The phone rang by Xander's not-really-asleep head.

"Dammit." He rolled over, flung his arm in the general direction of the phone and yanked it from it's cradle. "Hello?'

"Xander, hi, you should, uhm, come over now." Willow, in the middle of the. < what time is it? Hungry. uhm. >

"What time is it? Do you guys have food?"

"It's late. I know you said we should meet tomorrow, but Spike picked up something interesting on patrol."

Xander rolled over again, feeling the cool unused side of the bed and groaned, panicked even, but just for a moment. "He didn't get skewered, did he? Tell me he didn't get skewered."

"No, he didn't get skewered, but he. well, hold on." Willow's end of the conversation went quiet, but he could hear arguing from the other side of what he guessed was her hand on the mouthpiece. "Nevermind. Uhm. Just come over? Soon?"

"One order of Xander, coming right up. Do you guys have food?"

"Of course we have food. We eat, don't we? Well, maybe that's not an obvious question, but then, consumption of. Spike says to come now."

"He won't talk to me?"

"Just come, it's not a big. well, it's not the biggest deal. but."

Xander decided to spare Willow and himself an unnecessary babble, not that a good babble was ever unnecessary, but Willow seemed a little out of practice.

"I'll be there in twenty. Can I shower first?"

"Sure, I think. I'll say yes and Spike can yell at me when I hang up."

"Great," Xander said, "see you in a minnit."

"No, uhm, hurry."

Xander sat up in bed, replaced the phone and glared around in the darkness of his old apartment. < Good goddamn thing Spike's loaded. The Sunnydale Motor Lodge blows, and, or sucks. > He stood. Walked into the living room, pulled open the dust-covered drapes and looked out into Sunnydale at night.

< I can see why I like it here so much. Me and my big mouth, with the promises and the not leaving. Spike must want to kill me. > Xander gulped. < Not that he could, not unless I consented or. Or maybe he could, but so? He's wanted to before and something stopped him then. But what's to stop him now? Slayer? Slayer. Good, stick with the thoughts of the good and plenty, yeah. >

Xander plodded away from the window, scratched himself in a suitably manly manner and started running the shower. He looked in the mirror, thought about razors and haircuts and looking more like Zeppo Xander and less like Xander Reznor, but, no. < Spike would definitely kill me if I cut my hair. > He groped his manly bits in his hand and looked down at them and smiled. < Glad we got us some, aren't we boys? >

And he felt some blood rush in, and he lifted his hand to his mouth and spit in it, brought it back down to himself and squeezed his head between his thumb forefinger. He moaned. Some more blood rushed in, and Xander moved his attention away from his swollen head to the thickening length of his hard-on. < Spike. > He brought his hand back up, spit in it again, and then began to pump his shaft. He started slow at first, built up momentum. He stared at his own dark eyes in the mirror, could see Spike inside of them, see the blue deep in himself. Steam rolled out of the shower and sweat began to pool in Xander's navel and at the nape of his neck. < So hot. > Pull, push, pump. His movement quickened for a moment and on an upstroke he grasped his head tight, back down, up again and he squeezed his head and milked an < awesome > orgasm. The first load roared up to the mirror, landed on mirror-Xander's lip. The rest sprayed the white sink, warm white-yellow puddles slapped down to the porcelain and Xander panted.

"Guh." He stopped rubbing his swollen tired piece, leaned on the sink, running water to rinse the stuff down.

Then he stepped into the steam of the shower and.

"Ow. Goddammit."

He turned the heat down, and reached for the shampoo.

* * *

His head clean but not empty Xander glided up the steps to the Summers' house. < This used to be the Summers' house. It's what now? The Summers-Rosenberg house? > He knocked on the door. Spike opened the door and Xander registered a tic in Spike's left shoulder as if he'd carried something too heavy. < What's too heavy for Spike? > Xander worried and resisted the urge to begin an inner monologue.

"Baby. What's going on?" Xander said.

"You," Spike looked over his shoulder into the living room. "Hold on."

Spike pushed Xander away from the door and stepped through himself. < Okay, so what the fuck is this? > Xander stood halfway between a scowl and a hug and waited for Spike to say something.

"Something's. wrong."

"I gathered that Spike, but what, exactly is going on?"

"Nothing's. going on. Something's gone on, and it's repercussions are here, and I." Spike stopped. His head dropped down. "I don't know how to tell you. This is. bloody. wrong."

"Tell me, how wrong could it be?" Xander hated the sound of this, hated the sight of his fearless lover as he trembled and avoided eye contact.

Spike straightened up, looked Xander square in the face, halted the tremors and sighed. "Xander, there's a little girl. I found her in the cemetery. I brought her here. She's taken to Willow, thinks Red is her long-dead mother. Xander, this little girl, she thinks I raised her. She thinks. sod it all. that you're her long-dead father." Spike stopped.

"." Xander stared at the door to Buffy's house, couldn't look at Spike.

"Xan, love, the little girl. This girl, she's a vampire. She says, at least she doesn't think I turned her, but. Xander, she says her name is Buffy Rosenberg-Harris."

Xander's fists opened and closed like the beating of a heart, a heart that raced with rage, fear and confusion. < A little girl? My little girl? Willow's little girl? Buffy's name-sake little girl? Does this mean. Is this something? Is this real? Can it be.? >

"A spell," Xander said with some decision. "Gotta be a spell."

"Love, she's real. As real as Dawn. As real as Slayers. If she's a spell, it would be."

"Horrible to undo," Xander said. "But we. I. never did that. Never had a kid. Gave up on that when I gave into."

"Me." Spike finished. "I know."

"And you wanted to turn me." Xander concluded.

"I know." Spike sighed, it went unheard.

"This is. bloody well. fucked." Xander said.

*****
Part 7: Possum Kingdom

Life away from Sunnydale looked not unlike life in Sunnydale. People unaware of the world around them, demons unaware of the death about to meet them. Different flora and fauna, maybe, but essentially everything was green, or brown, or blue and whatever combinations of those three one could imagine.

For Xander life away from Sunnydale had been the longest period of unconditional joy he had ever known. His whole body thrummed with the knowledge that he was loved and watched over by the sexiest, smartest, most powerful vampire in the world, or at least probably maybe the most powerful. Every breath was an affirmation of the fact that he had chosen and was chosen to be Spike's tether to reason, sanity, compassion.

Spike tethered Xander to something completely different. Bedposts, chairs, ceilings occasionally, but most often Spike tethered Xander to confidence, strength, and violence.

Spike taught Xander to put down the things that stood in his way. Xander taught Spike to try to step around the things that stood in his way. And somewhere along the way the two taught each other to hide behind and stand up for, depending.

Life away from Sunnydale shaped itself into a giant sphere of a globe called Earth, this Earth, the one of admittedly deranged, bizarre persuasion where vampires and Scooby gangs were real. Xander half-expected Tuscan raiders and ewoks more often than not, and was often disappointed when they never appeared. Fyarl, Vampire, werewolf, Adam, gentlemen. these things had prepared him to believe in anything, including himself, and he'd seen far worse, far uglier, far more unbelieveable things in his wanderings with Spike.

So as he stood on the threshold of a house he'd spent too many hours in as a teenager, which was too many years ago, and stared at his too frightened lover who'd just told him something too unfathomable to possibly be true, and heard what sounded like a little girl's too excited laughter through the living room windows; it was everything Xander had in him not to scream too loud and wake up too much of the neighborhood, so instead he held his breath a moment too long and passed out on the too abused front porch of the Slayer who'd lived too long.

* * *

"Well this is bloody not fair. You bein' all passed out, while we deal with the drama goin' on around you." Spike thumped Xander on the head.

Xander moaned. "Sorry."

"Not a problem love, but, you see, we've still got this nagging thing of your vampire daughter downstairs and."

"I'm gonna hurl." Xander sat bolt upright in Buffy Summers' bed.

"You're not going to hurl, love. You're going to go downstairs and check out Buffy's namesake and see what you make of her."

"I'm really, really gonna hurl."

Spike climbed onto the bed < The bed I used to dream of > and held Xander back to chest, stroked Xander's hair and whispered into Xander's ear.

"I love you pet, and you said... And I still want to turn you; nothing's changed. We just have to figure out where this little girl came from, and see that she gets back there, and if we can't make her do that, we get to change our plans around a bit to include a daughter." Xander tensed up. "How's that sound, love?"

"Willow put crack in your blood, didn't she? I knew it. Silly wiccans and their."

A tiny shriek of laughter found its way into the bedroom and Xander and Spike both turned their head toward it.

"Right love, good crack it was too. Now, can we please deal with this. And after that can you tell me once and for all why we're back here?"

"You never met crack you didn't like."

Spike grinned. "Like yours well enough, that much is true."

Xander continued. "I don't want to deal with this, and you know why we're back here."

"Right. Pesky promises and such."

"I don't want to be a father. Least of all to a girl I don't know."

"Come on then, enough of the changing subjects. We'll go downstairs, eh?" Spike started to move Xander off the bed, but he went limp in Spike's arms. "Love, I carried you up here, you think I can't carry you down?"

Xander leapt away from Spike, away from the bed < The bed I used to dream of >. He stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by the things he knew he'd be surrounded by. Mr. Gordo on a shelf. Kendra's Mr. Pointy on the desk. A cross over the door. The room belonged in a museum to 1998, but Xander knew it wasn't that time; it hadn't been that time for twelve years.

"We've never thought about how we came together," Xander said, pure statement.

"And we never will," Spike said, pure answer. "And it doesn't bloody matter, you came with me, I come with you. Basically, a whole lot of coming, and that sounds right by me, yeah?"

"Yeah, except." Xander's thoughts strayed a bit from his point and he shivered.

"Let's go do this, right?"

"Yeah. Except, hold my hand. And do it for me, y'know... for us, not just because it shocks them."

* * *

The girls and Giles sat in the Summers' living room. Buffy, the girl version sat in the middle with paper and crayons drawing things that no child ought to draw. Spike and Xander drifted down the stairs as one being, hands entwined and for once, the gang didn't think anything of it. Something stood between Xander and Spike, and that something was nothing. There stood nothing between the pair.

They stopped short, two steps left on the flight when Xander caught sight of the girl with the crayons. He knew that face, that hair; he knew where she came from in that instant. He turned his head to Spike, a small expression, one of wonder and fear.

He whispered, "She's mine William. She came from me."

Spike sighed, a smile in his words if not his face. "I know love, she's wrong in this place, but she's from you. She's from both of us. and Red."

Xander looked back into the room and then his legs and Spike's legs moved again and they were both at the little girl in a heartbeat.

"Daddy," Buffy squealed as she looked into the face of the man she hadn't seen for, how long. Years? "I was looking for you in the cemetery when Spike found me."

"Why were you looking in the cemetery?" Xander said. Spike moved to silence Buffy, but it didn't work.

"That's where your headstone is, Spike made me rememberize where it was, but it wasn't there, I swear it wasn't, or I would have found it, because I know you don't like to be alone on your birthday."

Xander's jaw dropped. He knew the date, knew the girl wasn't lying. Spike's eyes grew wide, something he'd forgotten, forgotten even that he had remembered. A gift off in that old apartment, meant for later; now who knew how much later. Spike realized why they returned and pulled Xander away, made to move toward the door.

"Kittens, stay there, daddy and Spike will be right back."

Spike pushed Xander through the front door onto the porch.

"Twenty-nine, did you think I forgot?" Spike said.

"I didn't. Well, I kind of thought. I didn't actually think you forgot in the literal I-didn't-remember sense of the word, but." Xander slowed to a standstill.

"I love you. I won't say happy birthday and all of that bollocks right now. I'll save it for later, and you're gonna like it." Spike paused. "But Xander, I know where she came from, and I know what she looks like, but she's wrong."

The front door cracked open and Giles pushed through.

"May I have a word with you?"

"Sure," they answered, and Giles stepped out, closed the door behind.

"I think that Buffy, that is to say that little, red-headed vampire in there, is a trick. Some kind of ploy."

"To what end, watcher?" Spike's teeth began to drop.

"Now, I won't have you growling at me Spike. I just think we should be aware that whatever reality this being came from is clearly not ours. And she should return to where she came from before it completely upsets the balance of this world."

"Giles, do you really think it's that big a deal? Vamp-Willow was here for a bit and she didn't upset the balance of anything. except to maybe tip the scales toward a sexier, snarkier gay-Willow which led to bad-Willow, which could be kind of an upset, so I see what you're saying, nevermind."

"Exactly, there's no way to know what ramifications this girl's presence in our world may have."

"Right then, love," Spike gripped Xander on the shoulders, looked him square in the face, "we stake her. Here and now and go on with our lives."

"Oh, but, hey. What if staking her upsets the balance?" Xander said.

"Sod it. I'm just sayin' we get her out of our world, and she goes back to hers, right?"

"I don't know, Spike," Giles continued as he looked at Xander, somehow weighed him with his eyes. "I do know that she's already changed our perceptions of."

Xander blushed. "I beg you not finish that thought, G-man."

"Xander. Here's what I can tell. In her world, you and Willow both died while Buffy was a small child. Spike, who I think was either your lover in that world, or was simply in love with you from a distance in that world, brought her up after her parents were killed. Now, I think Spike must have died as well in her world because she seems to have been living alone, either by abandonment or by choice, for some time, and that is when I think she was probably turned. Spike, in some reality - not this one - who would you have taken the girl to for safety if you thought you wouldn't be around long enough to see to it yourself?"

Spike fumbled into his pockets, pulled out cigarettes and his lighter, lit up and looked Giles right in the eyes.

"Only Druscilla would have been bloody crazy enough to turn a little girl into a vampire, but I'd have taken the girl to Angelus first."

"You mean, Angelus as in souled, poufy hair goes by the name of Angel, don't you, Spike?" Xander said.

"Yeah, you know what I mean. Not crazy unsouled, red velvet, open the gates of hell Angelus. The other one. The smarmy bugger."

"Where are you going with this anyway Giles?"

"Well, I don't want to suggest anything outlandish, but I think she may need to destroy whoever she thinks sired her or else she may be here indefinitely. She certainly plays at being the happy little girl, but she's angry, and she's been a vampire far longer than we can imagine - at least in her world that's so."

Xander looked aghast. His jaw slack as if he'd been punched in the face, with about half that much understanding.

Spike only had one question, "So, then, who do we send her to kill? Angel or Druscilla?"

Xander blanched, turned, and hurled into the bushes lining the Summers' house.

*****
Part 8: Closer

"Where'd she go?"

Spike and Giles entered the house. Xander stumbled in behind them, coughed, and looked at the confused faces that met them.

"She just."

Xander's face flushed with sudden anger, "Where is my daughter?"

Willow looked at him, felt the same pang of guilt and confusion that marred his features. "Xander, she just disappeared."

"Like vengeance demon transportation poof-be-gone disappeared? Or evil hex destroyed made as if never existed ever disappeared?"

"Neither. Look, she was here, then she wasn't. That's all that happened. All the pages she drew turned to white too, like no one had touched them." Buffy said, held the blank sheets up as if to atone, to prove something.

Spike and Xander groped towards each other then held each other still in the middle of the room that as wrong as it had been before was then a hundred times more wrong. Their arms wrapped around each other. Their faces each to the other's neck.

< So hungry. >

< So tired. >

< Eat. >

< Drink. >

Spike's fangs sank into the vein of Xander's neck and Xander's blunt teeth dove through his vampire's skin.

For a moment the room whirled around them, then stilled, then a gasp and Willow's hand flew to her mouth.

"Oh god."

Buffy felt it too.

And the earth shook under their feet.

Giles held onto the door frame and Dawn and Buffy and Willow became one being huddled on the sofa, and Spike and Xander, for the longest shortest moment ever, lived from each other and then were flung apart when the earth under their feet shook harder.

* * *

"Giles, hit the books. Willow, help him. I'm gonna patrol. Dawn, you're with me. Boys, go, and do grieving boy things. We'll call if we have to."

And with that Xander and Spike were out the door and in the middle of the street and across town, almost flying, but really just running without running. Up stairs, through the door, down the hall, to the bed. Lips pressed to lips. Ferocious, but not without thought.

"What's happening Spike?"

"It's your birthday."

"But is that all?"

"I don't know, is that all?"

"I don't know. I'm scared."

"Come on, the Banana Boat pulled out from port years ago, love, no need to be scared now."

"But I am scared. Now."

More lips pressed to lips. Hips ground together. Hardness to hardness.

"You tasted better than I thought, better than I dreamed of. Are you scared of that?"

"You tasted the same as I remember. But yeah, I am scared of that."

"I don't have to turn you, I want to, I'll always want to, I figure you've got another year before you're too far gone."

"Too far gone? Too old you mean? Like, make no children into vampires? Make no old people?"

"Something like that."

"It's cold, Spike."

"I know, here, we'll hold each other until this train stops rolling."

"I don't want the train to stop rolling."

"I know you don't, love. I meant we'll hold each other forever."

"Oh."

"I'm hard for you."

"For me? Really, Spike, you shouldn't have."

"Look, he jokes, finally."

Hands to hardness, flies unzipped, unbuttoned, belt buckles unbuckled.

"You're neck is healed."

"Yours isn't."

Tongue to neck, lapped on the open bite. Hardness twitched against a cool hand. Intimate. Small. Big.

"This means a lot, doesn't it?"

"What does?"

"The biting thing. Baby, I wanted you to bite for. ever."

"I know. I wanted to bite you forever, but it's not time for. ever."

Hands on backs, kisses. Scratches, nips, shudders.

"What are we doing?"

"Making love, making sense, love."

"I don't want to make sense. I just want to make love. I love you."

Stillness, cold, distance, fingers flailed into emptiness.

"I can't have you saying that to me just now pet. Not just this minute. No."

"Fuck William, can't someone love you?"

"Yeah, someone can't love me. No one can love me or. should. No. Not you, love you too much to let you do that to me."

"Do what to you, Spike? Love you? How is that doing something to you? Why does it sound like I'm infecting you somehow?"

"Bloody."

Softness hardened, found hardness, crossed the emptiness and filled it back up.

"I wonder where she came from? I wonder if she'll be back, do you think? Willow seemed really upset, but I just wanted to bite your neck and then I did, what was that you think? Spike? Spike, what do you think?"

"Shut up and bugger me."

*****
Part 9: Here With Me

Spike woke to blood and thunder.

Spike woke, back to Xander, to blood lots on his pillow. Spike threw up again at the sight.

Spike woke, back to Xander, to blood on his pillow and thunder not right through the windows and it shook. Spike shuddered at the loud, cold cracking. Bone, cheeks. < Slayer's fists. >

Spike woke. < Fuck. > Xander snored soft behind him, never stirred as Spike bounded from the bed so fast, grabbed the pillow ran to the toilet. Spike threw up again. Spike noticed the throb in his head and sunk down around the toilet. < Lots. >

* * *

Xander woke to nothing and blood.

Xander woke, front to emptiness, to blood < blood > where Spike's head would have been. Xander grabbed his knife under the pillow at the sight.

Xander woke, front to emptiness, nothing asleep beside him, to blood where Spike's head would have been and heard the sound of < no > sound but saw light in the hall. < Hold the knife tighter. >

Xander woke. < Blood. > Spike hid out of sight in the bathroom but never showed himself as Xander bounded from the bed but slow, stretched his shoulders. Kept the knife forward < trusty sturdy > as a ward against the blood where his lover's head had been. < Blood. >

* * *

"Spike?"

Xander's voice reverberated through the fake wood door like an announcer through a badly pitched p.a. system. Spike stirred from his perch at the bottom of the toilet.

"Don't come in. Please."

"Spike? Is that you." Xander's voice abandoned it's body as it echoed around the bathroom, into the toilet where there was too much blood.

Thunder clapped, Xander's heart heart jumped. Spike heard a distant rumble.

"Yeah, love. S'me. Stay out, I'm tellin' you now."

Coughs came through the bathroom door, greeted Xander's ear. Inside, more blood filled the toilet. Spike coughed hard, found his bearing. Looked toward the door and listened. Spike heard his mind as it ticked through < I didn't drink this soddin' much of the stuff. I didn't. I know I didn't. Love'd be dead if I did. Know I didn't. Know. I know. > But he heard no other sounds. Then he heard ragged breathing. Then he shook, threw up more blood, closed his eyes. Found the cold tiles and lay his hot skin down on them.

* * *

"I'm alive."

Xander woke to a blond, puffy cheeked man with ruddy cheeks and a day's growth of beard. He lied sideways in the hall, his nose at the border of the hall's carpet and the tile of the bathroom, almost under the door. His back to everything else.

Xander woke to an open bathroom door and clean sparkliness.

"Huh?" Xander pushed himself up and the blond man shifted in his squat so that his eyes were level with and less than a foot from Xander's eyes.

"Xan. Love. I'm alive."

Xander heard the words. Heard the words. < Alive. I heard it. > Coughed, held his breath. Spike thumped him in the chest and he inhaled sharp, cold air. Focused on the rain. The rain on the windows. Focused on daylight filtered through thick clouds, thicker curtains. < Gray daylight. >

"I'm alive. Are you deaf? I don't like to repeat myself, god knows I do it all the bloody time, but I." Spike stalled.

"Spike?"

"Yes, love?"

"Shut up."

"."

* * *

< The wrongness of this is unparalleled. Xander stared at the floor. > "You're alive?"

< I don't know. I think so. I'm so scared. Human. Worse than a soddin' chip. > Spike stared at Xander's forehead. "Yeah."

< I would gut myself if I thought it would. Nah, wouldn't. > Xander stared down. Harder. "Why?"

< I don't know. I shouldn't be scared. He's scared. Human. Weak. > Spike stared at Xander's forehead. Turned his head. Broke the glare. "Woke up and."

Xander looked up. < Years, Spike. Years. > "We've done so."

"Much." Spike looked down. < Floor. Hungry. >

"Does it come to this?" Xander stared at Spike's forehead. < Different. >

< Not scared. Bloody not scared. Bollocks. > Spike looked up. Caught Xander's gaze. A moment. "I don't know."

Xander looked away. < Living eyes. Living mind. Living heart. > "We need help. I'm the one who gets into trouble. The girls get me out. I need help. I can't do."

Spike growled. < That was a growl? Not scared. Not scared. Not scary. > "Should I call or will you?"

Xander looked up. Held Spike's eyes. < We walk. > "You wanted to turn me."

Spike stared into Xander. < We walk. > "Fuck you."

Spike and Xander stood; they moved as one body < boiling > to the door.

"I deserved that."

"Xander?"

"Yes?"

"Shut up."

"."

*****
Part 10: Shiver

"The Hellmouth will open."

Giles stood in the middle of the magic shop, book in hand, and chewed on the hook of his glasses. His sleeves pushed up his arms and his pants wrinkled, Giles had been at the research since the earthquake the night before.

Buffy and Willow looked up from their books.

"Giles? What?" Willow said. Buffy's face lost its color.

"The Hellmouth. I believe that. little girl. was a portent of something to come."

"No. Not again. How many apocalypses am I supposed to stop? I'm almost thirty. I've been doing this half of my life, there's no way. I'm gonna just step aside and let it open. Maybe when the Hellmouth opens Oompa Loompas will come out."

Giles stared at Buffy.

"Buffy."

"Seriously, Giles, this town is on it's fourth high school in eleven years. I don't know why they keep building the damn thing there, but they do. And trying to save it this time would just be a huge fiasco. Total karmic charades. It's all mime at this point. Seriously, where's Marcel Marceau when you need him. He could probably stop the apocalypse, because I know I can't."

"Are you finished?" Giles sighed. "I'm certainly as weary as you are. Dammit, Buffy, you don't hold the monopoly on growing old. I wouldn't even think you could look at me, I'm nearly sixty for god's sake, and whine that way with a straight face. We do this. This is what we do. It's all we've ever known, and we're the only ones who can do it. We've heard the speech before."

"Will you both shut up?" Willow slapped the tabletop. "This is stupid you. you poopheads."

Buffy and Giles' eyes grew and they turned to look at her.

"Why is the Hellmouth going to open again?"

Giles looked back at the book.

Willow sighed, "It's a prophesy, right? What are the conditions, terms, portents? Where do we sign to approve delivery? Where do we sign to refuse if we want? Come on, answer-man, please."

"A vampire girl, an earthquake small, a human man, hopes so tall. The mouth of hell shall open, the greatest love shall fall."

Buffy laughed. "You're kidding, right? 'Cause Angel and I were like, so last decade."

Willow's face shrunk. "It's not Tara and I. And Giles' great love."

"Was a bit longer ago than Angel and Buffy, I believe."

The three stared, each into their own headspace. Buffy glared at the table as if it were her former lover; Willow stared through the wall, stared in the direction of the house that had hurt them all so much; and Giles stared at the prophesy in his hand, stared at great love that was over before it ever started.

Dawn bounced through the door, a gale of smiles and laughs. She flipped her hair as the door passed under the bell and, a she noticed the expressions in the room, her face dropped.

"Oh god. It's the apocalypse, isn't it? I knew I'd start seeing someone really good and the apocalypse would come. They don't need the key do they? I'm screwed if they need the key."

Buffy perked up for a moment, "Your date was good? You didn't have to slay anything to protect him did you? He wasn't a brain sucking Calculus demon, was he?"

"Yeah it went great. I mean, just afternoon coffee, but still. Just a guy. A regular, not vampy, not demony, not military, not dead guy. There's got to be something tragically wrong with him, there always is. So is it the apocalypse?"

Buffy looked down, but Willow spoke up. "Yeah, Dawny, it's the apocalypse. Little Buffy Harris was, apparently, a portent, and so was the earthquake last night. Now we're just looking for a human man and some hope so tall so the Hellmouth can open and the greatest love can fall. Uhm. Sorry about that rhyming. You know how it is with this Babylonian prophesies."

"Willow, how did you know it was Babylonian?" Giles said.

"Oh, I read that book in like, eleventh grade. I thought maybe it was about Buffy and Angel then. but whatever. It's a pretty good one if you ignore the rhyming. Who knew that words in Babylonian would still rhyme three thousand years later in English? It's all terribly."

"I believe boring is the word you're looking for, yeah?" Spike snarled as he prowled into the shop. Xander trailed in behind him, looking somewhat less confident.

"Spike. And daylight. And." Dawn stammered.

"Right you are, pet. Spike and daylight. We mix like water and water. Can someone tell me what the fuck is going on?"

Giles, Willow, Buffy stared at Spike. "Spike? You're, with the daylight. It's not that ring thing again, is it?" Buffy, habitually, searched the shelves near her for a convenient stake. She found none, and Spike laughed.

"Yeah, that's right. Let me just wreak a little havok with all the bumpy forehead and sharp fangs that I do. Not. Have. Pardon me if I chain-smoke in doors this afternoon, the outside's just a little scary." He dug into his coat pocket, pulled out his smokes and, well, smoked. "Light some trippy wiccan incense if you don't like the smell."

Xander shuffled past Spike, hands in his pockets, shoulders scrunched up to his ears, eyes cast downward.

"Xander, what's going on?"

"That storm last night, the earthquake, my daughter. I don't know what's going on, and now this." Xander gestured toward Spike.

"Bloody right 'and now this.' I wake up this morning, spewing blood up from my guts into the bed, and next thing I know, the sun doth not scorch me and the cross doth not hold me and bloody, I right missed garlic." Giles sat his book down on the counter and leaned on it, away from the twenty-somethings congregated in the middle of the room.

"Xander," Giles said. He turned back into the room. "We need to know why you came back to Sunnydale. It's clear that whatever is occurring here, which I believe is the coming of the apocalypse, revolves around you and Spike and no other. Why are you here?"

"Whew. That's all? The apocalypse, we stopped one of those in." Xander couldn't look at Spike. "Where were we?"

"Tuscany."

"Right Tuscany, the portents there were an ant mound, two shells, and a man with three arms. What are the portents here? I guarantee if we figure that out we'll be able to stop it, right Buffy?"

Buffy laughed. "Hell no. I'm out of the apocalypse stopping game, you missed that little debate. This is on you, you brought it."

"What do you mean I brought it? Why does this revolve around Spike and me and no other? Giles?"

"Xander, the portents are. The little girl, the earthquake, a human man, and high hopes. 'The Mouth of Hell shall open; the greatest love shall fall'."

"Anyone got a bucket?" Xander said.

"Xan, do contain yourself." Spike said.

"No one asked you, bleachy," Xander shot a glance toward Spike. "Clearly this is all your fault."

"My bloody fault love? You're the one. I said I'd never come here again. You brought us bloody back. Sod this. If the sun won't torch me, maybe I can at least stare at it for too long, get some good bleedin' retinal damage or maybe melanoma. Maybe skin cancer will increase my odds of bein' bitten by some bleedin' heart vampire with a conscience so I can..." Spike stalked out of the shop into the daylight waiting outside and his ramble followed behind.

"This is worse than the summer at nazi clown camp." Everyone stared. "Okay, so it was just clown camp, but I swear one of them had a little Uber-lord mustache just like..." Xander said. "Dammit. This sucks." He frowned and looked back at the gang who were all agape at the exchange they'd just witnessed.

"Xander, you sound like you." Willow said.

"I sound like? I sound like. excuse me what? What're you talking about Will, I always sound like me."

"This is just too friggin' weird," Dawn said, and slumped down in her chair.

*****