It was seven-thirty in the evening and the sky should have been too light for a vampire to be out, but it was cloudy. They walked down Main Street, and she was wearing her eggshell-blue top, vee-necked, with its two ribbons hanging loose, and a long flowered skirt. He was wearing the coat, the jeans, the boots, a black shirt. He looked more corpselike than usual to her, shadows deepening around his eyes, lips a whiter shade of pale. Maybe he was hungry, or maybe it was just in contrast to the tanned girls passing them on the sidewalk, bumping one another carelessly as they giggled and chatted, wearing shorts and tank tops and looking so young that Buffy felt strangely old. 

Their fingers nearly brushed as they walked, hers and his, and she was conscious of it, and self-conscious. He was air temperature; he was like a slight breeze walking alongside her. All around them living people wandered and laughed, window-shopping and pushing strollers. She walked through them with her dead boyfriend. They passed a jewelry store and she paused to look at the display without thinking, and he stopped with her. Mirrors enhanced the jewelry scattered across the velvet and he was not in them. 

"You like those?" he asked, eyes on her and not the jewelry, and she could tell he was feeling her out. His voice was wary, interest hidden under a hard shell. He'd given her a necklace once, over a year ago; and, that being then, she'd given it back. That's not what we are, she'd said. We're not dating. 

She stared at the earrings. "Too dangly." She turned away, and they walked again. 

He was taking her to dinner and a movie, their first date since...ever. It was weird, too weird, and the nearer they strolled to the restaurant the more freaked she became, the slower her steps grew. Surrounded on all sides by normal, she felt sure that everyone who looked at them together knew what Spike was; what she was for being with him. She dawdled and he patiently indulged her; she could feel him doing so, feel him carefully saying nothing. He was all broody silence. The next window she paused at, he lit a cigarette, as if he needed something to do. 

"Reservation's for seven forty-five," he said with a facade of indifference, exhaling smoke. He stood with his back to the storefront and eyes on the street, gaze flicking around the crowds, as if expecting attack or wishing he could deliver one. 

"Who makes a reservation for seven forty-five?" Buffy asked, just to be rhetorical; to lodge a complaint now in case she wanted to blame him for something later. 

"Maitre d'," he said. 

"What are you going to have?" She began walking again, and he fell back into step with her. "I mean...to eat." 

"Dunno. Haven't seen the menu yet." 

She nearly rolled her eyes. "Terse much?" 

Spike raised his cigarette to his lips, drew in a heavy drag, said nothing. She glanced over at his profile, and after a few pondering moments he inclined his head her way to gaze back. Smoke trailed from his nostrils. "Suppose so," he said blandly. His face was expressionless, but his cool eyes glinted. 

Buffy tried to hide a smile he didn't deserve, then felt it fade into uncertainty. Maybe he wasn't trying to be funny. Maybe he was pissed off. Who could tell, with him. He pitched his cigarette into the street, big litterbug, and then the back of his hand brushed the back of hers as he moved in to let a man pass. A hot ache descended her body in less time than it took to draw a breath, and she let her fingers entwine with his for one moment--their fingers not even curling together, only stroking like dry, hot kindling, knuckles to knuckles--before she pulled her hand away. She awkwardly hugged her own arms in a jitter of nerves, instinctively trying to pass it off as if she were chilled when it nearly eighty degrees. 

He of course noticed; how could he not. "Yeah, right," he replied as if she'd said something, as if she'd delivered a reminder. "Gotta be careful. That one," Spike said, pointing at a jogger coming toward them, "she's got her eye on you. Spies all around us." His voice was oddly light, full of bullshit, and he feigned a glance over his shoulder, pretending to be worried: "Can't always see 'em. Got to be mindful. No way of tellin' when one of them's gonna file a report, get the word in to Red." 

He made her so easily angry, and embarrassed. "You know the rules," Buffy said in a low, tight voice. 

"Well, now you mention. Might 'ave misplaced that memo." 

Buffy ground to a halt, forcing him to stop. Nearby, the Espresso Pump spilled light out onto the sidewalk, and kids socialized around the open-air tables. He turned and stood with a slight twist of hips, but met her eyes directly, a shadow of anger clearly visible in his own. 

"Here's your memo." She kept her arms tightly by her sides to avoid crossing them again. "You wanted me to admit that I care. Fine, I care. Why, I have no idea, because you're annoying and homicidal and dead and I, very clearly, am one sick little biscuit. But letting that go...my friends can't know that and you know why. And I can't--" Her tongue tripped as Spike closed on her, the few paces between them swallowed by his presence. "--I can't walk down the street holding hands and I can't play footsie with you, or wear your ring. And, god, I don't even want that." 

Spike rested one hand on the wall next to her head and leaned in, and Buffy's heart beat faster against her will. "Not like they don't already know, love." 

Buffy's heart skipped now. "What? When? What did you tell them?" She could hear her voice rising with anxiety and hated it, hated him for making her feel this way. 

"Didn't tell them anythin'. But you can be sure they've sussed it out." He stared down into her eyes. "They know and pretend not to, otherwise they'd have to do something about it. Besides." He lifted his brows, gaze widening a fraction to capture hers even more strongly. "They enjoy reminding me I'm just your sodding Spike-bot." She flinched at the deliberateness with which he articulated the words. "Not to mention punching bag." 

"That is so unfair," Buffy began in a whisper, voice shaking as it rose with her anger, "Don't pretend you didn't get off on...on what we did." She clung to the tail of his remarks, unable to think about the implications of what he'd said first. 

"Wouldn't dream of it." Spike's mouth moved--lips and tongue--as if he were remembering the sensual ache of a punch; his hard gaze didn't dip. "Not so fun is being told to bugger off till I've healed, savin' your face by hidin' mine. Watchin' you go all broody like you're bad and wrong and broken. 'Cause you got off on it." 

He gazed down and she glared up, and the moment stretched until Buffy looked away and surrendered the fight. "We really do put the 'dys' in 'dysfunctional'," she said in her driest voice, no smile. "In fact, I think we should just throw out the concept of 'function' entirely and admit it's all 'dys.'" 

"Better than all function," he said, and he smiled, not with his lips, merely with a twitch of cheeks, the lines around his eyes. Removing his hand from the wall, he straightened but stood close, looming and looking down at her under hooded lids, and Buffy was conscious of herself again, her hair, clothes, body. Of him. The surface of her tingled above a familiar undertow. I should have worn the other shirt, she thought, and looked up at her lover, a walking nightmare who'd killed a girl less than a year ago and drunk his dinner from her neck. Redeemable? No. So she controlled him instead, punished him. And she couldn't tell him why it really unnerved her, what she'd done, that it was not because she feared her own darkness, but because afterwards she felt as though she'd beaten a dumb animal and made love to the man trapped inside. 

She thought he might touch her, her shoulder or her hair. 

But he didn't touch her. He backed up a respectful step, relinquishing her space, coat swinging around his calves, and discomfited she walked alongside him again. He took the outside of the sidewalk; at some point, she couldn't remember when, he'd started doing that more often, and eventually she'd noticed. It was the kind of small chivalry her mother used to tell her to look for in a boyfriend. 

Hello and welcome to my terribly strange and so-called life, Buffy thought, as old bewilderment embraced her. God, I swear if I didn't know better, I'd think I was-- 

"Buffy!" 

Startled, Buffy looked around and saw a dark-haired girl, all bangled and sparkle-shirty and insanely caffeinated, waving at her from a table in the Espresso Pump, surrounded by friends whose scrubbed faces and coordinated colors carried the authoritative stamp of sorority chic, even if you overlooked their Greeked tees. 

"Buffy! Hi! Hey!" The well-manicured hand attached to the perky body didn't stop waving. 

Alarmed, Buffy lifted one hand in weak salutation, then murmured to Spike as they approached: "High school, college, classes with Willow." She broke off as they reached the table. "Hey, Naomi." A polite smile. 

"Buffy, wow. It's so good to see you." Naomi beamed. She had a lot of teeth, very white and even, and prominent gums, very pink and shiny, the overall effect of which was like something you might find on a dentist's display counter. 

I will not flee, thought Buffy, briefly wide-eyed and rabbit-stunned by the teeth being bared at her. She forced her gaze up three inches. "Good to see you too." That had almost sounded sincere. 

"How are you? It's been forever. What are you doing these days? Willow said you're not in school, that you're working? I heard about your mom when it happened. I'm so sorry. I think it's so amazing that you're taking care of your sister and everything. So where are you working? I heard it was like some shop downtown where Willow goes? Hi, how are you?" The last part of this volley was directed cheerily at Spike, who'd just lit a cigarette. He froze and glanced up, cigarette jutting from his mouth and smoking, lighter still cupped to his face for a moment before he lowered it. He tucked his lighter away, removed his cigarette, and exhaled on a grunt. Punk, cool. 

"Do you mind?" said one of the other girls. "This is No Smoking." She pointed to a sign. 

Spike considered the nearest support pillar, then looked down and traced the conceptual line across the pavement between outside and in, sidewalk and cafe, and where his boots stood in relation to it. He looked back up, expressionless but satisfied. "Not inside, am I." He lifted the cigarette back to his mouth deliberately. 

There fell a brand of silence unique to miffed sorority girls. Buffy cleared her throat, and Spike drifted off, not entirely removing himself from orbit of their table. Smoke lazily rolled over and Buffy apologized with her eyes to Naomi's friends, managed a wry expression of what-can-you-do? 

"So, Buffy--" 

Natter, natter, the bint said, but Spike tuned her out. Late for dinner meant late for the movie, and sod it. He'd gladly take a pass on overcooked steak and some arty flick about missionaries, except he was doing this for Buffy, what he thought she'd like. She'd been tight-lipped in every sense of the word since their last night together, as if a round of Punch-me-Judy was something new under the moon, so to speak. As if they hadn't met in a mad tear of violence, and fallen for each other in chaos and crashing timber. After too many long silences, he'd been fed up. She wanted normal, he'd give her it. He could play at normal passably well; he cleaned up nice. 

Spike took a deeper drag of his cigarette, feeling a nostalgic stir of memory. Top hat and tails, sweeping through the glittering capitals of Europe like a plague, with his mad bride draped in fur and pearls taken from a dead woman's neck; her gloved hand on his arm as he led her from one opera house to the next, to balls and theatre premiers, and wicked salons where they were often admired, and if enough so, even graciously inclined to spare the hostess. 

Now here he stood, loitering outside a coffee shop filled with yammering kiddies, in California, US of A, the far blighted shore of a blighted continent filled sea to sodding sea with strip malls and cornfields. 

A strange and terrible thing is my existence, Spike thought darkly. Then wished for a scrap of paper to jot the line down. Nothing in his pockets, of course. A rhyme for existence. His gaze wandered half-sightedly across the sprawl of bright, shiny faces in the cafe, all garish color and giggles and steam. 

Pestilence. 

"Hey, goth is over, man." A hoot of laughter supported this, followed by a whistle. "Here, pretty boy. Thee anything you like, thweetheart?" A babble of voices overlapping, stifled laughter: "Cut it out, guy, come on," said half in embarrassment, half encouragement. "Yo, where's Morticia--" Snorts of laughter. "--gun in that coat, mow us all down--" Rattling of cups on table, pounding. "Ooh, Gothboy, here Gothboy, here boy--" Sharp whistles. "Cliff, come on, watch out, he may come over and thpit on you." 

Frowning, Spike slowly brought his distracted focus to bear on a quintet of great oafs who'd somehow managed to cram their fat-blooded bodies around a tiny table in sporty, homoerotic proximity. He raised his brows and considered them while smoking down the last of his fag. He had somehow earned their attention. Once, they would have regretted attracting his. At his look they all averted their eyes, but continued to snigger and mutter rude things to each other in low voices that he could hear far better than they knew. 

He flicked his cigarette in their direction, landing it dead center on the table amidst the paper cups of bland, Americanized coffee. They looked up as one astonished lump of great dimness, and Spike raised his brows innocently. "Sorry, mates. Didn't see you there." 

One huge slope-crowned wanker slid off his chair and stood flexing beefy muscles. "You think that's funny?" 

"Oh, heavens no," Spike said, dropping his own accent and cadging from Giles a lofty, fruity tone guaranteed to tick off a certain stripe of 'Merican bourgeoisie. He sauntered closer, felt their unease manifest as he stepped smiling into the light. "Pardon, so sorry. Do allow me to tidy that up for you fellows." He reached in for his cigarette, carelessly letting his arm meander and his coat sleeve knock two coffees crotchward. "Good Lord, how clumsy of me!" he apologized, barking a mild, Gilesish laugh of astonishment. Oafs were leaping out of their chairs to avoid the coffee as he stretched his fingers for his fag and sent it skittering lapward, knocking another cup over in a failed fumble to recover it. And now the lot of them were standing, gathering force like a storm. 

"You are so dead, punk," said the lead wanker. 

Spike tipped his head slightly to one side and allowed a smile to ease into his lips. "Dear me," he said, dropping his voice to its oldest, softest charm, "how funny you should--" 

"There you are, honey," said Buffy, grabbing his arm in a meaningful, viselike grip. "Sorry I got caught up chatting," and she was speaking more to the humans than to him, beaming a tight smile all around the table, "You know how it is. Girl talk." 

"Hey, miss," said Big Wank, chest puffing out with earnest rudeness as he eyed her. "This your boyfriend? 'Cause you could do a lot better." 

"Thanks for the advice," said Buffy dismissively, beginning to tug Spike away. 

"No, seriously." And he stepped in their path, persistent as a sidewalk evangelist. Inside, Spike felt everything he was leap to shake its cage, a silent roar trapped behind glass that couldn't give. His body tensed with strain. "I've seen you around," Wank said. "You're all right. I've got a girlfriend, but I could introduce you to plenty of okay guys. We're having a party out at the house tonight. Pi Kappa Alpha. You should come by." 

"I make a point of avoiding the whole beer-and-demons frat scene." 

"You're a sassy one. S'okay. It's cute." 

Spike was trying to disengage himself from Buffy but she wouldn't let go, and struggling with a wisp of girl no one knew as slayer would make him look a prize git, which she was bloody well counting on. He seethed and leaned forward as far as her clinging grip allowed. "Sod off, mate." 

"What is that, pansy code?" asked the oaf. "You want to soh-doh-me?" Over near the table, his watching friends snickered, egging him on. 

"Look, you really need to walk away," Buffy said sharply, and Spike could feel her readying for a fight. Her wind-up-doll pique failed to impress those ignorant of slayer strength, though. 

"Come on, don't be like that--" 

Buffy tried to veer around him, forcing Spike along with her, but the oaf stepped to one side, blocking them again. Exasperated, Spike jabbed ribward hard enough to surprise her, yanked his arm free, and moved chest to chest with his adversary. "Lady isn't interested," he said, the demon kicking at the inside of his skull as pain began to radiate like hairline fractures. He smiled, rolling his cheeks around the sweet taste of rage. "But you have me right pegged. A big, juicy fellow like yourself--real tasty treat to someone like me." He stared into the human's dense eyes and tipped his head, his smile thinning. "What say you give us a kiss?" He vamped and bared his fangs, and the oaf fell back in horror and then ran. Uttering a growl, Spike turned his face to the others, who promptly followed. By the time he'd turned back to Buffy, he'd slipped the mask off and was smiling again, amusement and fury mingling inside him like wine with blood. 

She was standing with arms folded. She'd locked out all expression from her face, but he could hear her heart, like a door slammed over and over. If she'd had a demon, she'd've been wearing it now, she was that pissed. Spike thought she'd tear him a new one on the spot, but she turned and walked away, across the street. He followed, dogging her heels and her hunched shoulders until she abruptly whirled. 

"Go," she said. As if he were in fact a dog. "Just go. Don't follow me. I don't want to see you right now. In fact, I really don't want to see you any time soon." 

Spike's face tightened, and he braced himself with residual anger as fear ripped at him. He was on the verge of saying fine then, giving her the manly tch of dismissal, walking away with his cool intact. 

He was on the verge of falling to his knees in a public street. 

"When, then," he asked quietly, and he put every art he had into presenting honest humility; and such a virtuoso was he at his own masquerade that he didn't even know where art left off and truth began. 

Buffy, silent, teetered between icy winter and the first spring thaw--no more than the hint of it, one peeping leaf on a tree--but he could see it trembling there for him. "I'll let you know," she said at last. And turning, she walked on, his hard-hearted girl in her flowered skirt, and with only that thin line of hope to cling to Spike watched her go, until he was a vampire left standing alone in the middle of the street as a lady with a pram trundled by, smiling down at her child. 

"...and he was all 'Ahh, ahh, my sneaker's on fire!' and Ed was like, 'Throw it in the lake, man, just toss that duck on the water.'" 

Dawn giggled at Kerry's story, while Kerry rambled on between sophisticated drags of her cigarette, blue-tipped fingers curled tightly to her palm. Kerry was always a bit tense. It wasn't entirely clear why, but it probably had something to do with the 'rents. These things always did. Other people's families fascinated Dawn, and she spent a lot of time trying to puzzle them out. Kerry's parents traveled a lot, often leaving their daughter alone. I rule this roost, Kerry liked to say. She drank and smoked and screwed around, and somehow you knew that about her before you even met her, what with the piercings and tufty hair and how she always looked ready to shuck loose of her clothes. She called herself an anarchist. Dawn admired her deeply for having a political vision, and sometimes for the rest. Just for being different, even if some of the difference was kinda skeezy. 

"And most of it ended up in the tree," Kerry went on. "It's still hanging there, but--" 

Dawn, grinning, looked briefly away to keep herself on track and saw Buffy down the street, head ducked, approaching them unawares. "Oh my god," Dawn said, grabbing Kerry's arm. "It's my sister. Hurry, come on." She pulled Kerry into the mouth of an alley and up against the wall. "Shhh," she hissed. They stood there silently for several moments, until Buffy passed by. She didn't notice them lurking, and Dawn had a tiny glimpse of her sister's grim profile and the back of her head before she disappeared. 

"She was supposed to be patro--at the shop," Dawn complained, catching herself mid-gripe and then poking her head out to make sure the coast was clear. They exited the alley, continuing in the opposite direction. "That's weird." 

"You have no concept of weird, honey." Kerry shook her head. 

"Hey, I'm all over weird." Dawn gave her friend a knowing look. "Trust me." She gave a dry little laugh that she felt sure conveyed experience and cynicism, even if she couldn't share the dirty details. Which was too bad. Wistfulness tugged at her as she thought of her secrets. 

Kerry returned her look, smiling condescendingly but not unaffectionately. "Sibs, your brand of weird comes in little home-baked squares. Last week, you were all what's-the-wack when she served spaghetti instead of linguini for dinner." 

"I like linguini," said Dawn defensively. "She knows that." A vague sense of urgency rose with her voice. She had to prove something here. "But that's nothing," she scoffed. "I'm talking about real weird. Big weird. Stuff you can't even imagine. No one can." 

They reached the drugstore and entered as she spoke. Kerry shoved indifferently by a man coming out, who didn't move aside as expected. They bumped and Kerry kept walking, but Dawn gave him a quick apologetic glance. He stared at her a moment, eyes expressionless; he was wearing a trenchcoat belted up tight despite the warm weather, and a hat pulled down low. Frowning, Dawn followed quickly on Kerry's heels. They cut by silent understanding over to the make-up section to investigate the goods. 

"So, anyway," she said. "All I'm saying is, people in this town have no idea what's really going on. Everyone walking around out there, they're like sheep." 

"Yeah," affirmed Kerry, turning over lipsticks to read their names. "Baa baa, bland sheep." She didn't sound as if she were really listening to Dawn. 

Dawn distractedly ran her fingers across the tester compacts and rubbed make-up absently between her fingers, frowning. She shot a sidelong glance at Kerry, took a breath. "So, you've been in Sunnydale a couple years now. Do you...like...ever notice anything strange?" 

"In Sunnydale?" Kerry cracked an amused, contemptuous laugh. "This has got to be the most leave-It-to-Beaver burg I've ever lived in. I can't wait till I graduate. I am gonna be so outta here, girlfriend. Back to San Fran where they know how to party." 

Dawn lowered her head, carefully inspecting a bottle of nail polish as next to her Kerry slipped a lipstick in her pocket. "So, didn't you think it was funny--funny strange, not funny ha-ha--that fourteen kids from our class died last year?" 

Kerry was now putting on some eyeliner in front of a tiny courtesy mirror. "Small town teen suicides. No big surprise," she muttered. "What else you gonna do here except park and drink and shoot yourself." 

"Okay, we're not that small a town and you know those weren't shootings. Not even suicides," Dawn said impatiently. "Plus, hello, remember that time we saw Cheryl Innes, like, two days after she'd been buried?" 

"Sorry, chica. There was too much mall between me and her to tell. But somehow I'm thinkin' Cheryl didn't crawl out of her grave for the Gap's big back-to-school sale." Kerry smiled with satisfaction at her reflection in the mirror, puckered her lips and batted her lashes. 

Dawn sighed and moved closer to confide in a low, intense voice: "If I told you something, a really big thing, would you believe me?" 

Kerry straightened, met her eye with her own strangely blank but curious gaze. "You a dyke? 'Cause it's okay, Dawn. You don't have to be all freaked with me. I'm not into that scene but I totally respect the girl power." 

Rolling her eyes, Dawn said, "No, I'm not gay. And it's bigger than that. It's Twilight Zone big." 

Her friend shrugged. "Okay, spill." 

Pumped up with her own bursting secrets, Dawn held up her hands to preempt any immediate rebuff of scorn. "So, I know this is going to sound crazy. But--" She paused, suddenly wary, as a thought struck her. "Wait, I'm not going to say 'Hey, there are vampires in Sunnydale' and you be all 'Oh, that'? 'Cause I'm not--" 

"Vampires?" Kerry hooted loudly enough to carry across several aisles. "Oh, baby. You are so funny." 

Stung, Dawn crossed her arms. But still, this reaction wasn't entirely unexpected. "You think I'm full of it," she said with a cross of dignity and resignation. 

"Brimming, even." Kerry slid an arm around her shoulder and they walked from the store. 

"It's true," Dawn said, more calmly. "Vampires and demons and werewolves and witches. Real witches. We're living on a Hellmouth and humans are just the Cheez Whiz on its big evil cracker. And," she said with confidence, "I can prove it to you." 

Willow squinted at the latest of several Naciran texts Giles had scanned and sent to her. Her poor computer was overflowing with the damn things. She'd tried to convey the concept of uploading to him, but e-mail was about as advanced as he'd ever gotten. She was storing her own copies online, but new ones kept rolling in overnight, every night. The man was scanner happy. The results were fuzzy at best, and though that was probably not his fault, Willow felt as if she were trying to decipher meaning from row after row of crushed fleas. It wasn't as if she knew how to read Naciran. No one did except the watcher who'd first found the scroll, who unfortunately since then had been discovered painting the walls of his room with his own blood, and locked up for observation. All she had to go by now were some older translations; she'd been trying to compare those texts against the originals, to winkle out some new insight. So far, bupkis. And bupkis to Buffy she did not want to bring. 

She dragged her gaze away from the swimming text as Tara sat down and pushed a bottle of cold tea across the table. Willow thanked her with a wan smile that grew real as she noticed her beautiful girl had pulled her hair back. It set off her neck, showed off the gold pendant that had been her most recent birthday gift. Sometimes Willow just wanted to call time on life, climb into bed with her lover and lie there for hours, soaking up a happiness that would soothe away her worries. 

"How's it coming?" asked Tara, making an inquisitive, sympathetic face. 

"It's coming along in a not sort of way," Willow grumbled. 

Tara twisted out a grin. "A knotty problem, eh." 

"Bad, naughty words." Willow slumped, groaning. "I'm getting all worded out. Whoever taught demons to read and write should have had a second thought, which was, don't. Volunteer for a literacy program, sure, guys, but don't teach the forces of darkness how to write the screenplays of doom." 

"Right," said Tara. "And where's the demon Melville? Or Jane Austen? Was it really worth it?" She sounded earnest, but it was the goofy sort of earnest, which sometimes only Willow got. It was okay, being the only one who got Tara. Just thinking of it tickled her happy bone, her bone of contentment; then Tara began sliding her books into her carry bag. 

Willow felt an immediate tug of regret. "You gotta go?" She hated sitting alone in the shop, with only Anya for company. 

"Mrs Dudley needs me to look after Kirsten tonight." 

Making a face she hoped was eager puppy and not angst puppy, Willow said, "I was thinkin' maybe we could hang. Terminator II is on cable. And, you know, that's a lotta Linda. You wouldn't want to miss that." I am certainly not nervous, she thought. Because that'd be crazy. We're together again and we're good, it's all good. 

Tara closed her bag and smiled at Willow. "You could come over." She sounded inviting to Willow's ears, and yet...maybe there was a little something? A tiny note under that good cheer, of impatience or irritation, buried like a pea under thirteen mattresses; and Willow was no princess and couldn't quite tell, but even the faintest uncertainty made her resist having her suggestion turned around. Tara knew she'd meant hang at Buffy's, where they could cuddle without worrying whether someone would walk in. 

"I always feel funny on the slipcovers," she said to Tara, hating her own stubborn perversity and selfishness, but unable to stop the faint wheedling. "I don't like to be that slippy." She found herself pouting and pulled her lip back into place, telling it to behave. 

"I don't really like to ask Kirsten upstairs to my place," Tara said. She seemed uncomfortable. "I know I probably shouldn't be nervous, but...." 

"No, I know. Plus, boundaries...good. Right?" And she flashed Tara a subdued look that was laden with double meanings and minor guilts, none of which she could control. The words flew from the deepest part of her like dark birds. 

Tara looked at her, said firmly: "Willow." 

"I'm not going to start," Willow said quickly, "I'm just saying, think how great it would be if you came back, and okay I started, but it would be so much better then how things are now, Tara. You wouldn't have to live above a smelly garage and clean other people's slipcovers, and it's not like there's any real kid-watching anymore. Dawn's practically grown now." 

Her face gentling to a rueful look, Tara took Willow's hand and stroked it. "Honey, I know how much you want everything back like it was, but it's not that simple." Her lips parted as she took a visible breath. "You have to earn this." 

Willow tried to hide her hurt, but it came out as grievance. "I'm earning, Tara." 

"Yes, you are," Tara soothed. "You just need to give it time. What will be, will be." 

"I'm not sure a cheery chorus of 'Que Sera Sera' really hits that reassuring note you're looking for, Doris." Sarcasm failed to obscure pain, and Willow's anxiety surfaced further. "And what does that even mean--what if what will be is something bad and lonely and ends in a hovel, me alone with forty cats, and one day I slip in the shower and break my neck and I'm eaten by starving kitties and end up as a freaky blurb in the Weekly World News?" 

Tara asked curiously, humoring her, "Would you ever adopt forty cats?" 

"I might. You don't know how I might turn out, if I...I didn't have you." And why was it, thought Willow, that she kept stripping away layer after layer, laying herself bleeding at Tara's feet, only to receive in return that closed expression, those kind but distant eyes. 

Tara didn't reply to what she'd said except to stand, lean over, kiss Willow's cheek. "Call me later, okay?" She slung her book bag onto her shoulder, and left with one parting glance. 

After she'd vanished with a tinkle of bells and the absence of jasmine, Willow's hand clenched around her bottled tea and she wished she could make a frustrated gesture with it, like throw it across the room. Buffy got to toss knives around the shop, and Spike had been known to kick holes in anything handy when he was pissed. But not Willow, oh no. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been able to cut loose without the risk of someone giving her that nervous, knowing look. As if her anger were something abnormal, more significant than anybody else's. 

"Que sera sera," Willow muttered to herself. She carefully placed the bottle aside, and got up from the table. Anya was over in the corner, repricing herb bags. She paid no mind as Willow went down into the basement. Downstairs, the dimness and clutter was somehow comforting and carried an old smell, dusty cool, not unlike libraries. She wound through the crates and trunks to the corner behind the stairs where the Futon of Sex was tucked away, not far from the trapdoor that led down to the tunnels. After a quick glance around to make sure she was alone, Willow pulled a small bookcase away from the wall and knelt to remove a plastic-wrapped book from within a grated vent. 

She grimaced at the rumpled futon and pulled a blanket down to sit on, then flicked on the standing lamp and curled up with Labrousse's Dark Magicks. She missed it kinda like she missed an old pal, and even if she didn't practice the dark spells any more, it comforted her in an odd way to flip through its pages. Certain spells made her smile with fondness, like looking at recipes for foods you couldn't eat anymore but once loved. And it wasn't that far off, she told herself. Some of the spells weren't even dark spells in the way people thought; just...richer. The tortes of magic, the tira misu. They'd helped so much when her own natural energies had ebbed to their lowest--had helped all her friends too, though her friends didn't like to remember that. 

"'The Far-Sighted Eye,'" she read aloud, reaching the page she knew she'd seen before. "Will bring the bearer visions of consequence and futurity, of actions taken or untaken." She bit her lip and then worried it between her teeth as she read through the ingredients and the casting. She'd never tried this one before, though tempted. Now, though...she had to. Had to know how it turned out with her and Tara. Would they work? Really--was it worth even trying, going on like this, like a turtle of pain and heartbreak crawling along blindly toward what might end up to be a freeway, when she could know for sure? 

One little dip into that old black magic, after all this time, couldn't hurt.

She put the book down and dug her cache of ingredients from the vent, sitting down on the floor with book and box and working slowly through the recipe. Draw the power circle in sand, burn seven red candles, toss one pinch of salt, one sage, and a few more elements less savory, while saying, 

"I offer to Czaradian this salt / Your powers buy, with reverence exalt / With sage I burn away the veil I see / To bring your wiser vision into me / With blood I show my will and heart be true / And offer this my body unto you / With eyes of mindless sacrifice and vow / I beseech thee: fly your presence to me now--" 

She gasped as the candles flared and the cold snake of spirit filled her, winding behind her eyes and through her head, to settle there as a face fitted behind her own. 

Czaradian, she said with her mind, reaching out tentatively. 

Greetings, supplicant, the spirit said in a low, ominous rumble of thought. It paused before adding more lightly: Feel free to call me Czar, by the way. 

Kerry had a bored look on her face as Dawn dragged her across the graveyard. 

"We're not here to tip gravestones, are we? Because, lameness." 

"No," said Dawn impatiently. "Just come on." She let go Kerry's hand and stepped up to the entrance of the crypt, then hesitated. She'd seen her sister go home, though, so they weren't likely to be interrupting any hard-core porn. She looked over her shoulder at Kerry, who was staring back skeptically, then turned back to the door. She almost knocked. It was polite, and for some reason Spike's place felt more like a house nowadays. Instead, she pushed open the door and craned her neck around. 

He was sitting sprawled back in his ratty chair, one leg tossed over the arm, a half-full bottle of Jack Daniels between his legs, a cigarette wedged between his white fingers. It was dark except for the television, which cast flickering light across the floor and him. He didn't turn his head. "Wondered if you were gonna stand there all night, sweet pea." 

She opened the door further and beckoned Kerry inside. "Hey, Spike." 

Spike inspected her with a lazy, drunken lack of interest, then caught sight of Kerry. After a moment's startlement, he returned an accusatory look to Dawn. "What's this, Girl Scout drive?" he asked, with an undertone of warning. "I'll take two boxes of Thin Mints then, and you can run along, kiddies." 

"Cool," Kerry said, wandering around the crypt and inspecting its contents. She sounded marginally less bored. "So this is your vampire, huh. Nice wannabe pad, I admit. Very goth." 

Dawn gave a silent, imploring look to Spike, who was gritting his teeth. "I'll have you know I pre-date goth, girlie." He glowered up at Kerry as she walked obliviously past the television to investigate a huge candelabra. "I am the bloody grandfather of goth." 

"You really believe it, don't you?" Kerry said, turning around to look at Spike sympathetically. "That's so sad." 

"He is," said Dawn, aggrieved on his behalf, and on her own. "I mean, not sad, but--Spike, show her," she pleaded. "You know." And even though she'd known him for years and was used to all his scowls, she faltered slightly under his hard, cold gaze. "Go bumpy." 

"This what I am now, a sodding sideshow?" He straightened in his chair, a thought passing across his face. "Here. What is this? Buffy send you here?" Even angrier, he stood and tossed his bottle aside, smashing it against the stone sarcophagus. Dawn jumped in her skin. "Well, you can go back to her, Little Bit, and tell her to take her tests and shove them up her bloody--" Spike's jaw worked abruptly as he fought for self-mastery, still gazing hard into Dawn's eyes in a way that made her bones go cold and strange aches fire up elsewhere. 

"Get out of here," he finally said. "And take this ignorant bint with you." Spike walked away, then paused by a pillar to growl back at her more forcefully: "And watch you don't get yourself killed on the way home, or I'll beat the life right back into your useless scrap of a mangled corpse if it's the last thing I do before your sis rips my head off." 

Dawn heard him cursing as he descended into the privacy below. Cheeks flushed, she snuck an embarrassed glance at her friend. "Sorry," she muttered. "He's in a bad mood. They must have had a fight." 

Kerry raised her brows. "Dates your sister, huh? Wow. Blondie's got a bit more wild-side going on than I gave her credit for." 

"You don't even know," Dawn agreed glumly. 

Willow glanced up the stairs as she came in, hearing faint sounds that suggested Buffy was home. She looked into the mirror by the front door, self-consciously touching her temple and then smoothing a lock of rumpled hair. Her eyes looked big and dreamy, but they were her own. 

So, she said to Czar, I just what--do something or don't do something, and I see a vision of what will be or won't be? 

There was a heavy sigh, which gusted like a wind through her head: The brains of your race are really very simple devices, not far above that of cows, if you would know the truth. One would think it a simple matter of imprinting a thought there once, to achieve a permanent record. And yet the imprint decays so ridiculously fast. I never cease to be amazed. 

Willow made a face at herself in the mirror, thought defensively: Well, I'm a bit distracted, you know. You shifting around in my brain like jello in a mold, while my heart is all twisty, and my tummy growling. There's a lot happenin' tonight in the Willow hood. 

She felt the spirit soften a bit, though grudgingly: As I said. As your volition engages to act, so then will you see the moment branch: what will be if you make that choice, what will be if you do not. You will see the events most likely to occur. 

This wasn't quite the spell I thought it was, Willow grumbled inwardly. I thought it'd be all cool, like a mental View-Master, and I could just flip through and see what was going to happen from this point. 

What is a View-Mast...oh, I see. You are a very silly creature. 

Am not, thought Willow. 

Are too. 

Am not! 

"You okay, Will?" 

Willow jumped as Buffy appeared at her shoulder, a slight worried crease between her brows. "Wha-what? Oh, fine, yes. Good. Fabulous, even." Willow cleared her throat nervously after that demonstration of perky artifice. 

Buffy peered closely at her. "Something wrong with your face? You were all squinty there for a minute. You didn't even hear me calling you." 

"I, uh, thought I was getting a bump. A zit." Willow paused while Buffy stared rather blankly at her. "I'm not," she clarified. 

"Well, good." Buffy turned and walked to the kitchen, and Willow followed, noticing the house's quiet; no television on, no radios squawking down from above. 

"Where's Dawn?" 

"At Kerry's. She called a little while ago. It's just you and me tonight." In the kitchen, Buffy opened a cupboard and stared inside, wearing a look that said she was knowing the inexorable sadness of pasta. 

"How about pizza?" Willow pulled a flyer from the junk drawer and set it next to the phone. "A very ham-and-pineapple evening it could be, with thee and me." And thee again makes three, she thought as Czar murmured: Get anchovies. 

"Pizza. I guess I could go for that." There seemed to be a certain forced cheer in Buffy's voice that matched Willow's own, and the idea of pizza gained points; pizza was for bonding and talking and maybe they both had something to say. 

Willow put her hand on the phone and then froze as visions flashed through her: 

She picked up the phone and dialed, the pizza came delivered by a heavy, freckled boy in a red cap, and they sat in the living room and ate it, Buffy lifting a gooey slice to her mouth at the same moment as Willow, both of them with eyes fixed to Terminator II... 

...or she put the flyer back in the drawer and shook her head, and Buffy took a can of soup from the cupboard, and the scene shifted as Buffy removed a pan from the stove and poured it into two bowls on the counter. Lifting them, she gasped a soundless "Ow!" at one overly hot bowl, and it slipped from her grasp and clattered to the floor, breaking to spill soup across the tiles, barely missing her shoes as she jumped back. 

It must have been only a split second, because Willow came back to find herself standing in the same spot with her hand on the phone, and Buffy still walking toward her to look over the flyer. One step to the next was all that had elapsed. 

"Medium or large?" Buffy appeared to be examining the prices. 

"You know," Willow said slowly, "I don't think I'm really in the mood for pizza after all." Because, after all, she had to test the power, didn't she. 

Buffy put the flyer away. "Yeah, to be honest, it's a little heavy for me. I'm not that hungry. I was thinking soup--you want some?" 

"Sure," said Willow. She sat down on a stool and watched as Buffy readied dinner. 

Czar said: I prefer not to comment on how supplicants use their gifts, but truly I can say that never before have I traveled the distance of the ether and gifted one with my mighty powers to determine the fate of soup. 

Shut up, said Willow. Remember, I can kick you out any time. 

How fast their veneration fades, sighed Czar. 

The scent of vegetable soup spiraled into the air, and the kitchen was warmer. Willow held her breath watchfully as Buffy turned from the stove, a towel around the pot handle, and carefully poured the soup into waiting bowls. She set the pot back on the stove, slid a spoon into each bowl, and then lifted them, speaking as she did. "There's some stuff on the dining room ta--ow!" One bowl fell as Buffy winced, and there was crashing and soup flying and Buffy jumping, and Willow laughed once with delighted amazement at the happeningness of it all. 

Buffy for her sake looked equally amazed. "So glad my spaz is funny to you, Will. Maybe I should reconsider a career in sitcoms." 

"I'm sorry," Willow said at once, almost entirely sincere. "Here, I'll clean that up." She took the paper towels from Buffy's hand. "I was just...having a, uh, funny thought; kinda struck me out of the blue. Nothing to do with the soupy tragedy that is your floor." 

"Ohh," Buffy groaned mildly, bending over and brushing a wad of towels over herself. "Make that the soupy tragedy that is this skirt." 

"Oh," Willow echoed, feeling more guilty. 

"Hey, any chance you can do me a favor and run by the dry-cleaner's tomorrow on your way to school? I don't know how it happens, but I'm down again to clothes that should be burned, not worn." 

Willow opened her mouth to answer, and the visions struck her: 

She said yes, and tomorrow morning left the house with a handful of clothes draped over her arm. After parking outside the cleaner's, she scrounged for change in her wallet, found none, and dashed inside leaving the car parked at the meter. When she returned, a meter maid was writing her a ticket... 

...or she said no, and Buffy arrived outside the dry-cleaner's with messy hair and a bundle of clothes spilling from her arms, wearing a wrinkled, red-and-white striped shirt and orange stretch pants. A shirt fell and Buffy swore something in irritation and squatted awkwardly to retrieve it, then glanced up as two pairs of nyloned legs came into view, belonging to two old high-school classmates in businessgirl chic. As they passed they looked loftily down at her ensemble, and laughed to each other with pointed rudeness. 

"Um, I'm going to be pretty busy all day tomorrow," said Willow, as she was snapped back to attention. "I have to run some errands so I won't be going the usual way in the morning, and I, I think I'll be staying late at the library. Sorry." 

"Oh. Well, that's okay. No big." 

Her guilt only extended so far, Willow decided. Besides, someone still deserved a little slice of payback for certain recent remarks about Wiccas and candles. 

Spiteful little witch, aren't you, Czar commented blandly. 

Am not! 

Are too. 

Later, lying on her bed after the remake of dinner and a non-existent conversation with a preoccupied Buffy, Willow thought about Tara. She rolled over on her side and stared at the clock, behind which stood a picture of her and Tara, arms around each other, heads tipped close. Nearly nine-thirty. The movie had already started, and Tara was probably watching it with Kirsten. Or not. Maybe that was a bit heavy-duty for a twelve year old, now that she thought about it. She could call, though, hear Tara's warm voice lapping against her lonely ear, and maybe go over there to hang for a while. The night could still have some goodness. 

Willow reached out and picked up the cordless phone and felt the already familiar frisson of possibility in her head, visions like doors opening: 

She called Tara, her own face happy as she hung up, and then a flash as she appeared at the door, Tara opening it to greet her, smiling. Flash as they sat together on the couch watching television, Kirsten lying on the floor in front of them. Flash as Willow attempted to cuddle and Tara drew gently away. And flash, flash, flash, as they fought, in the Dudleys' kitchen, outside on the grass, and in Tara's apartment. A whole sickening series of shots, like boxcars collapsing in a train wreck: Willow's angry face as she yelled, Tara's angry face as she responded, Willow crying, Tara crying too, and Willow finally running out the door, leaving Tara alone with tears on her cheeks as she raised a hand to wipe them away... 

...and she didn't call Tara. And Tara watched television with Kirsten, and the Dudleys came home with smiles and thanks, and Tara went up to her room and lay on her bed and stared, head on pillow, at her own unringing phone. 

Willow returned to the moment, and carefully set the phone back on the table. 

The outside of the apartment building was sedate at this time of night, suggesting a residence where young professional couples dwelled adjacent in rooms of reserved politeness, directing their tidy lives toward the milestones of adulthood. 

"Watch it, watch it," Anya cried, incensed. "How dare you! Oh! Get your wheel away from mine!" She leaned to one side as they veered around the curve, her hands working furiously at her controller. Xander leaned with her, his own hands busy, and for a moment they battled in grim silence on the couch, each trying to take the lead, then abruptly both lurched in the opposite direction. Both wore looks of extreme concentration as they stared at the screen, though Anya's was a bit more maniacal. "You're going to make me crash!" she cried. 

"An, this is competitive racing." Xander forced the words out through tight lips, which then parted in excitement as he caught her wheel and sent her spinning across the road. "Ha ha!" he laughed in triumph. 

"You bastard!" 

She flung her controller down, outraged, and then pounded her fists on her knees and stamped her feet. "Argh," she yelled rather loudly, then slumped. "I get all worked up! And then I crash! And you don't even stop to see if I'm okay, you just drive on, so like a man, always trying to be somewhere in a big hurry." 

"And again, I say: racing," Xander said to the television, eyes fixed to its sweet curves. "But now I am a man alone. Alone in my car...on the open road...the bodies of friend and foe alike lying in scattered pieces behind me as I head west. Or maybe southwest." 

She took the controller from him--at first he resisted but after a protracted struggle she finally wrested it free and threw it aside on the floor. He looked at her wild eyes and she looked back at him, and he looked at her lips and licked his own, and she looked at his lips and hers parted in answer, and as he looked up into her eyes, she looked up again into his. 

"You magnificent bastard," Anya said, and pounced on him breathlessly. 

Willow hadn't been able to sleep, thinking of Tara. Buffy had left to patrol, and Dawn seemed to be spending the night at Kerry's, and somehow Willow feared that in her solitude she might still pick up the phone, give in and call. Apparently she and Tara had a lot to say to each other that was going unsaid. Hard to tell what--she hadn't been able to hear any sound, so she didn't even know what she had been yelling, let alone Tara. She'd desperately wanted to learn those potential words, though, without actually hearing them in reality. If she knew the possibilities, she could do better than avoid this one fight: she could avoid any fights. 

She'd tried the vision thing a few times again, picking up the phone; yet the images remained essentially the same, with only minor variations, all of them violent and silent, like an old-time movie, but without dialogue cards. Lip-reading had also failed. 

I am eyes only, Czar had said. 

And loneliness had led her thoughts in circles--pick up the phone, don't pick up the phone--so she'd run away from temptation. She hadn't even wanted to phone anyone else. Too risky. Now she approached Xander's door, hoping he wasn't asleep yet, and wishing even more strongly that Anya was, so that Willow could sit and talk with her oldest friend alone, have him say just the right things, as he always did when there were no big evils distracting them both, or coming between them. He was the stalwart guy friend, the one who made you feel special and amazing even when everyone else looked at you and looked away. 

She raised her hand to knock on the door and heard a happy shriek from inside, answered by Xander's slightly deeper laugh. And as she hesitated with her knuckles one inch from the door, the prelude of vision seized her mind. She groaned. "Oh, fu--" 

And she saw herself turning away, and going home, and inside the apartment Xander and Anya rolled with a thump to the floor and grappled, shoving aside each other's clothes in haste, and Willow had one sharp flash of Anya with her head thrown back in a soundless cry, and then the other woman's head dipped forward again with the gentlest smile as she looked down, down along her body in its blue dress to where her hands cupped around a huge belly. And she looked up, face anxious and in pain, from the flat moving surface of a gurney, and Xander was running at its side, holding her hand, and they were en route to birth, except that the darkness of Anya's face was not normal, not quite, and Willow fell deeper into the vision at the stark terror in Anya's eyes, and in Xander's, his face coming undone like she'd never seen it before, beyond panic, beyond pain, in someplace that was his worst nightmare coming real, and he stood there in lost shock as the doctor came from the operating room and dropped his mask and shook his head, a dark stain on dark blue scrubs, and then Anya wept in despair, in Xander's arms, her face crumpling with tears and open sobs as he held her... 

...and Willow knocked, and they sat on the couch and watched television, and ate popcorn, and Anya's eyes sent daggers her way until the moment when she flounced off, leaving Willow on the couch gripping Xander's hand, begging him to stay with her, to talk, because she needed him so much right now, she needed to talk tonight, no, don't go to bed, Xander, don't go to bed. 

Willow gasped as she was thrown free of the vision, and frantically raised her hands to the door and pounded with fists and then flat palms, then jabbed her shaking finger at the doorbell over and over again, crying out loudly, "Xander! Anya! Let me in!" 

Tears trembled in her eyes and spilled, and she couldn't hear anything over her own noise, but the door abruptly opened and Xander stood there with shirt undone. He looked at her for one moment in stunned incomprehension, then pulled her quickly inside. And Willow with wild gaze scanned him up and down, taking in the half-zipped zipper and unbelted belt, and she looked desperately over at Anya, who was standing up and smoothing her hair with an expression that managed to be both alarmed and annoyed. 

"God, Will, what is it, what is it? Are you okay?" Xander took hold of her upper arms a bit too strongly. "Is it Buffy--Tara--what's happened?" 

She fell into his arms, crushing herself against his chest as if her heart would break. "No, it's me, it's me, it's just me." 

And she prayed that it was not already broken. 

Buffy had not gone to his cemetery to slay that night. And she'd told him to leave her alone, until she was ready, so there was no reason to expect him anywhere else. But as she walked across the grass, she found herself looking around, as if he might step out from behind a tree or tomb, smoking and watchful, keeping careful distance but giving her his protection. 

She dragged her fingertips along the curved heads of gravestones as she passed, some rough glittery marble, some smooth, and she didn't look down. She was alone. So what? Didn't mean she had to be lonely. And she could slay all by herself. That was what slayers did, after all. It was a long one-woman tradition, and she'd had it good, fighting alongside vampires and friends, but it was okay to be here now, alone. Like Superman, in his Fortress of Solitude. Except hers was a big cemetery filled with dead people, and with-- 

Him. Over by the side of a small but fancy crypt. A long black coat, a striking blond head of hair, bent over something (lighting a cigarette) or someone (no, never again). 

"Spike," she said, halting as uncertainty and fear twisted her gut. 

And it turned, holding its prey at arm's distance with casual disdain, and was not. Not Spike, but an utterly different vampire with uglier game face and a tee-shirt that said, "Lumberjacks Do It with Big Wood." The vamp snarled and the girl--dinner was a girl--whimpered. Even from yards away Buffy could see a small trickle of blood dribbling down her neck, but she looked livable. 

"Hey," said Buffy, tilting her neck and pointing to her jugular. "One hundred eighty proof, right here. Slayer, straight up. C'mon." She smiled invitingly. "You know you want it." 

The vamp dropped the girl, and came for Buffy at a furious lope. Up close she didn't know how she'd ever mistaken him for Spike, but the passing likeness and her own moment of fear lent some kind of special rage to her fighting. Lashing out, she kicked high and hard on a spin and sent the creature staggering back, then turned without stopping and leapt at him, both feet, with a gravity-defying force that wowed even her sometimes. She landed back on her feet and threw herself on his fallen form, plunging her stake in his chest as she landed. Left straddling dust, she rose and brushed herself off and went to the girl's side. 

"Hey. You okay?" She kept her tone brisk. The girl was wearing a pink shirt, for god's sake, and had come to a cemetery, probably to make out with the lumberjack. She helped the girl up, noting the glazed eyes and pasty face. Shock. "Okay," sighed Buffy. "Just take it one step at a time." She was dead weight as Buffy supported her and began walking streetward through the graves. But at least not dead. 

Looking up to make sure she wasn't leading them smack into a tree, Buffy saw two figures standing by the railed fence, watching her. She thought at first they were vamps, but something was off. They wore identical outfits, grey trenchcoats with old-fashioned suits underneath, and--wait, she knew the word--fedoras. That was it. Under the brims of their hats, their faces were nearly identical, too, and sort of wrongly dark, like they might be green or grey if there was enough light to tell. Demons, she thought. One of them was scribbling in a small notebook; the other had its hands or whatever else might be down there shoved in its pockets. 

"Hello," Buffy called, "Not signing any autographs tonight, but I could use some help here." She didn't really think they were autograph hounds, but they were just standing there out in the open watching her walk toward them, and she had to say something. 

At her words, they looked at each other, then the writer flipped his notebook shut, tucked it in his pocket, and walked off, followed by his companion. They strolled unhurriedly through the open gate and down the sidewalk, and Buffy, curiosity piqued, tried to hasten after them despite the burden of Shock Girl. By the time she reached the street, though, they were gone. 

In the early morning as the birds twittered, Dawn unlocked the front door and stepped quietly inside. No big need to feel guilty, 'cause she'd called to check in, no matter that it was from a pay phone, and she'd legitimately spent the night at Kerry's instead of going with her to the river like they'd first talked about. So she'd stayed on the marginal side of good. And yet she still felt like Buffy might take one look at her face and read all her secrets there. 

She looked to both sides as she passed the living and dining rooms, but no big sister. She bounded upstairs. Buffy was coming out of her room carrying a full laundry basket and wearing a hideous red and white striped shirt and orange stretch pants. 

Looking her up and down with exaggerated marvel, Dawn shook her head. "Wow, did someone mug you and steal your fashion sense? I bet they feel gypped." 

"Ha ha." Buffy sniffed at her. "You smell like cigarette smoke." 

Dawn tried not to stiffen. "Well, you know Kerry. Pack a day. I tell her, 'Smoking Kills,' but she's all, 'So does life.'" 

"She's a proper little nihilist, isn't she," said Buffy sourly, propping her laundry basket on one hip. 

"She's an anarchist," corrected Dawn, defending her. "She believes in dismantling the capitalist state." 

Buffy raised her brows. "Uh huh. 'Cause we'd all be so much better off, roaming free with the deer and the bunnies and, oh, the big pretty demons." 

Dawn rolled her eyes. "I didn't say I agreed with her. At least she has a philosophy." 

"I have a philosophy," began Buffy brightly. 

"Yeah," Dawn snarked, cutting off the sisterly wisdom, "Kill monsters. That's not a philosophy, that's a reaction." 

That earned her a moment's startled look, and a strange frown. "My philosophy is far more complex," Buffy replied after a moment, resuming a brighter surface. "Kill monsters. Eat the vegetables first. No white shoes after Labor Day." 

Dawn had to smile a little. "I gotta change before school," she said, but she hesitated a moment, added, "Thanks for letting me stay at Kerry's last night, on a school night and all." 

"Well, the occasional school-night homework and toenail-painting session wasn't exactly unheard of back in the day," Buffy admitted. "It seems only right to keep up a grand Summers tradition." 

"I always thought 'homework' meant 'demonology'," Dawn said dryly, "and 'toenail-painting' meant...okay, well that probably meant toenail-painting. 'Cause you always have nice toes." 

The look on Buffy's face was pricelessly sweet, and made Dawn wish she said things like that more often. "Thank you," said her sister with genuine warmth, and a tiny bit of humor in her lips, as if she were aware that her pride was silly but was indulging it anyway. And she stroked Dawn's face as she walked by on her way downstairs. 

Feeling more guilty than when she'd first arrived home, Dawn went into her room, shut the door behind her, and dug a pack of cigarettes from her purse. She looked around for a place to hide them. Dresser, no. Mattress, tch, right. Closet...maybe. She found her battered old Thundercats lunchbox on the top shelf and tucked the pack inside under a handful of letters and postcards. Once the evidence was stashed, she felt much safer. 

Willow took care to shut the door behind her quietly. Even though everyone was probably up, she felt like a morning mouse, with a need to tread light. She slid her jacket off and hung it on a peg. She didn't look into the mirror as she walked by. 

Minutes later as she was eating a bagel and tracking the daily murder count in the newspaper, Buffy came and sat down with a cup of coffee. She was wearing the Outfit of Shame, and its blinding stripes struck Willow with fresh guilt. The edges of her friend's everyday face suggested tiredness, or maybe something else. Buffy could be hard to read, not unlike her own face in the mirror. Misery came in so many subtle flavors for them, in Sunnydale. 

"Hey," Willow said. 

"Morning." Buffy doled out a little smile. "You stay over at Tara's?" 

Willow flinched momentarily, but the question held only the innocent interest of someone who followed other people's love lives to compensate for her own. 

"No," she said quietly. She folded the newspaper back into neat sections. "I, uh, went over to Xander's. Hung out, ended up sleeping on the couch." Wakefully, listening for squeaky mattress springs and moans, until she dropped into fitful nightmares that she forgot the instant she opened her eyes and Czar said: Good morning. In the hallway before she left, Willow had buttonholed Xander and worked up the courage to deliver a stuttering, discursive lecture on safe sex, which unsurprisingly had not gone over too well, though at least she could say that she'd confused him more than annoyed him. 

Her horoscope advised: You should plan a small intimate dinner for two. 

Yeah, her day was off to a great start. 

"I saw something in the cemetery last night--Peaceful Acres." 

Glad for something other than her own troubles to think about, Willow shoved the newspaper aside and cradled her coffee mug. "What kind of something?" 

Buffy hesitated, ducking her lashes in slight abstraction as she searched her memory. "I don't really know. Maybe it's nothing. There were these two guys--demons, I'm pretty sure. I think they were there when I dusted this vamp. One of them was taking notes, kinda like a watcher. They took off when I called to them. I couldn't follow; I had a girl attached to my hip." 

Willow felt a touch of amusement. "Oh?" she teased. 

"Shock and blood loss, and stop thinking those thoughts." Buffy smiled. 

"I'm telling ya--you ever want to convert, sister, I get a new toaster oven for making the recruit. And you get a plaque with your name on it, plus a button to wear." Willow grinned, enjoying the moment, then got serious again. "So was there anything else distinctive about these guys?" 

"No, not rea--oh, they were wearing fedoras. And trenchcoats." 

Willow frowned. "Okay. That's quirky. I'll try and find out something. Look through the Big Book of Baddies, see if anything jumps out at me. In the non-literal sense." She made a mental note, then eyed Buffy, who was sitting with head tilted to one side and downcast, staring at the patterns in the tablecloth, as if they hadn't just been talking. Brooding, she looked as if she were completely alone. As if she might not notice if Willow got up and left, now that her purpose had been fulfilled. 

"Was there something else?" Willow asked, torn between gentleness and a slight annoyance. It was an impression she sometimes had, that she was peripheral to Buffy's life; an accessory, like Witchy Willow, pal to Slayer Barbie, now sold separately. But maybe that self-absorption was just the slayer curse, the one that balanced out the selfless deeds. 

Whatever the case, she should have been used to it by now. 

"What?" Buffy said, looking up in brief surprise as she was drawn from preoccupation. "Oh. No. Sorry." She paused. "I mean...yes. Not about the demon guys but," she faltered, "about another demon guy." Her gaze flicked over Willow's as if checking for approval there before broaching the subject. 

"Spike," Willow said noncommittally. 

"Yeah." Buffy paused again, as if unsure what to say, or how to say it. 

"You two have a fight?" 

An annoyed frown dug in between Buffy's brows. "Why does everyone assume we've had a fight whenever he's not around? It's like all this last week, 'Oh, where's Spike, you two have a fight?'" 

"Maybe," Willow suggested, "It's 'cause you do? I mean, that's usually the reason." She offered a squinchy face that wasn't actually apology, but matter-of-factness. "But okay, you didn't have a fight." 

"No, we had a fight," Buffy grumbled. "Some jerky guys were ribbing us, and he got all Mister Macho Vamp, up in this one guy's face, and I swear to god, Will, he reminded me so much of Angel right then, I wanted to--" She broke off, steaming. "And Riley, too, which I know sounds crazy." She shook her head once. "I want to blame him, have it be a Spike thing. But it must be a guy thing, all that testosterone." 

"Well, setting aside the trickier question of vamp biology," and how much I'd like to blame it on Spike, she thought, "I'd say yeah." Willow tipped a half-smile at her friend, lifted her brows. "Men gotta be men." And slayers had to be slayers, in a way that wasn't very different, but that wouldn't be helpful to point out, she suspected. "They got that inner wolf." 

"Unfortunately Spike has an inner something else, and it went outer." Buffy's eyes glanced off Willow's. "He vamped right there in front of the coffee shop, with kids all around." 

"Oh," said Willow, as she understood now. "Oh dear." 

"It was quick," said Buffy, staring into her coffee cup, eyes lost again. "But it...it really hit me. That I," she seemed to consider her words with care, "I couldn't trust him not to do that again. And there's the chip, but...I don't know. We were in the middle of town, and everyone was so normal, except for him and me. And I'm never going to be the full normal, but maybe I'm not even giving myself a chance. I don't want to be someone who ignores the signs, who can't see when the corner has been turned, when it's just a dead end ahead." 

She looked at Willow, face stripped of surface, showing everything that trembled inside her. Confusion deeper than anxiety. "What am I doing, Will? I mean, god, is it just time to let go?" 

She wasn't fishing for mere advice, it was more than that; she was inviting full-scale intervention, and as the question left Buffy's lips, Willow felt relief. You waited for this kind of opportunity, to say what needed to be said to someone who hadn't been ready or able to hear it before. It was the friend moment, when you could return favors owed, and as Willow's lips parted to speak, 

A sheet of light flashed across her mind's eye. 

And she said to Buffy, watching her own lips move, her head nod firmly: Walk away. Walk away from him, Buffy. He's wrong, this is wrong, and it needs to stop. Buffy's face altered as she finally got the truth and, shockingly, began to cry. And in a flash forward, Willow saw Buffy enter Spike's crypt, saw them face to face, Spike's raw and disbelieving, Buffy's hard, and then time accelerated, whipping her along, flashes of sight arriving like stations passed in a subway car: the two of them fighting among broken gravestones--as Spike fell to his knees in helpless tears, face battered, while Buffy turned and walked away--to the empty crypt cellar, where she stared at his abandoned bed--to the magic shop where she sat alone reading, strange emptiness in her eyes as she glanced up--and worked over the punching bag with frantic blows--fists lashing out as if into Willow's own inner eyes, sending her reeling back as Buffy spun and kicked one vamp, dusted another, face grim and then increasingly scared as she looked around and found herself surrounded not by one more vampire or three, but a dozen. Willow wanted to tell her to run, and Buffy as if hearing her tried, but was cut off. So she fought. Fought until she was staggering, until the moment when she realized this was it, her last battle, that knowledge passing across her face as a hand cut off her silent gasp, drew her head back against one shoulder. The vampire's fangs bared in a smile before it drank, and--and Buffy still had fight left in her, Willow could see it--her face wasn't tired with surrender, but tough, wavering only as if she struggled with some decision. She clenched a stake, flexing up...then paused and lowered her hand again, and let the stake fall, and everything Willow thought she'd believed and understood fell with it, a cracking wrongness as if the stake pierced her own heart, as Buffy relaxed to wait, her breath hitching in slower rhythms, as something within her eyes began moving slowly away, then left those rooms empty... 

...and she shook her head, covered Buffy's hand with her own, said something that made Buffy look bemused, dubious, and finally somewhat reassured. And Spike walked into his crypt and pulled a taped note from the television and read it carefully as a tiny smile broke across his lips, and he drew Buffy close outside the Bronze to kiss her, and Buffy arched her neck back and rested her head against his shoulder, her own shoulders bare, her face lost in ecstasy as Spike, vamping, traced with his fangs the curve of her neck where it pulsed, and then a whiter, almost blinding flash broke, and she saw Spike in strange uniform, standing boots-deep in a landscape of snow under a broad, pearly grey sky, gesturing urgently with arm outstretched as Buffy raced to him--but no cemetery, no fight, no death, nothing but the two of them together in a vision Willow wished she'd never seen. 

A vision she tumbled out of, feeling that lives had passed and too much was now known; but Buffy was still looking at her expectantly in the moment she'd left, eyes asking her help. Willow touched her cheek by reflex and found it dry of tears. It wasn't grief she felt, exactly, but horror and confusion. 

Anything is possible, Czar whispered seductively, suggestively. Even if some paths are more likely than others. 

Too much, thought Willow, as she began stammering out an answer, playing for time. "I think...I think..." Too much responsibility, having Buffy precariously balanced between life and death and hanging on her next words. How could her words, ordinary non-witchy words, have that much power? Maybe she could just say: Buffy, you need to make up your own mind. 

She looked into Buffy's eyes, which held a vulnerability and trust she rarely revealed anymore, to anyone. 

"I think...you need to make up your own mind," Willow said with uncertainty, but fear gripped her as Buffy's expression began to alter, like a door slowly shutting. "When it, when it comes down to it," she added quickly. "But, but..." And, oh god, oh god, she thought with fluttering panic, what the hell was she thinking, this was life and death. But what could she say? What had she said to Buffy in the vision, to make her go to him? I got nothing, thought Willow, turning out her mental pockets and finding them empty. No argument presented itself to her that would let Buffy take Spike back, because she didn't want that for her friend. 

She didn't want death, either. 

"But what?" 

"Th-th-this normal thing," Willow stammered, words tumbling out from somewhere as she tried not to hyperventilate. "This thing you want so bad, Buffy. I gotta say, you know, the time might have come to let that--to let that go. Is what I'm thinking," she added lamely. At the puzzled look on Buffy's face, she struggled on. "It's like you have this dream, from when you were, like, fourteen, and your dad and mom were fighting and you wanted everything to be back the way it was. And you'd probably be messed up if it was only that, anyone would be. But now you're the slayer, and it's like you want everything to be all la la la, pink houses and happy kids and, and, and--" 

Anchovies, said Czar, as she floundered for a word. 

"--anchovies," finished Willow, then corrected herself with a sigh of impatience: "Not anchovies. Cookies, or, or something. Perfectly round little cookies, all the same size." 

"Cookies," repeated Buffy, confused. 

"I'm saying," Willow took Buffy's hands, truth springing up from where she hadn't expected it, "You want normal, but no one's normal. Not even the normal people are normal, Buffy. They drink and fight and cheat on each other. They hurt each other. And some of them aren't much better than demons. And, you know, look at me. I'm not normal. I'm gay and a witch and sometimes I do stupid things like drink too much. I don't fit in either. None of us do." Willow squeezed Buffy's hands. 

"So, wait," Buffy said skeptically, and her blonde hair bobbed a bit, to go along with the boggle. "You're saying that I should stay with him?" 

"Well at this point, what's the big?" said Willow, evading a direct answer and not believing her own flippant rhetoric. She was angry on some level, but she was trapped by her knowledge; it wasn't as if she could test this. 

"What's the big?" Buffy repeated in amazement. "Are you sure you're Willow?" 

"Uh, yes?" Willow, thrown off guard, blinked. "Yes." 

"You should never have to think about that question," Buffy warned, voice dry but not entirely joking. 

"I'm not thinking. I'm saying, yes, all right, it's a big, and I want you to be happy, which is not something Spike brings to mind. But at least he can protect you, and he cares. It's weird, and I know maybe I haven't said it before, but I, I worry less when you guys patrol together." 

Buffy grimaced a little, but her face had softened with what might be resignation. "So, what, I have a relationship based on sex and violence? How very R-rated of me." 

"Buffy...you're not just noticing that now, are you?" Willow wondered in amazed alarm. At Buffy's answering expression, she had to smile. 

"Oh god," Buffy muttered, gently drawing her hands away. "This is all so--" 

"Hey," said Dawn, arriving in the doorway and chewing a Pop-Tart. She looked back and forth between their startled faces and seemed to realize she'd walked in on something. "So, uh, who's taking me to school?" 

Buffy rebuilt her control and straightened in her chair. "I am. Willow has some errands to run. Let me just grab my dry-cleaning--" 

"No," said Willow suddenly. 

Raising her brows in doubt, Buffy said, "Or I could just be wacky, clown-girl Buffy." 

"No, I--I don't have any errands any more," said Willow. "I'll take the clothes to the cleaners, drop Dawn off." 

"Thanks, Will." 

If I can make a vision come untrue, Willow said to Czar, maybe other possibilities aren't so impossible. 

Wake me for the exciting moment, Czar said sourly. 

Willow grabbed her wallet and checked it as she left the house with Dawn, jingling the change. As they drove, Dawn rambled on about friends and classes and the horror of Friday meatloaf, while Willow stared tiredly at the sun glancing off the windshield, its light not unlike the flash of visions arriving, like light on new coins, and as they pulled up to the school Dawn said, "Oh no." She patted her pockets, groaning. "I forgot my lunch money." She turned an expectant face at Willow. "Can I scam a few bucks? I'll pay you back." 

"What?" Willow felt shock grip her, cold fingers on a warm morning. "I don't--no, wait," she said quickly as Dawn grabbed her wallet and dumped its coins into her palm. "Take the bills. I need the change." 

Dawn glanced in. "No bills," she said, and hesitated. "If you need it, I guess I can see if Kerry has any cash." Nothing in her oh-so-innocent face shifted as she shrugged and added with the skill of a master guilter: "Or one of the teachers." 

"Uh, no," said Willow, frowning. "I guess it's okay. Go ahead. I can stop at the bank." As she drove off, Willow jittered her hands against the steering wheel and muttered, "No problem. Get some change, make some change." 

Ha, she thought in triumph as she pulled in front of the cleaners with her quarters. Here I am putting in the money, here I am cranking the handle. And, extra time set, she carried in Buffy's clothes, and when she came out again the meter maid was glancing at Willow's meter and walking on. 

"I did it," Willow cried, alight with wonder and a sense of relief that would have been ridiculous if it hadn't meant so much more. The meter maid paused inquiringly, pad in hand. "I changed it," she told the woman, grinning and jabbing a finger excitedly toward the meter, "It didn't happen the way it was supposed to--I made it different, and I know you have no idea what I'm talking about, but you were going to give me a ticket and you haven't and it's all wrong except it's right, it's very right." 

The woman turned her head a notch to consider the meter, then looked at Willow. "Put enough change in, you don't get a ticket," she said blandly. "Simple as that, hon." And she walked on. 

Willow's face slowly fell. 

"Right," she said as it sank in. "Simple." And so much else depended on other people and factors, unknown quantities independent of her will, combining together in ways impossible to predict. "Nothing else is that simple, is it." 

Very little, I've found, said Czar soberly. Though I will add parking meters to the short list. 

After a pause, he added: You know, I once thought of being a meter maid. But the uniforms were so deeply unattractive. 

"You can shut up again now," said Willow, and the man passing by in the trenchcoat looked at her strangely. 

All day in and out of classes, Willow had tried to make no big decisions, and given serious thought to the idea of cutting Czaradian loose. The spirit wasn't exactly what you'd call a holy terror, but its gift of visions was. What did it say about the lives they lived, she and her friends, that two decisions in twenty-four hours could rip the delicate web that bound them together and lead to death? And what did that say about her decisions themselves--how many other careless choices did she make every day that might impact them all? What if some action she'd taken or not taken, some word left unsaid, had contributed to Buffy's last death? Hadn't her kiss with Xander nearly brought about Cordelia's? 

Some part of her had hoped to avoid Tara for as long as possible, but some other part of her, namely her feet, took her to the magic shop by habit and Tara was of course there. Beautiful lover, hair loose, parted criss-crossy along the line of her bent head, one page of a history book sandwiched gently between thumb and finger as she frowned at whatever she was reading. 

Willow brushed past a customer in purple wizard robes to sit at the table, and then spared an anxious glance for Anya, who was yammering away on the phone, twirling the cord around one finger. 

"Hey," Tara said, smiling and then tilting her head as her eyes widened. "And wow, your aura is funny today." 

"There's a lot of humor in my head." 

"You've got some layers, blue on green," said Tara. "I should look that up--" 

"I was sniffing the herb stash earlier," Willow said quickly, opening her laptop. She didn't meet Tara's eyes. "Bunch of different stuff. Making sure they were fresh. They're probably all jumbly now, mixin' up the magic." 

"Scent is very powerful at evoking emotion," acknowledged Tara, her jasmine girl. Willow made herself look up and smile, but Tara still appeared troubled. "But it's darker, too," she observed, considering the curves of Willow's head, then dropping her eyes to hold Willow's questioningly. 

"I'm a, a little sad," said Willow, and that was too much the truth; she thought of their unsaid words, their unfought fights, and shoved those worries into a different box. "And frustrated. This prophecy still won't come together." 

Tara nodded, and seemed to accept this. "You'll get it," she said as confidence expanded across her face, confidence for her, Willow. "You have that gift for language." She smiled. "Even when it's all tortured and demony." 

"A deadly heart, Beloved, have I worn / On ragged sleeve and willing arm you spurn / While with braver lovers you dug your grave / And left me in my own, alone, forlorn..." 

Spike paused. "Worn, spurn, forlorn," he muttered, and stared at his notebook with a studious frown that slowly dissolved into disgust. "Sod this." He tore out the page, crumpled it as he did, and threw it at Oprah's face, off which it bounced to land in a snowy pile around the base of the television. He chucked the notebook after it, and unscrewed the cap on his whiskey bottle. He drank, shifting further down into his chair, wiped his mouth off, then recited to Oprah, 

"They fuck you up, these bloody bints. / And bitches damn well mean it, too. / They bugger up the whole damn world / And ram in deeper, just for you." 

"I-I-I've got it," said Willow, disbelieving, and waved her hands around as she looked up from her screen, nearly knocking over the latest of several high-octane sodas. "Oh, oh, oh!" But no one answered because the shop was empty, and, oh yeah, she'd told them she would close up. A bright circle of light enclosed the table where she worked, throwing the rest of the store into deeper darkness; it was nearly late enough for sleeping. 

Hey, you, she cried to Czar. Wake up! 

The spirit stirred: I was listening to a Mozart concerto you have stored in your seventh-grade memory cells, interestingly associated with impressions of your mother's sexual peccadilloes and a hatred of pickles that you later outgrew. 

Shush, Willow said excitedly. And stop messing with my mother's pickles. "I think I've got it cracked," she said aloud. "I sorted out three possible meanings for the key Naciran word used in the prophecy, kveffnyk-katuuri-jvetai-au, and they're all kinda sorta the same, variations on a theme, but when I was looking at the entire passage I started seeing all these patterns that didn't match the rest of the text--what no one got is that it's also a numeric code, and a pun too. Every passage probably does something similar, but differently, different patterns. It's really clever, and actually much more specific than anyone would think, because it's pointing to an older work of Fenwhar's on demon races, with historical notes and attack patterns and portents. And we have a copy!" 

Willow flapped her hands up and down in the air and made small whooshing sounds as she tried to calm herself down, as if fanning off a hot chile pepper. "I'm, I'm loopy," she said breathlessly. "And I'm thinking that's not the most appropriate emotion because I'm pretty sure I'm about to find out something really horrible, but I did it, I did it!" 

As when you put the coins in the meter? inquired Czar. 

"Phffttt," said Willow. "That was nothing." But the reminder was enough to erase her grin and bring about a measure of calm. She rose from the table and went to a nearby bookshelf. "The Fenwhar should be...mm, no. Upstairs." She climbed, then knelt down in front of the shelves where the more dangerous books were stored. 

"Oh yeah," she said, spotting the text's heavy brown leather cover and faded embossing. "Come to ma--no, no, oh hell!" Willow groaned, and then, 

Then her eyes closed as her head lolled forward; she curled over on herself breathing in short, shocked gasps as everything shifted, not like the other visions, not at all. It was as if something huge were trying to fill her body, fill a bottle with a vast ocean, and she cried at the pressure in her head and chest, and as the pressure built to pain built she screamed and arched with hands to her skull, snapping her head back and eyes open, seeing the world through a scrim entirely dark, that covered her eyes and spilled out, swallowing the world as, 

...she pulled the book from the shelf, and opened it, and read. Brought the book to their next meeting, told them what the prophecy meant, her finger pointing as she spoke aloud, showed them the pictures, explained what was to come. And, armed with that paltry knowledge, they went forth to the portal and waited for the armies of evil, with their silly little weapons, their tiny band, and it opened as was foretold. The demons came, countless, marching, and all defenses fell apart, as did their own fragile human bodies, matchsticks blown out and scattered by a storm, and, 

...she pulled the book from the shelf, and opened it, and read. Brought the book to their next meeting, told them what the prophecy signified, and with guilt on her downcast face admitted to the visions--pointed to her head, waved a hand back and forth to convey yapping with Czaradian, told her stories, as the others listened. And armed with that knowledge, they went forth to the portal better prepared and waited for the armies of evil, with their silly little weapons, their tiny band, and it opened as was foretold. And the demons came out, countless, marching, and the magicks they'd believed strong were not strong enough, and they fell, Xander gutted, Anya's neck snapped, Spike going down in a hail of blows until he was dust, Buffy hanging on longest with Willow and Tara, but falling at last, head rolling to rest next to Xander's body, and Tara, Tara, her face turning to Willow's as she was lifted by soldiers and ripped away, their clutching hands breaking apart, both of them sobbing and wild and screaming and reaching for one last touch, and then Tara coughed once and spilled blood as she looked surprised and then looked at nothing, and, 

...she pulled the book from the shelf, and opened it, and read. Brought the book to their next meeting, told them what the prophecy meant, and with grimness on her face admitted to the visions, then explained them again to Giles and the watchers he'd brought with him, and to the witches they called in, a trio of powerful, sober women who listened and nodded darkly and went to the portal, and wove strong magicks while everyone looked on in desperate hope. And the portal did not remain closed, but opened as it was foretold, and the witches battled, as did Willow and Tara, and in a pentagram they chanted, forcing back the armies of evil until their too human bodies were drained and trembling and began to fall, one by one, the shape of their force altering to a four-point cross, then a triangle, and then a thin line of magic between Willow and the strongest of the three witches remaining, and in the end it was not enough, and they fell under the marching feet, in pools of blood and blood and blood, and, 

...she took the book from the shelf and didn't open it, and hid it away where it would remain unseen, and she shook her head at Buffy, who looked at her with a frown of disappointment that would only grow deeper, and the portal opened as was foretold, and the armies came forth, and a darkness fell over the land, and vampires walked by twilight next to demons in uniform, and humans cowered. Mists rolled in, or smoke from fires, and Spike materialized from the fog in uniform, cape swinging around him, head tilted as he lit a cigarette, indifferent to the roped, crying girls that a demon dragged by. And when he looked up, his eyes glittered at the chaos he surveyed, and he half-smiled. And in a flash of blinding whiteness, he vanished, and Buffy came into the cave, tired face streaked with dirt, and tossed a sack in the middle of the table, and they sat and ate what was inside. And Willow saw, between stars of pain, a horned demon swirling a human lady around a ballroom floor--a girl tied to a bed, screaming as two demons in uniform began undressing--Xander lifting a gun over the top of a wall and firing enraged--Anya smiling at a customer across her cash register--Tara tossing a bolt of magic fire--Dawn frantically kissing a man whose face remained unseen--Spike grabbing Buffy as she fell from a roof--and Buffy, Buffy knifing a demon, Buffy twirling to kick away a vampire, Buffy running through a tunnel with soldiers on her heels and tossing ribboned scrolls across a table and kissing Spike and staking a vamp and cleaning a gun and kissing Spike and wiping a spray of red blood from her face and crying alone by a wall and yelling at them all and kissing Spike as his face turned fiend against hers. And Buffy gasped as she was tossed to a floor roughly in chains, as a line of demons smiled in cold approval and someone's black boot came to rest on her hip... 

...and in a short-circuiting blaze of whiteness, she was gone, and Willow found herself lying alone on the floor of the magic shop, her cheek pressed to its gritty surface, and she was staring at nothing but the real world. The world that she would end. 

She hadn't been able to leave the book in the shop, so she carried it home with her, and hid it in the top drawer of her dresser, then stared at the closed drawer, hugging her ribs and biting her thumb as she tried to keep from adding more tears to her wet face. With a tiny flick of wrist and whisper, she bound the drawer with a spell to keep its contents undiscovered, and her face lost its tremble and crumbled entirely as she wept. 

The usual coolness of Czar's voice sounded now like judgment, as he said: You have learned more than you wanted to know, young witch...as is so often the case. 

"Get out!" screamed Willow, and slashed her arms along the top of the dresser, sending jewelry and bottles flying and the lamp crashing to the floor. "Fly back, begone, my will undone!" And she jerked a little as the spirit left her body with a rush of energy. Released, she let herself fall, twisting down into a heap on the floor, her back against the dresser. She drew her knees up and sobbed, she didn't know how long, an hour or just a minute, until warm hands touched her and she looked up into Tara's anxious face. 

"Willow, what--" 

"No, don't," said Willow, "Don't." And she sagged forward into Tara's arms, more sobs trying to squeeze out of her raw, hoarse throat. She only had a few left, though, and they dwindled as she was held, as grief became something speechless, more powerful than tears. "Tara," she said, because she couldn't say anything else, "Tara. I love you so much." 

"I know you do," Tara said, easing next to her against the dresser, drawing Willow to her warm body, into her arms, folding Willow's head down against her neck and breast. Some of Willow's pain now laced her voice, braiding with anxiety. "I love you too." 

"No," she cried, instinctively wanting to be safe in denial, to make Tara safe, even though those were the words she always wanted to hear. Always. 

"I do," said Tara, kissing her hair. 

"I'm so stupid," Willow whispered. "I never get smarter, I get stupider and stupider. I'm losing me, running out. More sands falling every day. Every--" 

"Shhh," said Tara. 

"I'm a disappointment to you," Willow said. More tears slipped loose against her will. "I wasn't what you thought. I know. I know." The knowledge nearly undid her. 

"You are what I thought. I knew it the moment I saw you." Tara stroked her hair, laid her cheek gently against Willow's head. "That you were special." 

"You saw my power." Willow said the last word with self-loathing. Her face felt hot and sticky, shamed. She stared at Tara's arm, just her arm, and a patch of carpet beyond it, and didn't see it. She didn't want to see anything. There would be no more seeing, there would be no-- 

"Yes," said Tara. "I did. But I saw you first. You had, um, this sweet flippy thing going on with your hair and an orangey shirt that kind of matched the color--and that skirt you used to wear, the one with the quilted hem. I remember 'cause it reminded me of how my mom used to fix up my cousin's old clothes; make them extra-pretty for me. And you," said Tara softly, "You were so pretty." She ran her thumb over a curve of hair, just above Willow's ear, a lulling touch. "And you always will be, to me. You're what I saw in that moment, and more. Never less, Willow. Never less, even after everything we've been through--and no matter what happens. You're not running out, sweetie. You're not." 

But she saw the carpet. She saw it. 

"What will be will be," said Willow. 

Buffy looked for him as soon as she came through the door of the Bronze, but it was crowded with the usual mix of humans: high-schoolers who looked impossibly childlike to her now, those few college types whose nostalgia or alternative lifestyles brought them to the bad part of town, and one or two adults, terribly out of place but at least not vampiric. 

Heads bobbed and bodies wove between one another, and she tried to catch a glimpse of black coat and blond hair through the crush. Girls were laughing around a table with beers; two guys shot pool with strict attention; over there, someone she knew from high school shouted and waved his hand across the room to friends; while nearby, a very debbie-looking chick in pearls and pleats began making out with a guy in black leather. Short black leather, though, and dark hair, and not what Buffy was looking for. 

Maybe he isn't coming, she warned herself, as disappointment began to edge away her simple expectations. She'd come to think of him as on call, and beck too, and maybe that wasn't true any more. Yes, here I am folks, the only girl who can frustrate her stalker. She basted herself in self-mockery, and having made a full circuit of the dense, heated club, began to leave. And then she slowly turned, as the dancers under the sparkling light swayed back and forth, obscuring the glimpse she might have imagined, before shifting and parting to reveal him standing on the far side of the dance floor, watching her with an unreadable expression, his face a silver coin against the shadows behind him. 

The longing she felt at the sight of him caught her like a hook under her rib cage and she didn't know whether to walk over to him or wait for him to come to her, but the dancers kept moving, passing in front of her view, and when they thinned again, he was gone. 

He was next to her. 

Buffy looked up in wordless wonder as he materialized close enough to do her in, if he'd wanted to, and Spike looked down into her eyes, then his gaze dropped further as if he imagined undressing her, or just touching her gently, someplace in the privacy of his thoughts where only he knew for sure. She looked back. He wasn't wearing his coat; she would never have found him like this, in a white shirt, sort of like a pirate's blouse, but you wouldn't call a man's shirt a blouse, could you, though it was. 

It was the whitest shirt. 

He stroked her hair, ran his knuckles tenderly along the curve of her cheek, and Buffy closed her eyes. One song ended, another began, and she opened her eyes again and invited him to dance, still with no words, and he drew her out to the dance floor, and she thought he should be different in some way, that his face should be cool with mockery, that he should be wrong here, out of the shadows, surrounded by the swaying human couples under sparkling lights as sappy music played. But he moved with her as if he knew everything her body whispered, and as if he had been a secret waiting for this moment, something in white silk that you could discover, maybe, if you kept rubbing away the dark surface. 

Lalethki snapped off the lamp, leaving the apartment in dimness, and sat down on the couch next to Avery. The man did not move to give room, merely pulled his grey overcoat an inch closer and stared straight ahead at the rondure, which remained unlit. Lalethki thought it inappropriate that Avery showed no deference, even if the human did outrank him in tenure. But it didn't matter. That, like so many things, would change soon enough. 

"The general calls," said Clude, and everyone gathered in the room fell silent as the rondure began to glow. Its mists rolled apart as the partition breached here in this small orb, allowing General Nilec's visage to appear to them, and theirs to him, for their words to reach each other. 

The general's face appeared frown first: lips set tightly together, hiding the teeth within, and then expanded to his grey, mottled skin and lastly to his eyes, which peered darkly and suspiciously from the ether to inspect them all. 

Everyone in the room jumped up and saluted, sword arm to chest, then sat back down. 

"Your report," said Nilec. "Summarize. Two minutes. My warlock is ill." He turned a face of disdain to something beside him that the others couldn't see. "Putrid vomit runs from his mouth even as I speak. Son of a rabbit." 

"Sir," said Clude, flipping open his notebook. "We have scouted two new locations for possible headquarters, identified all routes in and out of town, and tagged seven possible allies among the human population--one is a doctor, and three are," he hesitated over his word, "gangbangers." He peered over his glasses into the rondure. "They were witnessed beating a man in a parking lot for playing his radio too loud. Billy Ray Cyrus." 

"I don't care what the victim's name is," said Nilec impatiently. 

"Er, no, sir," said Lalethki. "The musician." 

"Nor do I care of his employment." 

"Of course not, sir," said Clude, shooting Lalethki an unspoken order for silence. 

"One minute," said Nilec. "Or until this vomiting creature expires." 

Clude flipped a page with haste, cleared his throat. "We have also discovered the existence of a slayer, sir. We'd heard rumors, but these are now confirmed as fact. We saw her fight--she appears formidable. If we could bring her to our side--" 

"Every slayer is a rebel, and an enemy of our kind. Make note of where she lives and mark her for execution in the first wave, along with any family." The general's voice was dismissive, then grew sharp as he looked to one side again: "Those boots were cleaned not an hour ago. And will be cleaned again with your tongue...Soldier! Remove this man's tongue." He turned back to the rondure. "I take my leave."  

They stood again with respect, and as screams sounded from the underworld, the general's face vanished quite slowly, beginning with the tips of his horns, and ending with his frown, which remained some time after the rest of him had gone.
 

Notes: Please do not archive; feel free to include links on rec pages, however. This is not beta-read; Feel free to send feedback, excluding rants on how Spike/Buffy is evil, yadda. 

The title is from a poem by Kenneth Koch. The song playing in the next-to-last scene is "Somewhere in Between" by Lifehouse. (Behold the power of cheese!) 

This is the second episode in what I'm viewing as an alternative season 8, with (this may be a no-brainer) an AU season 7 in between; everything branches off from "Gone."  

There's a little backstory here and here on the whole season noir concept which, it's increasingly clear, will remain irrelevant for a while. "Hanging by a Moment" is so not going to be episode six.  It does have a few broad, spoilery things for stories to come. 

The main page for season noir is here. 

My e-mail is eliade@drizzle.com.