“What are you doing here?” she asked him, still too shocked to move.

“I live here,” he replied, equally as shocked.

It wasn’t everyday you woke up with your ex girlfriend, or whatever she’d been to him, in your arms. Maybe Katie was right. Maybe he did drink too much.

“What…?”

Buffy took a look around the room and realized she wasn’t at her home. Instead she was in a room that she had never seen before. Her eyes returned to his and he shared her look of confusion.

“How?”

“Took the words right out of my mouth, pet.”

What had happened? Buffy wracked her brain for memories of last night. She was working late. Then Mandy had come to her office to tell her to go home and then…Her mouth dropped open. The spell. Mandy had done a spell to send her home. But she wasn’t home, now was she?
The spell had been in Latin. But not the whole spell. Not the last part. What were the words she used? She felt slightly sick at her stomach. Into the arms of the man who loved her most.

“Are you alright?” Spike asked.

Her face had gone pale all of the sudden and her eyes wide. “I'm not sure.”

She looked down and realized her hand was still on his chest. She quickly pulled it away and scooted back on the bed. She looked down at herself. She was still in her clothes from the night before. He, however, was shirtless and her eyes wandered down to the edge of the sheet and she wondered if he was naked. She turned her head away as bad thoughts entered her mind. Spike sat up in the bed and ran a hand through his hair.

Why was the slayer here? She didn’t seem to know any more than he did. He didn’t remember seeing her last night, so how had she ended up in his bed?

“Mandy.”

“Pardon?”

She looked back at him. “Mandy. She’s this witch…in training. She did a spell last night. A transportation spell.”

“Okay?” he said, still not understanding what she was trying to say.

“She did a spell. To send me…” she stopped. She couldn’t tell him the truth when she didn’t even want to admit it to herself. “Into the arms of…my…..ex-vampire lover.”

He raised an eyebrow at that.

“I guess she didn’t know I had more than one. And since you were more of a…lover…I guess it sent me here.”

He nodded slightly. “And why did she do this spell?”

“I was working late and I was too tired to drive home so…she offered to do the spell and I said okay, thinking I would be in bed sooner.”

“Well, you were. Just not the one you were expecting.”

“Right.” Definitely not what she was expecting.

They both sat there awkwardly for another minute or so, not knowing what to say.

“So…you want some breakfast?”

---------------------------
Rupert Giles was a lot of things, but extremely patient was not one of them. It was almost noon and Janie, one of his newer watchers, hadn’t gotten him the finance report he needed. Opening the new watcher’s council had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now he was starting to regret it. It had taken a lot more time and effort than he’d originally anticipated, and it seemed he could never get any of his employees to get anything done on time. Willow was doing a pretty good job teaching her students, but some of the young witches still managed to blow up half of his buildings. And Buffy…he worried about her. She was running her class smoothly, but she just never seemed to be entirely focused. He hadn’t thought it was a good idea for her to work there to begin with, but the slayer had insisted that it was what she wanted to do.
He still couldn’t quite believe that she was getting married. She was like a daughter to him and it seemed like only yesterday that she was a teenager who was simply trying to graduate high school and stay alive. She’d asked him to give her away, and when she had, they had shared a laugh, both secretly knowing that was not the only time she had ever asked him that. Strangely, it had less effect this time. And though she seemed happy with her new life, there were times when Giles believed that the girl missed her old life, Sunnydale, and everything they had left behind.

But he never said anything, of course.

Instead, he tried to focus on work, which was not a hard job. There was always something going on that needed to be tended to. He stared at the computer screen that now seemed to be frozen still. He still hated the bloody things, and rarely found them useful. Hopefully, Janie would know how to fix it. A knock on the door pulled his attention away from the computer.

“Angel, I wasn’t expecting you today,” Giles said when he saw him standing in the doorway.

“Is Buffy here?” he asked, coming to stand by Giles’ desk.

“She isn’t with you?”

“No, I haven’t seen her since yesterday morning.”

Buffy had been headed off to work when he’d seen her last, promising to return home for dinner. She’d called him, however, around seven and said she had some paperwork to finish and would be home late. So he’d waited for her, but eventually fallen asleep. When he’d woken up this morning, she was still not home. He tried her phone, but it went straight to voicemail. Angel knew he really had no reason to be worried, she could handle herself, but she always answered her phone when he called, or at least called him back.

“That’s unusual. Have you checked her office?”

“I checked her office, Willow’s office, and the training room. She wasn’t there.”

Giles took off his glasses and rubbed his eyelids. “Did you try calling her?”

“Yeah, she didn’t answer. I’ve left two messages already.”

A small knock was heard from the door.

“Mr. Giles? I have those reports you wanted.” Janie walked into the room and over to the desk, laying the papers down.

Giles replaced the glasses onto his face. “Thank you, Janie.”

The young girl smiled and turned to leave.

“Janie,” Angel called after her.

“Yeah?”

“Have you seen Buffy?”

“No sir, not since last night.”

“Alright thanks.”

She nodded and walked out of the room.

Angel turned back to Giles. “Well, if you here from her, tell her to call me.”

“I will.”

He turned and walked out, closing the door behind him. Giles sighed. At one time he might have had an idea of where his slayer could be, but now he wasn’t sure. But she would go home eventually. He turned his attention back to his computer and realized that it was still frozen. And Janie was gone.

“Bloody hell.”

This was going to be a long day.

----------------------
“I didn’t know you cooked.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Spike said over his shoulder.

“So it seems.”

Buffy was seated at Spike’s small kitchen table, watching him cook bacon. It was more than a little strange, watching a vampire cook breakfast.

“So, what have you been up to?” she asked as casually as she could. What were they supposed to talk about? They hadn’t seen each other and years and suddenly they wake up together one morning.

“Not much. I have a job.”

Spike got a job? Vampires didn’t have jobs. “Oooh. Where at?”

“The hospital. I'm a nurse.”

Buffy’s eyes widened. “What?”

“I'm joking, pet. I make deliveries. Overnight deliveries.”

“Deliveries to where?” she asked, suspiciously.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Yes, in fact, I would.”

He laughed. “I deliver packages to shady parts of town no one else wants to go to.”

“So, you’re like a UPS guy?”

He gave her an evil look. “I don’t wear brown.”
She smiled and he turned back around.

“How do you like your eggs?”

“Scrambled.”

Buffy looked down at the coffee mug in her hands. She held her left hand out slightly, looking at the ring on her finger. The ring that meant she was to be married in two weeks.

“So you and Angel, eh, pet?”

Her gaze shifted to him. “How did you…?”

“Still a vampire, luv.”

Oh yeah. He was still a vampire, and that meant he could still smell other people on her. Still gross.

“Right. And yeah. We’re together. Getting married.” The words sounded oddly wrong coming out of her mouth. Maybe it was because she was talking to Spike. She never felt right talking about Angel in front of him.

So they were getting married. Of course they were living happily ever after, him being human and all. Spike was still slightly bitter about Angel getting the prophecy, even after he signed it away to the Senior Partners. Why he deserved it was beyond Spike. He hadn’t seen either one of them in a while, but knowing they were betrothed still bothered him. But he couldn’t let her know that.

“Hmm.”

“What?”

“Nothin’, I just wasn’t sure it would ever work out,” he said, without ever turning away from the food on the stove.

“And why is that?” she wanted to know.

“Because you’re too much alike. You both have this thing about saving the world and helping the helpless. You have to do the right thing all the time. I thought you were over that.”
“You can’t get over being a slayer.”

“No, but you can get over thinking that every bad thing that happens is somehow your responsibility.”

He was facing her now. “You spend all this time helping people, but for what? What has this world ever done for you?”

‘Given me a fiancé and a life that makes me happy,’ she wanted to say, but couldn’t. Maybe it was because she knew it would still hurt him, or maybe it was something else. Something that had to do with the spell that had sent her here. But she couldn’t think about that.

“Don’t get me wrong, I help out people from time to time, but I don’t revolve my life around that. I live the way I want. Do what I want, when I want. When was the last time you did something…exciting or dangerous?”

“I don’t have time for exciting.”

“Maybe you should make time, Slayer. You only live once. Well, unless you’re me.”

“Maybe I like my life just the way it is.”

“I doubt that. No offense, luv, but you don’t seem like the suburban white picket fence type.” He put the bacon, eggs and toast on the plates he’d set out and brought them over to the table.

“I can be white picket fence girl.”

“Can you?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes,” she replied defensively, picking up a piece of toast and biting off a corner.

“Alight then.”

How dare he say she wasn’t meant for a normal life, with a yard and kids and a dog. Well, he hadn’t said those words exactly, but it’s what he’d meant. She could be normal. Even after all this time he was still the same. Always making her think about things that she really didn’t want to think about, and making her doubt her choices. But starting a life with Angel was a good choice. It was what she wanted more than anything…wasn’t it? She internally scolded herself for letting Spike’s doubt about their relationship get to her. What did it matter if he thought they weren’t right for each other? Of course he would say that.

Her mind returned to the spell, and those dreadful words Mandy had spoken. Send her into the arms of the man who loves her most in this world. She picked up her coffee to swallow down the knot forming in her throat. The spell hadn’t worked right. Of course it hadn’t. It couldn’t have.

“So what are we gonna do about this?” Spike asked, pulling her out of her daze.

“About what?”

“About you…here.”

Buffy shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I need to call home and let everyone know I'm okay, but…”

“You don’t want them to know you’re with me.”

“It’s not that, it’s just…”

“Peaches wouldn’t like it.”

She had to agree with that. He most certainly wouldn’t like it. Especially when he found out about the spell. She would have to make sure that didn’t happen.

“Can I use your phone?” she asked.

“No.”

“Oh…”

“I mean, no as in, I don’t have one. Well, I had one, but it got…broken.”

She gave him a curious look.

“Long story. But there’s a payphone at the diner down the street.”

She nodded. “I may have to go down there. I'm gonna have to get someone to send me money or something to get back home.”

“You could always have Macy do another spell.”

“Mandy. And no thanks. I’ve had enough spells for a lifetime.” She took a bite of her eggs.
They were surprisingly good.

Spike smiled slightly. “I have money. I can spot you some to get a plane ticket if you want.”

“No, I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

“You don’t have to ask. I'm offerin’.”

She really didn’t feel right about borrowing money from him, but he had offered, and she did really need to get home. Plus, it wasn’t like he’d stolen it or anything. He had earned it, at his…job.

“And you really don’t mind? I’ll pay you back, when I get back to my money.”

“You still worry too much.”

“And you still eat people food, which is really good by the way.”

“You doubted my cooking, didn’t you?”

“No…”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Okay yes. But I’ve never seen you cook anything. And don’t you need so much blood a day or something?”

“Yeah, I suppose you could say that.”

“And yet you eat bacon.”

He laughed. “True, but only because I like it. And this,” he said pointing at his coffee cup, “is not coffee.”

Buffy scrunched up her nose. She had forgotten about the vampire’s love of drinking blood out of coffee mugs.

They talked while they finished their breakfast. Spike told Buffy more about how he’d ended up in Atlanta, Georgia, and she told him about her life at the council. She realized as she talked, that there was somewhat of a routine to her life. She got up, went to work, came home, and went to bed. There was of course a little excitement thrown in some days, but, as Spike put it, her life was boring. She hadn’t had to avert any apocalypses in years, and even on the weekends, she just stayed home. They didn’t talk much about Angel, and every time she mentioned him, Spike would make a face showing he had no interest in how the ex-vampire was doing.

After they finished, they headed to the living room.

“I'm gonna go take a shower,” Spike told her. “I’ll be out soon and then we can go down to the airport if you want.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

It was odd how they seemed to be acting like they’d seen each other every day for five years. Their conversation still came easy and the initial shock had turned into a sense of familiarity and comfort.

Buffy took a seat on the couch. She considered walking down to the pay phone, but decided it may just be better to call from the airport when she was on the way home. They would be worried, but she would be at the airport in an hour or so.

Spike had been gone about fifteen minutes when she heard someone at the door. She turned and looked at it. The knob was rattling around as if someone were trying to get in. She stood up from the couch and started towards it. She readied herself for whatever might walk through the door. It was nearing noon, but one could never be too careful. The door finally swung open and Buffy found herself face to face with a woman; a tall, brunette woman. She was carrying a large box that prevented Buffy from seeing her face.

“A little help here,” she said in a strained voice.

Buffy walked over and took the box from her hands and sat it easily on the kitchen counter.

“Thanks bab…you’re not Spike,” the woman said, giving Buffy a strange look.

“No, I'm not.”

The woman looked around. “Am I in the right apartment?”

Before Buffy could answer, the bedroom door opened and a shirtless, and still slightly wet, Spike came out. The woman looked at him and then let out a sigh of something resembling relief.

“Good, I thought I went into the wrong apartment again,” she said, walking over and placing a kiss on his lips.

Buffy felt a twinge of…something…at the display but pushed it down.

“I see you’ve met Buffy,” he said to her.

“Actually no, we haven’t officially introduced ourselves. But she did help me with the TV. She’s pretty strong. I had to get the doorman to carry it to the elevator for me. I like to have never got it down the hall.”

He smiled at her and then looked at Buffy. “Well then, Katie, this is Buffy, Buffy, this is Katie, my girlfriend.”

“Nice to meet you, Buffy,” Katie said, holding out her hand.

Buffy looked at the outstretched hand a moment before taking it. “You too,” she said.

Katie smiled. “How do you two know each other?” she asked.

“We used to work together,” Spike told her. “Back in California.”

“Oh,” she said, nodding her head.

It was clear that she was slightly bothered by another woman being in her boyfriend’s apartment, and said boyfriend having appeared to just have gotten out of the shower. But…Buffy…didn’t appear to be damp at all, and she had told herself long ago that she wouldn’t be the jealous girlfriend. If Spike wanted to have, pretty, blonde, female friends, then so be it.

Something about the way he had made it sound so…casual…’we used to work together’…annoyed the slayer slightly. They had done more than just work together. Although, that had been almost exactly what she herself had told Wood when he’d asked the same question years earlier.

“She’s just…visiting. Right Buffy?”

“Right,” she agreed, wondering if the girl knew anything about slayers and vampires. Had Spike even told her he was a vampire? Surely she would have been able to figure it out.

“That’s nice,” Katie said.

The three of them stood there, all trying to figure out what the others were thinking. Finally, after a few minutes, Spike spoke up.

“So, you got the telly?”

“I did.” Katie walked over and put a hand on the box. “And you’ll be happy to know that it was on sale.”

Spike walked over and looked at it. “And it’s high def?”

“Of course.”

“That’s my girl,” he said, placing a kiss on her neck.

“You know it.”

The uncomfortable feeling returned and Buffy looked all around the apartment, everywhere but at them. There was no reason why she should be feeling like this. What did it matter if Spike had a girlfriend? She was getting married, for God’s sake.

“Now why don’t you finish getting dressed and we can put it in.”

“I can’t,” Spike said, and her face fell.

“Why not?”

“I have to help Buffy. She…” he searched his mind for a plausible explanation. “got mugged this morning.”

Buffy almost laughed at that.

“Oh my God, are you okay?’ Katie asked.

“I’ll be fine,” she said, though she still wasn’t sure that she would be.

“That’s terrible.”

“Yeah, but uhh…anyway, they stole her money and now she doesn’t have enough for a plane ticket home so I was gonna take her down to the airport and buy her one.”

“That’s nice of you.”

“I'm a nice guy.”

Katie smiled. She did that a lot, Buffy
noticed.

“Alright then. I guess I could go do some more shopping while you’re doing that. I think my mom wanted to go to Dillards.”

“Cause the woman needs more stuff.”
She slapped him playfully on the arm. “I'm gonna tell her you said that.”

Buffy gave Katie the once over. She was pretty, no doubt about that. And her slight southern accent was nothing shy of charming.

“Well, I hope you make it home safe, Buffy.”

“Thanks, me too.”

“I’ll see you tonight, baby.” Katie gave Spike a final kiss before leaving.

“She’s nice,” Buffy commented.

“I think so,” Spike said, heading back to his bedroom.

“Does she know?”

“Know what? That she’s a necrophiliac? Yeah.”

Buffy laughed lightly. Who wasn’t?

--------------------
“You still haven’t heard from her?’ Dawn asked.

“No,” Angel said, sitting back down on the couch.

“That’s not like her. Something has to be wrong.”

“Let’s not assume the worst. She can take care of herself.”

Though it seemed as if he were trying to convince Dawn not to worry, he was really trying to convince himself. He worried a lot more now than he used to, and he often wondered if it had something to do with being human.

Dawn had shown up at the council twenty minutes before to meet Xander. Angel had called earlier to see if she knew where her sister was, but she hadn’t even spoken to her since Tuesday. She had been extremely busy with an assortment of things. At first she hadn’t been worried, but no one had heard from the slayer since the night before.
The door to the room opened and they both stared at the young girl who walked in.

“Hey, Janie said you wanted to see me.”

“Yeah. Giles told me you talked to Buffy last night.”

“I did,” Mandy replied.

“Did she say if she was going anywhere before she came home? Was she going to patrol?”
Mandy gave him a strange look. “No, she was tired. She just wanted to go straight home. Why?”

“She never came home last night.”

Mandy’s eyes widened. “What do you mean she never came home? She wasn’t there when you woke up?”

Angel shook his head no.

“Oh shit.”

So the spell hadn’t worked. Buffy had not gone home. But she had gone somewhere. Mandy looked guiltily at the pair in front of her. How was she going to explain this to Mr. Giles?