Xander rushed into Dawn’s room, a sword clenched in his hand. “What? What is it?” he demanded, flipping on the light and seeing Dawn sitting up in bed, pale and shaking.

“He was here—he was here,” she gasped.

“Who?”

“Spike!”

Xander swung around, tensing. The door was still ajar from his hurried entrance, and the window was closed.

The room was empty.

And Dawn … Dawn, who sometimes imagined giant spiders on her ceiling and mice nibbling in the walls, was alone. Looking frightened, but not terribly awake, as she rubbed sleep from her eyes.

“Are you okay?” Xander asked carefully. At her nod he relaxed his sword arm and sat down on the edge of the bed. “What happened, Dawn?”

“He … looked at me,” said Dawn in lingering horror, hiking her legs up to her chest and wrapping her arms around her knees. Xander released the sword entirely to rub Dawn’s back and murmur soothingly. Dawn’s eyes darted around the room, still searching, still panicked.

A year before, Xander would have jumped on the incident like a beagle on a Snausage—pit bull, he corrected himself, pit bull on a Snausage—but now it just seemed odd. Spike, that dangerous, ungrateful twerp, had been so quiet after Buffy took him out of the school’s basement. Helpful. Harmless. Except, of course, for the time he decided to beat the crap out of Faith for kicking Buffy out of her own house, which hadn’t been harmless or helpful or anything good, but since Faith had tried to strangle Xander, he wasn’t going to hold that one against Spike.

“What do you mean, looked? Was he, you know … all bumpy in the forehead?” He knew Spike wasn’t supposed to be able to do that anymore, but hell, what did he know? Maybe vampires who were made human again had some sort of weird hybrid mutant power thing going on, and man, he had to stop hanging around Andrew so much.

Dawn shook her head, heart racing. She felt almost paralyzed. Like if she didn’t move, she could become so still and small that she’d be safe.

Of course, growing up in Sunnydale had taught her that actually never worked.

Here, in Santa Rita, she’d thought she was safe. No Hellmouth, no Glory, no monster-of-the-week. No, here all she had to be afraid of was someone she used to trust. To love. Why did he do it? Rotten disgusting creep!

“Dawn?”

Dawn looked up at Xander’s prompting. “He had this look on his face … like I was a sandwich, and he hadn’t eaten in days,” she said, voice quavering. “And then he said, ‘I’ve been waiting years for this,’ and started to unbutton his shirt.”

Xander was silent for a moment as he absorbed her words, then surged to his feet. “Where’d he go?” Xander asked coldly, sword in his hand. He’d missed before, when he’d seen Spike with Anya, but this time his aim would be true.

There was a sound in the hall, and Buffy rushed in. “What is it, what’s wrong?”

“Spike,” grated Xander.

“Spike what?” said Buffy.

“He tried to—” Xander broke off as Spike ran into the room, slightly winded. “You bastard,” Xander gritted, raising the sword and starting for Spike.

Buffy grabbed him, her hand at his wrist. “What the hell’s this about?” she demanded.

“Your boyfriend here was threatening Dawn, that’s what,” Xander snapped, jerking his head in Spike’s direction.

Buffy and Spike exchanged a look, then Buffy turned back to Xander and shook her head. “That’s impossible,” she told him flatly. Behind her—behind Spike—she could hear dull footfalls and knew that the rear guard, Giles and Andrew, had arrived.

“Impossible how? Because he has a soul? Because he’s human now? Because you say so?”

“Because he was with me,” Buffy replied softly.

***

Xander looked uncomfortably at Spike across the dining room table and shifted a little in his seat. Buffy had sent the two of them away after the initial confusion had died down, and it was established that Spike was otherwise occupied.

Andrew had sought comfort from several notably loud video games.

“So you two were … down here talking?” Xander asked, studiously polite.

Spike nodded, then caught himself. “Well, actually—” he began, and Xander cut him a sharp look. “—we were in the living room,” Spike finished.

Xander let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

They both snapped their heads up when Buffy walking into the room.

“Is she settled down?” asked Spike.

“Finally,” she sighed. “The promise of taking tomorrow off school can solve any problem.”

Spike watched her closely as she sank down on the couch. “So what do you think it was?”

“I think it was a big shock seeing you, and then I think she ate enough potstickers to give her nightmares,” said Buffy dryly.

Spike didn’t look convinced. “Nightmares? You sure that’s all it was?”

“What else would it be?”

“Could be about anything, I suppose,” Spike admitted. “But how often do these things turn out to be nothing?”

To his surprise, Buffy smiled. “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Spike,” she told him. “Well okay, we were never in Kansas exactly, but this isn’t the Hellmouth. This is a perfectly normal town, not ground zero for demonic activity.”

“Yeah, that’s what they say about Fresno, I hear,” snorted Spike.

“Fresno?”

“Oh, nothing,” Spike dismissed innocently.

Buffy glared at him. Becoming human hadn’t made him notably more serious.

“So what do you think it was?” she demanded.

Xander watched the two of them. Neither of them, preoccupied with their conversation, paid him any attention. At the moment, he found that a relief. He couldn’t tell them anything, and now he only had more questions.

Spike shrugged at Buffy’s question. “Could be anything. Incubus—”

“The band?” asked Buffy in surprise.

“No, not the band,” Spike said dryly. “Nasty little buggers that, um, take advantage of girls while they’re asleep.”

“Spike, you know perfectly well that incubi are a myth,” said Giles, walking into the room wearily. It wasn’t really surprising that as soon as Spike returned, trouble began; indeed, it would have been astonishing otherwise. Spike might never have managed evil on the scale of Angelus, or genuine repentance like Angel, but at simple troublemaking, he was without peer.

After a moment Giles corrected himself. Spike had, by the testimony of Buffy and the other Slayers, willingly sacrificed himself to save the world. It almost pained Giles to think it, but Spike had saved the world.

And he had also killed two Slayers, and countless others. The restrictions the chip had placed upon Spike had lulled Giles into dismissing the scope of his evil—a dangerous mistake. Spike may not have indulged in the Grand Guignol tortures of Angelus, but he was—had been—a legend. He had earned the name William the Bloody, earned it with the lives of the innocent.

“The hell they are,” Spike insisted, drawing Giles back to the conversation.

“So they take advantage and then leave?” Buffy asked impatiently.

“They impregnate the women,” Spike scowled. Didn’t like the thought of one of them bothering Niblet. “That’s how they reproduce.”

“Impregnate!” exclaimed Buffy. “And one of these was after Dawn?”

“I don’t know. Like I said, could have been anything.”

“Including some things that actually exist,” said Giles dryly. “Such as Traylor demons.”

“What do they do?” asked Buffy.

Giles thought for a moment, trying to dredge up long-buried knowledge. “I’ll have to check my books, but as I recall, upon making physical contact with the victim, they take up residence in their body as a … well, a parasite.”

“Parasite?” exclaimed Buffy in horror. Every option was worse than the one before it. Impregnate Dawn? Live in her as a parasite? God! “Wait, how’d these things look like Spike? They can do that? Look like whoever they want?”

Giles took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “They need to find a form the victim is familiar with, to ensure that she will allow them close enough to complete their attack. Demons can be highly adaptable. With so specialized a method of attack, they need acceptable camouflage.”

“Why me?” Spike asked suddenly.

The others turned to look at him. “I’m not getting the feeling that Dawn feels all warm and fuzzy towards me right now, so why me and not one of you?” he said, jerking his chin towards Xander and Giles.

“Or Andrew,” muttered Xander absently. The others looked at him curiously and after a moment he added, “I mean, assuming there’s actually a demon delusional enough to imagine Andrew in a girl’s bedroom.”

Buffy shrugged. “She had a crush on you,” she said to Spike.

Spike brightened at the news. “She did? When?” he asked, evidently pleased.

“Settle down there, fella. She had a crush on me first,” Xander told him. “She just decided to lower her sights a little. Okay, a lot.”

Spike’s face fell, and Buffy giggled at him.

Xander didn’t laugh, but he did smile. It might have been after midnight, and he had work in the morning, but it was never too late to enjoy Spike being disappointed.

Giles frowned at Spike. Was he onto something? Or was the vampire (no, not vampire) simply indulging his considerable ego?

“The girl was refining her taste,” Spike argued.

Yes, his ego was healthy, wasn’t it?

“Excuse me, her tastes were already highly refined,” returned Xander, affronted.

“Sure, refined. You were right up there with the Backstreet Boys. Same haircut, even.”

“Hey, I did not—”

Giles closed his eyes and ignored the byplay.

Maybe Buffy was right. Maybe it had just been a dream.

Maybe not.

***

Giles remained downstairs long after the others had retired. He’d moved to his library, a large room tastefully decorated in dark tones and lined with his books. The largest collection of mystical texts anywhere in the world now that the Council was no more, no matter what Wesley said about the collection at Wolfram & Hart.

What had awakened Dawn was no bad dream, he felt sure. And whatever it was, he was certain it would reappear. Not that night—it had been surprised; clearly it wanted to catch them unawares, or it wouldn’t have approached Dawn as she slept. Nobody in the house would sleep soundly that night, too keyed up and cautious from the incident. But it would return. Eventually.

Spike there for only a few hours, and already the house was in a panic. Perhaps it wasn’t fair to blame him. Perhaps.

Giles sighed. He wished he could talk to Olivia, but they’d drifted apart; he hadn’t to her spoken in ages. Nothing was as it should be; everything was so fragmented, their lives no more stable than they had been on the Hellmouth. Like they were in a holding pattern.

No, not that exactly. It was as if they were waiting for the other shoe to drop. The battle that had destroyed Sunnydale had not set them free as they had all hoped—especially Buffy, he knew. She still patrolled, she and Dawn still bickered, she and Giles still looked at each other across a gulf. The only real difference was the zip code. And now, again, horrors sought them out.

Giles glanced down at the ancient text in front of him with atypical disinterest. It was a beautiful specimen, hand-scribed in a monastery in Italy. It had been found still-open in the scriptorium by pilgrims hoping to view the femur of Santa Lucia, the prized relic of the place, only to find the monastery deserted. The entire order had fallen, one by one, when the Black Death unfurled.

Surely it was natural that men, so isolated from women, from their families, from what anyone else would consider normal, would create fantastical images. Even the letters were so embellished as to be considered art. The images in the text could enthrall, but they had also been known to chill Giles to his marrow. Never so much as now, as the twining snakes that formed the first letter on the page twitched, and then began to writhe.

Giles blinked and the page was still, the movement merely a trick of the light.

Giles shook his head and shut the book. It was undoubtedly time to turn in.

It had been a long day, and he was anxious to leave it behind.

Buffy wasn’t worried about whatever it was that had happened in Dawn’s room—not at the moment. It seemed wrong not to worry about it—like she was being a bad sister—but long experience had taught her that lying awake worrying did nothing.

They’d deal with it in the morning. All of them, Willow and Buffy and Xander and Giles. And Spike, too. For the moment Dawn was safe, and Buffy could relax and sleep.

Or not.

The house was quiet, and Buffy was alone. She was in her big shiny room, which had been decorated by an interior designer, and unlike her room at home—her room in Sunnydale, all vacant and ashy and hole-in-the-groundy—it didn’t have posters of New Kids on the Block, or butterflies, or even Mr. Gordo, whom she’d neglected to pack. He’d been left in her little girl room with all the other reminders of childhood. With all her everything. All she had left of that life were a few pictures of her mom, her claddagh ring, and her “Class Protector” umbrella. Well, and a change of clothes and a pair of kick-ass boots. She did need her butt-kicking boots. One pair just wasn’t enough.

She’d thought about packing her yearbooks, and her crown from the prom at Hemery, and the volume of poetry Angel gave her, and realized that it was all too much. She would have been hauling a suitcase, not traveling light with a backpack.

They’d all left Sunnydale traveling light.

At the back of her closet was a duffel bag with a few things of Spike’s. He’d packed it before the big battle; they all packed a small bag or a backpack. They hadn’t known the town was going to collapse—they hadn’t known what was going to happen—but they wanted to be careful. Just in case they weren’t all bitten, broken, or incinerated, it would be nice to have a change of clothes, right?

When they’d finally stopped at a fleabag motel, there were far more bags than survivors—a reminder of the ones who hadn’t made it out of Sunnydale. Xander had kept Anya’s bag, of course, and Giles had said they should send the Slayers’ things to their families. Their bags, accompanied by polite little notes telling them their daughters were dead.

She was going to take Spike’s bag, of course. She couldn’t just leave it there, like no one cared. It was cruel, and he deserved better.

And it would have been a lie. She cared. She’d fought it for months—years—but she cared. She admitted as much to Angel. Hell, she’d told Spike, even if he didn’t believe her.

Before she’d made a move towards it Spike’s bag, Xander just handed it to her. Like that. Like it was nothing. Like it was assumed.

Xander had grown up. She didn’t know when it had happened, but he was an amazing man. He’d always been special—loyal, brave. And when he handed her the bag, Buffy realized he’d gone right past her and become an adult.

She envied him.

She wasn’t an adult yet, she knew. She made excuses. She looked for hiding places. She gave orders and pretended she knew what she was doing.

She made promises about cookie dough and baking and giving her time and blah blah blabbity blah, because it was easier than saying goodbye to a dream. It was easier than wondering why her dreams, at twenty-two, were different than they had been at sixteen. When she’d fallen in love with Angel, she was young. Naïve. A child. She’d hardly lived, and hadn’t died.

Okay, once. She’d died once, but that one barely counted, right?

She’d been soft and hopeful and romantic. Of course she loved Angel, of course. He was dark and handsome and suave. He gave her deep looks that suggested so much, and told her only enough to make her want more. He was mysterious, a cipher.

She was just too damn old to want a cipher anymore.

Spike had never been a cipher. Before his soul, Spike could barely keep his mouth shut for three minutes at a time. I love you, I need you, I dream about you. I killed the head of the Larquor Clan on a dare, and didn’t even break a sweat. Billy Idol stole his look from me, miserable piker. And his version of “Mony Mony” bites, the sell-out. I knew the fellow who invented hot wings, and I drank him when he messed with the recipe. Fresh thyme, my ass. Once, in bed, she’d clapped a hand over his mouth to keep him quiet. He didn’t pull back, but she’d seen his eyes flare, and then dim.

God, she couldn’t even listen to him, could she? Just wanted him to do what he was supposed to and keep his mouth shut.

Suddenly Buffy hated herself. More than usual, she amended.

She should bring it to him, right? Give him his stuff. He’d want it, since he only had the clothes on his back now. Not that there was ever a lot of variety in his wardrobe, but he could at least change. And go through his stuff. Books, pictures, letters. He should have it. She should give it to him right now, and—god, she was pathetic. Who did she think she was fooling? “Here, Spike, I thought you couldn’t wait five hours for your bag. By the way, can I come in?”

It was ridiculous, him in the room across the hall. That wasn’t where he wanted to be—right? He always wanted to be with her. It made him happy. She wasn’t sure when it started making her happy, too.

No, that wasn’t right, she knew exactly. It was when she couldn’t stand to be around any of the rest of them. When she’d come back and wished she hadn’t, and everybody looked at her with expectation. Except Spike. But then Riley came back, and she came to her senses.

After the bathroom—after Spike attacked her—she never imagined he could be something to her. Their relationship was wrong, twisted. Unnatural. But when the First took him from her basement she’d known she was kidding herself. What they had was twisted and unnatural, but it wasn’t wrong. It couldn’t be.

She wouldn’t let it be.

***

Spike stared at the ceiling. Damned unpleasant night, if anyone asked him. Of course, no one would. Creepy thing wearing his skin and bothering Dawn? Sounded just like Sunnydale, no matter what Buffy said. He planned to keep an ear open to make sure Dawn wasn’t interfered with during the night.

All in all, a hell of a homecoming.

Not that he’d had a bad reception, really. Everyone had been quite civil, excepting Rupert, who was still on the stiff side. ‘Course, he was probably born on the stiff side—he probably found public school to be too unstructured. Hoped they’d add in a little more discipline, find stronger canes for punishments and all; didn’t do when they broke, right? Self-righteous sod.

She’d touched his face. Gently, sweetly. Kindly.

Not romantically.

He wasn’t sure he wanted it if it wasn’t romantic.

What the hell was he doing here anyway? He was drawn to her, helpless. It wasn’t a great feeling, but he couldn’t stop himself. He’d always been love’s bitch, and she liked him to feel her foot on his neck. What could he do? Go away and pretend Buffy didn’t exist? Pretend he didn’t love her? Pretend he gave a hang about the rest of the world, when all he could think of was whether she was looking at him, whether the smile reached her eyes when she looked at him, whether she leaned close when they were talking?

God, he really was a pathetic bastard, wasn’t he?

Why he’d even come to this cookie-cutter suburb, anyway? For a woman who didn’t love him? No, she loved him, he reminded himself. Of course, she didn’t say “You’re the love of my life and have eradicated the memory of what’s-his-name from my mind,” or give him a great big kiss along with the love. In fact, it was a damned non-specific declaration of love, to his mind; she might have said the same thing to Harris. And he was so exhilarated, and so frightened, to feel the cleansing burn of his soul as it blazed through the cavern, that the moment, which he would have treasured and nursed along in his memory any other time, was pushed aside in his rush to save Buffy. To save Buffy, and finally die a hero.

It beat dying in an alley any day.

What did she have? Why was it always her? She was a cruel bint, careless with his love. His feelings. Taunted him, mocked him, and finally walked away from him as he cried his damned eyes out. Took what he had to give and didn’t give anything herself, just absorbed everything he did for her like it was her right. And he couldn’t say she was wrong, because he’d do it all again a thousand times. He’d—

Jesus. Was he thinking about Buffy, or Dru?

Dimly, he thought of Harmony. Why hadn’t he loved her? Because she’s Harmony, a voice replied in his head. Haven’t you met the girl?

Or maybe because, as whiny and petulant as she was, she didn’t need him. Maybe he really was the sick little fuck Darla always said he was, and he couldn’t care for a woman unless she needed him. Yeah, if Harmony had just—Oh, who am I kidding? Spike thought in disgust. Bugger the psychological bullshit. Harmony would have needed a brain transplant to do more than get my motor going. Followed by a personality infusion.

Love was a selfish bitch goddess that had grabbed him by the balls back when he was William Hudson, and hadn’t let go since. Try to understand her, and she’d just give him a squeeze to remind him who was boss.

She was. He’d recognized that long ago.

So maybe Buffy loved him like a brother. Disgusting thought, that, but it didn’t change anything. She was here, so he would be here. Nothing else he could do.

Nothing else he wanted to.

***

Xander didn’t know. The others could say it was an incubus or whatever, but the others only knew half the story. They didn’t know about Anya, that one day she was just there when he got home from a bar late one night, drowning his sorrows. Sometimes she appeared as blithe as if she’d just gotten home from the Magic Box. Sometimes he walked into the room and she was sprawled on the floor with blood streaking the front of her blouse, eyes fixed and glassy.

He should have told them. He knew that, knew he should have gone out and awoken Giles and the others the first time she’d appeared, but he was shocked, and confused, and grateful. At first, he was grateful.

Crazy thing to be grateful for, right? To be haunted?

Maybe he was crazy. Maybe. It happened to all of them, right? Buffy ties them up and leaves them for a demon to gnaw on, Willow goes black-eyed and tries to destroy the world. If his form of crazy was Anya haunting him, he couldn’t complain. It made sense that he wouldn’t have some big, dramatic craziness like the others. His friends were superheroes, but he was just Xander. It used to bother him, but he’d gotten used to it a long time ago. And hey, he hadn’t tried to kill a whole bunch of people lately, right? So score one for the common man.

And there were worse things than seeing her. Leaving her, for instance. At their wedding. At the school. Nothing could be worse than that.

But now he didn’t know; maybe he wasn’t just going nuts. Maybe it was something big, something bad. Something Big Bad-like. Dammit! There hadn’t been any Big Bads for a few months, not since they left the Hellmouth, and he was kind of getting used to it. Because relative peace and quiet? Surprisingly appealing compared to hell gods, secret military experiments, and being Dracula’s butt monkey.

“You don’t have to look at me like that,” Anya said, drawing his attention to her. He hadn’t realized he’d been staring at her. Actually, he’d forgotten she was there.

“Like what?”

“Like I’m a ghost.”

“You are a ghost,” Xander pointed out.

“Well, yes … but not in evil phantom sense,” Anya clarified. “More in the loved-one-haunting-you-for-your-own-good kind of way.”

“How do I know?”

Anya rolled her eyes. “What have I done that’s so evil?”

 

Xander ignored her question. “So you don’t know anything about it?”

“I’ve told you twice already, I don’t know anything about what Dawn saw.”

“Or Spike coming back?”

“Or Spike—I’ve already told you about a hundred times. Of course, you weren’t paying attention; I guess some things never change.”

Xander willed himself not to say anything. Her visits were great for opening old wounds. Nothing like twisting the knife a little.

“What do you mean by that?” Anya asked suddenly, bending forward intently.

Xander jumped. Sometimes he forgot she could read his mind.

“Of course I can read your mind,” Anya pointed out. “I’m a product of your mind that your unconscious is projecting to alleviate your guilt at leaving me at the altar and introducing me into a situation which eventually got me killed through no fault of my own.”

Xander flinched. “Anya, I—I—” he broke off, frustrated and exhausted. He’d missed her more than he ever thought he could miss anyone. More than he’d missed Jesse after dusting him, more than he’d missed Cordelia when she left him, even more than he missed Buffy after she died. He’d ached like hell then. It hurt so long and so hard, until finally it started to subside, and despite himself, he began to accept her absence. Until Willow insisted she be brought back.

But he couldn’t do that with Anya, because she wouldn’t leave. He couldn’t move on, couldn’t mend. He couldn’t stop mourning her, because she wouldn’t let him.

“Why are you here?” Xander asked softly, desperation edging his voice. He’d asked the question many times before, and the answer was always the same.

“Because you want me here, Xander. Why else?”

Xander shut his eyes tightly, refusing the sight of her. He thought of her, coming to him in his room every night. Of Spike, returning from the dead. And whatever had been in Dawn’s room that night, terrifying her. Was it all connected? Or was it just the detritus of the Hellmouth, clinging to all of them?

“Anya, I—” Xander began quietly, opening his eyes, only to break off. Without a word, she had left.

It shouldn’t have surprised him, but it did. It was the same every night. She never said goodbye, always left him hanging. Every night his soul was rubbed raw by the time he fell asleep, grieving anew, knowing she’d return again the next day and then leave without a word.

At first he thought she stayed because she loved him. Now he wasn’t so sure.

Whatever it was, it sure didn’t feel like love.

***

Spike couldn’t fall asleep. Instead he lay in bed, listening to the house. Listening to the house and not sleeping.

He wasn’t where he wanted to be. He wanted to be across the hall, with Buffy. Instead he was—

What was that sound?

Spike stopped breathing and listened, but heard nothing. After a moment he relaxed, disgusted with himself. He was developing an imagination in his old age, apparently. Which, since he’d had a hell of an overactive imagination when he was a human before, really seemed quite appropriate.

That’s when something slammed into his door.

Spike leapt out of bed, swearing and dragging his jeans on. A moment later he jerked the door open, prepared to fight for all his puny little human body was worth.

Buffy gasped and almost dropped the duffel bag she was holding. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, cheeks pinkening. “I didn’t mean to wake you up. I just wanted to give you this,” she added hastily, thrusting the bag at Spike. He took it, but just stared. “It’s yours,” she reminded him.

“Yeah … yeah,” he agreed after a moment. Never thought he’d see his old stuff again—thought it was gone for good, alone with Sunnydale and the Hellmouth, but apparently, like his duster, it had a few lives left. Which was nice, because it wasn’t like he could get some of that stuff again. Some things couldn’t be replaced.

He raised his gaze to Buffy’s face again, questioningly. “This was a big thing to you, huh?”

“Well … yeah, I figured you’d want your stuff ….”

“It’s three in the morning,” he pointed out in surprise. Buffy shrugged, and made no move to return to her room.

Spike wasn’t sure what to say. He never was with her, but he always tried. Usually got him kicked in the mouth, but he did try. “Would you like to come to bed?” he asked quietly.

Buffy smiled faintly. “Yeah,” she replied softly. He moved to let her pass and she walked into the room, pulling the door shut behind her, leaving the duffel bag abandoned in the hall.

Andrew stretched luxuriantly in bed. For all the excitement the night before he’d slept well, and that was what really mattered—what could a person do if he didn’t sleep well? And if anything more had happened, they would have awoken him—right?

Right?

The house was kind of quiet, wasn’t it? Like nobody was up, or moving. Or maybe even breathing. Usually Giles was puttering around, clinking his teapot or something, and Dawn was getting ready for school and singing along to the radio. But now, not a sound.

Could whatever-it-was have returned? Snuck back in the dark of night to complete its evil deeds? Killing all but him, so only he was left to tell the tale, a lonely survivor meant to wander in misery? Leaving the house drenched in blood, an eternal reminder that they’d been foolish to disregard it?

Or maybe it was still there.

“Oh my god,” Andrew breathed, reaching below the bed to pull out his shiny new baseball bat. The others didn’t like him to handle real weapons that had points or edges, but everyone was pretty much okay with the bat. Now it was the only thing standing between him and … it.

Andrew tried not to make any noise as he slipped from his room into the hall. Still nothing to be heard, nothing to be seen. The household was in a state of complete stillness, like the calm after a great battle, and he was the only soldier who yet stirred. And into the yawning—“Aghhh!” Andrew shrieked, tripping over the dufflebag abandoned outside Spike’s room.

The door swung open, and Spike glared down at him. After a moment Buffy appeared behind Spike, frowning. Then she was talking, but Andrew couldn’t hear anything. She was moving her lips, but nothing broke through to him. He squinted, he concentrated, he tried extra hard to hear—nothing.

He was deaf.

Dear god, he was doomed to walk in silence, condemned to live in a world devoid of—oh, wait! Andrew reached up to feel his ears and sighed with profound relief; he’d forgotten that he’d put earplugs in the night before. Andrew pulled the foam out of his ears, and the sounds of the household filtered in.

“—so are you hurt or not?” Buffy finished impatiently.

“I’m fine,” he assured her, clambering to his feet. “We’re having waffles today, right?”

“Yeah,” said Buffy. “That’s what you and Dawn asked for last night.”

“Okay, then—oh, everybody’s still alive, right?”

“Uh—I think so,” Buffy said.

“That’s good, then,” said Andrew with satisfaction, and disappeared around the corner, humming.

The two stared after him. “What was that all about?” asked Spike, bemused.

Buffy rolled her eyes. “It’s Andrew being Andrew,” she sighed.

Spike snorted. “Good to know some things never change.”

“Good? I guess that’s one theory.”

Spike studied her serious face and wondered what she was thinking. She’d come to him the night before, needy, wanting comfort. And wanting to give some, too. They’d held each other, that was all, but he was still … him, right? It was one thing for them to share a bed when all the other rooms were crowded, but here? Now? Maybe she didn’t want anyone to know. Maybe he was back to being her secret.

“Want me to get the boy?”

“Why?” Buffy asked absently.

“Tell him to keep quiet,” Spike explained a little testily. Why was she playing dumb like that? She knew what he meant.

Buffy laughed. “Keep Andrew quiet? That would require serious threats or possibly a tongue-ectomy. Don’t bother.”

“Then everybody’ll know—”

“Know what?”

“That you were in my room,” he pointed out.

“So?”

“So people will know,” he said again.

“What people?”

“I mean like Dawn, and Xander, and Giles—you know, the people you didn’t want to know anything about us,” he said dryly.

“Well, it’s a couple years too late for that,” she said practically.

Fine, then. Spike shrugged. “Not like we were doing anything worth talking about last night  anyway,” he dismissed.

Okay, that stung a little. “Yeah … well, not that’s it’s any of their business,” qualified Buffy.

“Oh, so you’d prefer not to tell them?”

“I said it doesn’t matter,” Buffy said impatiently.

“Never did,” Spike muttered under his breath.

Buffy rolled her eyes. God, he could sulk. “I mean, it’s okay if Andrew tells them, and we’re not going to go down there and say, ‘Don’t worry! All we did is sleep!’ That’s our business.”

Spike eyed her speculatively. Didn’t mind if any of them thought they were shagging their brains out all night? That didn’t sound right. In fact, he felt as if he’d slipped into the Bizarro World, and—Christ, was that a “Seinfeld” reference? Or Superman? Either way, he’d obviously spent so much time around the Scoobies that something irreversible had happened. Horrible and irreversible. “God, I’m a lifer,” he muttered.

Buffy crinkled her nose at him. “What was that?”

“Nothing,” he mumbled.

***

Willow tapped one finger against the return key of her laptop. She’d come over as soon as Buffy called and told her about Dawn’s little adventure the night before. Well, not really adventure so much as disturbing dream, or maybe extremely scary encounter with the supernatural. The jury was still out, but Willow was grateful to be helping again. When she was across town, it made her feel like she wasn’t a part of things anymore. And there were so many fewer problems in Santa Rita than there were in Sunnydale, what with the Hellmouth and all, that her magic skills were getting kind of rusty.

Of course, thanks to school, her computer skills were back up to par. Well, way above par, but who was keeping track?

So far Spike was voting incubus, which Giles said didn’t exist. Giles said Traylor demon, which had never been seen in the Western Hemisphere. Personally, Willow was thinking bad dream, although she didn’t want to say anything until they’d investigated further. “And nobody else saw or heard anything?” Silence greeted her question. “Okay, then—”

“I’m sure I imagined it.”

Everybody turned in surprise as Giles muttered, almost to himself.

“Something happened?” Buffy asked a little apprehensively.

“No, no,” Giles dismissed, pulling off his glasses and giving them a self-conscious polish. “Last night—I was simply tired….”

“What’s the what, G-Man?” asked Xander.

Giles sighed. “I stayed up to continue researching and became fatigued. Then the script on the page seemed a trifle … odd, so I decided it was high time to turn in. That’s all there was to it, really.”

“Odd how?” asked Dawn. “I mean, you wouldn’t have said anything if you really thought it was nothing.”

Spike smirked when Giles glared at Dawn. Yeah, give it to him, Bit! That’s my girl.

“The letters … seemed to shift a little.”

“Shift how?” Willow asked.

“It seemed to twist. Slither. Like a snake.”

“Why didn’t you wake me?” demanded Buffy.

“Because it was nothing—after a moment it returned to normal, and I decided to retire. It was just my imagination,” Giles concluded somewhat more forcefully than necessary. “Like—” he broke off, but it was clear what he’d intended to say.

“Like me?” asked Dawn, a little hurt. “Like what I saw?”

“Hey, nobody’s saying anything right now about whether that was real or not,” Buffy said swiftly, sending Giles a warning glance. She’d really enjoyed thinking that what happened in Dawn’s room was just a bad dream, but what Spike had said about primus—uh, incubus, and what Giles had said about that parasite whatever-it-was was all pretty creepy. And Giles, Mr. Rational himself, seeing something the night before? Come on, how often did a bunch of them see something and it was all just a big coincidence? About never.

“Yeah, this is—geez, this is not great,” said Willow, her forehead crinkled with worry. “And nobody else saw anything, right?”

Across the table Xander fidgeted. Willow caught the movement and knew he must be unhappy that things like this were happening again; there was a lot he missed about Sunnydale, but she was pretty sure that ghosties and ghoulies weren’t among them.

“I did say the book was probably just a result of my extreme tiredness,” protested Giles.

“Yeah. Because these things are so often just nothing,” Kennedy said scornfully.

“I flatter myself that I have a little experience in this realm,” returned Giles tolerantly. “Rushing to make conclusions can lead to significant mistakes. I think it’s safe to say that anyone seeing a connection between those is reaching.”

“Yeah, incubi don’t really care much about making text squiggly,” Spike agreed. “They’re looking more to get themselves a bit of—” he broke off, realizing the sentence was going someplace he didn’t want to imagine Dawn. “Uh, intimate relations leading to the family way.”

“‘The family way’?” repeated Dawn. “My god, that’s so lame. What, are you a hundred?”

“Well actually, I’m a little more—”

“For the third time, incubi are a myth,” Giles gritted.

Willow didn’t notice the byplay; something about what Dawn and Giles had said bothered her. Taken individually, sure, they just seemed like dreams or tired eyes or whatever, but together? Both the same night … it reminded her of something. Something they’d seen before. It niggled at her, just beyond her consciousness. It was there … there….“I’ve got it!” exclaimed Willow. “Thaumogenesis!”

The others swung to face her. “I don’t believe I’m familiar with that term,” said Giles, frowning.

“Oh, thaumogenesis!” repeated Xander. Giles sent him a stern look, and Xander puffed up a little. It wasn’t like he had one over on Giles often, so he had to make the most of it.

“What’s ‘thaumogenesis’?” demanded Kennedy.

“It’s no biggie, really,” dismissed Dawn. “Easy fix. Unless it makes you breathe fire. Then you might need a lozenge.”

Xander laughed. “Yeah, that was the scariest I’ve ever seen you—except when you’re screaming at us to get out of your room; there’s pretty much nothing scarier than that.”

“Latin, with a Greek root,” mused Giles to himself, disturbed the children were so familiar with something he’d never heard of—something that didn’t involve obnoxious, wild-haired layabouts who liked to pretend they knew more than three chords. “It can’t be that significant, surely, or else I would—”

“Oooh, you breathed fire?” Andrew asked Dawn, impressed. “Did you burn anything up?”

“No, I mostly—”

“What is thaumogenesis?” repeated Kennedy, her voice rising a little.

“Thaumogenesis sounds like it should be cold, not hot,” observed Andrew.

“No, it was really cool—I mean, not cool in a cold kind of way, cool in a strange-and-neat kind of way. And Xander got these crazy eyes and a deep voice—”

“Excuse me, my voice was already deep,” interrupted Xander. “Just not as demonic and Darth Vader-y. Mine’s more a deep, normal, very manly man kind of voice.”

“Would one of you please explain what thaumogenesis is?” Kennedy shouted in frustration. The others quieted down at her outburst, embarrassed.

“Oh. Sorry,” said Willow, her cheeks red. “It means a hitchhiker followed Spike back from the great beyond.”

“What? You’re saying it’s my fault?” Spike protested. “Not likely.”

“It’s nobody’s fault,” Buffy reassured him. “It’s the same thing that happened when I came back, remember?”

Spike’s mouth compressed into a thin line. “Wasn’t precisely kept in the loop back then,” he said tightly. “You telling me this same thing happened before?” Jesus, something went wrong with her return? Why didn’t anyone tell him?

You know why, he thought bitterly. You were just muscle to the lot of them. Since when do they tell the underlings all the upstairs doings?

“Buffy, are you saying there were similar occurrences when you were resurrected?” asked Giles, disturbed. They’d never told him—never even hinted that there had been any problems beyond the immediate challenge of raising her. Willow had given him some blithe explanation about an urn and a snake and magicks she had no business dealing in, but she’d never suggested there were any problems after that. Not until Buffy admitted she’d actually been in heaven had Willow allowed that the resurrection had gone other than perfectly.

Buffy shrugged. “It was your basic monster-of-the-week,” she dismissed. “Wham, bam, dead demon, ma’a—Giles,” she corrected herself.

“What does it want?” Giles rapped out, turning to Willow.

“Well, it wants to stay around. ‘Cause being here’s better than being in hell. I guess.”

Xander laughed. “Hey, when we get through with it, it’ll wish we’d just sent it to hell. It’ll pray for hell when we’re done with it. Hell, it’ll pray for Oxnard.”

Giles sent him a quelling glance. “Are you quite finished?”

Xander considered for a moment. “Well—um—yeah. ‘Cause let’s face it—nobody deserves Oxnard.”

“It followed Spike out of hell?” Giles specified.

“What makes you think I was in hell?” challenged Spike, irate—as if he himself hadn’t assumed he was going to hell.

Giles gritted his teeth. “I beg your pardon.” To Willow: “It followed him back from the dead?”

“Yeah. Well, no, not exactly,” admitted Willow. “It’s like a byproduct of resurrection. The natural order is being cheated by Spike returning to life, so this is the price.”

“Some price,” Kennedy said in dismay.

A ghost of a smile flitted across Xander’s face. “Some people would say it’s a gift with purchase.” Dawn, sitting next to Xander, squeezed his hand.

“So how do we get rid of it?” asked Spike. Should he offer to leave? It was the gentlemanly thing to do, right? Ugh. Sometimes it had been easier to be a demon, since nobody had expected anything of him. Nobody was surprised when he did the selfish thing then. It made things easier.

Of course, it made other things much, much harder.

“We don’t have to do anything,” Willow assured him. “It’ll dissipate naturally after enough time has passed.”

“How much time?” asked Dawn. “I mean, not that I don’t enjoy waking up and being threatened and everything, but, uh … how long?”

Willow glanced down. “I’m not really sure,” she admitted nervously. “Remember, the demon became kind of—well, it—we had to—”

“I killed it,” Buffy interrupted baldly. “It decided to be a little more proactive in the big evil department, and I cut its head off.”

Giles sat back a little, disturbed. “So it is capable of doing damage to humans, not merely frightening them?”

“Did a pretty good job on me before Willow and Tara softened it up for me,” said Buffy.

“So if you don’t kill it, it eventually disappears?” specified Giles.

Willow opened her mouth to mention the little “but” clause with the demon—the demon became permanent if it killed the person whose resurrection created it—but before she could speak, Buffy was nodding and telling Giles, “That’s the sitch.”

Willow sent Buffy a look, and Buffy sent one right back. We’ll talk later, it said plainly.

Willow frowned, and wondered what Buffy was up to.

***

Spike was the only one who saw Kennedy slip away. She drew further and further back from the others as they talked and squabbled and joked, until finally she just wasn’t there anymore.

He completely understood the impulse.

He stayed for a few more minutes, listening to the Scoobies go ‘round and ‘round they way they always did—the way they had long before he met them. Then he melted away, unnoticed as Kennedy.

She jumped when the back door squeaked. “Want a smoke?” Spike offered, holding his pack of cigarettes out to Kennedy, sitting in the back porch swing.

She wrinkled her entire face in disdain. “Eww, no!”

Spike leaned against the porch railing and studied her angry face. “Getting a little thick in there for you, was it?”

“You think I’d be used to it by now. Scoobies, Scoobies, rah rah rah. This happened two years ago, three years ago, five years ago, let’s refer to it in shorthand. Hell, let’s refer to it in Phoenician,” she said bitterly. “Everybody who really matters knows it all already, right?”

Spike nodded philosophically. “It wasn’t so bad this time—Giles didn’t know what they were talking about either. Most times it’s even worse.”

Kennedy snorted in agreement.

“I would tell you it’ll change, but that’d be a crock. They’re bonded with industrial-strength epoxy—when they’re not trying to kill each other, that is. They formed their little club years ago, and the rest of us are just visiting; you either accept it or hit the road, ‘cause they’re not going to change.”

“Some choice,” muttered Kennedy in disgust. They sat there in silence for a few minutes, absorbing their status as outsiders—visitors to the Scooby circle, temporary no matter how long they were around. No matter what they did, how much they helped.

“You know what’s the worst?” he asked absently.

Kennedy shook her head.

“It’s that, after awhile, you won’t mind it so much. Then you’ll start not hating them completely. Then you think they wouldn’t be half bad, if they took the sticks out of their asses every so often, and then pretty soon, you catch yourself thinking like one of them. Talking like one of them, brain-dead, vocabulary-stunted California zombies that they are. And then you think, god, what’s happened to me? I’m one of them! And let me tell you, love—it’ll be the worst day of your life,” he finished, his cigarette burning down to the filter—had to think of his health now that he had functioning lungs and all. No more flavorful, unfiltered cigs for him, oh no, just filtered pablum appropriate only for babies and invalids.

He ground out the remains of the cigarette, thoroughly disgusted with himself.

Kennedy eyed him skeptically. “You know, Spike? I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

Spike looked hopeful for a moment before resignation covered his face. “You’re just saying that,” he said forlornly. He could tell when his fate was sealed; it wasn’t like he didn’t have experience being a useless git, after all.

It was a compromise, wasn’t it? Got to be him, be Spike. Or be with her. Be hers.

He’d made his choice a long ago. Hadn’t been him ever since he let her grab hold of his short hairs way back when, and he’d returned to Sunnydale despite the distinct lack of Dru because she’d wormed her way into his guts. Like trichinosis.

“Spike? We need you,” called Buffy from inside.

Spike smiled faintly. “Right there, love.”

He’d made his choice. He’d make it again in a minute.

Chapter Eight

Buffy looked at the faces gazing at her and nodded decisively. “So it’s settled—we’ll sit back and wait.”

“Wait?” scoffed Spike. Seemed like a weak, wimpy, wankerish thing to do, as far as he was concerned. Something was out there? So go kill it! Don’t sit around waiting for it to mess with you. Spike had never been the waiting kind, for anything.

Well, except for Buffy. For her, he’d waited.

“Wait,” repeated Buffy firmly. “There’s no reason to go after it. It just created a bunch of weird illusions before, but it didn’t actually try to do anything.”

“The Bit said it made her breathe fire,” Spike protested.

Giles shifted uncomfortably. As much as he hated to agree with Spike, a passive response was seldom successful in combating evil. Wait for it, while simply trusting it not to kill them? Interfere with their lives? Whisper poison in their ears?

He couldn’t believe anything good would come of waiting.

Of course, rushing into action could also be disastrous. Giles shuddered as he recalled the horror of Buffy’s ill-advised assault on Caleb, leading to Xander’s crippling and the loss of so many Potentials.

Irritation pricked at Giles as he thought back on the last year. He’d never seen Buffy so willful, so insistent. What could have possessed her—rushing into battle against a force of unknown power?

You did, a voice whispered inside Giles. You told her again and again that everything depended on her. That she was a leader, and it was time she acted like it. She pulled the trigger, but only after you primed it.

So unlike him. He’d always advocated research and planning, not wild strikes, but what had there been to research? Everything was gone. They had virtually no intelligence about the First Evil—only the knowledge that it was powerful enough kill emergent Slayers the world over, and decimate an organization that had lasted millennia.

It had been an injustice to Buffy, expecting her to shoulder the weight of a bureaucracy that had failed her so many times. Failed her, disapproved of her, almost killed her. But Giles had been desperate.

And Buffy hadn’t sure at all, but she’d gone ahead. Tried to lead, as he insisted. And that rash action—

“Yeah … no offense, but your idea? It blows,” said Kennedy bluntly.

Giles snapped his head up at her words. “Kennedy, must you always dismiss my plans out of hand?” he asked in irritation.

A look of disbelief crossed Kennedy’s face, while Dawn hastily clapped a hand over her mouth to contain a giggle.

“Umm, Giles? The whole do-nothing thing? It was actually my plan,” Buffy reminded him.

Giles was far too old to blush, but he still had to fight the urge to fiddle with his glasses. “Yes, well, the point stands,” he said. He’d pushed Buffy back and forth over the last few years—leaving her after her resurrection, when she begged him to stay. Making sure she felt every bit of the world’s weight as she tried to fight against an evil so ancient it had no name. Going along with the Council’s insistence to weaken her for the Cruciamentum. Agreeing to Wood’s plan to destroy Spike, for her own good.

It was time he was her Watcher again, and not her keeper.

“You heard Buffy,” he told Kennedy—told all of them. “She’s the one who fought it before—the one who defeated it. If she says we wait, we wait.”

The others nodded. They were all in agreement.

Except for the two with disgruntled expressions. Giles ignored them. Kennedy would eventually learn that she couldn’t impose her will on others, while Spike—well, if Giles ignored him long enough, perhaps he’d disappear like a bad dream. Although god knows it had never worked before; he’d tried hard enough during the dreadful period Spike lived with him. Occasionally he still had nightmares about it.

Come to think of it, perhaps now would be a good time to check on their Scotch supply.

***

The living room was empty by the time Giles slipped in again. Kennedy had sulked off first, then Dawn announced she had better things to do when she had a day off school than sit in the living room. Andrew had declared, “You said it, girlfriend!” and followed her out. That left only Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Spike in the room, and that was too small a proportion of Giles to Spike to people who weren’t Spike, so Giles had mumbled an excuse and sought sanctuary in his library.

But the library was not as comforting as he expected it to be. When the house was purchased and Buffy suggested he dedicate a room for a library, Giles had been touched by her thoughtfulness. Yet somehow, it had never felt as comfortable and familiar as the Sunnydale High School library. Perhaps it was because Santa Rita was so quiet compared to Sunnydale—he had not nearly as much to research. There hadn’t been a single near-apocalypse since the Hellmouth collapsed; it was quite a strange feeling, really, not having to prepare for the next cataclysm. The school library had been the scene of countless all-night research and planning sessions, combat training with Buffy, emotional scenes with all the children. It had really been the center of their existence.

Ironic that it was directly over the Hellmouth, really.

Here, the library was just a place to keep his books. As much as he loved them—as much as he relished the feel of old leather and yellowed parchment—he was discovering that he needed more.

He missed the children. It was clear to him when he was in England, after he’d left Buffy following her resurrection. He missed her terribly. That was to be expected, but his wistful longing for Willow, even for Xander and Anya, had surprised him. And now he was back, but the library isolated him from the others. And so he was thinking that perhaps it was good to come out of his library every so often.

Of course, now that he did, they were gone.

“It figures,” he sighed, sinking into the sleek black leather couch. It was nothing like the stiff leather couches Giles had grown up with, and gave luxuriantly under his weight.

“What figures, mate?” asked a voice from the big recliner in the corner. Giles ground his teeth in frustration. It was Spike, of course; who else would it be?

 “Nothing,” Giles answered with restrained annoyance.

Spike sat forward and peered around the edge of the chair. “Well, I’m not sure why you’d—god, Rupert, drinking at this hour? You know something I don’t?”

“Safe to say,” muttered Giles.

“No need to get all superior, lad, considering we’re not all that far apart,” Spike chided, not very maliciously. Didn’t seem to have the heart for loathing Rupert that he used to, which was odd, considering how Giles and Wood had tried to kill him and all. Maybe he was growing soft in his old age.

Or maybe he’d just let Rupert have that one time. Spike had messed with him often enough, back before he became Buffy-addled; Spike would give him a flyer on that one, in the interest of family harmony, as it were.

Family harmony. Just thinking of the apoplectic look Giles would get at the term made Spike smile broadly. He had to remember to file that one away, to be used later for maximum effect. Perhaps when Rupert was pouring his tea.

All the same, he was glad Wood didn’t belong to this happy little household. That would be a few too many people who wanted to kill Spike in the same house.

“That can be easily remedied,” snapped Giles, getting to his feet.

“Settle down, now, that wasn’t what I meant.”

Giles frowned at him. “What could you possibly be talking about now?”

Spike opened his mouth to enlighten Rupert about how similar their backgrounds were, but shut his mouth abruptly. First he said he went to Cambridge, next thing you know he’d start babbling about the Pre-Raphaelites and Wordsworth and then he’d start reciting that rubbish he used to write. Giles didn’t need to know anything about that, none of them did. Bad enough Spike remembered it. You’d think enough grain alcohol would destroy that type of memory, but no luck.

Besides, the look of frustration on Giles’s face was priceless.

“Nothing,” said Spike innocently.

Giles glared at him suspiciously, then turned to free himself of Spike. There were advantages to an enormous house. Numerous rooms, all with locks, was first among them.

“Don’t you think we should talk a little, though? The men of the house, as it were?” Spike asked. Yeah, playing with Ripper was fun. Without even seeing his face, Spike could tell how much Giles hated the suggestion.

“Spike, I hardly think this is necessary—”

“I don’t think Buffy wants me to go anywhere,” Spike said, suddenly serious. Typical for him—he always did have the attention span of a toddler who’d gone nuts with the Pixie Stix. “So I’m staying put. You telling me you’re planning to leave?”

Giles swung around to meet Spike’s gaze. “I didn’t say that,” he denied sharply.

“Then I’d like to know I can rely on you not to, say, stab me or otherwise arrange for my demise,” said Spike dryly.

“And I’d like to think I can trust you not to harm Buffy or Dawn,” Giles returned evenly.

The answer was out of Spike’s mouth immediately, without thought. “I’d never hurt either of them.”

“Really? That’s not what I heard,” returned Giles bitingly, and Spike suddenly knew, with a cold certainty, what Giles was referring to. What had happened—what he’d tried to do—in the bathroom, to Buffy.

The two men were silent for several moments, the only sound in the room their breathing, harsher than it needed to be. As if they’d been running, or fighting. “Buffy told you?” Spike asked finally.

Giles’s mouth twisted. That would be the natural assumption, of course. But Buffy held things too close ever to tell him something like that. She had revealed enough of herself to Giles when she told of him of her involvement with Spike; she wouldn’t even have told him that much if she weren’t dazed with relief at his return.

No, she would never have shared so much with him, and it hurt. The most painful things, he always had to find out from someone else.

“Dawn told me,” he said flatly.

Spike flinched. “Dawn,” he repeated softly, looking down to stare at his hands. She hadn’t referred to it since the first time he’d seen her, when he first came out of the basement. His first, disastrous trip out.

Giles surveyed him coldly. “You’re not a vampire any longer. You can’t hurt Buffy,” he observed. Spike flinched again, and Giles felt only vaguely ashamed at the dart of pleasure he took in the sight. “But you can hurt Dawn.”

“I wouldn’t—”

“A minute ago you said you’d never hurt Buffy.”

Spike didn’t answer. There was nothing he could say.

Giles eyed him coldly. “You’re human now. I don’t kill humans.” A second later, the memory of holding his hand over Ben’s mouth as he struggled and gasped up on the tower returned to Giles. He pushed it away. Spike knew nothing of that. None of them did. There were some things it was better they not know.

They knew as much of Giles as they needed to. It was best, he thought, that no one knew everything that went on inside another person.

Perhaps Buffy was right. Some things really were best kept private.

“I wouldn’t kill another human. Not without provocation,” Giles added after a moment. He turned to leave the room, and then paused.

“Be sure you don’t give me any.”

***

They drifted out to meet her on the back porch. Not together, because that would be a dead giveaway, but a few minutes apart.

“Do you think they know?” asked Willow quietly.

Buffy glanced at Xander, and he shrugged. “I don’t think so,” she said finally. “But we should be quick about it anyway—I don’t want them to become suspicious.”

Xander nodded. “Okay, but what was the big with the secrecy? Why didn’t you just—”

“Look, do you remember last time, when I came back? And it could be any one of you?” Buffy pointed out. “I don’t want it to get any ideas by hearing us talk about it.”

Xander and Willow glanced at each other in understanding. The demon created by thaumogenesis hadn’t just done borderline cool stuff like make Dawn breathe fire; it had hidden in Xander while they researched, until it learned that in order to stay around, all it had to do was kill the person whose resurrection had created it.

Buffy.

“So, we don’t talk about it,” agreed Xander. “But how do we keep the others from researching it? The demon can speak, so it can probably read—right?”

Buffy nodded, the stress of the situation beginning to show around her eyes. “This thing’s really rare, right? It took you guys forever to find it, and it was only in one book.”

“Oh, oh!” exclaimed Willow, seeing where Buffy was headed. “So you want to get rid of the book, so no one else can read it, and so the demon doesn’t find out the you-know-what?”

Buffy nodded. “Exactly.”

Xander shook his head. “I think I may have spotted a small flaw in your plan, Buff.”

“What?”

“Uh, Watcher-Man had his books shipped over when we moved in here. If we had a book with thaumogenesis in it, you can bet he does.”

Ugh! Nothing was ever simple, thought Buffy in frustration.  She swung back to Willow. “He’s right,” Buffy agreed. “Go through all of them. Take any that refer to thaumogenesis.”

Xander gave her a skeptical look. “Don’t you think Giles might notice it if she went around lugging big armloads of his books? Most of them are the size of a water buffalo, give or take an inch or two, so it’s not like she can just stick them in her pocket and hightail it out of there.”

“I don’t have to take them,” said Willow suddenly.

Buffy looked at her, frowning. “Yeah, you do. Or we do. We can’t let the demon know that—”

“I mean, I don’t have to take them to do that. Just make sure that no one else can find them,” said Willow with a little smile.

“What’d you have in mind?” asked Xander.

Willow’s smile grew. “Do you remember when I came back from England?” she asked. “The books don’t have to go anywhere—I’ll just make them invisible, and shazaam! No messy lifting and carrying. Giles can be right next to the books and not even see them.”

“Hidden in plain sight,” observed Xander with satisfaction.

“Plain sight that’s not actually in sight, yes,” specified Willow. The others laughed, and after a moment she laughed with them. It seemed like a long time ago that she’d been so frightened of how they’d react when she came back; now it was natural again to be with them, happy and laughing. This was the way it should be, the three of them. Like it always had been—almost always. Things were always better when they were together.

They were so involved in their conversation that none of them noticed the slim figure hidden in the shadows of the kitchen, or saw it turn and slip away into the house. They hadn’t said everything, but they’d said enough. More than enough.

And if they thought hiding a bunch of books would stop anything, they were wrong.