Author’s Note: Thanks to Kar for the beta job and to my readers for their reviews and patience.



“Trying to kill you, you say?”

“Well, they kept making me live the same hour of my life over and over again. And they stole a diamond. Oh, and also, they made me invisible, which almost turned me into pudding!”

She could tell Giles was not buying it, and then his forehead furrowed. “Stole a diamond? From the museum?”

“Yes!” she replied, relieved that he had made a connection.

He removed his glasses. “That has remained an unsolved mystery.” He sighed. “I shall try to keep an open mind and see what evidence I can gather without alerting the others.”

“Thank you,” she sighed, giving him a wan smile. “I don’t know if they’d believe me.” She took a deep breath. “It’s… it’s really nice having you around.”

He slid his glasses back on and gave her a look, but let it drop. “I’ll talk to the others. Perhaps you should consider giving the robot a second chance. She’s been extremely useful in hiding Buffy’s condition from the demon community.”

“I’m sure she’s been useful for a lot of things,” she snipped.

“Did I do something wrong?” The robot was standing in the doorway, looking as forlorn as it was possible for a plastic person to look, Buffy figured. “I didn’t mean to.”

"Is that what Warren programmed you to say when the real you gets mad?" she asked archly. Buffy thought she caught the ghost of a smile cross her watcher's face.

"I was initialized with a number of scenario response scripts, however my programming has evolved over time as I learn from experience."

“So, what was your, like, original mission?”

The robot drew herself up proudly. “I am to pretend to be the real me, so that both people and demons will mistake me for real me, in order to protect real me and her family.” Her face fell a little. “But I should not make Spike think I am real me, not ever again, or real me will have us both scrapped.”

Well, wasn’t that just… gross enough to be exactly what it sounded like, Buffy concluded. Giles was furiously cleaning his glasses, so obviously she wasn’t misinterpreting.

“You may go back inside,” the watcher said.

“I still think she’s a spy-bot,” Buffy insisted.

Spike stepped onto the porch before Giles could reply. He was dressed differently, like he was going out for a nice dinner. “Red’s got a notion,” he reported to Giles before abruptly pushing the baby into her arms. “I’ll be back as soon as this sodding thing is over with. Bot’ll take patrol.”

Buffy tried to find some comfortable way to position the warm, sleeping girl in her arms. “Where are you going?”

“Show at the gallery. Can’t be missed lest the world come to an end,” he practically growled at her before stomping off toward Mom’s old car.

Giles grace her with an amused smile. “Anya adores Celia. I’m certain she would be happy to assist you.”

Buffy let out a little whimper, wondering which prospect was worse: the possibility of having to hear the words orgasm and Giles in the same sentence or trying to figure out infant care on her own. She laid the baby against her shoulder. It was nice feeling the little girl’s breath on her skin.

It was probably the closest she’d get to holding a kid of her own, she mused. She noticed Giles smiling at her in that fond way of his and felt a sudden impulse to cuddle the girl tighter. It was getting hard to remember why she wanted so badly to get home. It wasn’t so bad, the life this other Buffy was leading. She was happy and healthy and had a family and a house, like an actual grown-up.

Still, even looking at the baby’s peaceful little face, she couldn't really imagine being a mother. She could hardly manage the take care of a mostly grown girl, who could at least feed herself and dress herself and clean herself and make her needs known in comprehensible English. Even if Buffy would sometimes rather she didn't. But it was kinda neat. When this other her died, a piece of her would go on.

She couldn’t think to much about what might happen when she died again.


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She was starving, Buffy reasoned, and no way was she going to eat Spike’s pizza, which was pretty much the only thing in the refrigerator. Willow was still tapping away at her laptop and Dawn was ensconced in her room, listening to something incredibly grating on her boom box.

Sunnydale looked pretty much the same, which was somehow that much spookier. The Doublemeat was right where she’s expected it to be. No vampires hanging around, but one guy with his face hidden in a hoodie seemed to make a quick exit when she came in. She briefly wondered if she should follow him, but decided it was probably nothing.

The greasy smell was sadly appealing. But when she got up to the counter, the woman behind the register gave her an evil look. “Nice of you to finally show up. Where the hell have you been? And where’s your hat?”

“Hat?”

The woman pointed to her own cow-bedecked noggin. “Are you high?”

It was probably not in the other Buffy’s best interests, but Buffy turned on her heel and tried not to break into a run for the door. No wonder this other Buffy was skulking around with a vampire. A crappy job, a sulky sister, scary friends with out-of-control powers; at least Spike was probably making her feel good. The idea that sex with a soulless beast might be the highlight of her day was deeply depressing.

Back at the house she bolted a lukewarm slice of pizza without tasting it before heading upstairs for a shower. She let her tears and milk run down the drain, then borrowed a pair of pajamas. Her senses hummed, warning her that there was a vampire on her back porch. It was just Spike though. Feeling a sense of déjà vu, she took a seat next to him on the top step.

“You look just like her right now,” he informed her solemnly.

“This surprises you?” she asked archly.

He gave her a small, private smile and she was thrown again by all the ways he wasn’t like the vampire she had known. “I know her, can see all the things she’s thinking deep down inside. You don’t think that way, least ways not usually. Can tell from your face, except just now. It’s this place. Makes you miserable.”

She wanted to argue, but she didn’t want to lie either. And she didn’t want to bicker with him about his insane level of presumption to know how she thought. “Well, it’s not like she can go anywhere else,” she pointed out.

“Bollocks. Could take her all around Europe, the Caribbean, anywhere she likes. Show her this world she’s saved often enough. It’s the least she deserves.”

Buffy sighed, because really, that did sound nice. “She’s the slayer, Spike. She has a duty. She belongs here, not globe-trotting with the undead.”

“Sod duty. She doesn’t belong here either, stuck in this suburban nightmare.”

“Her life is here, her family. She needs this, needs something normal.” He rolled his eyes at her, but she kept on. She’d warmed to her subject, and if there was one thing she knew about herself, any of her selves, it was this. “She needs a little normal in her life, Spike. And if you don’t get that, then you don’t know her half as well as you think you do.”

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Please let me know what you thought of this chapter. I have most of the next chapter complete and hope to get it to my beta tomorrow.


By the way, I realize some people might think Spike envisions Dawn as going along on this little tour of the world. However I think it’s clear that he let Dawn pretty much fall off his radar the second she led Buffy down those stairs. And Dawn herself will have something to say about that next time. But feel free to protest in a review ;)