Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Since I have already stolen Drogyn and hopefully given him a better death than Joss did; you won’t be all that surprised that I am playing with the Angel timeline. I’m just borrowing one more character. But I promise to give him back in the same condition I got him in.
 
Dialog taken from “No Place Like Home” by Doug Petrie. Dialog taken from Triangle, written by Jane Espenson
 
Many thanks to my beta No_Promises. The wonderful banner is by 3hours.

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A knock at the crypt door startled Spike out of his slumber. Pulling on his jeans he opened the door to find the tweed brigade standing outside.

“William the Bloody?”

Spike looked over the group standing at his door. There was a timid bint and two big blokes with crossbows right behind her.

“You must be the Watchers. Come in if you’re coming. You’re letting the sun in.”

“My name is Lydia; I’m here to ask you some questions. Mr. Giles informs us that you had a vengeance wish granted against the slayer.”

“Don’t know where you got your info from pet, but I got a vengeance wish granted against all humans not just the slayer.”

“May I ask why?”

“How’d you like it if someone just pops up and punches you in the nose for no reason? I help out when I can and instead of a thank you I get insulted and hit. What kind of white hats are you? I’m sure the watcher told you about my chip but you still come into my home with weapons. So yeah I jumped at the chance to protect m’self from you humans.”

“So everyone in the slayers group hits you? Buffy herself?”

“What’d you want to know? I thought you folks were here to ask me about my wish not question me about the slayer.”

“Yes well Ms. Summers is undergoing an evaluation at the present.”

“For what? She’s the slayer, what does she need with an evaluation?”

“Mr. Travers had some concerns about her abilities.”

“There’s some power mad bint mucking about town and you people are what? Gonna give her an exam? Bollocks.” In a flash Spike grabbed his shirt, duster and boots. Rapidly pulling on his clothes he jumped down to the lower level and made his way through the tunnels to the store.

The three watchers stood in the crypt unsure of what just happened. One after another they left the crypt and made their way back to the shop.

 Spike carefully entered the basement of the Magic Box. He can hear one of them talking to Giles.

“Well, your Slayer's twenty minutes late and counting, Rupert.”

“Buffy will be here, I assure you.”

“Yes, but when?”

The jingling of the bell over the front door announced Buffy’s arrival. Joyce and Dawn are with her. A quick look around shows her all the Watchers standing there, the four Slayerettes are sitting on the upper level, and Travers sitting at the table with a pile of papers spread out in front of him. Giles sits on the stairs leading up to the balcony. Spike is standing next to the basement door.

Travers is the first one to speak. “You're late.”

“Yeah?”

“Was there an attack?”

Buffy responded to Giles inquiry, “Yup.”

“We can begin the review at last. We'll, uh, skip the more obvious questions...” Travers starts speaking again when Buffy comes over to the table, placing both hands on the books in front of Travers. “There isn’t going to be a review.”

“Now listen here!” Travers gets up from his chair and starts moving towards Buffy.

“No you listen. I just had a visit from one of those freaky zombie people. She told me how I was a bug, a flea, how this Kallie person could squash me in a second. Only it never happened. Why? Because they need something from me. Because I have power over her.” Buffy starts walking the length of the shop as she continues speaking. “You guys didn’t come all the way from England to determine whether or not I was good enough to be let back in. You came to beg me to let you back in. To give your jobs, your lives some semblance of meaning.”

One of the watchers stalks forward, “This is beyond insolence.” Spike steps in front of him stopping his progress. “Get out of my way vampire.” Shoving Spike the man suddenly grabs his head moaning in pain.

“You’re watchers, without a Slayer; well you’re pretty much just watching Masterpiece Theater. You can’t stop Kallie. You can’t do anything with the information you have except publish it in the ‘Everyone Thinks We’re Insane-O’s Home Journal’. So here’s how this is gonna work. You’re gonna tell me everything. Then you’re gonna go away. You’ll contact me whenever you have information for me from now on. Giles stays here as my watcher reinstated at full pay…”

A coughing from Giles makes Buffy smile. “Retroactively from the month he was fired. I will continue to work with the help of my friends and allies.”

“I, uh, I don’t want a sharp pain to the head. But civilians, we’re talking about children.” Lydia says as she tries to get past Spike.

“We’re talking about two very powerful witches, a thousand year old ex demon, a master vampire…”

“And the boy? He has no power.” Another watcher interrupts.

“That boy has clocked more field time than any of you combined. He’s part of the unit.” Sitting at the table Buffy crosses her arms and looks directly at Travers. “You all may be very good at your jobs. The only way we’re gonna find out is if you work with me. Take your time and think about it. But I want an answer from Quentin right now, ‘cause I think he’s understanding me.”

“Your terms are acceptable.”

“So what is she? What is this Kallie person?”

“She is a disgraced PTB.”

The reaction from the Sunnydale group ran the gamut from “Bloody Hell and Dear Lord to Holy Crap”

                                                                                                                                §

The next morning all three Summers' women are sitting in the waiting room at Sunnydale General. “What kind of tests are they going to run now mom?” Buffy, never good at just sitting around waiting, was getting impatient.

“Buffy I told you they ran a bunch of tests already. Blood test, CAT Scan, a complete physical. Today they are going to try an EEG.”

“What’s an EEG?” Dawn asked before Buffy could.

The doctor came into the room in time to hear Dawn’s question and he answered her. “It measures brain wave activity.Most of your mother’s other tests came back normal, the CAT Scan was inconclusive, there didn’t appear to be any tumors or injuries to the brain. But since she is still having headaches I ordered an EEG. The entire test will take about an hour and a half.” Escorting Joyce out the door the doctor turned to the two girls sitting in the waiting room. “I’ll bring her back here as soon as she is done.” 

The time went slowly for Buffy and Dawn. Buffy, never blessed with much patience, quickly became aggravated at her sister. “Dawn will you stop popping your gum?!” Dawn blew a large bubble and popped it right in her sister’s face.

“Ugh! Just knock it off when mom comes back alright?”

A few minutes later Buffy could see Joyce making her way down the hallway towards them. “Mom, what did they say?”

“Oh Buffy the test results won’t be ready until later. I just want to get home right now and lay down.” The three made their way out to the car and Joyce quickly drove home.

Dawn and Buffy made Joyce comfortable on the couch and went to make dinner. After dinner the two sisters were washing the dishes when the phone rang. They ran into the living just as Joyce was picking up the phone. As soon as she hung up the two bombarded her with questions.

“Was that the doctor?”

“What did he say?”

“Do they know what’s wrong?”

“Girls! Yes that was the doctor. No they aren’t sure what’s wrong. The test showed some minor spikes and they want me to come back for a longer test. They want to put me on a portable one for a few days to get a better reading. I have to go back tomorrow to get it set up.”

“What does that mean minor spikes?” Buffy sat down next to Joyce.

“They’re not sure. It could be any number of things at this point. We’ll find out more after the test is done.”

Both girls reluctantly went back to washing dishes still worried about their mother’s health.

After settling her mom and sister into bed Buffy went to join the gang downstairs. Before the council left they had given Giles all the information they had on Kaledena.

“So Giles what does it say?” Buffy asked as she sat on the couch.

“From what the Council's been able to discover from the book of Tarnis and, and, and other sources Kaledena is an Ethereal disgraced PTB, she opposed giving free will to humans and demons when they were created. She caused quite a few problems and the other PTB couldn’t kill her so they banished her. The Powers thought she would be stuck there forever so they didn’t use the key to seal her in the Deeper Well. The key was given to the monks to safeguard. The Keeper of the Deeper Well discovered that Kaledena had escaped, he warned the monks and they sent the key to the slayer to protect and use to permanently banish Kaledena. If the key is used to open a portal to a specific dimension Kaledena can trapped with no escape and once it is closed it can never be opened again. The dimension will be sealed for all time. Therefore Kaledena wants the key. She wants to destroy it so she can never be sent there.”

“Great googly moogly.” Xander sputtered from his position on the couch.

Giles starts polishing his glasses after Xander’s outburst. “Yes well. It says that Kaledena needs to feed off humans to survive. The only thing left after she eats is their bones and the bones look like they have been buried for a long time. They don’t look like the bones of the recently deceased.”   
 
Buffy’s voice cut into Giles explanation. “So she did kill that night watchman.” At the confused looks from the group Buffy elaborated. “The night I found the Dagon Sphere. There was a night watchman. The next day his body was at the hospital when mom got sick. He was just bones and clothes.”
 
The meeting broke up shortly after that. Giles, Willow and Tara were going to work on finding out exactly what the glow ball was for. Along with looking for information on how exactly Dawn could perform the ritual needed to send Kaledena to a locked dimension.
 
The next evening Buffy and Dawn went with Joyce back to the hospital. Joyce was getting hooked up to a portable EEG machine that she would have to wear for a few days. Spike was on his way to the Magic Box. With Buffy at the hospital with her mother Spike was supposed to patrol with Giles and Willow. A few blocks from the shop Spike saw a strange woman with a group of people surrounding her. He was about to charge over thinking the woman was in danger when he saw her place her hand on the head of one of the men standing around her. She seemed to be saying something as the man swayed slightly. A dark shadow passed from her hand into the man’s head. As he watched she repeated the same gestures on another person standing with her. The rest of the group appeared mesmerized by her and stood there not noticing the passerby’s or the traffic on the street.
 
As the woman continued to work her way through the group Spike realized she must be Kaledena. Figuring he could take her out, Spike ran silently towards her, at the last second one of the newly be-spelled yelled a warning to Kaledena. She turned and tossed Spike through the air with such force he crashed into the side of a building leaving a vampire shaped dent in the brick work. Moaning in pain Spike threw a few punches at the disgraced PTB only to have each punch blocked and returned with a force he hadn’t been expecting. Deciding to run before he received some serious damage he took off down an alley and made his way to the shop.       
 
When he entered the store Tara was seated at the research table doing her homework and Anya was standing behind the register. “Spike! What happened to you?” Tara was the first to notice his battered face.
 
“Ran into that Kaledena bint. She’s making more followers. I think we need to leave. She’s only a few blocks from here.”
 
“Let’s take care of those cuts first.” Tara led Spike into the training room to help him clean up. “Willow and Giles should be here soon. We’ll let them know what happened.” The blond Wicca said as she cleaned the cut over Spike’s eye. Both of them heard the tinkling of the bell over the front door. As Tara rose from the couch she and Spike were sitting on, some of the blood that she had been cleaning off of Spike got on her hand. Opening the training room door she saw her girl friend, Xander and Giles enter the store. She felt something off about all three as soon as she saw them. Shifting her focus she looked at them and carefully checked their auras. What she saw worried her. They were covered with a dark shadow blanketing their auras. Tara quickly looked at Anya to make sure the ex-vengeance demon hadn’t been affected. Seeing that Anya’s aura was still clean she made her way over to the girl, closing the door to the training room behind her.
 
Walking slowly Tara carefully picked a few items off the shelves as she passed placing them in the pocket of her skirt. She knew that this was bad, whatever it was that changed the others aura’s had to have a lot of power. Power of the bad kind so Tara listened to her inner voice and took the items her hand touched.
 
Interrupting Anya’s attempt to have a sexually laced conversation with Xander, Tara asked Anya to help her in the training room. Casually picking up the Dagon Sphere from the table the two women made their way to the back room. “We need to go. Right now.” Tara said in a hushed whisper as soon as she closed the door behind them.
 
“What’s up Glinda?”
 
“Giles, Xander and Willow just walked into the store. There is something wrong with them. Their auras are all wrong. Instead of yellows and pinks and blues they’re all dark blacks and browns. Something has messed with them.”
 
“That Kaledena bird. When I saw her before she was doing something to those people. I saw a dark shadow pass from her to the person she was touching.”
 
“But we need to rescue Xander!” Spike immediately put his hand over her mouth to keep her quiet. “We can’t leave him here. I just got over him being turned into a bunny we were supposed to have orgasms tonight.”
 
“Sorry gotta run. I can’t fight her and if she got her hooks into them she can control ‘em and see what they see.” Dragging the two women behind him Spike took off out the back door. Tara’s gasping breath a few blocks later was the only thing that made Spike stop. The Wicca was bent over trying to catch her breath. Standing up she wiped the hair off her face that had gotten stuck to her skin smearing some of Spike’s blood that was still on her hand into her mouth.