~*[+]*~
"Just because everything is different
doesn't mean that anything has changed."
- Irene Peter.

Late afternoon in Sunnydale, California ordinarily proved to be the most uneventful part of the day - if you were one of those deluded souls who believed that a town built on a Hellmouth could be deemed ordinary or uneventful. Even so, it was that deceptively peaceful lull before the sun truly set and the town's unlimited reserve of evildoers came out to play that Rupert Giles allowed himself a moment to relax.

It was just past closing time at the Magic Box and he busied himself unloading a new shipment of porcelain fairies onto the store's main display table, muttering halfhearted complaints to Anya about the absurdity of such items as he worked. He was holding one of the dainty figurines in his palm, poised to remark on it's striking resemblance to Willow, when the rear door burst open and Spike strode through. The vampire was all predatory grace and swooshing leather, his cap of white-blonde hair gleaming in the artificial light. He seemed upset, lapsing into a holding pattern of pacing near the circular study table.

He and Buffy must have had a disagreement. Again.

For a couple with such a comprehensive bond, they had more than their share. Giles had to admit that the incessant and frankly irritating bickering that had always been a part of their relationship most likely always would be. It wasn't as if a vampire and a Slayer were supposed to be mated for life. They were enemies by their very nature, though why the pair insisted on bringing all and sundry into their spats was beyond the Watcher's ken. Such things weren't for public consumption as far as he was concerned.

Buffy wandered in, as tiny and ethereal as one of the fairy statuettes with a disorderly chin-length crop of platinum-streaked curls and intense sea-green eyes. She moved at a more sedate pace than her partner and came to a standstill by the glorified ladder that led to the upper level. She leant against its metal framework, fingers wrapping tightly around the banister as though it were a lifeline. She watched Spike's hyperactive display for a moment, a worried crease marring her brow, then asked, "But can you be absolutely, positively positive?"

"What do you want, a written bloody guarantee? He's fine!" Spike was adamant, a muscle ticking in his lean cheek as he ground his teeth together. "Now leave off, would you?"

"I don't mean to be in your face with the Harpy Gal routine, it's just ... I can't tell. You know, if he's..." Her voice tailed off into an insecure silence. That alone was enough to bring the vampire to an abrupt halt.

"Here." Spike stalked over to her and cupped one hand at the nape of her neck, leaning in to rest his forehead against hers. His other hand boldly stroked the curve of her stomach.

"What are you -?"

"Shh. Relax, love. Feel through me."

Buffy closed her eyes, calmed by his touch and velvety tone in spite of herself. She sighed and edged fractionally closer, her hands enfolding his larger one to still its movement.

"Use my ears. Listen careful."

Spike's voice seemed to resonate inside her and she followed its softly fading echoes, frowning when they took on a frantic back beat.

Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud...

Okay, that was so not a back beat. It was going way too fast for a start. An amphetamine-crazed raver couldn't even dance to that. In fact, it almost sounded like...

"Oh." Her eyes flew open, her astounded green gaze colliding with Spike's indulgent blue one. "Oh my God!"

He smiled. "There you go."

"Wow. That's really ... Wow." Buffy couldn't begin to identify each of the emotions she was feeling, although absolute joy was right at the top of the list. Closely followed by relief. Their baby was alive. Alive and kicking and existent in an entirely normal pulse-having human way - not the evil mutated demony one she'd secretly been terrified of. "You can hear that all the time?"

Why hadn't he told her? Why, for that matter, hadn't she known all along? The link was just downright unreliable these days - maybe it needed a tune up or something.

"Yeah. S'pose I could shut it out if I wanted, but why would I? That's our Nipper in there."

"And he's got a real snappy heartbeat goin' on." Buffy's eyes closed one more time as she reveled in the rhythmic sound. She nodded her head in thoughtful counterpoint. "I'd give it an eight out of ten. High marks awarded for the enjoyment factor, but you can't really dance to it." She took a deep steadying breath and shot him a rueful glance. "I was kind of afraid he'd be Jo-Jo the Freaky Vamp-baby or something."

Spike nuzzled her hairline. "Think I didn't know that?"

"You're such a pig." The mild insult was accompanied by one of her rare, sun-bright smiles and an affectionate smack on the cheek. "But, I love you anyway."

"Know that, too." The hand at her nape meandered its way down her spine, leaving over-stimulated nerve endings in its wake. She shivered.

"A-hem."

The not-so-subtle throat clearing made both vampire and Slayer jump. They exchanged a chagrined look and reluctantly separated.

Giles suppressed his amusement at their response. He'd hated to interrupt, but they couldn't afford to be so entirely absorbed in each other, it could prove dangerous.

"If I had been a Marrow-Sucking Lersch demon, you would have been in extreme jeopardy," he admonished. Once a Watcher, always a Watcher.

"If you'd been a Lersch demon, you'd be dead."

The flat certainty in Spike's voice made Giles' skin crawl. Apparently the vampire hadn't been so distracted after all.

"Hey Giles!" Buffy chirped, attempting to diffuse the sudden tension in the air. She had pretty much given up on the idea of them ever getting along. They were too alike for that.

Spike's lip curled in disgust. He'd heard that last bit.

"Alike?" he asked via the link, scornful gaze raking the other man up and down. "Like bleedin' hell."

Buffy just smiled, ostensibly keeping her attention on the Watcher.

Giles, for his part, had the distinct impression that he was missing something.

That impression was confirmed when Spike muttered the words "stupid bloody tweed" under his breath and sauntered away to pester Anya at the counter. The ex-vengeance demon was in the midst of processing the day's takings and he immediately made her lose count.

"Guess what?" Buffy bubbled, cutting off the inevitable 'what's going on?' inquisition. "Nipper's alive."

"There was some doubt about this?" The glance Giles shot toward her midsection was cursory at best. He tried to avoid the subject most of the time.

"Never thought I'd say this to you of all people but, DUH!" Buffy rolled her eyes. "Can you say 'undead gene pool'? He has got a vampire for a daddy."

"Yes, of course." Giles' hands twitched, wanting to strangle said vampire for having the temerity to touch his Slayer. He resorted to cleaning his glasses instead, using only a touch more pressure than was necessary. "By what means have these suspicions been quelled? Sonogram?"

Buffy's snort made him cringe inwardly. She adopted more and more of Spike's mannerisms every day. It bordered on intolerable.

"Who needs a sonogram when you've got incredibly sharp ears?" she asked. "Not Spock sharp, Superman sharp." She all but bounced on the spot in her excitement. "I got the full cinematic surround-sound version of his wicked little heartbeat. Wicked cool, I mean, not wicked evil." She grinned impishly. "Hey, listen to me, making with the clarifications! Honestly, there was some weirdness, but it was that special link-a-licious weird we all enjoy so much."

"That's marvelous news, really." Giles could hear the detached politeness in his own voice and hated himself for it. He might not be pleased about the situation, but Buffy deserved more from him.

She nodded happily, oblivious to his turmoil, and smoothed the pink cotton of her shirt over her generously rounded belly, straightening a wayward pleat.

Giles followed the action, somewhat shocked, now that he was paying closer attention, by how very maternal she looked. How far along was she now? Six months? Seven?

Up until now he'd been able to overlook the true significance of her condition. It hadn't interfered with the slaying routine at all. She continued to train on a regular basis, and she and Spike patrolled as normal. Obviously that couldn't go on for too much longer. Judging by her girth alone, there would have to be changes made, and soon.

Moreover, he would have to stop burying is head in the sand. Time to get past your prejudices, Rupert. Your Slayer is pregnant. What are you going to do about it?

First things first. "Have you and Spike discussed marriage at all?"

Buffy blinked up at him. "What? I mean, I ... uh ... what?"

"You have to consider the moral upbringing of your child, Buffy. He needs a stable environment."

"Stable?" She looked bewildered. "You are talking about Spike, right?"

Her gaze flickered to a point beyond his shoulder and Giles pivoted on his heels to see the vampire regarding them curiously, one eyebrow cocked skyward. He made no move to join them, however. He was completely capable of eavesdropping on their conversation from where he was.

"I - I must concede that he's adapted to domesticity surprisingly well," Giles continued, turning back to his protege. The compliment left a bitter taste in his mouth but he was bound and determined to be supportive. He had a lot of lost time to make up for. "He's become quite the homemaker. I understand that he even managed to establish a legal identity for himself?"

"Yeah, he did. All set up, Green Card and everything. Please don't ask the how." Buffy's pretty face crinkled up in confusion. "Giles, where is this coming from? The taking-a-sudden-interest is appreciated, don't get me wrong. It's just... You haven't exactly been Supporto Guy lately. Pre-lately even."

He frowned, peering at a non-existent speck on his glasses and then pretending to scour it with his handkerchief. He didn't look directly at her.

"I'm trying dreadfully hard, Buffy, the least you could do is ignore my previous ... hardheadedness."

"Is that what you call it?" She tipped her head to one side in a decidedly Spike-like pose, lips pressing together as she tried to contain a smile.

"'Nother bloody-minded Brit," Spike noted, popping up unannounced at Giles' shoulder and grinning like a loon when the man flinched. "P'rhaps we've something in common after all?"

"Indeed." Giles almost squirmed, the most recent instance of sharing something with the vampire springing to mind. That hadn't ended well. He still had nightmares about it.

"So, Poddy," Spike addressed the Slayer casually. "You 'bout ready for patrol or what?" He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder at the door. "It's gettin' dark out."

Buffy raised herself on tiptoe to kiss Giles' cheek.

"Thank you," she murmured quietly, giving his forearm a grateful squeeze before rebuking her partner. "Don't call me 'Poddy'." She paused in the process of adjusting her over-sized denim coat and frowned at him. "What the hell does that mean anyway? Or don't I want to know?"

Giles hesitated. Should he really get involved in what would inevitably become an another argument? Oh well, in for a penny...

"It's one of our quaint English colloquialisms," he supplied. "It means 'pot-bellied' or 'fat'."

The blonde vampire threw him an irritated look right before Buffy began pummeling his side. "OW! Mind the leather, pet."

"You asshole!" she cried. Thump. "It's not like I need reminding of how huge I am." Thump. Thump. "I hate you."

Spike's angular face was an odd combination of laughter and pain. "Quit it, would you?" He tried to duck away and was rewarded with a kick in the shin. "Hey, that hurt! You're not fat, all right? You're just ... nicely rounded."

"Aargh!" Thump. Kick.

"Oi! Watch it, Slayer, that's delicate terrain!"

There was a brief skirmish until Spike seized her wrists and held her away from his body. He waited until she stopped struggling before gazing intently into her eyes.

"Buffy, you know how I feel about you," his voice was utterly sincere. "You're more beautiful now than when I first saw you. Trust me." He released her wrists and cautiously looped his arms around her middle. "You're always beautiful."

Buffy melted in a gooey lovesick puddle. "Aw, that's so sweet," she crooned, snuggling up against his chest. Her violent outburst was already forgotten.

Giles stared them, incredulous.

The vampire met the Watcher's eyes. "Hormones," he mouthed, flashing a conspiratorial wink.

"I heard that," Buffy mumbled.

Spike let out a strangled snort and then they both started giggling.

Giles sighed and shook his head.

Looking at them now, so deceptively young and carefree, it was difficult to find any indication that they were the Gemel - the purported Guardians of the Bridge, ordained by the Powers That Be and destined for greatness in this lifetime and the next. For a couple with such heavy obligations, they were being remarkably irresponsible.

His internal criticism abated as the importance of the title suddenly registered. Good Lord, had he been paying no attention at all? Wesley had uncovered multiple references to the Guardians of the Bridge in the Trionic Ledgers of Pylea. Could this 'Bridge' be the child that he had been so studiously ignoring? This pregnancy could very well be an omen - a foreshadowing of the End of Days and the ensuing Aftertime that Herald had mistakenly referred to all those months ago.

But then again, perhaps he was over-reacting. Wasn't 'bridge' merely another word for 'link'?

The Guardians in question remained oblivious to his musings and headed off to patrol. Spike lagged behind as they neared the front door, something catching his attention. He angled his head and stared at the display table, then veered across to pick up the Willow-esque fairy that Giles had noticed earlier.

"Take a peep, love," he said, waving it under Buffy's nose. "'S Red, innit?"

Buffy tried to focus on the continually moving object. "Yeah, if she was flying around like a blurry flying thing." She rescued the fairy from his clutches, eyes widening as she studied it. The Willow fairy grinned mischievously up at her, all tousled red hair and keen eyes, one of her teeny porcelain hands raised in the process of casting a spell. "Okay, that's scary."

Spike began searching the display. "She's got a birthday coming up, yeah? Wonder if there's a Glinda to match."

Buffy beamed. "You have all the best ideas."

"And I'm cute too."

"Thank you Super Grover. Any luck there?"

He scowled, unable to find what he wanted, and then hunkered down to pry open one of the boxes that Giles had yet to unpack, scrounging around inside and generating an avalanche of Styrofoam beans.

Buffy rolled her eyes at the mess he was making. "Guess patrol will have to wait," she muttered. "Just when I really wanted to kill something, too."

Spike paused in his search long enough to throw her a suspicious glance, then sighed in frustration and upended the container.

"Here!" Giles protested. "I hope you're going to clean that up!" He seemed to realize that the condition of the floor shouldn't be his main concern and straightened indignantly. "And don't bloody break anything!"

Spike ignored the warning, his scowl deepening as he pulled model after model from the chaos, carefully perusing and then discarding each one. A little troop of rejected pixies began to assemble at his side.

Buffy carefully lowered herself to sit amid the Styrofoam snowballs on the floor and watched the vampire go about his hunt. He could be so totally single-minded. Over the years that trait had proven to be both good and bad. This time it was definitely of the good.

"Humph."

With a satisfied grunt, Spike sat back on his heels. He extended a delicate golden-hued fairy toward the Slayer. This one had been posed with both hands cupping a flower, offering the bloom with a shy, lop-sided grin. "Glinda," he said with a smirk.

"So now we have a Willow and a Tara," she observed. "Yay you."

The corners of his eyes crinkled as his smirk deepened into a more genuine kind of smile. He held up his other hand. "And behind door number two ... Anyanka!"

"Ooh!" Anya squealed and skittered out from behind the counter, her high heels tapping on the tiled floor. "There's a me?" She fell to her knees at Spike's side and all but snatched the figurine from his hand. The imitation Anya peered coyly over her shoulder at them, a sparkling crystal clutched possessively to her breast.

"Reckon if we looked hard enough, all the Scooby-ettes'd be in there." Spike stopped and considered that. "Doesn't that seem on the odd side?"

"It does rather." Giles approached them with a furrowed brow. "Anya do we have a bill of lading for this shipment?"

The ex-demon was too entranced by her miniature likeness to answer for a minute. "What? Yeah." She gestured toward the counter she'd just abandoned. "Over there." She made no move to get up.

Buffy continued to explore the box. "I found me," she said. "Ugh! Check out the clothing, or the lack of. I look like a punk Tinkerbell ... a real skinny punk Tinkerbell." She stared at the gamine figure and let out a wistful sigh. "I used to be able to wear stuff like that ... I mean, not that I would."

Spike plucked it out of her hands, captivated by the scantily clad reproduction. She had been depicted in full Slayer mode - sharp little chin pitched at a defiant angle, arms akimbo and feet firmly planted. "I'm keepin' this one."

"After you pay for it of course," Giles glared down at him with what he hoped was authority, before heading back to the counter.

Spike narrowed his eyes at the Watcher's retreating back and defiantly tucked the figurine into his duster pocket. He reached for yet another unopened box. "So, what's in here then?" He didn't wait for Giles to come back with the listing, but tore it open with enthusiasm.

"Destructive, isn't he?" Anya commented.

"Yep." Buffy gazed at him with open adoration. "It's part of what makes him so hot."

Anya gave the vampire a skeptical once over. "If you say so."

Spike's impromptu cardboard massacre came to a sudden halt. He froze mid-rip, an awed expression flitting across his face, before he turned to Buffy and placed a hand on her swollen stomach.

"Hey you," he murmured, rubbing in soothing circles. "Settle."

The Slayer grinned at him, leaning back a bit to give him better access. A distinct bulge rose and fell like tide water beneath the pink cotton. "Felt that one, did ya?"

"Nip gets stronger every day, don't he?"

Buffy pursed her lips at the nickname. "We still haven't settled on a proper name, you know."

"What'cha mean 'we'?" Spike demanded. "All my suggestions get bloody shot down."

Anya gave them a cheery grin. "You could name him after a respected friend, or a father figure," she suggested. "That's usually popular."

Spike eyed Giles sourly as the man rejoined them. "Over my dead body."

"That third lot should have the male figurines," Giles reported, perusing a yellow invoice. He glanced up and realized that Spike had already begun to demolish the package. "Well?"

Spike delved back into the Styrofoam. Disgusting stuff. He probably had it stuck in his hair.

He pulled out three items before he found one he recognized. "Angel," he said, lifting it up to show the others.

"I now declare this officially wiggy," Buffy announced.

Spike snorted, still gazing at the replica of his Sire. It was impeccably detailed, right down to the spiky hair and caveman brow, and captured him mid-swing with a broadsword. The only differences to the real deal were the medieval-style clothing, the delicate wings and pointed ears. "Sodding thing's even got the brood on its face," he grumbled. Annoyed, he flicked it sharply in the head with his finger.

"Angel doesn't brood anymore, honey," Buffy reminded him. "He's all curse-less gettin'-a-happy boy now."

"Bully for him." Spike dropped the statuette onto the floor and dug back into the foam to pull out the rest.

"Bully for Cordelia," Buffy corrected.

The door swung open behind them, setting the overhead bell jangling, and they all jumped. Xander stopped inside the doorway and gave them a superior look, hands planted on his hips.

"Thou shalt not fear!" he proclaimed in a booming voice. "For the Xan-man cometh!"

"Oh, Xander look!" Anya bounced up to her beau's side and thrust her fairy at him.

"Very pretty," he said, not really looking at it at all.

Anya scowled. "Not as pretty as Buffy's obviously," she griped. "You didn't shove me in your pocket like Spike did."

Giles took interest at that. "I assume payment will be forthcoming?" he asked the vampire pointedly.

Spike just gave him a smarmy grin.

Xander finally recognized that something was amiss.

"What'd I miss?" He waded through the sea of Styrofoam beans and bent down to peer at the pint-sized Scooby Gang that Spike was segregating from the other statues. "Sweet Mother! Those are us! That's one's me!"

The Xander fairy had a teasing grin on its fabricated face. His bared arms rested across his chest and one finger pointed playfully at them, as though he was poking fun. He also had a set of wings and pointy ears.

"And the whelp gets a clue," Spike drawled. He tipped his chin at the invoice in Giles' hand. "That say who made 'em?"

"'Aftertime Creations'," Giles read. He sighed. "Oh dear."

"I hate when he says that," Xander noted. "Are we going to have another Apocalypse?"

"Quite possibly." Giles did not sound pleased. That was probably a good thing, though, 'cause an Apocalypse wasn't something that you actually got pleased about - unless you were totally evil.

Buffy fidgeted, a pained groan escaping of its own accord.

Spike's head snapped around. "What?" His gaze flickered rapidly from her face to her stomach and back again, then he winced and pressed a fist into his side. "Bloody hell!"

"What?" Xander echoed. He had his confused face on. It was a familiar look for him.

"Let's just say the whole 'foot jammed under your ribcage' experience? Not pleasant." Buffy twisted her torso, trying to relieve the pressure. "Down boy!"

"Kid's got your bleedin' kick on him," Spike accused breathlessly.

"And your persistence," she returned.

"Xander?" Anya asked in a plaintive voice, observing their discomfort with something akin to panic.

"Yeah?"

"Let's never have children."

He gave her a broad smile. "Let's never say never, okay?"

"Nipper's just a bit antsy," Buffy told them reassuringly. She shot a fleeting glance at Spike, who dutifully lifted her to her feet without any further prompting. "I should patrol. A hearty dose of vamp-dust usually settles him down."

Xander stared at her. "And that's a good thing?"

"Hell yeah." Her eyes lit with yellow sparks at the prospect of some slayage. "Fun for the whole family."

Xander shuddered. He still couldn't get used to that. The yellow part or the family part.

Spike's lips twisted wryly at the reaction, but he refrained from commenting on it. "So you lot can hold down Fort Fairy while we go slay some nasties then?"

"Yes, by all means," Giles replied absently, his focus centered on the invoice in his hand. "I'll see what I can ascertain about these 'Aftertime Creations' people from the store's records." He gazed off into space, his thoughts wandering off on a tangent. "It is after operating hours, however. If they are a legitimate business there's no point in investigating until tomorrow. Willow could undoubtedly find something on that horrid computer of hers..."

Buffy took the Giles-babble as her cue to leave. She grabbed Spike by the sleeve and pulled him outside like a disobedient pet.

The vampire, for his part, disregarded any negative undertones stemming from her performance. He wasn't the least bit threatened by her bossiness. When it came right down to it, he rather enjoyed her little displays of dominance. It was part of what made her such a great Slayer.

"John," he volunteered, casually slinging an arm around her waist as they headed off toward the first cemetery of the night. Their games of 'Name the Nipper' had become a patrolling tradition over the last few months.

"Paul." Buffy's response came automatically.

"George? Ringo?" He chuckled. "Sorry, sunshine. Even I'm not that cruel."

"Okay then... Um, Michael."

"He was one of the archangels yeah? The fighty one." He mulled it over for a second. "'S not that horrible, but I have to say that anything Angel-related is off limits. Bad enough I ended up bein' his sodding namesake."

Buffy loved that both vampires bore the name Liam now. It was so incredibly cute. Ironic as hell, but cute. She also understood her partner's very mixed feelings on the subject. She pretended to consider an alternative, then chirped, "Enrique."

Spike sent her a withering glance, his brows stitching together in a show of pique. "That's not funny anymore."

She giggled. "It is! You get that same look on your face every time."

"Do not."

She just nodded up at him. "Uh huh. That's the one."

The vampire rolled his eyes skyward and changed the subject. "So," he said. "Rupert seems to be coming around."

"It's been a slow process but it finally looks that way. Better late then never, I guess." Buffy leant her head into his shoulder and snickered against the leathered surface. "Did you see his face?"

"When you all but stuck your gut in it?" Spike snorted. "Bang up job you did on that score. Told you rubbin' his nose in it would do the trick."

"Hmm ... Sneaky tactics from such an impatient vamp. Who knew you could be so devious?"

"Ex-creature of the darkness here, pet. Dab hand at deviant behavior." He puffed up his chest, feigning indignance. "And you needn't've gotten so carried away with the defendin'-your-honor part by the way." He held one side of his duster open. "Black and blue under here."

"Oh, suck it up you big wimp." She stabbed a finger into his ribs, unrepentantly leaving another bruise. "You'll be totally healed by morning."

"Fabulous. Just in time to embark on the next spine tingling caper with the intrepid Scoobies."

"What'd you expect? It's been all quiet on the Hellmouth front. No major bad has gone down for months. We needed some weirdness to liven up the place." As they reached the cemetery gates, Buffy rearranged the stakes in her pockets for easier access, tucking one into the back of her pants. "Or deaden up the place. I like the deadening part."

Spike squinted off into the distance where two newly risen vampires were lumbering through the headstones. One was tall and lean, the other short and stocky. "First on the bill this evening," he announced. "Laurel and Hardy."

"Dibs on Hardy." Buffy flashed him an impudent grin and charged off into the darkness. "Hey you! Poddy!"

Spike lingered in the shadows for a second and watched her go, bemused by her high spirits. It was only after she tried a flying tackle on her opponent that he rushed in after her - backing her up like he always did and protecting what was his.

"Are you bloody daft, woman? You can't pull any o' that acrobatic nonsense now. Your center of gravity's all screwed up..."

Giles climbed the porch steps of 1630 Revello Drive at a dawdling pace, not wanting to appear too eager. He wasn't eager at all really, so the deception wasn't that hard to pull off.

He hadn't visited the house since Spike had properly moved in. He hadn't been comfortable with the idea of their living together. At the time, he was still in shock from the Serpiente debacle and hadn't been capable of putting up much of an argument. When he had finally come to his senses, it had been too late. And by then Buffy was already pregnant, even if they hadn't yet been aware of it.

The Watcher sighed and knocked at the front door.

There was a faint rumbling inside, someone running down the stairs, and the door swung open to reveal Spike. The vampire was barely dressed, gadding about in a pair of black satin boxer shorts with red cartoon devils on them. His eyes were heavy lidded from sleep and his hair stuck up in unruly tufts.

"Why're you here?" he growled, less than pleased by the Watcher's presence on his doorstep.

A thankfully fully-clothed Buffy appeared at her partner's side. She slapped the bare skin of his shoulder hard enough to leave a handprint. "Don't just stand there, fuzz head, let him in!"

Spike ignored the blow. He scratched at the nape of his neck and padded off down the hall. Headed for the kitchen, no doubt.

"Hi Giles! Is there fairy news?" Buffy was uncommonly perky for this time of day and all but skipped into the lounge, her simple white sundress swishing around her rotund form.

Giles followed. "Oh, uh, no. Willow is coming in to work on it later. I actually wanted to bring you this." He shoved a small, elegantly wrapped parcel in her direction. "Belated house-warming gift. Or early baby shower, take your pick."

"Oh, Giles, you didn't have to do that." She lowered herself into a chair and toyed with the ribbon. "I'm real glad you did, though. Presents are always of the good."

While the gift was being unwrapped, a task Buffy undertook with painstaking care, Giles took the opportunity to study the decor. The room seemed cozier, more intimate.

"I like what you've done to the place," he said.

Buffy glanced up. "Less frilly, more Willy." She blinked and reddened. "I so didn't mean that the way it sounded."

Giles smiled tightly, not bothering to comment.

The signs of Spike's inhabitance were subtle, but obvious if you knew where to look - the leather duster on the hook by the front door for starters. Then there was the room itself.

The arty knick-knacks had vanished, so too many of the potted plants, and a greater number of bookcases now lined the tawny-hued walls, brimming with literary treasures. There were candles on every available surface and more cushions scattered about - a plethora of cushions in plush materials and jeweled colors.

A portrait of Joyce had pride of place on a side table, along with an old sepia-toned print of someone possibly related to Spike, but the assorted snapshots that had decorated the walls throughout the house were gone. In lieu of their familial warmth, there was a large gilt-framed drawing hanging over the mantle, a beautiful pencil sketch of Buffy and Spike in one of their self-absorbed embraces, completely lost in each other. The love depicted on their faces was palpable, and Giles found himself drifting over to seek out the artist's signature.

Ah, Angel. Of course.

He turned back around to find Spike watching him from the hallway. He'd made an abortive attempt to comb his hair and had conceded to modesty by pulling on a frayed pair of blue jeans and a navy shirt, the latter hanging unbuttoned from his lean frame. Beyond him on the wall by the staircase was a Sex Pistols poster - 'Never Mind the Bollocks...'

"What'd we get?" he asked, gesturing to the now-opened gift with the mug in his hand.

Buffy held up the little elfin Spike from the Aftertime Collection, companion to the Slayer that had been swiped the day before. The winged figurine leant against a porcelain tree stump and sneered at them, his tiny white head tilted to one side. A curved sword was held nonchalantly in one hand, giving him just the slightest air of menace - 'I'm cute, but I can still chop you into messes if I want.'

"Look," she gushed. "Aren't you adorable? Thanks Giles."

The vampire raised an eyebrow. "Assume that means I'm off the hook for the other?"

Giles inclined his head in acknowledgement and got a smirk in return.

"Here," Buffy pushed the miniature at him. "Put it up there on the mantle with skinny-me."

After complying, Giles took a seat on the sofa. "I've, uh, been doing some soul-searching of late, and I realize that I've been neglecting my duty to you as your Watcher. I've decided to rectify the situation by documenting any and all information on your link and it's relevance to the Pylean prophecies."

Spike dropped onto the sofa beside him. "That's long overdue, mate."

"Yes, I believe I mentioned that." Giles pulled a pen and notebook from the portfolio he'd brought with him. "Last things first," he said. "Your pregnancy. The symptoms have been shared equally?"

"Shared, yeah. Don't know about the equal," Spike said.

"Spike got the morning sickness and general all-round incapacitating nausea," Buffy reported. "I get the gigantic baby-belly, the cramps, the swollen ankles, the constant need to pee..."

Giles cleared his throat, embarrassed by the subject matter. "Be that as it may, you both experience the child's kicking?"

The Slayer nodded. "Spike takes the brunt of most of the big ones. It's like... " She frowned and made an absent gesture with one hand, struggling to find the correct description. "Like the link sort of protects me by shunting the major ouchies his way."

The vampire snorted into his mug and mumbled something under his breath that earned him a scathing look from Buffy. He ignored her.

Giles dithered a moment, staring at his notes. "You understand that if this particular trend continues, Spike will be the one enduring the bulk of your labor pain?"

The vampire sat up at that, choking on the mouthful of blood he'd just swigged. "What?" He slammed his mug onto the coffee table and wiped off his chin. "That's a load of poppycock, innit?"

Buffy was wearing the biggest grin in the history of the world. "That will be so incredibly cool," she said. "'Cause I've been worried about the whole 'pain' part of that."

"So happy to be of service," Spike mumbled.

In the midst of the subsequent glaring competition, both winced and rubbed their chests.

"Did I mention the heartburn?" Buffy asked.

Giles noticed that the vampire's actions were merely a fraction behind the Slayer's and marveled at their symmetry. From a Watcher's perspective, it was downright enthralling. He should have been involved sooner. Dratted inbred English stubbornness.

"Good thing Nipper's one of us, eh? Makes it worth the trouble." Spike sprawled back into the sofa cushions and let out an enormous belch. "There you go, love. Cures what ails you." He proudly patted the taut planes of his exposed stomach.

Buffy just smiled. "You don't have to keep calling him Nipper, you know. He has a name now."

"He does?" The baby's name had been a hotly debated topic for the entire length of the pregnancy. Giles was surprised they'd reached a settlement this early.

"Uh huh! Go us!" Buffy cheered, pumping a fist in the air.

"Seth Jameson Grey," Spike supplied, watching the Slayer with an amused expression.

"Seth?" the Watcher repeated. "A biblical name?"

"'S wrong with that?" Spike demanded. "Means 'appointed one'. Sort of another 'chosen' in the family." He drew a deep breath and quoted, "'...A perfect man, and his likeness was the express likeness of his father, insomuch that he seemed to like unto his father in all things.'"

"Hey, you didn't tell me that part!" Buffy protested. She gave her belly an apologetic pat, speaking directly to it. "God, I am so sorry. I hope I haven't cursed you."

"Ha bloody ha." Spike's smile softened the sarcasm in his voice.

She leant toward Giles. "That's just the Hebrew meaning anyway," she confided. "It means 'bridge' in Sanskrit."

Giles could feel his throat tightening up. "B-bridge?" he stammered.

"Which is another word for link, so it's an all-round multi-purpose kind of name."

The Watcher was reeling. All his wild speculations were rapidly becoming fact. It was incomprehensible.

"Oh, plus," Buffy continued. "George Clooney."

"Pardon?" Wasn't that the name of an actor?

"George Cloo-ney," she repeated slowly, over-stressing the vowels. "'From Dusk 'Til Dawn'?" When that drew no response, she shot a fretful glance at Spike who rolled his eyes at the Watcher's ignorance.

"It's a vampire flick, you daft git. Seth Gecko was his character's name. Right bastard, sure, but he kicked a significant amount of demon ass."

"Fascinating." Giles pursed his lips, unsure of what to say next.

Spike squinted at him curiously. "What's goin' on in that almighty brain of yours, Rupert? I can hear your synapses poppin'."

Buffy pulled her disgusted face. "That's gross, honey."

He gave her an odd look. "Yeah, I just got the visual from you. Don't ever think that at me again."

Giles glanced back and forth between the two and wished that he'd taken another seat. Being in the middle like this was comparable to being a tennis umpire. If he didn't move soon, the incessant Ping-Pong of their banter would undoubtedly give him a headache.

"Your wish is my command, oh Master Vampire," Buffy jeered. "Anything else while I'm becking your call?"

"You realize that made absolutely no sense?" Spike sought the Watcher's advocacy. "Did it?"

"Don't drag him into this!"

"Why not? Bit o' masculine solidarity wouldn't go astray. Don't often get it in this house."

"Oh, sure. Gang up on the pregnant lady. Real heroic." She was becoming flushed now, her cheeks tinged with pink.

"Hey, watch your pressure, sunshine." Spike immediately switched into attentive partner mode and was crouched at Buffy's side before Giles could even blink. "Ease off. That's my girl."

They sat there for a few minutes, eyes closed, hands clasped together, breathing in total synchrony. In - out, in - out, in - out...

After a while Spike smiled and brought Buffy's hand up to brush a kiss across her knuckles. "You're gonna kill us one of these days," he said.

"Me? You're the one who keeps being such a smart-ass. You know I just want to smack you when you're like that."

"Well, at least we're consistent, love. It's never once been any different."

"I'm so gonna kick your ass when I'm back in shape," she informed him peevishly.

Giles really felt like a fifth wheel at this point. He doubted if they even remembered he was in the room. That conviction was abruptly discarded when they both turned to look at him at the same time.

"Where was I?" Spike asked.

"Popping synapses," Giles supplied dryly.

The vampire scowled at him. "So, you gonna spit it out or what?"

"It's just that, I've been going over recent events and it occurred to me that I should have seen it earlier - your coming together that is."

"How?" Buffy asked. "We sure as hell didn't."

"Speak for yourself." Spike sniffed and got to his feet.

He didn't return to the sofa, but stood behind Buffy's chair and rested his hands on her shoulders. Buffy placed her own right hand over his left, as if to keep him from moving away. Not that he would.

Giles disregarded the comment. "Everything points to your union being destined. It even harks back to Spike being in the Master's line. Did you know that 'Aurelius' literally means 'golden one'? It could have been pertaining to him all along." He flipped back a few pages in his notebook. "And the Gemel Prophecy notwithstanding, I've reviewed several entries in the Watcher's Journals regarding a vampire with a soul. We've always thought that they referred to Angel alone, but now that we know Spike has always had part of his..."

"Is this waffling gonna get to a point anytime soon?" Spike interrupted. "I've got places to be."

Buffy tipped her chin. "You want I should stay here?" she asked him. "You can monitor the Watcher-speak through me while you're being Errand Boy. It's called multi-tasking, honey, embrace it."

"Brill." Spike leant down and gave Buffy an impassioned kiss that lingered far longer than was polite. He drew back, threw a condescending smirk at Giles, just because, then disappeared upstairs.

The Slayer watched his retreating form with starry eyes and a dreamy smile. She visibly shook herself out of her daze and peered at her Watcher. "Oh, um, soul?" she prompted.

Giles was too distracted by what he'd just heard. "He can monitor your conversations from afar?"

"Old news," she scoffed. "And mutual, too. He can't make a move without me knowing where he is and what he's doing. Or who."

"How very ... stifling." Giles scribbled something illegible in his notebook. "Where is he going anyway? I can't believe that it's more important than..."

Spike bounded back down the stairs, leaping nimbly over the banister to land with a thud in the foyer. He'd buttoned the shirt and pulled on his scuffed combat boots.

"I'm off," he announced. "Anything else while I'm out?" Buffy merely arched an eyebrow and he nodded. "Right. Later." He snagged his duster off the hook and jabbed a commanding finger at her. "Don't go anywhere." Then he slammed out the front door and was gone.

The house suddenly seemed very empty.

Buffy shifted, a frown creasing her forehead. "How bizarre is it that I miss him already?" She shrugged and focused back on the conversation. "He's going to the baby store down town. Now we've decided on a name he wants to have it pinned on the nursery door."

"You have a nursery?"

"Well, sure. Spike decorated it himself." Her lips curled and she adopted a hideous British accent. "'Don't want any of that bloody Nancy boy frippery in my boy's room'. That's a direct quote if you couldn't tell." She widened her eyes excitedly. "Wanna see?" She didn't wait for an answer, but extricated herself from her chair and headed for the stairs.

Giles had little choice but to trail along after her. As they reached the top, he couldn't resist peeping through the open doorway of the master bedroom, the one that had previously belonged to Joyce Summers and was now the domain of the expectant couple. He recoiled, taken aback by the profusion of mirrors.

Buffy let out a snort at his elbow. "I know," she said. "It should be opened up as a funhouse or something. We could probably charge the neighborhood kids admission."

"Why -?"

"Ever since he realized he could see himself again, he's gotten all obsessive about it. Vanity thy name is Spike." She shook her head, glossy curls bouncing. "Just means I get to see the mammoth mommy gut from every imaginable angle. Not pretty." She pulled him into the next room and gestured grandly. "Welcome to Nipper-land."

Giles scanned the room with some amazement. Spike had done this?

A polished-to-gleaming wooden crib had been set up in one corner, offset by an antique rocking chair in the other. Other than those basic items it didn't resemble a traditional nursery in the slightest - no soft pastels or cutesy animal motifs for this child.

Three of the walls were a stark clinical white. The fourth, adjacent to the crib, was painted a startlingly bright blue. The color seemed familiar and it took Giles a moment to place it.

"Spike's eyes are the same shade as the wall," he observed.

"No." Buffy corrected, a tender smile playing about her mouth. "The wall is the same as Spike's eyes."

"Mmm." Giles didn't acknowledge the nauseating sentimentality of the statement, but continued with his perusal.

There was a noticeable lack of harsh florescent lighting, but two rows of downlights situated along the ceiling cast a soft, unobtrusive radiance against the walls. The throw rug was a particularly vivid red, the same color as the frames on the prints adorning the walls.

He shuffled across to look at them more closely.

Abstract Expressionism - Jackson Pollock, no less. 'Number 22, 1949' and several others from same era whose titles he couldn't recall. They were, however, some of his more restless works and an unlikely choice for a child's room. But then Giles had long ago given up on the vampire doing anything resembling normal.

"It's rather, uh... unusual," he said finally.

"You have polite face," Buffy commented, amused. "I get that it's not your everyday sort of kiddy-chic, but it's tailor-made for Seth. Trust me."

Giles nodded and peered at her from the corner of his eye. "Have you given any more consideration to the idea of marriage?"

Buffy's face contorted in an involuntary grimace. Certainly not the reaction he had been expecting.

"We did kinda talk about it," she confessed grudgingly. "In the snippy argument definition of the word, and it wouldn't work."

Giles arched a brow at her tone. She sounded so final, and also rather like she was reciting a well-prepared speech. He wondered just how opposed Spike was to the idea. He would guess not very, if at all.

Buffy continued on, ignorant of his curiosity. "Besides the whole freaky 'married to Spike' thing, there's the name," she said. "Which I have to say is just wrong. I mean, even when you go the pretentious hyphenated route. Buffy Summers-Grey? Ugh!"

"I wouldn't have thought a name change would be as traumatic as that," Giles remarked carefully. As excuses went, it wasn't very convincing. "Spike has recently altered his, after all."

"Spike didn't so much change his name as do a little add and subtract."

"Oh?" The Watcher in him perked up at that. Snippets of information about a vampire's previous existence were always noteworthy.

She placed her hand on his forearm, in confiding-a-secret mode. "He likes to keep up the vamp mystique, so don't tell anyone, but his real name, his human name, was William James. We cut that down to 'Liam' and tacked on the 'Grey'. He won't tell me what his actual second name was, but I've got the sneaking suspicion it was Alexander." Buffy smile took on a decidedly evil bent. "I'll make with the stealthy memory-digging and let you know."

"Aha," Giles mused. "So, the 'Jameson' portion of Seth's name is therefore quite literally 'son of James'."

"Yep. See, it's all logical."

"Of course it is. Because you're both such rational people."

She peeked up at him. "Do I detect sarcasm?"

Giles shook his head negatively, then said, "Yes."

Buffy laughed. "I missed this, you know. Just us being us, without all the other stuff."

"Other stuff constituting Spike?"

"No, other stuff constituting the big end-of-the-world evil we're usually dealing with." She rested her back against the doorjamb, a pose that only made her belly seem more prominent. Giles tried not to stare at it.

"We're not without Spike anyway," she told him. "He's still here. He's always here." Her eyes glazed over for a second before she focused back on her guest. "Actually right now he's standing on the corner of Wilkins and Main, making obscene finger gestures and yelling at some guy in a Jeep, but you get what I mean."

Giles was impressed by her innate knowledge of Spike's comings and goings. "That's remarkable!"

"So get your little black book out and make remarks already."

~[*]~

"...Where you can shove that, you filthy wanker!"

Spike's verbal assault dissolved in his throat as he bit back a cry of surprise. One solitary thought popped into his head and began running on a continuous loop.

The vampire closed his eyes, savoring the feeling, and got a nebulous sense of the color blue and the Slayer's laughter before it faded again. He took a few involuntary steps forward as though to intercept the ephemeral sensation, to keep it within his reach, before reason returned. With it came the suffocating impulse to burst into tears. It almost made him want to heave.

It had been so long since Buffy had initiated any contact that he'd almost forgotten what it was like. The last few months she'd been letting it lay dormant, leaving only the barest of connections between them. Enough to keep him on the mortal plane, enough to share surface thoughts, but not enough to let him into her deeper emotional center. She was keeping things from him and he was too scared to push, lest he pushed her away completely.

He realized that he'd stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk and glanced about to see if anyone had noticed, self-consciously wiping any signs of moisture from his eyes.

Only one, it seemed, was astute enough to recognize something amiss, an elderly woman with a noxious cloud of blue-rinsed hair floating above the weathered landscape of her face. She stared at him for a long moment before scurrying away, pushing her over-laden shopping trolley to the edge of the curb to give him a wide berth.

Spike chuckled, her reaction lifting his dark mood. Thank God for comic relief. For a second there he'd almost been brooding.

He knew he still looked the Big Bad. He was a right handsome devil, and the combination of bleached hair, scarred brow and calf-length leather duster gave him an edgy don't-mess-with-me vibe. A sudden desire to reveal his true face sprang to life, an inexplicable need to do a proper job of making the old biddy quail. Muscles rippled under the skin of his face but didn't quite make the full transition to Grr-mode.

"That's right," he purred, eyeing her retreating form. "Keep well away from the bad, rude man. Dangerous I am. Evil."

Spike gazed after her as she rounded the far corner and then shoved his hands into his pockets, grimacing.

The words didn't sound right anymore. He felt like a fraud for uttering them, and like a sad bastard for setting someone's grandmum all a-flutter. He wanted to go and apologize, but stubbornly tamped the urge down.

A staccato tugging at his coattail caught his attention. He growled as he turned, eyes flashing yellow, ready to put the wind up whoever had dared to touch the sacred leather. The growl snagged in his throat.

She was absolutely tiny - tiny and blonde and all of four years old.

He melted instantly. "Well, hello cutie," he greeted, hunkering down so that he was eye level with the girl. She stared at him with huge round orbs that were almost too big for her sharp face. Sea green, just like Buffy's. "What's a tasty sugarplum like you doin' out here by her lonesome? Where's your Mum?"

"Dunno." The cupid's-bow of her mouth pursed thoughtfully as she regarded him. Spike noted with delight that she had mirrored his head-tilt. "At the store."

"The store?" He gnawed at his cheek, cautiously scanning both sides of the street. Bloody brilliant - nothing but stores in the immediate vicinity. "What kind of store?"

"Dunno," Sugarplum repeated, more interested in studying his face than finding her missing parent. One of her pigtails was askew and she wound the flaxen strands of it around her finger. "Your eyes changed colors," she informed him. "It was pretty. Do it again."

"Not right now, sweet bit." Spike surveyed the street a second time, searching for an anxious-looking mother amid the rank and file. No such luck. What was he supposed to do now?

"Wish Buffy was here," he muttered, only to realize that in essence, she was. He'd felt her presence only minutes earlier. He opened himself up, letting everything that was in him seek her out...

And hit an emotional brick wall.

The impact of it knocked Spike on his ass on the pavement. His heartbeat faltered, stopped and then stumbled on again, leaving him gasping for air and clutching at his chest, panic-stricken. Through the roaring in his ears he could hear a woman's concerned voice asking if he was okay and the lost girl explaining to the voice's owner that "the nice man fell down".

He had a vague perception of Sugarplum being led away and hoped that the concerned-voiced lady was her Mum. He really didn't have the strength or the inclination to go after them. Shock did that to a bloke.

Spike knew what had happened. He remembered the sensation all too well. It didn't seem possible, but for the briefest of moments, a fraction of a second, the link had broken.

EPISODE THREE
"Golden Silence"

Willow Rosenberg loved being useful. It gave her life purpose and meaning. That Giles had entrusted her to research these Aftertime Creations cranks made her giddy with pride. Plus, computer time was always of the good and ... and holy heck would you look at that!

"Whoo-hoo!" she whooped, bouncing in her seat at the study table. When no one reacted to her outburst she waved a hand in the air and tried again. "Hello, big with the 'whoo-hooing' over here."

"I thought that was just a general enthusiastic sort of 'whoo-hoo'," Anya said. "Because of your research joy. I shouldn't have to differentiate between all your excited noises. That's Tara's job."

Willow ignored the ex-demon and tapped the monitor eagerly. "I just thought you might wanna have a look-see at the Aftertime web page. There's like a Sunnydale thing only..." She trailed off as she began to grasp the enormity of what she was seeing. "...Sorta not."

Giles strolled over, his glasses already in hand waiting to be polished. "Could you be more specific?"

"Umm," Willow vacillated, engrossed by the site's contents. "Well, it's all about the Hellmouth and vampires and stuff, but they're not calling it Sunnydale. It's a 'mythic' world called Eldritch."

Giles hovered at her shoulder, all thought of polishing his glasses forgotten. He put them back in place so that he could read the luminous green writing. "I'm familiar with the word. Derived from the Old English 'aelf-rice' for elf-realm."

"Elf realm?" Tara asked. "Like a land of teeny-weeny magic people?"

"Precisely. Obviously this is where the fairies fit in to the equation."

"I can't understand why I haven't heard about it before," Willow fretted. "'Cause I found like thousands of matches. It's really, really popular. Lord of the Rings popular - in the whole novel-reading nerdy cult following sense, not you know, the totally huge break-all-box-office-records sense." She squinted at the screen. "There's a whole back story and everything. It looks like it's based around the adventures of two Guardians named Falchion and-"

"Annulet," Giles finished for her. He huffed in an 'I should have known' way. "Spike and Buffy."

The redhead stared up at him wide-eyed. "Huh? How'd you get that?"

"During their escapade in Pylea they were players in an ancient prophecy. They were referred to as the Guardians of the Bridge, the Gemel, two halves of a whole unit. A hook and loop, or alternatively, Falchion and Annulet." The Watcher grimaced and straightened. "I was hoping that it was just a one-off," he mumbled. "But it appears that their exploits are legend in a number of different dimensions."

"Like the fairytales here," Anya noted. "You all think they're fake and made up, but every one of those things happened."

"You mean like Snow White and the dwarves and stuff?" Tara was amazed. "They're all real? They actually existed?"

"Oh, absolutely," Anya nodded vigorously. "Of course, a lot of the stories have been cleaned up for the children's market. They're all PG now, without the gratuitous sex and violence." She sighed. "Worse luck."

Willow was still reading. "We're all in here," she said, scrolling through a character archive. "Us Scoobies, I mean. In an otherworldly fairy-type way. You've just got to interpret the names."

"Interpret?" Tara frowned. "They're in a different language?"

"No, they're just weirded up like Spike and Buffy's are. See?" She pivoted the screen around to face her girlfriend. "They've called you Amity."

"As in 'Amityville Horror'?" Anya was genuinely intrigued.

Giles cast an exasperated glance toward the ceiling. "As in peace and good will."

Tara glowed, embarrassed but pleased. "That's really nice."

"It is!" Willow enthused, reaching over and squeezing her hand. "It's perfect for you." A delighted grin lit her face. "I'm Charm."

"You sure are, sweetie. Who else is there?"

"Candor would have to be Anya, wouldn't it? 'Cause, you know, appropriate."

"I believe that's called stating the obvious," Giles drawled. He cocked his head to one side, taking in the list of names. "Leal, I'd wager would be Xander. It's a form of the word loyal. The others are a little more difficult to..."

The Watcher was interrupted as the front door was flung open with considerable force, almost knocking the bell off its hook. It made a pitiful clunking noise and then fell silent.

Spike barged in, his omnipresent duster billowing, the midday sun painting a golden silhouette around his lithe form. He pulled up short and stared at them, one hand still poised on the doorknob, trying hard to appear indifferent to the circle of astonished faces. It didn't work.

"What?" he snapped, cool facade cracking under the pressure. "Still can't fathom Spike in the ultra-violet minus the trusty old security blanket?" He snorted then bowed his head, eyes skittering away to the side, fingers drumming an uneasy rhythm against his thigh. He appeared to be waiting for something.

A second later Buffy trundled in, one arm curved around under her belly. "Holy crap," she groaned, slightly breathless. "Could you stop with the super fantastic vamp speed for two seconds?"

Spike eyed her over his shoulder. "Thought you said you could still keep up."

"I can." She pouted, her voice sounding small and petulant.

"Right." Spike nodded, knowing that he'd proved his point, and swung the door closed behind her.

She'd have to slow down sooner or later, and he'd rather it be sooner. Last night's patrol had proven just how far off her game she was getting. Poddy and Stretch had almost got a look in. If she'd been on her own...

He shivered. It didn't bear thinking about.

Buffy was suddenly in his arms, neither of them having any recollection of having moved. "It's okay," she murmured, stroking his back under the heavy fall of his duster. "I won't scare you like that again. Tandem or group patrols only from now on. I won't make a move without you."

He was amazed that she'd managed to pick up that much from him considering the state of their link, but decided to go with it. He could play Joe Normal with the best of them.

"Yeah, you say that now, but I know what goes on in that head o' yours, Slayer." He peered down his nose at her. "You hate the Little Girl Lost routine as much as I do."

"Uh huh, but this isn't so much Little Girl Lost as Big Fat Mama Who Can't Keep Up."

Spike chuckled. "Big Fat Mama? If I'd let that one slip you'd have my head on a platter."

"Bet your skinny white butt, Poetry Boy. With fava beans and a nice Chianti."

He sighed happily and rested his chin on her hair. "Gotta tell you, sunshine, you sure know how to sweet talk a bloke." He cocked his scarred brow over her head at their audience. "You lot got this fairy business sorted yet?"

"Found a major trail of breadcrumbs," Willow told him. She gestured toward the computer. "Check it out, Falchion."

"Fal...?" Spike blinked at her, lost for words. "Where the bloody hell did ya hear that?" He glared at Giles. "Thought we told you to keep all that Pylean rubbish under your hat. To protect Seth."

"I did," Giles glared right back, unconcerned by the vampire's threats. "It seems these Aftertime people are under no such constraints."

"You finally named Nipper?" Willow squeaked, ignoring the remainder of their conversation. This was big news.

"Yeah we did. He shall no longer remain nameless." Buffy gingerly edged along the bench-like stool to sit next to her friend.

Spike perched on the ladder behind her and began tapping his feet against the riser. She could hear him contemplating whether or not he needed new laces for his boots and rolled her eyes in irritation. Sometimes she wished she could just hit an off-switch. Or a mute switch maybe. Yeah, one of those would be perfect...

"Seth's a great name," Willow was babbling. "Kinda religious... Isn't there an actor called Seth? I'm pretty sure he was in the Austin Powers movies. Xander would know, being all Groovy Secret-Agent-Man-ified." She paused, then brightened. "Ooh, Nicolas Cage in 'City of Angels'!"

Spike's head snapped up just in time to catch the Slayer making shushing motions. "Eh? Whassat Red?"

"Nothing," Buffy said benignly. "Go back to your shoe-gazing, honey."

"Don't spout that nonsense at me. I heard what she said, all conveniently hush-hush." He hitched his feet up a rung and leant forward. "You know I hate that movie," he whispered reproachfully.

"It makes him cry," she confided in aside to Willow, who then gaped at him.

"Really?"

"No." He fidgeted uncomfortably under the witch's shrewd gaze. She could probably tell he was lying. "We'll have to change it now, any rate."

"Why?" Buffy pivoted to face him. "There's no way we're gonna come up with anything that fits better."

"Angel-related names were off limits, remember? Didn't want any nasty associations." He scowled at Buffy's somewhat amused countenance. "Look, the talentless prat plays an angel, dun' he? Not only that, but he's all po-faced 'n mopey and-" He thrust a self-righteous finger at her as something else came to him. "And he wears a poofy coat."

Buffy arched her brows at him, staring pointedly, and he tugged sheepishly at the lapels of his duster.

"'S not poofy. 'S leather. Bloody sexy if you ask me. Part of my charm."

"It also used to belong to a girl."

He blinked. "But it's not poofy," he repeated as if that were the most important point.

"Okay, you're right," Buffy conceded reluctantly. "It's cool. It epitomizes coolness."

"Nice to know someone appreciates my fashion sense."

"Not the whole sense. Just the coat." She pursed her lips, eyeing him critically. "And maybe the hair."

Willow suddenly shot back in her seat, whacking Buffy's arm repeatedly in her excitement. "Hey! Hey!"

Spike rubbed irritably at his own arm. "Watch where you're tizzying there, Will. Got some clout for a wee slip of a thing."

"S-sorry. I didn't mean to... I mean, hey!" She pointed at the monitor, practically vibrating in her enthusiasm. "Look what I found in the Links section."

Buffy scanned the microscopic lettering, past such varied names as 'Postcards From Eldritch', 'Myth-Arc Online' and 'The We-Hate-Gladius Network', then leant in for a better view at the bottom of the computer screen. "Does that say 'AI'?"

Giles scowled. "That's Angel's company, is it not?"

Spike lounged backward, resting his elbows on the step behind him. "Well that's just typical of Peaches, innit?"

Buffy didn't even look at him. "Don't say it."

"Wha-?" Spike spread his hands, confounded.

"Angel is not a fairy."

"We're all fairies..." Spike began defensively then stopped, horrified by what he'd just said, and hurried to clarify. "...I'd wager. According to those wankers."

"Why do you have to insult every single... They're not wankers."

"Yeah, right." The vampire snorted. "And I'm the sodding Pope."

He could feel the disapproval coming off the Slayer in waves, but studiously ignored it. As far as he was concerned, he was entitled to a fit of the sulks about the morning's stunning developments; he was most certainly not brooding. And if she wanted to pretend nothing had happened, that was just fine with him.

Tara spoke up then, trying as always to be the voice of reason. "Angel wouldn't have anything to do with this. Would he? I mean, I only met him that one time but isn't he a good guy?"

"She's right," Willow admitted. "It's not really his style. Or anyone else's we know." She cast an analytical eye back over the screen. "They sure seem to know us though."

"The connection should be investigated nonetheless." Giles' face was almost an expression-free zone. It often got that way when he was thinking particularly hard. "Someone ought to..."

"Run the LA gauntlet?" Buffy wiggled around on her seat, trying to find a more comfortable position; something that was getting increasingly difficult the more she... increased. "I veto on the grounds that it will only lead to much painful cramping and frequent pee stops."

"Happens on patrol bloody often enough," Spike grumbled, sotto voce. "Let alone an hours-long road trip."

Buffy shot him a look of pure venom that he returned with equal animosity, cool blue eyes lit now with shards of yellow. There was a sharp edge to their bickering, an underlying tension that hadn't previously been there.

Anya was openly staring at the couple. "I don't see it," she said after a moment.

"See what?" Buffy wasn't entirely sure if she wanted to get into whatever Anya had on her mind. Spike was being the über-grouch all of a sudden and she couldn't work out what was wrong with him. It was as distracting as hell, and really starting to piss her off.

"The whole Falchion and Annulet thing," the ex-demon explained. "Now, if they'd called you Sunshine and Honey I might have understood. You call each other that all the time."

The scowl on Giles' face deepened and he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Golden," he muttered.

"How's that?" Spike narrowed his eyes, having picked up the Watcher's undertone.

"Sunshine and honey," Giles huffed. "Both can be defined as golden. It's the Aurelius link popping up again."

"Aurelius link?" It was Willow's turn in the Scooby frown-a-thon. "I thought their link was from something called a Serpiente."

"Oh, wait," Tara breathed. "I know what Mr. Giles means. 'Aurelius' is Latin for 'golden one'. A-and look." She read the screen of Willow's computer. "The Guardians are the embodiment of the twin suns and will bring about the golden age."

"Bloody hell, you're not wittering on about that again, are you?" Spike groaned.

"It's important!" Giles defended piously.

The vampire rolled his eyes, the reaction earning a censuring backslap from Buffy. Luckily he was far enough out of her target range that it hit him harmlessly below the knee.

"Knock it off," she ordered, then shook her head at her Watcher. "You fall for his line of crap every time. He's chain-yanking you, Giles. He's just as interested in all this as you are."

Spike pouted. "Am not. No one should be that interested in the lives of people who aren't them. It's bloody unnatural is what it is."

"I'll tell you what's unnatural, you contemptuous little prat..."

Giles' outburst was abruptly silenced as the door opened once more. The bell didn't make a sound, not having recovered from Spike's entrance, and Xander paused underneath it, looking up with arched brows.

"You want I should fix that?" he asked. "Unless you like the Zen vibe." He grinned at them. "If a customer walks into a shop and the bell doesn't ring, is the customer really in the shop?"

"Would somebody please knock him out?" Spike implored. "Come on! One good tap. I'll pay cash."

Xander was about to make what he thought was a pretty good comeback when the vampire suddenly recoiled in pain, collapsing away from the ladder with a hand covering the side of his face. His teeth were clenched so tightly that every vein in his neck stood out in gruesome detail, but most frightening of all was the fact that he didn't make a single sound. Usually there was yelling. Loud yelling - lots of it.

Xander stared, never having seen the chip give Spike this much of a jolt. Had something gone wrong?

Spike staggered to a halt against the counter, doubled over and breathing heavily. He lifted his head and glowered at Buffy with the one eye that wasn't half-closed and bloodshot.

"You burst a vessel, you sodding hellcat. I can't see!"

"Cry baby," she said haughtily, folded arms resting on the swell of her stomach. She wasn't the least bit sympathetic.

Spike gawked at her, floundering for an appropriate reaction. A crimson-stained tear escaped from corner of his damaged right eye, spilling out over the arch of his cheekbone and into the hollow beneath. Some bruising was becoming visible too, ugly purple stains shading the socket.

"I'm in serious pain here," he informed her. "You're damned lucky I'm not inclined to return the favor."

"Like you could."

"Oh, I could." Spike's tone was icy cold now. He wiped at the bloodied tearstain with the back of his hand, peering at the resultant smudge with disgust, then rolled his shoulders, visibly pulling himself together. "I won't. But it's times like this that remind me why I wanted to kill you so much back in the day."

The statement was followed by complete and utter silence.

Buffy blanched. "God, I can't believe you just said that."

"I didn't mean that I wanted to..."

"Get out." The Slayer's tone was flat.

"Buff..."

"I said 'get out'," her face was stony with determination. "Leave. I don't wanna see you right now."

Spike cast a beseeching look at the Scoobies, but none of them made any attempt to take his side. His chin came up defensively. "Oh, so it's like that is it? Right then, you can sod off, the whole bloody lot of you."

He turned abruptly on his heel and stalked out, not sparing any of them a second glance.

Xander watched the vampire storm by, making sure to stay well out of fang range - chip or no, Spike could be damned scary - and then turned back to the others.

"What the hell just happened?"

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