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Angels and Demons by TalesofSpike
 
Chapter 1.01
 
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The story so far...

Okay, everything went the same way as the show at least as far as Entropy, except for one slight difference. When Buffy had her magical clear out in Gone, instead of throwing everything out, she gave the box to Spike for safe-keeping.

This resulted in a rather different set of events when Spike hit "rock-bottom". By the time he reached the Magic Box, he already knew exactly what spell he wanted and was sobering up in preparation for casting magic. He took some time out to comfort Anya, and while they were indulging in some innocent mutual consolation, Spike wished that Buffy and Xander had the courage to follow their hearts rather than always worrying about what could go wrong all the time. As Anya would say, "wish granted".

Xander got all splotchy and possessive when he saw them dancing at the Bronze on the nerds' cameras, so much so that he whisked Anya off from the Magic Box the next day for a Vegas wedding. (Anya gave her power centre to Xander as a wedding gift, on the proviso that he didn't break it.) Spike cast the "Will Be Done" spell and made three wishes, that Buffy would be honest about her feelings, that she would work out exactly what she really wanted and that she'd really understand his feelings for her.

Before the first two wishes could have too much effect, the third one kicked in, and Buffy found her consciousness hitchhiking in Spike's body for a while, leaving her body conspicuously vacant. Eventually everything got sorted out but not before Buffy found out she'd been jumping to conclusions over the demon egg affair.

This, the insight she had into Spike's feelings and the wish Anya granted, led her to actually give him a decent chance. One thing led to another, and the "ripples" caused by that first change continued to spread outward. The nerds were captured and subdued before they could follow through on their plan for the armoured car heist, so neither Buffy nor Tara were ever shot. Willow never went on a rampage. Instead of the orbs being destroyed, Spike managed to take them from Warren and gave them to Xander as a wedding present. That sort of takes us up to the end of 'Spike's Will Be Done'.

Buffy and Spike are now engaged, something most of the Scoobies have come to accept. Xander, however, is caught up in some inner turmoil about the whole thing. He knows he has to come to terms with the relationship if he wants to remain friends with Buffy. However, he still doesn't trust Spike, and he keeps putting his foot in it.

Things in LA also turned out just a bit differently after Buffy and Spike decided to pay Angel a visit. Spike managed to point out to Connor - Buff and Spikey were introduced to him as Stephen - that Justine's attempt to fake something that looked like a vampire bite wasn't really very convincing. Though he still wouldn't let Angel help with burying Holtz, things certainly weren't so bad between father and son as they would have been. Buffy managed to come to terms with her feelings for Angel, and Spike and Angel managed to part on neutral terms.

Buffy also talked Giles into offering Wesley a job at The Magic Box. Though we don't yet know if he'll take up the offer, he and Spike seemed to get on quite well with each other. Buffy was intending to invite the LA gang to the wedding, but then Dawn pointed out that Angel's presence might be distressing for Giles, so now she's not so sure. Preparations for the wedding, which by then was about two months off, were and still are ongoing.

On other fronts, the gang began to put two and two together from Riley's earlier visit and decided that he must have access to some sort of surveillance on the Scoobies. They also knew, thanks to Buffy being in Spike's head, that the vampire wasn't the Doctor. Once Buffy remembered Sam's comment about working in an infirmary, they began to have their own suspicions. Anya confirmed from Buffy's description that the hatchlings weren't suvoltes, but a relatively harmless scavenger species and that the only reason they would have swarmed was if they were using a pheromone signature to find their mother. As Spike pointed out, the smell wasn't coming from Buffy's underwear, so that only left the clothes Riley had supplied. All things considered, Iowa Boy and Wonder Wife weren't exactly popular, and Spike was getting a bit paranoid. He was even suspicious of Dawn's new boyfriend, a new arrival in town. He also thought that the government knew about Dawn being the key and he was worried that if she showed any sign of being anything more than a normal teenage girl that they could view her as a threat to national security.

Buffy got to meet some of Clem's family, his mother Lily, who is an extremely gifted empath, his niece Rosa and her mother Marie, who is human. When Clem said that it was nearly two years since Rosa's father was killed, Buffy began to suspect that he was a victim of the Initiative. She was also forced to reassess her own actions and who she had become.

Spike also got Giles to investigate any possible occurrences where a vampire and a slayer made a mutual claim, or where a human and a vampire were bonded. At this point Giles' research had been inconclusive, and he warned the pair against making Spike's claim on Buffy (which happened in the heat of passion) mutual until he could research further. Buffy never really was that good at following the watcher's advice, though. As True Colors drew to a close, the couple had done just that and experienced a number of shared flashbacks to scenes of them together, topped off with a seemingly prophetic vision of their wedding reception. The overall effect was similar to what happened when Buffy tasted Dracula's blood.

The day after the claim was made mutual, while on an LA shopping trip Buffy, Spike and Dawn ran into Drusilla. Spike pushed the two girls into a taxi before he left with his former paramour. Unlike Dawn, Buffy believed that he was trying to protect them both and that Spike was in danger. Before events reached their climax, she was proven right, when they discovered that Dru had turned Lindsey McDonald as a gift for Darla, and the lawyer had been turning A list former clients... granting them immortality in exchange for a percentage of their wealth. Dru wanted to get her family back together. Lindsey wanted Spike around to take care of Dru but Angel was not part of the deal so far as he was concerned, though stripping away everyone Angel cared about one by one might have been.

Buffy roped in the AI team (minus Lorne who went missing later the same night as Spike) to help, and Clem and Lily made the trip from Sunnydale to LA to help out getting Spike back.

Lindsey arranged for Spike's chip to be removed at the clinic where they gave the former lawyer his "evil" hand. Dru subsequently tortured Spike.

Thanks to the claim, Buffy suffered from pains similar to but not as intense as those inflicted upon him and at one point when she tried to use meditation to focus on the bond between them, she seemed to be bleeding and passed out, though she didn't actually suffer any physical wounds. The couple also later discovered that the claim allowed Spike to be aware of what was happening from Buffy's point of view if she became involved in a fight, and vice versa, so that one mate would know if the other needed their aid or if they were already together they could fight even more effectively as a team than they ever had, almost thinking as one. They found that when they were both asleep together they would share dreams. They discovered that when they are in physical contact i.e. skin to skin, they can sense each other's emotional state. They also continued to share prophetic visions whenever the claim was renewed... but they didn't find out most of that until some time after Spike had been kidnapped.

His captors held Spike in the same place where Lorne was being held, along with several homeless kids that the vamps had picked up as food supplies. Spike refused to renounce his claim on Buffy, even after Dru burned away the scars with holy water, but she had one more trick up her sleeve. Using a Tabula Rasa spell, Spike was made to forget all his sire's slights and sins. With no memories of anything after he tried to cure Dru and with the chip removed, Spike reverted to his S2 self.

Spike, Dru, Lindsey and the other vamps arrive at The Hyperion ready for all-out war, but Angel had arranged to have the building enchanted with a sanctuary spell that prevented demon but not human violence. Despite the loss of memories, Spike still recognised Buffy as his mate and was half way up the stairs with her when he felt Drusilla's death and, since Dru had been wearing the crystal that was used in the Tabula Rasa spell and it crumbled to dust with her, the return of his lost memories.

Buffy, Spike, Angel, Gunn and Willow borrowed a helicopter from David Nabbitt and saved Lorne and the kids in the nick of time. Spike and Angel bonded over Drusilla's death (at least a little).

Wes came back from LA with Tara and Willow, thinking he could stay for a week or two and decide after that if he wanted to make the move permanent. Spike temporarily moved into Revello so that Wes could have his apartment. Things went a little more smoothly for a while and the biggest problem was having Dawn's boyfriend over for dinner, and dealing with some of Spike's issues, both from his past and from Buffy's treatment of him earlier in their relationship.

Making the most of her new boyfriend, Brandon, Dawn went out for a night at the Bronze with him when she was meant to be at home. Soon she suspected that she'd been drugged and as she tried to get away from Brandon, she was picked up by a military team led by Sam Finn. Brandon, who had also been drugged, was badly injured trying to protect Dawn and if Willow hadn't intervened using magical healing, he would have died in hospital.

As Buffy and Spike returned home from a trip up the coast, Spike was shot at (with bows) by another team, led by Riley Finn, who thought that Buffy needed rescuing from the vampire's thrall. Fortunately, after some previous trouble Spike had borrowed the orbs of invulnerability from Xander and when he discovered that they protected him from the sun's rays he had been reluctant to rush to return them.

Finally, once the soldiers had been overpowered and the two groups compared stories, they worked out that, unknown to Riley, Sam had been the Doctor all along and her most recent experimentation subject was a Key. Appalled at the idea of his wife experimenting on a little girl, Riley, along with Graham and some others, helped Buffy, Spike, Wes and Willow to get her back, though Angel and AI crowd were first to get their hands on Sam.

Fumbling Towards Ecstasy picked up as Dawn began her recovery from the kidnapping ordeal and the Glargh Guhl Kashmanik venom that Sam had injected her with. Sam had reasoned that this would prevent her from being able to tell her story, and also ensure that Buffy would be too busy looking after Dawn to investigate either this or any future dealings she might have in the area.

Dawn knew recovery was not going to happen overnight, but she also knew that Spike had been through a similar ordeal and would be there for her if need be.

Anya tried to induct Wesley into the world of The Magic Box, but it turned out that Clem's widowed sister-in-law, Marie, a lawyer with the DA's office, had a better proposition for someone with a PI licence.

There was a need for an investigator who was aware of Sunnydale's demon population, and Wes found that he should be able to make a living determining the real stories behind the local court cases.

Willow meanwhile decided to help Dawn's healing process, by making it like nothing ever happened. By the time the other Scoobies realised what she planned to do, it was almost too late. However, her efforts to summon a demon who could turn back time were spoiled when the puppy she was using as a sacrifice had a puppy-type accident and washed away part of the circle binding the demon. The freed demon cursed Willow for her arrogance, before going off to have a few drinks and catch up with her old friend Anyanka. Buffy, meanwhile, had Spike using his vampire senses to track down the puppy, partly to salve her conscience and partly as a gift for Dawn to help take her mind off what had happened to her. Enter Rogue as the latest member of what was about to become the Summers/McClay/Giles (the name on Spike's fake papers) household.

The spell was the final straw for Tara as far as her relationship with Willow was concerned but, with only a little nudging from Spike, Buffy asked Tara to stay and threw Willow out instead, saying that the witch had endangered them all again.

Thanks to Anya's catch up session with her friend, the Scoobies discovered that the curse on Willow was such that for each of her actions that failed to meet the Wiccan ideals the witch claimed to espouse, Willow would age so that her decrepitude matched the decay of her soul. However, it was completely reversible. If Willow had actually studied the Wiccan teachings and put them into practice, eventually, she could have atoned for the sacrifice of the doe when she raised Buffy and returned to looking her own age.

Willow, however, preferred to try to use magic to defeat the curse, thereby making it worse, and doing herself no favours when she used magic to keep up her end of term averages despite not having studied. She found herself back home, living in her parents' basement.

Wes moved into the house opposite Buffy's, where the bug man from the Order of Taraka had attacked Buffy's neighbour back in S2, which in this 'verse had been vacant ever since, using it as both his home and the offices for his new business. By the time he found his own place, Giles had arrived to help out with wedding preparations, so Spike stayed in Revello and Giles moved into Spike's apartment.

Lily threw a "Welcome to Sunnydale" party for Wes where she blatantly tried to matchmake between Wes and Marie, though both of them give the outward appearance of being rather gun-shy and Wes was still more than a little in love with Fred. We also got to meet Bee, who lived in the apartment block Marie owns, a ditzy blonde, seldom seen without her Siamese cat, Rupert, following close behind, someone who had a better knowledge of demon languages and demon history than Giles, and a rather low opinion of the council and its lackeys.

Spike fell ill in the way that vampires don't, and Bee was drafted in to help with the research. Wes later tempted her to join him as a junior partner since income from her career as an artist was unreliable.

Spike was convinced that his symptoms were those of a vaudaun curse he'd seen used before, but in the end it turned out that Robin Wood, freshly arrived in town in time to recruit staff for the new high school, had been poisoning all the blood supplies at the various butchers in town, using poison supplied by none other than Quentin Travers.

Willow was first to realise what was going on but she was still smarting from the humiliation of being asked to leave Revello and she decided not to tell the others what was wrong. She did magically alter all the poisoned blood, however, so that it smelled off.

When Tara and Wes performed a spell to see magic they found her "mark" on all the blood but also they discovered that the orbs which Spike has been using for UV protection contained the soul of a famous champion of the Nezzla demons, from whom they were originally stolen by The Trio. The poison was identified as the same one used against Angel back in S3 and Bee enlisted a demon doctor (disclosing to Wesley in the process that she was half demon, her mother being from another dimension while her father was from a family of prominent LA mages) to carry out transfusions to Buffy, Faith (who Angel brought down from LA) and Dawn after they each donated blood for Spike to drink - since the episode on the tower with Glory showed that Dawn's blood and Buffy's is to a certain extent interchangeable - thereby eliminating the risk of Spike draining any of them.

Unfortunately, before they could get that far Spike had disappeared. He had insisted that Buffy should take the orbs when she went to interrogate her former friend about her mark appearing on all the spoiled blood, in case Willow turned out to be dangerous while in her unbalanced state and meanwhile, despite being barely ambulatory as well as delirious and/or seeing The First, he had gone off to have a one-on-one meeting with Wood.

For his part, Wood was under the influence of The First and planned to use Spike's blood to open the seal under the high school construction site. Buffy et al. arrived in the nick of time but only just.

Before Angel went back to LA, Spike was appointed to act as mediator between Giles and Angel. Buffy wanted Angel at the wedding, but not at the expense of ruining the day for Giles. Spike made up a drinking game, the idea behind which was to get Giles and Angel to be honest enough with each other to work out where the true problem between them lay. When it became apparent that Giles blamed Angel for the fact that he was never able to heal the rift between himself and Jenny, Angel suggested that Giles should curse Spike with Jenny's soul.

Meanwhile when Faith, Fred and Gunn walked in on Wes and Marie having a business lunch a friends-pretending-to-be-more-than-that kiss, that started out to spare Wes his obvious embarrassment at seeing Fred, persuaded both Wes and Marie that maybe they wanted more than just friendship.

Back at Spike's apartment all three participants were more than a little worse for wear, and despite Spike's protests the plan was enacted. Once Spike agreed to come out the bathroom (he was a little unhappy at the physical effects that Jenny's feelings for Giles were having on his lower anatomy) the rest of the Scoobies got involved. Giles hypnotised Spike so that he would remain dormant, leaving Jenny's soul in control of his body until either midnight or until Jenny left. He also hypnotised Jenny so that when she heard the town clock strike midnight she would experience true happiness, on the assumption that there was little chance of her reaching that state without that sort of assistance (especially as Spike had insisted that everyone's clothes should remain on at all times). Tara provided a glamour to make Spike's body look and feel like Jenny's and enabled the couple to have one last evening together.

Spike came to on the beach with Giles' tongue in his mouth about an hour before midnight. Fortunately, Tara and Dawn were able to lend a hand talking Spike round when he began to sulk about not being a proper vampire any more and when Buffy got back from patrol she did an even better job of convincing him.





Note: Thanks to my beta t_geyer for her unending patience, perseverance and support.

SECTION 1 - HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO

I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light
He's gotta be sure
And it's gotta be soon
And he's gotta be larger than life

((Jim Steinman wrote it, I think, even though the site where I found the lyrics says it's Bonnie Tyler) - Bonnie Tyler




Chapter 1.01
Friday, May 24th, 2002


"Hurry up!" Dawn insisted. "He's here."

"You want me to hurry up or you want it done right?" Spike snarled back as he used one hand to turn Dawn's head back towards him and hold it steady, while in the other he held a felt-tip style eyeliner. "Look up."

As he swept the pen under her right eye, leaving a thin line of pale, iridescent blue, Faith's voice echoed up the stairs. "Spike, phone. Angel."

"Tell him there's only me, Buff, Bit an' the mutt comin' an' we weren't plannin' on takin' the mutt to the restaurant."

He'd just moved on to Dawn's other eye when Faith shouted again. "He says that's not why he rang. He says he needs to speak to you." Spike frowned at the interruption to his concentration.

"Tell him I'll ring him back, unless... Buffy? You want to go speak to him?" Spike asked his fiancée, who was posing in front of Dawn's mirror, holding up the teenager's prom dress in front of her.

Her lower lip dropped into a pout. "But I've gotta help with her dress."

"Play with her dress more like, an' you won't be doin' anything till I've finished with her make-up, an' since I'll be vacatin' the room before she takes her robe off, I'll can swap with you then. So... bugger off an' see what Grandpa wants like a good girl."

"Buffy," Dawn interrupted. "If you don't go, my eyeballs are going to dry out from all the looking up while I wait for him to finish."

He managed to complete Dawn's eye shadow and mascara before Buffy came back into the room holding the handset.

"He wants to know if you know anything about breaking into places with hi-tech security," she said.

"Ye-ah... when you bust into places with hi-tech security, alarms go off," Spike replied, as he applied a tiny hint of blusher, before moving on to pick up a brush to outline Dawn's lips in a pale almost neutral pink.

"So, you don't know anything about planning how to break into one of these places without setting all the alarms off?"

"I'd lay odds I know at least as much as Mr Straight an' Narrow... Blot." He passed Dawn a folded tissue and waited for her to finish before he applied a second and final coat of lipstick. As he did so, he relayed a question via Buffy. "We talkin' about goin' after his bird or after that horseshoe whatchamicallit?"

"He says the axis and I say why?"

"'Cause the security on summat as is expected to raise thirty-three million is gonna be more than the security on some bint, even if she does have a direct hook-up to The Powers That Want to Screw With Our Lives." Spike took the handset from Buffy, nodding at Dawn as he did so. "All yours. Time I went an' intimidated her date."

"Like you don't, anyway?" Dawn shouted after him as he left the room.

"Talk to me, Peaches." Spike paced at the top of the stairs. Brandon cared about Dawn, he knew, but there were times when he was just a bit too much of an upright citizen for Spike to trust him completely. He listened as his grandsire explained how Fred had managed to track down the photographer who had taken the pictures for the auction house brochure. Some judicious breaking and entering had revealed the location where the shoot had taken place and Fred had then been able to find the shipping company which had delivered it there. If it had been moved again since, then it had been done without the benefit of the same heavy security. Angel had a meeting tonight with a snitch from the firm that installed the alarm system at the location where it was being held. By tomorrow morning he would have the plans. If at all possible, Angel wanted to be ready to move tomorrow night.

"We'll be there early tomorrow. Normally, we'd pile in the car an' drive down tonight, but seein' as how Bitty's been waitin' for weeks to be the belle of the ball, if I didn't let her have her night out, we'd like as not end up with her decidin' to share with me an' Buffy every night instead of just when she has nightmares."

"That happen often?"

"Every other night, give or take a couple, since the thing with Sam. Either us or Glinda."

"Will she be okay on her own at the hotel if everyone else is involved tomorrow night?"

"She'll have the mutt for company, an' to be honest, I'd as soon Buffy had as little part in this as possible, so... What about our little cuckoo in the nest? Want us to bring her? So far as I know she's more of a smash an' grab type than stealth girl, but..."

"No, let her pick up the slack on the patrol side of things. If they catch her going after that thing on top of two murder raps, they'll just throw away the key. I'll have rooms ready for you at the hotel for when you get here. Faith said you're not bringing the witch?"

"She's busy studying. She's got her end of year exams. Won't be done till Wednesday. You think we might need the hocus-pocus?"

"Considering the auction house deals in black market mystical items..."

"Well, I can think of one alternative, seein' as how Rupert's back in Blighty an' if Red so much as tried anythin' like this she'd likely kill herself, but you'd have to be prepared to do some fence mendin'."

"Wesley. Kidnapped. My Son."

"Wesley did what we all do. He took the information that he had available to him and he made a choice. As your friend, he decided that you would rather your son was safe than anything else, even if the danger he had to take the boy away from was you. What happened after he took him wasn't his fault. An' the only thing that won't let you see that is that damn Irish pride of yours. I'd like to think that if Buffy was out of the picture an' he believed I was goin' to hurt Bitty, for whatever reason, that he'd do the same for her. It makes me happier knowin' that there's someone around who's prepared to make the hard choices, even if it means leaving behind every friend he's got... or losin' them when they're too small-minded to even put themselves in his shoes."

"It's not that simple, Spike."

"No? Well, it is this simple. We might need someone who can handle the mojo. Even if we don't need him for the magic, the Watcher can handle himself and that's never a bad thing, not to mention he's not exactly short on the old grey matter. Without Wes the chances of pullin' this off go down. That means the chances of you gettin' the cheerleader back go down, too. So, does she mean more to you an' your crew than some stupid idea you're all carryin' round that what he did was designed to hurt you rather than to safeguard yours and Darla's hell spawn?"

"Would you not refer to my son as hell spawn?"

"Well, last I knew that was the general term for a demon sprog."

"That's... Just don't, Spike."

"Or what? Look, come morning we'll be there. By all means take a while to think it through an' discuss it with Othello an' Desdemona but I sincerely suggest that you get off your high horse an' ring Wes before his dates arrive. So far as I know, his cell's not one of the new ones Buffy bought so it's probably the same one as he had when he worked with you, or I can give you his home number."

"I'll think about it."

Spike looked up as Buffy came out onto the landing, followed closely by Dawn. "You do that. See you in the a.m.!" Spike ended the call and turned his full attention to the ocean-hued vision in front of him.

Even Dawn's nerves couldn't do anything to make her look less than perfect. "You need an arm to lean on goin' down the stairs, pet?"

"And I was hoping you were going to carry me," the teenager teased as she wrapped her arm around his.








Spike taunted the boy mercilessly. "Yeah, so, she's gorgeous? Runs in the family. Now, either shut your mouth or use it to tell her somethin' nice an' give her that corsage before you drop the damn thing."

Brandon blushed and passed the flower in its clear plastic box to Dawn before stuttering a greeting. "Y-y-you were right about the dress. It is something else."

Spike rolled his eyes and drew the boy off to one side. "Look, I know your brain is parked in neutral, or at least it better be, because if you're thinking anything you shouldn't be thinking about a fifteen year old girl, you'll have her big sister to deal with... before or after me, but don't kids these days get the concept of romance? You're supposed to help her put it on an' it's her you're meant to compliment, not the bloody frock.

This thing finishes at one. Even allowing for a queue getting out of the parking lot, I expect you back here at 1.30 latest. An' if I hear that you were anything other than a perfect gentleman..." Just for a second, unseen by the congregated women in the room, Spike let his eyes flash yellow.

"Now, try again."

He spun the boy around to face Dawn, whose nervous fingers were fumbling to open the box the corsage came in, and sent him on his way with a gentle push.

He moved over to where Buffy watched the drama from one side, smiling as her arm slid around his waist even before his own wrapped around her shoulders. She tilted her head back to kiss his cheek. "I hope you scared him good," she whispered, "'cause that really is the killer dress."

"An' a Summers' woman inside it."

"He looks kinda cute in a tux himself, though," Buffy admitted.

"Have I got competition?" Spike asked gleefully.

"Hey! Mom an' dad, less with the makin' eyes at each other and get in the picture," Faith berated them.

"Not without Glinda." Spike pulled the protesting witch with them. "Just give us one of those sweet smiles of yours for the family album."








"Remember, we'll be patrolling the graveyards nearest the school, just in case, so if you see any vampires or devil dogs or flying monkeys or... whatever, you just give us a call and we'll be right there."

"Yes, Buffy, but you know those things only happen to you, right?"

"And if the limo doesn't take you straight there, you call me."

"Buffy, there is no 'Slayer's little Sisterfest'. Chill. The worst thing that's going to happen is if I spill punch down my dress the minute I get there."

Buffy nodded her head. "Well, if you do, and this Kristin is within a ten foot radius of your elbow at the time..."

"Kirsty and I know. Call you."

"And don't lose the earrings or the necklace..."

"Yes, mom."

Buffy's eyes welled up. "She'd be so proud of you. All dressed up."

"And with a date that isn't Faith," Dawn pointed out.

Spike wrapped his arms around Buffy's shoulders and nodded to Brandon. "Better take her an' make a run for it. I'll keep a hold of this one so she can't follow you into the limo."

Buffy's hands reached up to hook over Spike's as she tilted her head back to question her mate. "Are you comparing me to the dog?"

"Nope, just a slightly clingy mother... an' besides it's not like you're the one locked in the basement to stop you drooling on her dress. So, are we actually doing a patrol, or are we just going to find somewhere where we can spy on them all night?"

"It's not spying. We-e-e're just ensuring their welfare. In Sunnydale, these sort of things always seem to attract some sort of demon activity."

"Bit's school isn't in Sunnydale, pet, at least not till next year, if Hard Hat Harris ever finishes building it... Always assuming that you don't want to send her to that nice new Miss Chalmers' School for Gifted Girls that's suddenly decided to open for business."

"Like I'm going to just hand over my sister for Quentin Travers to use as a hostage? Get real. I still can't believe that the Council has owned all these properties around Sunnydale for years and just left them sitting empty, but they can't pay slayers a salary."

"Well, you could say the wannabes are getting scholarships, if you want to look at it like that."

"And Travers is Professor X... I don't think."

"Does that mean I get to be Wolverine?" Spike's mouth twitched briefly into a pout and his left eyebrow went up about a centimetre.

"Nah, you flunk tall and dark."

"As long as I pass on handsome and sexy..." he crooned, tilting his head forward until his lips almost touched Buffy's forehead.

"Yep, you look like you passed when they were giving out handsome and sexy," Buffy pulled away when Spike's hands began to tickle her as punishment.

"That gym could be awash with the demon hordes if you keep distracting me," she pointed out. "All those teenage pheromones... It's like demon Chanel..."

"That's mostly just werewolves." Spike stepped out from under the porch to look at the suspiciously round moon. "Tell me that cousin of Red's Dog Boy doesn't live anywhere near Bit's school."

Buffy simply arched an eyebrow. Spike obviously wasn't aware that the full moon was actually two nights off, but if it meant he was a bit quicker getting ready for their patrol of the school grounds, she wasn't about to let on, at least not before they got where they were going. He picked up his coat from where it was draped over the banister and, finding Buffy's underneath it, held it out for her to put on before donning his own. "Guess I better get the car."

Buffy reached out a hand to stop him. She picked up the keys for his Harley from the hall table, throwing them to him. "The motorcycle's less conspicuous."








"Hello? Like the peroxide freak didn't spell it out simple enough? Don't you want me back?" Cordy paced impatiently as she watched two scenes at once. "Call Wesley, you great big mook," she berated Angel.

"And you lot... You couldn't come to start the planning straight away? You have to do the whole 'Pretty in Pink' routine? It's not like she's running for prom queen or anything..."
 
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