The clatter of wood against wood grated on Cerberus’ ears, but he could not bring himself to leave. Not that he could do much if Dawn was hurt, aside from lick her tears away, but he sat entranced all the same, like someone watching a race where someone could crash and burn at any moment.

**Ease up more, can’t you see how tired she is?!?**

“Do you-“ CRACK! “UMF! Really think-“ CRACK! ”Good move, Nibblet! But a bit higher next time!” CRACK! “HUFF! …A DEMON would ease up on ‘er?”

**I know at least ONE who won't…** Cerberus agreed, his mindvoice sending waves of sarcasm Spike’s way.

“You talking- HUFF- to Cerbie?”

“RRAGH!” CRACK! ”Yeah… HUFF.. And don’t- UMF!-- call him Cerbie…”

**She can call me that, if she wants too… But I’ll bite anyone else!**

At first when Giles walked in, no one noticed him, so intent were the trio on the practice session Spike was giving Dawn with the quarterstaff. But when the group of strange men walked in after him, Cerberus caught their scent, as well as a perceptible shift in the room’s atmosphere. Spike and Dawn did not look happy as they lowered their weapons. The dog guessed they knew the newcomers, and were not pleased to see them.

“I, uh, have a rather exciting bit of news for you, Dawn…” Giles tried to sound cheery, but wasn’t fooling anyone. Even if Cerberus hadn’t been able to smell the human’s apprehension, he could hear it in the man’s voice. He could also hear the roughness, as if Giles had been yelling not long before.

Spike seemed to know exactly what Giles meant. “Nothing doing, Giles. You can’t allow this- I won't allow it!’

“Yes, well, we don’t always like the cards we’re dealt, you I suspect know that better than most. And for the record, I quite agree with you on the unfairness of it all, but there it is all the same. The Council didn’t choose this any more than we would have.”

“Choose WHAT?” Dawn demanded. “I’m pretty damn tired of everyone talking about me like I’m not here!”

“Watch yer mouth, lil’ bit!” She quieted immediately. It was very unusual for Spike to yell at her for anything.

One of the strangers smiled. “Yes, I think he will do QUITE nicely.”

It was a few moments before anyone said anything, as the words sank in. Giles gave the man an incredulous look. “Travers…you… you can’t POSSIBLY… I should be the one-“

“Oh, you’ll have a hand, to be certain Giles. But we DO need more Watchers. I concede it is MOST irregular, but then Buffy was rather irregular herself. It only stands to reason that her sister would be the same, and well… desperate times, and all that.”

What the man Giles had called Travers was saying seemed to finally reach the other two, who spoke simultaneously. “You want ME to be a bloody WATCHER???” “I’M gonna be a SLAYER???”

To which Spike quickly snapped “You BLOODY WELL AREN’T going t’be a Slayer! I’m not loosing you like I did your big sis!”

“My dear boy,” the man addressed him, even tho the vamp was about twice his age, “I frankly don’t see as how ANY of us have a choice in the matter. The stars choose whom they choose. One day Dawn might very well be Chosen. Would you have her unprepared?”

Spike looked like he desperately wanted to argue while knowing full well there was nothing he could do. He finally sagged his shoulders in defeat.

“I still don’t see why you don’t just have ME be her Watcher!” Giles protested.

Travers sighed. “Rupert, do we EALLY need to go over this again? Your Slayer DIED. Whatever the circumstances, that is seen as a failure by the council. You should consider yourself lucky we don’t call in someone else entirely to train the boy to be a watcher.”

“Why DO you want me to be a watcher?” Spike eyed the man and his erstwhile silent companions warily. “I mean, HELLO, I’m a VAMPIRE. Sworn enemy and all that?”

“Well, that’s as good a reason as any, now isn’t it? You’ve proven your loyalty on numerous occasions, by Rupert’s own admittance. And here we’ve found you already training Dawn-“

“So she can DEFEND herself!!! This IS the bloody Hellmouth, i’in’ it?”

“True, but the point is you know how to handle weapons and you’re fairly familiar already with demon lore. Knowing that we won’t allow Giles to be her Watcher, and also knowing that she is likely to be Chosen and will NEED a Watcher, who would YOU like to see it be? Especially if we refuse to allow you to see her again if you don’t co-operate?”

Spike nodded numbly and looked with pain and resignation at his new protégé. For her part, Dawn looked giddy. Giles looked like he was going to be ill. Cerberus lay down and covered his head with his paws, not wanting to hear any more.

Riley’s training served him well as he watched the body of his ex-girlfriend be tended to by a handful of technicians in white coats. They had no idea that he wasn’t listening to them at all as they spoke, heard only a mantra in his head, “Forgive me, Buffy,” over and over. He had to admit, they’d done an incredible job this time. And admitting that only made him feel ten times worse.

“All up to code this times, are we gentlemen?”

Riley snapped to attention when he heard the voice of his superior, General Gage. Gage motioned for him to be at ease, and returned his attention to the leader of the whitecoats, who had just noticed him.

“Ah! Yes, ah, general sir! This time the specimen has turned out…” he gave the girl on the table a lingering glare. Riley wanted to kill him for the 67th time that day. “She has turned out perfect, far beyond al our expectations, sir!”

The general laughed and clapped the man on the shoulder. “Good, good, Hansen! Then we can test her out tonight! There’s a vampire in town that we’ve had our eye on for a while…”

Hansen looked panicked. It made Riley smile. “Uh, no sir, you don’t understand-“

“Then enlighten me, Hansen. I thought you said she was perfect. So how can she not be ready?”

“Well, sir, her body IS a perfect specimen, and it’s true that her body has all the reflexes of a Slayer, but she has had none of the training! It will take months to bring her up to speed-“

“Find a way to do it faster!”

Hansen’s mouth worked silently for a moment before he found hid voice. “Sir, we cannot rush these things-that’s why the project has failed until now. It took months to train the real slayer, we can expect no more from her clone. Memories aren’t carried in DNA strands, unfortunately!”

Gage looked like he was about to yell at Hansen, then stopped. A smile slowly spread across his features, one that made Riley’s stomach turn.

“Then we’ll just have to transplant them from the original. And what about our other project?”

“She too is coming along quite nicely, sir… If this works, we should be in mass-production of Slayers by the end of the week!”

“Good. Then you can practice the transplant on her first.”

Some days it just didn’t pay to be undead.

The day had started off badly enough before Spike had even woke up. He’d had a horrible dream in which Buffy was alive, but didn’t remember anything. Somehow seeing her that way was harder than her hating him or being dead, although he didn’t really know why he felt that way.

And now this thing with Dawn. Protecting the girl until the end of the world just got that much harder.

Cerberus was no help. Normally dogs didn’t seem to let anything get them down, but even he was moping. Doom and gloom once again cast it’s shadow over the Summers home.

Except for Dawn, who seemed completely psyched about the whole deal. Spike couldn’t bring himself to remind her that someone had to DIE, as her sister had, for her to become the Slayer.

Giles seemed torn. He tried to defend the Watchers, but he couldn’t hide the fact that he was just as upset as Spike at the idea of Dawn being a potential Slayer. Not to mention that the man was NOT on the best of terms with the council. Yet while Spike and Giles were in complete agreement over the state of things, the man was being cold to him. Surely Giles realized Spike didn’t want to be a Watcher anymore than Giles wanted him to be one?

Of course, he was betting Giles didn’t know about how the council had approached him once before, over 120 years ago…

He had actually been quite scholarly as a youth, whether the Scoobies would believe it or not. And he’s always had a healthy interest in the paranormal, particularly since his mother was so superstitious and liked to fill his head with ghost stories. It hadn’t escaped the notice of the librarian at the university. Sadly, Dru had made Spike a vamp before said librarian could make him an offer. When next he saw the man, the librarian broached the subject, not knowing about his recent development. Spike laughed and killed the man. He would have thought the Watchers would have been far more likely to want to kill HIM at this point, but he supposed they must have remembered why they had wanted him to join them in the first place. He found it oddly unsettling that they were willing to overlook his crimes in the name of their Watcher duties, just as he’d found it similarly odd that they wanted to study him rather than stake him when they came to Buffy about Glory…

And apparently he wasn’t the only one. The rest of the Scoobies voiced their apprehensions about trusting the Watchers, careful to avoid mentioning their opinion of his becoming one himself. Even Xander, managed not to say anything.

Dawn took offense at the whole discussion, taking it as another case of them treating her as a child. Kevin came over, and she left with him, desperate to get away from her smothering elders. They let her go so they could talk in peace, figuring Kevin was a good boy and would keep her out of trouble. And after much deliberation, in the end they all conceded that there really wasn’t anything they could do about it.

Then Spike had to go and get a brilliant idea. If they kept Faith safe, then there would be no chance for Dawn to become a Slayer. The next thing he knew, he and Giles were talking to the watchers council about getting Faith out of prison. Which proved to be pointless-they considered her too dangerous to be set free, despite previous Angel’s insistence that the girl had reformed.

The only thing left to do was to go get Angel and bust her out of prison themselves.

“We are quite satisfied with how things are progressing. Do you need anything? A little muscle of the supernatural variety, perhaps?”

Gage smiled at the man in the suit. The man was one of a panel before him. He didn’t know their names, or rank, or even if they were all human. They represented the Initiative’s investors, and that was all he needed to know.

“No, we have quite a storehouse already. In fact, if you want us to expand the operation, we’ll need more SPACE more than anything.”

“Heh, yes, particularly space with frilly curtains and pink walls to house our Slayer army… Now, if that is all, General Gage, kindly send in Mr. Travers on your way out.”

“What do you MEAN she’s not there???”

Cordelia surprised herself by flinching. She would have thought by now that an angry vampire wouldn’t be enough to scare her anymore. But whatever Angel and the others said, she hadn’t been spending the time with Spike that the Scoobies had. When she looked at him, she still saw a killer. Ok, well she saw a killer when she looked at Angel too, and Gunn and Wesley for that matter, but that was besides the point. Wasn’t it?

“I mean, according to the records, she was released on parole…”

“So where IS she??? And why didn’t the Watchers know-they said they wanted to keep her there!”

Wesley looked uncomfortable. “We have… reason to believe that Wolfram and Hart may have a hand in the Watcher’s council.”

At Spike’s confused look, Angel elaborated. “Wolfram and Hart is a sleazy law firm run by mages and serving demons. Likely they are keeping the council under control for the sake of their clients…”

“So then… why let Faith go instead of keeping he locked up?” Spike sensed some static in the room. He could almost feel the heat in the looks Angel’s crew gave the vamp.

Wesley answered. “We think perhaps Faith has been swayed back to the, ah.. dark side.”

“…Who IS this chick, Darth Vader?”

“Worse...” Cordy muttered.

**I’m not sensing a whole lot of love in this room… Maybe we should scratch the plan and get back to Dawn. I mean, if this Faith person HAS gone bad, it kinda throws the whole plan out the widow anyway. Unless you wanna keep her locked up in the crypt…**

Spike thought about it. The Scoobies had managed to do just that with him…

“So lets get looking for her! I mean, if she is working for this Wolfheart group, we need to stop her! And if we catch her, we can keep Dawn from becoming the next Slayer!”

Angel gave his grandchilde a considering look. It was hard to believe that, not so very long ago, they were mortal enemies, as were Spike and Buffy herself. And here the boy was now protecting said Slayer’s little sister as if she were his own. It was yet another example of how Buffy had touched so many lives in a positive way. He hated to disappoint the boy. “We’ve been trying to track her whereabouts for weeks now. There’s no sign of her anywhere-they must be keeping her in cold storage themselves.”

Cordy gave a bitter laugh. “They probably figured prison wasn’t a safe enough place to keep her! We should be thanking them for keeping her out of our hair!”

The new girl-what was her name, Frank? Something odd for a girl…-- spoke up. “Um, I know I don’t know this Faith person and I haven’t really had a run-in with the Wolfram and Hart people yet, but it seems like, from what you all have told me, that anything Wolfram and Hart wants HAS to be bad…” It took Spike a minute to absorb what she said, the girl spoke so fast.

Angel gave the girl a tender look before turning serious. “Fred’s right. We need to know, as a matter of policy, what exactly they’re up to.”

Gunn spoke up finally. “So how do you suppose we FIND her?”

Spike shrugged, gesturing to Cerberus. “Do you have anything that belonged to Faith?”