Oh, Buffy, B, baby baby babe, I always wanted to feel you, but I never imagined it would be like this--

I love full-length mirrors. They're so useful. I stare into it, and my eyes are not my eyes my lips are not my lips the owls are not what they seem-- but my me is still my me. In Buffy's body.

Oh, hell yes.

Buffy's face moves now when I want it to move. I raise a finger to those lips and trace them. They smile at me, wanting more, needing more as her fingers slip slowly and sinfully across her cheek and down to her jawline, tingling at the sensation of soft fingers against softer skin.

Mine. Mine. Mine. She belongs to me now-- her face her smile her world her body is all for me now, I took it, and it belongs to me. The idea makes me hot and flushed, makes me wet and needy.

She has too many clothes on. I have too many clothes on. God, I'm her and she's me and I can't figure this out but I'm hot and I want to draw my hands across her hips but they're her hands. My hands are on Buffy's hot little hips and they're bucking up against my touch.

Works for me.

Her eyes watch me in the mirror. They watch as I ease off that preppy top. They approve as I remove the skinny, anorexic black top and throw it aside like last week's swizzle stick. They take in the slim lines of her body, the soft rounds of breast and nipples.

Hard nipples, begging to be touched. I slip my hands around them, encircling them softly, pinching the tips gently. God it feels so good. I'm touching her but I'm the one feeling it. God it feels good, the best thing in the world. I run my fingertips across her breasts again, sending a shiver up my spine, settling in the back of my neck which is her neck which is me and her I don't know but I feel her touching me.

Or do I feel me touching her? Does it matter it doesn't matter I'm keeping her eyes locked on the mirror as I ease back towards her bed, still caressing her warm, tender breasts.

The bed is firm underneath me, as she sits and stares at the mirror, naked to the waist, begging me to take her, to make her come harder than she ever could with that pussy vampire or that pussy Iowa cornfed cow she jumped on the minute she could. She wants me, but she was always too afraid. A girl fucking another girl is too icky-- it's gay and she's not gay. Never mind how wet her cunt is, how bad she wants me to slip my hand into the waistband of her button-fly jeans and just jerk it open, pulling all the buttons apart.

B, my sweet hot crazy little B, you're the prettiest mess I ever seen. You want me so bad it's almost pathetic. But I want you. I want your body arching up under my hands I wanna feel your wetness underneath my hot fingers wanna hear your moan as I touch your clit wanna feel you come and I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna--

Take the jeans off. That's what I'm gonna do. I've only had this in dreams but in my dreams I'm dying all the time and I don't want to dream and this isn't one, this is real. This is Buffy pulling off her jeans and her wet underwear, this is Buffy naked before me with her legs spreading wider and wider in front of the full-length mirror. I'm going out of my mind. I want her so much. I want those hard nipples that keep thrusting forward in blind, thrashing lust. I want to caress those wet thighs, tight and muscled from years of violence and training.

I want it all I need it all and she's begging me to take it from her, pumping those little hips like an anorexic teen whore. Yes, Faith, she's telling me, she wants it. Fuck me deep and hard, Faith. Now. I have to have her now have to slide my fingers up her straining thighs as she watches me, as she shivers and thrashes beneath my touch. Now while it's still real I have to have her.

Her thighs are hot under my touch. God, how long has she wanted it? How long have I wanted it, to feel her soft pussy, to slide my finger teasingly up and down those wet lips and hear her moan, a soft, guilty little moan that's begging me to touch her and give her more?

She's so wet and I'm getting hotter and it's hard to think as she lays back on the bed, the perky little tips of her nipples sticking out and aching. Oh God. I gotta do it now, slide three fingers into that hot wet girl and hear her moan, a deeper moan now, the quick gasps she takes as I start sliding those fingers deeper, pumping into her. I can't see her eyes in the mirror any more but I can hear her whimpering as I fuck her with my fingers that are her fingers hard, refusing to touch her clit yet.

Feels so good, God, it's making me dizzy as I feel her body because it's everything I knew it would be it's all that and more and I knew she wanted me, I always knew that if she would just relax that it would work for us, oh God, her moans are driving me crazy, oh God, she needs more and I don't want to come yet-- I'm waiting I'm waiting--

Her hips thrust aggressively and insistently against my hands and her head is thrashing helplessly against the bed, wanting me to let her come. But it's not time yet. She's mine and she'll do what I want when I want. I want her to be my slave, helpless against her lust. She has to ache the way I've ached for her. I pump a little harder and her next cry comes out like a shriek.

You like that, don't you, B? You like me fucking you hard and crazy, I'm better than that stupid fuck who you call your boyfriend. I'm a hundred times better than that. You know it, don't you, baby, don't you?

Her sobbing moan answers me. Yeah, that's right. She knows who's in charge. I pull the edge of my thumb against her clit, rubbing it hard and soon I feel her come, feel her body shiver and shake in hot delight. Her voice is high, lost in the sensation. Oh, yes, she's crying to me, oh, yes, oh yes, oh please yes!

Finally she stops spasming under my fingers. I pull out, sticky, tired, dizzy with pleasure. Her legs close slowly as if she doesn't realize we're done, I've had her, it's time to wash hands and slink under the covers in a sleepy daze. I feel her lips drawing up into my smile. I knew she wanted me, I just knew it.

Naked, I stand up and look at the strange union I've created. She's mine and she knows it. But as I stare at her hot little naked body in the mirror I can't remember where she ends and I begin and I can't stop her hands from shaking--

I'm in her but are we closer than ever or hopelessly divided? Who exactly did I just fuck? She's shivering so much but I'm her now and is this any realer than a dream? Why can't I stop shaking? Why can't I stop--?

I tear myself away from the Buffy of the mirror. Now is not the time to doubt the truth. This is exactly what it was, no more and no less.

I wash my hands. I go to bed.

And I know it will all be better in the morning.

Willow and I were walking to sixth period-- she had AP Calculus and I had English for American-Speakers or something-- and I noticed her reading out of this black notebook she's always carrying these days and giggling.

"Will, what's in the notebook?" I asked.

"Nothing, Buffy. I was just thinking of something funny Ross did on Friends last night. Nothing in this notebook is amusing. Just notes on things that are deep and difficult and make my head hurt, so I must think of Friends to keep from hurting and ooh, I'm babbling and here's my class, see you after school bye!" she twittered, her round little face turning the color of a tomato, or some red thing.

I had a new mission in life. I knew that whatever was in Willow's little black book, it was something I wanted to see. Deep and difficult indeed! It made listening to Mrs. Kreblitz almost bearable that day.

Getting the black notebook was not easy, to say the least. Willow kept that bad boy with her day and night, and if she didn't have it in her arms, it was hidden somewhere in her bedroom where I could not find it. She brought it to school a lot, and she'd always start reading and look coy. She'd lick her lips so much that it made them shiny and full. Oz was a lucky man, I have to say. Not that I lust after Willow, I lust-- when I lust at all-- after boys-- but she looked really good.

The day I finally got to see that little notebook, I was lucky. Oz was at that time of the month, and Giles had needed Willow's help with a spell, and she offered to help so fast she forgot all about that notebook. I was supposed to be training, but one glance at that infamous black book waiting for me and...

I sat down and opened her up and started reading.

"All the Children are Insane," I muttered. "NC-17 MSR."

I started reading. Within a page, my face was really red.

"What the hell is this?" I whispered. I kept reading, and I think by the time Willow returned to find me red faced and wet and reading her NC-17 notes on NC-17 slash, I had gotten a better workout than I could have imagined.

"Buffy, what are you doing with that notebook?" Willow shrieked.

"The question is what are you doing with this notebook!"

"I'm using it for, uh, erm, research."

I gave her a look. "Research about what? How to be a big skank?"

"Buffy, I don't need to research there, just talk to you and Cordy. Anyway," Willow said. "That's mine and you really had no right to go looking in it. Remember the last time that happened? We almost got burnt at the stake, remember?"

"That was different. That was harmless. This is--"

"More harmless. Fanfiction is a legitimate, fun hobby," Willow said. "Except for the part about breaking copyright laws."

"You don't mean you write this stuff?"

"Oh, no," Willow said. "Not X-Files fanfiction. You would not believe the bitchy community there. I mean, meeee-owwww! No, I've been writing Star Trek fanfiction, mostly Bashir/O'Brian slash."

My face went even redder, if that was possible. "You write guy slash? Ewwwww."

Willow rolled her eyes. "It's not ew, Buff," she said, sitting down next to me at the table. "Have you read any of the stuff in the notebook?"

"I just skimmed the part with the lube and the boy/boy interaction."

"So you did more than skim, say, the other stuff?"

I tried not to blush any more. My face felt like it was the new home of the Hellmouth, literal. "Erm-- uh-- erm--"

"It's okay, Buff. Most fic readers like the NC-17 MSR, O/K, Chakotay/Janeway, you know, the conventional. There's a huge following for it.. But after me and Oz tried to act out something from one of those MSRs, I realized that conventional was not the way to go."

I stared at her. "What did you try to act out?"

"Boring stuff. Oz is the best, you know, he really loves me, and he respects women. But he's just not creative enough. That's why I had to enlist Xander's help to do some of this stuff."

"I thought you were staying away from any more Xander-Willow mojo!" I cried.

"SHHH!" Willow hissed. "I use this forgetfulness spell on him, well, him and Oz."

"Willow! That's bad!"

"Well, it's mostly to spare their feelings afterwards. Neither of them wants to remember what we've done."

"Not like-- all three of you?" I gasped.

"Oh, that was only like three or four times. And twice, we convinced Cordelia to join in."

I almost passed out from shock. "Will! I mean-- WILL! You're such a nice girl, and now you've got-- Willow, you've got to stop."

"That's what Giles said. But only once," Willow said with an arch grin on her face. "I seduced him using a scene straight out of a Scully/Skinner fic. That was quite a triumph. Next week, I'm going to ask Faith to dinner. You don't mind, do you, Buffy? I mean, I like you, but we're just friends, you know?"

That was when I dropped her notebook and ran out of the room. I mean, fast. I went into the library and almost slugged Giles in the face, but then I remembered Willow had probably made him forget about their-- eww. Okay, this is getting too much to confess. But I've started to wonder if Willow was being completely honest. I mean, what if she used her insta-amnesia on me after we did something like, less than innocent?

Oh, GOD. Now I really have to find out what Willow is doing with Oz and Xander, or Giles and Faith, or even, heaven help us, Cordelia. I have to warn them, because our Willow isn't a good girl.

"Buffy," I hear whispered into my ear. "Buffy, don't worry. I'm going to take good care of you."

It's Willow, and she's holding that black notebook and wearing the skimpiest dress I've ever seen on her. What am I going to do?

"Don't resist," she whispers, stroking my shoulder. "You won't remember a thing. Just say yes."

Okay, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to wake up. And if it's not a dream, okay, I'm going to say yes.

Hey, I saw some of those notes. Willow knows what she's doing!

That was why he was here, at this grim roadside bar, drinking his fifth beer and wishing Xander Harris would stray just a little too close to the cage next time of the month. Damn Xander.

And damn Willow. Damn her charming smile, and that deceptive honesty that drew his thoughts back to her over and over again. She was bright even when other things were bright. Damn her--

"Hey," the bartender said. "You look like you're trying to forget something."

"Maybe I am," he said. The bartender smiled a toothless grin and pulled out a small packet of pills.

"Two of these and you won't remember what brought you down."

"How much?" he asked.

"Fifty."

He pulled out two twenties and a ten and slapped them on the table. With another grotesque leer, the bartender handed him the two blue tablets. He took them without pause, and downed them with the warm remainder of his beer.

"Good luck, buddy," the bartender said.

Fifteen minutes later, when she walked in, he was out of his skin with a vengeance. He watched her, recognized her, and couldn't manage any outrage at her presence here. He had no right to be here either. So he watched her, the limber grace of her limbs, the subtle shimmy of her hips, the smolder in her eye. Willow's gentle image melted away, and the sheer sensuality in the other girl made his pulse race.

She started dancing with someone else, and the sudden burst of adrenaline in his veins shocked him. He was ready to fight, if he couldn't get what he wanted. And he wanted her, with her dark hair and full lips. So he strode up to them, and pulled the other man away.

"Faith," he said, and the word sang through his body. Faith, Faith, re-establishing Faith, possessing Faith, retaking Faith--

"Hey there," she said, a promise in her liquid eyes. "What are you doing here?"

"Trying to forget," he said, taking her arm. She shook him off.

"Me, too," she replied, pressing her lips into his cheek. She was warm, and as her lips pulled away, her arms settled around his neck. "What do you need to forget?"

"Her," he answered. "Help me forget, Faith."

"I'd be glad to," she whispered. "I want to. I've wanted to for a while."

They danced for a while, breathing in the smoke-laced air, floating in it, not hearing the music or the patrons. All he could think was that she was too real, her breasts pressed against him, the strong muscles of her thighs brushing his. He couldn't just stay here, suspended in smoke.

"We have to get out of here," he whispered after a while, his lips brushing her jaw.

"Agreed," she muttered. "Your place?"

"Yeah," he said, stroking one hand down her side boldly, grazing the outside curve of her breast. "Come on, Faith."

They walked out, arm in arm, her breathing ragged and aroused. She kissed his neck, and it set him off. He pulled her along to the car, and drove like he was possessed.

His place was a wreck, it was always a wreck, and he didn't care. He just had to get Faith inside. He had to erase Willow's face from his mind, the feel of Willow's body from underneath his fingers. He slammed the door behind them and locked it.

"Take your shirt off," he whispered. Faith smiled and slid it off. Without waiting to be asked, she removed her black lace bra as well. He stared at her small, round breasts, almost transfixed. She laughed, and walked up to him.

"I want you to forget," she whispered, wrapping her arms around him and kissing him again. She pushed him back until they were against the door, glued together, his tongue whipping around her mouth, her heart beating to the band, the sudden hardness of his cock pressed against her belly. "Oh, God, I need you to forget her. Love me."

He slipped his hand around her breast and fondled the nipple, drawing a groan from her. "I need you to forget her," he whispered back, kissing down her neck to her shoulder. She pulled back, and he stared at her.

"The bed," she said, as though he were stupid. As though he were the high-school dropout, not her.

"Oh, yeah, the bed," he said. "This way."

She was busy freeing herself from the leather pants by the time he realized his own pants were too tight. So as Faith fell back onto the bed, he clumsily started removing his shirt.

"No," she said. "Just the pants. I want you so bad I can't wait anymore. Please."

He couldn't resist. He didn't think any man could honestly resist a beautiful young woman begging to be fucked, but he was hot and hard and ready now, and he had an invitation. So he simply yanked off the pants and the boxers underneath. Then he moved to the bed, and turned her over.

"Shh," he whispered. "It's gonna be okay."

He found her damp opening slowly, and blindly thrust in. Faith hissed like a cat in heat, and as he pulled back and drove in again, her hisses turned into moans, as she started to whimper and grind against him. He knew he was moving slowly, but he wanted to feel every part of her body, the feel of her warm back against his chest, the helplessness of her strong thighs against his.

"Please," she whispered, the dark curtain of her hair hiding her face. "Fuck me harder, oh please, I need it."

"No," he whispered, driving into her harder anyway. She felt so good against his cock, wet and hot and tight. She was twitching with need, and it made him forget that Willow hadn't wanted him, she'd wanted that fumbling idiot Xander.

Faith wanted him and he was taking Faith violently, as she mewled and writhed under him. He took pity on her eventually, and his hand found her clit and stroked.

"OH MY GOD," she whispered. "Oh, I'm gonna come so hard--"

He sped up with a grunt, and stroked her against. She bucked violently, and he fucked her harder, listening to her voice rise into a shrill, desperate shriek.

"Oh yes, oh that's just it, you feel so good, oh God please give it to me, baby, I want it just like that, yeah yeah-- oh God, GILES!" she screamed, convulsing around him. It was too much, and he came, slumping against her.

It hadn't been enough.

He could still see Willow's face behind the closed curtains of his eyes.

I may be love's bitch, but I'm lust's satyr.

"She's a pretty thing. A pretty, pretty thing," Dru coos, looking at the woman in the bed. "Like a fire burning into coals. Did you like her?"

"I liked her very much, baby, but she was no you," I reply, drawing my Dru's lustful face to my own and rubbing my cheek against her. "No one in the world could replace you."

She smiles at me, my very own princess bride, and flicks her tongue against my cheek. "But you liked her very much. I can tell," she whispers into my ear. "Would you ever do it again?"

"No, baby, no. I was lonely," I say, hoping that the woman-- Dana, her name was Dana and that's a credit to how much I did enjoy her, because there were other lonely women on lonely nights and I can't remember their names. "I would never leave you."

Drusilla smiles at me widely, and then moves closer to Dana, brushing the woman's flame-red hair with a soft hand. "I like her," she says simply, bending down next to the pale, exposed neck. "Can we take her with us? I'll brush her hair and dress her in my favorite dresses."

I wish I'd never agreed to do this, visit all these damn women I recall from half-remembered evenings while Dru was screwing chaos demons or what have you. The last one, an exuberant blonde-- aerobics instructor, I think-- Dru had ripped her throat out. It had been impressive. And now, this federal agent, Dana Scully, Dru wanted to keep her as though she were an expensive doll.

"Dru--"

Dru bends over and pushes the hair away from Dana's ear. "Do you want to come with us?" she whispers into one small shell-like ear.

And of course, Dana Scully wakes up from whatever dreamworld she's been inhabiting and opens her mouth to scream. Dru, prepared, places a single hand over her mouth and smiles. "No screaming, dearie," my love replies. "We've just come for a visit, a little dream if you want to dream it. Shhhh."

Scully stares up at Dru, pushing back against the covers in a futile attempt to move. "What are you going to do to her, Dru?" I ask.

"I like her. You like her. Why can't we play nicely?" Dru asks, leaning down close to Dana again. "Oh, you pretty thing. Don't you know you're driving your mama and papa insane?"

I can't choose a name for Agent Scully. In red satin pajamas, whimpering, she seems like a Dana. On the dance floor in godforsaken Sunnyhell, she was Dana. In my bed, she was Day and Dana and an evening of hot, blistering sex.

But no vampire can quite forget that during the day, this woman and her partner are the infamous Agents Mulder and Scully, FBI. She doesn't believe, yet she could expose us all. Yes, of course we keep up with the nice humans who think they know about us. It's smart survival practices, and you don't get to be my age without that.

"Dru, I told you we can't kill her," I say. Scully-- and with that whip-sharp crack of the neck and glare from the eyes, I know it's Scully right now-- looks at me, pulling away from Dru's vise grip. She opens her mouth to scream again.

"I don't want to kill her!" Dru cries despondently. She moves her hand slowly and lustfully down Dana's white neck. "You said we're part of each other. That we're one. So let's share."

Dana's eyes widen, and her jaw drops loose. Sharing, to her, probably suggests a lot of pain and blood, which is not what Dru has in mind. I can see what Dru wants, and honestly, the image of my love and this lovely thing pressed against each other, moaning in each other's arms, is not at all unpleasant. Quite the opposite in fact.

I smile my favorite smile at my love, and then climb into bed next to Dana. "Hello, love. Thought never to see me again?" I ask cheekily.

She looks confused for a moment. "I-- I'd actually hoped to, but you aren't precisely a findable person," Dana confesses. She must be quite tired; I was expecting a cold "fuck you" to play off of. But this is interesting. Our Dana hasn't precisely gone searching for her gun and holy water, has she?

"I don't get found, Dana," I whisper to her. "I find people. And Drusilla wanted to meet you. Drusilla, this is Special Agent Dana Scully. Dana, this is my Dru."

"A pleasure," Scully says weakly. Dru smiles like a maniac, and jumps on the bed beneath us. Scully's eyebrow lifts in disbelief. "What is going on here, precisely?"

"We're going to play, aren't we, Spike?" Dru asks.

I turn to my beloved with a reproving glance. "Now, Dru, I have to ask Dana. She might not want to play."

Scully's eyes watch me with nervous interest. "Play?" she whispers.

"Dru is suggesting naughty things," I whisper, slipping my arm underneath the redhead's shoulders. "I think she'd like for us to engage in a few indoor sports, if you get my drift. And you see, where I go, Dru goes. There's no secrets between us. None. So she'll play, too."

I pull Scully's unresisting body closer to mine, and would you believe her eyes half-close and her lips part? She's practically begging for a kiss. It must be the full moon or some such bullshit. Drusilla makes a whimpery noise in her throat, but it's desire and not jealousy, I note as I catch my love's eye.

"I--" Scully says. Her lower lip quivers. But she looks willing.

"Pretend it's only a dream," I say. "Pretend what you want. Say yes, Dana. But only if you want to."

I look down. I listen to the sound of human breathing, ragged to my ears. "Yes," she says, looking at me directly. "Yes. I want to."

"Hooray!" Drusilla cries from the bottom of the bed. "Let go, Spike! I've waited ever so politely and you know I've been hungry like the wolf."

Dana Scully eyes my demon lover with something between terror and interest. I give her a long, slow kiss, and then let her go. "Don't worry, Dana," I say. "Drusilla will behave herself-- you won't feel a thing."

Dru giggles. "Silly boy," she says. "She'll feel lots of things-- good good things. Now, how shall we do this, Spike? Do you want to watch?"

"I can watch from here," I say, as Dana and I figure out a way to settle her into my lap. Fortunately, all of that intrepid FBI training has taught the woman how to maneuver. So she's between my thighs, as I smell the soft, faintly lemon scent of her shampoo and Dru crawls towards the bed, eyes alight with unholy mischief.

"I bet you taste like peppermint," Dru growls at Scully, her hands moving for the top button of the satin pajamas. "You look like you would taste sweet."

Scully doesn't say anything, but begins to squirm delightfully against me, her ass rubbing against my cock and building friction. I smile at Dru, Dru smiles at me, and Scully's in the middle. Dru moves in slowly, carefully, like a cat with a fresh mouse to play with, and simply pulls the satin top open.

"Oooh!" my love says, her eyes very round. "I broke all the buttons. How absolutely thoughtless of me." Scully is still looking glassy eyed, like a deer caught in headlights. Poor girl-- or perhaps not. Drusilla has a very talented tongue.

"That's okay," Scully says softly. "I can fix it later."

Dru smiles and lowers her head to the exposed flesh. She begins to nibble on it slowly, kissing her way up from the valley in between Dana's breasts to her gasping, moist lips. And how can a chap not get turned on with one hot miss squirming in his lap, his best girl drooling all over her, and you yourself knowing that both of them will fuck you this very night? I am only a man.

I run an appreciative hand over Dru's back, but Dru's lips are glued to the pretty redhead, whose arms are around Dru's neck. I pull back a little as they start getting hot and heavy and Dru's hand sneaks into the waistband of the satin pajama bottoms.

Scully moans and I can hear it, even with her lips still sucking Dru's. Dru pulls away from the girl and tilts her neck up.

"Give her a buss, Spike. You can play, too."

"I'm just fine," I reply, as Dru shrugs and starts nipping at pale, warm human flesh, pushing the satin top off Scully's shoulders and into my lap. Then Scully's head is resting against my shoulder as Dru begins lapping at warm, salty skin, and she's moaning to beat the band.

"Ooh, God--" Dana whispers. She pushes back against me, but more toward Dru, legs spreading provocatively.

"I was right," Dru says, tracing spirals down the flat expanse of Dana's stomach. "You taste sweet. Like life."

And with that, my love's hands are at the waistband of the expensive pajamas and jerking them away, leaving only a thin pair of cotton panties between Scully and complete immodesty. Dana starts keening, her body writhing against mine and causing almost unbearable friction.

"God," the redhead pants, eyes closing. "Please--"

"You're so polite. Like a good girl," Dru says, slipping her fingers underneath the fabric. "And so nice and wet and warm. I like warm things."

Dana gasps. "Oh, GOD."

"Sweet girl, just call me Drusilla," my love whispers, pumping her fingers in and out. "Do you like that? You've gotten all red."

Dana has apparently been rendered inarticulate by the sensation, and I suddenly decide I want to play, too. I reach around and start caressing her naked breasts. Dana arches, and Dru kisses the back of my hand, licking it sensuously.

"You are going to play, I'm so glad," Dru says, smiling. I nod, and slowly, I extricate myself from the increasingly wild thrashing between the ladies. I nod, and start undoing the stays of her beautiful black velvet dress, kissing the soft, cold skin underneath.

"Oh, oh, oh," Scully whimpers in the background. "Ohgodohgodogod--"

Dru grins, and turns her face to me. We kiss, and I finish unlacing the dress and rip it away from her body, rubbing the smooth, satiny flesh of Dru's stomach. "I think I need you both right now," I murmur, feeling my cock harden against my love's back. Dru giggles, and Dana, who is dozing ever so slightly on the bed, half-wakens again and smiles a warm, lusty smile as Dru and I begin kissing again, fingers entwining.

"I do so love you," she whispers to me. "Come on, love, love us."

I grin, and fall on my back as Dru undoes my pants. "Love you? But how can I choose?" I ask. I roll to my side and kiss Dana on the mouth. She kisses back. Then I pull Dru to my other side and kiss her. "I have two such lovely creatures here--"

Dana rubs against me wantonly. "You have her every day."

"She has a point, Dru."

Dru laughs delightedly. "Oh, she's saucy! You must kiss her, Spike, I'll watch."

And so I do, shedding clothing as I go. She's faster than I remember. And more willing, as I nudge her thighs apart with my knee. I start kissing my way down her body, and for a moment, get dazed with the desire to taste blood. I start suckling hard on her breasts, dreaming of that salt and iron tang of blood, and how easy it would be to simply break a vein open. I should do it-- but Dru would cry, and I can't do that to Dru. So instead I viciously nip and suckle my way down the expanse of ivory skin, grinding hard against the woman, who moans and scratches back at me, thrusting herself against me.

"Luv'ly girl," I whisper into her ear, raising my head to hers. "You know, you're very lovely."

"Oh, yes, yes," Dana cries, lust-crazed. "Yes, please--"

I can't turn a nice lady down, you know. I press into her and she wails as I start thrusting, trying to develop a rhythm. She shakes her hips beneath me, crying as I slip a finger between us and start rubbing her. Her voice evaporates, replaced by a series of moans and gasps. Drusilla nips at my ears and shoulders, while Dana bounces underneath me like a bleeding rag doll, starting to scream.

"God, yes! yes! Please, please!" the woman howls as Dru begins to lick an oily path down my back. I slam into her hard, and Dana comes hard, crying my name. I kiss her, but Dru has her hooks in me and pulls me away from the mewling, gasping human being on the bed.

"Me, now, love, because you love me," Dru orders. Despite the fact I'm sticky and gasping, I grab and kiss my beloved Dru wildly, as Dana slowly comes to herself on the bed, her breathing getting ragged as she watches. As Dru pushes me back, I slide my eyes over and see a formerly demure federal agent whimpering at the sight and running her fingers over her slim, rounded curves.

"I love you more than life and death, Drusilla," I whisper. "You are my beautiful love."

Drusilla laughs. "And you are my sweet Spike," she replies, easing herself over my aching cock and letting me into my favorite place. The rhythm is easier here, for this is my love, my beauty, my one and only true love--

The pale, beautiful human woman stares at us, her fingers between her thighs. I can't tell what she's thinking, and more importantly, I don't care. But she looks almost sad, even as Dru starts bouncing away, and I grasp my love's hips and thrust hard into her, thinking that pleasure or not, I love Drusilla, more than I could dream loving anyone.

"Forever," Dru says, as she gets close. "It's you and me forever and ever--"

She shudders around me, and the force of Dru is enough to make me jet up into her, thinking the same thing. Forever and ever, world without end, it'll be Drusilla and me--

Out of the corner of my eye I see Dana, looking at us with sapphire blue eyes. She looks satiated, but rather empty somehow. Dru rolls away from me with a contented sigh, and I lean over and kiss the lovely redheaded woman.

"Thank you, Dana, for the lovely evening," I murmur. "And I'm afraid we must be going."

"And you were ever so lovely," Drusilla says, kissing her on the forehead. "You were sweet and warm and lively."

Scully nods, looking downward. Drusilla embraces her, kissing her lips firmly. "He doesn't treat you well, love," Dru says. "But he does, I promise, love you. He loves you like my Spike loves me. But you must teach him to love you better."

The woman stares at her. "How did you--"

"Shh," Dru whispers, pushing away a few stray red hairs. "The stars whispered it to me. Now you be good and clean yourself up."

Scully stands up and staggers away, eyes wide. I look at Drusilla and smile. "You are remarkable, luv, absolutely remarkable."

"She should be happy," Dru replies. "Like we are happy. Aren't we happy, Spike?"

I turn to her and laugh. "Of course we are! We have each other!"

And so we leave the house, into the rich, warm contours of the night, secure in the fact that no matter what else, there's love, and each other, and what do you have without love?

Nothing, that's what. Absolutely nothing.

"Good morning, Mulder. I just had a close encounter with a vampire last night. I completely believe in them now. On all other counts involving the paranormal, you are still full of shit."

No. No way. I can't say that. But what else can I tell him? Last night, I take off without telling him, and this morning at seven thirty he gets a phone call that they found me bruised and apparently fazed in an alley. Of course he'll want a detailed itinerary, especially as I look a little beaten up. I am in so much trouble. I mean, oh, God-- what was I thinking?

"Scully? Are you okay?"

"Hi," I say bashfully. Mulder runs up and crushes me in his arms. He had the usual Mulder-action to my absence. Oh shit shit shit. There is no way I can tell him--

"Where were you?"

That's the question. I was sitting on my creaky-ass bed in this one-horse town, called Sunnydale. I was extremely irritated. Why doesn't the paranormal ever occur in, say, civilization? Why are the people who report events like Inca mummy girls and giant robots ever, um, sane? Anyway, we're in boring, no-resolution Sunnydale, and it's Tuesday night. The motel has free porno, which equalled me finding my own entertainment. About an hour into the NBC lineup, I flipped off the television, put on jeans and a t-shirt, and asked the desk clerk if there was anything to do in this godforsaken hellhole.

That's how I found myself in the Bronze, alone, nursing a dry martini. At least there were people and alcohol and music. I was also nursing a towering bitch-fit for Mulder when he came back from watching Debbie doing Dallas. That's when he showed up.

I was on my third martini, ogling anything that appeared to be over eighteen. I felt pathetic. I felt like upgrading to a stronger drink.

"A little old for the pimple squad here, aren't you, luv?" I heard him say. He sat down next to me without a by-your-leave or even an introduction. I didn't care.

"There's not much else for a bored tourist to do in Sunnydale," I replied honestly, hoping that I wasn't staring. He was gorgeous, in that Billy Idol, punk-rock-lad way. And he was much sexier than Billy Idol. My mouth went dry.

"No, I suppose not," he replied. "But why on earth would you holiday here, luv?"

Danger, danger, Dana Scully. I was being hit on by a gorgeous, sexual, dangerous-looking punk ten years younger than I was. I was enjoying it. I managed to smile.

"I'm not on a holiday. I'm FBI," I said laconically. "We're investigating some mysterious deaths."

He paused for just a second. "You? FBI? No offense, but I could knock you ass over ankles."

"Looks can be deceiving, Mister--"

"Spike. Just Spike. And what about you, FBI lady?" he asked, leaning in. I swear I got lightheaded.

"Scully," I replied. "So, Spike, didn't you hear Sid Vicious is dead?"

"Scully? That's no name for a beautiful woman. What's your name, really?" he replied, placing his hand over mine and stroking it with his thumb.

"Dana," I said. My tongue had gone limp. "So, tell me that you're not a really, really old-looking twelve-year-old, please."

"Someone's a little cranky," he teased, his breath tickling my earlobe. "What's wrong, Day, you and your man have a row?"

"I don't HAVE a man," I replied snippily. "My partner is engaged for the evening. I'm bored. I'm tipsy. My life is dull. My crankiness is justified."

Spike smiled widely. You know, besides the fact that all vampires are extremely charming-- that's very true-- they have a definite effect on women. On the sexual reponse. On arousal. I was definitely being affected.

Yeah, I wanted to jam my tongue down his throat. Happy?

"Oh, poor Day," he said softly, his thumb continuing to draw patterns on my hand and send shivers down my spine. "She's a beauty queen and nobody notices. Poor beauty. Did anyone ever tell you that your eyes are the most spectacular shade of blue?"

"Day? What?"

"You're Day, like a summer's day, like sunlight and afternoon. You're prettier than a summer's day."

I blushed like a fifteen-year-old. He grasped at my wrist then, trying to pull me up from the table.

"What?" I asked.

"Dance with me," he said. "Come on, Day luv. I bet you're a great dancer."

He helped me to my feet as I mumbled something idiotic like "ermokyea-uh" because I'd never heard the song or band before. Somehow, I fit into his arms just right, and the sharp exhale of my breathing sounded loud as he pulled me close and we started dancing slowly. I was on sensory overload. Spike was wearing a leather jacket, and the smell of leather, warm air, and stale air was making me spin. My one functioning brain cell informed me that it had been far too long since my last sexual encounter, and my body was adding it was horny.

Traitors.

Dancing is nothing more than socially sanctioned foreplay. That became extremely obvious extremely quickly. I do know how to dance, and I know that gyrating your hips against your dance partner's is not innocent, no matter what dances are popular these days.

Spike wasn't doing so bad, either. He had his face buried in my neck and his lips felt like fire moving against my throat. My one remaining brain cell burnt to a crisp, and its final message? Do him, Dana.

"Do you want to go somewhere else?" I managed to mutter just as his hands pulled my hips just a little closer. "Somewhere where the police won't stop our little party?"

"We're having a party?" he muttered, his tongue flicking my earlobe.

"Oh, God, yes," I whimpered. "Why can't I ever find nice boys like you at home?"

"I'm not nice, luv," he replied calmly. "My plans for you, pretty lady, have nothing to do with nice."

I pulled back from him with a grin. My eyes met his. His were glittering. I decided to do something impulsive. I pulled his face down to mine and kissed him.

No. It wasn't a kiss. It was an oral assault. It was my knees turning into water as his tongue duelled with mine, and his arms lifted me up so that we had a better grip on each other. Then he let me down.

"I didn't quite mean nice in the sense you were going to walk the dog for me," I replied. "Besides, my dog was eaten by an alligator. And nobody liked it anyway."

Spike laughed. "Come on, Day," he whispered into my ear. "You and me have plans."

We stumbled out of the Bronze. "Spike. Where are we going?" I whispered as his hand slid under my shirt. "Oh, God, that feels good."

"You talk so much, Day. Can't you just let things happen?" he asked, fingertips teasing my breast. "I never understood you middle-aged American women. So fucking neurotic about sex. It's got to be in a good relationship, people have to be careful--" he tugged then-- "Haven't you ever just wanted to just get off and enjoy it?"

"The last time I tried that," I growled, trembling with arousal, "The last time I tried that, I almost ended up getting fed to a fucking furnace."

"Someone would actually destroy something as beautiful as you?" he whispered, busying himself with licking a path from earlobe to the nape of my neck. The crotch of my jeans was soaking wet, and my irritation had nothing to do with Mulder now. "I think that I need to show you how much fun you can have with a very not-nice boy, Day. Turn right here. Third door. And be quiet. My-- housemates-- are rather particular. I'd rather they not know we're here."

"If you keep doing that, I won't be keeping too quiet," I replied. "But if you stop, I'll kill you."

"I'll keep that in mind."

He closed the door behind us, and helped me up the stairs. We locked the bedroom door behind us, and he kissed me again, driving me up against the door. My head banged against the door and I saw stars. His body pinned me against the wood.

"Time for not-nice things, luv," he whispered, yanking my arms over my head. "I hope you're not fond of that shirt. I intend to rip it off you."

"I hope you're not fond of your jeans," I replied. "I intend to ruin the fly."

"And I thought that they had to have all-American types in the FBI," he said mockingly, holding my wrists with one hand and tearing off the shirt with the other. "You, my dear Day, are wicked."

I twisted my wrists free and pushed Spike to the ground. "I'm trying."

My lips found his, and my eager, naughty little hands helped him get his jacket and shirt off, and the proceeded to get rid of my bra, which was difficult as my fingers were busy scratching trails down Spike's chest and playing with his belt.

"Dana, behave," he whispered, whipping off his belt and pushing back so that I found myself on the floor, being tortured in the best possible way. His lips started trailing down my throat, nipping and tugging, down to the valley between my breasts, then up each incline, biting and snapping. I groaned.

"Let me up," I whimpered. "Spike, please."

"Shhhh. I promise you're going to enjoy this."

His fingers found the top button of my jeans, and I heard each steel rivet release from the fabric, and the friction as this divinely devilish blonde young man pulled the jeans away from my body. My hands, suddenly free to move, flopped bonelessly at my sides. I was a slut, and I was going to burn in hell for it but--

His tongue swirled in my belly button and my hips jerked up sharply. At least I'd get my money's worth.

"Don't stop," I whimpered.

"Stopping was the last thing I had on my mind, Day," he replied, stripping off my dripping underwear and driving a finger into me. I squealed.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm lots, oh God, lots better than all right," I moaned as he began pumping in and out, his warm mouth hovering around the swell of my stomach. I was almost afraid where his mouth would finally decide to end up. My hips would not stop moving, either.

"Mmm-hmm," he hummed into my stomach. I whimpered, and my heels started pounding against the hardwood floor. His fingers slammed into me with a brutal but extremely mind-numbing rhythm, and I couldn't help but writhe and whimper in delight.

His mouth finally decided to destroy me. It landed directly on my clit, and I howled.

"Don't stop, oh my God, OH my God, don't, don't, don't," I begged, grinding against him. "Oh God, please please please--"

I came then, hard. He laughed.

"Pleased?" he said.

"More than pleased," I said. "Is that a bed over there?"

"Yes, luv, I was just wondering if you'd like to use the bed."

"Mmmm-hmmm," I said dreamily. He picked me, actually threw me across his shoulder, and swatted my bottom for good measure. Like I said, my brain cells were all on vacation, so I didn't even feel the least bit of irritation when he threw me on the bed, and grinned at me like I was dinner.

"You can't go to sleep yet, Day. I haven't finished with you yet," he said, covering my face with his mouth and kissing.

"I'm not sleepy. Just glowing," I said, pushing my breasts into his chest. "What are we up to next, lover?"

"More sex. I think you and I will be up all night. In fact," he said, tugging on my earlobe with his teeth, "I know we will."

"Sounds like a proposition," I said, shifting beneath him restlessly. He was rock-hard and pressing into my belly. "Does someone need attention?"

"I'll show you attention," he growled, sucking hard on my breast again. He was trying to leave a mark, and a ghost of a thought dared pass through my mind.

"That'll show in the morning."

"No, really?" he asked. "Be a dear, Day, and get these pants off me."

"Your wish is my command," I replied smartly, pushing him back and opening the fly of his jeans. With my mouth. It's not as difficult as it sounds, the jeans were button fly. I moved my mouth up about six inches, and started nibbling and teasing as badly as he had teased me, while he and I rid him of those jeans.

I wasn't surprised to discover he wasn't wearing anything under them.

"Luv, I know you want to give as good as you get, but I'd rather get to the good part."

"The best things come to those who wait," I replied coyly, biting down on a nipple softly while my hand reached down and circled him. "I promise you're going to enjoy this."

He pulled my hand away. "Ah ah ah, Day. We're playing my games. I want inside of you."

I shimmied back and opened my legs for this absolute stranger. He laughed again and pounced, pausing a moment before driving into me.

"Oh God," he moaned, pulling back and then slamming into me again. "You don't have any idea..."

I started moving with him then, quietly for once in this whole erotic escape. First slow, and then faster as we figured out each other's rhythms. He started pounding into me, his fingers grating across my back. I didn't care. I'd stopped caring the minute I'd smelled him. All I knew was that I was getting fucked but good and I didn't want it to stop.

I kept hearing a woman moaning and whimpering somewhere nearby. She was so loud, incredibly embarrassing to hear.

"Spike, Spike, Spike, oh, yes, just like that, I'm gonna come so hard, oh, please God, God don't stop oh God!"

She was going to get us caught, begging like that. I tried to move my head, figure out who was screaming like that.

"Day, God, you're wired tight, luv," he whispered in my ear suddenly. "Come on, you need to let go, just let it all go, I want everything. Give it to me--"

He jerked into me hard, and it hurt, but it rubbed my swollen clit just right and I realized the screaming woman was me and I came and came, the entire world splitting in half. Despite the fact I never came that way. Despite the fact I'd already gotten off. And still he didn't stop, he would kill me, I realized, gasping.

"I'm going to die," I whispered. "You're killing me."

He laughed again, a low dangerous chuckle, and flipped us over so that I was on top.

"I can't," I whimpered. "I can't keep going."

"I know you can. Come on, beauty, so what if you die?" he growled, moving his hands up and down my chest. "You know you want to do it again."

So help me God, I did. I started moving up and down, impaling myself over and over on his impossibly hard cock. Even though I was tired, even though my brain was swimming, I felt myself speeding up, trying with every last sensation in my wildly sinning subconscious to make him come as hard as he'd made me. I wanted to bring myself off one more time.

My throat ached from screaming so much. I simply whimpered, feeling my body tense up. I was going to come again. I was going to lose my mind.

"Oh yeah, oh yeah, baby, right there, just a little more," Spike growled. "Give it to me, I need it bad."

I impaled myself a few more times and felt him come, hot and fast and it triggered my third climax. I screamed wordlessly, just feeling the sensation of every bone in my body turning to water. I collapsed on him

"Oh my God," I whispered. That's when somebody knocked at the door.

"Spike, what in the hell are you doing in there? It sounds like you've killed her three times already!" a male voice yelled.

"Screw off," Spike yelled. He looked at me. "Day, get off me and look dead."

"What?"

"Do it," he hissed at me, throwing me against the headboard. I scrambled back and flopped against the bed, staring as Spike rose, buck-naked, and stalked to the door. He threw it open and that's when I saw for myself there were such things as vampires, and they were ugly motherfuckers at that.

"She's not dead, Spike," the other one said. "What are you doing?"

"Haven't you ever heard of those American agents, the ones who investigate things like us, Trick?"

"Of course I have. Mulder and Scully-- oh. Ohhhh. Hey there, Agent Scully. Nice to meet you."

"Hi," I said, trying to keep my cool, even though the fact I was naked on a bed and frightened for my life made that impossible. "Are you going to kill me?"

"Kill you? Hell no," Trick replied. "I see you're enjoying yourself. I'll just be on my way, pretty lady. Keep up the good work."

With that, he left the room, and Spike spun around. He was a vampire, too. It was too much for my overstimulated system and I guess I fainted.

I woke up with a man's head between my legs, and all sorts of interesting sensations spinning through my body. I kept my eyes closed.

"Good morning, Day," Spike said, moving his head away from my crotch for a moment. "Sleep well?"

"Mmmmm-hmmm," I moaned. "This is a lot better than coffee."

"Think of it as repayment for not screaming when you saw me."

"Oh-- okay, okay, okay, oh GOD," I whimpered, as his mouth descended back onto my center. Vampire or not, he knew how to wake a woman right up. I jerked back against him, feeling every nerve in my body start keening with me. "Don't stop that, ever, please, oh yes!"

I came again, but instead of feeling limp and satiated, I felt awake, alive, and very glad to repay my erstwhile lover. I pulled his head up.

"Don't I still owe you for last night?" I asked. "How would you like it, lover?"

"I'd like it as far inside you as possible, Day," he replied glibly. "Take that to mean whatever you want."

I grinned devilishly and lowered my mouth. "Okay."

I circled him with my lips and then, taking a deep breath, took him in, and started bobbing up and down. Spike seemed to have a terrible time keeping control, especially when my hands decided to do secret doctor things to him. I must give him credit-- he didn't twist his hands in my hair. I hate that. Finally, he came with a shout, and I sucked him off.

"Better?" I asked, bringing my head up. He nodded.

"You have to go," he said. "People will start looking for you."

"Yeah. I don't need Mulder having a freak scene and ruining the best sex of my life. Maybe we can do it again sometime."

"Sunnydale is full of paranormal activity. It shouldn't be so hard to convince your erstwhile partner to investigate," Spike replied. "Day?"

"Yeah?"

"Nothing."

I wandered out on my own, wearing a shirt of his, looking, well, like I'd just been fucked and beaten up. The police picked me up, and they wouldn't listen to anything until I pulled out my badge. Which is how I get back to now. In Mulder's arms, smelling like another man. I can't believe he hasn't screamed at me for what I feel is branded all over me.

"Where were you?"

"I went out last night. Some guy knocked me down. Fortunately, nothing worse happened," I lie. "I'm fine, Mulder."

"You look like--"

"Like what?" I ask. He doesn't reply. I smile up at him.

"Like nothing. You sure that's all that happened?"

"I'm sure, Mulder. So, I hear Sunnydale is a hot spot for all sorts of paranormal activity. Maybe one of these days, we'll have to come back."

Mulder looks at me like I've lost my mind. "Did you hit your head?"

"No, Mulder," I say, smiling mysteriously. "I just was suggesting a possibility."

A possibility I really want to explore.

It is to be like this, forever and always. Lilah would live and die and suffer in small moments, trapped in sticky amber memories and the white flash of realization. The Senior Partners, those old allies of Lilah's, they watched her writhe with all the amusement of 15-34 year old males catching a glimpse of a new reality series before going back to whatever they were doing besides worrying advertisers.

Advertisers, who were in fact, more hellish than the Partners, pandering endlessly for demographics that didn't matter. They would say the loop of Lilah's most unspeakable moments were stale, that they were in danger of losing male teens and the urban audience. Could she perhaps get jiggy with something? Or adopt a sassy best friend?

Lilah suspected that maybe, just maybe, the moments of lucid, adult identity were meant to be their own torture, a stream of non sequiturs meant to distract from the inevitable knowledge of what was coming.

Death had restored so much of Lilah's memories, of the way things had truly been from beginning to end. But just when she was on the verge of making connections, of thinking more than thoughts about advertisers and subliminal product placement, she would fall under. Deep under, in the world that would have been if she hadn't wished it away, where she was fourteen and trapped. Never and always, amen.

Always Dad standing there, teasing. "Mr. Tibbles is in grave peril," he said, holding the stuffed puppy over the railing. "His life is in my hand, Lil. You have to be nice to me or he'll fall."

(Lil? Who's Lil? Why does she feel like me?)

"Give him back!" she shrieked, embarrassed. He wasn't supposed to come home and see her hugging Mr. Tibbles. And she was so awkward anyway, in her Wonder Woman t-shirt and short shorts and rainbow belt. Beauty was two awkward-as-hell years away, years that never came. "Give him back NOW!"

He grinned, and dangled it just over her head. "Try to get him," Dad teased. They'd only been playing. Lilah didn't want Mr. Tibbles to fall, and besides, she had a good jump. Maybe she'd try out for basketball instead of trying to be a cheerleader like Mom wanted.

{Where are we? Why does this seem so familiar? I've had this dream before.)

Mid-jump, Lilah felt this rush of energy, like she'd suddenly been turbocharged. And she panicked, overcontrolled, and hit Dad anyway. Fell into him hard and he didn't catch her. They were both knocked back, wood railing splintering and falling around them.

She lived an entire life in one point seven-five seconds.

(Oh God oh shit oh shit oh shit oh god my god no, I'm so scared, Dad be okay, please don't be dead.)

Lilah felt the breath whoosh out of her. "Dad?" she asked, looking down at her father, whose eyes were unfocused and not blinking. "That hurt. Are you okay?"

(Be okay. Who are you? Why are you always in my dreams? Why am I so afraid for you?)

"Dad, can you hear me?" she said, sounding confused as she scrambled off him. He was breathing. Maybe he had a concussion. Of course. Anyone would, from falling like that. "Dad? I'm going to call 911."

They were very unhelpful. She knew not to move him. It had been in an Afterschool Special. Or something on TV; Lilah forgot. They would be there shortly. Lilah told them she didn't need to keep talking to them, because she wasn't hysterical.

"I should watch my dad," she said flatly. "Please come fast."

She was clumsy all the time. It hadn't knocked the railing out before. Hadn't killed anyone before. But before, she hadn't been Wonder Woman. Lilah very calmly walked over to the coffee table, thinking about the time Jimmy Tenura had said girls couldn't be martial arts fighters. She took a deep breath, lifted up her fist, and brought it down as hard as she could into the coffee table.

(I remember this...it felt just like this. Having this new power. I'm so afraid. Why am I so afraid for her? Why am I so afraid for me?)

The legs collapsed and the veneer was cracked now. Mom would be very pissed off; it was solid oak. Lilah didn't care. Curiosity satisfied, she sat next to Dad.

"The ambulance is coming," she said, folding her arms around her knees. "You must have absorbed the shock from the fall. The doctors will fix you. I'm so sorry, Dad."

(Something bad is happening. Something bad is about to happen.)

Watching the breathing get shallower and shallower, Lilah buried her head in her hands, trying not to cry. "Oh, God," she whispered. "Let this not have happened. Oh, God, let this be taken away from me."

It never is. (Let it stop, oh please, let it stop, I don't want to see her cry a...)

In Rome, Buffy sat up in a cold sweat. "Oh God," she said, shivering. "Let this not have happened."

Moonlight fell across the bed, and the sheets were rumpled and twisted from Buffy's more-than-nightmare. She got up on bare feet, and padded into the bathroom. Andrew was snoring on the couch, holding his plush Master Shake doll close, and Buffy closed the door on him. How she'd ended up with Andrew as a permanent housemate was beyond her. Giles needed to trade Dawn back soon. Buffy knew her sister seemed to have the best bond with Dana, and that she'd managed to interpret some of the quasi-prophetic ranting Dana did at odd intervals, but Andrew was damned annoying.

Especially now that he was straight and Dawn was questioning. That was also like some kind of impossible opposite-verse where up was down and Johnny Depp was ugly. Buffy sighed, got herself a glass of water, and looked in the mirror. That had been the third time she'd had the same weird dream, and it just got sadder and creepier. That sad, dark-haired girl, the fall, the whole weird of the accident. And then the way she sat there next to him, like Buffy had with her mom. Waiting. Hoping.

The phone rang before Buffy could go back to bed, and before Buffy could get the phone, Andrew had answered it. "Ciao," he said in his best suave Italian voice. "Oh my God, Kennedy! Hi!"

Only Andrew could be such a Valley Girl. Buffy took the phone from Andrew with an annoyed grunt. "Kennedy, it's like, three thirty in the morning in Rome," she said. "What's going on?"

"Who the hell is that Slayer, Buffy?" Kennedy asked. "Willow's going crazy, trying to figure it out. Every Slayer in South America is having these dreams. One of the girls is so uptight about it that we're taking her off duty for a month."

Buffy sighed. "I don't know, Kennedy," she said. "Willow doesn't have any way of identifying her? She's from North America, obviously. I'm guessing western US. Send a team up there."

"Oh, yes, let's send Slayers to the war zone," Kennedy said dryly. "Assuming we can get them across the US border and into California anyway, where your big stupid ex refuses to deal with us because it's his war."

"Like you said, Kennedy," Buffy snarled. "She's making people crazy. We kind of sort of have to find her, or it'll be worse than being stuck in a terror-war-zone."

Kennedy paused. "Sorry, Buffy," she said. "They're freaking me out. I'm scared something bad is happening to her."

Buffy realized her free arm was wrapped around herself, and she was still sweating. "I dig," she said. "I'm scared for her and for us, too."

Anne's arm was comfortable and comforting where it was, thrown over Gunn's waist possessively. The sun blaring in their eyes let her know that it was about noon; time for them to get up. Most people had been awake since just before dawn, because there was no use in going out after dark anymore unless one was suicidal.

They were the last protection against the darkness, literal and physical. And Anne wasn't sure that protection was holding out. Gunn had been so wounded that Angel had taken him off active duty as long as he could, despite his own crippling losses.

That had been four days.

"Time to wake up, isn't it?" Gunn asked quietly. She hadn't realized he had been awake.

"Afraid so," Anne said. "Let me see the bandages."

Gunn groaned, struggling into a sitting position. "If I'd known getting hurt meant I had to be poked and prodded by you every morning, Annie, I wouldn't have gone and done it," he said.

Anne chuckled, pulling out her squeaky metal box of medicine. "Now you know," she said. "So don't get hurt again."

She changed the dressings, putting the old ones in the sack to be washed; they didn't have any to waste. So many people had been hurt and killed in the original attack on the city, and the President had declared Los Angeles a disaster area, maybe even a complete write-off. Anne wasn't sure; they were filtering the radio broadcasts that got into the city. Also, she was trying hard not to make waves by knowing how exactly the world had taken Angel's last stand.

If she did, she'd just end up arguing with Charles, and she didn't feel like doing that. Times were too hard to waste friends over philosophical differences, especially when they were only getting worse.

"No problem," Gunn said, squeezing her shoulder. "I appreciate that you stayed."

Anne tried to smile at him, but it fell flat. Where was she going to go, exactly? She'd gotten the kids out; there had been enough Concerned Americans to do that much. But nobody had much use for a shelter owner with no past, no name, and a background check away from complete humiliation. Charles would watch her back and she'd change his bandages. They'd pretend that the world wasn't going straight to Hell, and that all their hopes and dreams hadn't been steamrollered in the name of Making A Stand, oh no.

"I appreciate that you come back," Anne said, and Gunn looked down.

"I know it's bad, Annie," he said, staring at his hands, such big hands. Anne suddenly remembered that Gunn had lost his friend, the English guy. Wesley, the one who'd been shot before. How did you handle loss like that? How had any of them not gone crazy? How had they not all gone crazy? "I don't know what else to do, you know? Angel always was the guy. He had the mojo. He knew what to do."

"And now, I guess not," Anne said.

"We fucked up," Gunn said, still staring at his hands. "We got obsessed with big pictures and big symbols and it was a mistake. And I swear, Annie, if I'd known...well, if I'd known a lot of things, I wouldn't have joined in. Don't think Angel would have, either."

Anne pressed her mouth against Gunn's shoulder, holding on tight. "I know, Charles," she said softly. "I know."

Watcherworld Central couldn't have been more different than the old Watchers' Headquarters. It was a garishly new, modern building, glass and steel and light, nestled unremarkably in the suburbs of London. There were elaborate security systems, magical scanners, a sanctuary spell in place, and dozens of young Slayers and Watchers buzzing around, training, whichever Scooby who was in town assuring anxious parents...in short, it was cheerful, effective, and to Dawn's mind, boring.

She had two major duties in London; one was to baby-sit Dana, who'd fallen off the wagon recently when it came to the crazy, and the other was to work on her prophecy knowledge. Giles had proudly said that she was the next generation of translator and interpreter for the world, and Dawn actually liked that future. She'd liked it even better once Giles and Roger Wyndam-Pryce had had their fight (or row, as they'd call it) and she'd been allowed access to the manuscripts. Manuscripts smelled wonderful, and Dawn could almost feel the magic humming in the inked words.

Today, she had important stuff to do. Buffy was freaked about these dreams she was having of a Slayer who was apparently off the radar somewhere and sending out a mystical distress signal. Problem was, Willow had done every locator on her known to man and demon, and nothing doing. They couldn't find her, like she didn't exist on this plane. Hence, Dawn's job was to see if there was anything prophetic while Giles calmed nervous parents and scared Slayers about their off-the-radar Slayer.

Hinklemann stopped her and almost patted her down for pens, though Dawn had since recognized that this wasn't unique to the Watchers, or an old man being mean to a young girl. The freak-o woman at the Huntington had repeated fifteen times that pens and manuscripts didn't mix, and Dawn had become resigned to pencils and PDAs to do research.

Two hours later, she'd gone over Widstoe's Miscellany five times, with the net effect of finding very little on a missing Slayer, and the most interesting person she'd never heard of. Someone who went by the title Calamity.

"Come to undo all things," Dawn read, still not sure what to make of the woman in question.

Her phone went off, and Dawn answered it. "Hello?" she asked quietly.

"Dawn?" Giles asked. "How is your research going?"

"Weirdly," Dawn said, tapping her stylus against the edge of her Palm rapidly. "Have you ever heard of Calamity? Supposed to undo all things, starting with her destiny. It's not much of a lead, but it's what I've got."

Giles paused. "It sounds almost familiar," he said. "We need you back at the dorms. Dana's had another seizure and she's babbling about Hell and night and you're the best at getting her to explain things."

"I know," Dawn said. "Are you going to recall Andrew? Buffy seems a little pissed with him hogging the couch. She and her boyfriend can't do so much making out with him around."

"Which is precisely why...but yes, Andrew will be back in London this evening, and tomorrow, Willow and Faith will be coming in," Giles said in that stuffy tone that alarmed Dawn.

"Things are bad, aren't they?" she asked.

"Quite disturbing, yes," Giles said. "If you've found a lead in this Calamity person, it's better than we've done lately. See you in about twenty minutes?"

"I'll be there," Dawn agreed.

They were making Wesley watch. Lilah wasn't sure what was more horrible -- knowing that it hurt him terribly, or the embarrassment she felt about the misunderstanding. If she could just explain this had never been possible: it had all been a fever dream bred out of septic sewer wounds, a regurgitation of her id's worst nightmares.

"You have to push," the white-hatted nurse who looked like Darla said, sinking her fingernails into Lilah's wrist.

"Screw that," Lilah said, and was punished with fingernails drawing blood, burning like fire in a moment that was already pain. "Don't think I don't know what you're trying to do."

"If you play along, it'll hurt less," Dr. Angel said, gloves on and a smirk on his face. "Push."

"Go to...Heaven," Lilah growled, slapping at Darla as another contraction wracked her. "This is all a construction based on my pathological fears. Motherhood, abandonment, pain, humiliation. For all I know, it's not really We--"

Nurse Darla sank a rusty hypodermic into Lilah's arm, depressing the plunger of noxious green 'medicine' with sadistic glee. "We need you to cooperate," she said. "Now, I know you know how to open those legs, and aren't you ready to be a mommy?"

"God, no," Lilah said hazily, feeling very heavy suddenly and cold. It didn't hurt, but the knot in her stomach reminded her that it was never good when you were drugged in Hell. "Resistance...it's not so futile, is it?"

Dr. Angel ran a blue-latex-gloved finger up and down Lilah's arm with a lascivious smirk. "We have ways of making it useless," he said. "The sooner you give up, the easier it will be. You'll just be one of them, and it won't hurt so much."

"Liar," Lilah said, trying to pretend the haze wasn't overpowering. If she was supposed to fight it...she wouldn't give them the satisfaction. Instead, she'd sink, let them try again. Vary her tactics until she could get to Wesley with what she knew.

This place was going to burn.

"True," Dr. Angel said. "But you won't remember that you were ever anyone. That there was ever anything except the pain you so richly and fully deserve."

"It'll be agony, beginning to end," Nurse Darla said chirpily. "And for you...selfish, opportunistic individualist you are...to know that once you might have had a name? Will keep you awake those two minutes you could sleep in a month."

"Mmm," Lilah said, the answer coming to her in a gentle wave of dangerous sleepiness. Of course. This place ran on pain, and she was willing to bet the individualized pain that came out of breaking the masses was worth a hundred of those drones' collective. Otherwise, why not just wipe everyone's memories and set 'em on fire? More cost-effective that way. "You're making me sleepy."

"Are you sleepy, dear?" Nurse Darla asked, stroking Lilah's hair. "You ought to sleep, and then you'll have a perfect little baby waiting when you wake up."

Lilah smiled, a dopey-looking smile. Perfect, huh? It would probably eat her head, or she'd have bled to death on the floor by the time she was supposed to wake up, the final memory being that dreadful squall. "I think I will," she said. "I have a dream to dream."

Dana screamed. Big sister always screamed now, because they were trying to drown her. They were trying to make the spark in her go away. Hide the truth. A needle in her arm. Once she had a name, and he's watching now. He's watching and it's worse because she could deal with her own problems. She asked for this; she traded it away.

He didn't. He didn't and it was her fault he was here.

"The baby's coming," Dana said to Dawn. Glowing Dawn, something more than nothing. "His head is big. Big like Big-Head Angel. She can't scream. They took away her vocal cords."

"Where is she?" Dawn asked.

"Hell," Dana said. They kept asking where she was. Big sister thought they were all fucking stupid. So stupid that if she could, she'd kill them all for stupidity. "The real Hell, not just the metaphor."

"Does she talk to you now?"

"Not talking," Dana said, pacing back and forth. "I just know, and she knows you. Useless Watchers. Worse than fucking Angel. The baby's coming, the baby's coming, it's not real. Wesley, don't watch!"

Dawn, who had been resigned to another session of Dana screaming out an interior monologue to some pretty scary nightmares, froze. "Wesley?" she asked. "Wesley Wyndam-Pryce?"

"Who else? Do I know any other Wesleys? I wasn't going to have a baby. I was bleeding to death. It was a hallucination. Wesley, please don't cry," Dana moaned. "I have a fever. I'm burning up."

Tentatively, Dawn tapped Dana's forehead with her hand and snatched it back before the schizophrenic Slayer could bite. Dana was right; she had a fever. "I'm going to get Giles," she said comfortingly. "He'll take care of you."

Their imprisoned (former) Slayer had known Wesley. Had slept with Wesley. Regularly enough that pregnancy had been an option. Except Wesley was dead now. Dawn thought about that. Wesley was dead. He couldn't be watching...unless Dana was right.

Giles was going to be pleased to hear about this. Well, not pleased, but excited. They had leads. They had all sorts of leads.

"I can't do this much longer," Dana pleaded. "Please help me. I can stop them. Please. Please. Please."

They couldn't do. It was part of the contract that bound Heaven, Earth, and Hell in order and relative workability. They couldn't change things, because that wasn't the way it worked. She could see everything, understand it in a second, and put things together that wouldn't have been possible during her life.

It was really pissing her off. She glowered at her partner, whose ethereal blondeness was another irritation on her less-than-heavenly spirit. "Don't you ever get annoyed by this? It's like, totally unfair," she said.

The blonde angel shrugged. "Free will," she said laconically. "I'd always found it superfluous, myself, but that's the rules for you."

"But they don't have all the facts," she said, frustrated. "It's important that someone helps Lilah, for example. And while that's a phrase I never expected to hear myself say? It's important. Fate of the universe important. And what do we have between ourselves and darkness?"

"A crazy girl, the Slayer's younger sister, and a couple that's not yet a couple?" came the answer. "Don't worry. I've seen worse odds."

"But...Angel!" she said, glowering at the images she'd seen. "There's the problem. What are we going to do about Angel?"

A moment of silence. A grimace. "That, I don't know," the blonde admitted. "I'll tell you when I can see an answer."

Part Two: Resistance

Wesley Edmund Wyndam-Pryce, aged thirty-five. A rebel against the eternal order of Wolfram and Hart, the Powers that Be, and their jointly-held realm, mortality. A rebel, a liar, and a betrayer.

"For these sins, you are condemned," a radiant woman in white told him. She looked something like Fred, and at the moment, Wesley wondered when it would kick in to the torturers that Fred was the least of his woes in the pit. Fred was beyond the Powers and the Partners; Fred was free. He hadn't betrayed Fred as he had everyone else, pleading with the God-King to let him die in her arms, believing he would go to his own rest.

He was covered in blood. Connor's, oddly, was not the blood upon his hands (unfortunate lad that he was); Hell judged him lightly for his betrayal of Angel and left it to lacerate his stomach. It was Lilah who hung like a millstone about his neck. Her peculiar distress at knowing he was watching her had been evident; it was as if she blamed herself for what he, Wesley, so richly deserved.

Nobody deserved to face the underworld alone. Wesley had left Lilah without even a word of solace. Had left her to roast in the pit, defenseless, while he pursued Fred with all the passion of a clean slate. Angel's damning gift, the gift he had traded Wesley's eternity for.

"Does the prisoner have anything to say?" the woman in white asked. She was a handsome woman, with intense green eyes and a permanent worry line in her brow. "Any defense he dare offer this court? Would you care to make complaint against the champion, Angel?"

Yet another special torture. They had sworn up and down that if Wesley condemned Angel with his own testimony, denounced him before the Powers and the Partners, and cursed him as a traitor that his falsely-bound soul would be free. Knowing how futile Angel's plans had been, and how selfish, Wesley was tempted. Deeply tempted, and the betrayal inherent in that temptation burned like napalm in his gut.

"I am falsely held," Wesley said. "Yet I will trade my servitude for Lilah Morgan's contract."

The woman laughed derisively. "You are legally held, if under unusual circumstances," she said. "You accept Angel's authority still, so his contract binds you. Unless you choose to denounce Angel's authority and renounce him as champion and employer, you have nothing to trade for the Morgan woman. And you assume that your soul would requite hers."

"One soul for another," Wesley said weakly. "A fair trade."

"Your destiny is useless to us now; your life is ended and it is fulfilled," the woman said. "Give us a Champion and we'll give you Calamity. Those are the terms."

Wesley reeled. "I can't," he said, his stomach churning. "I can't."

"Then we're adjourned," the woman said. "Until the next sentencing."

Roger Wyndam-Pryce hadn't learned any lessons from his son's death; if anything, he'd used it as an excuse to fall more deeply into melancholy hatred for the Watchers. Rupert cordially despised the man, who'd been so instrumental in his punishment for his youthful follies, but it was nothing compared to Dawn's lively antipathy for his vague answers to her earnest questions.

"But your handwriting is all over this journal," she said, waving the thing in his face. "You have to know who she is. You know you know."

"If your theory is correct, young lady, it is entirely probably that I do not," said Roger precisely, sipping at his tea. Elisabeth Wyndam-Pryce hovered outside the library. She'd seemed much more inclined to listen to both Dawn and Rupert and their desperate need for information about the possible missing Slayer, who'd even had a possible tenure.

"Wait," Dawn had said after hours of grueling research, holding up a slightly charred book. "Look. August 13 and 14th, 1983. Femi Abdullah died on the 13th in Zaire. Apparently, the next Slayer was supposed to be in California, and it looks like her Watcher might have made preliminary contact with the mother?"

Giles had furrowed his brow at the entry, which was in familiar handwriting but was unknown to him. "August 13, 1983?" he asked. "Femi Abdullah died on the 15th. There was no Slayer in 1983 from California."

"I've got a diary right here that says so," Dawn said. "Look."

Indeed, it had been made by RWP about the young Slayer, LM, who was in Fresno, California. Mother distraught -- LM pushed father? Situation delicate -- bring female Watcher, WWP should not accompany original team, will have to broach SD move carefully.

"I would have remembered," he'd said lamely. "Roger had me doing much of the scutwork those days as penance. I do not remember this girl."

Neither, apparently, did Roger, who was given no choice but to stare at the entries of August 13th and 14th with all their cryptic messages. At best, Giles remembered it as about the era that Roger had been at the zenith of his power, before his sudden downfall and Quentin Travers' takeover of the council. Perhaps something had been altered; perhaps this long-forgotten girl had nudged reality two degrees without realizing the consequences.

"You must be joking," Roger said at last, looking up from his glasses. "You wish me to remember an incident twenty-one years past, and remember what Rupert does not, that no living man has any recollection of? I fear, Miss Summers, that you're chasing a phantom in a desperate attempt to prove your own worth."

Dawn's mouth fell open slightly, and Giles stood, knowing that Roger was to prove useless in finding the missing Slayer. He had not been close with Wesley; he wouldn't know the names of his lovers. They would have to call Angel to ask and hope that Wesley had been dating her openly, which would seem likely enough...except the woman was in Hell. Lord knew what she had been in life.

"Miss Summers has no need to prove herself to you, nor to anyone," said Giles, nodding dismissively. "She's provided us invaluable information, which you, with all your vaunted experience, have not."

He and Dawn excused themselves, only to walk into Elisabeth, whose eyes were red-rimmed as she quietly walked them to the kitchen.

"We thought there was a girl," said the woman in a dead voice. "It was to be Roger's first active Slayer, you see. The fulfillment of several prophecies. Instead, we found ourselves entangled with a vicious little strumpet who'd accidentally killed her own father in a temper, and all of our timelines wrong by a dozen years. It nearly killed him. It was the end of his leadership of the council."

Dawn perked up with excitement. "What was her name?" she asked.

"Love, I don't know," Elisabeth murmured. "Roger wouldn't tell me. He gave her over to Wolfram and Hart, who promised to clear up the mess without a word to the council."

"He did what?" Giles asked. "Elisabeth, please, please tell me it's not so."

Elisabeth chuckled bitterly. "They were already there, Rupert," she said with a throaty sigh. "The girl's uncle worked for them, and Roger made a fool of himself, insisted that she was indeed the Slayer, and nearly got himself arrested. Wolfram and Hart graciously offered to protect him. That poor child. You think they tricked her?"

"I think she traded her destiny for her father's life," Giles said.
"And I think when she lost that destiny, she gained a worse one. One that might be tied to your son."

Elisabeth blinked. "You think Wesley knew her?" she asked. "And honestly, Rupert, what do you think it matters, if the girl's dead? She's got no more destiny to speak of, and for all you know, she died years ago."

"I know. I think at best, she's been dead twenty years and this is her warning to the Slayers," Giles said, looking down. "But I suspect it's quite a bit more than that. Whoever she was, she changed reality and lost her birthright. In fact, she never had it in this timeline. She changed destiny, but she didn't evade it."

"And now she's in Hell, stirring up more trouble," Elisabeth said. "I don't envy you your next task, Rupert."

"Finding her?" he asked.

"That'll be simple," she said with an elegant snort. "But I wonder how, exactly, you propose to save a damned soul from a destiny that no one knows or understands."

Giles gazed up at Elisabeth Wyndam-Pryce. That, indeed, was a very good question.

"We have to DO something," she said, stalking back and forth in front of her view. A hundred faces swam into relevance, talked over each other, and dissolved. She could understand anything and everything just by thinking of it, but there was nothing she could do. No chess piece to move. "Authority be damned. It's not like I don't know how stupid the Powers can be; remember, I've done this before."

"We can't do anything substantial," her partner said, stopping her dead in her tracks. This was the first time doing had even crossed the other's lips. "It would undo reality. We can't wing down like avenging angels, we can't enter the Wolfram and Hart-controlled areas of Hell, and we can't communicate directly with the sane."

This staggered her. The physical limitations of being an angel, instead of an ascended being, were ultimately dreadful. A purified, immortal existence, but with no ability to do or affect. No one could see or hear you, no matter where you went. She sighed, thinking of the impossible situation, when another face swam into recognizable state.

"Should we set up the Thorazine drip?" Andrew Wells asked. She'd known him, once upon a time. Tucker's brother. He was talking about Dana, the insane Slayer, and it hit her.

"Dana," she said. "We help Dana help Lilah. It's not substantial. We help them hold on. Wolfram and Hart is cheating, so we're not. We're merely proving that one cannot be tested beyond what she can bear."

The blonde angel laughed. "A neat bit of sophistry, Cordelia," she said, breaking another rule and causing Cordelia to gasp. "If we're going to cheat, let's also give up the stupid rule that angels are all anonymous and equal in the sight of the Powers."

"It's like Animal Farm," Cordy agreed, grinning at Darla ruefully. "Some animals are more equal than others. So...it's rebellion, then?"

"To quote a dreadful blind Puritan I knew in times past, all is not lost," Darla said, "The unconquerable will and courage never to submit or yield: that glory never shall his wrath or might extort from me."

She looked down at Dana, a grimace crossing her pretty face. "This is gonna suck," Cordy said with a sigh. "But what else can we do?"

(It could be so easy to sleep forever now. If only they'd shut up.)

Wake up. (Can't.)

Wake up. (Won't.)

Wake up. (I gave up the first time! Why should I have a destiny now? I gave up! Let me give up.)

("Hello, Wolfram and Hart, Hell Division," she said cheerfully. "This is Lilah Morgan, junior partner emeritus. How may I serve you today?")

Wake up. Wake up. You're still in there. Come back.

("A report on the new front of the war against Angel? I'm on it," Lilah said, sounding like the PTA version of herself. "Let me get a coffee and this'll be the best recommendation I ever made!")

They tried to drown you. You're awake in there. Come up, the baby's gone away. You have to wake up. You have to wake up, you're the only one who remembers the way it really was. You're the one to do this now.

("I have a headache," Lilah said, smiling brightly at Lindsey and Lee. "Give me twenty minutes, okay?"

They are so cheerful, clever, and efficient; the chosen ones of Wolfram and Hart Hell. They get to do whatever the Senior Partners want, no worries, no waiting. Once he's processed, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce -- he must have meant something to her once -- will join them, and it'll be wonderful wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful. And wonderful again, after all that whooping!)

You told me to remember. I did. I held on for you. Don't drown. Don't take me with you. They took away the pain, they made you forget. They'll take Wesley.

Remember? You don't get headaches when they empty you out. You're not empty. There's something left.

(Lilah stared at her hands. She couldn't remember what had happened yesterday, whatever yesterday was. But today, she'd known, instinctively, that her job was to come in to work, and with her old team, find new and creative ways to stop Angel. Not that Angel was very effective against Wolfram and Hart, but the sooner he was dead, the sooner the prophecies could be ignored or alternately fulfilled. Lindsey and Lee had been so happy to see her.

That wasn't right. They hated her. They would have never willingly...followed her.)

Yes. Be careful. They're listening for us. They'll torture you until you're so much meat if they catch us here. They'll come with needles and lies. We can save him. We'll throw them on their ears, all the devils, and open the floodgates.

(Something about that drug yesterday had really done a number on her. The green goo Darla had shoved into her arm. Lilah rubbed it absently. Probably something to mellow out middle management. They didn't need particular individuals, of course, but they needed that class of talent, and if they spent all their time raving and screaming like the rabble, nothing would get done.)

Almost there. Hold on. We're doing our best.

("Lilah, babe, we're needed," Lindsey said, poking his head into the office. "If you're woozy, go see the nurse. She gives out the stabilizers."

"Stabilizers?"

"Hell is very disorienting for the dead human," Lindsey said. "Wolfram and Hart uses them to keep us from falling apart."

Lilah smiled. Oh, yes. She remembered now. More than she could say. "Do we take them every day?" she asked.

"Three times a day," said Lindsey, grinning. "Come on, we're needed.")

Don't forget. Remember. Remember. Remember. We can't help you.

(Lilah followed Lindsey into the hallway. This really wasn't any better than the dead baby dead daddy torture extravaganza. Everything was so vanilla and pointless, and they were good little drones. On soma, even.

"Do you think they ever stop needing us?" Lilah asked Lindsey pleasantly, modulating her tones to match that cheerful bland robotic tone in Lindsey's voice. This was going to be the performance of her life, and she'd had a few Oscar-worthy ones before.

"Not an option, babe," Lindsey said lightly. Of course not. He couldn't even imagine it. Poor bastard couldn't imagine anymore. He was needed. He belonged to Wolfram and Hart. This was their eternity.)

Dana slumped against the floor. So tired. So tired it didn't even make sense anymore. She just knew that they had to stay awake or worse things would come. They were with her, but for how much longer?

What did time matter to an angel, anyway?

Angel had moved his HQ back to the remains of the Hyperion, which was still in good enough shape. Spike and Illyria stayed there, and Gunn had planned to, but as long as Anne stayed with him, he'd stay with her and ride his bike to the hotel. Usually, it worked out, took about twenty minutes. It had taken an hour today because of a bus on fire and some wounded to take care of.

The fun never stopped in post-apocalyptic LA.

"You are late," Illyria said upon arrival, gesturing at the office, where Angel stalked back and forth, clearly yelling about something.

"Flaming bus," Gunn replied with a shrug. "What's up with Fearless Leader?"

Spike snorted, walking in with a bucket of fried chicken and a couple bottles of beer. Gunn accepted the food gratefully, sitting down on one of the dust-and-blood-streaked couches.

"You ever hear of some bird called Lilah Morgan?" he asked. "Angel's having an enormous row with Rupes and the Bit cuz they're claiming that Wesley's last dead girlfriend's got a big-time destiny and we've got to help her."

Gunn gaped at Spike, chicken temporarily forgotten. "Lilah? Used to run Wolfram and Hart, slept with Wes, helped take Connor the first time, Lilah?" he asked. "The Slayers want us to help her?"

They all grimaced, thinking of Angel's overriding rule in the fight: if anyone was involved with Wolfram and Hart in any way, let them burn. Illyria shrugged carelessly.

"She was almost a Slayer," the Old One said. "Apparently, she maintains some power, which Angel claims is good for only death and sorrow. They were very interested in her every quirk."

Gunn snorted. "Lilah would be stirring up a fuss post-mortem," he said, cracking open the beer. "They thinkin' this has anything to do with Wesley? No more ex, so bye-bye planet?"

"You'd know better than we bloody would," Spike pointed out, gnawing on a leg. "And the evil queen was satisfied by Percy?"

"In ways you'd never want to know about," Gunn said, walking to Angel's office. "Yo, Angel? What's up? Anne wants me to help out with the neighborhood today if I can. She's worried about some of the orphans."

Angel looked up, and Gunn was sad at how old Angel was looking these days. There was grey at the temples, and that look in his eye. Could creep a man out, if he didn't know that Angel was all right.

"Go ahead," he said dully. "I'll need you in a couple of days. Dawn and Faith are coming here to make their problems my problem, and I want you to keep an eye on them."

The implication rather staggered Gunn. So now Angel was paranoid about Slayers? Maybe Illyria had something about Angel's non-first-name-basis with lucidity these days. Of course, if Gunn had lost everyone in three days, he'd be calling him Mr. Lucidity, too. But Angel had to keep it together, because otherwise, they were screwed.

Besides, with everything possible now, Gunn couldn't rule out that evil lawyer bitch might have a big-time destiny to help them out.

"And if they're right that the evil dead's important? What then?" Gunn asked.

"In the unlikely event? We go from there," Angel replied. "Get some rest. They'll be here soon."

Gunn nodded, thoughts swirling in his head. He wandered back over to Spike and Illyria, who were finishing off the rest of the chicken without apology to him, who actually needed to eat.

"Is it just me, or has he been crazy lately?" Gunn asked. "We didn't exactly do our mamas proud when we took out the Black Thorn, yo. And maybe just me, but if the Slayers are trying to find a way to help ease the Apocalypse, I say go Slayers."

Spike nodded, lifting his beer bottle in salute. "He doesn't much like being wrong, you know," he said. "Thought it was his destiny to show he believed in good and freedom and all the things Wolfram and Hart stood against. Turns out it wasn't that simple."

"Will he improve from this melancholia?" asked Illyria. "For this one is correct. Angel has been erratic since the loss of his loved ones, and the failure of our assault against Wolfram and Hart. We may have to consider him an unreliable warrior if it continues."

Spike shook his head. "Love, once we find another enemy to attack, he'll snap out of it," he said. "Angel likes to be certain, that's all. Not a crime."

"But not helping us, either," Gunn said, sitting down heavily.

Dana screamed, waking Andrew out of a light doze. She'd been screaming or sleeping for two straight days, and when anyone tried to wake her, she screamed louder that she had to remember or the whole world would burn up. With Dawn on her way to California to figure out what the hell was going on and if there was any way to salvage Lilah Morgan without dimensional-hopping bloodshed, watching Dana had fallen to Andrew. Giles was busily finding more clues, comforting parents, et cetera, and the Slayers got tense when they were near their crazy sister.

She babbled. She babbled more than anyone Andrew'd ever met, which was surprising because he counted himself quite the chatterbox, really.

"No, Nurse, I'm fine!" Dana said in that false-glad voice. "I appreciate the concern."

Lilah's life -- and by osmosis, Dana's -- pretty much sucked. Andrew figured that Lilah Morgan, lobotomy version, was a cheap knock-off of Mary Tyler Moore. Real Lilah, as far as he could tell from Dana's raving, was angry, tired, and ready to kill. She swore a lot.

"Get out of my way, bitch," growled Dana, pacing back and forth. "I just need to know where he is, and I will be DONE playing ball. And you fucking idiots can go back to being controlled by IT."

"It? Like in A Wrinkle in Time?" Andrew asked. "Heh. That's funny. I remember those books. They were good books. I liked Charles Wallace a lot. What about you? Who was your favorite?"

Dana turned her head slowly, her eyes narrowed in a way that the mad Slayer had never managed on her own. Andrew's skin shivered, because it was so creepy, watching someone else look out of Dana's eyes with so much purpose.

"I don't remember," she, whoever SHE really was, said. "Stop distracting us, unless you have something useful to say or do. Maybe you can whip up a spell to get me through to Wes and out of the hive mind."

With that, Dana shivered, moaned, and fell to her knees, curling protectively around herself. "Can't talk. Have to remember," she cried plaintively. "Have to get out of here."

Andrew's brain was now stuck on Madeleine L'Engle. Wasn't like there was much else he could do, and the idea of creating spells reminded him how he had written his first spell back when he was thirteen. Probably because the two had been related.

"There was the cool part of the third book where they did a spell, remember?" he asked, not really talking to Dana or Lilah, but if they were listening, he was giving them food for thought. "I mean, spells are really sort of concentrated belief. The word just kind of shapes it through a person's mind, calling on power. Like, do you remember that whole thing in the third book? I made a spell out of it once, and it kind of worked."

Dana's head rose from its huddle, her eyes practically glowing. Andrew slid away a couple of steps. Possession gave him the heebies, and made his throat ache in sympathy.

"What was that?" Dana-Lilah asked. "I only kind of remember. It was a while ago, and I didn't use the books to make teen-angst spells. You'll have to share."

Andrew blinked. "Well, it went like, okay. In this fateful hour, I call on Morgoth with his power -- Morgoth being the demon I wanted to raise," he said. "I can't remember. I just remember how Tucker said it was like the Hail Mary. Hail Morgoth, full of grace--"

The room shivered. Dana's eyes went wide. "Pray for us now, kid," she said in her uncanny voice, the one that was and wasn't hers. "I don't care what you do. Pray for me to walk through a wall and find Wes. Whatever. Do it."

"And what if I screw up?" Andrew asked, realizing he wasn't being asked. He was being told, and he couldn't figure out a reason to refuse.

"Then we're all doomed and demons will use your bones for cornmeal," she said with chilling indifference. "Don't fail. Focus the little light within, and pray, Andy."

Andrew shivered. "And then what?"

"Hell hath no fury," said Dana-Lilah, smiling. "You'll see."

The little nerd had done it. With Dana's strangely substantial help, and Lilah's, and whatever it was that had attached itself to Dana, but the little nerd had actually broken the illusion of solidity that Hell managed to imply in its inhabitants. The words of the funny rune aching in the base of her skull, Lilah pushed against the constructed reality.

If magic was words shaping desire into an event by calling power, Lilah could do that. She could understand that. "Open," she said, hand against the black glass walls of the cell. "Open up, damn it."

The glass became fog. And there, crouched in a transparent closet, was Wesley. She'd walked out of the womb of Wolfram and Hart, and oh, look, they'd clothed her in illusion. Great. Fabulous.

Lilah pulled off the closet door easily. Interesting. The torture, as ever, was in the torture victim's own mind first. Hell's reality had a distinct dependence on belief and fear, and those were so easy to exploit.

"I didn't mean it!" Wesley shouted, clearly still trapped in his own fantasies. "Let me out! Let me...my God, is that really you?"

"Are you all right?" Lilah asked, quite aware that she was drenched in blood, sweat, and alien goo while wearing a hospital gown, and Wesley's clothing looked like some pervert's fantasy of British boyhood. Barefoot, bedraggled, and hearing the faint echo of her mad sister-in-arms' voice rising in triumph, Lilah nodded to Wes, offering him a hand up. He took it with both hands, clearly trying to prove her solidity to himself.

"Am I...?" Wesley asked, stretching out his limbs from the dreadful confinement of the dark closet. He gave up and sighed. "I have always underestimated just precisely what a magnificent woman you can be."

Lilah smiled at him, pushing back her hair with a hand stained with dried gore. "I have my good days," she said casually. "Want to go somewhere with me?"

"Anywhere," Wes said simply. "Where are we going?"

"To turn the tide," Lilah said, striding ahead. "Also? We're going to talk as we walk about this thing we had. And about things in general."

He nodded solemnly, and it struck Lilah that she really had been quite a bit in love with him. That they had both lost something vital during that horrible year Angel had altered the world as it was really and would always be. It couldn't be easy to think about Fred, for example, and the uncertainty of his supposedly true and eternal love for her. So much based on Angel's lies had to be shivering and shaking right now.

"Do you know, there is very little I regret between you and me," Wesley said. "But I wish I'd known how injured you were when I let you send me off."

"I wasn't pregnant," she said quickly.

"I know," Wes said. "But what I meant was...you let me walk away as a token of good faith. And I betrayed that. You deserved better than for my shame to overcome my decency."

"True," Lilah said. "You weren't kind, at the end. But I don't blame you. I blame circumstance, and mostly? Angel."

She expected him to mount a defense of his icon, but Wesley simply looked thoughtful. "Angel has so much to answer for," he said.

The Dana in Lilah's head...or was she simply the most visible of all those Slayers who had been dragged into her head by that scream of pain and the shock of being part of a larger destiny again?...shuddered at the thought of what was to come with Angel. It couldn't be helped, Lilah thought.

"How are we going to change anything here?" Wesley asked.

Again, the smile of triumph from Lilah. "To quote a big dumb pretentious action movie? There is no spoon," she said.

Part Three: Rebellion

Illyria, God-King, Old One, the glorious and terrible and eternal, was troubled. Deeply troubled by the shifting events she was entrapped in, woven into as easily and as thoughtlessly as humans always behaved. There were no more armies, nor prayers, nor simple paths to destruction. The death in Los Angeles had left her uneasy, not calling for more of it.

Worse yet, she feared for this world's weak champions. Some crucial part of the vampire Angel had broken when they had retreated from the suicidal attack on Wolfram and Hart, leaving him searching for vengeance. Illyria approved of vengeance, and his was just and righteous, but his humanity faded by the day as he dreamt of making them pay. For Cordelia, for Wesley, for Fred, for every innocent who lay upon the street.

His son. Wolfram and Hart had not feared to strike back against them, and their first response to Angel's insouciant rebellion was to crush the boy, and the werewolf woman who had shared Angel's bed, in those first terrible days of blood and death. Their bodies had lain at the door of the hotel, eyes staring an eternal rebuke to Angel's great stand.

He had gone mad, Illyria realized, as he stared at the two young things come to aid him. He could no longer see a great battle between good and evil; he could only see the body of his son and those who would not kill every last living soul involved in that death, Angel had no time for.

"How's the interrogation going, pet?" Spike inquired, peeking at the office. "Angel seems a bit shaken by their arrival."

"Angel has gone mad and this worsens it," Illyria said. "He lost his son and his lover and his last true friend. There is nothing left for him but vengeance. And they bid him help an enemy."

Spike grimaced. "I suspect you're right," he said. "Don't know what to do about it. He'll take them all out now, and he won't hold back."

"His madness may prove fatal to us all," Illyria replied. "And you may not find it so, but living is sweet to me. I would not care to die if I could live."

"Now you're sounding like Charlie," Spike said. "Of course, that bonny blonde lass he's taken up with might be the reason he's back among the living, don't you think?"

Illyria nodded sourly, gazing at the two girls. One was ancient; the green aura that spilled from her as familiar as breath. The Key, made flesh. Had she lived so many years to see that? The gate to all and every world, permanently closed to Glorificus and her madness? Illyria had slept so long, and every day brought fresh reminders of the strangeness of her waking.

Still, while she was not fond of this world, she preferred it to death. There was at least interest in this plane, and if what the Key was telling Angel was true, it was about to get more so.

"He can't go crazy," Cordelia said, pacing back and forth.

"Face it, cutie, he's nuts," Darla replied, looking at Angel. "It makes everything fit. He did everything for our son. He joined Wolfram and Hart. He sacrificed everyone he loved, for the safety of his son. And Wolfram and Hart murdered him without even a parley."

Cordelia looked over at Darla, whose eyes were surprisingly bright. "I'm so sorry," she said. "About Connor."

"He was born unlucky," said Darla. "I can't tell if what I'm feeling is sorrow or pity. What a life. What a terrible life. It would've been better if he'd died before he was born. For everyone."

Shaking her head, Cordelia offered her best comforting smile to Darla. "You can't think that way. If the best thing was never to have pain, then we'd all be better off not even existing," she said. "We do. We know trying to change what is just makes it worse, thank you very much, and we've got a crazy champion on our hands."

Darla nodded, the shadow of her pain heavy on her face. "I think we let it play out," she said. "It'll give us a chance to make alliance, anyway. Lilah's moving fast. Faster than I thought she could move, but damn, she loves that man of hers."

"She does," Cordelia agreed hungrily, remembering how it had been to love like that, unwisely and wholly and in a way that made things possible. "I think she's got her feet under her now, and come on. The girl's power-hungry. The idea of raising Hell to knock it over so gets her juices flowing."

"More than just Lilah," Darla agreed, something hungry in her voice. "You can't tell me there isn't a certain appeal in it."

Cordy snorted. "You're kind of a bust as a higher being, you know," she said. "Anyway, it's not our destiny to be a new Lucifer. We're rebel angels on the make; we don't get names."

"Nope," Darla agreed, eyes on Lilah and Wesley and their uncertain descent from the adamant tower. "We just get to be at a certain place at a certain time."

"And shake up some heavenly chaos," Cordelia added. "Just in case you forgot that detail."

Wesley was really rather awed at the saga as it developed. Dana, Dawn, even Andrew's ridiculous little spell. "Calamity? They named you Calamity?" he asked. "That's remarkable."

"Why's that?" Lilah asked, pausing to hurl a spell or two at the troops rattling at her. "What the Hell are you all babbling about anyway? I pushed destiny. I was never a Slayer, even though I was supposed to be in another version of things. That's not remarkable."

"It's never happened before in a way we could know about," Wesley replied. "But it's more than that. Calamity was a figure most major prophecies stepped around rather carefully. Most scholars didn't believe she was a single figure; a current school believed it was Buffy Summers and her people. But if it's you...the mind rather shies away from the possibilities."

Lilah gave him a sideways glance. "Because I'm evil?"

"Because you're in a rather unique position," Wesley said. "You undid eons of prophecy with that damned amulet you got from Lindsey. You created the Angel merger with Wolfram and Hart that undid the Circle of the Black Thorn. Other people do your dirty work, but you provide that push that leads to the unthinkable. And now you and I are in Hell."

"With knowledge of why Wolfram and Hart stays here," Lilah added. "They run on the pain. The fear of it and the belief that it causes. What you believe down here has a heavy impact on reality, which is why magic works more reliably."

The mild throat-clearing had them both jump and turn, and Wesley looked like he was reaching for a shotgun that wasn't there when Lilah realized it was Holland.

"Tell your boy to stand down, Lilah," Holland said. "We wouldn't want your ain true love to end up in isolation, would we? He doesn't seem to have the same iron backbone you do when it comes to torture."

"Holland, cut the crap," Lilah said. "We're leaving. If you put us back in our cages, I'll get out again. It's not nearly as difficult as you make it out to be once you know it's all in your head."

Holland chuckled, running a hand over his hair. Lilah remembered how much she'd always hated him. All of the others had been out-and-out hateful, sexually harassing her for the thrill, being old-boys-network, whatever. Holland had always made her feel like the daddy she'd lost was back, and trying to help her slightly incompetent ass.

"You know that none of your challenges will be legitimate until you can prove you're not Wolfram and Hart property," he said. "So not only do you have to leave the main offices, you're going to have to leave Wolfram and Hart's demesnes. For anyone in your form, that's impossible. So if you can cross the border between this and the rest of the shadowlands? It's inadvertent proof that you're not here legitimately, and that all your claims of a badly fixed destiny are true."

Lilah stared at him in complete confusion. "Thank you," she said. "That was very helpful, Holland."

Holland smirked. "Don't screw up, Morgan," he said affectionately. "Being one of their robots is not terribly enjoyable, and I suspect you're going to have an army if you can just get out of here."

He left as quietly as he'd arrived, and Lilah and Wesley both started moving faster. "Do you think we can imagine guns?" Wesley asked. "Weapons of any sort would be useful."

"How are you going to use a gun in the shadowlands, lover?" Lilah asked. "We just keep moving, and remember they're all as powerless as we are."

"I don't like those odds," Wes replied grimly.

"Odds? You gotta be kidding me," Lilah said, thinking of what kind of weapon they could manage. "This is our hail Mary pass on a fourth and ten. We're doomed. Screw the odds."

Spike cornered Dawn while Faith and Angel and Illyria were discussing the best way to handle Dawn's request that Illyria help her cross the dimensions to find and extract Lilah and probably Wesley from the grasp of Wolfram and Hart. She was eating, and she knew better than to let the greedy bastard pick at her plate.

"Why the rage for Angel, love?" he asked her as she ate, slapping his hands away. "He did what he thought was best."

"No, he did what he wanted," Dawn said. "And it's screwing the universe hard. And now I have to go rescue the bitch from Hell, literal, to stop the bad guys from winning by default."

Spike stared at Dawn. "That's really the plan?"

"The lady knows things the rest of us do not," said Dawn. "I listened to Dana rave for a long, long time, Spike. This is the darkest hour. This is the turning point. If we lose the Slayers, we're screwed. And I keep coming back to the weird of this Lilah woman. Why would Wolfram and Hart go to so much trouble to divert the Slayer line and strip any hint of her destiny? Why did Drusilla let her leave the wine cellar? Why did Cordelia kill her? Why did Jasmine say it was more important that Wesley and her got groiny than Wesley stealing Connor in the big cosmic sense of things?"

"Put it like that," Gunn said, sitting down. "Your point's made. Hell bitch had a way of being in the right place at the right time."

"When she was raving, Dana said she was too important to destroy," Dawn said, looking away from Spike's shocked expression. "That Hell would be overthrown, and that the banner would ride high. One marble knocked out of orbit knocking back."

"And Angel?" Gunn asked, glancing over to where Faith, clearly frustrated, had slammed the door behind her. He wasn't quite sure why Faith was along -- though if he was going by looks, it had more to do with Dawn than duty, and Dawn didn't seem to mind that one bit.

"I'd prefer he stayed here, but what's he going to do? If he doesn't help, Wesley stays stuck in Hell, right?" Dawn asked, clearly unaware of the depth of Angel's grief. "It should be okay, shouldn't it?"

Faith sat down noisily. "Maybe if we get him some Paxil," she said. "So how long has he been like that?"

"Since Wolfram and Hart killed his werewolf girlfriend and his only son," Spike said. "When do you bloody well think, Faith?"

Dawn looked away. "That's awful," she said. "Why didn't you guys tell us that before? Buffy would have come."

"We didn't know at first," said Gunn. "Reality shift and all. Made it hard to understand just what was going down. He told us everything, though -- once he figured out we didn't get it."

Faith whistled. "This whole thing sucks," she said. "Can we just start over? Undo things?"

With a dry little laugh, Dawn slapped her notebook on the table and opened up to a well worn page of notes. "That would seem to be the point of the rescue," she said. "To undo things. Remember?"

"Point taken," Faith said, smiling lasciviously at Dawn.

Dana knew she could let go now, but she didn't want to. She had been so strong, there with big-not-sister. Watching the way people jumped when she spoke, didn't force pills down her throat, didn't soothe and coo and lie and hurt her.

"Where are they now?" Andrew asked, sitting in his little black chair, listening intently to everything Dana had to say. Little geek man. Dana liked him more now, because he listened. He wanted to know the story. He wanted to follow in the fateful hour, and had even made magic words for them. Dana kept thinking in terms of them, even though Lilah didn't and didn't want to.

She didn't even understand how Dana was still attached, because she was free now.

"They're reaching the bottom of the tower," Dana said, trying to see. She didn't get to see much; just flashes. "It's a long way left to go. It could take forever, but it won't."

Dana didn't talk about the brambles, the thorns, the fire, or the mass of damned souls, burning, being shepherded around for torture, or the flocks of crows. Murders of crows, with long black beaks and glinty eyes.

"They're damned souls," Wesley said in his soft voice. "They say I should go with them."

She knew that already, didn't want to hear him say that, and Dana was shut out again, thinking about the ravens, shrieking and hooting.

"What'll it be like, once she gets to the other side?" Andrew asked.

"More war," Dana said. "But their power will be broken. How can you fear Hell when you know it's not really real?"

Andrew's fingers were in his hair, ruffling his head restlessly as he considered that. "Like, whoa," he said. "It's not real?"

"Not exactly real," Dana said. "Virtually real. Real by default."

He shuddered, and it took him a minute to realize it was with relief and not fear. "I'm afraid of Hell," Andrew admitted. "Because I deserve to go there."

"It's very hot," Dana replied, staring off into the nothing which was now a field covered in ravens, watching her with beady eyes. Was she going to give Wesley to them? She had to. It was the only way he could get across, once she'd made it through. "And dirty."

If she made it through. The heat, rising in waves, and the exhaustion she suddenly felt made Dana feel ill. So much left, and Wolfram and Hart holding her soul at the center of the adamant tower.

Dana clasped her hands together, and started saying the magic words Andrew had made up for them, and then added a few of her own. "Don't give up. Don't give up. Help is coming."

Almost time to go.

"You cannot follow us unless I will it," Illyria told Angel grimly. "As you are the leader, I will accede to your request, but only if you swear to me it is for honorable purposes."

Dawn didn't like this at all. Illyria, so far, had vetoed both Spike and Faith for their little expedition into Hell. Meanwhile, Angel was getting the okay? Angel, who kept saying the name Lilah as if it were poison-tipped? She got they had bad bad blood between them. But nobody was asking him to invite her to dinner and be best friends forever, and he was supposed to be bigger than this.

Angel was always supposed to have been bigger. Buffy loved him still, and Faith talked about him like he was her guru, which Dawn guessed he kind of sort of was. And now even Spike followed the Angel line, and Dawn couldn't help it. She saw Angel, and she saw someone she didn't particularly like, even knowing he was a sad and broken man. It didn't help that every bit of evidence she showed him was waved off because she was little Dawnie, and it just made her angrier and angrier to watch him walk all over everyone and nobody else even notice.

The flaw of being a bratty younger sister, she supposed. And liking people who had every right to hate Angel.

"I want to make sure Wesley's all right," Angel said. "Honorable enough for you?"

"Acceptable," Illyria agreed. "Dawn? Does this appease you?"

"Sure," said Dawn. "I just want us down there as soon as we can be."

Gunn had went to get his girlfriend Anne, because he'd agreed to 'hold down the fort' when Illyria and Angel left. Anne was blonde and pretty, and she was pretty damn sensible and nice. For some reason, she'd been taken aback that there was a Dawn Summers, but Dawn didn't have time to worry about it.

"Give me your hand," Illyria said, standing in the middle of the lobby between Dawn and Angel. Dawn stuck her palm out and Illyria seized it in two iron-hard hands before taking her fingernail and drawing it down. Dawn yelped, and yep. That was blood.

The words of the spell were in the old language, guttural and incomprehensible and Dawn glanced up to see Gunn, looking, well, kind of wistful. Fred had crossed dimensions, she remembered, and this maybe reminded him. Poor Fred.

And then poor nothing. Dawn was not, and Illyria was not, and Angel was not. They were not, and then they were elsewhere. Illyria's blue eyes glowed as she surveyed the forbidding territory. "This is familiar," she said. "The center of Hell is not far, and it is there your token would have to go."

"Why's that?" Dawn asked, glancing over at Angel.

"All oaths are unmade there," Illyria said. "It is the place of cleansing and great deeds. The Senior Partners used that place to unmake the Old Ones' order, and now, it will be done to them."

She had a fierce, almost joyful smile on her face, and Dawn tried to smile back. It was revenge moving everyone here. Angel hovered behind them like a man in a nightmare; he was back in Hell, now, and stuck with a task he would have rather not had.

"This place smells really bad," Dawn said as they walked over the featureless plane. "I guess that's part of the hellishness, huh?"

"One feature, yes," Illyria agreed. "We're very close."

Angel looked up. "One of us should wait out here. In case there's an ambush," he said.

"Not you," Dawn said before she thought about it. Angel looked at her and shook his head. "Hey, you're not so much the fan, you know?"

"I'm the one we can spare," Angel said. "If anything goes wrong, you and Illyria can go back to LA and get reinforcements, or get people out of here. Don't fight me on this, Dawn."

"His strategy is sensible," Illyria said reluctantly. "Come. I wish to find Wesley among the damned who wait on the other side of the hill."

Angel looked up. "He's here?" he asked.

"I feel him near," Illyria said, half-dragging Dawn along. "This business will be done soon."

Dawn gave Angel one last, lingering look. She hoped the ache in the pit of her stomach was only butterflies at being in actual Hell with only two revenge-crazy beings along with. She hoped it wasn't the knowledge that Angel was about to snap.

That would be a good thing. Yes.

Prophecy, contract, and common sense all rang through Lilah's head in order as she tried to ignore the sense of impending indifference slowly crawling up her spine. Holland had told her that if she could walk out of Hell, the contract was null and void, and Lilah's challenge to Wolfram and Hart would be legitimate. Given the masses of damned souls following along like flocks of ravens, including, somewhere, Wesley, Lilah tended to think she had a shot. That was before the good guys were chipping in because of her almost-was of Slayerhood.

Common sense added that after her rampage down the adamantine mount, it was smart to get as far from the Senior Partners as possible. They probably wanted to gut Lilah for the next millennium to make sausage for the cafeteria, before getting down to business.

Wesley had promised to be waiting at the border, and she had no reason to doubt him. She hadn't realized how much she'd wanted him with her until he was gone. But the Dead traveled fast. She traveled fast. When a thorn had grown through her foot, she pulled it out, licked the blood off (never let a demonic dimension have any of your blood -- too many bad rituals to be done) and kept walking. Some awed random whispered about some stupid prophecy or other; Lilah was getting used to it.

The problem with prophecy is that once you believed it, you twisted everything to make sense within it as you saw it. She didn't believe what Wesley and Dana's friend had said: that this was her destiny. If it was? Well, it beat an eternity being the brainwashed Den Mother at Wolfram and Hart Hell.

After all, with destiny, the impossible turned possible. Lilah remembered Connor's birth as an example of that. Maybe they were right.

Maybe they weren't.

Angel stood less than twenty feet in front of the tree that symbolized the end of Wolfram and Hart's outright dominion over the area. He didn't hold a weapon; he didn't have to. The Senior Partners were even better than Lilah had thought. Of course Angel would think it was his duty to delay Lilah until he was sure she was worthy. Just long enough to try to drag her under, which would drag Dana with her...and lead to a chain reaction. Misplaced outrage and years of grudge exploding into a drain on the Slayers and the end of everything.

"Shouldn't you have an entourage with you now that you're the big man?" Lilah asked, standing just out of the reach of his arm. "No. Don't answer that. Let's go talk whatever you're here to talk about about six feet from here, and you can even choke me if you want."

"Good try," Angel said, folding his arms across his chest. "I knew I needed to keep an eye on you. I don't know how you convinced Dawn and Illyria that you were some kind of hero, but when I heard that, it was all I needed to know. And then Wesley...how could you write a contract that brought him here?"

"Do you think I had a choice?" Lilah asked. "I didn't write the contract. I even warned you, Angel. You didn't listen to me. And that's not the issue. The issue is, I have a job to do, and that's to take over Hell and look at this rather dusty system we have, where the label outweighs the deed."

Angel shook his head. "You think you're God now?"

"I think God's not a part of this discussion; it's time to stop relying on sky-daddies and monsters under the bed, and big words and big gest