Buffy awoke with a startled gasp, her consciousness slamming into her body. She felt like someone had immersed her in a bucket of ice, her skin clammy. She took a deep, shuddering breath, her body shaking with exhaustion. Her arms tightened reflexively Anne as she recalled the seductive pull of the mist, the malevolent whispers of loneliness and despair. She glanced down at her daughter, alarm racing through her.

Anne was breathing deeply and slowly—too slowly. Buffy nudged her and called her name, trying to wake her up. Nothing. Anne was an abnormally light sleeper; thoughts of the chilling mist flooded through Buffy as she shook and pleaded with her daughter to wake up.

Dawn burst into the room, William crying on her hip at all of the noise. Anne’s eyes popped open and she drew in a loud breath.

“Oh God! Oh baby girl,” Buffy gasped, tears streaming down her face. “I was so scared.”

Anne let her mother hold her in a hug that would have cracked the ribs of any other child; but everyone has their limits, and Anne soon began struggling for her freedom.

“I was so worried, I thought you had…it had…” Dawn watched the scene, mystified as to what had happened. Will had quieted down and was looking at his sister with an oddly knowing expression. Buffy had some weird kids. Buffy was running her hands all over her daughter, checking for wounds or injury.

“I was just saying bye to Daddy,” Anne sulked. Dawn bit back an exclamation; Buffy would tell her everything in time. “And I got to see his friends.”

“What friends?” Dawn asked.

“A pretty girl and a funny green demon-man. His eyes were red, it was like Christmas!” Dawn slowly shifted her gaze to her sister’s eye. Anne couldn’t possibly mean… Dawn almost took a step back when she saw the look on Buffy’s face, the one normally reserved for patrols and ex boyfriends.

Buffy needed to kill something. Now. Because she’d just realized why that hallway she’d chased Spike down in her dream had seemed so achingly familiar…

***

Joyce was just finishing up the dishes when the doorbell rang. Assuming it was one of Rupert’s over-eager minions, she decided to sneak up the back stairs. Just as she began climbing, an unexpected sound reached her ears.

“Mommy!”

“Grandma!” Joyce found her arms full of excited granddaughter. “Surprise! We’re in Engyland!” Joyce laughed, bouncing Anne in her arms.

“You’re so big!” Anne giggled, proud of herself. Joyce thought sadly about how fast they grow up, thinking to her young son who had better be out of bed by now. She sent Anne to bother her uncle while the adults got down to business.

“I gather this isn’t a social call?” Giles asked, eyeing his children. Joyce and Giles were momentarily taken aback by the heat and coldness in Buffy’s eyes. Giles sat up straighter, an equally telling sign that they were now dealing with the Slayer.

“Dawn and I are headed to L.A.,” Buffy growled.

***

“Do you know yet?”

“No.”

Pace, pace, pace, sigh, pace, pace.

“Do you know yet?”

“No.”

Pace, pace, pace, mumble, untranslatable British swear word, fiddle with pen.

“Do you know yet?”

“NO!” Fred was doing her best to ignore him, as well as Lorne, who was watching the two of them and taking amused notes on a legal pad he’d stolen, muttering something about this making a great movie. These conditions were not conducive to data analysis, especially when the bleached moron she was seriously considering not helping interrupted—

“Do you know yet?”

“I DO NOT KNOW. I AM TRYING TO FIND OUT. So please—sit down and shut up, or walk through a wall!” Lorne smothered a laugh, his hands fling over the paper. “AND YOU! Unless I get credit as a consultant…out! Both of you! Now! Go!” The two males backed out of the room, trying hard to keep their amusement at bay.

“Kitten’s got claws,” Spike observed with a smirk. Fred blushed, but kept shooing them out. “I think I like it.” Fred blushed even more, before slamming the door closed. She could hear Lorne laughing thru the door, so she gave it a vicious little kick.

Three hours later, she was staring at her screen in amazement. She’d done it. Well, she hadn’t actually done it-done it yet, but she had a working, proven mathematical equation (that needed just the slightest mystical tweaking to hold all of the variables in stasis). It was…genius, if she did say so herself. And on top of it, she’d proven several theoretical principles about reality and the nature of the nonphysical world.

Spike’s solidness had proven temporary, but it had allowed Fred to get all sorts of interesting readings as he faded back to his ghost-ish state. The answer to Spike’s condition had been apparent after she’d analyzed the data. Spike was slightly out of synch with the physical world, just enough that he had to really charge and stimulate his particles in order to move objects. But now that she’d seen the transformation from solid ‘real’ being to ghosty being, she could replicate the conditions and make his solidness permanent. And she was almost positive she had everything in the lab that she needed…

***

Angel growled as his informant relayed Fred’s breakthrough to him. The chameleon demon shrank back as Angel growled low in his throat, his eye bleeding to gold, feral and dangerous. As an outlet for his rage, Angel began systematically destroying everything in the room, not even noticing when the demon slunk out of the room.

Angel heaved his desk into the wall, watching dispassionately as shards of wood flew everywhere. His chest was heaving with unneeded breath, his rage stimulating long-suppressed habits. He hated showing anything. He needed to calm down before he dealt with his meddling employee; if he really taught her he kind of lesson he wanted to, people would start asking questions.

Fred joined a couple of wires, blearily checking the readout. She’d been working non-stop since she’d figured out how to (maybe) bring Spike back into the world. If she kept going, she’d be finished by morning. If all of her readings were correct, then Spike was just slightly out of synch with reality; not enough to do any serious harm, and well within acceptable power-use limits to bring him back. Strong emotion could make him solid for a short amount of time—like Spike’s ability to move small objects and annoy the living hell out of absolutely everyone. But Fred had to wonder at the power of a connection that had made Spike corporeal for a good fifteen minutes. That kind of love, was just…

Fred cried out as two wires shocked her, her distraction causing them to burn her fingers. She stuck them in her mouth to sooth the burn.

“Fred?” She jumped sky high, her heart thudding rapidly in her chest. She briefly caught a strange look in Angel’s eye when she first turned around, but it was gone before she could fully explore it.

Angel took a deep breath, taking what pleasure he could in the girl’s fear. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” Fred wondered why that had a ring of untruth to it. When she pulled herself back, Angel was staring at her expectantly.

“Oh. No, I-I’m fine. I’m just…building an experiment. All wrapped up, you know me. Not sure if it will work, but I’m hoping so. I think it will make a lot of people happy.” Looking at Angel, Fred was pretty sure that Angel would be the exact opposite of happy.

Inside, Angel was seething. She thought she could lie to him, did she? Instead of dealing with her continued insubordination, he plastered on a concerned smile and glanced pointedly at the lab’s atomic clock.

“It’s a little late. You look like you could use some sleep…don’t want to mess up your big experiment because of carelessness, do you?” Fred glanced at the clock and was shocked to see that it was five in the morning. She felt drained and dead tired.

“I must have lost track of time.” Angel nodded his encouragement, and Fred smile thinly. “I think I’ll crash in one of the guest suites.” Angel played the gentleman and escorted her to the elevators. Once she was safely away, he went back into the lab to look at the machine he was building. He suppressed the urge to smash it to pieces. That would be far too obvious. He walked around the contraption several times, taking in every detail, every piece of wiring. He looked at the sketchy schematics. He finally removed a tiny little piece from the inner workings that was easily overlooked and would affect the entire experiment. Maybe even kill Spike for good in the process if he was lucky. Smiling, Angel slipped the small crystal into his pocket and strode off, considerably happier and smugger than when he came in.