'Of course,' she thought to herself. 'Why not the Hellmouth? I'm always wanting to relive all those lovely high school memories.'

To the untrained eye it would have looked like an unbalanced fight. Glory and three of her minions on one side, the entire Scooby Gang - including Giles, who insisted on coming despite his injury, and Spike as well - on the other. A number of Glory's minions had already been sucked into the Hellmouth; others lay unconscious on the Scooby side.

Glory held Dawn by the throat over the gaping jaws of the Hellmouth. A strange light pulsated as the Hellgoddess would extended and then retract her arm - Dawn's presence was the deciding factor between Light and Dark.

"Say good-bye to your sister, Slayer!"

Buffy began screaming. "Dawn - no -"

But it was too late. Glory's other hand suddenly appeared, stabbing Dawn in the stomach with a dagger. Her blood began to drop and then Glory released her hold on the girl.

Dawn fell into the abyss.

There was a bright flash of light and then Glory and her remaining minions disappeared as well.

Shadows of other beings began to appear as the worlds and dimensions began to merge at this central point. Some were the familiar humanoid forms of vampires, of succubi and incubi, of Kwainis and werewolves and a million other creatures, and some were more animalistic: giant snakes and lizards, tiny rodents and yet others that could not be described by human words.

One second -

Two seconds -

Three seconds was all it took for Spike to come up with the idea, make his decision, and carry it out.

The hole in the Earth - the entrance to that dark abyss - began to close. The vampire leapt up and ran for it.

If nothing else, his drive was worthy of an Olympic swimmer.

"Spike!" Anya screamed, being the first to notice what he was doing.

The vampire disappeared from sight.

Buffy collapsed. She shook, she cried, she screamed. "I killed my sister, I killed my sister, I killed my sister, I killed my sister..."

The Shadows began to take on even more definite form, and then even substance.

And then They stopped all together.

Silence.

Giles began to approach the Hellmouth. "My God!" he whispered. "I think it's opening again!"

The Shadows began to fade.

Willow composed herself and followed him. "I don't understand," she told him. "I kinda....I kinda thought we'd be dead by now-"

The Mouth to the Hell Dimension reopened.

Giles and Willow fell back. Anya grabbed onto Xander for dear life, whispering, "No, no, no," over and over. Xander stared, mouth open, face blank in confusion and fear.

The Hellmouth opened its jaws and spit out the shaking, blood-splattered form of a young girl.

Dawn was alive.

Giles was the first to reach her. "Dawn? Dawn?" His voice was so thick with emotion that her name was barely recognizable as he called it again and again as he shook her, trying to wake her.

She slowly opened her eyes. "Giles?" she whispered. She continued to shake, perhaps even more intensely now that she was conscious.

"Oh, thank heavens," he exclaimed and hugged her shivering body close to him. "Are you all right?"

"I-I'm okay..." she whispered. "I'm okay."

"How long were you in there?" he asked, remembering that time moved differently in the various dimension.

"N-not sh-sure," she whispered. "Coup-coupla days, I th-think. A w-week."

Buffy looked up. "Dawn!" she screamed and launched herself at her sister. "Oh, thank God you're all right. Oh, Dawn..."

The Shadows vanished.

The others snapped out of their stupor and rushed towards the three hugging figures, expressing their own elation over Dawn's safe return.

A few minutes passed. Dawn's shaking began to die down. And then, suddenly, she asked, "Where's Spike?"

The group stopped in mid-breath, mid-speech, mid-touch. "Spike?" Xander asked.

"He followed you in," Buffy finally said. "That's the last we saw of him."

Dawn began to cry.

Buffy tried to hug her, but the younger girl wouldn't allow it. "We have to get him out of there," Dawn told them. "He helped me, he protected me from the demons...They-they-they b-beat him up s-s-so bad..." she explained.

Giles exchanged a look with Buffy. "Dawn," he began, as softly as he could. "We have no way of reopening the Hellmouth, or the portal itself. The entire...*concept* of this sort of portal was supposed to be destroyed when Glory accomplished her goal. But apparently that didn't happen. We don't know why. And so even if we had a spell or a ritual, some way of opening a normal portal or gateway like the Hellmouth, there's no way of knowing what might happen."

"But..." Dawn started to say and then fell silent. After a moment her tears began anew and she buried her head in Giles' chest.

"Is there...*any* way of trying to find him? A scrying spell, or a locating spell, or something like that?" Buffy asked. Giles gave her a strained look, to which the Slayer replied, "He *has* been helping...and he went after Dawn and helped her...down there. I've been to one of those demon dimensions before,...and I remember what happened with Angel when he was...gone. I wouldn't wish that on anyone." She paused. "And you'll probably hate me for it, but I don't think I could wish it on a hellbitch like Glory - except in that moment that she dropped Daawn into the abyss."

"Buffy...." Willow whispered and hugged Buffy, who had started to cry herself. "Buffy..."

Xander looked at Anya. "It's okay if you want to cry," he told her softly. "Just know that if you do, I might, too."

Anya smiled faintly. "I'm okay for right now," she whispered. "But I might later. Is that okay?"

"That's fine," he told her. "That's just fine."

Several more minutes passed in silence, ten, then twenty minutes as they held each other.

"Glory didn't win," Dawn suddenly announced.

Buffy looked up and wiped the drying tears from her cheeks. "What?"

"Glory didn't win," Dawn repeated.

"Okay, I get that, kinda, since we're all still alive and we haven't been invaded by other dimensions," Xander said, "but she *did* open her portal, and I seem to remember that your blood was somehow involved, but then you're right here with us and you don't appear to be bleeding, so...Okay, I *don't* get it."

"Dawn?" Giles asked. "What do you mean that Glory didn't win?"

"Wh-when I was down there," Dawn began, "there was a big fight, a battle, between all these demons, and Glory was on the side that lost. They said she did something wrong when she opened the portal and so it didn't work the way it was supposed to, something she did in the...ritual was wrong. They got mad at her and did something to her so now she's only a demon and not a god anymore. They-they took her away and...and threw me out and I thought they were going to throw Spike out with me, but they wouldn't let me see...they kept turning my head so I couldn't see....I thought he was right behind me, but I couldn't see...."

"Shh," Giles whispered, "it's all right, it's all right." He pulled the girl close to him again.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Buffy asked herself, 'Why couldn't Mom have married Giles instead of Dad?'

"Buffy?"

'I mean, Giles would have been such a perfect dad...'

"Buffy?"

'...If we'd been younger, he might have adopted us...'

"Buffy!" Willow yelled.

"What?" the Slayer asked, suddenly turning towards the source of the yelling.

Willow swallowed hard. "The Hellmouth is opening - again."

"It's *what*?" Buffy stood and began walking towards her.

"It's opening, just like it did before Dawn..." Willow's eyes opened wide. "Do you think...maybe...they might..."

Buffy inhaled deeply as she suddenly caught on to what the witch was trying to say. "They might be throwing him out of their dimension, too..."

Willow nodded vigorously. "I mean, it could be a bad thing, like Glory or a bad demon or one of those other hellgods, but it could be a good thing, or-or a nicer thing, like-like...."

"Like Spike," Dawn whispered, having heard the conversation.

Willow looked at her and nodded. "Yeah...but...he's been in there a while..."

"About half an hour, our time," Giles supplied, speaking slowly and carefully. "Depending on how time flows there, it could have been anything from only a few more days than Dawn that he's been there, or weeks, or even years. Unfortunately, time in parallel dimensions isn't always linear or parallel to our own...Under the proper circumstances, he may have been there for, well, centuries-"

"Like Angel," Buffy finished for him.

"Exactly," Giles verified.

The glowing Hellmouth began to glow and pulsate.

"Assuming, it is Spike, there's no way to know what's happened to him in the interim. If what Dawn says is true, I doubt it was...pleasant," he finished. "You all recall how Angel was when he returned after a number of months in a similar, if not...the same, dimension..."

The pulsation of the glow began to take on a rhythmic beat.

It sped up.

Faster.

Faster.

Faster.

The Hellmouth opened.

The pulse matched a human heart beat.

The jaws of the Hellmouth opened wide, wider and wider and wider, and then-

A humanoid form emerged. The pulse tossed and turned it and threw it onto the debris left from the many battles that had been fought there.

The Hellmouth closed.

The light disappeared.

Silence.

The form shivered. It curled up into itself and coughed repeatedly. It shook. For a moment they stared as it began to flail about, as if in a nightmare, and then suddenly stopped and continued to shake.

They could not bring themselves to approach it.

Silence.

Buffy and Willow stared, immobile. Giles continued to clutch Dawn to himself, as if she would disappear again if he let go.

Finally Anya stood. It was a fluid motion and she pulled Xander up with her. Together they approached the shivering figure.

It was thin and haggard. Its clothes - pants and a shirt - were shredded, holding together in places only by threads. It was barefoot. Its hair was disheveled, slightly curled in its unruliness, and the color was a natural honey-blonde - except for the tips. The last inch or so had been bleached at one time.

Xander came all the way around it, to see its face, which was turned away from the group. Its hair hung in its face, but what he could see was bruised and scraped.

"Is it-?" Anya asked, meeting Xander's eyes with a shocked look of her own.

Xand nodded. "It's Spike," he told her, looking at his face again.

"Xander?" Anya whispered. "It's not Spike."

He looked back up at her. "What do you mean? He's all beat up and his hair's grown out, but it's Spike. He's even wearing what he wore when he was sucked into the portal-"

She reached out for his hand and guided it to the exposed skin of the neck. Xander laid his fingers there for only a moment before recoiling and pulling them back. "And look," she added, glancing at the figure's chest.

Xander watched the torso as if it meant his life or death.

"Xander?" Anya whispered again.

Xander looked up at her. He already knew what she was going to say when she said it:

"He's human."

She sat up in bed suddenly and looked around. She didn't recognize the room. 'Where am I?' Willow lay beside her, deep in sleep. The blonde witch looked down at her girlfriend and saw that the red-head was bruised and scraped all over, but wore a happy, fulfilled smile as she slept. 'How did she get hurt?' Tara wondered to herself.

She eased herself out of the bed and found a bathrobe that had been flung over a chair. Putting it on, she further surveyed the room. It was pleasant, cheerful, almost teenaged, and somehow familiar, but she still wasn't certain where she was. She crept to the closed door and opened it slowly, careful to not wake up Willow with the squeaks.

Barefoot, she walked down the hall that the door had opened up to. Another door on one side was slightly opened. Buffy lay in bed, one arm stretched out as if she had been hugging someone in her sleep. Tara suddenly recognized where she was. This was the Summers' house. 'I wonder why we're all here.'

A third door revealed Xander and Anya, also sound asleep. This looked to have been Mrs. Summers' room, Tara decided. She closed the door as quietly as she had opened it, and then began down the stairs.

In the living room, Dawn sat on the floor beside the couch, where a blond man was sleeping. Tara didn't recognize the man, but it seemed as if Dawn was guarding him. 'Strange.' From the entrance, she could see that both the man and Dawn were just as beat-up as Willow had been, just as ruffled and worn as Buffy, Xander, and Anya - perhaps even more than any of those four. Again, Tara wondered if somehow she'd slept through the annual May apocalypse.

"Dawn?" she called out softly as she approached the younger girl.

Dawn's head turned swiftly. "Tara?" she asked. "What are you doing up? Where's Willow?"

Tara shook her head. "She's still asleep. I just woke up, and I'm not quite sure why we're all here in your house, so..." She frowned. "I came looking to see if anyone was down here."

Dawn smiled. "Yeah, it's kinda freaky, almost like, say, Christmas. You wake up early and the whole house is silent..." She trailed off and stared at Tara for a moment. "Wait a sec, how come you're not talking about kittens and bright shiny green glows?"

"Kittens and green glows? What are you talking about?" Tara asked.

A deep, masculine snort distracted them and the blonde witch turned around to see Giles asleep in the armchair behind her. 'Well, I guess everyone's accounted for. Except I still don't know who that man on the couch is.'

Dawn stood and guided her to the kitchen. "Don't you remember?" she asked, pulling out the milk from the refrigerator. "Glory, like, brain-sucked you just like she did all those other people. You went crazy."

Tara looked at Dawn critically. She could tell that the girl wasn't lying - both through her body language and her aura. So, if Dawn *wasn't* lying, then...

"Well, I don't remember going crazy," Tara finally replied. "But I'll take your word for it." She accepted the bowl that Dawn handed her and began pouring cereal into it. "So," she said, "what did I miss then? You guys obviously did *something* interesting while I was...out of it."

Dawn giggled at the euphemism. "We went up against Glory," she explained with a smile.

"Obviously you won," Tara said. She did not realize that Dawn had just equated, in her mind, her current expression with the look on Oz's face at Buffy's seventeenth birthday party.

"Yup," Dawn affirmed. "But we got beat up pretty good. And Glory *almost* won. It was bad," she added, the smile fading rapidly.

They moved to the dining room table and sat down. "What happened?" Tara asked.

"Spike and I ended up in some demon dimension for a while. Since time moves weird in different dimensions, I was in there for a couple of days, maybe more. We're not sure how long Spike was in there. He hasn't woken up yet. He's been unconscious ever since the Hellmouth spit him back out. And the really weird thing is he's human now."

Tara's hand stopped halfway between the bowl and her mouth. "Spike's *human*?" she exclaimed softly. "You mean, the man on the couch is Spike? This human Spike that was tossed out of the Hellmouth?"

"Yeah. We didn't even realize he was human at first. Anya noticed it before anyone else, said he was breathing and he was warm and had a pulse and everything. And you probably didn't recognize him 'cause his hair's grown out a bunch. He must have been in there a *really* long time for that to happen," Dawn explained.

Tara's hand came down and she gave up trying to eat. "But," she began, and then stopped with an even more quizitive look on her face.

"What's wrong?" Dawn asked.

Tara thought for a moment, trying to find the appropriate words to explain her thoughts to the younger girl. "It's just that his...aura doesn't exactly match what I'd expect from Spike in any form," she tried to explain.

"You can see his aura? Without doing any magic or anything?" Dawn wondered excitedly.

Tara gave her a little smile. "Yeah, I can see pretty much anyone's without too much trouble. And I've learned to be able to distinguish between humans and vampires and other demons based on that, thanks to Willow and you guys."

Dawn thought about that for a moment. "So, could you tell I was different? When you could see my aura?" she asked.

"It looked a little...different than most humans, but not that much, really. I don't know if that's because of the magic that was used to bring you here, or if it's because you have been, in essense, human, or what. The little difference I always assumed had to do something with being the Slayer's sister, or your exposure to magic, or your intelligence. Smart people always look a little different, too," she said. "You looked that way to me. I realized later, when we found out that you were the Key, that part of it was...a magical signature, I guess, that set you appart from normal humans. I think that's what Glory had her minions, and that snake creature, try to...sniff out, you could say. That's what they were looking for. Most of that's gone from your aura, now that I'm really looking for it," she added, looking Dawn over critically. "There's still a little bit there...sort of a magical residue. It's not that different than what I see if I were to look for that sort of thing in Giles, or Anya. The potential for great and powerful magicks is there, but it's not active. It's bigger, brighter than with Giles and Anya, though."

"Really?" Dawn asked. "You can see that sort of thing by looking at my aura?"

Tara smiled. "When most people talk about auras, they're only talking about a piece of the whole thing. With the right instructions, anyone can see that little piece - that's the sort of thing that telephone psychics will talk about. If you're really involved with magic, and I mean *really* involved, like Willow and me, and especially if you have a natural talent for it, you can see much, much more. That's one of the reasons I believed what my dad said all those years, that there were demons in the family and all of that nonsense. I could see that sort of magical part of our auras that meant we had the potential for powerful magics, and the books and information most people can get don't talk about anything like that. So I had no clue what it meant. All I knew was that there was something different about us, and so when my father explained that it was this evil, demon thing, I had no choice but to believe him - because I knew there was *something* there, but I just didn't know what it was. What I see in you now," she continued, trying to get back on topic, "isn't that different than what I saw all those years in some of the people in my family - magickal potential, but it's...not really *inactive*, but dormant, sleeping for the moment."

"What does that mean?" Dawn, too, had given up on eating and she now noticed that her cornflakes were getting soggy. 'Eeewwww...' she thought to herself. 'Maybe Buffy will make pancakes later on...'

Tara studied her face for another moment. "I think it means that one of these days it will turn active and you'll be like me, inherently, naturally a witch, even though it might not be something you inherited genetically, like I did. So we need to talk to Buffy and Giles about this. I know that Buffy doesn't like the idea of you doing magick like Willow and I do, but it's better in the long run to train you how to use it so that when it...awakens, you don't accidentally do...bad things with it, like blow things up, or hurt yourself, or turn Buffy into a lizard."

Dawn giggled. "So what's weird about Spike's aura now that he's human?"

Tara sighed. "Let me show you," she said and stood, stretching out her hand to Dawn. The younger girl stood as well and took it, following the witch into the living room. She saw that Giles had woke up, and when she listened very carefully, she could hear water running in the bathroom upstairs. 'At least we won't have to worry about waking him up,' Tara reasoned.

She directed Dawn to kneel next to the couch. Spike's face was turned into the living room, rather than the couch, which made things less complicated: it was easier to see his aura if they concentrated on his face. "Close your eyes. I'm going to try to feed you a little energy to make it easier for you see what I see, okay? I'm just going to place my fingers near your eyes and then slowly bring them together, across your cheeks, your throat, and then together at the nape of your neck, okay?" Tara explained, settling and sitting down behind Dawn.

"Okay..." Dawn replied as calmly as she could. Part of her was excited that she was going to be able to see someone's aura, but part of her was scared about what might be weird about Spike's.

Tara did as she had explained and the room was silent for a few minutes. Finally, she said, "Okay. Open your eyes now. Do you see the colors?"

Dawn opened her eyes. "Oh, wow!" she whispered. "Oh...is this what you always see? All the time?"

Tara smiled. "Not all the time. I have to concentrate a little to see this deeply. But I usually see a little something, some kind of colored glow without trying. It was distracting at first, when I started being able to see like this, because I didn't know how to control it, and I was scared to tell my mom about it. I knew she did some magick, but she'd never mentioned seeing auras. It turned out that she had never thought to mention it because it was so normal for her."

Dawn examined the different colors and glows that surrounded Spike. "So what's so unusual about him?" she asked.

Tara searched for the right words. "Before, there was always at least a little tinge of black *somewhere*. Humans have a lot of gray in them. I think that has to do with there being both good and evil in us. Normal vampires have a lot of dark gray and a lot of black. Spike was always a little different to begin with. There was always less black and more gray in him than the vampires we run into on a daily basis. And lately there's been more and more gray, and even less black, although the black never disappeared. I was working up to saying something to Buffy and Giles about it, to explain that he really has been trying to be good. Auras don't lie. Willow says that Giles said that Spike was a bad person when he was human, according to the Watchers' Diaries. And when Buffy had him tell her about the Slayers he had killed, she told us that *he* had said something about being...what was it?...a petty thief or something along those lines when he was human. I don't know if that's true, but look at his aura very carefully."

Dawn did as asked. "I don't see any black," she said in awe. "None. There's some sort of medium gray, here and there. But I don't see any black. How can that be?" she asked. "Black means bad, right? If he's human again, there should be some black, 'cause his soul, which did the stealing and stuff, is back and it was kinda bad, right? Plus all the vampire badness..."

Tara smiled. "Exactly. Do you see the white?"

"Oh, wow...." Dawn said in amazement. "White's good. But why does Spike have so much white? It's everywhere!"

"That's the problem," Tara explained, removing her hands from Dawn's neck. "Assuming this *is* Spike, which I do believe, and assuming that his soul is the same soul he had as a human, which is the only thing that makes sense to me, then Spike was a really good person as a human. That means that he lied to Buffy. Why did he lie? I'm not sure."

"What about the blue?" Dawn asked.

"What blue?" Tara asked, focussing her gaze on the sleeping man.

"That blue, that funny purple-gray-blue, with the silver next to it," Dawn said, and reached out her hand to point at it.

Tara grew very still. "Dawn?" she asked. "Do you actually see that, are you actually seeing that *right* *now*?"

"Yeah," Dawn replied. "It's right here. Don't you see it?"

Tara swallowed. "Yeah, I see it. I'm just *really* surprised you can see it."

"Why?" Dawn asked, never once moving her eyes away from Spike.

"Because it took me a lot of energy and concentration to see that by myself, and I don't think you should even be able to see it yet without my help. And I'm not helping you anymore. I took my hands away before you mentioned the blue."

"What are you girls doing? Dawn, did you wake Tara up?"

Dawn's arm fell as she turned around. "Giles, we're looking at Spike's aura."

Giles stood at the bottom of the stairs and looked at both girls carefully. "Tara? Are you all right? Just last night-"

"I was crazy?" Tara supplied.

"Er, quite," Giles replied. "Am I to understand that you are...healed, mentally, then?"

"As far as I can tell," she told him with a smile. "I don't remember being crazy, though."

"Ah, well, we can discuss this later. What's this about Spike's aura?" Giles asked, coming towards them and regarding the still unconscious figure on the couch.

"It looks funny," Tara said. "There's absolutely no black, only a little moderate gray, and a whole lot of white. And there's an interesting spot of blue and silver. None of this matches with what we supposedly know about him as a human..."

"White? Spike? With blue? That is strange..." Giles thought about it for a moment. "I suppose we'll just have to deal with that when he wakes up. There are too many variables at work to truly know what is going on here. But blue..."

"My mother once said that blue was the color of a poet's soul," Tara told them. "She never mentioned silver, and I've never seen anyone with silver in their aura."

Dawn giggled. "Spike? A poet? Yeah, right."

"I'm sure this will be explained in due time," Giles told them. "The important thing right now is to make sure he's well once he wakes up."

As if on cue, Spike began coughing. His entire body shook with the force of each cough and he began pushing himself upright.

Tara and Dawn rushed to his side. "Easy, go slowly," Tara told him softly and she and Dawn helped him sit up. He continued to cough for a few moments and then it subsided.

After a moment, Spike looked up and ran a hand through his hand, pushing it back out of his face. He squinted and looked at the girls. "What..." he began.

"Are you all right?" Dawn asked him, looking up at him hesitantly.

He squinted his eyes at her, as if she were blurry, and then looked at Tara the same way. "Do I know you?" he whispered.

Dawn looked at him puzzledly. "Of course you do. Don't you remember us?" she asked innocently.

"No..." he whispered, and glanced around almost frightenedly, giving the room the same squinted once-over he had given the girls. "Where am I?"

Dawn frowned. "Why are you talking funny? You sound like Wesley...or Giles when he's being *really* British...."

He didn't answer, saying instead, "What is this place?"

On a hunch, Giles stepped forward, into Spike's line of sight. "Eh..." he began, and then tried again as Spike's head began to turn in his direction: "William?"

Spike snapped his attention towards Giles. He tried to scramble backwards, but instead slid back into place on the unfamiliar fabric of the couch. His face took on a purely frightened and horrified look, but he said only one word:

"Father."

"'Father'?" Dawn echoed.

Tara simply stared in confusion.

"No, no, Father's dead," he continued in a faint whisper. "Father's been dead a full five years. And there is no such thing as spirits that walk the Earth. I must simply wake up and discover wherever it is that I truly am. Then hurry home to Mother, beg her forgiveness. And never again attend one of Cecily March's soirees, no matter how beautiful she is, no matter that she is a living Muse made mortal. I can never show my face there again, never again...never again..."

"Spike?" Dawn tried to address him. "Calm down. What are you doing? Giles isn't your father."

Almost instinctively at the girl's behest, William raised his eyes towards the older man and again squinted at Giles. After a moment's contemplation, he calmed visibly and stopped shaking. "Oh, thank God," he sighed. "Oh, thank heavens." He stood a little shakily and attempted to compose himself. "I-I..." he began, and then tried again. "I apologize for my conduct, sir." He glanced back and forth between the girls and Giles. "I trust I did not...er, frighten your daughters too greatly..."

"He's not my-" Dawn started to say, but Tara stopped her, saying, "Not now."

William did not appear to have heard them. He continued, not missing a beat. "For a moment I almost thought you, er, you were my-my father, sir." He looked down at his toes shyly, an uncertain smile on his face.

Giles considered his reply carefully, and then decided to follow his instincts. "Ah, yes, well, I suppose that would, er, throw anyone...off, particularly waking up in a strange place after what you've been through." He turned to the girls. "Dawn, Tara, why don't you go up and see if the others are up yet?" The look on his face made it clear that it *wasn't* a suggestion.

Tara stood and grabbed Dawn softly by the arm. "Come on, Dawn. Let's go upstairs," she said softly.

Dawn would have none of it. "I want to stay with Spi-"

"*No*, Dawn," Tara said as forcefully and quietly as she could. "We're going upstairs."

The younger girl gazed up at Giles, whose expression remained unchanged. "Fine. We'll go upstairs," she agreed unhappily and stood. "I'm *definitely* coming back, though," she told them.

As the two girls began to make their way up the stairs, William watched them as best he could, especially the younger dark-haired one, who seemed to have strangely attached herself to him. He shook his head; surely it was just his imagination. He turned back to the gentleman who had addressed him earlier. "You wouldn't happen to know where my spectacles have gotten to, sir?" he asked. "I'm afraid I'm not doing to well without them."

Giles blinked. "Your spectacles? Eh, no, I'm sorry to say that I don't. But you needn't worry; I'm sure we'll have that taken care of in due time," he tried to explain. "If you're feeling well enough for it, why don't you come with me into the dining room and have a cup of tea with me?" He began to move in that direction and stopped when William spoke.

"Oh, no, sir, I wouldn't think of being such a bother. If you could simply direct me to my coat and my purse - provided they fared better than my spectacles in whatever it was that befell me - and tell me approximately where in London we are at this moment, I shall simply make my way home and not trouble you any further this morning," William told him.

Giles turned some quarter of a circle and grimaced. "Eh, no, William, it's no trouble at all. In fact, I insist-"

"This is Sunnydale, not London! Sheesh, Spike," Dawn exclaimed, a big bundle of teenaged energy coming back down the stairs. "I know you got-"

William simply stared at her with a blank expression and unfocussed eyes.

"Dawn Summers!" Giles said harshly, trying very hard not to yell at the girl. Vexation! "Please!" He approached the girl and placed his hands on her shoulders. "Please listen to me very carefully," he whispered to her. "If you wish to stay downstairs with me, you must be silent. If you cannot hold your tongue, you must stay upstairs. Spike is effectively no longer the vampire you knew. He is human now, and moreover, he has amnesia of some form. As far as he is concerned, it is sometime in the 1870s or 1880s and we are in London, and you and Tara are my daughters. We will of course try to rectify...to fix this as best we can, but we must go slowly and carefully. He will undoubtedly be truly shocked by what what he will see and hear and experience over the next few days, weeks, perhaps even months and years, if he does not remember his years as a vampire. Our one godsend is that he apparently requires glasses to see past his own nose, and so he will not see or pick up on some things that are completely foreign to him for a little while. This will help us prepare him for that, and make the next several hours go a bit smoothly. Do you understand, Dawn?"

Dawn looked up at him with wide eyes. "I...I didn't know," she replied.

Giles smiled sadly at her. "I know that and it's not your fault. But do you understand what I have told you?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I get it. So...if I'm quiet I can stay down here?" she asked.

"Of course. Just remember to be on your best manners, all right? And be prepared for him to say and do things that you don't understand, or think are strange or old-fashioned."

"Okay. I'll try," she promised.

"Good," Giles said, moving away. "Then you can come with us," he said a little louder, so that William could hear. "Would you like to have some tea with us, Dawn?"

"All right," she said cheerfully, for his sake.

"Excellent. Then let us continue on. Er, William?" he said, trying to get his attention.

William followed them. "Oh, yes, of course, Mr. Summers. I daresay, it is something of a mystery how I came this far. I am familiar with a number of villages and townships in the greater London area, but I'm afraid I've never heard of your 'Sunnydale'. Might we be to the north, or more likely to the south, as the name would suggest?"

Giles blinked again. "Eh, not really one or the other. We'll explain it all to you shortly, but first I believe that tea is in order, wouldn't you agree, Dawn?"

"Um, yeah. Tea. The drink of the British Empire and all that. Tea's great," she babbled, sitting down at her usual place at the table. "Right?" she added, looking at William. Giles sighed silently in the background.

"Er, I-I suppose so, Miss Summers," William replied once he realized that she was looking at him.

"Excellent. Then, please, William, sit down," Giles directed, "and I'll have the tea ready in a few minutes."

William's eyebrows floated upwards. "Do you mean to say that *you*, Mr. Summers, will be preparing it? Please forgive my...my forwardness, but have you no maid, or a Mrs. Summers?" He paused. "I am truly sorry if I have offended you. I sometimes say that which I should not, when I speak at all," he said softly.

Dawn stared.

"No, no, it's quite all right, William," Giles said. "Please, ask all the questions you wish to ask. I truly mean that. And I'm not offended at all."

"Mom used to make tea," Dawn whispered. "But she's gone now."

"Oh!" William's writing hand flew up to his mouth in shock. "Oh! I didn't realize. My condolences. I-I had no idea."

Giles gave him a sad smile. "As I said, it's quite all right. Be as forward as you wish. As to a maid, we have none; few here do. Instead, the young ladies of this house are perfectly capable of doing such work as needed themselves. As to Mrs. Summers, Dawn's mother died some three months ago."

"Please, Miss Summers," William told Dawn. "I am sorry. Please accept my apologies for rekindling the pain of your loss."

Dawn looked at him. "It's okay. I'm all right...no big deal."

Giles sighed. "And as to my having a Mrs. Summers, I believe you have mistaken me. I am Dawn and her sister's....guardian, Rupert Giles," he explained, attempting to use terms that William would understand, "not their father. I am sorry to report that he, too, is gone from their lives." He knew that divorce was not unheard of in William's lifetime, but since Buffy's father never seemed to bother coming to town, it was a matter best covered by the half-truth.

"Oh," William said. "Again, I did not realize my own ignorance, Mr. Giles. My humble apologies, sir."

"Again," Giles told him, "it's quite all right. You have every reason to be confused. Now, you two sit here and I shall make the tea ready. Dawn, I suspect that Buffy and the others will be up within the next few minutes. You will of course explain to them all that has happened?"

"Sure," Dawn replied.

"Good," Giles said and then went into the kitchen. After a moment they could hear some small rustling sounds as he set the water on to boil and found some tea cups.

"Again, Miss Summers," William said, "I apologize. I should have recognized within you a kindred spirit, though in sad retrospect. My father passed on five years ago, and my mother has not been well these last months. Again, I am truly sorry."

Dawn blushed. 'Well, I guess Tara was right about one thing - it doesn't always work, but he at least tries to make things sound...poetic,' she told herself secretly. "It's okay. I mean, she was sick for a while, too. But then she was fine for the longest time. Then, bang! she was gone. No one knew," she told him. "She was all alone, in the middle of the day. I was at school and my sister came and told me and I couldn't believe it for a while, until I actually saw her...it."

"I applaud your strength," William told her. "If it were my mother who had died a short time ago, I do not think I could be as stoic as you are now in speaking of it."

"Oh," Dawn replied. She sat up straight and gave him a square look. "Do you mind if I ask you some really weird questions?"

"Eh," he began, and then remembered Mr. Giles' comments on being forward. "Not terribly."

"Cool, 'cause Giles and the others will probably ask some of the same later on, so I might as well get you prepared, okay?"

"Certainly," William told her, but inside he was nervous. What, beyond his name and his address and other commonalities, could this child ask him?

"Okay," Dawn said with a smile and then mentally collected her draft of questions. "All you have to do is answer the questions. You don't have to go into details or anything, okay? Here goes. What's your last name?"

"Harrington," he told her matter-of-factly.

"Hm, William Harrington. Okay. I can see that. Um, how old are you?"

His eyebrows raised again. "Twenty-two."

"Are you a thief?"

William choked. "A thief? For God's sake, Miss Summers, wherever did you come up with *that* idea?" He began to turn white.

"Oh. Um, I-I-I-someone told me about a thief named William and-and-and you know, you're the first William I've ever met so..."

"I-I see. Well, whoever this is, this thief named William, he and I are not the same." The blood began to return to his face.

"Then what do you do? Like, for a job? Do you have a job?" she asked. 'Stupid, stupid, stupid. Spike was a vampire, of course he wanted to be the big bad. Of course he'd lie to us. Why didn't I listen to Xander?'

"Most of the year I'm away at Oxford, but I've come home for a short respite. Does that answer the question?" he asked.

"Hm. I guess. My sister and her friends are at school most of the time, too, or with Giles-" 'or slaying', she thought to herself, "-but since my mom died, Buffy had to quit school. She might go back next semester."

William smiled. "You should be proud of her if she does. It must be a very progressive university to begin with, if your sister is a student there."

'It would be if she got credit for her lovely internship in slaying,' Dawn thought sarcastically. 'Or better yet, if they paid her like those dorm rent-a-cops. I mean, she's like the town's security guard. They should pay her. Grrr. Okay. Back on topic. One question that I'll never again have the opportunity to ask, and I can't believe I'm even *thinking* of asking it. God, I'm so juvenile but I can't help it. He's cute like this. He's cute with dyed hair and leather coats and stuff, too. But this is like, super-cute, beyond the usual realms of cute guys. Okay. I'll do it. I'll ask it. May Buffy have mercy on my soul.'

Dawn did not realize that her aforementioned, occasionally godlike sister stood at the bottom of the stairs, followed by her loyal troop of Slayerettes (including Willow, who had been beyond overjoyed at a sane Tara) and informed of the situation as best as Tara could explain. So she did not realize just *how* embarrassed she would be within the next thirty seconds.

She leaned towards him and as calmly as she could, she asked, "Boxers or briefs?"

William blinked. "Excuse me? I'm not entirely sure I know what it is you're asking, Miss Summers."

"Dawn!"

They turned to see Buffy, flanked by the entire Scooby Gang, standing at the bottom of the stairs. "Oh, crap..." Dawn whispered. "This is *beyond* embarrassing..."

William simply watched the blurry scene play out, remaining quiet. A confused look seemed to have permanently affixed itself to his face.

The Slayer advanced slowly, the two couples pairing off to stand at her side. "Dawn?" Buffy asked. "What's going on?" She crossed her arms over her chest and watched her little sister intently.

"I-" Dawn began and then broke off suddenly. She quickly glanced between William and Buffy, and then back to William. She began blinking, as if to hide tears. "I'm sorry," she told William softly, and then ran for the stairs. Before anyone could do or say anything, she was gone.

The kitchen door swung open and Giles came through, a small towel in hand. "Dawn-"

"She went upstairs," Xander told him.

"Ah, yes, I thought I heard something to that effect," the older man said. He looked around the room. He noticed that William had stood - gentlemanly manners continuing to make themselves know - and the children, as he had come to think of them, were standing off somewhat from the table, as if not yet ready to deal with the man who had been Spike.

Finally Anya spoke. "Is what Tara said true?" she asked in a curious tone. "He doesn't remember?"

"Eh, yes, Anya," Giles replied, and then straightened a bit with formality. "Allow me to introduce William Harrington, of London."

Each returned their gaze to William. "Hi," Willow said faintly, but no one else spoke.

Giles cleared his throat and then continued. "William," he said, indicating each of the Scoobies with a gesture, "this is Willow Rosenberg, and Tara, eh, Maclay you've already met."

William approached hesitantly, and then took Willow's hand and kissed it. "Charmed," he said softly. He saw little more than a red blur around her head, short red hair, he realized, and and in glancing at both Willow and the girl he would soon know as Anya, he wondered what terrible illness had come over them that had forced them to cut their hair that short.

Willow blushed at his old-fashioned gesture, unaware of the strange thoughts about her hair that William was thinking. Tara giggled faintly.

Giles had the urge to shake his head and roll his eyes, but realized that this was neither the time nor place to do so. "And Anya Jenkins, and her...er, beau, Xander Harris," he continued.

William moved to greet Anya as he had Willow, but then Xander spoke. "Actually, we have an announcement to make," he said.

On cue, Anya raised her left hand to expose the ring on her finger. "We're getting married!" she cried.

Everyone suddenly turned to look at them. Willow and Tara looked surprised. "Really?" Tara asked.

Xander grinned, his face shining like a flood lamp. "Yup. I mean, we don't have a date or anything yet, and it's going to be way off in the future anyway, but we're going to do it eventually. We're really going to do it," he added, awe filling his voice.

"Well, then, eh, congratulations," Giles stammered. He realized that the proper thing would be to go forward, shake the boy's hand, hug the girl, and so on, but the shock kept him grounded in one place.

"Yes, forgive me," William said, and did as Giles wished he could do. Shaking a slightly startled Xander's hand, he told the couple, "I wish you all the happiness in the world." Buffy noticed his face take on a sad, love-sick look as he spoke, but said nothing.

"Wow," said Willow. "That's...neat."

Xander gave her a smile. They all noted the genuinity of the expression and relaxed.

"And, this is Buffy Summers, William," Giles finally said. "My...eh, ward. Dawn's sister," he added.

Buffy kept her eyes on William, curious to see what he might do.

William took a step forward and towards her. Making a kind of fancy bow, he leaned forward and kissed her hand. "Her Ladyship does me great honor to grace me with Her kind presence," William said seriously.

There was a moment of silence as everyone absorbed this old-fashioned speech. Then the moment was broken:

Xander snickered.

"Xander!" Buffy exclaimed, giving him a glare. "He's just being polite." To William, she smiled and said, "Thank you." Still unaccustomed to being the lady of the house, she hesitated and then said, "Why don't we all sit down?" She gestured to the table.

From the kitchen they heard the whistle of a tea kettle. "Oh," Giles said. "There will be tea ready in a few minutes. For those who want it, the coffee will be a bit longer," he added and then disappeared back into the kitchen.

One by one, they sat down, William waiting until each of the girls was seated and comfortable before taking his place.

Silence. Awkwardness.

"Sooo," Xander drawled, "William, is it?"

"Yes."

"So, William, um, what's the last thing you remember? I mean, before you woke up here," Xander continued.

Everyone looked at William. Even though his sight was not at its best, he could tell that they were all staring at him intently. "Er...eh..." he began.

Buffy was sitting next to him. She wasn't sure what it was about him, but she knew he was having great difficulty with the situation, and they hadn't even gotten to the "Welcome to the twenty-first century!" part. She placed her hand over his on the table. "It's all right," she told him gently. "You're among friends."

He gave her a weak smile. "Thank you, Miss Summers," he said. "You're too kind."

"Well?" Anya asked.

"I, eh, I had left the party at the Marches' and was approached by a strange dark-haired woman. She spoke to me of...burning fish? I'm not entirely sure what it was she said. She told me...there was something in me that had drawn her to me, I think."

"Dark-haired woman, about yay-heigh -" Xander stood and indicated the height with his hand. "- coherency not a big factor, and I bet this was at night. Am I right?"

William looked at him. "Eh, yes, you're correct."

"Meandering Cockney accent?" Buffy asked.

"I-I'm not sure. Perhaps."

"Was a tall dark-haired guy with her?" Willow suggested.

William thought on this. "I-I don't recall...I may have passed someone like that on my way. Yes, I think I do recall running into this woman with a man as you describe, a few minutes earlier, and a finely-dressed lady. Blonde, I think. I may be mistaken."

The Scooby Gang - minus Tara and Anya - looked at each other. "Drusilla," they said in unison.

"The guy had to be Angel," Xander said, "but who's the blonde chick?"

Buffy grimaced. "I'd guess it was Darla."

"Who's Darla?" Tara asked.

"Isn't that his sire?" Willow suggested.

Buffy nodded. "Yeah. She was here during that whole Harvest thing back when I first moved here, remember?"

Xander and Willow nodded. "She's the one who got Jesse," Xander reminded them. "Didn't Angel stake her?"

"Yeah," Buffy confirmed. "After she went after my mom. Angel never really talked about 'the old days', but I guess they were still together then. Heck, maybe she left him only after the gypsies. Maybe that's why she came to Sunnydale to the Master. I think he was already in town then."

William stared. Confusion continued to sit happily on his face.

"So, what does that mean?" Xander asked.

Anya nodded. "Yes, is this Spike? Or did William fall through some time portal just before he was supposed to be vamped?"

"There are time portals?" Willow asked hesitantly. Everyone looked at her. "I know, I know. It's just I'm still trying to get a hang of the whole 'There's a world without shrimp' thing. Time portals are kinda like the next step up."

Buffy thought about it for a moment. "I think he's Spike. He came through the Hellmouth, remember? And he's got Spike's clothes on. Just look at his hair - the tips don't match. If that doesn't say bleached-blond-pain-in-my-rear, I don't know what does. What do you guys think?"

Tara bit her lip, uncertain if she should say something or not. The images of the two auras - one slightly dark, the other bright and light - flipped back and forth in her mind. Shee oppened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by the loud thudding sound of Dawn bouncing down the stairs, apparently no longer mortally embarrassed by her earlier dialogue with William.

"Buffy!" Dawn cried. "Someone just pulled in the driveway." She made her way to the door and unlocked it.

Buffy stood and rushed to the door. "Who on Earth would be here?" she asked aloud, mentally counting her friends. All were accounted for, as far as she could tell.

William shook his head, crossed his arms on the tabletop and buried his face there. 'Will I ever receive a proper explanation?' he wondered to himself. 'What hell is this that they cannot simply explain what has occurred?'

The Scoobies followed Buffy to the door. Dawn stood on the porch, wondering about the black convertible with it's top up at noon on a beautiful May day.

Four figures climbed out immediately, two male, two female, two they knew and two they didn't. The unknown brunette woman came right up to Dawn and smiled widely. "Hi, little girl! Do you know where I can get a taco? Or an enchilada? I tried making one out of bark, but it didn't work too good."

"A taco?" Dawn asked in bewilderment.

Behind her, Xander asked Willow, "Why does this girl remind me of Drusilla the Nutcase?"

Willow didn't answer but simply watched the strange scene unfold. For a moment she had a feeling of deja vu, that she had seen the woman before and when she had it had been to deliver some kind of...sad message, but she immediately shook it off. No, she'd never seen the taco-seeking woman, or the unknown young man, before. She was sure of it.

The woman that they *did* know glanced up at them and then back to the car. "It's okay, you can come out now. There's a clear path," she called back to the car.

Buffy stepped down onto the porch beside Dawn. The woman approached them. Dawn stared. "What happened to your hair?" she asked suddenly.

"Oh, you know, just wanted to try something new," the young woman told her, raising a hand to her short hair. She turned and called back to the car. "What's taking you so long?"

A tall, masculine figure emerged, draped carefully with a dark blanket, and hurried towards the porch. Once he was safely in the shade, he removed the covering and draped it over his arm. He gave the Summers sisters half a grin. "Dawn," he said, acknowledging the younger of the two. Then he looked up and tried his best to give the elder a full smile. "Buffy."

Buffy swallowed and breathed. "Angel."

"Believe me, I hadn't really planned on making the trip up here, but....things happened," he admitted, and then made a gesture towards the door. "It's getting kind of warm out here. Mind if we go inside?"

"Oh! Sure," she told him. "I guess we can just tell Giles it's five more for tea. He'll be thrilled." Buffy gestured them all in, including the people she didn't know, and closed the door behind her.

"Buffy, could you ask Dawn-" Giles said, coming into the dining room once more. "Oh, hello, Wesley, Cordelia, Angel. What a...pleasant surprise."

"Mr. Giles," Wesley said by way of greeting him.

"It's just Giles, Wesley, or Rupert, if you prefer," Giles told him. "We don't bother with...Council formalities here. We're among friends."

"Oh, yes, of course," Wesley replied. "Quite sorry. Force of habit, I suppose. Eh, this is Gunn, an associate of ours, and Fred, er, Winnifred. She was involved in our latest case, and, eh, tagged along."

The Scoobies said hello collectively. William continued to sit, face down in sickening confusion.

Buffy thought she saw Angel's nose twitch and then suddenly he stared at William. "Buffy, that isn't...it can't be...who is that?" he asked, continuing to look at William.

Buffy grimaced. "It's kind of a long story, so why don't we...go into the living room and talk about the latest wonderful Hellmouth-y thing.  Um, Tara, Anya, Dawn, why don't you guys stay with Giles and help him...do the tea and breakfast thing."

"Sure," Tara said. Anya looked like she was going to protest and then apparently thought better of it.

"Eh, Angel, why don't you and Cordelia talk with Buffy and the others, and Gunn and Fred and I will stay here...and have tea," Wesley suggested. Xander blinked at the almost commanding tone that had tried to color Wesley's speech, but said nothing.

"Cool," Buffy said. "The tea people can...sit down-" She gestured to the dining room table. "-And the rest can follow me." She led them into the living room and sat down in her favorite chair. Looking at them all, she commented, "This is so weird. Almost like the old days. Strange."

"A...good kind of strange," Angel said with a sad smile.

The was a quiet moment and then Xander spoke. "So, Cordy, how come you and the LA cavalry are in town?"

"I had a vision," Cordelia explained. "Imagine my surprise when I realized it was about *Spike* of all the evil creatures in this dimension."

"You have visions now?" Willow asked. "How come that never came up when we talked on the phone all those times?"

Cordelia laughed. "We talked, what? Three times? Four times? And every time it was something urgent - cracking computer codes, finding out about Harmony, business stuff. But, yeah, I get visions now. Let me just tell you how *not* fun they are."

"But you saw Spike?" Buffy said.

Cordy sighed. "Yeah. I saw him jump into the Hellmouth, and then come out looking funny. And I just had this general feeling that we had to help him somehow. It didn't feel like it was any immediate danger, or we would have come immediately. I swear, I would have killed someone. I was *not* going out in public in that Pylean princess costume. Thank goodness we had enough time to deal with everything and even get some sleep. Okay, back to Spike. So we waited, 'cause I didn't feel that he really was in need of big-time help. Little did we know that he was *human*. Had I known that he had somehow turned human, I would have really gone searching for a way to punch the Powers That Be in the face. It's not like he's got a soul, or even a big-ole thousands-and-thousands-of-years-old prophecy about him-"

"Cordy," Angel said softly.

"Sorry," she said, actually looking a little repentant.

The Scoobies looked at Angel, who sighed. "We'll tell you about that later, I guess. The issue at hand right now is Spike, or William, or whatever, whoever, that is that's here in this house right now."

"So, that really was Spike? The guy in the dining room giving off the mucho-confused vibe?" Cordelia asked.

"As best as we can tell," Willow told her. "He dived into the Hellmouth to save Dawn, and when it spit him out again, he was human."

"He jumped into the Hellmouth to save a human? Spike?" Angel exclaimed. "That doesn't sound like him at all, at least not the vampire I know."

"Well," Buffy started. "What can you tell us about Spike back then? About William? I assume you were still hanging out with Drusilla when she turned him."

Angel sighed. "I can't tell you a whole lot about what William was like, what Spike was like as a human, but I can tell you the little that I know, and that little came mostly from the one time he was drunk enough to talk to me in those days without insulting me in some way. He came from a well-off family, not outrageously rich or of noble lineage, but it was a good family. His dad had died some number of years before, his mother had been sick, and any siblings he might have had had died in infancy or as toddlers. He had a good education and was something of a bookworm." He hunched down and whispered so that anyone outside the room wouldn't be able to hear his next words. "To be honest, I think he was probably a lot like Wesley before he came to Sunnydale." He sat back up and continued normally. "The family still had enough money that he and his mother were comfortable and had hired help of some form or another, but he had started looking into finding a position as a tutor, probably to help offset the doctors' bills and medicine for his mother. He fancied himself a poet and had fallen in love with a girl from a richer family. I don't know if he was *really* in love with her, but he thought so. The night Drusilla turned him, the girl had rejected him, had told him he was below her to his face. Ten years after the fact and a vampire, he almost cried when he explained all of this to me. Of course, he *was* drunk, but I can still remember his voice. 'You're nothing to me, William,' she had said, 'you're beneath me.'"

Buffy paled. "Oh, God."

"Buffy, what's wrong?" Willow asked, sliding closer to her friend.

"Remember, last November? When I asked him about the past Slayers? He started going off on this metaphor about us dancing that I didn't quite get back then, but it meant that we were perfect matches, that there would be a *real* fight between us, a fight to the death, that it would be...almost noble to be killed by me, or for him to kill me. I got mad at him and told him that it would never *ever* be him, and I used those same words: 'You're beneath me,' I told him and then left. I had wondered for a long time what had gotten him *so* angry at me that he'd actually try to kill me, despite the chip. A few hours later he came to the house with a shotgun."

"He *what*?" Angel exclaimed.

"He never tried firing it," Buffy explained quietly. "That was the night that I found out that Mom might actually, really be sick, and I went and sat out on the back porch and cried. I was still sitting there when he arrived. He looked at me for a moment, gun in hand, just ready to shoot, and suddenly something...in his face changed, and he actually asked me what was wrong. It was the first time he actually acted nice to me, the first time that I remember, at least. But now I know why he was that upset. He had already decided he was in love with me then, and I just *had* to go and reject him with the very words that girl used a hundred years ago."

"It's not your fault," Willow told her. "It's just a coincidence."

"Spike's in love with Buffy?" Cordelia asked Xander. "How'd that happen?"

"That's a story best left for later," he told her. "I still don't buy it."

"I know," Buffy told Willow over the two other voices. "But I feel sorry for the guy. First that girl way back when, and then Drusilla for a hundred years. Then Drusilla leaves him a couple of times, and he comes to Sunnydale and shacks up with Harmony of all creatures and gets the chip in his head. He finally starts getting his unlife in order, helping us kill demons every now and then, and we treat him like crap. Then he sets his eye on me, of all people, and I reject him with those specific words. I'm surprised the guy hasn't offed himself; he has the worst luck with women. And it explains why he had such a sad look on his face when Xander and Anya made their announcement."

"An and I are getting married," Xander said by way of explanation.

Cordelia raised her eyebrow. "You're getting married?"

"Freaky, isn't it?" he told her with a grin.

Angel looked at Xander. "Congratulations are in order, then, I guess. To be honest, when I first met you guys, I didn't think you'd live long enough to graduate high school, let alone get married," he admitted.

"Well, a couple of times we very nearly *didn't* make it," Buffy reminded him. "And let's get back on topic. William. Spike. Whoever he is now."

Cordelia giggled.

"So, Spike...William...was essentially a nerd?" Willow asked hesitantly.

Angel chuckled. "I suppose so. Once he was turned and had been around a few weeks and understood what he had become, he completely rejected anything about himself that could remind anyone of William. He literally transformed himself into Spike. Challenged my authority at every chance. Went out and started fights with men twice his size - human, vampire, demon, it didn't matter what they were. No more upper-class accent, no more poetry, no more books, no more glasses-"

"Spike wore glasses?" Xander asked.

"As a human he did. He was near-sighted, and I would assume that he's that way again."

"He *has* been looking at us oddly, squinting a lot..." Buffy admitted. "At first, I just thought it was the fact that he had the whole 'Stranger in a Strange Land' thing going for him, but..."

"That reminds me," Angel said suddenly. "Cordy, your bag?"

Cordelia stood and found her bag on the foyer table. She brought it into the living room and handed it to him. "Here you go."

"Thanks," he said and began rummaging through it. "Good grief, Cordy, what do you need all this stuff for?" He held a tube of lipstick aloft and opened it. "This isn't your color. It's too...pink," Angel told her puzzledly.

She reached over and snatched it out of his hand. "I thought it might suit Fred. Her coloring's different enough that it might-" She sighed. "Just finish up with my purse."

The Scoobies watched the exchange curiously, but said nothing. Buffy raised an eyebrow but did nothing beyond that.

Angel searched for a few more moments. "Here it is," he said suddenly and pulled out a long, rectangular box made of a dark wood.

"What is that?" Willow asked.

Angel grinned and opened the box. Inside sat an old pair of spectacles, the glass still intact in its wire frames. "William's glasses," he told them mysteriously.

"Why do you have his glasses?" Xander exclaimed. "That's just too weird for me."

Angel shrugged. "About a week after he was turned, he realized that he didn't need them anymore. He ripped them off his face and threw them onto the ground. I was surprised they didn't break. He walked off, angry about something, I can't remember what, and Drusilla danced across the room and picked them up off the floor. She told me to keep them until 'the knight returned to claim them', if I recall correctly, and babbled something about the future hiding behind the mouth of hell. By then I'd learned well enough to trust her visions, so I packed them away in a trunk and promptly forgot about it. I came across them...earlier this year and decided to keep them. I'm not sure why, but now I'm glad I did."

He closed the box and handed it to Buffy. "This way you can put off taking him out into the modern world for a little while. From what I know about human physiology, he'll be sick before long with them. Dizziness and headaches and the like. I'd still get him checked out by a doctor, though, just to make sure that everything's in order, and not just with his eyes. A standard physical would probably be a good idea."

"Thanks," Buffy said. "It's probably already on Giles's mental list, right after 'Find William clean clothes' and 'Test him for demonic energies'. All in the day of the life of us on the Hellmouth."

"Hellmouth, schmellmouth," Cordelia said. "LA just keeps getting worse. Evil law firms, demons galore, getting sucked into portals to other dimensions. And to top it all off, hearing Angel sing. Definitely *not* the highlight of my year."

There was a moment as that was absorbed by the Scoobies. Then Willow did a double-take and stared at the vampire:

"Angel sings?"

As a surrogate father, he worried about his surrogate children. He worried that Buffy and Dawn wouldn't survive their grief over their mother's death-

-that Anya's quick temper and still-demonlike understanding of the world would end her relationship with Xander-

-that Xander's lack of superpowers or prowess in research would make him once again feel useless and unworthy-

-that Willow would have collapsed under the strain of losing Tara yet still having her physically to care for-

-that Tara would blame Willow, and the others, for Glory's attack and her brief venture into madness.

And as a friend, he still worried over Cordelia and her debilitating visions, Angel and his perhaps inactive but not fully dormant demon, Wesley and his insecurities and fears, and through them he worried not only for the little town of Sunnydale, California, but the whole metropolis of Los Angeles as well, and most of the world, it seemed these days.

And now he had a new worry, a new child to care and worry for, another young man to educate and protect.

William Harrington, formerly known as Spike.

Entering into that final battle with Glory, Giles had already made up his mind to take Spike aside and speak with him once it was over and they had recovered, perhaps a few days later. Like Tara, he had noticed how different Spike had become, and was starting to believe that, yes, it was possible for a soulless vampire, a vicious killer of innocents like William the Bloody, to reform, to grow a conscience, to become very nearly human without the aid of a human soul conjured out of the aether, as had been done to Angelus. He had planned to sit down with Spike and speak to him at length about his situation, his newfound willingness to help, and his professed love for Buffy.

Spike's dive into the Hellmouth and his subsequent return as his human self had not changed the fact that Giles needed to sit down and talk with him, though the reasons had somewhat changed. How would they break the news to this stranger, William, that the life he knew was dead and buried a hundred years, that it was now officially the twenty-first century, and he had spent the century between a cold-hearted killer, that the demon which had resided in his body had murdered indiscriminately for decades, that he had been a vampire, of all creatures sometimes known to man? How could you say that to a man of twenty-some years and a quiet disposition? What would it do to him?

Could William come to live, no, not just live, but truly *survive*! in the world he had without his consent just become a part of?

"Giles?"

Giles turned his head away from the glaring sunshine of the sink window and saw Wesley staring at him perplexedly. The other man carried used china in his hands and set them next to the sink. The dishes made a soft *clink* sound, a familiar sound.

The elder Watcher sighed.

"The girls didn't say anything, and, er, William has been silent the entire time, of course, but we were beginning to wonder if you were ever coming back out of the kitchen," Wesley explained. "I silently elected myself to check."

Giles took a moment to reflect on whether or not he should smile, and decided against it. "Thank you," he said after that moment had ended.

"Forgive me for the intrusion, but it seemed to me that you looked like a man with numerous troubling thoughts, perhaps even too many to really say. I'm willing to listen, even offer advice if I can, if you'd like to talk about what's troubling you at this moment."

Giles sighed again, and gave the sunlight another rueful gaze. "I was just thinking about Spike - William - whoever he really is now. About how we might find a way, an appropriate way of breaking all this information to him, of how all that he knows is gone, and how he became the first vampire to ever become human again in the history of the Earth."

Wesley kept silent at that comment.

"He clearly has no memory of having been *Spike*, at least not yet. What if he *does* regain those memories? Physically, he *is* Spike, not William," Giles continued, trying to organize his thoughts. He began to pace. "He was not simply drawn into some kind of temporal fold or time portal prior to Drusilla's turning him; he is Spike with the demon most likely removed and the soul returned. It's very likely that someday, either today or tomorrow or in thirty years or fifty or seventy, those memories will be restored. What then? How will he, how will we deal with that? It took Angel ninety, almost one hundred years to become a fully functioning member of society, to come to grips with the demon's memories well enough to become productive, though I'm sure he tried skirting the edge of human and demon society numerous times before succeeding with Buffy's influence, and that of Cordelia and yourself. William doesn't have that kind of time, even if he lives to be a very, very old man, and the human mind and body are not resilient enough to deal with that kind of stress. Sometimes I think that Angel's still demonic physiology is his saving grace in dealing with his darker side, both the memories and the stress that those memories have caused him."

Giles stopped and turned back towards Wesley, his hand resting on the cool Formica of the countertop. "How do we tell him that he has effectively come a good one hundred and twenty-some years into the future, as though he were a hero in some novel by Verne or Wells?"

"Well," Wesley told him, "I think it's rather simple."

"Oh?" Giles said with surprise. "And what do you propose, pray tell?"

"Simply tell him. Say whatever words are necessary to convey these sorts of things. Enlist and elicit whatever help you need from us and from your own...team," the younger man explained. "We are here to help you, and to help...William. We will do whatever you need us to do, whatever you think is necessary, whatever we see needs be done. That's what we're here for. Even if it only means that we go out every night to patrol the cemeteries so that you and Buffy and the others who knew Spike reasonably well can help William, we will do it. As Cordelia so aptly puts it, we help the hopeless, and right now I cannot think of another person in our vicinity who could use our kind of help better than William, and your team. Whatever it is you want us to do, we will do it to the best of our ability, Giles."

Giles smiled at Wesley's declaration. "Thank you, Wesley, truly. I do think you're right, and I believe we should tell William as much as we can, as much as he can handle, right now. Putting it off will simply invite disaster."

"Agreed," Wesley told him. "Shall we return to the dining room then?" He gestured to the door linking the kitchen to that room.

"And then move to the living room. I think we'll all be more comfortable there." Giles paused at the door, turned, and then continued:

"And if William faints, as I suspect he may well do, the carpet's significantly more pleasant than the dining room floor."

Wesley sighed, knowing he should leave the conversation ended at that, but something made him reply, as if directed to do so by some unseen force. "I can't imagine what would have happened if Spike - er, William - had been truly injured, requiring true medical attention, or a stay in the hospital. I can't imagine how he would have reacted," he said. Running a hand over his hair nervously, he added:

"I really can't think of anything worse."

Her blond partner leaned in and kissed her. "My wicked plum," he sighed and then stepped back and looked at her, breaking the physical contact they had had.

She screamed.

He returned to her, cupped her cheek in his palm. "Fret not, dear heart. I am reborn," he whispered. He glanced over his shoulder. "Do you not see how *that* serpent has shed her skin and sees the moon anew?" he asked. "Fear not, my love!"

He stepped backwards, hands raised, palms facing her as if in supplication. "I am the Sun King, the Stag run down and reborn. Birth me again and I shall be the Star Child, the Son of Pluto, of Hades."

Step backwards, one-two-three.

"We will be two serpents in the grass together again and bite at the heels of Artemis the Huntress, but her Hounds will not see us!" he cried, and twirled, his long black coat flaring out wide. She thought of the tails and skirts of banshees when they flew.

Step forward, one-two-three.

"Come to me and bless me with that ancient blood which only you can restore to me. The knight has returned and that lady shall win him who has sworn fealty to the aspects in his eyes," he told her, pointing to the wire-rim glasses which had suddenly appeared on his face, "and to the power in the pounding of my heart."

She stepped forward, one step, a second, a third. "Is this true, my love?" she asked hesitantly. Again, she moved forward, until they were almost touching.

"Sing what you wish," he whispered, "but you need not look for this in an evening breeze." He clasped her hands in his and then sent her twirling across the dance floor. "The answer is 'yes'."

And he promptly disappeared.

"William!" she screamed, falling to the floor. When she looked up again, the music had stopped. She scrambled onto her feet and ran for the stage at the back of the ballroom. "Darla!"

The blonde vampiress looked up in annoyance. Sighing, she dismissed the minions she had been reprimanding and rose from her throne like a queen. "Drusilla, what is it this time?"

Drusilla sashayed the last few moments up to the stage. "My boy has come to me, Darla. He has found his tongue again, and soon he shall have his teeth as well."

"I thought you said he's working for Angelus's Slayer these days, Dru. If all you're going to do is talk to him again, then I want no part of it. She's gotten me killed once already; I'm not interested in a repeat," Darla told her. The venom in her voice was deadly without a need for fangs.

"Ah, but this is different," Drusilla whispered. "My knight needs my bite again, just as you did, Grandmother."

Darla rolled her eyes. "I doubt it, Dru, I *really* doubt it. Go to the Slayer-whipped idiot if you want, but if that cheerleader tries to stake you, I'm not coming to your rescue, understood?"

Drusilla did not answer in words, but instead squealed shrilly as she danced once again into the shadows. 'My Spike, my William,' she thought to herself, 'I am coming.'

Angel quenched the desire to growl. "We averted another apocalypse, didn't we? The discussion is finished."

"Fine, fine, Mr. Broody-Pants," Cordelia told him. "Then I'll just tell them about the eleven pounds I found out Count Dracula owes Spike and Drusilla!"

"Dracula owes Spike money?" Willow exclaimed. "B-but Buffy staked him last September!"

"Really?" said Cordelia as Angel resigned himself to utter embarrassment. "Wow. Well, all I've been able to figure out is that it involved about ten gallons of Irish whiskey, some lipstick, and one of Darla's dresses, and Angelus was in the middle of it all," she shared conspiratorially.

"Whoa! Whoa, let's not go there," Xander exclaimed. "I do *not* want to hear about Angel in a dress, thank you very much."

"It wasn't me, it was Angelus, and Cordy has neglected to mention that the whiskey was spiked with a vampiric hallucinogen and I have no memory of the incident whatsoever. And Spike was probably too drunk himself to remember anything but the money. The subject is closed," Angel stated gruffly.

"There's a picture," Cordelia quickly whispered to Willow and Buffy. "Wesley has it."

The girls grinned.

"Are you quite finished with that?" came Gunn's voice from the entrance hall suddenly. "'Cause English says it's time 'to sit down and have a proper chat with William'." He imitated Wesley's British accent surprisingly well.

Angel was quick to stand. "Certainly," he said, ignoring the girls' knowing smiles. For once he was glad to be a vampire: he was incapable of blushing. "We're ready when you guys are."

Gunn grinned. "Cool," he said and then turned to address Wesley and Giles. "Yo, Wes!"

A few minutes later the entire company was assembled in the living room, and all the curtains had been closed. William, looking even more uncertain and nervous than before, and now having gone unnaturally pale, had been seated between Buffy and Willow on one couch; Giles, Wesley, and Angel were on the other, opposite them. Dawn sat at Buffy's feet, keeping a close eye on both William and Buffy, and Cordelia was at Angel's. Fred had been offered one recliner and Gunn remained standing, behind her. Xander and Anya, almost cuddling, sat on the floor below Willow. Tara rested in the other recliner. On the whole, the group was somber, and nervous.

Angel took a moment to study William. He had almost forgotten how Spike had been when he had first been turned, but now it was all there again. He shivered suddenly, something he hadn't done out of that kind of reaction in a very long time. He suddenly remembered Darla, and vowed to do whatever he could to keep William from ever becoming Spike again.

Giles cleared his throat and Angel found his thoughts brought back to the present. "William," the Watcher began, "there are some things we must tell you. Many of these things you may well find highly shocking, and others simply improbable or impossible. We have been deliberately not answering your questions, William, withholding vital information from you, but for very dire reasons. The time has, however, come that we might tell you the truth. Do you trust us, William?"

William glanced about the room, taking in all the apparently somber but still blurry faces. He returned his unfocussed gaze to Giles. "Mr. Giles, I-I have no reason to doubt you and your...associates. Should I?"

"No, of course not," Giles tried to assure him. "But please keep an open mind about what you are about to hear. And in the end, we are telling you the truth." Giles paused and then added, "Angel? Would you like to start?"

Angel nodded. "First, though," he said, standing, "I think you would appreciate this. I have kept it for you for...a very, very long time." In the palm of his outstretched hand lay the long, rectangular box.

William took it uncertainly. After a moment, he opened the box and was surprised to see his own spectacles inside. "I-I don't understand. How can you have kept my spectacles for me for so long a time, when I only lost them this last night? I...I would rather say that a few hours are but a short time, sir." William lifted them out of the box and examined them critically before putting them on.

The room was much more shocking when properly focussed. The majority of items he recognized, but a great number of...things were unrecognizable. He suddenly had the urge to examine his own self, to see if any new, strange things had been applied to him, and realized with a gasp that he was not wearing his own clothing. "My...my attire!" William finally said in shock. He looked up and at Giles and Angel. "Sirs, please do not delay in telling me what has happened!"

Angel nodded and sat up even straighter than he had been doing. "In the year 1880, my...family and I were residing in London. We...enjoyed our time there, but one of my companions, Drusilla, began expressing feelings of...of boredom, and loneliness. On the twentieth of June of that year, I finally suggested to Drusilla that she find herself her own companion and she became very enthusiastic about the idea. As we walked that evening, a young man had the unfortunate circumstance of quite literally running into us and catching Drusilla's eye. As our third companion, Darla, and I continued on our way, Drusilla followed this young man." He paused.

William opened his mouth, as if to speak, but then closed it again. Earlier Miss Summers and her friends had spoken of a woman named Drusilla, some sort of vagrant or pickpocket, he had assumed her to be, by the way they had spoken then.

Angel began to see a kind of recognition lighting in William's eyes. He decided to continue. "Drusilla told me later that this young man was a poet, or at very least...fancied himself to be one. He was on his way home from a dinner party hosted by the young woman he considered his muse, and with whom he considered himself to be very much in love. The evening was a disaster for him, first being ridiculed by his peers and then rebuked by the young woman. This young man left the party in outrage, and did not even really notice that he had run into my companions and I, or that Drusilla was following him-"

...burning baby fish swimming about your head...

...something glistening and glowing...

...something...effulgent...

...do you want it...

...oh, God, yes...

"-liam?"

William jerked his head back up, blinking, and looked at the elder Miss Summers and then Miss Rosenberg, who were watching him with grave concern. "Are you all right?" Miss Rosenberg asked.

"Y-yes, I believe so," William told her, and then looked at Angel and Giles. Quite calmly, a surprising eveness in his voice, he said, "This young man you speak of.... You're talking about me, aren't you?"

The room was silent for a moment, and then Angel continued without answering the question. "At the time, the newspapers were reporting brutal deaths occurring at night on the streets of London -- men and women, young and old, rich and poor. Among the social circles that Darla and I travelled through, there was a debate whether it was wild animals, or thieves, vagrants." He paused, a momentary look of pain on his face. "Very few ever came up with the true answer--"

"Vampires."

They all looked at William, surprise and concern on their faces. "That *is* what you are trying to tell me, isn't it? There are vampires committing those murders."

Angel blinked in shock. "Yes," he said. "It was vampires. How did you--"

William stood on shaky legs. "I recall only a moment of it, really, but...just before I collapsed, I saw that woman's face...transform. She took on this...deformed, demonic countenance. Her face melted, and her eyes turned yellow, and she suddenly had these...teeth...like an animal." He frowned. "She looked at me, this strange expression on her face, as though...she were *hungry*! And when I breathed again, when that momentary shock had passed, her mouth was on my neck." He gestured with his right hand, placing his fingers on that spot where there should have been a fresh wound, but found none. "There was pain, a terrible, terrible pain, and I knew I would die, but then I awoke here. When I awoke, I was confused, and did not fully remember those last moments, but it has come back to me. I remember mostly only the pain." He sat down slowly, the truths he had just uttered sinking in.

"It was...painful?" Angel repeated carefully.

"Isn't it always?" Buffy asked him.

Angel turned his head slightly. "No, not if turning the victim is intended, as Drusilla did. I don't recall any pain."

"Weren't you drunk off your gourd at the time?" Cordelia reminded him. At Angel's puzzled look at the expression, she added, "Doyle taught me that one."

"Oh." Angel shook his head for a moment, lost in thought, and then returned his gaze to the room. "This is simply...bizarre. Either..."

"Either what?" Gunn asked.

"Either Drusilla didn't intend to turn him, or he didn't want to die," Angel explained. "At least that's the only thing I can think of-"

"Why would I want to die?"

All heads suddenly returned to William, who had suddenly stood up. "Why would I want to die?" he repeated, an almost angry look developing on his face.

For a moment, there was silence. "That girl," Dawn finally said. "She rejected you and you ran off into the night. Didn't you feel like you were ready to die?"

"Why would I want to die?" William said a third time, the anger creeping into his voice. "You think I would think of death because Cecily March rejected me? Do you think so lowly of me? You all seem to know so much about me; I have to deduce that you are my friends, or at the very least acquaintances. You all supposedly know me, and yet you think that I would think of ending my own life because Cecily March rejected me?" He walked towards the foyer, drawing his hands worriedly through his hair. Turning around to face them again, he finally said, "That's it. I am no longer allowing this...this dictation, this control over my own life. If you don't tell me right now where I am, why I am with you, and what has happened since that vampire...that Drusilla girl tried to...eat me, I....I..." He looked about, searching for a serious-enough threat. "I will walk out of this house and never come back."

Willow and Buffy exchanged a worried glance. "William," Buffy started. She paused, but it was long enough for William.

"That's it," he said. "I wash my hands of you."

"William!" Angel called after him as they all stood to follow the now human young man.

William stomped to the front door. After a confused moment, he managed to open it and stepped outside as the others watched carefully -

- and he walked right into a chaos demon, slime dripping liberally from from his antlers.

William stared, stock-still, mouth wide open.

"Hey! Spike! Man, I've been lookin' for you everywhere! I'd heard you were workin' with the Slayer, but I had no idea-" The demon stood a moment and looked at him. "You know, there's somethin' different 'bout you, buddy. Havin' a mid-century unlife crisis or somethin'?"

Willia fainted.

The Scoobies and the Fang Gang stared at the chaos demon in surprise.

He shrugged his shoulders. "I didn't do it," he said.