See Part One for Disclaimers
Part Three
Grace turned her gaze on dragon as the pyrotechnics died down, the gentleman with the sword falling to his knees and sounding exhausted. She blinked. Then she scowled slightly. Nothing in dragon's demeanor indicated that she was going to get to stay and play with the the sword-carrying gentleman. dragon was ignoring the look, the blink and the scowl. She was busy trying to figure out how coordinates set for home (well, New Orleans, anyway) could turn into -- New Orleans???? Duncan MacLeod in New Orleans? Huh?
dragon looked up at Grace and down at the tesserect and over at Duncan who was regaining his composure and looking a little bemused at the odd gathering. He had no idea how much they'd seen. But they didn't seem unduly distressed, so it couldn't have been much. He ignored the disassociated head and body lying on the ground nearby and wandered over to check out the -- blink -- he could have sworn he saw a very tall, very golden furred -- nyah.
"Hello."
dragon jumped. Her back toward the man, she hadn't heard him approach. "Oh, hi!" she squeeked.
"Hi," Grace inserted, grabbing his attention. Well, catsuited Grace was definitely more of an eye catcher than the rotund dragon, her self-effacing friend RevSam or the seaQuest addict. (Ignore the hrumph of the addict. The important words here are: jail bait. -- or possibly: don't give the kid a swelled head.)
"Hi." Duncan smiled.
Grace's knees threatened to go into revolt. She tried desperately to think of something intelligent to say, but the hamster seemed to have gotten stuck in one of dragon's perpetual motion wheels. She smiled back.
dragon wondered which smile was more devastating and decided that now was not the time to figure this out. She went back to trying to figure out just how the New Orleans with Duncan got overlapped with the one Grace belonged in. The seaQuest addict admired the live oaks. RevSam cleaned her trifocals, resettled them on her very human nose and admired the park -- as much as she could see of it, it being very very dark.
"Got it!" dragon crowed just as Duncan was getting Grace's address and telephone number.
Grace looked around with those big ol' puppy dog eyes which dragon wisely ignored. She grinned at Duncan and took Grace by the arm to make certain she got back to the right New Orleans. Grace gave Duncan a wistful look, assured him that she'd be in touch and -- fold.
dragon frowned. Well, at least it was a step in the right direction, she thought, looking at the gilded stalagtites of her cavern lair. Grace looked around with an awed look on her face.
"So, it really is electroplated, huh?"
dragon made a face and grinned. "Fool's gold."
Grace laughed. "O --- K. So, now what do we do?"
"See if we can get you home."
"Aw. Don' wanna go home. Wanna go see Spikey --"
dragon rolled her eyes at this. "I suspect see is not the operative term."
The seaQuest addict snickered and then tried looking innocent. She adjourned to the computer console where the playback from the video cam left at Harmony's was ready to go. She rewound, played the footage and choked back giggles so as not to disturb her elders. It didn't work.
"What are you -- oh -- oh my -- I don't think Harmony liked our present," dragon surmised with a laugh. She replayed the footage for Grace and RevSam.
Harmony spotted the brightly wrapped gift. Opened it with a wonderful ripping of paper and -- snarled and threw the box across the room. Those watching suspected that the splotches on the box were probably going to make a real mess by morning, but Harmony wasn't waiting around. She stalked out of the lair with a purposeful stride and a growl of "Spike!!!"
Grace looked at dragon. dragon looked at Grace.
"Are you -- thinking --- what I'm thinking?"
"That our Spike boy could be in trouble?"
"Yeah."
"Hmm. Yeah. I suspect Harmony suspects Spike and -- Oh, hell. The boy's in no case to defend himself, is he?" dragon sighed. "Guess we'd best go run clean up." She sighed. And it had been such a lovely shade of blue black hair dye, too.
dragon punched in coordinates and got ready to go back to Sunnydale. Grace looked at her thoughtfully. "Uhm, dragon."
"Yeah?"
"Could I ask you a question?"
"Now?"
"Now."
"OK. Ask."
"How did Riley do the clothing trick?"
dragon looked blank. "Huh?"
RevSam translated. "Riley was in fatigues. Then he was at Buffy's out of them -- er -- well --" she flustered for a moment. "And then he was in fatigues when he tried to catch us," she finished rather hurriedly.
Grace regarded her with a knowing smile. Oh, yes. The thought of Riley out of fatigues was an interesting one. She chuckled. Then she went back to waiting for an answer.
"Not the same night."
"What?"
"Not the same night. We've been operating on two different nights."
"Why?"
"Why not?"
Well, there was that. "So, in other words, it's not your continuity that's messed up. We're not continuous?" Grace ended uncertainly.
"Right. Subjective versus objective. Objectively, two nights. Subjectively, one night and a really fast change artist," dragon finished with a chortle. "C'mon. Spike."
They folded in quietly, which was just as well. Harmony was making enough noise at Giles' residence for any four lurkers. She bounced off the "you're not invited so you can't get in" field again.
"Spike!" she shrieked. "I will kill you if it's the last thing I do! You're dead meat!"
Spike, covering his perplexed concern, sneered at her from the safety of Giles' living room. "I'm already dead meat," he pointed out. "You and what army?"
"I don't need an army. I just need to find you when you aren't expecting me," she hissed at him. It was an unexpected bit of intelligence on her part.
"Uh, Harmony?" dragon cleared her throat and tried adding sound to the words. "Uh, Harmony?"
The blonde vampire whirled to face the quartet, her vampire face a bit less lovely than her normal visage. "What?" She frowned. "Who are you?"
"Friends," Grace spoke up, dragon's voice having gone on hold again.
"Friends? I don't have any friends," Harmony shot back bitterly. "I don't even have Spike." The poor thing sounded close to tears.
"Yes, you do. We just don't live here."
Harmony gave her a skeptical look. "And where do you live?"
"France," the seaQuest piped up with inspiration.
"France? Oh, yeah?" The scepticism was fighting a losing battle with Harmony's yen for France. "Where?"
"Gay Paree, of course," Grace told her. "Just down the Champs Elysee from the Eifflel Tower. A lot of us live on barges on the Seine," she embroidered impetuously.
"Oh. Is it -- is it as --"
"It's wonderful," Grace assured her.
"Except in the summer when the Seine is a little smelly. Then we move into the attics and basements of the Louvre and the Tuilleries (sp?) -- mostly tourists visit then. No one misses the odd American or German -- international cuisine," dragon added. There was that small part of her mind that tried soooo hard to remain rational that was looking at both of them with extreme trepidation, but she was ignoring it. Business as usual.
"Tell me --"
Grace and dragon, one on either side of the young vampire, linked arms with her and spun a tale of France that would have done Dumas good, assuming it didn't set him spinning in his grave, of course. RevSam nodded companionably at Giles who was wondering just what he was looking at. The seaQuest addict tossed Spike a copy of the tape and a couple of bags of donated blood.
"If I had a clue what else you wanted that wouldn't spoil continuity --" she said with a grin and a shrug of her shoulders.
"Thanks." He sounded as petulant as ever, but there was a somewhat pleased look about him. He wondered what the tape was.
Off in the darkness a muffled arguement was going on.
"What????!!"
"Well?"
"But --!"
"Hey, he lives on a barge on the Seine, he's immortal, he doesn't have a babe at the moment ---"
"You're starting a new universe!!!!" Grace squeaked.
"Yeah," dragon agreed, looking pleased. "Oh, for heaven's sake, it's not like HL and vampires haven't crossed paths before in fan fic --"
"But -- but --" Grace sputtered, but she really couldn't think of a thing to say. Well, that wasn't true, but appealing to dragon's prurient interests didn't seem to be quite the thing to do just now. "Then I want Spike!"
"Two hours," dragon shot back matter of factly. She left Grace standing there gaping at nothing as she folded the rest of the crew and Harmony to Paris and a certain dark haired, sword carrying, Scot not exactly of their acquaintance.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Spike looked up from the TV to see a very pretty face at the window. Having caught his attention, Grace motioned for him to join her outside. He looked around. Giles was out of the room. With a shrug, he went out.
"Well, and what have we here?" he asked as he joined her.
"Me Grace, you Spike," she responded with an insousiant grin. "And while I don't think I'm interested in being a vampire, just at the moment, there are a couple of ideas I thought I'd inquire about --"
Spike cocked an eyebrow upward in inquiry. Was the wench suggesting what he thought she was -- The kiss answered that question. Drusilla was demanding. Harmony was -- well, a little dull, actually -- but enthusiastic if basic. Grace seemed to fall somewhere between the two.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Time's up," dragon's voice called all too soon.
"But --"
"What!?" Spike's head came into view behind the shrubbery. "What the hell?"
"Harmony's in France. Grace needs to go home. She's got a plane to catch."
"What!" Grace's head came into view. "But -- but -- the semester! My last paper! My finals!" she wailed as she scrambled back into the catsuit. "What have you -- done --" She sat down abruptly on the floor of her apartment. One of her cats regarded her benignly from the couch as she scrambled toward the nearest time piece. Oh. Whew. dragon, like the ghosts of Christmas, had come and gone within a single night. (Actually, more like a couple of hours, but who was counting?) Grace sighed and sat back down. Her tummy rumbled and the side of her neck itched. She rubbed the two rapidly healing prick marks on the side of her neck and grinned. Now what could she talk dragon into letting her do next time?????
end
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