Spike thought, privately, that this might be a Very Bad Idea. They were standing outside Buckingham Palace -- the real, actual, looked the exact same in every dimension from which he'd ever seen photos of it, Buckingham Palace. The guards were ignoring them, as they were supposed to, and the other tourists only ever said a word to them if it was 'will you take our picture?' Granted, it being a bad idea wasn't about to stop him. But he did want to take a second to consider the consequences of barging in, and finding out that it was an Extremely Bad Idea.

It wasn't that he really cared if he pissed off the servants or minor royals, or even if he annoyed Xander into making Spike think he'd have to actually sleep on the couch this time and I mean it, don't try looking cute at me, mister. The thing that was making Spike stop and ask himself if this was really what he ought be doing was -- if he pissed off the Queen of England herself, Cordelia would laugh at him for the rest of his life. Not to mention, he'd have pissed off the *Queen*. Not even Angelus had ever pissed off the Queen. Eaten a Duke or three, sure. Who hadn't?

"So, you think William the Bad Son has a standing invitation?" Xander asked him, jolting Spike out of his reverie. "We gonna just march right up and say 'hi, let us in?'"

Spike looked at his glurble, and grinned. "Yeah!"

Xander groaned. "I was *kidding*!" But Spike could hear him following a second later, anyhow.

There were four guards at the gate proper; if Spike remembered his traditions rightly, that meant the Queen was in residence, or at least a high-ranking member of the royal family. Of course that could be just about anybody, given the number of royal offspring her Majesty and the Prince Regent had managed to produce before he died.

As they neared the gates, Spike could see the inner guards more clearly. These were the serious guards, Spike realized, unlike the ones at the outer wall, who were just there for the ceremony of it all. *These* blokes seemed to be standing up straighter even than their ramrod stiff co-workers, but Spike could sense that coiled, ready to knock your block off energy in them. He grinned again. Since Spike and Xander had been hanging round the touristy outer gate, being, well, tourists, these guards hadn't yet had the chance to ignore them heroically.

Spike aimed to spread the joy, as he pulled Xander by the hand, right up to the gate, and said loudly to the fellow on the left, "Two tickets for the spinning teacups ride, please, and yes, I bloody well am tall enough to ride it."

"Not without tossing your tea and bagels, though," Xander commented helpfully.

Not a flicker of a glimmer of a spark of a smirk on any of the four guards' faces, not that Spike was expecting one. He was expecting some sort of reaction when he led Xander past the center pair of guards, though. Death threats, or at least being picked up by the scruff of his neck and tossed ceremoniously back out, neither of which was a remotely unfamiliar experience for Spike, living as he did in the same building as the Great Poof and his large, pickup-driving, 150 pound-bench-pressing lover and his skinny, beer-hogging, newt-turning other lover.

He *wasn't* expecting the guards to continue to stand there, straighter than John Wayne at a Gay Pride march, while he and Xander passed through the gate and onto the path up to the Palace. Only when two Asian vampires in impeccably cut black silk suits attempted to follow them, were the bayonets politely crossed in front of the gate. Spike heard a very firm voice behind him, telling them that Her Majesty was not accepting visitors today, and the gentleman who had just entered was a Royal Advisor, and resident of the Palace.

Spike wanted to look back to catch the expressions on the other tourists' faces, but Xander was using his free hand to shove Spike firmly up the path to the nearest entrance. "Try not to get us arrested this early in the game, huh, O Light of My Eternity and Feeder of My Fish?"

"Oi, you heard him -- we're allowed." Spike ignored the fact that technically *he* wasn't anybody's Advisor, as well as the fact that he'd started letting Cordelia feed the fish when Xander was at work. Not because he didn't want his piranha to grow up big and strong, but because he really, really didn't want to have another incident like Helga's, and a month ago he almost had.

"And that means we won't be arrested?" Xander was asking, in a tone that Spike knew all too well. As if it were *his* fault the LA cops had a special file -- and cell -- for them? He actually thought the plaque with their names on it was a nice touch. He wasn't sure if Xander, or Angel was the one who paid the arresting officers bonus pay for encountering them, though.

"It means as long as you don't act like a rube from the highlands, we'll do fine." Spike did stop at the first cross-corridor they came to, and looked around. Xander folded his arms, and watched him. The Palace looked a lot like it always had...in the pictures he'd seen. "Besides, maybe you can get accosted by some unruly human, and I can see if my de-chip really works!"

Xander just grinned, indulgently, like Spike was clamoring for a lemon ice. "So, bright boy? Which way?"

"Er..?"

"You've never been inside, have no idea what the floorplan is, and as soon as we have to ask directions they'll know who we aren't?"

"Er, yeah. Come on, let's see what's down this way." Spike grabbed Xander's hand and pulled him down the right-hand corridor. They might as well explore, before they got caught out.

Actually, he thought as they tiptoed past several portraits of disapproving royal ancestors, and he managed to come up with a different face to make at each one of them, this wasn't much different from being at home, when they were playing the 'how close can we get to the hot tub without setting off the newt-spell' game. Xander was even providing the background music for the Grand Adventure, though this time it was the Monty Python's Flying Circus theme that he was humming, instead of the more common Mission Impossible music. Every so often he segued into 'Colonel Bogey,' but Spike forgave him for that on the grounds that he himself had done much more annoying things in the last five minutes.

"Left or right?" he asked, pulling Xander into the next left-turn without waiting for an answer.

"Right," Xander responded as usual, as he followed Spike down the corridor. "Hey, check out the Mr. Clean Queen," he added, pointing to a portrait above them of a redheaded ruler with an extremely high forehead.

"That's Queen Elizabeth, you git. It's a wig. She was completely bald by that time, they say."

Spike was about to cut off Xander's inevitable attempt to keep up his image as a horrible student by pretending he didn't know *which* Queen Elizabeth Spike meant, when a firm female voice cut *him* off. "I bloody well was *not* -- that was a rumor started by one of those endless Essex brats. Still brassed off at me for chopping off their cousin's head after four hundred years..."

The voice was coming from the painting. Spike blinked, and the image of Good Queen Bess winked at him, but said no more. Xander tugged him further on, muttering, "Does anybody besides me suddenly miss good old Phantom 'has to write you a Post-It-Note to communicate with you' Dennis?"

"Depends. Are we talking about those bright green post-its, or the normal yellow kind?" Spike hesitated as a servant entered the hallway. He could feel Xander tense up beside him, though it might have simply been because the servant was a large vampire. The servant only inclined his head as he walked past, and a moment later he felt Xander relax again.

"Tell me why we don't just go up and ask someone if we can see the Queen?" Xander asked in a low voice.

"Xander, how rude! Marching in and demanding to see the Queen. Didn't Willow's mum teach you any manners?"

Xander stuck his tongue out, which made Spike grab it with his lips. He enjoyed himself for a bit, sucking on Xander's tongue and feeling the way his husband wriggled and made half-hearted protesting noises. When he finally let Xander go - despite not having a clue as to why he had to - he realized the servant was still in the hallway. He looked over, but only saw the tails of the servant's coat disappearing around a corner.

"Willow tried. She used to hit me with her Barbie whenever I did something mean, rude, or tacky." Xander puffed his chest proudly. "That's what made me the girly-man I am today."

Spike gave him a measuring look. "I like it when you squeal like a girl." He reached over to pinch Xander's arse, hoping for just such a squeal, and got hit on the head, instead. It was a reasonably acceptable substitute, though Spike spared a moment to pout over the knowledge that if Xander wouldn't get up to anything questionable in Ambercrombie's, there was no *way* he'd be following up on any foreplay in the hallways of Buckingham Palace.

When they reached the end of the hallway and turned in the direction towards which the servant had disappeared, the carpeting got a little more worn, and the paintings on the walls a bit more decorative, and less formal. A residential part of the Palace, he supposed, judging by how discreetly the suite names were placed.

So maybe he could grab a local, and con his way into getting a guide to the Queen's public chambers, and an introduction? Was that the plan? Spike realized suddenly (though not for the first time; he simply tended to shove the realization to the back of his head every time the sneaky bastard conked him in the brain) that he didn't *have* a plan. Oh well; he usually worked best that way; Spike had a history of fucking up every plan he'd ever made. Not that he didn't fuck up when he *didn't* have a plan, but there was no way of proving it, was there, nyah-nyah.

He listened and sniffed, doing his best vamp-reconnaissance on the corridor. No smells or sounds of at-home occupants except for the faint tinkle of some sort of music box or victrola at the very end of the hall, coming from a partially-opened door. Curious, he headed down the hallway, Xander-weight still in tow. He was expecting an 'are you sure this is a good idea?' at any moment, or possibly an 'are you nuts?' but got neither. Instead he heard someone singing, and stopped, right before they stepped up to the door. The voice was eerily familiar.

Xander grinned at him, and rapped on the door. "Dru? You home?"

Spike wondered just when his perfectly sane, rational, healthy-sense-of-self-preservation husband had turned into...well, *him*. The singing stopped, and Spike could hear nothing. Nothing at all until the soft whisper of the door as it was opened, and Drusilla stood there, looking slightly annoyed. And, Spike noted, not at all in the least bit insane.

She looked at Spike, one eyebrow raised. "What have you brought? A snack before dinner? You know I don't like the boys when they're this old, Spike," she pouted. Then her face brightened. "Is this collar for me?" She reached towards Xander's neck, and Xander pulled away, just out of her reach.

Spike wasn't sure he shouldn't grab Xander and run. But Xander just said, "No, it's for Spike. Only he gets to bite me."

Half-familiar, dark eyes widened. "You brought home a *pet* ? *That* sort of pet? Without asking? Daddy will be very cross with you when he gets home." She sounded like the little girl she often did, without the edge of psychosis that made it endearing. Spike shivered.

"Ooh, you're in trouble now, Spike," Xander said, his expression a perfect mix of taunting schoolboy and leering lover. Husband. Glurble.

Drusilla focused completely on Spike, now, and her eyes did that *thing.* That scary, otherwordly, utterly familiar thing, where she stared straight through him for a second, her body swaying to a rhythm that had nothing to do with the music playing behind her in the room. He reached out to grab her and stop her from falling. A habit as ingrained as sighing or pouting or using his cheekbones to get his own way, kept fresh by the transfer of his post-vision catching-duties to Cordelia, in recent years.

Drusilla straightened suddenly, though, pushing his hand away, her eyes as clear as he'd ever seen them. "You're not my Spike."

Spike stepped back, slipping his arm through Xander's again. "Well, no. Not exactly." Nor was she his Dru, insofar as any Dru could be considered his, anymore. That clarity in her gaze was more unnerving than any number of star-sent visions or doll-whispers.

"Who are you, and what are you doing here?" she demanded, eyes losing just enough focus, once more, to make Spike think they might have a chance at the grabbing and running thing. He could point behind her and yell 'Edith's fallen off her shelf' to distract her for a second.

"He's Spike. I'm Xander. We're from California...in another dimension. Is the Queen around? Spike wants to meet her."

Spike had to consider the merits of strangling his husband, right here and now, and deal with the question of what to do with the body as a much easier one than answering the confused, but *amused* look that had appeared in Dru's eyes.

"Tourists?" Drusilla repeated. Then she laughed, and the full-throated, low laugh was, oddly, the most familiar thing about her. She sounded like herself as she laughed at them, and Spike wondered if it would be worth it to get offended. "The guards just let you walk in, didn't they?" Her eyes were glowing, now, with delight. Spike figured there were going to be a couple of dead...more dead...guards, soon. "At least that explains why you're so much better dressed."

Drusilla purred, then, giving them both a long, slow look, before reaching out and caressing Spike's vest. For a second, anyway, before Xander lightly slapped her hand.

"Mine."

Was that a growl? Coming from Xander? A real, honest-to-Saint-Vigeous vamp growl? It was. Spike couldn't help preening, not that he tried to stop himself. But Drusilla was laughing at him again. Or perhaps at Xander. Must be at Xander, since *Spike* hadn't done anything worthy of being laughed at, like unconsciously beginning to subvocalize as Xander put a hand on the small of his back.

"I've changed my mind -- I *do* like this one. If you get tired of him, can I have him?" she asked Spike.

"Mine!" he replied, just as quickly as Xander had, but with the undertone to his growl that only a real vamp could pull off. Dru just laughed again.

"You *must* come in and meet my Spike. He'll be coming home any minute now, and won't he be surprised." Her eyes sparkled with sudden delight. "We can pretend I've found a new Spike, and don't need him anymore." Drusilla beckoned them into the room as she spoke, and Spike followed against his better judgment -- because Xander was ahead of him, following Dru, and he wasn't about to let his husband alone in the room with a somewhat sane Drusilla.

Xander looked equally uncertain. "Um, is your Spike someone we wanna annoy?" Then Xander slapped himself on the forehead. "What am I saying? Of course we'll stay to meet him!" He smiled brightly at Drusilla, who beamed.

"Er, hey! I'm pretty sure I'm insulted by that," Spike said. He made certain to stay right beside his idiot husband, one hand firmly in Xander's to ensure no one tried stealing...either of them. Xander looked back at him when he squeezed maybe a little *too* tightly, and smiled -- which made Spike smile, which made Xander smile, which made Spike...look like an utter moron, probably. Or just a newlywed. They stayed that way for...a while, looking like morons at each other.

"Oo, wonderful, pretty boys...can I watch? While we wait, Spike isn't home yet and you both smell *so* lovely." It was, Spike decided, proof that this wasn't his Dru. Hearing her say that gave him the shivers again -- not the good, let's get naked now kind.

Fortunately he could blame it on Xander. "Sorry, pet," the word slipped out, despite it feeling wrong. "Xan's all prudish about having sex in front of others."

"I'm prudish? Because I won't let you strip me naked and fuck me in a *department* store? Because I won't let you give me a blow job in a cab? Because I won't fuck you in front of your mother? Because I won't give you a blow job in a closet at Buckingham Palace?" Xander actually managed to look serious, and suitably shocked as he listed Spike's indiscretions.

"Yeah! Hang on, I haven't asked you yet about doing anything in the Palace." Xander just looked at him. Spike shrugged. "I said *yet*." He didn't bother pointing out that Xander had already had sex *with* Dru, so he shouldn't feel oogly about doing it in front of her. He was afraid this Dru would take it as an invitation and lose her dress before they could stop her, because... because... right, because Xan would be mad at him, afterwards.

He glanced around for a suitable closet, just in case, but saw only a well-furnished parlor, with a door leading off towards what he assumed was the bedroom, or possibly bedrooms, given the size and general opulence of the part of the suite that he could see. It made their room at the Hotel Russell look like a two-hour rental at the Sunnydale Motor Inn.

Alter-Dru, meanwhile, looked like she was about to pout over not getting to see them shag. A certain detached part of Spike wondered if this Dru was as good at it as their version, and if so, could she maybe actually convince Xander... The sensible part of him, which, contrary to popular opinion, did exist, whapped that first part over the head with a large mental trout -- no doubt engendered by Xander having managed to get the Monty Python theme stuck in the back of Spike's head. The party of the second part knew it was an idiotic idea to let Xander be naked anywhere near this Dru, and said trout-wielding party won the day.

Problem was, Spike didn't have a real trout with which to whap Dru over the head, to distract her from pouting. He settled for asking, "So, where's your Spike, then?"

"He went out," she said, still bordering dangerously on the edge of a pout. "Nasty place, the Cobbler's Club. I don't like it."

Spike wasn't sure he wanted to know what could possibly be wrong with a place to make it someplace Dru wouldn't like -- and that he would. Even his alter-him. From the eyebrow raising occurring on Xander's face, he wasn't the only one trying not to think of details.

"Er, so, Dru... how long have you two been living in Buckingham Palace?" Maybe if they kept the conversation light, and focused on normal things like killing people and royalty, he could avoid wondering if the Cobbler's Club was anything like the Poet's Society Club he'd belonged to for a brief two months, back when he'd been human. One more item on his list of things to never, ever, let Xander find out about.

"Ever since Daddy turned the Queen. She lets us stay here, gives us nice things, lets us feed on anybody we want to." Her face darkened a little. "Almost anybody."

Spike's jaw dropped. He waited for it to bounce up off the floor and back onto his face, so he could talk. Angelus? *Angelus* had turned the Queen? How the bloody hell had he gotten close enough?

Xander looked just as flummoxed, though he was laughing through his surprise. "Angel killed the Queen? Wait 'til I tell Wesley; he'll make Angel sleep on the couch for a month."

"*Our* couch." It was an old gag, but a good one. Spike snickered. One of these days Wes would actually make good on his threat, and they'd have the chance to make Angel *truly* miserable. It would probably have to involve Spike and Xander having sex in the next room, loudly.

"Who's Wesley? Is he another tasty boy like this one?" Drusilla asked, tracing a long-nailed finger through the air an inch away from Xander's jaw, as if she were stroking his chin by remote control. Xander stepped back, but didn't stop grinning.

"I don't know how tasty Wes is. Think we should ask Angel when we get home?"

"No, thank you," Spike told his husband, pulling him a bit closer. "I don't particularly care to see Gunn make mince-pie out of you."

Dru's eyes lit up. "Mince-pie? You have a chef who can make mince-pie out of humans? Do you think he'd like to come work for us? Nobody here can make a decent minced-human-pie."

"Sorry, don't think you'd want him," Spike told her. "He'd bring Wes and Angel along, and then you'd have two of the broody, daft poofters. Not sure any one dimension could handle that." Dru pouted again, and Spike could see she either wasn't trying her best, or she simply didn't pout as well as his Dru.

Xander interrupted the pout-fest. "So, um, can we meet her? I mean, if she isn't gonna eat us or anything? Although, huh, the thought of being eaten by Queen Victoria doesn't give me nearly the wiggins that it ought to." Xander frowned, thoughtfully. Spike stared at him, wondering just when Xander had lost his mind. Didn't matter - *he* was getting the wiggins, thinking about Queen Victoria eating Xander.

"Oi! What the bloody hell--" came a familiar, if peevish voice from behind them. "Who're these yoiks?"

Spike and Xander looked back to find Spike, the other, standing in the doorway gaping at them. There was as much outrage in his voice as if he'd found the three of them in a pile of naked, sweating, tangled limbs, instead of standing fully clothed in the middle of the drawing room.

Drusilla sniffed. "I ordered a new Spike, from offworld, since you'd rather play at the Cobblers Club than with me. And he brought his pet along. Don't they look lovely together?"

"They look like something my horse left on the side of the road." The newcomer curled his lip and echoed her sniff. "That's never me. I'd never dress like a toff, no matter what universe I was from."

Spike took a good look at who was critiquing his wardrobe, and laughed aloud. His other self had absolutely *no* sense of fashion, or style, or possibly even sense. He looked like...well, fine, he looked like Spike had a hundred or so years ago, right after he'd been turned. Before he'd got his self-confidence enough to start dressing like a punk who didn't *care* what anyone else thought.

Xander was laughing even louder. "Spike! Your hair...!"

Spike prided himself on the fact that he did *not* immediately put his hands to his own head to make absolutely sure the monstrosity standing before him really *was* his alternate self, and not some magically-appearing reflection.

Bad enough he had to stand about like the butchest thing on two legs, practically screaming "look at me, I'm a big man now," with every thrust of his jaw. The grime-covered workboots and dingy ploughboy's coat might have allowed him to pull off the rough-boy act on the streets, but in these surroundings, the whole effect came across as...well....wanna-be.

Except for the hair, which came off as "I've been shagging in a briar patch." Spike couldn't blame Xander for snickering. His double's hair was standing out every which way, and decorated randomly with dried leaves and small sticks.

"Did you climb over the back wall again, Spike?" Dru asked, not really sounding as if she cared. Or sounding as if she meant to sound like she didn't care. Spike would've been able to tell, with his own Dru, but not this one.

"Of course I did, you silly bint. What else would I do -- stroll in through the front gate like those toffs in the Queen's Council?" Other-Spike's voice was rough, the guttersnipe accent fully in place. Spike had never realized just how silly he sounded. Perhaps *he* hadn't ever sounded this silly, though. He glanced at Xander, who was still snickering. Other-Spike was now busily glaring at them like he wasn't amused, and he didn't even come *close* to Xander's skill with that look.

Spike just arched an eyebrow at him. "Sneaking in because he wasn't supposed to be out?" he asked, in his normal -- original -- accent. Xander was right. There was just something about this other Spike that made Spike want to annoy him. Xander looked minutely startled, for a second, no doubt at hearing him sound like Wesley.

"I can go anyplace I please," the other Spike sneered, and it was all Spike could do to keep from laughing. Perhaps it wasn't fair -- perhaps he ought to feel sorry for this sad reminder of just what he'd been like, himself, before Angelus and Darla had left him and Dru to their own devices for a hundred years.

But on the other hand...he couldn't help himself. "As long as you aren't seen doing it?" he added, only a little worried at how easily he'd slipped back into the cultured accent of his childhood.

His other, sillier looking self snarled, then lunged. It was a clumsy lunge, the sort Spike had out-grown shortly after Angelus had left him alone on the streets of Berlin for a week. Spike stepped aside, watching as his other self stumbled. When he looked up and growled, in full vampiric guise, Spike just looked at Xander with the air of one mildly confused.

"Spike, don't play with yourself." Xander grinned. Spike chuckled. He was about to point out that Xander usually *liked* watching him play with himself, when he saw his double's gaze suddenly shift to Xander.

"That's Master Spike, to you, human." The snarl that accompanied the words made the otherwise stunning (in Spike's unbiased opinion) vampiric countenance look uglier than a three-days-dead gorilla.

*Nobody* snarled at Xander like that and unlived to tell about it, except possibly Cordelia. Spike darted for his double's throat, intending to pick him up by it and toss him against the wall as a prelude to re-introducing him to the proper company manners that Adelaide had no doubt drummed into his head as solidly as Spike's own mum had. A strong hand on his shoulder -- a human hand -- stopped him in mid-lunge.

"Hey," Xander said, in a voice guaranteed to freeze him in his tracks no matter *what* he was doing. He turned to Xander, who grinned at him again. "Don't beat yourself up over me. It's disturbing." To the Spike who stood before them, snarling with only his face now, Xander said, "I wasn't talking to you, dork."

"Who the fuck are you calling a dork?" Dork-Spike snarled. Did he even know what one was? He at least understood that Xander was insulting him, which showed he wasn't *completely* brainless. Spike ignored him, because that tone when Xander had said 'hey' was still running up and down his spine, doing little macarena steps along his nerves. Had there been a closet nearby? Was there any chance he could drag Xander into it?

His double was growling, again, and Spike reached out to shove him out of the way. Spike really didn't know where he was, though, because Xander was still staring at him like he knew what Spike was thinking. Xander was grinning, and his tongue came out and licked his lower lip.... Spike growled and lunged, and managed to only grab Xander close and kiss him, rather than strip him naked and shag him, because...because.... He had no idea why.

Xander let him kiss him, though, which was a Very Good Thing and made him forget all about other things he'd been doing. Xander's hands slipped under Spike's coat and held him close, and it wasn't until he heard Drusilla's happy cry that he was able to break himself away.

"Ooo! Spike, they're going to let us watch!"

Spike jerked his head back and glared at Drusilla. He didn't let go of Xander, though, and was pleased to find Xander wasn't letting go of *him*. Dork-Spike, however, was back to human guise and was looking at them as though he'd found Engelbert Humperdink albums in his collection.

"What the bloody hell is *that*? Fuck, you're too disgusting to be me!"

Spike regarded him with confusion. Disgusting? The only person who'd ever described him kissing Xander as disgusting, was Cordelia, and he knew bloody well that she protested too much. Even Angel and his crew, though they might make ecch-noises upon witnessing a SpikeXander snogfest, usually did so just before sneaking off to their own rooms to do something sadly vanilla.

"We're disgusting?" Xander was asking, with a similarly perplexed tone. "This coming from a man with horse-dung on his boots? I'm not even a vampire, and I can smell it from here."

Spike couldn't, which meant Xander was making it up as he went along, but the other Spike glanced reflexively down at his feet, so go Xander, anyway. "Maybe he means we didn't put enough effort into that kiss," Spike suggested. "I mean, it was okay, but hardly one of our best." He sucked on his lower lip, and winked. "Wanna try it again?"

"Sure, Master Spike." It might've been the words, or it might've been that 'hey' tone, or maybe it was just the fact that Spike was pretty much a goner when it came to the smile that Xander was currently giving him. Whatever. Who the fuck cared. His lips and tongue were dancing with his husband's again, and Xander didn't care who was watching, for once, so why should Spike?

"Hell, they're a couple of poofters!" he heard his own voice say.

*****
Part 10:

Spike didn't feel like breaking off a perfectly enjoyable kiss just to glare at a stupid version of himself. However, someone else seemed to prefer it, because he was pulling his perfectly edible lips away from Spike's, in order to look over at dork-him.

"Poofters?" Xander repeated. He looked at Spike, with an expression of surprise. "You're a poofter? You never said!"

Spike narrowed his eyes. "You *really* enjoy needling me, don't you? Any version will do?"

Xander grinned, and it made him look so scrumptious that Spike wanted to nibble on his lips again. So he did. He could hear his double grumbling something, but it couldn't have been anything more important than what he was doing.

Then he broke the kiss, and looked at himself. "Cobbler's Club? Funny, back in our world that's a low-rent male stripjoint." It wasn't anything of the sort -- he'd never heard of the Cobbler's Club. But he'd visited any number of places with similar innocent-sounding names. Even one in his Poetry Club days, hat pulled down over his eyes, in an outfit even more patently fake-slum than his double's. By the angry snarl that came from the dork, his dart had hit the target better than a drunk, blindfolded Wesley could - which was pretty damned good.

"Maybe in Poof-World," OtherSpike said. "Here it's a pub. Place where real men get together and drink, and--"

"Grunt and scratch and puff put their manly chests?" Xander finished, nodding almost understandingly. "Yeah, I've been to a few of those. Good places to get just drunk enough to come home to your girlfriend and be able to pretend you weren't checking out some other guy's ass at work that day."

Since the incident where Xander had managed to lodge three darts in Angel's arse -- and all three had honestly been accidents, as far as Spike could tell-- his husband-glurble had been permanently relegated to the position of 'Spike's Cheerleader' when the game was played in the Hyperion bar. He seemed to be holding his own in this verbal version, however.

OtherSpike opened his mouth, then shut it, then looked at Dru with a funny little shake of his head, before flinging himself pseudo-carelessly onto a brocade-covered settee. As if he were exhausted not only by whatever activities he had or hadn't been engaging in during his adventure-over-the-wall, but by the whole conversation. He crossed one muddy boot over the other, and Spike did catch a whiff of stableyard in the muck that flaked off and landed on the clean furniture.

"Take your boots off, lackwit. Your mum would box your ears if she saw you," he said mildly. His double just snorted, flipped him off, and stayed sprawled where he was as if he owned the place. He probably did own some of it, but that was no call to be rude. Spike shook his head, and said to Xander, "She's probably better off."

"Least she has you," Xander replied, smiling, but with some concern in his eyes. Spike wanted to tell him not to be -- he really didn't care if this dolt was indifferent to his mother. Even if she didn't deserve it, and even if she were a nice old lady who *ought* to have a son who brought her freshly dead corpses and lilies.

There was a slight thump, as Dolt-Spike's boots hit the floor, and suddenly he was standing there, facing Spike. It was eerie, not unlike his last good memory of looking into a mirror. "What's this about my mum?" he demanded.

Spike wanted to laugh at the little-boy-in-a-schoolyard tone. "She makes good tea cakes," was all Spike said. There was a growl, then, and Spike had to step back and bat away a clumsy, if enraged, grab. "What? S'not like I said she wears combat boots, is it?" Spike added.

"How the hell do you know anything about my mother?" Spike's double snarled.

Spike just shrugged. Not like she wasn't the same as *his* mum had been in the tea-cake department, since with a few pointy exceptions, she *was* his mum. Then he grinned, sensing an opportunity for more mischief -- or maybe just to make his double feel guilty, if that were possible. "Popped in for a visit, didn't we? Least we could do, seeing how we came all this way. Wanted to introduce her to Xander." He gave his husband a smile, as if that had, indeed, been their plan all along. "Besides, it's not like you've been keeping her up to date on *your* life. She was perfectly happy to hear all about ours."

The face of Spike's other self went utterly blank, and he blinked, slowly, staring at Spike as if unsure of what he'd heard. "You--- took *him* to meet my mum?"

"Yeah. Sweet lady. Reminds me of my grandmother. Showed us your naked baby pictures," Xander said. Spike didn't bother pointing out that they hadn't *had* cameras around for home-use when he was a baby. The expression on his mirror-face was too priceless to be distracted from.

Dru's voice was petulance in liquid form-- you could almost grab it out of the air, bottle and sell it. "You never showed *me* your naked baby pictures."

Her Spike didn't answer, or even turn his head to look at her. He just sank slowly back down to his seat, feet planted squarely, if not steadily, on the floor this time. He grabbed an embroidered pillow and began worrying at a loose thread, fingers finding it without a glance, as if he did this sort of thing so often he had the worn spots memorized. He probably did; Spike could remember picking loose an entire cross-stitched image of Windsor Castle, in one of his own more nervous moments.

The seated Spike stared blindly at the wall beyond his visitors' heads. "You took a man to meet mum. Christ. Prob'ly kissed him in the bloody front parlor where God and all the neighbors could see through the window."

"And the cat; don't forget the cat," Xander said. Spike decided he'd keep Xander after all, just for the confused look his comment produced on the other Spike's face.

Only lasted for a moment, though, before the look of blank despair returned, and OtherSpike closed his eyes. "Fuck. My mum thinks I'm a shirtlifter now."

Now the confused look was on Xander's face. "Um..? Girls don't wear shirts in this world?" He looked at Drusilla, as if to check what she was wearing. Drusilla smiled prettily at him and batted her eyelashes in a way that made Spike want to growl at her again. What part of "mine" hadn't she got?

"It means 'poofter'," Spike explained, and got himself thumped for his effort. "What? Why'd you *ask*, then?"

"I meant...never mind. So mom thinks you lift guys' shirts, not that she seemed to care about us doing it. This is news? In a hundred years you've never done the dirty deed with Angel? Loud enough for the whole street to hear? With structural aids and kinky boots?"

Spike looked at Xander, in some amazement. "Just what sort of stories has Angel been *telling* you? Or is this a fantasy of yours, in which case, soon as we get home we'll go enact it?"

But dork-Spike was sputtering. "*Angel*? Are you completely off your nut? Why the fuck would I have *sex* with *Angel*?"

Spike and Xander looked at him. Spike glanced at Drusilla, and saw a dreamy expression on her face which either meant she was thinking about Angel, sex, and possibly Spike, Spike II, or Angel, Spike, Xander, and Spike. Or she was thinking about blackberry scones.

Then Spike looked at Xander, who said, "Um, Angel? Tall guy, built like a brick, kind of a doofus, but wears leather pants *real* nice?"

Spike continued to look at Xander. "You said you didn't notice the leather pants when he went soulless. You were all 'What? Leather pants? Really? Angel? No, I was too busy frenching Cordelia in broom-closets to pay attention to Angel's arse.' Liar."

Xander rolled his eyes. "Duh... Besides, I meant at the New Year's party, dingdong. Or were you too nogged-up to realize that Wes convinced him to wear leather and silk?"

Spike blinked. Angel had been wearing leather and silk? Soulboy? And he'd missed it? "Silk what?" he asked, knowing he was getting distracted from the task at hand -- making his double cringe -- but not really able to stop himself.

"Good question, since he wasn't wearing a shirt. But Gunn swore he was wearing silk *somewhere*."

The mental image of his Sire in leather trousers and no shirt and a mysterious silk *something* was not helping Spike concentrate on teasing his double. Then again, from the look on AlterSpike's face, said image was doing Spike's job for him anyway -- which was good, because part of Spike's brain kept insisting on pointing out that it had been *he* who spiked the eggnog in the first place, so it was his own fault he didn't remember the actual event.

His double was scowling. "Why on earth would I pay attention to Angelus in leather trousers? *I'm* not a blasted poof."

Spike raised an eyebrow. "You must not have ever *seen* him in leather trousers. Either that or your version of His Poofiness is a complete do-- uh, more complete dork. Or bald."

Xander laughed once, then looked at Spike, his eyes dancing in that way that meant he was drawing mental pictures. That was proven a second later when Xander began laughing uncontrollably. Pleased, Spike watched him, ignoring once again his more idiotic self. His smile grew wider as Xander kept laughing, and he knew he'd be laughing himself, just from the sound of it, in another moment.

"He's not bald," Drusilla was saying, in a slightly bemused tone. She'd moved closer, towards Xander, and Spike glanced over to see her watching his husband as well. Her expression was difficult to read -- which gave Spike a quick jolt. It wasn't quite dreamy, nor was it one of hunger. Somewhere in between the two, as if a sane Drusilla couldn't *quite* get lost in the sound of Xander's laughter, and wanted to.

Spike took Xander's arm, pretending to do it to help Xander maintain his balance. In reality he wanted to be sure no one got any ideas about biting anyone they didn't have rights to. Drusilla's gaze flickered up to him, and her expression cleared. For a moment she looked like she had on those rare nights when her thoughts and eyes had been clear, and her focus had been on the night around them rather than the fantasy world inside. Spike wasn't at all sure what to make of this; then Drusilla smiled, and turned back to her own Spike, who was still scowling like a grumpy child.

"He would, you know. If you let him. If you didn't spend all your time trying to prove you're more of a man than he is, by stirring up trouble."

"You're not making any sense, woman. He would what?" For all that her Spike spoke as if he didn't understand, Dru's resigned little sigh spoke louder. It seemed to say that this was a conversation they'd had so many times in the last hundred years that the pattern had worn its way into her tongue, and she was weary of it. "Anyhow, we're vampires. We're supposed to stir up trouble. It's fun."

"Sometimes. But you don't really *like* it anymore, do you." Dru turned to Spike. The real Spike -- at least from his point of view. "Daddy keeps trying to get him to go along with him and Grandmamma on one of their diplomatic missions, or sit in on a session at the House of Lords, but he only goes if there's a chance to embarrass Angelus."

"Well, there's nothing wrong with *that*," Spike responded. "It's one of the great joys of my unlife. That and the knowledge that I can eat all the Twinkies I like and never worry about cholesterol."

"And I fall where on this list?" Xander asked.

"Oh, I can swallow all of your cream filling and never have to worry about cholesterol either," Spike assured him.

"Just so we're clear on that."

Dru smiled briefly, then frowned at her own Spike. "I like playing Annoy the Daddy as much as the next girl. But you don't really get any fun out of it anymore. If you want his attention, there are easier ways of getting it."

"Who says I want his attention?" Spike shot back. "Who says I give a rat's arse for his approval, or Darla's or--"

"Or mine?" Dru asked, in a clear tone that was just, in Spike's opinion, wrong wrong wrong. Her childe didn't respond, though he looked up at her with troubled eyes. Though he might be ruder to her than Spike had ever been to his own Dru, there were still some lines he wouldn't cross, apparently.

"You used to like tormenting him as much as me," he said finally. "We tore up this cesspool of a city, Dru, you and me, just because he told us not to. Turned enough people to take over London for ourselves. Made a playground for all of us. And what's he do? Turns the Queen and half of Parliament, eats William Gladstone for her, and settles down to quietly control the bleedin' British Empire, with Darla at the helm. He's no fun anymore. Hell, *you* don't even know how to have fun, anymore."

Dusilla was still frowning lightly, but she didn't answer. Spike had the sudden and unexpected feeling of discomfort, as though they were witnessing a conversation they shouldn't. He told himself that was ridiculous -- this was his double, and *Dru*. What could they possibly have to say that should be private from him?

"You two made all this?" Xander was asking, in a subdued tone. "You're why London's over-run? Well, that and because there's no Slayer here?"

Drusilla looked at him. "What's a Slayer?"

Spike chortled. "Oh, we should have brought her with us. Imagine the fun she'd have had!"

Xander thumped him. "Behave, Spike," he said, uselessly.

But the other Spike was looking proud. He'd straightened his coat and preened a bit, and Spike could see flashes of something else there. Something besides the cocky, bored, repressed adolescent. "Yeah. Me and Dru did all this. Made enough vampires that in twenty years we had the place almost completely to ourselves. Would have taken it completely over, if, you know... we needed *something* to eat."

Xander was looking at *him*, now, and Spike wanted to ask what he was thinking. The thoughtful expression on his face warned him he might not like hearing it. Xander half-smiled, then said in a low tone, "You scare me."

Spike shivered, pulled himself up against his husband, and tried wrapping his entire body around Xander's. His spine was doing the macarena again -- as his glurble darn well knew that tone would have made it do, so what was with him saying things like this then insisting he wasn't going to follow-through when someone was watching?

"What did *he* do?" the other Spike demanded. He was back to sounding like a petulant schoolboy. "We're the ones that did it!"

Xander didn't take his eyes off Spike. "Yeah, and normally I'd be very, very unhappy with the making of vampires out of humans thing. But...wow. Sometimes I forget what you're capable of." Xander was the one who shivered, that time, though his eyes never left Spike's, and his tone never lost that element of awe, and lust.

Spike wasn't sure what the bloody hell Xan was on about, but who cared? "Yeah, I can kill four spiders with one rolled-up newspaper, too," he bragged as he stepped closer to Xander. "Grrr." And he was almost up to the point where he could watch Rocky and Bullwinkle without hiding behind the sofa when the flying squirrel came on.

Then Xander was kissing him, and he was thinking maybe if Xander kissed him like that a whole lot more, he wouldn't care if there were squirrels dancing on his head, or ferrets down his trousers, or pouty alternate universe doubles watching, or anything. Though there mightn't be room for the ferrets, come to think of it, given the current goings on in his trousers.

Some part of him that was still the wanker who needed glasses and felt guilty about tossing off, noted that if those people from back home who thought they couldn't keep their hands off each other *before*, could see them now, the teasing would never end. Spike told that part of him to bog off, and licked the roof of Xander's mouth.

Another part of him noted that Dru was sighing happily, and the other Spike was utterly silent -- no ecchs of protest from him now. Spike told that part that it was nice and all, but could it please go bog off with the other part? Then he pressed his pelvis closer to Xander, just in case his husband had missed the fact that there was at least one part of him that could concentrate on the important things in unlife.

"Spike? What the hell're you doing?" Funny, Spike didn't remember having packed his Sire among the baggage they'd brought along. Spike didn't let go of Xander, because Angel's showing up had never meant 'stop kissing Xander.' Even when they were naked in Sire's hot tub and were about to become -- or had already become -- newts.

There was a whoosh of almost-sound, though, and suddenly Xander's lips were no longer pressed against his, and Xander was yelping with annoyance, and a very irritated Angelus was holding Xander by the back of his coat, glaring at them both.

Spike snarled at him and made sure he didn't let go of his grip on the *rest* of his husband. "Do you bloody well mind?" he snapped. "We were in the middle of something!"

Angelus was growling back, his gold eyes not doing at all well at hiding the confusion behind his rage. Spike would have flipped him off, but that would have meant letting one hand go of Xander.

"Oo, daddy, you made them stop," Drusilla complained.

Angelus' expression grew more confused. "Dru? Is this your--" Then he stopped, because he'd turned to look at her, and in doing so saw Spike. Other-Spike, standing beside Drusilla. Angelus looked back at real-Spike, who was hanging onto Xander and still growling, and at Xander, who was looking amused, despite also looking like he resented being interrupted. "Spike?"

"What?" the double asked, in a tone that was probably meant to be sardonically amused. It came out sounding just strangled.

Angelus did the rubber-necking at all the extra faces in the room thing again, before finally letting go of Xander. Xander tugged at his coat with the hand Spike hadn't had hold of. "Thanks, deadboy."

"Dead who?" Ah, now there was the Angelus whom Spike remembered, complete with ludicrous Irish accent. Confused, growly, and thick as a bucket of pig swill. In other words, Angel. The soul hadn't made him any more of a dork; that was a myth. He'd just hidden it better when he'd been willing to rip your head off and spit down your throat if you pointed it out.

"Angelus?" came an irritated female voice from the hallway. "Were you planning on helping me with the bags, or should I just leave them in the hallway for the servants to trip over?" Darla waited all of ten seconds for an answer that never came, before she appeared in the doorway. "Angel--" Her mouth shut promptly as she took in the sight before her. "Hell. There's two of them! Drusilla, what've you done? One Spike is bad enough, but two...."

"Is any good boy's dream come true?" Spike finished for her. Xander whapped him, and he turned his head. "What? Oh, tell me you didn't think about it-- just for a minute."

"I didn't think about it just for a minute," Xander responded. Spike eyed him sharply, then returned his attention to his great-grandsire. Or was it just grandsire, or...hell, he'd lost track of how to refer to Darla, over the years, except for the eternally accurate title of 'annoying bint.'

It was Angel who spoke, though. "What the hell is going on, Spike?" He addressed this to his own version, in a growl that Spike could've told him would provoke sneers and snarls and chest-puffing, but would he have listened? He never had before.

"Why ask me? Like you'd care what my explanation is anyway?" Yup, there was the growling and the posturing. "They're some sort of off-dimension tourists Dru invited in for tea."

Angelus growled right back at him. "So why were you *kissing* one of 'em?"

"Spike was kissing himself?" Darla asked.

"*I* wasn't kissing anybody, you great moron," the local Spike shouted at Angelus, ignoring Darla entirely, a choice of which Spike heartily approved. "Least of all a bloke. Why would you think I'd do something like that?"

"Satan and his bloody imps only know," Angelus grumbled.

"Can I say it?" Xander asked, and Spike saw his eyes dancing with evil mischief. A second later he realized what Xander wanted to say.

"No, I want to. It'll be better coming from me." Spike returned the knowing smile, and turned his attention back to his alter-Sire. In his best, most cultured, non-Spike's-a-bad-boy voice, he said, "Xander and I are here on our honeymoon." Then he simpered at Xander. Xander simpered back, and for a moment they simply made goo-goo eyes at each other. Spike heard his double make a gagging noise.

"What is this?" Darla demanded. Spike glanced over and found Angelus staring at them, open mouthed. Spike extended his hand to show them his ring. Xander extended his, as well.

"You can't *possibly* be a vampire," Spike's double said. Angelus was still gawping.

"What? Just because I've found true love, and a decent tailor?" Spike asked, delighted to have got the reaction he'd been going for. Annoying Angel was fun in any dimension, but making him look totally gob-smacked was always infinitely better. A lot harder, of course. But that was why it was better.

"You call that foppish thing 'decent'?" Dork-Spike asked, back to his sneering and posturing. Then he caught Angelus' gaze, and faltered -- he hid it well, but Spike had no trouble reading his own face. "What?" he demanded, when Angelus said nothing.

Spike had seldom seen any expressions on his own unsouled Sire's face besides hunger, lust, malicious delight, murderous rage, or complete dumbfoundedness. He'd certainly never witnessed Angelus looking wounded, or disappointed, or indescribably hurt and trying desperately not to show it -- but he'd seen it on Angel-with-a-soul, and he recognised it now. "A hundred and twenty-seven years," Angelus pronounced slowly.

"What?" the other Spike said again, sounding less sure of himself.

"A hundred and twenty-seven years," Angelus repeated. "And after the first twenty, after the first fifty-odd times you pretended you didn't know what I was talking about, or acted drunker than you really were, or turned the whole thing into a fists-and-fangs-for-all, I finally got it through my thick head that you just weren't interested in men. That I must be daft, and reading all the bloody signals wrong." He glanced at Xander and *his* Spike with great brown cow-eyes that Spike had been *positive* only the souled version possessed, then back at his own Spike. "So what does *this* mean? That all this time it's just been *me* you didn't fancy?"

That Spike opened his mouth to say *something*, but Darla interrupted. "Really, Angelus, as if it matters. He's a spoiled, immature little street-rat who spends most of his time gleefully tearing down everything we've worked to build up, or drinking and whoring the night away. He's you, if you'd stayed in that little pig-trough of a town in Galway, only he's been that way for a century. Why you even bothered is still beyond me."

Both Spike and Angelus rounded on her, but neither said a word in retort. Spike was fairly sure it wouldn't help matters to mention that *his* Angel had killed Darla.... Instead, Spike's double gave them all a deathly glare, and stormed out of the room. When Angelus stormed after him, Darla's haughty expression faltered. Drusilla, on the other hand, looked satisfied. Spike just stared at the doorway, where the two vampires had vanished, and tried not to think about might have beens.

"Are you staying for dinner? Say you'll stay, Victoria will be so pleased to meet you." Drusilla was smiling, cheerful as though nothing had happened.

"Do you think I could get a photograph when we meet her?" Xander asked, sounding equally cheerful. Spike could hear an undercurrent of something else, though. "We have friends back home who'll never believe we met her if we don't have proof. Besides which, Grandma made me promise to take lots of pictures. Said something about it would force me to get out of bed once or twice during the honeymoon."

"I *told* you we could take pictures in bed," Spike reminded him.

"And do *you* remember what I said about showing my grandmother pictures of us in bed?" Xander asked, reasonably.

"Er...something about...feeding me to the chipmunks?" Sufficiently dissimilar from squirrels that he wasn't at all worried about the little rodents, but when he saw them, he couldn't help *thinking* about squirrels....

"I want pictures," Drusilla chimed in. "Grandmum, can we take pictures of the pretty boys?"

"*Why* do you keep calling me...oh, never mind. Go get a camera, then, and we'll--"

"No, we won't," Xander said flatly. Then he smiled, and Spike remembered that ability to charm everybody's mum. And grandmum. Apparently that included annoying bints of indeterminate relationship. "I mean, not that I'm not flattered, but we really *would* like to meet the Queen, and we only have a little time left on our honeymoon."

Like four more days, Spike thought, but who was counting. Besides, it wasn't the words that turned Darla's dour expression into a coy little simper; it was Xander's voice, and sincere, guileless eyes, and that perfectly innocent look that implied he had absolutely no idea how cute he was.

"I'm sure she'd quite like to meet you -- she likes pretty boys almost as much as Dru." Darla stepped closer to Xander and ran a finger up his arm. "She might even decide to let us keep you -- the place could use a bit of decoration."

Spike's hand closed around her wrist in perfect time with his growl. Just a little pressure. Just enough to let her know that she wasn't dealing with the Spike she knew, who would most likely stalk off and hide in a corner if challenged by Angel's Sire. Just a little pressure on the delicate wristbones...

She looked up at him in surprise, and he bared perfectly normal teeth at her. "I don't think you want to be touching what's mine, Darla. Not if you don't want to end up the same way our version did." No need to elaborate on the fact that Spike hadn't been responsible for Darla's dusting -- either time. Not when Angel had killed her to save Buffy, and not when Gunn had done the same for Angel, without batting an eye-- though Spike had been present the second time, and had seen that same look of disbelief on her face as he was seeing now.

It didn't matter who had done it -- it had been about family, and choosing the people you loved over the ones who were trying to hurt them. The only reason it had been Gunn and not Spike was that, fast as a vampire diving from the top of a staircase might be, a flying crossbow bolt is still faster. Less likely to fracture its coccyx when it lands on a polished tile floor, too -- though the crossbow bolt hadn't gotten the full benefit of getting to lie face-down in bed while Xander put ice-packs on its arse and waited on it hand and foot and told it what a good and clever crossbow bolt it was.

Darla was still looking at him, the disbelief warring with surprise on her face. She didn't try to move her hand away, but neither did she try to press. After a moment she narrowed her eyes, and stared at Spike. Spike stared back, not interested in giving her an inch, figuratively or mentally.

Xander wasn't moving, either -- still firmly ensconced in Spike's embrace, but casually, not with the posture of one who was cowed, and hiding in his protector's arms. Spike wasn't entirely sure he *could* protect Xander, if Darla, Drusilla, and the Queen's guards decided that Darla would have her toy. He began to wish that Willow had given him super-vamp-strength or something, instead of shutting off his chip. The temporary ability to thump a human upside the head wouldn't do a blind bit of good against a palace? full of vampires. Maybe Victorian England had been a bad choice. What was so wrong with Oz, again? Oh, right - no sex.

Compared to no Xander...

"No one's even going to ask me if I *want* to stay?" Xander asked, lightly. He was totally relaxed, in fact, pressed against Spike's body -- not quite as distracting as it should have been, but still enough for Spike to appreciate. As soon as Darla stepped back.

"You don't want to stay with us in the palace?" Drusilla asked, half-purring, half-pouting. It was a typically Drusilla mind-blowing combination of sultry seductress and give-me-what-I-want little girl. Spike tightened his grip on Xander, then discovered he needn't have worried.

"You'll almost as good as that as our Dru is, Xander told her. "But she pouts better -- sorry. But she's insane, so -- fair trade. Hey, I wonder if she knew we were gonna meet you. Is that why she said we should take her to dinner at Eddie's? I thought she meant when we got *back*." Xander was babbling, but it was aimed at Spike, this time. Spike still hadn't relaxed, though, and wasn't about to let go Darla's wrist until she backed off.

Even as he thought it, she gave a half-shrug, and stepped away, pulling her arm free as if she hadn't noticed anyone holding it. "If we're going to dinner at Eddie's," Darla said smoothly, "I suppose we should get you in to see the Queen first. She tends to nod off rather early after one of our diplomatic debriefings."

"I can't imagine why." Spike rolled his eyes. Xander stepped on his foot. It was comfortingly familiar.

Honestly though, who wouldn't fall asleep after an hour or so of Darla going on about political alliances and upper crust fashion trends, and Angelus interjecting the occasional, "Aye, and then I dislocated his elbow, just to make sure he was payin' attention..." Lord knew *Spike* always had, if he couldn't find any mischief to get up to while he was allegedly listening.

Darla glanced at the door behind which Angelus and the other Spike had disappeared. The snarls and thumps and sounds of no-doubt valuable things being smashed were still going strong. "Well, *they'll* be growling at each other for a few hours, at least, if Angelus doesn't wise up and snap his head off. I suppose we should leave them to it. These fights of theirs get more tiresome every time we come home."

"Yes, you're right, of course," Drusilla agreed, "We should go." She motioned for Spike and Xander to follow her out the door. The tiny smile that played about her lips seemed to say that she had different reasons from Darla's for leaving the other two men to work out their differences.

"Does she like to be called Victoria? Or Your Majesty? Or Your Highness?" Xander was asking as he pulled Spike along by the hand, Darla having swept past Drusilla to lead the way down the hall. Spike was holding onto that hand for dear life, in Darla's company -- Xander's life. Just in case.

Darla glanced back at them, her expression coy. "She likes to be called 'Yes, Mistress'."

As they followed her down the hall, Spike tried to decide if he thought Darla was kidding.

*****