much rat. You know, I'm there. Too much rat. Oh boy, could I tell you some stories--"

"You really don't trust me enough to tell me anything anymore, do you?" asked Willow, still looking at Tara as if she couldn't look away. "Our whole trip, getting away from it all, getting in touch with ourselves--what was that about if you won't even talk to me?"

And Invisible Xander, deciding now was a good time to be elsewhere, got up and left them squabbling in low voices to join Anya at the register. 

"Love of my life, light of my loins, lollipop," he said, resting one hip against the counter. "How goes it? The money still rolling in?"

Anya glanced up from her cash drawer, smiling happily. "I made her spend a hundred dollars. With no magic, just with me, doing the talking thing!" Her cheer was loony and infinitely sweet. 

"Well, I don't know about the no magic part," Xander said, and he looked at her and couldn't look away. 

The pre-Dawn, no-Willow house was a thing of quiet, Buffy found as she set down her bags of groceries on the counter, and she spent a happy hour shelving food and cleaning things that needed cleanliness. It was normal time, normal space; even with the blood bags she had to move aside to make room for the milk, and the weapons box in the living room that had to be vacuumed around, and the ripped bra she found in her jacket pocket as she started a load of laundry. 

This is my brand of normal, she thought. The Buffy Summers name brand. And her thoughts meandered down the track they sometimes took, where she actually contemplated a career doing something productive that didn't involve killing; like maybe start her own clothing line of kicky slaywear with stake-sized pockets conveniently  located mid-thigh, and shirts of unrippy fabric in soft pastel colors. As she was sketching in her mind an Old Navy-styled ad campaign starring her and a cast of singing, photogenic vampires, the phone rang. 

"Hello," she said brightly, "Summers Summer Dresswear, how can I help you?"

"Er," said the hesitating voice, "Pardon? Buffy, is that you?"

"Giles!" She stiffened, heartbeat accelerating as it couldn't help but do. "Is everything all right? Are you okay? Where are you? You sound so close." 

"Yes, yes, everything's quite all right," he soothed. "I'm in London. This is a social call...for the most part." 

Buffy sat down in a chair. "What's the unmost part?" she asked, wanting to cut right to the chase. 

"I'd rather not go into that for a moment, if you don't mind." His voice was firmly dissuasive. "Of firstmost importance: how are you?"

"I'm good." 

A pause fell. 

"Yes, well, do try to keep it to words of one syllables, please," he said, an edge of dry sarcasm entering his voice. 

She smiled, relaxing a little. "I'm good," she said more warmly. "What can I say?"

"Apparently very little. I shall have to question you, you know, if you've nothing to volunteer." 

"Good grief, Giles, what do they have you doing over there? You sound all bobby." 

"I-I sound...what?"

"Bobby," she said doubtfully. "Isn't that a police officer?"

"Oh. Oh, yes. It is. No, I'm not, er, acting in that capacity." He paused. "So, you're well," he said, and it was still a question. "And Dawn is doing well?"

"There's a brat factor, but yeah. She's good. School just started." God, it was like pulling her own teeth out, she thought. She had no idea how to talk to him except in bullet points. Go for another syllable, she reminded herself. "She was away this weekend--" Weekend, there's two syllables. "--visiting San Francisco with a friend's family, but she'll be back soon." 

"And you, are you back in school?" The question came quietly, with a tone that said he already knew the answer. 

Buffy was glad she couldn't see his face, his eyes. "Me? No. But hey, I've got this whole life of slayer leisure thing going on." 

"Indeed. And leisure wear, from the sound of it." 

"What? Oh, no. That was just...no." 

"Ah," he said. And after a pause, he began forcing words out like a struggle. "What then--well, of course it's quite none of my business, actually; your--your life is your own as are the many and, and varied responsibilities you bear--"

"Giles, out with it," she said, feeling the tingling heat across her scalp and that low, roiling ache in her stomach which said he was going to ask her something she didn't want to answer, something heavy with implications about how she was living her life. Living it wrong. 

"I was simply wondering what you were doing with your days," he said gently. "The slaying, that goes without question. But your schooling is important too, Buffy." Pause. "I know how difficult things are. I only wish I could do more. Have you thought, perhaps, of a student loan?"

"I so don't need more debt right now." 

"No, of course," he said quietly, apologizing without saying so, in that way he did. 

"My days," she repeated, half to herself, thinking of how the summer had flashed by. "I don't know what I do with my days. I do something, because the time goes by. I look after Dawn, I practice, I help run the shop--"

"Oh? You're working at the shop?" She could hear his voice perk up with relief at news of her gainful employment. "Good for you, Buffy. And how...terribly brave." There but for the grace of God, she could sense him thinking. "Are there any...difficulties?" He uttered the last word with delicate care; he might as well have said 'Are there any Anya?'

"No, no difficulties." She generously left out a fifteen-minute rant about Anya's insane micro-management and bossiness and exactitude and in short an attention to detail that was clearly wasted on a mortal, since she could have designed universes the way Willow designed web sites, all of which however made her a hell of a businesswoman. 

"It's been interesting," she said to Giles, instead of all that. "She's quite the little powerhouse. I swear, Giles, you should see her these days. It's kinda scary. She went to a zoning meeting last week. And then talked about running for City Council. Give her ten years and she could be Mayor--or maybe some magic-chain-shoppy Ivana Trump." She paused. "I meant Mayor in a non-evil way. You got that, right?"

"One would hope." He cleared his throat. "Well, I've always known the shop was in good hands, of course, and Anya's e-mail correspondence is quite regular and thorough in regard to finances; though apparently not quite so thorough in regard to details of management that any normal person would think worth mentioning." His voice had turned slightly acerbic toward the end. Oops, thought Buffy. "Still, it's always good to receive confirmation of matters." His tone lightened. "And you said you've been practicing? I am glad to hear that." 

And he did sound glad, terribly earnestly glad. "Yep. I'm the practicing girl. Go, me, go." She tried to convey blithe finality with that summary, and hoped he'd leave it at that. 

"And who are you practicing with?" Giles asked, not leaving it at that. "Xander?"

Buffy picked at the hem of her trousers, again very glad he couldn't see her. And that he was several thousand miles away. "Er, no." 

There was an ex-watcherful pause, during which she could almost hear his Giles gears turning in thought. "Not Willow?"

"No." It was a short list of possibilities; but even so, taking them one at a time would be a kind of slow, painful torture. 

And yet, hear me say nothing, she thought. 

"Surely not Tara?" he said, with a faint laugh. 

"Hey, Tara has some butt-kicking moves on her," said Buffy, giving a spirited defense of girl power that served handy double-duty as a distraction. "And not just witch-fu either. She laid some serious punishment on a vamp the other night, right in the--well, in the way of him not sowing the seed anytime soon if you know what I mean, and now that I say that out loud, I'd appreciate it if you just forget I ever did. And, also, we dusted him, so I guess there really wasn't any--"

"You--you are sparring with Tara, then?" Giles broke in, astonishment escaping his reserve, or maybe mild panic. 

"Er, no." 

"Buffy, do stop saying 'er' in such a distinct way. My Britishness feels encroached upon. Now, please, with whom are you practicing?"

Buffy sighed at the sharp tone of command. "Spike." 

There was a moment of silence, and then genial, librarian laughter. "Forgive me, the connection went bad there for a moment. I could have sworn--"

"Spike. I'm practicing with Spike." 

"Buffy." 

"I know what you're going to say." 

"Well, please do say it for me then," he said sharply, wielding sarcasm like a blade. "It will save me the trouble of coming over there and saying it myself. To him. With a stake." 

Buffy's face heated; his anger seared her through the phone lines. At such times she was a child again with him, being reprimanded by her father for some petty theft but feeling as if her whole life was under reproach. 

"My god," he said. "Why didn't you tell me he was back in Sunnydale? I thought he'd left for good." 

"Why didn't you tell me you'd seen him in London?" she shot back, brief anger flaring. "I had to hear it from him." 

"Why should I have told you?" he asked, sounding stiff but not guilty. "I had no reason to think his movements outside of Sunnydale would hold importance for you." Giles paused. She could feel him thinking, feel tension in what was unsaid. "I fail to understand," he went on after several moments of dead, hissing air, "why you would let him back into your life, Buffy. He is dangerous, and I see now that his obsession with you could continue indefinitely. A vampire's existence can be long. Do you really want to encourage his attentions for what may possibly be years, even decades?"

It didn't occur to her for a moment to tell him the truth. If Giles had known she was sleeping with Spike--that she'd ever slept with Spike--he would have flown over, no question, and killed him. Maybe even without telling her. Slip into the country and out again, feign cool and empty sympathy when she called to deliver the news. 

"He only comes as close as I let him," she said. "I'm in control, Giles. And he's...he's good with the training stuff." In fact--and she would never speak such profound disloyalty aloud to Giles or Spike or anyone--he was better at it than Giles had been. Physically she was coming into peak form, and only realizing as she did how far she'd been from it. 

"Oh?" Giles sounded a bit put out, as if she'd snagged his unwilling attention. He fumbled a moment to say, "Well, one--one can only hope he's not been inculcating you with bad habits, encouraging your emotions to run rampant during battle." 

"No incul-whatting," she assured him, wondering if it Giles was budging, if he could be talked around. It was hard to tell without being able to see him. "He's very disciplined. He even tells me to breathe, like you used to." 

"Really." Giles's voice was cool and sour, and it didn't sound as if he believed her. 

"Well, I told him all the things you used to do, and he, uh..." 

"He what?"

"He read a few of the training books you left," said Buffy, somehow weirdly embarrassed for Spike's sake but wanting to ease Giles's mind. 

"Indeed. How industrious of him. Did it not occur to you that to take so much trouble he may have an ulterior motive? Besides insinuating himself further into your life, of course." 

Buffy rolled her eyes, slightly fed up. "Giles. Really. Trust me. Spike isn't exactly a contender for the next Doctor Evil. About the only thing he masterminds around here is a TV remote." 

"I think you take him far too lightly, Buffy," Giles said in a warning tone. "It's easy to become lulled by familiarity. But your experiences with him should tell you all you need to know. He's killed slayers before, and he would have killed you once, without hesitation." 

"I...I know that. I do." And she flashed on their most recent night together, Spike propped over her, burying himself inside her with soft gasps and wildly burning eyes, and her own helplessly escalating moans as she clung to him, and she flushed with the peculiar mix of shame and joy that defined her life lately. "It's just...and I don't want you to get all guilty and weird, but now that you're gone, it's like--it's like I look after everyone else, but who looks after me?"

"He looks after you," said Giles with comprehension, his voice suddenly fainter and more distant, as if the phone connection had weakened. 

"And I don't have to look after him," she said. "He takes care of himself...and me." 

"Yes, well. That's it, isn't it." A cracked, bleak laugh. She could picture him taking off his glasses. "I left. And now...now you must depend on the kindness of vampires." 

"Giles, no. See, I knew this would happen. I just wanted you to understand." 

"Oh, yes. Thank you. I do, quite--quite understand." 

Buffy swallowed down a small lump of pain, and a long, long silence followed in which she could make herself say nothing more. She would have thought he'd hung up, except she could hear the hissing of the phone line still open between them. 

"I did, er, I did call for another reason," he said at last, clearing his throat. "Business, not...not pleasure." The flat, dead way he said 'pleasure' nearly brought tears to Buffy's eyes. "There has been some discussion in the Watchers Council of late, regarding portents of a new ascension of evil into the world. All quite ambiguous, I'm afraid, and I won't go into the dull matter of textual interpretations on the phone, but will e-mail the pertinent details to Willow. Suffice it to say for now, there is debate." He paused. "Have you had any intimations--any signs of something new rising?"

"No," she said. "Nothing. It's been quiet. More vamps since school started, that's about it." 

"I see. Well...well, good. I trust you will all let me know if something does arise. I must call Angel also, speak to him. Find out if he has heard anything." 

Angel. Without warning his name could still send a tiny shock through her. Memory tugged at a love whose roots could never be entirely ripped from her heart; she felt their presence as something physical in her body. A contraction, an ache. 

"Is there anything you wish me to tell him?" asked Giles gently, as if sensing her thoughts. 

Buffy stared at a small bruise on the side of her wrist that she hadn't noticed before, turning her hand back and forth, flexing its muscles and finding them strong. 

"No," she said. "I'm good." 

Up along the highway the grey car drove, its battered exterior patched with rust and a small flag fluttering from the antenna of a skull and crossbones. Along one side of the car had been painted in white letters: The Dead Rule!

The front passenger window rolled down, releasing the sound of music into the hot California air: "...papa would do whatever he could--preach a little gospel, sell a couple bottles of Doctor Good..." A hand flung out a beer bottle, then another; then a Doritos bag; then an empty Big Mac box. These were shortly followed by several more beer bottles, a crumpled paper bag, a deflated football, two magazines that flapped open to reveal centerfolds as they hit the wind, a copy of EW, and a bong. 

"Dude," said a horrified voice from inside the car. "You tossed the bong." 

"Aw...damn," said a second voice very slowly. "Hey, stop...drive back...I'll get it." 

"Forget it, man. This baby isn't stoppin' until it hits Sunnydale." 

"Who's he?"

"Where we're goin'. Sunnydale." 

"Yeah," said the second voice, with placid assurance. "Right on." A moment passed. "Look at those trees. You see those trees?"

"Yeah." 

"Nah, not those. The ones next to them." 

"Oh, yeah." 

"Those trees sing. They got the...beat. Like in the song. Pony in a trance, man. Pony in a trance." Pause. "Dude. Be honest, be...spiritual. You ever hear trees like that?"

"Nah, man." 

"This music just ain't right for the trees." 

"Gypsys, tramps, and thieves--"

"Hey," said the first voice as a clattering sound was heard and Cher abruptly fell silent. After a second, a cassette tape went flying out the window. After another, strains of "Free Bird" began issuing from the car's speakers. 

The window rolled up. The car kept driving. 

"So. Portenty evil," said Xander, "Delivered right to your inbox." He looked around the table. "Man--and I know I've said this before--but you really can get anything online these days." 

"There are actually a few good mailing lists for portent and demon tracking," said Tara, tilting her head so that her long hair fell gently along her neck. "Once you weed out a ton of false sightings--and the posts about Harry Potter. There are farmwitches reporting demon sightings in Kansas; urban shamans spotting new trends in vampire activity." Her intensity level ratcheted up a notch as an incoming thought signaled. "You know, it's really amazing that there isn't more networking going on. We need to start a web site." 

Hey, kids, let's put on a show, thought Xander. "Don't we have a web site?" he asked, raising his brows slightly. 

"That's just for the store, though--we need something that would educate people in a grassroots way. Not just portents, but like, um, how to spot demons and vamps." 

"Safety precautions," offered Willow, not looking up from her typing. 

"Legal weapon alternatives for purse and pocket," said Tara, full of pep. "Dress safely to avoid vampire attacks." She grinned, and her head lifted a little, in a happy helium balloon kind of way. 

Xander leaned forward, resting his arms on the table, thoughts rabbiting off on a tangent. "Huh. You know, I knew about the whole avoid-bright-colors thing, but it never hit me before. When you want to attract vampires--"

"The Buffy wardrobe," said Tara, nodding like a wise psychic. 

"It explains so much," Xander said, feeling the sense of satisfaction that comes from solving an ancient riddle. 

"It's kind of like saying, 'Here, kitty, kitty, kitty,' except, um...you don't usually kill your cats when they come," Tara finished awkwardly. 

"Hey, guys!"

Xander looked up with the others to see Buffy coming toward them. He clocked the sleeveless pink lace, and the white skirt that would have had naughty-schoolgirl written all over it except, sorry, they didn't make words that tiny, and he looked at Spike hovering at her shoulder like a giant vulture, and he felt that, yes, he now knew far too much. He wondered in a detached way--detachment kept his head from exploding--why he didn't do it, make Spike a pile of dust, the kind of thing you could suck up in a Ready-Vac and dump in a garbage can. Giles would have backed him. Damn, he missed the man. For an old guy in tweed, he'd kicked in his share of grit and testosterone. 

"Kids," Spike said, taking a seat like he owned it. 

A year, Xander thought with a flare of the old, deep anger he harbored; and he knew he was being obsesso boy but that was his job, he was the man now that Buffy had no one else to look after her; and a year she'd hidden this from them, her friends, pretending a repugnance for Spike that was entirely sham, that had covered for graveyard nookie and made them feel like fools when it came to light, as they remembered and connected the dots: how she'd begged off when they'd tried to fix her up on dates; Spike's strange restraint at their casual taunting; the way slayer and vamp developed an understanding about patrols that neither bothered to hide, because it was only patrolling, right, and "Catch up with you later on rounds, Slayer" had to be perfectly innocent if he said it in front of all of them, right?

Well, they'd certainly swallowed it--and then of course vomited it back up. The ugly results of that had driven Spike off, and Xander had been sure they'd never see his fiendishly handsome death mask again. And he'd been happy and the Hellmouth had been a better place. Yet here they were. Spike was back and he and Buffy had been together--purely in the sickest, strictest sense--more than a year. More like two in fact, but Xander wanted to round down instead of up. He wanted to round down and down until it was a nub; until sex with an unsouled monster dwindled to fling, then fantasy, then a small, fleeting thought that Buffy had entertained one afternoon and then rejected for sanity. He wanted her to stop dangling her sex-puppet on a string and get a real guy. A guy who'd bring out the good Buffy in her, instead of the one who lied and kept secrets and screwed dead men. 

In short, he wanted Riley back. 

Spike with Buffy was a cross to bear, but it should have been a cross that burned. And Xander, not for the first time, thought it was about time somebody called up Giles and told him just what the hell was going on in Sunnydale. 

"So, what have we got, Will?" asked Buffy, in her start-the-meeting voice. 

Willow looked up from the notes she'd been making with a brief tug of irritation, but it was a bad, wrong feeling, she reminded herself ironically, because Buffy was the meeting-starting leader and she was just the witch, the strength of her powers beside the point. In their magic card deck slayer trumped witch; it was that simple. 

She buried irritation and managed a little smile; then, taking a deep breath and channeling her inner, upbeat Willow, said, "Well, I've read over what Giles sent and it's pretty interesting." 

"Is that may-you-live-in-interesting-times interesting, or just words-are-funny interesting?" asked Xander. 

"Kind of both." Willow turned the screen of the computer so the others could see it. "This is the translated text of a scroll from the Watchers library. Giles didn't send a copy of the original yet, because unfortunately they don't make a handy Naciran demon font, but he said he'd try to scan it." She paused to glance around and confided, "Apparently after our own special project way back when, they made a no-scanner rule." 

"Loose one little demon on the Internet," said Xander, shaking his head, "and every Brit's a Luddite." 

Spike issued a small grunt. "Not your fault, mate, trust me." 

"Anyway." Willow tapped the screen. "The scroll was written in the thirteenth century by a prophet who was considered to be a sort of demon Nostradamus, only nuttier. Which means they've pretty much ignored the scroll since then, until about a year ago when someone began translating it for fun." 

"For fun?" Buffy said, sounding appalled. 

"Librarians. See British." Xander waved his hand dismissively. "Insert comment here." 

"Apparently this guy started seeing correlations in the scroll to known events. Supernatural events, I mean, recorded in the watcher diaries. And I guess he started at the beginning, which makes sense--and, you know, he was doing it just for kicks, on his own, so--"

"So there was no one to say, hey, why not skip ahead," Buffy noted dryly. 

Willow quirked a rueful smile back. "Right. But eventually he got to the part which is the now and shared what he'd found." 

"And we're looking at...what here?" asked Buffy, staring at the laptop screen and then at Willow with a plea for summary. "How does it affect us?"

Willow turned her laptop back around.  "Uh, okay. The part of the scroll that Giles wanted us to see says, 'And in the first goat-footed year of the new millennium the armed dove is slain and the far shore of sun and angels shall fall under the rise of a great darkness.'"

"Oh my god," said Anya, breaking her quiet sharply. "Buffy is going to die." 

"Anya!" said Xander, clearly annoyed. "Buffy is not going to...oh my god." Sudden alarm filled his face and he swung his gaze across the table at Buffy, mouth open. 

"The, the armed dove," said Anya, looking around the table wide-eyed for confirmation, and jabbing her finger at the air. "The shore of sun." 

"Die? Again?" Buffy said anxiously, then groaned. "Do I have to?"

Spike leapt up and slapped his hand on the table, making everyone jump and fall silent. "She is not dying again," he said in a hard, cold voice, leaning forward and staring Willow down as if she alone could be held responsible for that possibility. 

"No, she's not," said Willow, staring back levelly at him. 

"Oh." He blinked, sat back down. "Right then." 

"Not dying," said Buffy in relief, while everyone else sat nonplused and looked at each other. "That's...that's good. Because I was really planning to tell Giles off if I died." 

"So who's the dove? The slain dove?" asked Anya, skeptical disappointment etched into her frown. 

"They're, uh, not entirely sure. But since it's probably someone historically important whose name means dove, and...armed dove...they think it could be…Colin Powell." 

"Well, that's just stupid," said Anya, after a long pause. 

"Even I know that's stupid," said Buffy with a look of exaggerated amazement. And then her face scrunched into worry again. "But still: not wanting to die here." 

"There's actually more context," said Willow. "Which I, uh, probably should have read first. The passage just before this talks about the armed dove being a 'father of armies' who will become targeted for sacrifice by the 'hooded clans.'"

"Oh thank god," said Xander in a heartfelt tone, adding seriously as everyone looked his way, "Not that I'm happy, of course, no way. But...oh, thank god." 

"Yeah," affirmed Willow quietly, feeling a surge of warmth toward Buffy and an equal surge of guilt about her earlier, private snippiness. She gave Buffy a little smile, letting it be an apology for a meanness her friend didn't need to know about. 

"Should we let him know, do you think?" asked Anya with abstract worry. "Colin Powell, I mean." 

Xander gave her a look. "And he'd listen to us why?"

"We could toss a rock through his window," Anya suggested in a dwindling voice, until she was speaking mostly to herself. "He'd have to pay attention then." 

"So," said Spike, cutting flatly through the discussion, "Aside from some bloke taking his final ferry ride, your big prophecy what's got the watchers all in a tizzy boils down to say: darkness rising?" He looked around the table, gave a sharp, short laugh. "Hello? Dark rises like bloody clockwork 'round here." 

Xander took a breath. "Gotta go with Spike on this one, Will. I'm not really seeing the big here." 

"Well, here's the possible big." Willow touched the screen, marking her place. "Giles says that the Naciran language has about fifty words for 'great darkness', with slightly different meanings--great darkness from below, great darkness from above, great darkness with a side of locusts--but they're also dependent on noun class--there're classes for demon, human, amphibian--and you're probably not interested in all that," she said, catching sight of their expressions, "so I'll just skip right to the point. The word used here isn't really clear, and since that's the important part they're wrangling over the interpretation." 

"A watcher wrangle," said Xander. "A wrangle of watchers." 

"They think it might mean 'great demon darkness from below that eclipses the sun,'" Willow continued, "Or, 'great demon darkness carried up on a wave of black fire that will enclose the sun.' Or it might mean something else entirely." 

"That's still not telling us much," said Buffy, impatience entering her tone. 

Tara sent an ironic glance Buffy's way. "Prophets tend to stay vague." 

"Lay your bets across the board," agreed Spike with knowing cynicism. "Win, place, or show, and you can still claim you've pegged the horse." 

"Well I think we can safely say of both: not good," pointed out Xander. 

"This isn't good enough, Will," Buffy said almost on top of Xander's comment, slayer authority infusing her voice with demand. "You need to get us more information. I don't even know why they bothered." She was growing visibly more worked up. "Can this be any more useless? Watch for great darkness. As if that helps us prepare." The sharp blade of her voice was still directed at Willow, and Willow wasn't entirely sure Buffy even saw her anymore or if she was just aiming at what was closest, but it made her face heat. 

Spike was eyeing Buffy narrowly but saying nothing. 

"Have to say," Buffy went on tightly, "I'm really tired of the Watchers Council giving us the smallest amount of information they can get away with while staying as far away from danger as they can." The words seemed to have burst free from some deeply clenched place. 

"I don't think it's like that, Buffy--" Willow began. 

"Well, this time they'll have to prove it to me," she interrupted. 

And it didn't matter if that made sense or not, did it, thought Willow, because Buffy still ruled the school and school was in session again. 

"Hey, Buff." Xander's shoulders had tightened and hunched; there was something half soothing, half warning about his voice and face and eyes. "Relax. We'll get it figured out. I'm sure Giles will do all he can to help." 

Buffy stopped and looked around at all of them, and Willow could see her force down her anger, so quickly and thoroughly that almost no trace was left. Give the slayer a magic hat and watch the feelings disappear, she thought with fresh resentment. It had been the Buffy m.o. all summer--to shoot and then vanish--and Willow had hoped she'd return from her trip to find her friend less tightly wound. This latest round of sniper fire said no, and it dug under Willow's skin, stung deeper than it should have. At least an apocalypse-class meltdown would have cleared the air. 

"I'm sorry, guys." Buffy met their eyes one by one as if making an effortful point of it, and smiled ruefully and unconvincingly before dropping her gaze. "It's time for my work-out. I just need to let off some stress, and I'll be the tired but much more tolerable Buffy again." 

She got up and walked away, leaving behind a heavy silence broken only by Spike's sigh as he rose and followed. 

"Good rule of thumb," Spike said, watching her change into her work-out clothes. "Try not to piss off witches, especially ones you want watchin' your back." The smooth bra she wore was like flesh, and his eyes slid over her body in distracted approval. 

She turned to glare briefly in his direction--no hiding of feelings from him--then looked away. "What's that supposed to mean? Will knows I wasn't angry at her." She yanked down her skirt, kicked it across the mat followed by her shoes, and drew on loose sweats before moving to the punching bag and pummeling it bare-fisted. 

"Oh, right," he muttered to himself. "Can't miss the obvious, can she." He picked up the wrap and gloves from a bench and moved to her side. "Here," he said, grabbing one of her hands, making her stop. Annoyance in her face, she tried to shake him off, but he asked her with his eyes to behave and she sighed and let him wrap her hands, twining the cotton from wrist to knuckles. 

She fixed her gaze to his slow careful movements, and released a sharp sigh as if his silence provoked her. "I think I'm entitled as much as the next person to an occasional bad mood. I keep my control, you don't even know how well, and I just need to...." She didn't finish the thought. "And, you know, Willow hasn't exactly been Miss Happy Sunshine lately." 

Oh, he knew how well. "No one's said you're not entitled, pet." Spike noticed the bruise on her unwrapped wrist, turned her hand back and forth to inspect it, then began massaging the length of her hand gently. 

"But you, and let's look at the big vampire you here...you think I was too hard on her, don't you?" She shook her head. "That irony supplement should keep me going for quite a while." 

"Didn't say that, did I?" He stared levelly into her eyes, spoke edgily. "Just said: pissing off a cranky witch ain't all that smart. Be as hard as you have to be, yeah, otherwise you might as well kill the lot of them yourself, quick and merciful." He paused to let that sink in. "But you want to know what you're doin'." 

She dropped her gaze, and stared at their hands. "What am I doing?"

"Not for me to say, is it." 

Glancing up again, Buffy frowned. "Stop being wise. It's Gilesy and wrong." She frowned even more deeply as he began binding her other hand. "You may want to let up on the Mister Miyagi routine once in a while, too. If you get any more watcher-like I'm going to have to buy you a sweater vest." Words which should have been teasing weren't. Her voice was sour and crabby and Spike imagined he heard a touch of contempt there too. 

He glared at her, dropped her hand with a broad gesture. "You want to bash up your pretty knuckles, go right ahead then. Grind 'em down to the bone for all I care." He turned and stalked out. 

Sweater vest, he thought, disgusted. Cruel little bitch, when she wanted to be. 

He re-entered the front room, brooding about whether to stay or go. The Scoobies were still sitting around as if they'd had their asses nailed to their chairs; a big mass of sulking humanity, vaguely nauseating. He scowled as Xander glanced up, and watched sisterboy's gaze narrow and darken. You almost had to respect that casual, unswerving loathing. Almost. 

"What, over that quick?" Xander said mockingly. "Got your daily ration of whup-ass, Spike?"

"My share," Spike said, unruffled, sauntering over and kicking out a chair for himself. No blood at hand, no smoking in the shop. No point to sitting, really, except to tick off the manly daffodil here. 

Reason enough. 

Willow looked up from her computer, and said with rare solidarity to Spike, "You get a strip torn off your ass too, huh? Lucky you can heal faster." She had witchy snit written all over her, and it wasn't all soft and girlfriendly either; Red wasn't exactly the tender little muffin she'd been a few years ago. 

"I'm guessin' that Buffy isn't planning to run for Miss Congeniality anytime soon," said Xander to Willow. 

"She's been happily embracing her inner b-word for quite a while now." Willow glared at her computer screen as if it contained Buffy, and Spike could nearly see the smoke coming out of her tiny nostrils. "It's becoming the outer b-word. She wants us to be all 'put-on-a-happy-face' but her not-so-happy face keeps popping out." 

Tara quietly got up and left the table, unnoticed by her friends. 

"She's been that way since...hmm. What was that thing again?" Xander turned his head to look at Spike. "Oh yeah." 

Spike inclined his head, allowed himself a faint half-smile. "Like to think that, wouldn't you. Be a lot easier for you." 

"I don't have to think it, I know it." Xander's face hardened. "Ever since you came back, she's been a live round just waiting to go off." 

"Right. And that has nothin' to do with you lot givin' her the hairy eyeball every five minutes to see whether she's been corrupted by my big scary evil." Spike edged out a derisive laugh, swept Willow and Xander up in a look. "Amazin' she hasn't flipped her bleedin' lid under your oh-so-watchful eyes." They exchanged an uneasy glance. Yeah, there you go, thought Spike maliciously. God, it felt good to get a few rips in. This was nearly as fun as thrashing it out with his slayer. "You're the ones can't hack it. Goin' all beetle-browed and weepy every time she says a sharp word. Gettin' your knickers in a twist 'cause she's got the same needs you do." 

A spasm of disgust crossed Xander's face, erasing his doubt. "Need? You're not a need, Spike. You're a toy." He leaned in, cracked a mean laugh. "You're her sex-bot and punching bag. And the sad thing is? You don't even care. You don't have the pride to walk away." 

Spike twisted his lips slightly in irony. He knew she'd been less than forthcoming. When they'd first found out about him, she'd acknowledged his punishment in so many words. How's that medicine taste? she'd asked coolly. It had tasted like hell. But he'd taken it. This go-round he'd thought it might be different, but she still played it off to her friends like he was a convenience, claiming this time it was for his own safety. If they thought I cared even an ounce, even for a moment, you'd be dust, Spike, a bag of ashes I take out of my sock drawer every once in a while to look at. An ounce. A moment. Sometimes he wondered if that were the extent of it. Maybe she didn't lie to her friends. Maybe she lied to herself, to him. 

He'd been a man of infinite patience with Dru, who loved him madly. With Buffy, his humiliation was infinite, his patience rather less so. Once upon a time he'd have snapped the poof's neck for his insolence without even bothering to drink. Now he could only say through a tight mask of calm,

"Maybe not. But at least I know what I get out of the deal. And what she gets." 

"Meaning?" asked Xander in a sharp voice. 

"Oh, give it a think," Spike said, staring him down. "I'm sure it'll come to you." He looked at them again, twisted the knife. "Besides, get a kick watchin' you lot strain your stitches bein' polite to me while she's around. Sat you down, I hear, told you to play nice. All Happy Families, and don't kick the Spike." He paused. "Course, you still get your kicks, but we don't tattle, do we." His lips curled in satisfaction as their angry expressions became edged with guilt. "Seems like the Slayer's not the only one has trouble keepin' a lid on." 

Dawn looked up from her magazine as the front door opened. She'd already heard the laughter and conversation of Willow and Tara through the open window as they came up the front walk. When they entered Dawn saw they were holding ice creams. That'll teach me to take a pass on the magic the gathering, she thought wistfully, then eyed the two women in critical interest, noticing Willow's arm around Tara's waist and the way their hips were getting all happy-bumpy with each other. A small glow of contentment lit inside her. 

"Dawnie." Tara smiled in surprise. "Hey! How was your trip?" She came to sit on the couch, and Willow sat sideways on the far end, legs pulled up, licking her ice cream lazily and listening with her open face. 

"It was cool. We went to Haight-Ashbury and Chinatown and Fisherman's Wharf and ate two shrimp cocktails each with these fat shrimp, big as kittens. And, oh, we saw a clown who made naughty balloons and this one guy leading another guy around on a leash. He was naked. Well, except for the collar. And this lee-tle bit of leather," she added, pinching her fingers close. 

Tara, mid-slurp of ice cream, made a small choking sound, and then cleared her throat. "Wow. That's. Wow." 

Willow was grinning. "That's so cool. Did you see any drag queens?"

Tara was looking shocked, and Dawn giggled. "Oh, yeah. This one guy was dressed up like Bjork and wearing a swan dress, just standing out there on the street waiting for a bus--Kerry actually thought he was Bjork at first and asked for her autograph." Dawn rolled her eyes. "Like you'd go around wearing a swan for everyday. Well, except for this guy did." She frowned. 

"It sounds like quite a--an adventure," said Tara, looking over at Willow. 

Dawn could tell she was a bit wigged. "Hey, seventeen years old," she reminded them with a hand wave. "Living on the Hellmouth. Big gay love on my couch here." 

"Oh my," said Tara, and her mouth hung open as if to say something more but she'd apparently gone speechless. 

"I'm just saying," Dawn said dryly. "You guys need to stop acting all freaked whenever I do grown-up stuff." 

But she snuck a glance at Willow, who didn't look at all freaked, and who tipped her the wink behind Tara's back and smiled like a cat around her ice cream. 

"You're right," said Tara, pulling herself together. "You're absolutely right, Dawn. We--we do. It's just hard, thinking of you all grown up." She smiled and touched Dawn's knee, tipping her head with her sweet smile that made Dawn feel all mushy-sisterly, like she so rarely did with Buffy anymore. It was easier to be a sister to someone who didn't act like your mom. 

She ducked her head, shoulders sloping awkwardly as she tried to let Tara's warmth roll off like water down a duck's back and not make her goofy, because that would be embarrassing when she'd just made a point of owning her seventeen-year-old-hood. 

"So, um, what's the monster of the week? Blood-sucking banshee from outer space--mummy cannibal helldog--angry skull-faced demon guy?"

They made up some lameness that they thought it was safe for her to hear, and she listened and asked questions and translated to herself the careful words they used. "Portents aren't really clear" meant some big-ass heap of hell they didn't know how to handle yet. "A little upset" meant her sister was being a bitch and a half. "Wanted to work out for a while" meant wild wrestling sex with a vampire on gym mats. And "It's all good" with that strained little smile of Willow's meant it was probably all bad, in some secret way they thought she wasn't ready to know because she was forever and always the kid sister. 

But they were sitting on the couch, Willow and Tara, their knees almost touching; and they had ice cream. And Dawn willed her translation of that to be true. She wanted this to be the world she knew, a world of kissing knees and ice cream, where the good guys stayed together. 

"Is Tara sleeping over?" she asked Willow when Tara went off to the kitchen to make herself a sandwich. 

"Yeah." Willow smiled. "I think so." 

"Things seem good with the two of you," said Dawn hopefully, fishing a bit. And with the less drinking, she didn't say, and the other old, bad stuff that everyone tried to talk around. "Ever since you got back from Taos, you guys have been making with the cuddly again." 

"Well, it was good for us to get away for a while. Together. And, you know, uh, one day at a time." Willow glanced toward the back of the house before changing the subject. "Hey, what about you. How's College Boy? Is the lovey-dovey stuff holding up over the long distance?"

"I thought he'd write letters, real letters on paper. Send a picture of his dorm, say romantic stuff 'cause we were apart. But he only writes e-mails and he won't even capitalize," Dawn grumbled. "And he never says anything romantic. Just talks about the quad and the creamery all the places he hangs out with his new friends. I can't ever get him on the phone." 

Willow made a sympathy face. "Aw, Dawnie. I'm sorry. He's probably just getting settled right now, though. Once it slows down the missin'll set in, and that phone'll be glued to his hand. Or, better, his ear--or, you know, he'll get that whole hand-ear-mouth thing goin', which'd probably work out best." 

"It's okay, Willow." Dawn shrugged with her face. "I know he's probably got some skeezy ho already who's putting out and doing jello shots with him and talking about Karl Marx. And he'll come back scruffy with an earring and a loser goatee and he'll be all, 'Hey, Dawn' and I'll be all, 'Whatever, Simon.' And he'll want to talk but I'll just blow him off--" She lifted her chin with a flounce of indifference. "--'cause I've moved on and he's got herpes and is flunking out of all his classes." 

"Dawn, hey," said Willow admiringly. "Look at you. You skipped over the chocolate binge and the Tori Amos wallow and went right to the being-over-him coolness." 

Dawn smiled modestly. "Well, I am wise beyond my years. It's that ex-key thing I've got goin' on. Someday they'll make a TV movie about me." 

Crickets chirped, cars whooshed softly past on the nearest street, and the night breeze made the trees murmur. Somewhere, a dog barked. 

Two figures staggered through the gates and came to a halt under the wide canopy of a maple. One fell backwards to stand against its trunk, gave a tired groan, and lit an old-fashioned pipe with trembling fingers. The other figure hunched furtively close to his friend, peering across the cemetery. 

"I'm wiped. This is, like..." The pipe-smoker, Egon, struggled with the demands of language and memory and simple math. "...the fifth cemetery." 

"That's her." Roph squinted at where a small blonde girl was fighting off a matronly vamp. The vamp wore a blue polka-dotted dress, short heels, and pearls; the girl wasn't wearing much of anything. 

Egon raised his eyes and slowly brought them into focus. "You sure?" he asked dubiously. "She's nothin' but a bitty thing." He contemplated the violent scene. "Cute, though. Kinda reminds me of Charlene, before she blew up." 

"That's her. Who else's it gonna be?"

"Well, could be...." Egon paused as he considered the alternatives, and the pause became a period by default as his eyes slowly fell shut. After half a minute they jerked open again. "What? What?" he muttered in alarm, looking around and sniffing. "Nah, man," he said, not speaking to Roph, glaring instead at a pocket of empty air located slightly to the left of him. "Leave me alone. I ain't carryin' no rhino. That stuff's unwholesome." 

"Mama's got game," Roph said, raising his Polaroid for a snapshot as the matronly vampire kicked the girl back a few feet. "My mama used to kick the crap outta me like that." He stuck the undeveloped photo in his pocket, and a gloomy look crossed his face. "Aw, man, I'm missin' my mama. We gotta go visit her after this." 

Egon took another deep toke of his jackweed and blew it out, nodding deeply. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah." He slowly lifted one hand, paused to stare at it suspiciously as if unsure who it belonged to or what it was doing there, then allowed it to rise further and scratch the base of his tentacles. "Who?"

"My mama." 

"Right on." Egon reflected on his response, smoking and brooding, then shook his head with regret. "Nah, Roph. I don't think she wants to see me again. She wasn't too happy last time we stayed. Always on my case, naggin' and snipin' and stickin' that knife in my ear. "

"Dude, you killed her litter." 

"Dude, she had them in the fridge. I coulda sworn they were burritos. Looked like burritos. Tasted like...hey, we should get some burritos after this. You think they got a Taco Bell here?"  Each word Egon spoke was drawn out unhurriedly. "'Cause burritos. Man. With hot sauce. You eat a burrito, the world's a burrito. You are the bean. You are the bean. You are the cheese, man. It's...Sacramento." 

"Six little brothers. I was gonna teach 'em ultimate frisbee. Mama was gonna get a bigger trailer. Gotta expect the smackdown for that." Roph shook his head mournfully, sending thick gobbets of slime across Egon's face. 

"Watch it," Egon said without heat. "That's disgusting. I been tellin' you--when you gonna get some ointment?" He tried to pull some slime from his face but the thick strand adhered and hung between skin and hand like pizza cheese. Losing interest and focus, he gave up his effort and stared out across the graveyard. He squinted wisely, took a thoughtful puff of his weed and then coughed heavily for several seconds, hacking and painful sounds that sawed across the quiet graveyard. 

"She's a bitty thing," he finally wheezed in the direction of the ground. 

"Okay, okay, now--come on," Roph said urgently as the vamp became a puff of dust. He grabbed Egon's arm and pulled him staggering forward. "Before she gets away." 

"What," muttered Buffy, leaning over with hands on her knees. "You couldn't take up garden club, lady--maybe some comfortable knitting? No, you had to go in for midlife kick-boxing." She slowly straightened, and as she did saw two demons shambling toward her, one with a big squidlike head, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and rough cut-offs and trying to puff on a pipe, but unable to bring hand to mouth while coordinating the stumbling movements of his legs. The other demon's scalp oozed slime, which had dribbled down to coat his Grateful Dead tee-shirt in long, grey strands, like candle wax around a wine bottle. He wore tiny John Lennon glasses, and a slime-covered camera hung from a strap around his neck. 

"What have we here?" she asked as the two demons approached. "Round two?" She tightened her hand around her stake. 

"Whoa, chill," said the slimy one, coming to a halt and letting go of his friend. He held out two hands in a placating way. His friend lurched to a halt and swayed in place. 

"Hey...hey...hey...." said the squidy one slowly, then took a deep breath and paused, gesturing with his motionless pipe as if about to add something. Buffy waited, eyebrows rising higher as the seconds passed. It was like waiting for light to reach earth from a distant star. Squid finally blinked, said: "Hey, girl...now...easy there." 

Buffy rolled her eyes and lowered her stake a notch. Cheech and Chong here were so baked they'd probably have trouble hitting a dead frog with a dissection knife. "Can I help you?" she asked, voice dry with skepticism. 

"You're the slayer, right?" asked Slime, then added with obvious capitalization: "The Slayer?"

"That's me." 

"Dude," said Slime, turning to his friend with something like reverence. "I told you." 

"You're a bitty thing," Squid said to her, frowning critically as he puffed. 

Buffy coughed as the smell hit her. "God, what is that?"

"Oh, man," said Squid, heavy-lidded eyes widening a fraction. "Man, that's just rude of me." He held out the pipe. "You want a hit? Take it all. I got plenty more. Good stuff. Jackweed. Amps the vibe." 

"That stuff goes to eleven, man," said Slime approvingly. 

"No--no thanks." Buffy turned her head, waving her hand in front of her face to clear the air. Small coughs kept breaking from her throat. "It smells like burning rubber. And," she realized, "raspberries?"

"Yeah, good stuff," said Slime fondly. "Hey," he began patting and digging at his pockets, "listen, I know you're like, real busy, and we don't want to take up your time." 

"Your time," repeated Squid, nodding. He pointed his pipe in her direction, prompting another round of hand fanning. "'Cause that's valuable. You can't get that back. Once it's gone...." He let that thought trail off, still nodding his head in slow, sage motion. 

"Uh huh." Buffy eyed the offending pipe. "Do you think you could point that thing elsewhere, or maybe put it out?" she asked. 

The squid demon apologized profusely and made a great show of knocking the pipe out on the bottom of one shoe, an unbalancing act which took nearly a full minute and threatened to pitch him over onto the ground at any moment. Successful at last, he looked around for a place to put the remnants, as if there might be an ashtray nearby just out of reach, and eventually slipped the mess into one pocket. 

Slime, like Buffy, had been so mesmerized by this balletic performance that it had interrupted whatever spiel he'd had prepared. But once it was over, he held out a somewhat goo-crusted book to her. He seemed to expect her to take it without explanation. 

"What's that?" Buffy asked warily. 

"Autograph," said Slime. "For my collection." 

"Autograph?" she said, disbelieving. Could the Hellmouth get any more surreal? She took the book between two fingers, saw the slime was dried, and opened it with care. The sticky pages had to be pulled apart. "Jim Carrey," she read, flipping forward one page at a time. "Howard Stern, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Chevy Chase...Celine Dion?" She looked up from the book. "And tell me again how I know I'm not signing my soul over to Satan here?"

"Aw, no way, no way." Slime shook his head earnestly, wet gobbets flying out onto the grass. "Nothin' like that." He gazed at her with doglike eyes, and when Buffy realized he was going to say no more, she sighed and slid out the tiny pen. What the hell, she thought. 

"Write, 'to Roph with love'." 

"And Egon," said Egon. 

"This better not end up on eBay," said Buffy, scribbling out the dedication and feeling increasingly irritable. 

"No way, man," said Roph firmly. "I'd sell my first-born before I'd sell my graphs. Oh, wait." He seemed to be remembering something. "Make that second-born." 

Buffy handed the book back over. "Fine. There. Now scram." 

She turned and walked away, leaving the demons in a huddle examining her signature. "Beauty, man, beauty," she heard Egon say. And then, after a moment: "Hey...who was that?"

Errands done, Spike went for a stroll. He didn't like for Buffy to patrol alone. He was always there for her; it was a point of pride. Well, except when they were fighting up a storm. Or she blew him off. Once in a while, a poker game down at Willy's came up that couldn't be missed; a presence had to be maintained, after all. And sometimes you got lucky with a damn good flick on the telly, even without cable. 

He didn't let her patrol alone much. 

Spike found Buffy in the third graveyard he tried, mid-fight with a pair of trendy new vamps in Armani who'd probably been turned on the way home from a gallery opening, chablis and brie on their final breaths. He flew across the dew-wet grass to her side and grabbed the closest one of the pair, game facing and tossing the bastard against a tall tombstone. The vamp snarled and lurched forward, baby-wild and baby-strong. Hellmouth mojo had a way of making them half-crazy when they sprouted, something in the earth, seeping up from below. As Spike punched and kicked the vamp into meat for the sheer bloody pleasure of it, he thought back to his own turning; contempt fueled his fight. He'd hadn't risen as dirt-stupid as these Sunnydale hatchlings. There'd been artistry to his early kills. A touch of class. 

He turned and back-kicked the vamp across another grave marker, watching as his opponent tumbled flat, then pulling out his stake to finish it. 

Yeah, Spike thought, leaping on the fellow's prone form, he'd killed a lot; many nights he'd gorged himself and fed the Thames with floaters, like empty wine bottles on her waves. But he'd killed well. 

With a surge of strength the vamp shouldered him off, and Spike rolled away and came up again ready. 

He'd drained cool ladies and left them draped over their parlor chairs, fans still in hand, looking asleep. He'd killed tots and toffs and ragged tramps, dismantling his kill with a passion to learn every nuance of his newfound hunger. He'd studied his prey down to the gristle and grey matter, stalked and struck like a dark shadow; he'd been better at what he did than the Ripper and--not that he liked to brag--but he'd dispatched far more lovelies than that rank amateur, with a flair for details even the gutter press wouldn't print. Like old Jack, though, he'd never been caught. 

Kids today, he thought, backhanding the increasingly sluggish vampire in front of him. 

"You're a sad specimen, mate," said Spike, landing a punch to the side of its head. He danced in place, not bothering to drive the stake home yet. "Crawl out of the earth, see a slayer, go for that sweet bit of throat. 'S like takin' a poison chocolate." He knocked the creature's legs out from under it then kicked it repeatedly. "Should have run," he sneered, his blood firing with the exertion of boot meeting soft flesh. "No survival instinct, there's your problem." 

The vamp growled and toppled him with one hand, and tried to mount him for the bite. It was funny as hell, in its way, and Spike laughed as he shoved it off. Poor wanker probably had no brain left after its autopsy to think with, or else it'd been shoved back in like a handful of soggy pate; it was no bloody wonder these Sunnydale babes came back half zombie, witlessly seeking their first meal from a slayer or one of their own. 

Out of the corner of his eye Spike could see Buffy wearing down her vamp, whose chic black dress and sheer hose were looking worse for wear. His slayer hadn't been hurrying much, from what he could tell. Lady vamp had become a well-chewed cat-toy. Spike's lips curled back in a grin, which became bloodied as a fist crashed into his face. 

Hell, enough of that. Fun over. Spike rose, lifting the vamp by its neck, and swung it around for the kill just as Buffy set up hers. Shoved back to back, the vamps bumped into each other and then stiffened as stakes were driven home simultaneously through their chests. They dissipated in a fine hail of ash, mingling on the turf in a final marriage bed and leaving Spike and Buffy staring at each other. 

Buffy was panting, cheeks flushed and eyes demented, and Spike felt fire begin as a prickling in his scalp to sweep down through his body. His demon face was a rigid mask, fixed by unsated hunger. He dropped his stake as she dropped hers, and he lifted and shoved her back onto the tombstone behind her, a table tomb on which an angel knelt watchfully. Bottom against its edge, she wrapped her arms through the angel's to anchor herself and arched back, legs coming up to wrap around him in a powerful knot. 

Spike gasped raggedly, her scent flooding him, and unzipped himself with shaking fingers. He pushed up her skirt, ripped her knickers off--she bought them thin as gossamer for just these moments, no other explanation--and a sob caught in his aching throat as he shoved inside her. Slick heat kissed his flesh. He grabbed her ass and pulled her further off the tomb, pumping in sharply as she writhed on the cold marble. 

"Oh, god," he said, the words low and hard like suffering, "Oh, god, Buffy." 

Her breathy sounds rose higher and her entire body twisted around him, a braid of legs, a long, deep swallow around his throbbing prick. 

"Oh. Bloody. Hell." He shuddered, holding himself back for her, every muscle in his body coiling more and more tightly, a sweet pain. And...oh bloody hell. He caught sight of movement to one side, across the grass. Another new vamp, young punk, nearing with feral interest at the sight of vamp plowing slayer across a tombstone. 

Spike lowered his head and growled to warn the other away. "Sod off," he said. Any vamp with manners or sense should know better than to interrupt an elder. "I don't share my dinner."  The vamp slunk closer, though, a smile spreading nastily across its face, and Spike realized he was going to have to kill it. Swearing, he tried to pull free, but Buffy clamped down tightly and he felt every atom of focus in his body drop abruptly to his balls. He turned his gaze back down to his fiery beauty, groaning at the distraction, he wasn't sure which. 

"Love...not a good moment, I know...but...oh..." He shuddered, eyes falling shut. "Slayer." 

She was arching and digging her heels into the small of his back, and Spike lifted his chin and swallowed down groans as stars flared behind his closed eyelids. Danger washed his veins with the clarity of awareness, a lightning arc bringing his desire to a high, mad edge he hadn't felt since Dru, since sex and mayhem at Altamont, or the time they'd fed at an all-night diner, rutting against the counter under the hard fluorescent lights, blood dripping from the edge in the silence, with whole families looking on, crammed into their booths, motionless in terror. 

"Yes," Spike gasped, dizzied with blood-lust and awe and a love so strong he'd have killed anyone at that moment, killed anyone for his slayer, no matter how devastating the pain. He drove into her more deeply, savage strokes, and she cried out in ecstasy as the vamp reached them, as Spike reached out and crushed its neck and lifted it up off the ground. The creature clawed ineffectualy at its own throat to break his grip, and her body was pulsing around his, and Spike shoved his hips forward with powerful stabs, there, there, there, not knowing if he said the words aloud, and then he tipped his throat back, giving a harsh, guttural cry of wonder as he broke inside her. 

When he finished, he had to dust the vamp. It was a messy and annoying interruption to his afterglow, not to mention that his bits were waving about in the breeze. But he made it quick, and then grimaced as he stood, zipping up and wiping ash off his coat. 

Buffy was sitting on the edge of the tomb, legs crossed demurely, watching him with a small, sly smile. 

"You're a mad bitch," he said, admiring and a bit bemused, coming up and pushing her legs apart to stand against her for a kiss. He trailed his hands up her sides and kissed her slowly, and she draped her arms across her shoulders and rubbed her breasts against his chest. Hell, yeah, he thought. It got no better than this. 

"Mm," she said, breaking away. And she moved her tongue around her teeth and lips with a smile and kissed him again, and as their mouths married, Spike realized with shock that she was tasting his own blood. 

Another day, thought Buffy, waking up Tuesday morning to the feel of warm sunshine on her face and birds chirping. She could hear Dawn in her room, singing along to the radio; Willow in the bathroom giggling with Tara. Her household was filled with girlish sweetness and light, and it was making her unbearably disgusted. She lay on her bed, steeped in the foulness of her mood, then sat up against her headboard and looked around at all her things. Furniture she'd had since she was thirteen; a lame sprawl of stuffed animals; clothes hanging in the open closet that said, "Hi, I'm a flighty little flirt with tits, wanna see?"

It was all a big pile of wrong; the walls too close, the ceiling smotheringly low. And here was a question: why was she even in this tacky, tiny bedroom? Why wasn't she across the hall in her mom's old room--it was her house now, after all. She could claim the larger bed and the airier space, and who would dare argue with her about it? It would be claiming her adulthood along with it, too, because it was--it was like a symbol of something. Of everything. Her mom's room, her mom's bed. 

Buffy gazed down her comforter toward the lumps of her toes, as the lilting song stylings of the littlest Summers continued to drift in. 

Well, if I'm here I might as well stay here, she thought to herself darkly. No reason to get up, no reason to go into the shop. It wasn't like she had to work, when you really got down to it. In fact, she didn't have to do anything, she realized. She'd just stay here in her tiny bed, sleep a few more hours, and for breakfast...Nutter Butters and Diet Sprite. Later, in pajamas, she'd check out the Lifetime channel, see if there were any movies on, maybe one about a divorced woman getting stalked by a violently drunken ex-cop with a cold yet needy wife and rebellious teenage son on the brink of suicide because his underage girlfriend had gotten pregnant before falling into a coma. 

A knock came on the door. "Buffy?" Willow poked her head around, smiled. "Hey, just wanted to let you know we're dropping Dawn off at school." 

"Great," said Buffy lazily, arms crossed. Willow was wearing a pink sweater with flowers down one shoulder. Pink was so not her color. Not that pink, anyway, not with this new shade of red hair. Was she blind? Had she maybe gone color-blind from some spell? Buffy considered asking her this, just to see her face go all big-eyed and open-mouthed, to see if she could make that old stutter reappear. "So you don't need me for anything." 

Willow hesitated, as if trying to figure out an implication in the words. "Well, not this morning." Her smile picked up a bit. "You can stay in bed, if you want. Sleep in. I know you were out patrolling late last night." 

Oh, now that was loaded, thought Buffy. No missing that accusing look, no matter how faintly it was shadowed by her way-too-desert-rouge eyelids. "I did dust some vamps," she said. "Five." 

"Hey, that's great--"

"But then I spent the rest of the night having sex with Spike. First on a tomb in the middle of the cemetery, then in his crypt. On the bed, to be exact. Well, and then the floor, and the table, and up against the wall. A buncha different ways too," she said brightly. "I swear, I was grinding all over his cold, hard--"

"Buffy!" said Willow. Score one for Buffy: widened eyes, hanging mouth--just briefly, though, and then Willow pressed her lips together, eyes flashing. "Gotta say: too much information." 

"Really?" Buffy feigned surprise. "Too much information for you?" She stared blandly at her frowny friend, then parroted in a soft voice: "Oh, oh...oh, Tara...oh, oh, baby." 

Willow gasped and color sprung up in her cheeks. Now we have the full effect, Buffy thought with satisfaction: the stunned and parted lips, the horror. "Why--why--why didn't you s-say something, Buffy? God, we would have, would have--" And then, as Buffy continued staring back with arms folded, Willow turned and fled. 

"It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood," said Buffy, staring expressionlessly out her window. 

Xander pulled his truck up to the curb in front of the Magic Box with a screech and felt the front wheel bounce as it rolled up onto the curb. Leaping out--nearly falling out--he stumbled around the cab with his baseball bat in hand, just as Anya rushed out the front door in a jangle of bells to meet him. Still running on instinct, he nearly tried to shove by her, but she clung, and he made himself very sensibly stop, holding her tightly with one arm and turning a little so that she wasn't so close to the door. 

"An, I thought I told you to get the hell out of there." 

"Well, I couldn't leave the shop," she said anxiously. "People expect us to be open and it's not right to close in the middle of the day. It would set a bad precedent and undermine our growing reputation for reliability." She pressed her cheek to his chest and shivered. "Oh, Xander, it's been awful, awful." 

"Okay, easy. Just tell me what it is," he said, "So I can figure out what we have to do and whether we need to call Willow." 

"What what is?" Anya said, looking up with her brow in a puckered frown of incomprehension. 

Xander shook his head once to get the duh out, and stared at her. "The thing in the shop," he said. "What is it--a poltergeist? A ghost? One of those grey things that drip seawater and smell like old cod?"

"Hefhaints," she said. 

"Wait--so it's one of those?" he said, surprised and rather alarmed at having hit the mark. 

"Is what one of those?" She shoved away in exasperation. "What are you talking about? Are you purposely trying to confuse me?"

Xander lowered his bat to the sidewalk and leaned one hand on it. He set his face into firm, yet loving lines. "An, why don't you...tell me why I'm here." 

"To help get her out of the shop." Anya's brows drew up and together as if the pressure were forcing an internal cork to rise. "Xander, she's been here for hours. Scaring away the customers, saying horrible and inappropriate things to them." Her curls bobbed with outrage. "They're not spending any money and some of them are never coming back, including Mister Chapman, that nice old man who's been trying for years to raise the spirit of Sabnock the Truculent. He spends money, Xander, lots of it. But not anymore--she called him a weasely little pippin with delusions of grandeur and told him his sweater was stinky. I don't even know what a pippin is," she said, giving him an imploring gaze. "Do you?"

"No. No, I don't." He squeezed her shoulder, and let it go. "I'm just going to go inside now and see what's what." Given that whatever lurked inside seemed to be sticking to harsh language, he offered Anya the bat, but she pushed it back into his hands. 

"No, you may need it. You know how strong she is." 

"R-i-i-ight." 

He open the door and peered around its edge, scanning the shop's interior. He saw nothing at first, then Buffy walked across the shop holding a book. "Buffy," he called in relief. She looked up, gave him a dismissive once over, and kept walking. "Okay," he said. 

"Did you see her?" Anya whispered at his shoulder. 

Xander pulled his head back out. He had to ask it and he knew he'd regret it one way or the other, no matter what the answer. "Anya, have you been talking about Buffy? Buffy's been in the shop, Buffy's been saying inappropriate things to customers?" Please tell me no, he thought. Let it be a nice, easy poltergeist. 

"Yes, Buffy. Didn't I tell you that on the phone?"

"No. I think I would have remembered that." 

"She was late for work, and I called her and she said she wasn't coming." Anya folded her arms and rubbed one elbow with nervous energy. "Then she showed up and was quite snippy, let me tell you. She sulked and sat around on her duff and when I tried to get her to work, she told me to stick my head in my mop bucket and give my hair a good wring. To get this bad perm out, she said." Anya touched her hair self-consciously. "The box said that the product would create a natural, beautiful wave. I really don't think she knows what she's talking about." 

"I'm sure she doesn't." Xander tossed the bat back through the open window of his truck and then went in, Anya at his heels like a shadow, one hand on his upper back, the other on his arm. He felt manly--yes, he was the man--and at the same time he was the nervous man. 

"Yo, Buff," he called. She was sitting at the table, face in her hands, elbows on either side of a big book he recognized from previous boring afternoons as being fairly explicit on the sexual and social characteristics of demon races. She was wearing a plaid flannel shirt he'd never seen her wear before, the sleeves rolled up, and a tight tee-shirt underneath that appeared to be decorated with pictures of Care Bears; she had no make-up on and her hair was the closest it had probably ever been to bed head. 

Xander detached himself from Anya and eased up to the table. "Hey," he said, knocking on its surface to draw her attention to him. She didn't raise her face from her hands, merely tipped her face up and looked at him. "How's it goin'?" he asked, smiling, trying to dig in behind her blank eyes with his own steady ones. 

"Go away," she said, and returned to her book. 

Xander glanced sideways at Anya, who made a face as if to say, 'You see?'

He sat down and placed his hands on the table, then beat his palms against the top a few times for a nice little drum roll. Thump, thudda-dump. Thump, thudda-dump. He got a good rhythm going, letting it distract him, and finished a minute later with a rousing crash of air cymbals. Buffy was staring at him now all right, in the way that a shoe might stare at a bug. 

"So, hey," he said as if just catching sight of her for the first time. "How's it goin', Buff?" He stared at her more gently, lowered his voice. "What's going on? Is it Dawn? Did you guys have a fight?"

"Nothing's wrong with her," Anya said helpfully. "I asked. She's simply being a bitch." 

"Anya." Xander gave her a pointed stare. "Why don't you go...over there?" Jerked his head in a way he hoped was meaningful. She turned without a further word and left, and he looked back to Buffy, who was ignoring him again. 

"So, Buff," he began. 

"Stop saying that," she said, looking up at him dangerously. "I swear, Xan, if you say my name like that one more time I'm going to rip your tongue out and make it a bow-tie." 

"Heh," he said, smiling in an unnerved way. "Just like in the cartoons." 

"Only more bloody," she promised. 

"I'm just going to leave you alone now with your...book," he said, smiling at the nice doggy with the big teeth, as he got up and backed away from the table slowly. "I'll be over here," he added, waving at the far side of the shop and then going over to where Anya waited. 

"See?" she whispered. 

"Call Willow," he said quietly. "Call her now." 

"She's inside?" said Willow, sounding as uneasy as Xander felt. The four of them stood on the sidewalk in front of the store. Inside lurked the Buffy monster, armored in flannel and armed with scathing wit. It would have been a ridiculous moment, if they hadn't all been so worried. 

"Maybe she's possessed," said Tara. "Has she done anything supernatural--spoken in tongues, levitated? Projectile vomited?" Her tone was serious and intense, like that of a doctor making a bedside assessment. 

"No," said Xander, looking to Anya. 

"No," said Anya. "Though she did throw a Humverian dagger into the wall. But not with her mind or anything." Anya paused. "Just with her hand." She paused again and cleared her throat. "Nothing supernatural, no." 

"You don't think," said Xander, hesitating, his voice lowering. "You don't think it's like when she came back?" He didn't have to say from where. "I mean, maybe that's not even her." 

"I think it's her," said Anya. "I mean, she's corporeal." She shrugged up one shoulder. "She's been drinking coffee. Quite a lot, actually." 

"Hey, maybe she's just over-caffeinated," said Xander hopefully, then watched that suggestion fall deservedly flat. "Well, at least it's not beer." 

"She was different this morning too," said Willow quietly, glancing up then down again. "I thought it was just a time-of-the-month thing. Like, a terminal case." 

"What happened?" Xander asked. 

"It's not important." 

"How do you know?"

Willow eyeballed Xander with glinty little eyes in a way that told him to shut the hell up now, and he obliged with zipped lips and a short nod. "Someone needs to talk to her," Willow said, looking around the group. 

"I have talked to her," Anya reminded them, raising her hand when no one spoke right away. "I would prefer not to do that again." 

"Guess it'll be me, then," Willow said, a slight edge to her voice. 

"We'll all go," said Tara quickly, touching her arm. 

"Four against one," muttered Xander. "I'm liking those odds better." 

She was still sitting there, but she was watching them approach. She certainly looked like the normal Buffy. Xander's eyes lowered to the faded Care Bears tee-shirt stretched tight across her breasts. Almost the normal Buffy, he amended, then raised his eyes in alarm as she said,

"Got a good look at those, Xan? Want me to tear off my shirt and give you a perv-eye view?"

"What?" he yelped, and quickly slung a glance at Anya, who was staring at him with lips parted in a silent circle of hurt. "What? No! What are you talking about?"

"You a breast man, Xan? I'm thinking you must be, the way you eat up the girl candy with those big eyes of yours. Got a thing for their gumballs, dontcha?" She was leaning back in her chair, chest thrust out, smirking at him. Smirking. 

Oh dear lord, he thought. "It's F-f-faith," he said, pointing as the thought hit him like a big, heavy freight train. He turned to the others, begging them to see it. "Faith, in Buffy's body." 

"That's so s-s-s-sad," Buffy said, mimicking him. "Hey--when a thought strikes you, and no one can hear, does it make a sound?"

"I don't think that's Faith," Willow said slowly. 

"No." Buffy shook her head: "Not Faith." She nodded and pointed to herself: "Buffy. Now give yourself a cookie." 

Tara stepped forward, smiling nervously. "Buffy, you know us, right? We're your friends. We want to help." 

"My friends," said Buffy, standing. Everyone moved a step back at the same time. She walked around the table and hopped up on it; then laughed as she swung her feet. "My good, good old friends." Her lips pressed together thoughtfully and her brow furrowed as she said, "Hmm. Yes, I think I do know you." She pointed at them in turn. At Anya, speaking brightly: "If I only had a brain." At Tara, sorrowfully: "If I only had a heart." At Xander, pouting minxishly: "If I only had the nerve." And then, swinging her gaze to Willow to finish with the falsest surprise and cheer: "And hey, here's the wicked witch!"

Xander's throat caught at the offhand cruelty, as next to him Willow stiffened. He could feel her pain like a punch in his own gut. "What the hell is the matter with you?" he asked Buffy roughly. She pulled another exaggerated pout as answer. 

"Xander, it's okay," said Willow, touching his arm lightly, but as if to reassure herself, not him. "Something's not right. Buffy wouldn't act like this. Maybe it's magical, maybe some--some kind of drug. I don't know." 

"Or, gee, maybe," said Buffy, "I'm just having a bad day." She hopped down off the table, and they parted widely for her as she walked through them. She paced the room. "Because, see, I can have a bad day. Oh, I can have a bad day." 

"S-sure, Buffy," said Tara in an understanding voice. "We all have bad days." 

Buffy turned, hands tucked in her back pockets. "Oh, Tara. You're so sweet. You know what you're like?" She tipped her head, her expression laced with soft, fake kindness. "You're like the saccharine in the black coffee of my life." 

Tara ducked her head, discomfort enfolding her body. 

"She's been saying things like this all day," said Anya in a matter-of-fact tone. "It was refreshing at first, but then it became annoying and ultimately I wanted to strangle her." 

Buffy shook her head. "Letting that one go. Way too easy." 

"We need to get more information," murmured Willow, turning to Xander. "But I don't think she's feeling too--"

"Hey," said Buffy, sauntering up into their personal space. "You talking about me? Gee, there's a surprise." Cool sarcasm edged her voice. 

Willow frowned and visibly steeled herself not to back away. "Buffy, um, do you remember anything about last night?"

"Oh, yeah." Buffy cracked a wide smile. 

"Not that," Willow said hastily. Xander raised his brows and looked between the two of them. "I mean, anything else strange like, like maybe magical or some kind of drug?"

"Well, let's see." Buffy matched Willow's frown. "There was a big warlock who asked me if I wanted to see his etchings, and we went back to his place and then everything got kind of fuzzy and next thing I knew I woke up outside in the street and my clothes were on inside out. Do you mean like that?"

Willow made an exasperated face, as Anya brightened and said, "Oh! That must be it! Now we just have to find the warlock." She smiled at them all with relief. 

"If I only had a brain," sang Buffy earnestly, twirling away from Willow and dancing with herself. 

The smile slid off Anya's face. "Okay, I realize now that was sarcasm." 

"Anya isn't stupid," Xander grated at Buffy, pissed off enough that he couldn't hold his tongue, even though he knew this wasn't the real, with-it version of the friend he knew. "She's literal, sure, but not--"

"If I only had the nerve," sang Buffy. 

"And what the hell is that supposed to mean?" He held up a finger and mentally kicked himself. "No. Wait. Forget I asked," he said tightly. 

"Why, Xan." She stopped and put her hands on her hips, head cocked like a delicate bird's. "I forgot you asked a long, long time ago. The problem is, you can't forget that you asked. And that I said no. Poor Xander." She mocked him with every inch of her body. "If you'd only had the nerve to take what you wanted, maybe you'd have had a different answer." She paused, letting that sink in. "Then again, not a chance. You could never take what you wanted from me. I'd lay you flat with one punch." She smirked. 

He stared at her, this cruel unBuffy, feeling anger stir that wasn't quite like any anger he'd felt before. Not toward her. God help him, he wanted to belt her, he really did, and he realized he'd made a fist only as Anya came quietly up next to him and took it in her hands and eased it open. He took a deep careful breath, and let it out. 

Buffy saw this, her eyes flickering down then back up to his face. "Whoa," she laughed. "You want to try and take me? Really?" She was making a little-old-me? face. "Hey. Bring it on." She subtly changed her stance and man, oh man, thought Xander, that did not look good. "Take me. If you can." Double meanings made her words even heavier. 

"I'm not fighting you," Xander said in a clear voice. "Because a, I don't want to; and b, I'd die." Anya was gripping his hand so tightly between hers it was going numb. 

"That's right," she said. "Except for the wanting-to part, because you know you so want to." She swayed toward him sinuously, and Xander could feel the tension around him rising as Anya pressed closer and Willow and Tara eased in to flank him, a shield of womanliness that he did not deserve and felt deeply grateful for. 

"Buffy," he said firmly, buoyed by his girl posse, "take it easy." 

She punched him and he fell, hearing Willow and Tara frantically chanting, and then something fell on top of him. 

"Oof," he said, blinking open his eyes. He was covered in Care Bears. It wasn't a bad place to be, but his jaw really...really hurt. He gently rolled Buffy off and laid her on her back. "What did you do?" he asked. 

"Just a little sleeping spell," said Willow, kneeling next to them and sounding far more composed than Xander felt. "She'll have a nice nap now." 

"And when she wakes up she'll be less cranky?" he asked darkly, but with hope. 

"I don't know. It depends on whether whatever's affecting her has worn off." 

"Am I the only one here who's thinking heavy restraints--and please tell me you know I don't mean that in the bad way," he added, looking around at the women's faces. 

"Do we have anything here that would hold her?" asked Tara dubiously, frowning down at them and then glancing around the shop as if something might spring to mind among the books and herbs and statuary. 

"Here," said Spike's anxious voice from somewhere over Xander's shoulder, "What--what's wrong with her?" And Xander was shoved away with a strength that sent him skidding back on his ass a few feet to land against the counter, which his head smacked. Not in a soft way. 

"Ow," he said, closing his eyes. "Part two." Anya knelt next to him and handled him soothingly. 

"She's okay," he heard Willow say with impatient reassurance. "She's just resting." 

"Resting?" Spike laughed in suspicious disbelief. "On the floor?" Xander opened his eyes to see the vampire staring fixedly down at Buffy and touching her face. Even in the painful Buffycentric moment, Xander had an instant to frown at the sight of Spike's own face, which sported a wide bruise around one eye and cheekbone, and a gash running from the corner of his lips. 

"Wake up, pet," Spike said. 

"It's a spell," said Tara. "We had to...she was violent." 

"Yeah, well," said Spike, with a short, angry sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "You know, that's probably why they call them slayers and not slightly-pouty-brooders." But his temper seemed to be easing as he took in the situation; he hadn't drawn his gaze from Buffy's face yet, but now he looked up at Willow. "What'd she do?"

"She punched Xander," said Anya, his honey sounding severely pissed on his behalf, which if the small gods were kind meant that a night of glorious comfort sex lay ahead for him. 

"So you thought you'd put a spell on her?" Spike stared at Willow across Buffy's unmoving body. "Hold up, here's a thought: next time she gets a hangnail, cut off her finger. That'll fix it." 

Xander could see Willow's defenses springing up, along with the first tiny crack of doubt in her assurance. "We didn't have a choice. She could have killed Xander without even trying." 

Thanks, Will. 

"Well you can unspell her now," Spike said flatly. "I'm here." 

Willow hesitated, looking up at Tara, whose face mirrored that hesitancy then twitched into a realistic expression. "We do still have to find out what happened," Tara said. 

Xander drew himself to his feet, with Anya brushing imaginary dust off his shirt in a meticulous diversion of nervous energy and concern. "He's right," he said calmly. "Let's wake her up, so we find out why she's playing La Femme Badass all of a sudden, and make it stop." 

"Dormio reversus," said Willow. 

Buffy opened her eyes and took them all in, including Spike kneeling at attention. "How you feelin', Slayer?" he asked gently. 

At his words she sprang up. Willow tumbled back and then got to her feet with care, while the rest of them tensed. Spike rose more casually, as if he weren't in range of a ticking time bomb. "Touch antsy today, are we?"

Buffy stared coldly at Willow. "Using your magics on me now, Will? Guess I shouldn't have expected any less. We all know how you get." Willow's facade of self-possession broke; her lips parted and trembled, and her hand rose to cover them. "You ever thought of trying to fight honestly?" Buffy asked. "How's about I get you started." And she swept back her hand so fast the punch was already flying as Xander began processing its motion, and it would have landed like a brick through a Willow window if not caught in the grip of Spike's hand. 

"Not such a good idea," he said in a hard voice, looking far more surprised and disturbed now that the seriousness of her lunacy had been demonstrated. 

She shook her hand free and glared at him. "You can back me up, Spike, or you can go down." 

Xander could see Spike considering that for a moment far too seriously, like the crazy thing he was. The vampire took a deep unbreath, exhaled with a resigned look, and said, "You know I'll always back you up, love." He looked down at her, a flicker of lashes that hid his eyes and yet suggested tenderness, then gave her a hard flat shove to the chest. Buffy staggered, knocked out of proximity to Willow, and Spike stepped between them as an immovable object. "And that's me backing you up now," he added softly, staring her down. Xander had never thought he'd willingly watch Spike fight Buffy and not want to help her. He still didn't feel willing. 

"Buffy," he said, "Come on. You don't want to do this. Tell us what happened last night that's got you so...so this." He made a gesture at her. "Something had to have happened." 

"Last night," said Spike in an odd voice, face flinching open and then shuttering again. "Oh, bloody--"

"What? What of the blood?" said Xander sharply, gladly finding a deserving target for his rage. "Did you do this to her? I swear to god, Spike, if you messed her up--"

"Didn't do anythin' to her, you silly git." Spike's gaze sharpened irritably on him, and Xander reassessed his bruised face and busted lip. "Just realized she must've already been all worked up like this. Didn't realize it at the time or I would've--" He paused, eyelids lowering on a gleam as he looked Buffy's way, before he came back from his thought. "Er, done something proper about it," he finished, collecting himself and clearing his throat. 

"Didn't realize it?" murmured Anya. 

Buffy, arms crossed, stared at them all in disgust. "You all through?" she broke in. "Because I have something to say." 

"Dude, we can't just walk in there," said Egon, blinking at the door of the magic shop. "There are, like, humans inside." Then, oblivious to the startled businesswoman walking past, he lit up his pipe and squinted around at the sunny street in a meditative way. "Y'know, it's real pretty for a Hellmouth." 

"Sunny Cal, man," said Roph approvingly, scratching his oozing head. "Sunny Cal." 

"Maybe we should come back when it's dark." Egon passed the pipe to Roph, who took a hit with several tiny snorts that gave an impression of deep distress, or perhaps asphyxiation. 

"Can't take much more of this," said Roph. "Itchin' is gettin' worse." 

Egon squinted at the mass of slime that slid like lava from the top of the demon's now obviously open skull. "Man, if that thing hatches, I do not want to know you, bud." 

"That guy, he said they don't hatch for years." 

"Who?"

"That guy at the bar, at that place where we stopped, that one night. The guy with the hat." 

"Oh, yeah," said Egon very slowly as memory or the figment of it stirred. "Yeah, right." 

"They gotta have some ointment," said Roph. "Magical shop and all." He drew his hand down to stare myopically at a sticky egg. "Aw, man," he groaned. "Come on." 

The bells on the door jingled. 

"--jam them up good and deep for all I care, and I won't say a word. But when I want to have some fun, oh no. No, why should I expect any of you to understand," Buffy went on, pacing, "because hey, you're all perfectly normal, right, with your school and your jobs, never mind that you're shagging demons and werewolves and witches galore and fighting with each other behind my back; never mind the scary visuals I get whenever Anya says 'kielbasa' as if we don't all know what that code word means, oh no, these are all my issues--"

The bells on the door jingled, and Spike shook himself out of his stupefaction and glanced over to where a Majlar demon and a Gnoslac stood blinking and smoking and scratching themselves. They looked around the shop in toasted obliviousness to the scene taking place. He felt blessed, almost awed, by this evidence that the Hellmouth had opened its maw and answered his prayers for a distraction. Everyone else unfroze from their open-mouthed dazes at about the same time, and swung their gawks toward the door, trying to assimilate this new arrival of customers. 

"Can I help you?" said Anya with desperate cheer, stepping toward the demons. "We're having a, a sale today, a big sale, ten percent anything in the shop if you buy. Buy now. Please." 

"Dude," said the Gnoslac, nudging his companion. "It's that bitty girl." 

The Majlar peered across the shop through enslimed eyeglasses. "It's the slayer," he said. "Hey, Slayer." He raised one hand in a peaceable greeting. "This your shop?" Buffy didn't even notice his presence, and the demon looked around at the nearby shelves, picked up a bronze fairy and stared deeply into its face, as if its insipid craftsmanship illuminated the mysteries of the universe. "Right on," he murmured. 

Spike raised his voice to speak over the unending rant of Buffy that was still taking place. "Yeah, can we help you, mates?"

The Gnoslac shuffled nearer, stumbled over nothing and apologized to it. "Dude's got a nest," he said vaguely to Anya and Spike, gesturing back to his friend with a smoking pipe that issued the fragrance of burning rubber and raspberries. "Smicka." 

"Smicka?" said Anya. "Oh, that's not good." But she sounded very cheerful. "I have an ointment for that. I'll be right back." And off she went, trippingly. 

"Fan-tas-tic," drawled the Majlar in a tone of sincere gratitude. As the demon neared, Spike had a better view of his scalp, from which small eggs were starting to slip loose on ribbons of slime. Spike grimaced but couldn't quite tear his gaze away. Horribly compelling. Plus the longer he looked at the mess of suppurating caviar on yon bugger, the longer he could avoid looking at anyone else. 

"You two," said Buffy, breaking off her torrent of oversharing as she caught sight of the demons. She put her hands on her hips. "What the hell do you want?"

"Hey, girl," said the Gnoslac mellowly, holding up a hand. "Easy now." 

Spike sniffed at the pungent smoke wafting out of the demon's pipe and eyed it with a frown. It seemed very familiar, repulsively so, and...yeah, hold up, he knew that smell. "Here," he barked with alarm, grabbing the pipe away and mashing it to splinters under his boot. 

"Hey, sorry, man," said the demon, blinking but unperturbed. "Didn't see a sign." 

Spike realized he'd attracted everyone's eyes. "Jackweed," he informed them matter-of-factly. "Mood amplifier." He gave a mild sniff, admitted, "Always been allergic to the stuff. Second-hand smoke gives me a headache somethin' terrible." He gestured at his head with a loose fan of fingers. "Bit too rich for..." He paused, gaze slewing to Buffy as it dawned. "...humans, too." 

Everyone else turned to look at Buffy. 

"What the hell are you all looking at?" she asked irritably. 

Outside the Summers house, the darkness of late evening had fallen. Inside, a lamp snapped on with offensive brightness. 

"Oh, god," Buffy groaned, burying her face under her pillow. "No. Asleep. Come back next year." 

"You have to eat something." Willow sat on the bed next to her and stroked her jammied shoulder. 

"Soup here," said Dawn cheerfully. 

Buffy sat up, unable to look at Willow. She let Dawn set the tray down over her blanketed legs, and reluctantly appreciated the alphabet soup and grilled cheese sandwich, each half speared with a frilled toothpick and an olive, the traditional Summers arrangement. "Thanks, Dawn." She smiled up at her sister, then made herself meet Willow's eyes. "Will," she began, but whatever was supposed to come after that didn't make it out. 

"'S'okay, Buffy." Willow took her hand and squeezed it. "Apology anticipated and bud nipped. We all know you didn't mean those things you said." 

"Those things we're never ever, ever going to speak of again?" said Buffy, conscious of her little pitcher with the big ears. 

"Exactly," said Willow with a wry, reassuring smile. 

Buffy hesitated, then squeezed Willow's hand back. "Dawn, could you let us talk?" she asked. "Alone?" She made the request as gentle as she could, but Dawn's face fell, then hardened over to an opaque smoothness. 

"Sure," said her sister, and turned on her heel. The door closed behind her too quietly. 

One battle at a time, thought Buffy. "Will, really. I'm so sorry." She thought she could see a renewal of wary coolness in Willow's face now that Dawn was out of the room, and she swallowed down a touch of panic. "I can't even believe I--well, uh, that I said that thing about witches and candlesticks, for one thing, and do I, do I still have any foot left in here?" She opened her mouth and pointed inward, hoping Willow would take pity on her and find this funny. 

Willow pretended to peer inside. "Just a little toe, maybe." She smiled again, faintly. "You--you, uh, stoppered all kinds of stuff up, Buffy, and it gushed out all messy and broken, kinda like a big ol' Smicka hatch. And, you know, I'm not sure I'd win a lot of brownie points with you guys if I shared the thoughts I have sometimes." 

Buffy ducked her head, shame dragging aside her brave front. "Well, if you wanted to let rip, I'd certainly be deserving of the full Smicka." She looked back up abruptly. "And you're being way too forgiving, so I think you should. Let it rip, I mean." 

"Oh, uh. Hmm." Willow hesitated and then fell silent, eyes downcast as if she were harboring guilty thoughts. 

"Willow." Buffy moved the tray aside, and pulled her legs up, crossed; Willow obligingly copied her pose, and it was almost enough to carry Buffy back in time to high school, when they'd been sleepover buddies and complete confidantes. "Look at me." She took both Willow's hands in her own, hoping she wasn't going too far out on a limb. "You know, don't you, you know I trust you?" Willow looked at her as if wanting to believe, as if waiting to see what else she'd say. Buffy forged on. "I trust you with my life, Will. I rely on you like no one else. No one." She watched Willow's cheeks grow pink, her throat work briefly. "And your powers have made all the difference--so many times I can't even count." 

"But you think they're dishonest," said Willow quietly, in confusion. And it was coming out now, that rawness of hurt. 

"No," said Buffy firmly. "No. That was crazy talk. I respect your craft. God, I do. You have powers I could never tap. All of you. Anya and money, keeping me from being some street Buffy, kicking around in gutters. You and Tara with spells, Xander..." She paused to duck her head in a laugh. "He keeps the earth solid when I'm at risk of flying off." She looked up again, chest aching as if her heart expanded with need. "We make each other stronger, better. We've learned that lesson before the hard way--I don't want to see us pushed to the edge again." She swallowed. "But it's that wanting that's the problem. I know this is my fault, this not talking and then talking way too much. I shut myself down. Again. I shut us all down." 

"What do you mean?" Willow asked, but Buffy could tell she knew. Something in the dip of her lashes, the little warble in her voice. This thing between them went way back, maybe too far back to fix entirely; it was like a quilt with a hundred tiny rips in it, each one carefully mended, but coming undone again as the threads aged. Buffy wasn't going to give in, though. Of them all, Willow was her security blanket, no matter how things changed; even now that she didn't look to Buffy with the same easy admiration in her eyes as when they were younger. Things had never been as simple as they'd seemed then, anyway. Willow, Buffy thought. Willow had never been so simple. 

"Just," Buffy said. "Just that I wanted us all to get along like one big happy family, and for you not to do any damage to Spike...any serious damage. And you guys have tried so hard, really hard, and I can't even tell you how much I appreciate it." Buffy held Willow's eyes. "But none of it matters if we're not friends, if we can't talk to each other." 

There was a pause, as Willow obviously hesitated. "Do you really want your mom's bedroom?" she asked finally, betraying a touch of anxiety. "Because, Buffy, you know it's yours. I just didn't know that it was a big deal, I swear." 

"God, no!" Buffy's grip tightened on her friend's warm fingers. 

"And if you want me to move out," Willow stumbled on, tears brimming along her eyes, "I'll go, 'cause I don't want to be housemates if it means we can't be friends." 

"No, no, oh god," said Buffy, and fell forward in a hug that Willow answered clutchily. They both sniffled and huddled. 

After a while, they gathered themselves again and talked some more, and Buffy felt almost as if she were visiting a friend she hadn't seen in years. As they were each absently tearing apart a cheese sandwich half and putting bites in their mouths, Willow said, chewing a bit chipmunkily, "So, was it really what it looked like?"

"What?"

Willow smiled in a curious, knowing way. "Did you really beat up Spike and have your way with him?"

Buffy's cheeks heated. "I was...really out of it last night." 

"It must be nice," Willow hesitated, looking down and unfocusedly off to one side, "to be able to let it all out like that, and not have to worry about hurting. To let loose." 

And Buffy thought she should deny it, but they were talking and she wanted to tell the truth to her best friend. "It's...yeah. It is, kind of. I know it shouldn't be," she added quickly. "I know it's way wrong." 

Willow studied her, chewing. "He's not as bad for you as I thought he was, for all that he's hangin' around like a big ol' piece of meat that's turned," she admitted in a dry, quiet voice. "I mean, definitely still grossed out here, and...um, sorry." Willow seemed to catch herself. "That was ooshie honesty," she said apologetically. 

"No, it's all right." Buffy gave close consideration to her cheese sandwich. "I know it's...it's not the best choice I've made." 

"Sex is a funny thing," said Willow. "If you'd told me when I was, like, crushgirl on Xander Harris that I'd someday be all over a girl with dimples and a soft little nose and a sweet mole on her tushy, I'd, uh--" She caught Buffy's grin and blushed. "Say, what's in this cheese?" Willow asked with mock alarm and suspicion. A moment of affection lingered, and then Willow's tone dipped, more serious. "I worry about you, though, Buffy. If I thought that it was anything more than raw, crazy nookie with a dead guy who admittedly has muscles on his muscles--" She broke off, looking at Buffy's face with slightly wider eyes. "Buffy, is it--are you--"

"God, no," said Buffy at once. "You so know there's a no, right?" She maintained a steady gaze under Willow's worried one. 

"Right," said Willow, as if assuring herself. "'Cause hey, no soul there. Just demon." But she sounded unconvinced, and Buffy wasn't entirely sure of what. 

"You know what he is to me, Will," said Buffy, her words cool and composed. "He's the thing in my life I don't have to worry about hurting. I can use him, and walk away. He's what every slayer needs; a willing slave on a short leash who sets an example to every other vamp out there. Lets them know just who's the boss of them." 

"Wow," said Willow, brows lifted and lips parted in awe. "Okay. Feeling a sudden paradigm shift here. Teach me to be a sexy mastermind?" She grinned. "I wanna little puppy on a leash." Buffy arched her own brows. "Okay, no I don't," Willow told herself firmly, shaking her red head. "'Cause I got Tara, and I don't need no other cuddle toys." She looked wistful, though. 

"Someday, I'll meet someone," said Buffy, plucking and smoothing her coverlet, talking half to herself. "Someone I'll love, who'll love me. And I'll know when it's right. But I can't be the girl who keeps chasing the dream all around town. I don't have a lot of room for normal in my life." She glanced out the window restlessly. "What am I gonna do, meet some nice doctor and have to explain to him why my bruises heal so fast, why I have to go out every night and come back with grave-dirt on my shoes?"

Willow touched her leg, rubbed it. "You're the Slayer," she acknowledged, and when Buffy looked over and caught her eye she could see it was if Willow were finally realizing something that she hadn't before, pulling out of those old words some new truth, difficult and sad. Something not of high school or college, but of an adulthood that extended beyond them. 

"I'm the Slayer," said Buffy quietly. 

"Slayer," he said, surveying her from across the cave. Dozens of candles flickered among the greenery, as if he'd been expecting her unplanned visit in the small hours. She wandered closer, letting her gaze drift down over him slowly, and he stood motionless, head cocked, and silently submitted. 

She liked to look at him. No big wrong in that, was there. Smooth pale hair curving along the shape of his skull. Fine eyebrows, the left nicked in some hundred year old fight whose details he kept vague. Eyes, slitted and dark and full of that eternal hunger which was so wrong it had to earn death; eyes watching her now steadily. Faint, faded bruise on his cheek. Face and neck a map of saltless arcs and hollows she'd tongued until familiar, leading down his body. Chest bare, loose shirt open. Hips in dark jeans, weirdly bare feet, because you'd think he lived in his boots. This was hers. She could anything with him that she wanted, no matter how brutal, and he'd let her. 

"Hey," she said. 

Spike cleared his throat, looking off-balanced, even slightly vulnerable. She could never tell how much of that was an act, the camouflage of a predator. His expression was becoming guarded in defense against hers, his gaze detaching as if hers discomfited him, as if he needed to look right now at his walls and bed and plants. 

"'Lo," he said brusquely. "Feelin' better, I take it." 

"All better," she said. 

He nodded, cast his gaze around again, anywhere but her. "I was just cleanin' up the place a bit. Gets a right mess. Don't know how." He laughed uncomfortably then noticed a pile of tattered pap