A/N: Sorry for the delay. Hope you enjoy this chapter.

Methos hurried down the street towards the cemetery where Buffy had left her bike. “Fuck, she’s gonna have my hide, if I’m lucky. I better pray I’m lucky.” He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “Yeah, better pray to every god I know… that I’m lucky and she’s in a better mood when I get back with the bike.”

As Methos was (finally) hurrying to complete the errand Buffy had given him, Spike and Giles sat side by side at the kitchen counter, watching Buffy pace back and forth across the kitchen. “You know, this is almost as much fun as watchin’ footie on TV.” Spike said.

“Indeed. She seems to have quite the vocabulary.” Giles responded.

Buffy continued to pace back and forth, muttering under her breath. Each time she passed the window; she would pause, peer outside and then swear softly.

“Oh my.” Giles blinked and looked at Spike. “I didn’t think anyone knew how to speak that language anymore.”

“What did she say Rupes?” Spike inquired.

“I’m not quite sure, the language hasn’t been spoken in over 2000 years, but if I am correct she just threatened to…” Giles trailed off and removed his glasses. “Shove Methos’ head up his arse without the ease of removing it first.” Giles pulled out his handkerchief and began to polish his lenses.

Buffy paused and snickered softly. “Actually Giles, what I said was, ‘I’m gonna forcibly introduce him to what he ate last night.’ But it amounts to the same thing.”

Spike smirked and asked, “Need any help with that, pet? ‘Cause I’d love to hold him down and watch. Might learn a thing or two.”

With a wink and a sultry smile, Buffy informed the shocked duo that she could indeed teach them a thing or two… about torture.

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Dawn sat on the end of her mother’s bed, watching her brush out her hair. “Mom, do you think…” Dawn trailed off, shaking her head. “Nah, forget it…”

Putting down her brush, Joyce turned to Dawn and asked, “Do I think what?”

Taking a deep breath, Dawn quietly asked, “Do you think we could convince Buffy to stay for a while, I mean for a long while?”

“Oh baby, I would love for her to stay. I don’t know if she would though, but we can ask her, right?” Joyce answered.

“I hope we can get her to stay, here in the house. I feel safer, ya know?” Dawn took a shaky breath. “I know you and Spike and the others would protect me, but I still feel safer with her here. I mean we wouldn’t have known about what was gonna happen until, well, it was already happening, if she didn’t show up when she did.” Dawn rambled on, trying to convince both herself and her mother.

Joyce settled on the bed beside Dawn and wrapped her arms around the trembling teen. “I understand completely sweetie. We’ll see what we can do to convince her to stay.” Joyce thought for a moment, silently rocking Dawn back and forth. “And hey, we can always get Spike to help us.”

“Oh YEAH!” Dawn said excitedly. “Spike soooo likes her. I’m sure he wants her to stay too!” Dawn started bouncing on the bed.

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Buffy opened the back door just as Methos was about to turn the knob. “Took you long enough. Did you get lost?” Buffy asked, all polite-like.

Methos winced at the icy-politeness in Buffy’s tone, and scrambled to think up a believable excuse. “Well, you see…” he started, and dared a glance at the British duo in the kitchen, “I was rushing over to where your bike was, and I, um… ran across a couple of…” Methos trailed off as he saw the look of repressed laughter on Buffy’s face.

Spike snickered and hollered, “Oi mate, better tell her the truth. She might go easier on you!”

Buffy simply crossed her arms across her chest and tapped her foot impatiently.

Daring a glance around the kitchen, trying to subtly locate Buffy’s sword, Methos sighed heavily. “All right, all right. I was walking to the cemetery, like you told me to, and I came across these two elderly ladies. They overheard me talking to myself…”

Buffy interrupted, “You mean the heard you swearing and carrying on about having to grab my stuff.”

“Uh, yeah. Anyway, I couldn’t leave the ladies thinking poorly of me, and I invited them for coffee.” Methos ran his right hand across the back of his neck. “I kind of lost track of time, until one of the lovely ladies reminded me.” Methos dropped his eyes, and sighed.

Giles blinked and queried, “Two elderly ladies you say? They wouldn’t by chance happen to be sisters?”

Methos nodded. “Yeah, they called each other sister.”

Spike started laughing. “Welcome to Sunnyhell, Methos. You have had the pleasure of meeting two of the three Wyrd sisters. By the looks and sounds of it… you met Jackie and Mary right?”

Methos slipped past Buffy into the kitchen, realizing that he had a reprieve… for now. “How’d you know that Spike?”

Giles chuckled softly as a look of almost bashfulness passed across Spike’s face. “He met them almost the very instant he set foot in Sunnydale. Except he met all three of the sisters. Seems they were fascinated by the thought of someone like Spike actually being in town to do something other than mangle the local populace. They invited him round for tea, and pretty much tried to set him up with every young woman of their acquaintance. It was rather embarrassing, to say the least.” Giles turned to Spike and asked, “Do you remember the third ones name?”

“Yeah, her name is Faye,” Spike said with a small laugh. Turning to Methos, he informed him that he was lucky to NOT have met Faye, as she was one scary old bat.

Buffy shut the door and turned to face the three men. “Well, isn’t this nice. I would almost think the three of you were trying to make me forget how pissed off I am. Trust me boys, it isn’t working.” Reaching over, she yanked the duffle bag from Methos’ hand and stalked off to the basement. “I’ll be downstairs, preparing to get that snake back from the asshole. Do NOT bother me.” That said she slammed the basement door behind her.

Methos glanced at the other two and asked, “Why don’t we go grab a drink and talk? It’s bound to be safer than sticking around when she’s in that kind of mood.”

Both Giles and Spike agreed that they would be better off elsewhere and decided to head to Giles’ place.

“I’ll take the low road and meet you there. That pesky sunlight and all.” Spike snarked as he grabbed up his duster and prepared to make a dash for the sewers.

“Indeed. Methos and I shall take my car and meet you there.” Giles nodded as he dug his keys out of his pocket. “Let’s be off then, shall we?”

As one, the three of them left the house, oblivious to the plotting going on upstairs and more than happy to be away from the fuming female in the basement.