Real Estate
(or, "A Unique Fixer Upper")
by Cynamin and NutMeg

Unique Interdimensional Hideaway
Perfect for vacations from reality
Expands to fit your needs

Cynamin, intergalactic, inter-dimensional being of power was crying.

Cynamin, intergalactic, inter-dimensional being of power, known for her stern disposition and hidden emotions, was crying hard, deep sobs that her sister-goddess couldn't fail to hear.

Cynamin, intergalactic, inter-dimensional being of power, known for her stern disposition and hidden emotions, was crying hard, deep sobs that her sister-goddess couldn't fail to hear…over a television show.

This was getting ridiculous.

NutMeg stood in the doorway, looking at her elder sister cry with a mixture of disgust and sympathy. Sympathy won out, though, and she entered the room quietly. Cynamin heard her and turned, wiping her eyes hastily in an attempt to collect herself. She turned her back on the television as if nothing was wrong.

"What's going on?" NutMeg asked curiously.

"Nothing," Cynamin replied, nervously smoothing out her long white skirt. "I…was just catching up on some politics."

NutMeg was about to point out this lie for what it was when the television got to it first. "I'll never forget. I'll never forget. I'll never forget." NutMeg couldn't see the screen, but the female voice was full of tears.

Cynamin got a very odd expression on her face as she fought back tears of her own. She failed, and her clothes changed rapidly in response to her turbulent emotions. *Well, that's it,* NutMeg thought. *That mental control she's so proud of has finally snapped. Serves her right for all the times she's lectured me on it.*

She didn't say that, though. Instead she sighed. "'I Will Remember You' again?"

Unique Interdimensional Hideaway
Perfect for vacations from reality
Some People Take It Too Seriously

Cynamin nodded, not trusting her voice yet enough to speak.

NutMeg sighed and shook her head. "I thought we talked about this. HOW can a TV show get to you like that?" she said, handing her normally composed sibling a tissue.

Cynamin sighed as she took the white square and blew her nose. Would her younger sister ever understand her obsession with the emotions of that one episode?

NutMeg grinned playfully. "Still gotta crush on the Dark Brooding One?" She ducked as a pillow leaped off the couch and whistled past her head. "I knew it!" she giggled. "Cynnie and Angel! What a couple!"

Cynamin sputtered for a second, trying to regain her composure after that comment. "Well, I... Oh... I would never and you know that!" she finally said defensively.

NutMeg just laughed at her sister's discomfiture. "Take Buffy out of the picture, and you *so* would in a heartbeat!"

"Yeah, well...maybe," Cynamin said softly, not willing to admit that NutMeg just might be right. "But so would you!" She sat down heavily. "It's just...don't these writers and such know that they're...creating realities with every story they tell? Would they be so...mean to him...them...if they knew?"

NutMeg sat down next to her. "I....I've got no clue. Mortals can be pretty mean to the things they KNOW they've created. Some of them anyway."

Cynamin blinked, startled at the semi-serious speech that had just come out of her never-serious sibling. It was true, lots of mortals were mean to their own children, and to pets they had CHOSEN to adopt. There was no way they could know about the realities they were creating. "We have to DO something about it!" she stated, a tear gleaming in one eye. "It's our duty!"

"What, to go around messing with people's lives?" NutMeg looked a bit taken aback by Cynamin's less-that-responsible comment.

"Don't you think some things are meant to be?" Cynamin asked in an almost dreamy tone of voice.

*That's it, she has totally lost her mind this time...* NutMeg looked at her seriously. This was a strange reversal of roles. "Don't you remember how much trouble we got into last time we meddled in the various realities? We almost got grounded for eternal life."

Cynamin looked back at her, startled. "This is different," she tried to explain.

"How so?"

"We wouldn't be causing the trouble. We'd be fixing it."

*Fixing It? And likely getting ourselves in a fix!* NutMeg thought. But then, when had she ever been one to keep out of mischief? Or stand in the way of true mush? "What's in it for me?" she asked.

Cynamin glared balefully at her. "Is that all you think about? What about true love, chivalry, and helping people?!"

NutMeg began to laugh. And laugh harder. Soon she was rolling on the floor. "You.." she gasped for air. "Listen to yourself!"

The usually-more-conservative goddess flushed pink. She sounded just like NutMeg on a normal day! *How embarrassing!*

The blonde goddess sat up finally, still grinning. "So, what's your plan?"

Cynamin's face went blank. She was completely off guard...she'd just been talking. Oh, she meant it, but she hadn't thought it through enough for her to actually *plan* anything. Of course she tried not to let that show. "Well, we have to get Buffy and Angel back in the same place somehow. And we have to do something about Riley."

She sounded very certain of herself, but there was no actual plan in that declaration. "How are you going to do that? Just walk up to them and say 'hi, you're dating the wrong people, get back together and be happy'?"

Cynamin frowned. "No, that wouldn't work," she agreed. "We'll have to be subtle...somehow."

"Disguises? I always enjoy pretending to be someone else," NutMeg replied quickly, getting into the whole idea now.

"That works," Cynamin replied, her mouth quirking into a grin. It only lasted a moment, though. "There's still one other problem in that comment you made."

"What?"

"The 'be happy' part."

Sunnydale, California
Perfect Place for a little Peace and Quiet
The Rumors about Demons are Just That, Honest

Behind her, she heard music. Or, more appropriately, humming. And the song was driving her crazy as the words ran through her mind...*Don't worry...be happy....* "Xander will you shut up?!" Buffy hissed at the lanky non-college boy behind her.

Xander shifted his grip on the crossbow she'd loaned him. "Relax, Buff. We haven't seen anything ghouly tonight yet."

"That's cause your choice of music is scaring them away," the Slayer sighed.

"And this is a bad thing because?" Xander asked, only being slightly sarcastic.

Buffy shook her head, and spun around to throw a steak right past his ear.

"Hey, what?!"

The vampire behind him turned to dust and floated away on the breeze.

"Oh, thanks," the dark-haired boy smiled sheepishly.

"Just keep an eye out," Buffy sighed and walked on through the graveyard. There had been a serious lack of demons, ghouls, and other creepy things going bump (or more accurately...crash, thump, slurp...) in the night lately, and Buffy was bored. She was also unhappy. She was unhappy because she had time to think....and her thoughts always turned to things that weren't shiny happy thoughts.

Tonight her thoughts drifted back to her date with Riley earlier that evening. They had gone for a drive up into the hills and shared a picnic supper of baloney sandwiches, potato salad, lemonade and Double Stuff Oreo cookies for dessert. It had been Riley's idea to watch the sun set and the stars come out. It was a sweet gesture, really. But Buffy hadn't had the heart to tell him she HATED Baloney and Potato Salad! And the conversation had been rather...mundane. He had avoided the subjects of demons, the Initiative, and her Slaying almost as one might avoid a plague, and stuck to things like the new Psych teacher -who was normal-, the Arlo Guthrey concert coming to town next week, and other innocent topics interspersed with compliments about her hair, eyes, strength. In short, it had been dull! What about all that nice stuff normalcy was supposed to be? Not that their relationship had ended up as normal as she'd hoped either.

Buffy sighed. What was she going to do?

/"I don't see a lot of Sunday picnics in the offing. I see skulking in the shadows, hiding from the sun."/

Buffy flinched inwardly at the sudden memory. Funny...well, not *funny* exactly...that the long dead mayor could still haunt her in her thoughts. Perhaps it was the recent incidents with Faith that made the mayor's words come to mind. The truth was, though, that it wasn't the fact that the mayor had said those words that made Buffy cringe. It was whom the words were spoken to. He hadn't been talking to her at all.

But Buffy wasn't going to be thinking about *him* now. No, definitely not.

"Oof!" Xander exclaimed as he ran into Buffy from behind. "Keep moving!"

Buffy hadn't even realized she'd stopped. Maybe *he* really was on her mind too much. It wasn't good to be distracted while on patrol. And she had been. Too much so. It was making her head hurt. No, that was a real headache. *Ouch, where'd this come from* Buffy thought, rubbing between her eyes. She was suddenly and inexplicably feeling rather....ill. "Uh...Xander. I don't think we're gonna find anything. Let's head back. You can make that date with Anya after all."

Xander looked confused, but nodded. Maybe he WOULD have time to get together with Anya. It was only midnight.

The Outskirts of Sunnydale
Our tourists tend to decide to live - and die - here
Hellmouth sweet Hellmouth

They could have arrived in the center of town. They could have made a grand entrance. They could have arrived in a flash of light, suddenly materialized...but they didn't. They chose a much more mundane means of travel.

They walked.

Neither of them realized just how far they were from blending in. No one walked the more deserted parts of Sunnydale in the middle of the night. Especially not two young women alone dressed in highly visible white. The two sisters, one red-haired, one blond, walking jauntily past the "Welcome to Sunnydale" sign, were a very strange sight.

If there was anyone around to see them, of course. Which there wasn't.

"I still don't think we should be wearing WHITE here" NutMeg complained. "We stick out like a cat at an intergalactic mouse convention."

Cynamin shook her head. "No one's looking. Besides, around here anyone looking even remotely innocent is avoided!"

"Oh sure," NutMeg replied sarcastically, going into a high pitched 'little-girl' voice. "Hi, we're little angels. DON'T suck our blood, please." She sighed. "SOMEONE will come after us if only to find out what we're doing here. Unless your 'friends' aren't as diligent as you claim."

But that was exactly what Cynamin WANTED to happen. What better way to find the Slayer and her friends than by being unusual? Besides, if her plan was going properly -as it seemed to be- then Buffy would be at her dorm by now. She'd be easy to find there.

Somehow, though, at NutMeg's mention of 'blood' the night seemed darker, the shadows more oppressive. *Just your imagination,* Cynamin thought to herself, but it fell flat. *I mean, it's not that I have anything to worry about. Nothing here can hurt us.* They weren't the humans they appeared to be after all.

A couple of figures detached themselves for the surrounding shadows. For a moment Cynamin smiled in relief, but it was short lived. "Uh..."

"What is it *now?* My feet are killing me."

"We, umm..." Cynamin looked around, trying to figure out how to get out of this without giving themselves away. "I think we drew the wrong kind of attention.

"Would this be the wrong time to say 'I told you so'?"

Los Angeles, California
Home of Movie Stars, Rock Stars, and Rogue Demon Hunters
Don't say we didn't warn you

Cordelia Chase glanced at the clock as she entered Angel Investigations. 9:32am... she wasn't THAT late. It wasn't her fault traffic was bad! This was LA for God's sake! And they hadn't exactly gotten much sleep the night before. Not with a coven of witches in town conjuring up spells that were making demons go mad at random. It had taken them a week to track them down, and a long, gruesome battle to get rid of them.

The dark-haired actress slipped into Angel's private office, expecting to find at LEAST Wesley, maybe Angel with the curtains drawn, working on SOMETHING. Neither one was in sight.

*Well that's just great. I make the effort to get here CLOSE to on time, and those two are still snoring away,* she thought, fairly disgruntled at the idea. Sighing, she took the elevator down to Angel's apartment.

She was quite surprised to find both of them there. Not so much that both men were actually AT Angel's apartment...but that they appeared to have thrown an office party without her. Angel was asleep in the armchair and Wesley was sprawled across the couch. The TV was on....Turner Classic Movies of course....and there was an empty bowl with potato chip crumbs in it on the coffee table. Several empty bottles of IBC Root Beer littered the floor and tabletops. With their brown glass they looked extremely like regular beer bottles.

The fight had taken a lot out of them. Wesley's arm was bandaged and in a sling from having it broken in two places, and he had a Band-Aid across the bridge of his nose. Angel didn't LOOK as injured -not with his super-fast Vamp healing- but Cordelia knew he was exhausted. She had learned to tell, even though he DIDN'T breathe. She had escaped with only a twisted ankle, which twinged as she thought about it.

Looking at them, passed out and looking for all the world like a silly parody of college boys after a frat party, Cordelia decided to let them sleep and slipped back upstairs. She could be compassionate sometimes after all!

She had just begun typing up the report of the previous night's events when she felt someone watching her. She looked up and stopped, stunned.

"Hello," said the dark haired woman in the strange medieval-looking black garment. "I'm looking for Angel."

Part Two

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