SEPTEMBER, 2002

Xander walked into the bathroom in the Summers' home, then promptly walked out again. His back turned, he spoke to his sister. "Dawn, put on your shirt. Its time for school." The now 8-year old Dawn Summers just continued standing in front of the full-length mirror, staring dejectedly.

"Why bother? Shirts are for hiding things, and I have nothing worth hiding anymore."

Xander sighed.

"Yeah, well, if I take a shirtless girl to school, will you promise to visit your big brother in jail?"

She put it on, and he turned around.

"Satisfied? Why couldn't whatever did this to me let me keep them when I de-aged? I mean, I was barely sprouting as it was."

Xander shook his head.

"You wouldn't want that. A 16-year old's chest on an 8-year old? You'dve looked like an escapee from a manga convention."

"But I'm a kid again!"

Xander looked her in the eye.

"But you've never been a kid before. Now let's review our strategy. Who are you?"

She nodded, hating but understanding the necessity of it all.

"I'm Alexandra 'Alex' Harris, your cousin by an aunt who's now in long-term rehab. I do all the no-brainer homework they give me while I'm waiting for you to pick me up. Answer some questions, but never all. Keep the bullies away with attitude, not fists, unless I really need to. Don't act bored. Don't act up. If something Slayer-ish happens, and I get teased, I say 'So this is the only weird thing that ever happened in Sunnydale?' -- and that shuts most of them up."

They touched fists, and Xander smiled.

"Time to deploy for school."

"I'm ready now, Mister."

They headed down the stairs, and to the front door. When they opened it, there stood a man, human as any other. His name was William.

"Hey, all. Guess who's back?"

Centered now as he had never been, Xander pointed the former Spike inside.

"Get out of the sun. Get inside. Buffy will deal with you, and I won't stop her, either way."

William walked back in the other direction, grinned, and took in a few rays.

"Mebbe I'll sack out in the backyard. Its a nice day."

William then saw someone he didn't recognize.

"Who's the small-fry? Looks a little like a younger version of..."

If Xander had been floored by the change in William, this was for now ignored in favor of an approaching danger.

"Dawn!"

Towards the transformed 8-year old ran her perfect duplicate, screaming, feral in aspect, and wielding a large dagger, her aim to take out the heart of her other half. William thought to react to the crazed urchin, but this proved unnecessary. The girl he did not know yet was Dawn simply fell flat and let her double run through the opened front door. As she turned for another go, Xander's wrist seized hers, knocked away the knife with his free hand, and held the knife to her throat.

"Scream any crime you like to whatever nice policeman happens to be just around the corner. Let whoever's holding a camcorder get me in all my child-threatening glory. Because you just tried to gut one of about ten people on this miserable plane I give a solid damn about, and that puts me in heavy not-caring mode."

Dawn stood on her double's hair outstretched behind her, looking no more sympathetic.

"Who are you, and why did you do this to me?"

The brat smiled, and then sank into a hole of primordial darkness beneath her.

"I'm Dusk. As in it's twilight time for you."

William looked at Xander after the child disappeared.

"I never used any line that lame, did I?"

Xander checked the area, and shook his head.

"No. You were always early Malcolm McDowell-ish. Clockwork."

Dawn threw Holy Water on the spot, and grimaced.

"Dusk? I mean, could she have picked a worse counterpoint?"

William nodded as he looked at her.

"So it is you, lil bit? What happened?"

She threw some of the water on him, and looked disappointed when it didn't hurt the new human.

"What's the matter, Spike? Upset that I'm not worth sexually assaulting anymore?"

To William's continuing surprise and now shock, Xander moved to calm the youthened Dawn.

"Hey. One, we gotta get you school-ward. Two, we both agreed to let our very strong sis settle his hash, alright?"

Xander looked at William.

"Three, our ex-vamp just got hired by my construction crew, down at the new High School. Where I can keep an eye on him."

William gulped. "That's---like a job, right? Cause work and me have this on-again, off-again thing."

Xander pointed at the car.

"It just got turned on."

William patted his pockets, and realized another part of being human again.

"I guess it did at that. Tell me, any other surprises?"

Dawn nodded.

"The Magic Box has a new potential investor."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Joyce looked at the ruins. She openly winced.

"Can I use the phrase 'real fixer-upper' without getting hit?"

Buffy was still thrown off, nearly four months later.

"She couldn't have vented on Sheila, right?"

Joyce nodded in agreement about the ever-traveling Mrs. Rosenberg.

"I still have a standing offer from her to 'do lunch' next time she's in town. I gave up waiting right before I checked on Jane and well...you know."

"Mom, you really wanna walk into this?"

Joyce saw a series of human-sized impressions made on the left wall.

"I'm a small business owner, Buffy. If Anya has gone back to being a vengeance demon, then she'll either want to sell or take on a partner."

A familiar voice came through the dust and timber.

"Partner? Joyce?!"

Anya surged forward, and hugged the returned friend.

"Oh, its so great to see you! I didn't handle your dying very well, so now people can forget about it and stop reminding me all the time. What, did they find another urn or something?"

Joyce chuckled.

"Anya, you haven't changed a bit."

Anya shook her head.

"Yes I have. I'm your replacement. Let me tell you, it will be a lot easier to compete with your flawed controlling fundamental niceness than the romanticized memories some people who will remain Xander and Dawn engaged in. Willow didn't do it so much, and Buffy actually pointed out a great many of your faults and failings."

Joyce didn't even catch her daughter's gulp. Her mind was still on the first part of Anya's statement.

"How are you my replacement?"

In walked Hank, who dropped his suitcase and pointed.

"Buffy, take your stepmother and run! Its your mother's evil twin sister---that I never told you about--and who was locked up in the same clinic as you--and who I think I may have had another family by--and--there's a lot of ands here---"

Joyce's eyes went wide.

"Another family? With JANE?!"

Buffy's face narrowed.

"Stepmother Anya?"

Anya jotted down notes.

"Evil twin. I never did get around to actually creating one of those. Hmm. Give some abusive SOB an army of Amazons that all look just like his mousey wife, then wait for the de-man-ning after he shouts his first order. Oh--that is good."

Through the roof fell a would-be Amazon with an axe in hand and an axe to grind. The woman called Jane pointed at the people she wrongly blamed for the life she didn't have--again.

"That wasn't a skylight I fell through, was it?" Her momentary confusion done with, Jane ran at Joyce. The second Mrs. Hank Summers stood by the third, Anya, awaiting an attack from the first--the first Mrs. Hank Summers, that is. Anya nudged Joyce.

"Shouldn't you move or something?"

Joyce raised her foot and slammed it into her twin's wholly unguarded crotch region. Jane fell over in pain, dropping her axe, literally if not figuratively. Joyce looked at Anya.

"I don't run from her. That was my mother's style."

Buffy looked down at the reeling aunt she had met twice but never actually known of.

"Wait. How did kicking her where it counts---count? Its not really ever supposed to count on, ya know --smooth-regioned sexes?"

Anya shook her head.

"It doesn't hurt as much without the vulnerable male gonads in place. But if the kick can take the air out of the uterus, then we're talking worlds of pain. Plus, most men have taken a hit there a few times in their lives. Women hardly ever, so there is no preparation. I learned this from a few vengeance recipients I gender-switched."

Hank smiled.

"She just knows so much."

Finally putting herself past the basic weirdness, Buffy pulled Jane up by the hair, then back-handed her.

"That was for giving me that lame ultimatum. Please hope that I don't unload for everything you've pulled."

Jane's eyes darted around.

"Isn't anyone at all shocked to see me alive?"

The others responded in unison.

"This is Sunnydale."

Joyce thought to herself.

*Okay, first comes some vague weird threat.*

Jane sneered.

"We'll have to do what we can to break up this little banjo party."

Joyce noted that this one was weirder and vaguer than most of Jane's threats.

*Now, she'll make some statement that flashes her insecurities like a neon sign.*

"You all must think you stand so very far above poor stupid crazy Jane, don't you?"

Definitely neon.

*Now this is where she usually starts in on me. But will it be what I've supposedly stolen from her, or...*

"So what if I stole your life, Joyce? When were you ever really living it?"

Buffy spoke to her mother in a whisper.

"Wow. You mean you get that 'not living your life' crap, too?"

Joyce shrugged.

"Well, dear, maybe if we really talked once in a while, you might find out we're not all that different."

Jane tried to break Buffy's grasp, but when she couldn't, she resumed the pattern of verbal attack Joyce found all too predictable.

"Guess your twin is just garbage, right, Joyce? Trash to be dumped in a hole when I won't obey? Just like your smart-mouthed daughter--also thrown in a stinking psychiatric hole!"

Joyce looked at her daughter.

"Buffy, I am very sorry I threw you in a hole."

Joyce looked at her twin.

"Jane, I am very sorry I didn't throw you in a much deeper hole. Like the one beneath the High School."

Jane tried to recover her footing, so to speak.

"Just remember--Hank was mine first."

Anya raised her hand.

"And remember he's mine, now. See, I saw these movies at the hotel with Goldie Hawn, Chevy Chase, and Bette Midler and some other guy. Exes just love to relive their youth by falling into bed. Its a sick, sick epidemic!"

Jane pulled away, seeming for a moment like mist.

"This isn't over! We are like the wind!"

Back through the hole in the roof she flew, til outside a thud, a thump and a pained yell was heard. Buffy looked outside the Magic Box, and saw someone rapidly limping away.

"I think the wind maybe just broke her leg."

Anya then broke the weirded-out silence that followed.

"So Joyce- how much of an investment are we talking?"

=======================================

At the construction site at the school, an exhausted William grabbed an iced tea. He looked at Xander.

"I've tumbled to your evil plan. You want me so wiped, your sis will be able to work me over without any effort."

Xander only acknowledged part of his quip.

"So you've accepted that I'm Buffy's twin?"

William wasn't finding the sun quite the novelty it had been, of late.

"Well, lessee. I'm Human, Joyce is walking all about, Dawnie is acting out Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case, and you're acting all sober and serious...and you also just walked into the yard, loaded for bear."

"What?"

Xander looked, and indeed saw himself, heavily armed, striding into the yard, dressed like a poor man's Rambo.

"Did I get split again? And if I did, which one's cool and which one's the nerd?"

The other Xander, or the one who looked like the other Xander, raised up two guns he obviously found a strain to lift, and pointed them at William and his ally.

"I am gonna go so Thanoseid on your wimpy lame post-Movie-Transformers-ep butts, you're gonna wish you were Cypher in New Mutants 60! Time to be rendered Pre-Crisis Earth-2, Z-Fighters!"

William ducked behind a row of steel beams with the Xander he knew as the bullets flew.

"That answer your question?" One of Xander's friends, a big guy named Sal, crawled over to his and William's position while under fire.

"Xander, is this like when those guys in the black Star Wars van messed with your sister's head last year?"

Xander turned. Sal was nice but dense, and it was just like him to have seen the nerd van and not mention it.

"Yeah, Sally. Only with a duplicate me--and lots of bullets."

Sal pulled out some sort of membership card and tore it up.

"I don't care what Chuck Heston says, those things are not for hunting deer!"

The barrage continued, the schoolyard flying into a frenzy leavened only slightly by the fact that Xander's duplicate was a piss-poor marksman and had yet to actually hit a single living thing. Now police crawled over.

"Xander Harris--you are under arrest."

"You're kidding. You have to be able to see that isn't me up there."

"Yeah, we do. But that other guy has big guns." William called a halt to the spiraling stupidity.

"Heavy reality check, kids. Spree shooters never just bring guns to these ta-do's. He's gonna want to flush us out, and then we're in the loo--or toilet, or latrine, as the case may be."

The female officer shook her head.

"But if we've been flushed, wouldn't that put us out of the water closet?"

Xander considered William's words, then muttered a phrase.

"Medal Of Honor for Playstation."

William nodded.

"Yeah! I played that the week I stole your Playstation. Buffy made me give it back, though."

Xander glared, and the male police officer pointed.

"You want me to arrest him? Its no trouble, while I'm here."

The sounds of gunfire stopped. Xander shook his right hand at the others.

"Wait for the pineapples."

Small cylinders did indeed land next to the small crowd behind the steel beams. William and Xander grabbed them up and threw them back at the perch from where the gunman was still firing. Sal looked up.

"What now?"

William shrugged.

"We count on dumb luck."

The two cops looked at them like they were insane.

"Are you insane?"

"Yeah. He's not just gonna fall into our lap."

When the grenades exploded, the duplicate Xander instead fell on top of the duplicate Springfield Police, knocking them cold. Sal went to check his lunchbox and any wounded. Xander pointed at the gunman.

"He's yours. But after this, I don't owe you for the Magic Box beating."

William pulled up the gunman, and slapped him awake. The former vampire smiled as he looked at him.

"Now, Xander and me, we don't usually get on. At all. So I have like metric tons of grief I could work out at your expense, and the Slayer won't even get upset about it. Howsabout you give ole William an excuse? And just who the hell are you?"

Not seeming scared, the gunman sneered at his two captors.

"I'm Phillip, Jane's son. You haven't won, Scoobies! As long as a single one of us stands against you, you haven't won!"

William looked at Xander.

"Who's he paraphrasing?"

Xander frowned.

"Captain America, in Infinity Gauntlet#4."

William slapped his captive again, so hard he fell.

"Blasphemer! Cap is cool. Way better than Brian whartsisface."

Loose now, Phillip darted off at unguessable speeds. But some words bled through this.

"You people have no idea what it is you're up against!"

Xander stared at the receding mirror image.

"You people have no idea what...? He actually used a line like that? And why didn't he use that speed to grab back his guns?"

William looked in the same direction.

"Who's Jane?"

==========================================

Joyce and Buffy saw Dawn aka Alex Harris, emerging from school happily chatting with another girl. Once in the car, they talked about the day.

"So who was the girl, Dawn?"

Dawn felt good around Joyce, who was making a real effort to get to know the child she never had.

"That was Christie's younger sister."

Buffy looked back at her.

"But you hate, loathe and despise the mere fact of Christie's existence."

Dawn nodded.

"So does she. I promised to feed her damaging info. So I get a friend, and Christie gets hell. I like that."

Joyce would have corrected Dawn's use of 'hell', but became momentarily confused as to whether she was truly sixteen, eight or two years old. So she stayed with a more sure subject.

"We stopped by the social workers. They are now officially out of our lives. Rude people. They seemed to hate to relinquish the authority. Plus, that one woman seemed so nervous. I heard one of her co-workers say she was sent away for hearing voices."

Buffy grinned a bit, then took over.

"Uh--yeah. Well, I thought sure they were going to insist on seeing you--that is, Dawn at sixteen--but it turns out the office is being closed."

Joyce nodded.

"The DMV and Social Security Offices, too. I barely got my ID in time. And for that matter, my initial low bid on the house next door was accepted. I'll be moving in tomorrow."

Buffy shrugged.

"Closing costs? Fees?"

"All paid by the seller for a free and clear exit. Honey, will you take a look-see?"

"Me and Xander will. He can weaken it, and then I can kill it. Assuming there's an it to look for. It. If. Look."

Unspoken were the twins' wider-ranging nightly patrols. The demon-bar had shut down for lack of business, and Buffy was doing close to seven cemeteries a night. With Xander's subtle ability to bring a demon's strength down to normal human levels, Buffy's relative average slay-time had gone from fifteen to three minutes a demon. Both played down this fact for two reasons. One was that the baddies had laid low before, and that celebrating was stupid until a good week became a good year.

The other reason they were a bit ashamed to speak of. Fighting together felt a little too good, and a little too natural. They were not worried about actually ending up together. They did worry that the feelings were there at all, when for six years their common affection had been enough. Buffy found that her enjoyment of the slight and very safe attraction she had felt over the years for Xander no longer felt as safe as just having him by her side in pitched battle. But for now she looked out as they approached her home.

"Hey! In front of the house. Is that Giles?"

Joyce was the first to get out of the car, and her eyes met with the Watcher's.

"Its me, Rupert. Not Jane. Though she's back, too."

"Joyce. I just can't believe---there's so much I have to tell you."

Buffy and Dawn glanced up.

"Willow?"

Smiling and serene, her eyes nearly emerald and her hair more strawberry than ever, Willow Rosenberg floated and waved to her friends.

"I can feel Tara's presence, even now. Its all so right."

She casually drew Dawn up, and into her arms.

"Please don't hate me anymore. I'm not that person."

A mobile, street-level storm cloud blew up in front of the house. With it, also floating, was another Willow Rosenberg, eyes and hair dark as pitch, her face practically blue for all the bulging veins present. Lightning flowed freely off her fingertips, and her contempt for those present was not at all hidden.

"No, she's not."

Buffy was blown back twenty feet by a mere gesture. The witch shrugged.

"I'm that person." Hank Summers pointed nervously at the two Willows, then looked at Joyce and Anya.

"Okay. So we're clear, I am not responsible for them. I mean, I did once call Mrs. Rosenberg, looking for Buffy, but that is all! And I don't think it was a mystic phone call, either."

Anya turned to Joyce.

"I've been using ginger ale to calm him down. Is that wrong?"

Joyce shook her head.

"I used to also use cranberry juice, but apparently reproductive tract concerns are not among his problems."

Buffy gathered herself from the wreckage of her house's front door.

"Xander is gonna be pissed. But then, so is his twin."

The evil Willow fired at the ground around Giles, but he did not flinch. She sneered.

"Ready to take me on now, big man?"

Giles now saw through 20/20 eyes, but almost began to rub his absent glasses. He met the uberwitch glare for glare.

"I have no magic, now. And if I did, you would still not be worth my time and effort. What is your special name, girl? Killow?"

Through the magic of the good version of Willow, Giles had been brought instantly up to date on both the nature and to-date ineffectuality of the attacks on his friends. Joyce's return, though, retained its ability to surprise him. Her quip reminded him of that.

"Killow? Sounds like a bad relationship novel."

The dark witch nodded.

"Yeah, it kinda does. Call me--Wicca."

She blasted Buffy back again.

"Cause its about the power."

Preparing to blast all of them wholesale, Wicca was blocked by Willow, still serene and showing almost no effort as she raised a shield. Dawn held her hand, the hand of the friend she loved facing down the one she feared.

"You may think of me as all soft and fluffy. But if you think being part of me will really stop me from stopping you, you are way crazy. In fact, I won't permit you to harm a single living thing around us."

Wicca held up her left forefinger. Bright energies began to flow into it. In a moment, a globe of light shone above her left hand.

"Then I'll harm the dead. C'mon, little Willow. You know who's in here, don't you?"

Willow no longer felt a comforting presence.

"She's got Tara's soul!"

All froze as Wicca slowly moved forward towards Willow, a sick smile planted firmly on her veined face. Hank whispered to his new wife.

"And Tara is?"

Anya replied.

"Dead."

He then whispered to Joyce.

"And Tara was?"

Joyce replied.

"Very nice."

Away from this routine, Wicca finally reached Willow.

"I made myself heavy as lead. Ya know why?"

Willow kept her protection of her friends up, as best she could, though Buffy's repeated lunges at Wicca made this difficult.

"No. Why?"

All Wicca did was lightly touch her double, and a shockwave knocked her back---and into Buffy. Wicca nodded.

"Old school physics. Magnets, polarity---and all that crap."

Willow sat up, and raised her empty hands.

"But magnets can be turned around."

Wicca felt herself jerked right towards Willow, who rolled in time for Buffy's fists to meet Wicca's face, stomach, and legs in rapid succession. Staggered, she held up the light-globe again.

"HEEEELLLOOOO? SOUL-HOSTAGE, HERE! Now what about that surrender?"

Buffy dodged another blast, and looked like surrender held its usual low place on her list.

"Tara's already dead, and we're miles from the Hellmouth. Bad witch, bad witch--whacha gonna do?"

Wicca set up her own force-field.

"I'll disperse her soul so far and so wide, it'll make what Warren's bullet did to her heart look like the yellow crayon incident."

A newly emergent William grabbed her legs, knocking Wicca down. Xander then grabbed her hands, and looked the rapidly-weakening witch in the eyes.

"Do you have any idea how much crap I've taken over just telling that crayon story? I wish I had a dollar for everytime someone told me to shut up about it."

Anya's face shifted.

"Done."

Anya suddenly held a bundle of thousand-dollar bills. She shrugged.

"She owed me for the Magic Box."

Wicca angrily released the soul-globe, which flew through Xander's chest as it went. He staggered, and to Buffy's apparent surprise, William moved to catch him as he fell--albeit in his own style.

"Easy there, paycheck signature. Lets not go and get a new foreman I can't pull one over on."

Wicca pulled back and sneered. But as she opened her mouth, Dawn shouted any words of hers down.

"If you say that this isn't over, I swear I'll turn *you* into formless green energy!"

Wicca frowned as she vanished, and this time it was a sincere frown.

"Do-do we seem that clichéd?"

Willow ran to Xander. She shook her head.

"I can't feel Tara anymore!"

Xander held her by the face on either side. He seemed different.

"Tara is fine. I felt her as she entered--a new place. A place she was familiar with."

He continued to hold her face.

"Its been so short a time. Yet I had forgotten how beautiful you are."

While Willow half-smiled, half-puzzled at this, Buffy saw William, and she saw the still-present sun. She said the only thing that really could be said.

"We have to talk."

As they walked off, Giles saw Joyce. It was part of his self-perceived duty to verify her identity and her story on several levels. Then--he had something to tell her. Something that would either prove the source of a good laugh or change everything.

"We have to talk."

Anya looked at Hank.

"We have to find a house and then have sex in it."

At Xander's request, Dawn guided the exhausted Willow to bed. After Xander and Buffy returned from a brief patrol, and Buffy and William were having their talk, Dawn heard talking from Xander's room.

*We can't be sure how she'll react. Maybe we should just play it safe and steer clear for now.*

*No! We are unique in that her love for us is nearly equal. She has shown that she needs us by her side, in all things. I can feel something coming. Those attacks may not have been much, but there will be more and better ones, soon.*

*Hey, I played with her heart all through high school. This can only hurt her in the same way, plus the possibility of losing you again could build another Wicca, just like that.*

*Please say you'll do it. For her. For me?*

*For either of you. For any one here. Yes.*

Dawn pushed opened the door, and saw only Xander sitting there. Her eyes pleaded with her older brother.

"Don't tell me nothing's going on. Just please don't say that. I'll forgive anything but that."

Xander closed his eyes, sighed, then opened them again.

"Dawnie, its going to be alright. Please trust me."

Dawn sat down and hugged him. The trust was immediate twice over. For while the body was that of Xander Harris, the voice that asked for trust was that of Tara McClay. At Dawn's prompting, Willow heard the incredible story the Tara-possessed Xander told.

"YOU SLIMY, BETRAYING PIECES OF..."

Willow slapped his face, and ran to the guest room she was currently using. Xander looked ashamed, and the newly eight-year old Dawn looked confused.

"I thought she was all sweetness and light now. Does her getting angry make Wicca stronger?"

Xander pondered this for a moment, then disconcertingly spoke in both voices at once.

"Wicca is not what she seems. She is not just Willow's dark side brought to life."

Dawn tried not to be unnerved by this turn.

"And what was all that stuff about you two betraying her?"

The eyes of her brother looked at her, yet Dawn couldn't be sure who was there behind them at any given moment. But the voice was now his alone.

"Mentally speaking, how old do you feel?"

"I guess I'm still sixteen, except for the hormonal stuff. Losing that's almost a relief."

Both souls present had promised to try and always tell her the truth, painful though it could be. Now Tara spoke.

"Dawnie, people make very, very big mistakes."

"Well sure, we all have. Me and Xander have gotta have sixty percent of that ledger all to ourselves."

The beloved voice grew hesitant.

"Dawn, there are only two ways for a spirit to safely co-exist with another soul in the same body. One is obviously for the two souls to have been blood-kin in life."

Xander's voice took over again.

"The other is if, in life, the two souls had shared...intimate relations."

Two people Dawn loved very dearly began to fall rapidly into an unwanted light. So she grasped at a straw.

"So...what you're saying is that Tara was our sister, too?"

Xander knelt down.

"Dawn, it was just..."

She shoved him away. Dawn pointed.

"I hope Willow turns you into slugs--er--slug--ghost slugs! Yeah, I hope she turns you both into ghost slugs. Because you stink."

Tara tried.

"Dawnie, it was only once, and we never meant to hurt Willow. It was an accident. A large part of it was a spell gone wrong. The other part was stupidity."

Dawn turned to go, but Xander came back.

"You said you could handle it. Now, prove that you're still sixteen inside by listening to us."

With folded arms, Dawn remained.

"Okay, go ahead. Splain'."

(Author's note For imaging purposes, please imagine that Dawn and Dusk are played by perhaps the younger sister of the actress who played young Buffy in 'Killed By Death')

=======================================

In the living room of the house she had purchased next door, Joyce shared cookies and tea with Giles. He looked down and then away from her.

"Rupert, what's wrong?"

He sighed.

"Its an immense joy to have you back. More than I can describe. I never even had a real inkling of your worth until I thought you lost forever. Things turned immensely dark, after that."

"So I'm told. A lot of evil people in this world, the demons notwithstanding. I'm also told the Harrises managed to help ruin Xander and Anya's wedding. I try not to hate people, Rupert. But I am so glad they are dead. They stole my son. You don't know how many times I wanted to grab two of Buffy's best weapons and just burst in on one of their all-day happy hours. I'dve split that drunk in two, starting from between his legs with his----I'm sorry, Rupert, you were saying something?"

Giles couldn't bear any more, and so produced the telltale piece of paper.

"It was the night of the Halloween candy and the loss of many inhibitions. It seems we two paid a visit to the justice of the peace."

Joyce carefully folded the marriage certificate and put it safely away. Smiling slightly, she sat on Rupert's lap. She took off his unneeded glasses, and slowly cleaned them with his handkerchief.

"What-what are you doing?"

She kissed him.

"For the past two years, the only men I've been around were attendants at the clinic and my own son. What kind of mood do you think I'm in?"

He grinned and grabbed her up in his arms as they headed upstairs to an inflatable mattress.

"Time to follow some advice I once gave to Wesley." While some of Xander and Tara's explanation hurt Dawn, most of it hit home. Yet the major question of how she would explain what she had learned to the angry Willow still remained. As she walked into Willow's room, the powerful witch still looked badly upset.

"Tell them to go and dig deep underneath the new high school. They know the spot. And if they don't, I'll draw them a map."

Dawn used the bit of information she had been directed to.

"They told me that Wicca may not be what she seems."

Willow stayed turned away.

"Big whoop. I know exactly who Wicca really is. You tell them what they did can never be forgiven, ever."

Dawn's eyes rolled a bit.

"Unforgivable? You mean, as opposed to, say--ohhh--trying to destroy the world?"

"Dawnie, the guy who played with my heartstrings all through our school years and the woman I loved more than my own life slept together! The man who pulled me away from killing everyone and everything cheated on me and his fiancée. The smile that kept my heart beating cheated on me--with a man--this after giving me speeches about 'straying off plantations'. How is that supposed to make me feel? Huh?"

Dawn now wished that she was the mental age her eight-year-old form conveyed.

"It was during the time after the wedding ceremony but before you and her got back together. They said that when you became lost for a while in one of those dimension portals, they cast a locator spell using their mutual love for you as a guide."

Willow stopped, and actually laughed. She was once again happy.

"Those great big dopes. That kind of spell has more side-effects...Dawnie, I gotta go and talk to them."

After she left, Dawn looked in the mirror.

"I better not start turning into Ruthie Camden."

Because that girl creeped Dawn out, every time Joyce drove the family over to the Camdens.

====================================

William started first, to break the silence between himself and Buffy.

"Aren't you even gonna call me a bastard?"

Buffy did not look at him.

"You're a bastard. Happy?"

"Buffy, I'm sorry."

She bypassed the ugly subject.

"Why are you human?"

William shook his head.

"Dunno. I mean, I went to Africa, and went through a series of not-nice tortures to earn back my soul. But the human thing--just happened. But the vamp in me got sucked out. Spike's gone, Buffy. I mean, there were always heavy bits of me in him. So much it sometimes scared me."

She now looked at him.

"If you're not Spike, then who are you?"

He gave the most honest answer he had.

"My name's William. I am the man who loves you so much, it drove me crazy---"

His eyes narrowed and his face showed sad confusion.

"--and as a result, I tried to rape you."

The words had been said. No fists or weapons were raised. No embraces made. The words just hung there as the silence began anew.

========================================

In Joyce's house, she cuddled next to Giles for a time in bed. Both felt good. An insane summer and more had left no time for such pleasantries.

"Rupert?"

He smiled at her.

"Ru."

"Ru?"

Giles nodded.

"It was my grandmother's nickname for me. That is to say, I'm associating it because she would tuck me in."

She smiled.

"Joy. That was my rebel's nickname, my 'Age Of Aquarius' aka."

Giles sat up.

"You do realize that Ru, or 'Rue' is a synonym for beware? Together, we'd be 'Beware Joy'."

Joyce chuckled.

"But I always get nervous when things go too well. Its perfect."

Perhaps she literally held this belief, for she brought up a grimmer concern.

"Didn't you ever suspect that the woman who died was not me?"

Giles shrugged.

"Briefly, the thought that our Joyce might be Jane again performing her charade did enter my head. I saw oddities consistent with what you had once told me. Yet the medical diagnosis of her brain tumor ended all that. Well, I also called the clinic to see if Jane was secure. And--you were. Joyce, I'm terribly sorry."

Joyce gazed out the as-yet curtainless window to the house across the way--her daughter's house.

"I tried to explain who I was. I used the rational. I used the irrational. I asked to speak to Buffy. To you. I made logical arguments about what had happened. When those didn't work, I calmed down and did and said whatever the doctors told me to. I figured that if I, being 'Jane', showed signs of dramatic improvement, I might get released."

"Yet it wasn't that easy, was it?"

"Nope. Turns out my sister has what one doctor called an isotope personality. Its a way that the sociopathic and worse appear normal. They take on a kind of normal-seeming appearance that is more normal than normal. Sort of like how Uranium has different types that are still Uranium. Unless you have the know-how and patience to inspect them, they're all just radioactive. So I couldn't be cured, because Jane couldn't be cured. She was so expert at faking being cured, that even if the doctors all believed her, they would never let her out."

She sat back down on the bed.

"Ru, who's behind all this? Wicca, Jane coming back from the dead, Jane's crazy children finding her, poor Dawn being split in two? William turning human?"

Giles nodded.

"If we're using opposite numbers as our guide, then I'm left with one inescapable suspect as my counterpart. Since we were lads, really."

Joyce caught on immediately.

"Ethan Rayne? Didn't you describe him as a mercenary and scam artist? This is a building pattern attack. I don't need to be a Watcher or Slayer to see that."

"Agreed. And these things he's pulled off are beyond him. But my last tracking of his movements puts him close enough to Sunnydale to arouse my well-founded prejudices."

Snuggling next to him, Joyce made a suggestion.

"Accidental destiny made me the mother of the Slayer, and robbed me of my son. Now, accidental destiny has given me a new husband."

Giles looked at her.

"What are you suggesting?"

"That maybe we shouldn't act to annul that piece of paper anytime soon."

=========================================

Outside, William followed Buffy at a slight distance.

"You know, William, I'd kind of like some space."

"Fine. I'll give you space, so long as I'm close by."

She turned and shook her head.

"Look, you're human now. So you can't help on patrols the way you did."

William took note of something in her stance, and in her voice.

"It isn't me, is it? You're almost past what I did. Buffy, let me help. I'm a man, now. I can be whatever you want."

She kept silent, but no longer looked angry. So William kept on.

"Is it Dawnie? Your Mum being back? Xander being your brother?"

She started to walk away again.

"Don't talk about me and Xander, alright?"

A bit of Spike crept back in his voice.

"That's it, in't it? Luv, you have got to get over this."

She looked back at him again, the anger having returned.

"Get over what?"

Not having a gentle way to say this, William decided to guard certain parts of his body in a hurry.

"You, my dear Slayer, have a distinct taste for forbidden fruit. All those years, with Xander mooning over you like a dumb puppy, and all he got was a pissed-off Willow. Now, the laws of God and Man have placed him on the topmost shelf with all the best china, and you want to climb up for a cup of tea and some crumpets. You liked having him as a back-burner option, and now he's off the menu forever--one would tend to hope. That kills you. It kills you that you never did it with him before you found out, so you can have the best of both worlds. Same as you did with Angel, Riley and yours truly."

Buffy managed to slap him, despite his being on guard.

"I didn't think it was possible, but you are more disgusting as a human than as a vampire!"

He pointed.

"Yes. But am I wrong?"

She bit her lip, looked more than a bit ashamed, and then answered.

"I'm not sure. Neither of us are."

A voice that seemed to be Buffy's now joined in.

"Y'know? I had the same problem with my twin brother. So we worked it out, til we got a result. Her name is Dusk Summers-produced the old-fashioned way. You may have met her. My brother's name is Philip Summers."

The young woman, Buffy's physical twin, emerged from hiding, smiling all the while.

"Myself, I'm Jodie Summers. No fancy title. I just kill. Its fun. But you, my cousin/half-sib? You're the big bad Vampire Slayer."

She whistled through her teeth with two fingers. A creature that resembled William, but with a very Master-ish, poxied look, emerged. It looked at William, speaking in what sounded like a bad parody of his accent at its thickest. His teeth looked like rows of nails.

"Spike in't gone, guv!"

Jodie directed Spike's attention towards Buffy.

"Vampire? Slay Her."

Note This story contains refs to another. Sorry, but it was unavoidable. But don't worry, you don't need to read the other just yet.

=====================================

If Xander appeared to be talking to himself while sitting on the back porch, this was only part-true. He was sitting on the back porch, and he was talking.

"Its my fault. I cast the spell.", said Tara.

"Would you stop that? We both wanted to find Willow, and we didn't want to rely on those alternate-world hero-types to bring her back. But they turned out legit, and we ended up spending the last weeks of your life checking to see if the stick turned blue."

Tara's voice emerged again. Perhaps she didn't 'need' to speak vocally as opposed to mentally, but Xander couldn't begrudge her the chance to use an ability she had lost upon death.

"I should have foreseen what unleashing any kind of love would do. Its too powerful. Unlike hate, it doesn't even tempt you. It just takes you. Xander? I want you to know something. I figured out who I was and what I wanted from life pretty early on. I never really realized how much of that sexual self-knowledge was driven by the fact that all the men I'd known had been mostly rotten."

Xander was confused.

"Whoa. Tara--I may not be Phil Donahue, but the way I heard it, that's not how it works. Nobody drives anybody anywhere. You just go."

"Yes. I would have been who I was. Who I always was. Who I think maybe my mother was, if she'd been given a chance. What I'm saying is--knowing someone like you might have made that realization a little more difficult to come by. I still would have gotten there. But I find it hard to imagine you hitting me or calling me names when the time came. If I think about it, I can only see your smile--that sort-of smile you get."

Xander laughed lightly.

"Great. First my life turns into a dime-novel, and now its an episode of 'Friends'. Owww!!"

Tara had caused a cramp in his right hand, as though it had been smacked.

"'Friends' my non-ass. I hate Jessica Hecht's character. Stuck-up, smarmy Mike Stivic-esque know-it-all..."

Anya's voice was heard.

"Xander? Who are you talking to?"

Both souls inside the body sighed. The night was now complete. Then Xander realized one more thing, to drive the extra coffin-nails home.

"Oh, God. She's my step-mom, now!"

====================================

Jodie, the self-described killer, jumped at the now-human William with a knife in hand. But William rolled her off of him, her knife hitting only concrete as she sprawled.

"Here's a hint, knot-head. I've bedded a better breed of psycho than you'll ever be. And my Dru has real class, she does."

So far, William noted, all these attackers had one thing in common.

"They're all bloody lame-o's!"

Which of course, didn't mean anything in the long run. But for now, it was all merely pathetic. Jodie dragged herself up, and glared at William.

"You people have no idea what you're up against!"

William balled his hands into fists, boxed her out a bit, then smashed the image of his love straight in her nose.

"Xander was right. You and your brother have got to seek out a dialogue coach, girl."

Jodie was not done yet. She cut her hand lightly, then licked the cut. William pointed.

"Okay. First, you have to be a vamp to do that. Second--you're supposed to do it to someone else."

The sick thing with Buffy's face smiled.

"Let me kill you, and before you die, I'll let you do me. I'll even tell you I love you."

She pointed at Buffy, fighting for her life against the huge, ubervampish Spike.

"Or maybe we'll just feed you to your other side, like we did your pal Clem."

William rushed her, grabbed her knife, and jammed it straight in her gut. He slowly began to twist it.

"There is no such thing as a nice or a gentle demon. But if there were--Clem would have been it. He deserved a lot better."

Jodie backed up, laughing, and pulled the knife out. She taunted William as she vanished.

"And you'll have to do a lot better."

William cried out.

"COWARDS!!!!"

He wanted to run and help Buffy, human or no. But as he now learned anew, a man with a soul mourns his friends, and Clem had been a friend. He sat down, and found that he could not get up.

========================================

Buffy found as she began the fight that the twin brother so much on her mind was still in her thoughts, though in a martial and not a carnal sense. The Spike-thing was so much stronger than her, staggering her with its lightest blows while shrugging off her very best.

"Give us a kiss, Slayer!"

Thankfully, it had a shambling gait, and was the one exception to the fast-as-they-are-big-and-strong paradox that seemed to be a rule of her enemies' nature. Running away enough to get breathing room, she also fought off revulsion that the monster had once been part and parcel of someone she slept with.

"Din't yew wonder why allll the vamps have gone on holiday, Luv? Wicca drained what they had--an' she gave it to me!"

She obviously knew how to fight without benefit of Xander's magic-cancelling ability, but that didn't change her wish that he was with her, right then and there. Even his mental presence had grown fuzzy since Wicca's ambush. But she still had something he had given her--knowledge from training.

*Okay, twinny. You have the strength, but like Giles said, there's always a next level, and you're more likely than not one step behind your attacker. I'm there. I don't just fight big stupid. Some of the jerky motions I use are just jerky motions. Then--there's The Babaloo.*

Buffy leaped up onto the thing's shoulders from behind, wrapped her feet and legs around its back, and climbed up til she was in range of its head. A series of rhythmic, open-handed slaps followed on its large, bald pate.

"Hey, Bongo!"

After five minutes of the agonizing pounding, Spike managed to throw her off, afterwards grabbing at his head and shouting.

"I will kill yewwww!!"

Buffy got to her feet, prepared to use as many of her brother's bully-battling tactics as she could remember. But her next words made this largely unnecessary.

"No. I'M not the one who's gonna crying home to Mommy, pal!"

Now, the Spike-ubervamp fell to its knees, though no longer from just the head-blows Buffy had inflicted. It was screaming.

"Mummy! I didn't mean to do it. Mummy! Come back to meeeee!!! Why did you hurt your boy's feelings, Mummy? I was still your son...why weren't you still my Mum?"

By the time Buffy had grabbed a thick fence-post, the now-vulnerable vampire was gone. She heard a sound.

"He's crying again?"

But all she found was William in mourning, and more confusion for herself.

"Get up. We need to get with Giles and track these losers down. Before the next apocalypse, if we can."

======================================

Anya sat down next to her former fiancée. But her demon-eyes saw something immediately.

"Why do you have a second soul? You can't have always had it. I mean, I usually pick up on these things pretty quickly."

She then slapped him.

Oh--My-- Xander! You had sex with Buffy and now you're pregnant, cursed by the Slayer line for violating your own sister! I'm especially upset with her. I mean, she already had unlimited access to your penis for nearly nine months. Granted, that was a long time ago, but still. Is this revenge for me and Spi--William? Cause if it is, I can understand it. But otherwise---eewww! Ick!"

Tara's voice now emerged.

"You haven't changed, Anya."

Anya snapped her fingers.

"Ohhhh. Now I understand."

Xander anticipated and blocked her next slap.

"I reached my quota for the night, thanks."

Anya stood up, arms on her hips.

"When did it happen?"

"After the wedding. After I left you. It was a locator spell, based on our mutual love for Willow."

Anya chuckled, and sat back down.

"Are you two nuts? Everyone knows those spells induce orgies. Were you at least naked when you cast it?"

Tara answered.

"We wore plush robes. I figured that was close enough."

Anya nearly laughed out loud.

"You used something as potent as your love for a very powerful witch--and you didn't first get acclimated to the sight of one another's bodies? Those robes must have seemed liked gift wrapping to kids on Christmas morning."

Xander felt a bit indignant.

"Hey, look. We had every reason to believe that nothing was going to happen. Tara was my best friend's girlfriend--and the lady did not prefer gentlemen."

Anya was still dismissive.

"Like that first part really helped you stay loyal to Cordelia Chase. As to the second--you humans and your 'preferences'. People, some folks 'prefer' pepperoni pizza, black cherry soda, and oatmeal raisin cookies. But if they're hungry, they usually won't refuse double-cheese, ginger ale and chocolate chip. Or should I have said sausage, Miss Maclay?"

Tara seized control and slapped Anya.

"You know, Anya, I usually always kept quiet during all of your endless tirades, your extended bouts of so-called 'plain-talking'. Well, I am calling an official halt to all such 'plain-talking'. From the homophobes on the call-in shows to the sassy Moms on TV to everybody who likes to be rude and call it 'honesty', this undead girl has had well above enough. Especially when all this wisdom comes from someone who has conveniently shaken off all responsibility for the ruin of her own wedding! Xander ran, yes. But did you ask him what he saw in those visions, visions given by YOUR vengeance target? It wasn't just an unhappy marriage."

Rather than again slap back, a deflated Anya sat back down.

"I know. He saw himself killing me. Hallie told me."

Xander mentally elbowed his friend aside, giving an internal glare about such seizures.

"Anya, how would Hallifrek know what I saw? oh, no. I thought maybe she was involved, but.. really?"

Anya nodded.

"Her and D'Hoffryn. They were trying to protect me. When I first became human again, my exemption from having vengeance wished upon me expired. It seems that some of my targets over the centuries were conspired against by their ladies. They lied to me. I may have destroyed the kind of men that most women would pray for as a husband. In at least one case I verified, the woman who wished a man cast--errr--stricken---told me she was his abused wife. Noper. She was a lady of the court angry with him for his monogamous devotion to his real wife. I didn't think women played those games, Xander."

"So being a demon again means you're safe now?"

Anya shook her head.

"When I found out who Hank was to you, I had this brilliant idea of getting my revenge on all the Summers who had 'wronged' me. I was even angry at Joyce for dying and making me act so awkward. Who knew? So I married Hank, and I was going to be the stepmom from East Hell. Two problems, though. One is, I am now vulnerable to vengeance wished upon Hank. Apparently, sooner rather than later, you, Buffy or Dawn will wish vengeance on him. Whatever he gets--I get."

Xander was now very concerned, and Tara with him. He breathed in.

"Then leave him. Go. Divorce. Annul. Anya, he's a good man at heart. But I won't let you be held responsible for whatever past screwup he chooses to suddenly remember. Hank Summers is a better father than George Harris ever was, but God knows that's not saying much. Between leaving Buffy high and dry, his super-Xander way with words, and this whole deal with an alternate family, I wouldn't be surprised if the next big thing does have us all about the Vengeamins. Go. There's gotta be a recently sex-integrated military academy somewhere just begging for Anyanka's personal touch. Dress them all like Max Klinger, just before a big review."

She looked down.

"It doesn't work that way. He and I are one--til death. Besides..."

She now looked up.

"...Hank needs me, Xander. I see in him so much of what I held dear in you. But he needs me. You never did. You loved me. But your father needs me. With my help, he can be the man he should have been. I love Joyce, but what she tried to push, I can guide. And he wants me to guide him. Back to his children. Back to a life he ran away from. I think we might still find a way to stop what Hallie foresaw. But I can no longer imagine life without this seed of what could be a very great man. You have no idea how George Horace--or Harris--really victimized him. Let me be your stepmother. In exchange, I will give you back a father you can be proud of."

Their hands clasped before she withdrew, a smile between them at last. After she left, Tara asked Xander a question.

"She has her work cut out for her, right?"

"Tara, think carving out Mount Rushmore, using a ballpeen hammer and a soupspoon."

A hand reached out from behind and grasped his. It was a smiling Willow, using magic to feel both souls in Xander's body. She then touched his shoulders, and squeezed.

"Its going to be tough getting you two brain-donors separated. Xander's being a magic-bane works against us, in this case. But I swear that I will find a way. My Goddess. The two of you. Together. I mean, not together like you were. But together like you are now. It---"

Willow forgot in that moment that there was more than one level of magic at play. The bitterness finished vanishing entirely, and suddenly she could only see that the one who could have claimed her heart at anytime was conjoined with the one who did. Only an ignorant fool would say she 'changed back' or some such nonsense, at this moment. But the squeeze she gave Xander in a certain location was not to be mistaken in its intent.

"You feel good."

She teleported them upstairs to his room.

"Can you make me feel good?"

Opportunities missed, happily-ever-afters denied and love gunned down in its prime fell away more quickly than any garments. The name didn't matter. Willow only knew that she was once more with the one she loved.

Emerging much later, Willow felt giddy and alive.

"Maybe those two don't have to be separated too soon."

She was joking, of course, but after a lifetime of hands in her face regarding love, this had been too grand a dream to not savor. But life decided against her once more, as she was shoved to the wall by her other best friend. The Slayer's face was consumed by raw rage, and Willow forgot briefly that she could even do magic, so frightening was Buffy's anger as she spoke.

"I'm going to say this only once, Willow. Stay the hell away from him!"

=========================================

Joyce hadn't meant to look through Rupert's things, but the one case had come open. In it was an old Watcher journal.

"Giles French? That's his cousin."

A kind man, he had helped Joyce and Hank deliver the twins, requesting only that the girl be named for another Buffy, forever lost to him. Curiosity seizing her, she found the right passage.

"February, 1981."

Rupert came downstairs a bit later, and saw that her face was pale.

"Joyce? Is anything the matter?"

She held up the journal.

"Have you read this?"

"No. That's the raw journal. I've only ever read the edited copy kept at Council Headquarters. It was on my list, for obvious reasons."

Joyce looked at him, and determined to her relief and satisfaction that he was telling the truth.

"This passage details the kidnapping."

Rupert sat down as she read the bitter truth of it all.

"The ruffians attempted to take both children. I determined that it was perhaps possible to protect them both, yet it was far from certain that I could successfully do so. I am a Watcher, disgraced or otherwise, and that I shall always remain. My duty was harsh but clear. Protect the future Slayer. To this end, I feigned distraction and confusion in the midst of the struggle when they seized the boy, Scott, and then made them believe security was nearby, causing the scoundrels to run off. To spare the children's parents, I will fashion a story that dispenses with my being accosted and merely speaks of being distracted by one of the babies' cries. And May My God Forgive Me."

Rupert studied the damning document, as angry about the Council's selective editing as what the raw journal contained. He shook his head.

"If either of them should learn of this, it could be disastrous. Buffy already feels horrid guilt stemming from the edited version I told her. If she is told that Xander was deliberately sacrificed to protect her, she might even break inside."

Joyce held up the journal.

"We have to tell her, and we have to do it soon. If we are under attack, then there's no way they wouldn't try and use something like this. I've lied to those kids for as long as I care to, Rupert. No more."

Giles closed his eyes.

"And the night was going so well. What next?"

The doorbell rang. It was Hank and Anya. Hank pointed happily.

"Guess what, folks?"

Anya giggled and jumped.

"We bought the house on the left side of Buffy's! We're all going to be living within a thousand yards of each other! Isn't that great?"

Joyce closed the door. She looked at Rupert.

"Let's go have more sex."

He nodded.

"Yes. Mind-numbing amounts of it."

========================================

THE GANGSTERS' HIDEOUT

In the ruined jazz club once known as The Gangsters Hideout, Ethan Rayne began his part of the plan in earnest. The spell was easy to cast, since it literally could not cause harm to its targets, and thus invoked no demons and activated no wards. Their lives and their souls were not his goal. Only their destinies.

"Hello, ladies."

The spirits were in fact those of young girls, hundreds from all over the planet. Again, the spell only brought them there. There to be asked a question.

"I show you two doors. One leads to the life of a possible Slayer. Early death and vast loneliness are assured. The other leads to a life in which your greatest worry will be the Pre-Prom zit. Please choose."

Neither door led anywhere except back to their bodies, again safe and sound. But a glow began to surround the still form of Jodie Summers as most and in fact nearly all chose the door leading to a normal life. Ethan seemingly spoke to no one at all.

"Kill them and the potentiality will simply move on, as does the mantle of Slayer itself. But give them the option of normalcy--which really wasn't a word until the US Presidential campaign of 1920--and they give us everything."

Ethan then seemed to be listening to that same unseen someone.

"I agree. But wait until he's done with that long-favored project."

The world's peril began to build as never before, at that very moment. Evil's plan was well in motion.

=====================================

Hank entered his new house, not realizing his wife was on her own manner of patrol. A tyrannical father and husband elsewhere in the vicinity had suddenly lost all timing. From then on, his wife and children would always be able to hide whatever they were doing, just in time and where he would never find the evidence. Fortunately, he was a brow-beater so egotistical, striking people was something he considered beneath him, even as his authority became wholly imaginary. Back to Hank.

"Honey? I found an Aldi's in the next town over. They only require you to bring your own bag, and the groceries are cheaper as a...Anya?"

A horned, smiling figure greeted Hank in the kitchen area. Hank's seeming cluelessness did not prevent him from knowing his wife's employer.

"D'Hoffryn? Is something wrong with Anya?"

The Chief Vengeance Demon bid him sit down.

"Henry, I'll be brief. I've found a way to rescue Anyanka from whatever vengeance your children decide to put upon you, when the time comes."

Hank nodded.

"That's good."

D'Hoffryn smiled.

"Its by killing you."

Hank nodded.

"That's bad."

D'Hoffryn's grin never quite left him.

"Now, I know what you're probably thinking. Your fate is hers, and all that. But I found a most interesting loophole in the standard contract my people sign before entering my service. Seems that, if one of my people were somehow to gain, say, a cursed appendage, like an arm that fights them or a leg that tries to drag them off a too-high cliff---I can sever that appendage, free of other mystic and/or cosmic consequences."

Hank nodded. He seemed to be good at it.

"And I'm the appendage?"

D'Hoffryn pointed.

"Just remember--you said it, I didn't."

========================================

Slowly, Willow watched Buffy back away. The Slayer's eyes were beginning to tear.

"I'm sorry."

Still a little frightened, Willow kept her distance.

"Its like you said this summer, Buffy. We're all of us always sorry. But maybe its time we started focusing on why we do the sorry things so much."

Buffy sat down in a corner of the hallway.

"There's no big why, Willow. I'm a freak. So is Xander. For almost five years, we didn't want each other in any real way. And I never felt as hormonal about him as he did about me. Its not that I couldn't have. But before I knew it, there was Angel."

Willow got a little closer than before.

"I was there. You mooning after Angel. Xander mooning after you. Me after him. Thank God for Oz and Cordelia. Cause what we had didn't even qualify as a decent triangle."

Buffy looked at her.

"So why do we want each other now? Why did I get insanely jealous at the thought of you being with him? And...just why were you with him? Why were you with a...him?"

Willow sat down, though still at a slight remove.

"One reason is Tara. Her spirit is with Xander's, right now. He rescued her from the oblivion Wicca meant to hit her with. I couldn't resist being that close to her, Buffy."

"I'm sorry."

Willow shook her head.

"You two have issues. I've seen that. I thought with the wrong half of my body at the wrong time. It happens. But Buffy--I recently gained the greatest power possible. The power over my own destiny. I am who I wish to be. I love whom I choose to love. If Tara were alive, or capable of being restored to life by decent means, that would be her, no questions asked. Maybe if Oz had found his answers here, it would have kept on being him. But he is not here, and Tara can't stay in Xander indefinitely without maybe harming both of them. Xander's love pulled me back from the worst of me. He is here. And if I feel like loving him, and making love with him, then no one on Earth or beyond can change that."

Buffy looked at her, the seeming jealousy gone.

"Is that what you want?"

Willow got up, and shrugged.

"My heartstrings are still a little sore from high school. He has to want me, too. He has to seek me. But unlike last time, I'll let him know how I feel instead of just glaring and moping. At least you're off the board, this time."

Buffy looked up.

"Am I?"

Willow chuckled a bit.

"Yeah. I'm not going to get between you two, offering advice, Buffy. But I will say this much. I don't read sexual tension between you two. Not in any real way. The rest is for you to figure out."

"Where are you going?"

Willow charged herself, a bit of a glow resulting.

"I just had unexpected sex with one best friend, was reunited with my one great love, and had my other bestsest friend threaten me in a confused rage. I'm really feeling pumped!"

Willow's eyes glowed golden.

"So I'm gonna find Wicca and kick her slimy ass all over town."

Buffy stood up.

"Whoa, there, Anakin. You ready to take on Darth Vader, right now? And why the hell did I just phrase it that way?"

Willow kissed her forehead, smiling.

"She is sooo not my dark side, Buffy. As for the rest? You phrased it that way because he's a part of you. And he always has been. Hint, hint?"

Buffy suddenly felt very foolish--again.

"It was never about the sex, right?"

Willow spoke as she vanished.

"Nope. Sex is easy. Brother is hard. Err--not hard--so much as--difficult. Yeah. No hardness."

Buffy stepped into his room when she was gone. She saw his eyes open. The sheets were strategically placed for a TV14 offering.

"Hi, there. Who am I talking to?"

Xander's voice came out of Xander's body.

"Me. Tara's asleep. And she's giggling. She always giggles afterwords. I think that's why Willow got out so fast. Drives her crazy."

Buffy smiled.

"Look at you. Mister Dealing Well With It."

"Well, I've gotten some practice with the quick dealing with stuff, lately. The only thing I seem to have done my usual worst on is handling you."

Buffy said the words.

"Time we both improved on that score." =======================================

Giles held his hand to his head as William moved his things into the downstairs bedroom.

"You won't regret this."

Rupert looked at Joyce.

"You HAD to answer the doorbell, and then invite him in?"

"Ru, he's not a vampire anymore."

"No. Merely an interrupter of passion. You do realize what having another person in the house will do to all hopes of privacy?"

Joyce pshawed him.

"His room has its own shower and toilet area. Plus, he has a marvelous education and experience on both sides of the fence. Watcher-material?"

Giles heard the council's laughter echo in his brain.

"Lord above, what next?"

A knock came at the door. Rupert stared.

"I have got to stop asking that question. One would think I'd know better."

Two women that were once human awaited as he opened it. The blonde spoke first.

"We're here to see Spikey!"

The brunette was smiling.

"Can he come out to pl-aaay?"

Giles turned and called.

"William? Its for you."

He turned back to the two vampires.

"Just a quick question, to be certain. Neither of you are by any chance related to Hank Summers, are you?"

========================================

Sensing each other, the two witches met at the edge of town. Wicca grinned and summoned up a thunderstorm behind her.

"Staying away from the cliffs, Willow? Are you that afraid of what we almost did there? Afraid that our friends will suddenly remember that we tried to do the freaking whole wide world?"

Willow didn't speak, so Wicca kept on.

"Oh, the blood that sprayed that day. Blood of enemies. Blood of associates. Blood of friends. Why don't you just let me back in and taste real power once again?"

Willow merely smiled, and said nothing. Enraged, Wicca flew at her, hands afire.

"Don't you DARE ignore me again, yooooooouuuu....."

Willow struck her down with an opened hand as she passed, and blew softly on the air, dispersing the thunderstorm. Stepping on Wicca's chest, she looked down, not even bothering with contempt for this creature. She said a few simple words to her supposed dark side given flesh.

"Amy, cut the crap."

The being known as Wicca got up, shaking.

"I'm not Amy. I'm you. I'm your wildest impulses, given free reign. I'm the part of you that at long last decided to stop being the anvil, and start being the hammer. I'm last summer's uber- witch, that no one and nothing could ever stop."

Willow raised an eyebrow.

"Are you the terror that flaps in the night, too?"

Wicca raised up a lightning ball, but Willow froze it and her in place. She slowly walked around the supposed evil double.

"Ya know, I just can't figure you out. I mean, for most people, getting all body-snatched by their own Mom would have them so scared of magic, they might not even go near Fruit-Pie The Magician on a Hostess display. Then Xander--love im' though I happen to do--of all people spots your test and homework scam. His new powers aside, the man's not what you'd call a fifth-level adept in these matters. Ooh! Then the love spell goes all explodey, and bad bad things almost happen between the long-lost twins and then Oz confesses to me how even though he didn't really see Buffy naked after she was demoused, implied skin always turns him on."

Willow clapped her hands.

"Then we have your three-year audition for Pinky And The Brain--which, so's you know, was not my fault. But I do getcha out, although I'm in the middle of a big stupid, and all of a suddenly you're an addict? Before I even realize it, Dr. Willow is stealing morphine from her own bag. Not your fault, except in a drinking buddy kind of way. Lo and behold, I try and get my head back on, maybe ask Tara to come back. You come back, despite having a very pissed- off Slayer tell you to leave, and you grab my arm and pump heroin-type magic in? Geez, I mean, what else do you do? Set up bars next to AA meetings?"

Wicca's face went feral, and she burst her stasis field.

"Everyone always forgives Willow. Well, I don't!"

Willow shook her head.

"You sound like my Mom."

Wicca smiled.

"Think, lil' Glenda! I can't just go and wield power that once belonged to you--unless I have a genetic link. My body is in stasis, elsewhere. But Wicca's prior occupant was one Sheila Rosenberg. I stole your mother's body, Willow."

Willow raised an opened hand, and pushed forward on empty air. Wicca staggered as though struck by a Buffy-Faith tag team.

"Bound. Bye. Bitch."

Amy lay there, back in her original body and quite powerless. Next to her lay the yet familiar magic-youthened form of Sheila Rosenberg. Willow smiled what would prove to be a very premature victory smile.

===========================================

Inside Joyce Summers' home, William peeped outside in massive apprehension.

"Bugger!"

Giles nodded at the sight of Drusilla and Harmony standing on the front porch.

"Bugger all indeed. What in blazes are they doing here together? I thought they despised each other and, for that matter, you."

William sat down, shaking his head.

"Well, that's a lil' thing in dealing with those two, you see. Drusilla is out of her mind, while Harmony may not actually possess one. Listen, you grab a crossbow and call the Wonder Twins over. They'll prolly grab Xander, first thing, and then we'll do the stakes. I'll fake em' out for the time being."

"Rather a cold attitude towards those you once held dear."

William stood up, and grabbed for his leather jacket.

"Not cold. I know what they can do. A lot of it, I showed them, or they showed me. Like I say, Dru's just nuts, and Harm's a former high school princess who enjoys her power way too much. Its how vamps translate, when the change comes. Dru's mad but knows how to plan. Harm's dim but knows how to hunt. Liam was a slacker who always just coasted by, so Angelus plows through everyone, while Angel plows around them. Me, I lived for answers, so the poet became a punker--about a century too early."

Giles shook his head.

"They'll know, and don't tell me they won't. William, we don't even know if you can survive being brought over again." William went for the door.

"Listen, Watcher. Hate me and mistrust me, if that's what you still feel like doing. But here's a word of warning Believe in me. Cause I was never a slacker. Good or bad deeds or godawful poetry, victory or disaster, I am a doer. Man or demon, its the core of who I am. Now sod off, Human. Spike's back in town---well, not the big Tolkienesque Uruk-Hai Spike, but cool Spike. Remember, I hung around with the real Arthur."

Giles looked at him.

"That was Arthur Fonzarelli."

William shrugged.

"Pendragon, Fonzarelli--its all cool."

Before he could get outside, Joyce stopped him.

"Here. Gargle with this."

"Joyce? Those two won't care about my breath."

But he gargled anyway, and when she indicated that he swallow, he did. William winced.

"What was that?"

"Warm salt water. If they smell enough salt coming off you--"

"Right. Thanks. And tell your daughter it was fun."

Joyce watched him go outside.

"Tell her yourself."

William walked past his two former lovers nonchalantly, guiding them away from the door as he went. He turned and looked at Dru, and then at Harmony. He fingered a lit cigarette, but never smoked it.

"Ladies. I thought our business was done. You know, we used to love, now we hate, yadda. What, didja leave your purses? Cause in this Dale of ours--people just don't mail them back."

Drusilla smiled.

"You just fed. A good meal, too. Smells like an ocean of blood in your mouth."

William felt like he had them.

"Straight from the tap, love."

But every act required improv. Harmony shook her head.

"So what about your chip?"

For the second time since becoming human again, William felt his heart freeze. But the supporting players stepped in to help, albeit from behind the safety of the invitation-proofed doorway.

"It was removed, as per the terms of our temporary alliance." Dru looked over at Giles.

"Alliance?"

William looked into her eyes.

"Why else do you think I'd be in the same house as a Watcher?"

His glare put Dru off. But perhaps Harmony had grown the brain she didn't always seem to have.

"Who's the alliance against?"

William quickly shifted his gaze to Giles. The Watcher was just as close-mouthed, not having thought all this through. Joyce stepped into the doorway.

"Splendiferous. He's-he's Glory's brother. Wants revenge on all of us. He feels demonkind failed his sister, so you're on his list, too."

Dru shook her head.

"Splendiferous?"

Harmony laughed.

"I'll bet the other hellgods pantsed him a lot."

Then, that new brain of hers kicked in yet again. She pointed at Joyce in the distance.

"Wait. That's Buffy's Mom, right? Isn't she dead?"

William looked about nervously.

"Well, who isn't dead, nowadays?"

Giles stepped in again.

"Splendiferous brought her back as a pawn in his game. We managed to free her."

Dru puzzled over one of the story's many holes.

"Why haven't we caught wind of this big nasty Splendiferous? Where are his servants?"

William wisely fought off the urge to gulp.

"Right. Well, its like the Slayer's Mum just said. He wants revenge on just about everybody, so no demons or humans for his army. In fact...he doesn't even have an army. He's got the chops to do the whole thing by himself."

Harmony's eyes went wider.

"No minions? But then, why hasn't he done you all already?"

*God Above*, thought William. *Of all the many punishments you could have heaped upon me for any number of crimes, why choose a wisely inquisitive Harmony?*

Dru looked at him with new eyes.

"You're acting strange, Spike. Its like you're still looking down at us from that porch."

Harmony nodded.

"She's right. You're not acting like yourself."

William stood on the porch steps, and puffed on his cigarette. He looked at the two.

"Then sod off, the two of you! I'm Spike, and I am as fundamentally bad to the bone as they co---agaggghhhhhacckk!!"

William was now gasping for air, while humans and vampires watched in concern. Joyce whispered to Giles.

"Please tell me that isn't the first cigarette he's had since turning human."

"All right--I won't tell you."

William tried to recover his ground. He looked at his two former lovers, smiling.

"Wasn't that a great imitation of a human? Now, for my next imitation---Jesse Owens!"

William ran like a shot for the doorway, but Harmony got ahead of him and blocked it, snarling. She held him up by the throat with one hand.

"Where's the real Spike? You know, we both came all this way back here to have him decide between us, and you pull this scam? Is that you under that makeup, Harris, you loser?"

"Harmony?"

"What?!"

Behind the angry vampire stood Joyce Summers.

"May 20th, 1991. 7th Grade. After 3rd Period in the Hall at your school."

"What about it?"

From the safety of the barrier, Joyce grabbed firmly on Harmony's tight jeans--and pulled them down. Embarrassed, she dropped William, and all retreated inside. Joyce smiled.

"Xander is my son. That's called payback. Oh--and do try wearing underwear. And maybe buying some Vagisil?"

Harmony raged at the barrier, until Giles spoke.

"My dear--you might wish to pull them up, first."

Whether she could blush or not, Harmony plainly looked humiliated. As she recovered herself, she looked at Joyce.

"You must be his Mom. You don't fight fair, either."

Joyce had no sympathy.

"You rubbed up against him to get a response and then had two boys pants him. So what's fair?"

William's throat was still sore. So was he.

"Sokay, Joyce. Pantsing, hair-pulling. Its her lot in life. That's what nerds are for, eh, Harm?"

"STOP FREAKING LAUGHING AT ME!!!"

Giles did indeed stop chuckling.

"Yes, by all means. Let's stop with such humor. Let's instead call next door to the very powerful Willow, or the aforementioned Xander, whose mere touch can now make you both very mortal-- or to his twin sister--oh, what is her occupation? I strongly suggest that you both leave before I remember."

Drusilla chose then to reemerge, a straggler in hand.

"Or--Harmony and I could choose to play starfish with your little girl, here."

Seeking the relative quiet of Joyce's house for the night, Dawn now found herself gripped firmly on either arm by two very vengeful vampires. The others looked on in helpless horror. Unless help was already on its way, Dawn was lost. She looked about her, nervously.

"Its official. I inherited Hank's timing."

=================================================

The genetic originator of Dawn's timing was playing the clock against his own final fate.

"Henry? I'm waiting."

"Just a minute, D'Hoffryn. I've almost got it all."

The Chief Vengeance Demon saw Hank Summers sit down and open a folder. He handed D'Hoffryn some reading material.

"What is this? Last will, curse on my head, application for leniency?"

Hank pointed.

"Nope. Its evidence. In case what I did was found out, I didn't want Xander or any of my family being accused. So what do you think?"

D'Hoffryn skimmed over the many pages. At last he whistled. He looked at Hank.

"I'll need to verify all this, of course. But--let's put a permanent hold on your execution. Even if this turns out to be a fake, its a thing of beauty. And if its for real? Henry, we will have to talk. Because I have wholly underestimated you. That just doesn't happen very often."

Hank nodded.

"So. Grilled Cheese with Bacon and Tomato?"

D'Hoffryn nodded as Hank went to the fridge.

"Yeah, but brown spicy mustard. Yellow does things to my insides. It makes even we vengeance demons squeamish."

=================================================

As Willow watched, Amy stirred. She stood up, sneering again. Willow moved to cover her mouth.

"If you so much as tell me that this isn't over, you'll be back on a high-calcium diet quicker than you can say Rickey Rat."

Sheila stood up, looking woozy.

"Willow, all this power..."

Walking away from Amy, Willow held up her youthened mother.

"Relax, Mom. I'll cleanse you of it soon."

Sheila looked at Willow and smiled.

"Now, why would I want you to do that, honey?"

Sheila gestured at Amy, draining her life force dry in an instant.

"All that power… and I can have so much more."

As Amy's dust settled on the ground, Willow stared in abject horror. The new Wicca grinned broadly.

"She was sooo afraid of her mother coming back and killing her. And she was afraid of you, Willow. Kinda ironic who killed her then, huh?"

Willow turned and pointed.

"Stop using my voice! And you are not my mother."

Wicca's voice at least turned more mature.

"Oh, but I am Sheila Rosenberg, dear. Ethan brought Amy into this. Amy thought she would wield your darker powers through me. But Mister Rayne knew she was an idiot, so instead we used her as a kind of living tutorial, so I could learn the craft."

She blasted Willow back.

"Now I have. I used to write books about mental health. Now I change people's minds with a gesture--hell, I can change their brains. Or smash them."

Willow got up.

"You're not controlling me, anymore, Mom. A few words and that look you always get won't stop me from stopping you for good."

Wicca kept on smiling.

"Honey, I don't need to control you anymore. You've served your purpose."

Willow shook her head at the forming of a realization.

"No...no."

"See, honey, your father was from a very old Kaballic family. But America demanded his folks run a deli, not a magic shop. So there he was, all untapped, and there I was, a frustrated psychology student who knew she could be more. But how to tap his power? I couldn't. Til you were born."

If Willow had wondered how Buffy and Xander had felt, some months back, she no longer had to.

"But how to keep your talents suppressed, so that you'd keep obeying like a good little girl? Well, I found a couple of idiots who had kidnapped a living magic capacitor. They were on the verge of being caught when I brought them to Sunnydale. Helped them make new lives to waste."

Xander. The Harrises. All connected. Since the beginning. Or before.

"Now, are you still with me? Because, frankly, Willow, you always had an attention problem. The boy's powers are mostly inactive, but the way you hung on him? It all worked out. And we rode you, and rode you, and created as uptight a creature as anyone ever saw. When you finally went for magic, you craved control. Last summer's explosion was the seamless finishing touch on all my plans. You rejected the power I now own. Thanks, honey. And we should thank Tara. The chaos-death marker I cast on her sure guided those stray bullets, right?"

Willow breathed in.

"Nice try."

Wicca/Sheila puzzled.

"What?"

Willow shrugged.

"I'll buy that you had a basic plan, Mom. I'll buy that you helped the Harrises keep Xander from the Summers. But, c'mon! How stupid do you think I am? Last summer was all in your plan? Bull! Maybe my big stupid worked in your favor--but you can't plan life the way you do one of your book tours. You always play this, and you always overplay. Now where's Dad?"

Wicca vanished.

"Ask Amy."

Willow began to head for home.

"No, Sheila. You can ask them both. Soon."

=================================================

Inside Buffy's home, she sat down on the bed with Xander. Both were fully clothed.

"Uh..sis? You wanna have this conversation here?"

"Here's where the problem is. And I want you to hold me."

Xander asked the obvious.

"Why? When I hold you, you're normal."

Buffy snuggled into his grasp, no gestures or movements beyond sibling affection present for now.

"I know. That's why I want you to hold me. Make me normal, Xander. Make me just a shrewish girl with a dorky brother."

He did as she asked, and both realized that, even more than powers or sex, they faced the burden of two missing decades, and that scared the heroes very, very badly.

=================================================

GREAT BRITIAN

The Inspector gave his report to the Press.

"The bombing of the building housing the secretive, privately held corporation known as Voyance-Sangrivore-Contra has been largely solved. In the ruin was found the bifurcated, wreckage-impaled body of an American convict named Caleb Marsh, wanted in the States in connection with many alleged serial killings of young women. Oddly, despite his alleged misogyny, Marsh was found dressed in a woman's slip."

The Inspector held up a piece of fabric.

"As you can see, it is a pink slip."

========================================

The look on the captive Dawn's face was all William needed to cross from the safety of the doorway. His arms raised above his head, he walked down to within two feet of the vampires.

"I'm here. I'm yours. Let her go."

Drusilla's face notably did not shift back to its human aspect.

"You're human. Oh, Spoike. All that lovely blood is bleached out from your essence. Whatever did they do to my one true love?"

William pointed back at Giles and Joyce.

"That 'they' didn't do a damned thing to me, love. It was me who sought out a soul."

Harmony looked stunned.

"Why?"

He looked at her.

"Well, why are you two back, after telling me to go jump? There's some people you can't turn away from, even when you want to, and even when you know better."

This seemed to almost get to Harmony, but only seemed to further enrage Drusilla.

"The Slayer. I knew it. Damn you, Spike. Wasn't it enough that they neutered you? You scamper off, and then have your lower torso sawed off, to make sure it all never grows back?"

William momentarily allowed his pride to override his concern for the captive Dawn.

"Says the woman who is still absolutely devoted to the being who drove her mad. That's just how it is, ya know? Angelus gets all the devotion from you two. I get whatever's left over. But Buffy never urges me to be any better. You know why I chose her, Dru? She doesn't even try to groom me, making me more demon or whatever in her eyes. Even when she treats me like crap, I feel like a man. A crappy man, but still a man."

Dru began to tug on Dawn's arm.

"A man may suffer losses. And a man does not speak to his betters in that tone of voice. Apologize."

Shaking inside at Dawn's pained look, William tried again.

"You once told the Slayer that she was wrong. That love could exist without a soul. Well, I loved that little girl before I had a soul. C'mon, this whole sorry deal's about us. Always has been."

Harmony openly shuddered.

"You loved her? That's gross, Spike! She's like eight years old. I mean, we're evil, yeah. But wow, is that ever low. Plus, she's got no boobs or hiney."

Dawn's glare nearly burned into her captor's eyes.

"Harmony--I'm Dawn. Remember--hostage before, the cave, no one takes you seriously, I like a jerk let you in, you and Xander and who pulled who's hair, yadda?"

Harmony nodded.

"Well, okay. But still, you were only fourteen at the time. Your sister must have been pissed."

Dru looked over at her partner.

"Harm, dear? Just when did they make meat pies out of your brains?"

Giles kept watch by the front door, speaking only occasionally to someone unseen.

"Joyce, you must calm down. William will see her free of those two. Just lie down and let the aspirin do its work."

Neither of them had a cell phone. The regular phones were not yet hooked up. Calling out to anyone might get Dawn killed in an instant. Neither Giles nor Joyce shared a verifiable mental link with the others. So it was that Joyce was not lying down in a blind panic, but was sneaking out the back to find her children, Willow or Anya. Clad in black, she ignored the child she had never had but held dear and quickly crossed the area, hoping that she would not be seen.

Harmony decided not to return the insult. Instead, she just more securely gripped Dawn's arm.

"I don't know about meat pies, Dru. But I like taffy."

Dru grinned, and batted William back as he charged.

"Did you hear that, Dawnie dear? We're to have a taffy pull."

"Please! NOOO!!!" For a moment, Dawn felt purest terror as they began to tug in earnest. Then, she felt nothing at all.

=========================================

Willow wandered the streets, gunning for any class of demon this side of Ac'ultha.

"Everyone's gone to the moon."

Or they may as well have. And it wasn't like desertion. Buffy and Xander were responsible for much of it. She could feel their frenzy all about her.

"Well, at least they're sublimating in a positive way."

But the level of slaughter was beyond that of a determined Slayer and magic-bane. This was from somebody who thought of magic as the stuff of cartoons, and who had gone to lake bottom to pull the drain plug.

"Wicca."

She would not call her Mom. Never again. It didn't matter if the nattering details were all lies. The big truths were horrible all by themselves.

"She made a kid to get power. She made the kid a nerd to keep her down. She let the kid have a friend to keep her talentless. That friend was a kid she helped to steal."

Dad was disposable, and she'd treated him as such. Every movement of her childhood now came into question. Never being allowed the cool clothes. Never being allowed anything below a 3.8 GPA. Ridden like an old bike on every detail of her life. Until she started doing magic.

"All of a sudden, Mommy became all scarce. Heh. Didn't even show up for dinner with Oz."

Even though it was surely what Wicca wanted, Willow started to look over every aspect of her recent life. She managed to stop it only when her increasingly despondent mind asked whether Oz's curse and the sudden appearance of Veruca were also part of Sheila's scheme.

"For that way lies madness."

She shifted her mystic attentions away from common demonic activity, and instead looked at the average people of Sunnydale.

"Weird. Now them, they did clear out."

But not all of them. Money was changing hands between those humans that remained. Some were merely opportunistic real-estate speculators. Some were preying on those speculators, and the suitcases of cash they carried, as they bilked the decent folks who'd had enough of the town that Wilkins built. Some were thuggish, and some were just gang-bangers of all stripes. A so-called 'Identity' militia group now operated in the open, racist ignorance-as-bliss making them think that somehow such as they could ever control the Hellmouth.

"We were playing the usual fight the attackers game. The other guys were busy making this a city of the damned."

Except that Sunnydale had always thrived on Wilkins' patented facade that the Hellmouth was an everytown, supplying food, fools and fodder for a billion demons all seeking some obscure thing that could bring about instant apocalypse. Now the Hellmouth was going to Hell.

"Okay, Mister Giles Step-Daddio. Time to make us a serious confab."

Whatever they had, whatever they knew, all put on the table. It was already past time. But something new--or old--was about to put itself on the table, in the form of a tractor-trailer that pulled over to Willow's position. She saw the driver.

"You?"

Jonathan Levinson got out.

"Relax. I'm here to turn myself in. I just need one of you to take me down to the station, so I don't get pounded into dogmeat for being a part of that breakout mess."

Rather than her anger towards this man, Willow focused on a question.

"Where's your partner?"

Jonathan nodded.

"A couple of the truckers we traveled with turned out to be demons. This supermarket delivery truck was one of theirs. As for Andrew--I caught him talking to Warren's ghost--or something. That helped me to decide that prison wasn't all that bad a prospect."

"No apologies?"

"Would it matter if I did? Your girlfriend is still dead. C'mon, Willow. You've known me. Just give me to the police."

Willow climbed inside the truck.

"First, take me home. Then we'll talk about the rest. It may be too late for jail, Jonathan."

"So how late is too late?"

Willow frowned as he got in.

"It may be just plain too late."

Jonathan chuckled sarcastically.

"Good to know I still have the timing."

Willow looked over.

"Has your Mom ever met Buffy's Dad?"

========================================

As the twins first lay together, Dawn was only then on her way to captivity and peril. Their long-overdue talk began as one might suspect it would.

"I love you."

"I love you."

Having spoken from his heart, Xander now spoke from his nature.

"We kinda knew all that, right? We have said it before."

Buffy spoke from hers.

"Do you have a problem with saying it more than once a year?"

He looked at her.

"No. But the problem isn't that we love each other. It never has been. We did before we knew any of these revelations."

She closed her eyes, bracing for an impact she felt was now unavoidable.

"Is it that--we want each other?"

The man who sometimes seemed clueless now showed his other side.

"All I want from you is what we have right now."

She hoped he wasn't just pretending.

"I haven't thought of you in that way for years. Then, Giles tells us the truth, and now I can't shut it out."

He smiled and said two words.

"Naked Buffy."

She looked at him.

"Maybe we'll have this conversation another time."

But he pulled her back in, and 'noogied' her head.

"Hey, Dorky Shrewish Girl! That's not what I meant. Remember when you became all mind- ready, and you locked on me, and those two words were almost all you saw?"

She punched him in the arm.

"Yeah. What about it?"

They settled down, and he explained.

"That wasn't what was really on my mind. 'NB' was what I was trying like hell NOT to think about. Get me?"

She relaxed, just a bit. Some things, at least, were starting to fall into place.

"You think that we've been pink elephanting ourselves?"

He squeezed her, and it started to feel like only an affectionate squeeze.

"What would we have been like, growing up together?"

She shifted position, now being more comfortable.

"I guess it would have been like the memories I have of Dawn. Caring, but arguing--ok, a lot of arguing."

He nodded.

"Don't forget about a lot of 'you're ugly' comments. But we skipped all that--straight to what is probably the most hormonal period of our lives. We're at the age that a lot of people are only just adjusting to the idea that sibs are people. You don't know how many guys I know said that they barely realized that their sisters were women, til they saw them in a prom or wedding dress."

She half-frowned.

"So why hasn't the girl who saves the day figged like, any of this?"

He shrugged.

"Maybe cause' you do save the day. You have other concerns. Brother may have these neat 'makes em' mortal' non-power powers, but there's still only one or two Slayers. Unless Faith has an appendectomy, goes under anesthetic, dies on the table, they resuscitate her, and then the next one is skateboarding, goes for a too-high over loop..."

She covered his mouth.

"You are a dork."

When she moved her hand, he looked up.

"So we continue to deal, knowing that we're not freaks. Eh. Small movement. Now, if I can only learn to deal better with Mom."

Buffy laughed out loud.

"You...had fantasies about our Mom? Eewwwww!!! Xan-der!!!"

He nodded.

"Massive retroactive Oedipus thing going on, there. But I don't mind. See, I never had one before. Not with Mo--with Mrs. Harris. I stopped liking or loving them so long ago, its like I never did. I've heard stories about people who find these things out. You know what they say about the parents that took them?"

"No."

He shook his head.

"They always say 'Well, they did raise me. All that other stuff doesn't matter.' Screw that. If the people who taught you never to steal stole you, doesn't that tend to make their lessons and warnings oh say, completely hypocritical?"

She shrugged.

"I wish I could say. I only know I hate them. I'm glad they were cremated, and that you put holy water in the containers. Because I don't care who knows what spells, I don't ever want to see them again. Not even for vengeance."

He looked at her.

"Not even? Why?"

She began to shake. A tear was forming in either eye.

"Because, you stupe---they might take you away again. And somebody would set up something where I couldn't get to them."

And now the tears came freely.

"And I couldn't live with myself if I failed you again."

Xander got up from the bed, then knelt beside it and her.

"You were a baby. Not even a Slayer-baby. Buffy, I hate those people too. Dim as Hank is, he wants to do the right thing. And Joyce? She'd die for any of us. So don't be guilty. The only two really guilty parties are burning in Hell..." Quite suddenly, he sat down on the floor.

"...because none of that ever had to happen. I didn't have to make corny little jokes that never fooled anyone about what nightmares they were. I never had to go to school in hand-washed by-me pajama tops that had certain people listing me as a loser since forever. I never had to know what booze smelled like from age 5 on, before and after it entered a human body."

Now he was shaking, and Buffy sat down beside him. He kept on talking.

"I could have been eating breakfast every morning. I could have been fighting with you in false memories over who got to hold Dawn. I could have understood why your running away cut my guts out. I could have done.. I could have been..."

She kissed his cheek.

"You are. You're real. You're beautiful. You're part of me. Since the beginning. The same egg, Xander. The same air. And that is the short list of what they couldn't steal from us. It goes a lot longer."

His closed eyes were no guard against tears.

"Buffy, they stole at least fifteen years. And if they were around, they still wouldn't admit that they had done a single blasted thing wrong!"

When he opened his eyes, those eyes met with hers, and Buffy made a realization.

"So I guess we don't resolve all this in one heartfelt."

Xander nodded.

"I feel it in your thoughts, and you have to feel it in mine. Listen, spells are pretty common, so we better be ready in case whoever's next decides to play with us by having us play with each other."

Buffy took his hand.

"Spells don't count. Though I am glad our first times weren't with each other."

He chuckled.

"Mine was with a Slayer. Yours was with a guy who relativized your strength. Mine left me empty, and yours was followed by months of pain and guilt."

She grabbed her head.

"Its official. We're pervs."

He stood up.

"So we keep dealing, knowing that we're gonna be awkward about it."

She stood up.

"And make dumb jokes about it. And deal with Mom's nerves about it. And barely handle the fact that your ex is now stepmommy dearest."

He chuckled again.

"That your second vamp is now just another guy. That Giles is stepdaddy sir. That we have standard issue evil doubles. That I am now apparently sleeping with our other best friend."

They held hands once more, as an extra bit of weirdness hit home.

"We never did it, hopefully never will." "But despite that, one factoid remains."

They spoke as one, vowing despite their nerves, to make sure a young girl knew she had an identity.

"Dawn is our daughter."

If the air was not yet cleared, their heads were by Joyce's sudden emergence.

"Dawn is in danger! In front of my house."

Without hesitation, the two ran out. Knowing that she had done her best for Dawn, Joyce let loose an unrelated prayer.

"Dear God, please let them have been just talking."

=================================================

At the exact moment Dawn began to feel the pain of being torn apart by the two vampires, the once-unwitting mystic donors of her DNA were acknowledging who she really was to them, just prior to Joyce's panicked entry.

In all matters mystic, acknowledgement contains immense power. By instinct and despite her position, she pulled back against her attackers. To the shock of all present, Drusilla and Harmony went sailing over her, landing with a thud. Dawn smiled, realizing that, at the very least, her days as a kid hostage were over. She stared at her hands, and balled them into fists.

"Well. I guess this changes things."

But rather than using her sudden rush of strength to pay her attackers back, Dawn merely ran for the door and straight into the arms of a grateful Giles. She looked up at him.

"The really great thing about super-powers is that nobody ever said you have to use them to play hero. Avoiding the role of automatic victim's good enough for me."

Rupert nodded.

"Its not a part to be relished."

The two female vampires arose, and as one might guess, they were absolutely livid as they did. Harmony grabbed up William, and looked at Drusilla.

"Y'know, Dru--I think we can still have that taffy pull. I don't know who this guy really is, but I bet he pulls apart just as easily. And I mean, he did ruin our evening plans by pretending to be Spike."

Drusilla grabbed him away from her, plainly ready to twist his head off.

"You didn't know him as long as I did, girl. This--thing--was once our Spike. But all the beautiful work we did was undone. No. The little girl deserved a creative death. This abomination we'll simply kick apart. In memory of Spike."

"Kendra."

A fist slammed into Drusilla's back, knocking William free. Buffy stood at the ready, and with a nod Xander went after Harmony. Dru glared at the Slayer. Buffy nodded.

"As in, that first one was for Kendra. All the rest are for me."

Dru tried a typical fury-based forward attack, but Buffy and her twin had made good use of a few tricks in their disturbingly intense private training sessions. Though, if one questioned the siblings' intent towards one another, the value of these sessions was beyond dispute.

"You've gotten stronger, Slayer. But you will pay for castrating and gutting my Spike!"

While Buffy was indeed stronger than in times past, another factor was also at play. During her sessions with Xander, she had worked out with light weights while he held or touched her. The loss of her strength made the workout exhausting, but also made her strength when it returned ever greater. They also practiced him keeping away from her in battle, for obvious reasons.

"His name is William, and I had sooo little to do with all that---but you're bent on vengeance, as well as being just plain bent, so why go into it?"

Harmony watched the battle and alternated between joining a fellow vamp she mutually didn't like and moving in to kill William. But a third option was standing there, as he had been since their early childhoods.

"Well, well. Xander Harris. Still following the Slayer around like a whipped dog?"

A stirring William groggily spoke before falling unconscious again.

"No, luv. That's my job..."

Xander's stance and bearing were different. While Harmony was not quite the brainless creature of many humorous anecdotes, nor was she a big user of what brains she did have. So all she saw was an old target. But school had been over for a long time.

"Hey, Harmony? You'll notice that I'm not behind a door. Or have you not yet figged that whole concept?"

The vampire leapt at him with all her speed, which she seemed to feel was slowing as she came near him. Involuntarily, her feral aspect shifted back to human. To her shock, her old target slapped her down as though she were standing still. He looked down at her.

"Too lame."

The ancient enmity between popular and nerd had come full circle. If Cordelia had never been kind to the unpopular, it was at least a benign cruelty. While she had her moments to be certain, she often saw no need to directly snub those she saw as beneath her--they were beneath her, after all, and that was that. She was the queen. But Harmony had always been the vicious pretender to the throne, an unworthy heir presumptive needing to crush others to even feel anything. Xander had often been so crushed, sometimes too often even for Cordelia's tastes at that time. But again, those times had passed.

"How did you do that? Some kind of mystic pendant? Cause I'll rip it right off you, along with your arms--and legs--and feet. Err--you're not keeping it down there, are you?"

Xander extended an open palm, and brought his fingers back, urging her to strike again.

"Give it a kiss, lady--and then you'll find out. Along with this little tidbit--you are nothing to me now. Nada. Zip. Zilch."

Moving like mad, this time, she seized and held him up by the throat.

"Tell me, does this feel like nothing?"

Instantly though, her prey began to feel heavy in her upraised arm. Harmony screamed as she felt and heard a hard snap.

"My arm! You broke my freakin' arm!"

Healing would occur, and was already occurring. But Harmony was on the verge of panic.

"That felt like less than nothing, Harmony. Because that's what you are. Its what you always have been. And hey? I didn't break your arm. You did. You picked up a full grown man, raised him way high in the air--and then your strength went all away. A little perk of being the Slayer's brother."

Now, she laughed, trying to regain her position.

"Oh, that's pathetic. All these years wasted, panting after your own sister? Her scent's all over you. You still want her, don't you?"

Xander shrugged.

"Could be worse. After all, I could have a thing for you."

The old tactics weren't working. His buttons were not the ones she remembered.

"I--I--I AM as hot as Gwyneth Paltrow--and you are eternnally a lower-class LOooooSER!!"

He moved forward, seized her bad arm, then grabbed her from behind, holding her head.

"What, does this get you hot, Harris? Make you feel like a man?"

Xander grinned.

"Damn straight. In my grasp, you at first drop to human-level strength. Then--you just become a three-year old animated corpse. You wanna be like Gwyneth Paltrow, Harm? Welll---"

Harmony felt her head snap off like kindling, then nothing more ever again. Xander wiped the dirt and dust from him as he finished.

"--congrats. You have just recreated her memorable role in 'Seven'."

His blood was pumping, and the primal sight of Buffy fighting Drusilla was not making him any calmer. He needed Willow, and he needed her soon.

"Sis? You need anything?"

Buffy smiled at him while blocking Dru's best almost at will.

"I'm good. Go rest those hormones. Mental link, remember?"

Inside her new home, Joyce rejoined Giles and Dawn. She had, from a distance, viewed what her son had done to Harmony. The vampire had attacked Joyce's home, friends and family, more than once, so her extermination was not the issue. The look on Xander's face was.

"Rupert, he enjoyed that. He enjoyed killing Harmony."

Dawn looked up.

"If he didn't, I did. Waste of space. Even her own brother hated her. Did you know he called her 'Ole Blank-Eyes', and that she was the basis for Dee Dee on Dex--"

Joyce glared.

"Dawnie, she may not have been the most pleasant person. But we will not celebrate her death. She was once a person. We will not grin or feel joy at a grisly thing like that."

Dawn punched the door frame and left a dent, which further unnerved Joyce.

"She was going to use me for a taffy pull, Mom! If this strength and whatever hadn't kicked in-- -"

She teared up.

"I'd be gone."

Dawn, despite knowing the comments about her tendency to mope, then walked away to do just that. Joyce turned to Giles.

"Rupert, tell me his look wasn't disturbing."

Giles sighed.

"Joyce, the enmity between Xander and that girl is older than the presence of vampires and slayers in their lives. Besides his own grievances, the late Ms. Kendall's treatment of Cordelia, after she and Xander broke up, has still been a sore point for him."

"But-but he looked more feral than her! And then the way he glanced over at Buffy? Which she casually shrugs off with a comment about hormones?"

He tried to calm her, but his own feelings in this matter were almost as muddled.

"They are two young people who have always cared deeply for each other. They are in the second half-decade of an escalating, ferocious battle, if not as equals, then at least much more so than before. They are also trying to calibrate into all that a natural desire to be near that one who was lost to them so long ago. Buffy no longer needs to protect Xander, and Xander no longer stands in awe of her. The ground has shifted for them most of all, Joyce. That they should clasp hands as they stumble is actually a healthy thing."

"Its not their hands I'm worried about clasping."

Giles sighed.

"Consider this, then. We have in our time wielded physical, financial, moral, legal or ethical authority over your daughter. In none of those instances was it enough to control her, and those authorities are now in the past. So either you and to a lesser extent I have given her the strength to see this through and guide her brother as well, or we have failed. My dear accidental bride--the dice are on the table and rolling."

Joyce tilted her head, as though seeing something.

"But there's another set of dice, Rupert. Jane's hellions--Jodie and Philip. They produced that little monster Dusk--'the old-fashioned way'--and if they're still at it--and if one set of twins has a mental link--"

Giles felt his mouth open involuntarily, though his jaw did not drop.

"Yes. There could easily be a secondary link, transmitting carnal and very untoward thoughts. Conceivably, we could protect Buffy--but Xander's abilities preclude that."

Joyce shook her head.

"I'm killing myself with worry over a disaster that may never happen. What kind of lunatic does that make me?"

Giles smiled.

"I believe the condition is referred to as motherhood."

But Joyce drew only a little happiness from this. For to her mind, she was still a mother who couldn't stop one baby from being taken away, and couldn't stop the other from running away. If she had been less than full comfort to them, and Hank certainly had not been, then who could they turn to but each other? And in a world where the tension was as thick as the Earth's mantle, what might turning to each other mean?

Dru had not fought Buffy in an open struggle for nearly four years. It showed as the vampire screamed in frustration.

"FAAAAALLLLLL!!!"

Every feint was seen clear through. Every kick was jumped, reversed, or avoided. Every punch was blocked. Buffy had not merely made use of her confused feelings for Xander, in this. For as she trained with him, she thought of angry Willow, slamming her about at will. She thought of Glory, shrugging her very best off, sometimes while smiling. She thought of the crazy-haired vamp who stabbed her with her own stake. She thought of the big one that injured her before a love-blind Spike tried to assault her. All these demons turned out to have surprising strength, or bursts of such. Buffy decided she was tired of being the one who took the surprise.

"Let me give you a hint, Dru. This big time crazy-fighting isn't gonna help you any more. So get ready for the stunned look as you dust thing."

"No, girlie. My Spike had two Slayers, in his time. Now so will I. Your brains..."

Buffy was making damned sure to land a solid blow each time Drusilla began to give with the speechmaking.

"Now that was just rude. I was..." Buffy made sure the vampire's arms kept away from her. A visitor displaced in time had shown her a touch of Jeet-Kune-Do, and its influence was just enough to throw off Dru's fighting style, so dependent on surprise and sudden movements.

"Your game is over, Slayer!"

It was the unleashing of all of Drusilla's very best movements, but it was not enough. Buffy first delivered a punch to Dru's stomach, then caught it with her knee. knocking her foe up high enough to land on the end of her shoe as Buffy raised her leg up straight. For a moment, Dru just looked shocked. Then Buffy spoke.

"Nope--game just beginning. In faccctt--"

Buffy spun with Dru still on her foot at the end of her upraised leg. Releasing her, Buffy twirled upside down and then jump kicked Drusilla over a hedge. Buffy pulled out her stake and jumped over to meet her.

"Its time for the kick-off!"

But Drusilla was nowhere to be found, and did not dart out to attack. She was just gone.

"No way she just squirmed out with her ass that thoroughly kicked. William! Help me find her!"

Buffy looked around. The former vampire was no more in evidence than was his former lover.

"William?"

She saw one figure carrying another, just leaving her sight. The white hair of the one and the black hair of the other told the story. Buffy frowned.

"Moron. I hope she bites you."

She didn't mean that, but the battle was done, and William's action had to make her wonder about his stability. Going back to her house, she gestured for Xander on the front stoop to follow her to Joyce's. The link provided the rest. Marching past Giles and Joyce, they stood before Dawn, glaring. Xander nodded and started in.

"You went out--at night--in Sunnydale."

Dawn fought off a gulp.

"Just to the next house over."

Buffy shook her head.

"What were you thinking? WERE you thinking? The doorway barrier doesn't extend to the front yard, Dawn. And we have just how many enemies that like to revisit us?"

Xander put his hand to his head.

"Do you have the slightest clue how much of our thoughts were cyberlocked on your safety, even before you were de-aged? Dawn, we know you're capable. But there are lots of things out there that eat capable kids with mustard and relish."

Joyce tried to intervene.

"I think Dawn now knows that she was wrong to do this. Can we let it go till tomorrow?"

Buffy's eyes were wide as she smiled at her mother.

"Hey--we've got this, okay?"

Rupert held a creeped-out Joyce as she pulled back. Dawn kept trying to explain.

"But I've got powers now! Maybe from both of you."

Buffy grabbed Dawn's arm and lightly squeezed it.

"First rule--there always someone stronger. Second rule--it probably isn't you. Third rule--if you think that we might not want you to do something--then don't do it."

Dawn tried her last card.

"Just who do you two think you are?"

Xander shrugged.

"Us? We're just your parents, means of delivery aside. That means we love you in ways that prevent us from thinking straight."

Rupert and Joyce both winced at Xander's words. Buffy then piled on.

"That's right. We parents are permanently crazy people. So don't make us any crazier. We have enough on our plates."

Tara's voice briefly came out of Xander's mouth.

"Do they ever. And where's Willow at?"

Giles whispered to Joyce about hearing the dead woman.

"All right. That one I did not see coming."

Joyce alternated between being thrown off by the parental stance Buffy and Xander took with Dawn and feeling proud of them. For Dawn now had the look of a child who perhaps resented limits but liked having someone who cared enough to impose them. For a child who sometimes seemed without true identity, this might even prove vital.

Away from the concerns of confused parents were the people formerly known as Spike and Drusilla. Life and afterlife were blurred, making nothing that simple anymore. But in fact, it had never been that simple.

"Are you all right? Did she hurt you?"

Dru awoke, groggily as one might expect.

"That girl's been taking her vitamins...yaaaaagghh!!!"

She pushed away from him, fear, contempt and loathing in no ways hidden. William knew the reason for this, but his heart still began a slow tearing as he saw it all.

"Drusilla? What's wrong? Its still me. I'm just sporting a light tan, is all. This is California, ya know."

The jokes were not working, and he had known in his now-beating heart that they would not.

"Stay away from me, you freak! You dress in his skin, and you wear his clothes, and you've nicked his voice, but you are not my Spike! Where is the skin of your prey's throats, nestled in the gaps of your teeth? Why does your breath--your vile constant breath--stink of carbon, and not of blood? The lost souls of your dread tally used to scream about you, in supplication for release. But they've all waved goodbye, and some of them were laughing as they did. For the wretched awful momma's boy poet I took and made a hidden master of the Earth is once again cattle rather than carnivore!"

William searched his returned soul and his sharp mind for the words of love, those sparks of reminder that would bridge the gap between those once so close. Finally, he failed.

"You're freaking nuts, you know that? I have spent the past century playing Bluto to two nutsy girls' Popeye Angel, and now one of them is playing me like a Twilight Zone episode, and the other is wanting to get in a family way with a family member! Done-with-it."

Dru shrugged.

"Well, the Slayer's brother has always been a problem. Its why I urged you to get away from her while there was still time."

William nodded.

"Problem is, he's played the jester. No one targets him because he hides his advice twixt layers of Sci and Fi jokes. And...what do you mean he's always been trouble? How long have you known about this?"

She got up, brushing herself off.

"Angelus told me. Its why we targeted him, that one night. He was going to bring the boy over, then taunt your Spuffy Buffy with who he really was. He scented it out. Trouble was, brother unknown had cast a love charm, not knowing he was a magic-well. Made the whole thing shoot wild. Ya know, he's still one to fancy. I only caught it out of the corner of my eye--but little Harmony's death was one worthy of my Spike."

"YOUR SPIKE---your Spike is standing right here in front of you."

She lightly turned around and away from him, sniffing the air.

"No--but he is close. I won't kill you, monster. Instead I'll let you watch as he takes me off and leaves you behind. Oh, so much blood in him. He must have been among those who came after those poor fools, fleeing the town. All those supposed normals, lying dead in their cars, clutching their dead little ones. It wasn't just him, though. Some folk who know guns and daggers were a huge part of that. It was like the Lincoln Tunnel in Mister King's novel. This is a town with only the many damned and the few feeble heroes left, rung by a moat of the blood of thousands of blissfully ignorant innocents."

William felt ill, and in that he knew the change had taken. All those people, just trying to stay alive by fleeing the Hellmouth. But Spike, Jodie and Philip were waiting, probably with laughing Dusk hunting the kids.

"Look, Dru. The Spike you're scenting is not what you think. He's not just a vampire. He's something else."

The burly, bald-headed, craggy-faced vampire called Spike then emerged from the shadows.

"The Gov's got that right, Dru. I am so very something else. Give us a kiss, luv?"

"Spoikey?"

Her accent seemed to thicken along with that of the 'pure' vampire. Dru ran into his arms, and William saw that she was absolutely enchanted as she embraced him.

"Spike, what have you become? You're beautiful. Is this why that abomination was created? So that you could be pure in your corruption and made truly strong? Damnation fairly flows off you. You--you were what I was aiming to sire. You make a mother proud."

The monster grinned. Dru seemed all the more taken with its grim visage with every second. Its gravel-echo voice had her in ecstasy.

"Does this mean that I've surpassed you, Drusilla?"

"You've surpassed our entire lineage. The Master himself--in his prime--would be like a flea to you. Angelus at his worst never bathed in so much blood as you have taken this one week. Kakistos, Dracula---all bloody pikers. You are the closest thing to what our kind once was before we had to use the lowly humans to remain on this plane. You are--Turok-Han!"

The creature nodded.

"If I've surpassed all that, then really, I don't need you any more, do I?" William watched in absolute helpless horror as Spike reached through her chest in a slow motion, tearing out her heart and holding it, almost lovingly, in his taloned hand. Dru looked at him, her eyes shocked and pleading.

"Why?"

Spike held a stake above the removed heart, poised to strike.

"Because. Doing this hurts me. But it hurts him a lot worse."

Drusilla turned and looked at William as Spike made her slow death a quick one and drove the stake in. Again, her look held not a bit of love.

"If it gives you pain, then dying is well worth it."

William rushed to her, even as she fell into dust, dirt, and ash. The last image seen by the one she once loved best of all was pure rejection and all made up of hatred. Her last crazed barb had been the very worst of all.

"Dru!!!"

William fell to his knees, attempting to cradle the ashes that had by now wholly evaporated. His tears were present, but they were rapidly displaced by a rage colder than any he had known, as failed dandy, failed son, failed vampire or unhappy new human. He stood up and pointed, and now felt greater empathy with his new ersatz friend Xander than he had ever felt before. For before him was an evil abomination that needed to be wiped away forever, before any one else he loved came to harm. With no compromise.

"You listen up! I don't care that you're a hundred times stronger than me. I don't care if you're a thousand times stronger than me." The cold rage turned hot, and William prayed that he was yelling loud enough to hurt the vampire.

"I DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE A MILLION TIMES STRONGER THAN ME!!!! BECAUSE YOU-ARE- GOING-DOWN!!"

Spike rubbed one pointed ear, then shrugged.

"Sorry, guv. If I had that to do all over again, I'd..."

It stopped, turned and laughed, and the laughter was cold and horrid--and familiar.

"oh, Who am I kidding? I'd do it exactly like that, only I'd also do this!"

One finger pushed through William's chest, and through his heart. The human gasped as the vampire kept on.

"I lied. I knew no pain at her passing. Only you know pain. Its why you were created. See, I'm the real one. And when the Devourer From Beneath called to me, I answered and got my freedom. But I wanted more. I wanted revenge on you. The you that kept me second to Angelus. The you that hung on that crazy tart. They you that let me be neutered. The you that fell into bed with our sworn enemy! So you were born, and you were crafted, and you were created, for no other reason than to become my own personal-type whipping boy. You will live to witness the world I help make. And I'll kill the little girl last--before I fancy her a bit, that is."

William coughed blood, and looked at Spike.

"One--I'm not going to last another minute, let alone the time it takes you to do Near- Apocalypse Part 17. Two--if you blow up the world or whatever, I'd die anyway! Dead--not a witness."

Spike threw him down.

"Dead? Heh-heh-heh--I don't think so. We proofed your neck. See you in the Highlands, Willy!"

And as William died, he tried not to wonder at this cipher.

------------------------------

Buffy and Xander saw Willow and Jonathan pull up in the tractor trailer. The sight was confusing enough that the twins forgot all other concerns. Jonathan came out, holding his arms up.

"Nobody throw anything. I'm here to turn myself in."

Xander shook his head.

"Good luck there. The police closed shop, along with just about everyone else."

Buffy shrugged.

"Besides, you're not wanted."

Jonathan rolled his eyes.

"Okay, let's get this over with. Yes, I'm not wanted. I am the low geek on the Kupa-Kai totem pole. I was the butt-monkey to two bigger butt-monkeys. I was the loser's loser. You want a Sci-Fi quip? Okay. I am Baltar in the original BSG script, where he got killed by the Cylons. Now that we have firmly established how dopey I am, can we just cut it until we find proper authorities to turn me into?"

Buffy held up one hand.

"That's not what I meant. In the police report on the armored car hold up, you were mistaken for a hostage by one of the drivers."

Jonathan sat down on the porch, comprehending but disbelieving.

"Because they both had jet-packs and I didn't. Don't those guys know a patsy when they see one? Is there someone I can go and tell the truth to? I didn't stop or report one murder, I enabled another--and that's not even counting the crap we pulled on Buffy."

Willow perhaps surprised even herself with her next words.

"You did a lot of wrong things, Jonathan, but you didn't murder Tara. Warren did, and he answered for it. I was gunning for you through a ton of grief."

Jonathan looked up at her.

"Who do you think helped him steal the money that bought that phallic substitute he used to perforate your girlfriend and Buffy? Who do you think did most of the heavy lifting, magic-wise? As much as they knew tech, who do you still think did most of the number-crunching and programming? I made them possible. Without me, Warren would have just built himself another Stepford girl, telling him how big he was in variable voices and hairstyles."

Xander bypassed Jonathan's recriminations and asked a question.

"So where is Andrew? Trying to sneak onto the set of the LXG movie?"

Jonathan shook his head.

"I let him have our money to go and buy a motorbike, and take desert trips. One day I pretended to have really bad gastritis, which usually kept him away for the entire day. That's how I got the truck away before he realized. He's prolly still waiting for me to come out of the bathroom."

Xander nodded.

"As opposed to the place he has to come out of."

Jonathan looked at the group he had never been a part of, but still felt that he betrayed.

"So? Anything interesting been going on here?"

Perhaps still feeling a bit vengeful, Willow smiled and magically force-fed him the events since he and Andrew fled to Baja. Jonathan jolted and shook, then finally spoke. He looked at Xander.

"Wow! First Anya does it with Spike, and now she's bagged your Dad?!"

Buffy rolled her eyes.

"Our Dad is a lot like you, Jonathan. With the timing-thing and all. You want a chance to make it right again?"

But Jonathan was chuckling, pointing to Buffy and then her brother.

"You two want each other. That is soooo classic."

Xander grabbed his ear.

"Listen to the nice Slayer-lady-sister-person, you reject from Lud, Dark Tower Book Three, The Waste Lands."

Jonathan winced, both from the pain and the insulting reference.

"Lud? Well then, you're Mayor Thorin from Book Four, Wizard And Glass. So there!"

Willow whispered to her nascent lover.

"Who got who?"

"Can't, Will. It involves spoilers."

But then Tara's voice emerged.

"Xander lent me his copies. Lud is the worse insult."

Xander shook his head.

"We have got to get her out of me. I'm fighting off the urge to start wearing badly oversized sweaters."

Tara shot back.

"Hey, the sweaters weren't THAT big! And don't think being in here all joy and lights, buddy. You had a real problem relinquishing control to me when we were with Willow."

"HOLD up. Anytime you wanted to go and grope, I gave up my hands."

"It isn't your hands I wanted control of."

"Oh, c'mon lady. You did fine without one for two decades on this planet. Now, suddenly, its a must-have?"

"I only wanted to try it out on Willow."

"Tara--I don't loan out my car, and I sure as hell don't loan out my p---"

Willow broke this up, such as it was.

"Guys--creeping me out here?"

Tara spoke once more, sounding a bit more conciliatory this time.

"Willow, I'm afraid of us melting together. Please free me soon. Xander didn't ask for this, any more than I did."

Xander returned to control, and Willow sensed an internal apology going on. It pained her. The two people she loved best of all were in one package- so to speak. But her bliss would rapidly become their agony. How, then, to overcome Xander's resistance to magic? How could she, without a spell, free a soul trapped in a body against both its will and the will of the current occupant?

"Duh!"

Then it hit her. Of course she knew how to do that. In fact, Willow had known how that was accomplished since before she became a Wiccan. They all did. Only this time, Buffy would not be a part of it, that being gross, illegal, immoral and maybe fattening within three quarters of a year.

Now, Buffy directed Jonathan's attentions back toward the truck.

"I'm going to give you a list of people I'd like you to contact--contact personally, that is. No cells or faxes. I want personal contact, and I want you to verify who you're talking to. LA for starters, but then you'll need to travel hard."

Jonathan seemed to appreciate being given a job to do, whatever its real purpose was.

"Ok. I'll just detach the cab from the trailer. I'll make better time. Although I will have to take the back roads out of town. The main one's still clogged."

Willow felt a chill.

"With what?"

Jonathan shrugged.

"Cars. I used the old business route into town. But every other way in and out was clogged with a traffic jam straight out of..."

Jonathan froze up, then looked at Xander.

"Straight out of the Lincoln Tunnel scene in The Stand. I was--I was in a hurry. The cars weren't moving."

Buffy closed her eyes, and swore not to begin crying for those she felt she had failed.

"Our loving relatives, The Bad Masks. Those people were trying to flee this town, but Jodie and her bunch were waiting. Probably laughing all the while."

Each member of 'The Scoobies' ( hence the nickname for their doubles and enemies ) had really only encountered their various evil dopplegangers once. But from each instance, they had drawn away the worst sort of 'vibes'.

"They're us--but not even."

Xander's love of science fiction adventure turned into a Warren-esque comic-book love of easy gunplay in the slimy Philip. All the professed uncaring for vamp or victim, the 'what-ef-ver' facade that both Buffy and Faith had worn in their time was psychotic reality for Jodie. One meeting with Jane was all that the Slayer needed to see why Joyce had locked her sister away. The dichotomy between Spike and William was obvious. Dusk's presence, to hear Xander and Dawn tell it, was one as markedly out of place as Dawn's was correct-feeling. And leading them all, if a tired Giles was correct, was the man who never gave up being a dark and lazy-use magic-addicted punk, the way Rupert had.

"Jonathan--get going. We need allies. Lots of them."

Seeing that Willow had emptied the trailer of groceries via magic, Jonathan nodded. He would be a part of this in the only way he could.

"You'll have allies. Trust me