Riley had hoped to never seen Sunnydale again. But then, he had also hoped to never see The Initiative again either. He supposed karma had something to do with it. After all, it was his own fault they had been able to make a clone of Buffy, just by letting her get involved with them in the first place.

He knocked on the door to the Summers abode, not really sure what kind of reaction he was going to get. When the door opened, Dawn was standing there. She promptly shut the door in his face.

Ok, not an entirely unexpected reaction.

He knocked again, harder. This time Buffy answered, with a crossbow in his face.

Well, that wasn’t entirely unexpected either.

“Buffy, please… We need to talk.”

Her eyes were cold as death as she spoke. “So talk.”

Before he could open his mouth, a figure who’d been standing to the side of the door, out of sight of the house’s occupants, leapt at Buffy. The fight that ensued was fast and furious, and ended with a beheading. Riley stared in horror for several mute moments at the head that rolled down the step of the porch. Then he noticed the wires sticking out of it.

“…Buffy was a ROBOT???”

Before anyone could answer him there was a shout and a flash of light. The next thing he knew he was sitting tied to a chair in the kitchen with a bottle of nail-polish remover under his nose.

“See, told you it would work.”

“Yes, Dawn, very good. Although I rather liked Anya’s idea of kicking him awake better. Now, Riley, would you mind telling us what you and Faith are doing here?”

Riley was a little stung by the coldness in Giles’ voice. Looking around the room, the only friendliness he saw was in Xander’s eyes, but even they held a touch of wariness. Riley couldn’t blame him, what with having brought an enemy with him, one that promptly beheaded their friend.

Wait a minute…

“That’s not really Faith, it’s a clone. Buffy’s a ROBOT???”

“A clone? Like in Star Wars?? COOL! Hey Giles, can you make one of me so I can get out of going to school?”

“Dawn, please… Now Riley, what do you mean, Faith is a clone?”

Riley gestured with his head to the apparently unconscious form tied to a chair beside him. “She’s a project of The Initiative. They have the real Faith in a cell. They used a sample of her DNA to make this clone, and then programmed it with selected memories from the original, so it would know how to fight. So I’m guessing Buffy is a fake too. Where’s the real one?”

“Like we’d tell y—“ Giles began.

“Buffy is dead!” Anya answered helpfully.

“Anya!!!” The Scoobies cried in collective alarm.

“What? He’s her ex-boyfriend, doesn’t he have a right to know?”

“Uh, NO, hence the ‘ex’…” Dawn replied.

“Well, actually, Buffy did try to stop him from leaving, but it was too late,” Xander reminded them. “She didn’t really wan him to leave.” He looked accusingly at Riley. “But then a certain someone never called, never wrote… and then showed up one day with a carbon copy of the psychopath who tried to kill Buffy on more than one occasion…”

Riley had only been listening with half an ear after Anya had informed him of Buffy’s demise… he couldn’t believe it, even if for a moment he’d thought the Faith clone HAD beheaded her. Buffy was always so strong, both physically and mentally. It was her strength that had ultimately led to the end of their relationship, when Riley could no longer handle feeling inadequate beside her. Maybe if he’d stayed she would still be alive.

“Hint-hint, Ri. Now would be a good time for the story spillage…”

Riley had a few questions of his own, but knew he could only hope for answers after he had given a few of his own. “I came to warn Buffy about The Initiative’s new program.”

Willow scowled. “I thought they were Kerplooie…”

“Yeah. Well, it’s amazing what can happen when you have a big enough investor.”

It was Giles’ turn to scowl. “Investor?”

“Yeah, some group that has a lot of power and influence, and a strong interest in demons.”

Giles’ face grew pale. “The Watcher Council…” The other Scoobies faces mirrored his.

Riley scowled. Was it the Watchers? He was sure the name of the group began with a ‘W’, but he would have thought he would have made that connection if it really was the Watchers. “I’m not sure who it was, really. But whoever they were, they paid for a big new facility to be built in L.A. That’s where they’re producing these ‘Slayer clones’. They took a sample of Buffy’s DNA during a physical she had when she was helping the initiative. They made a clone of her,” the others gasped in alarm, “and another of Faith. They want to make an army of Slayers. But there’s a hitch. While theses clones have the powers of a Slayer, they don’t have the training. So they used Faith’s memories to program this clone, and sent me to fetch Buffy so they could program her own clones.”

“Buffy would never agree to such a thing!” Giles snapped.

“I know. I was coming to tell her, and the Faith clone was supposed to be my proof…”

“How do we know he’s telling the truth?” Dawn wanted to know.

“He is.” Tara offered. “We cast a spell so that he cannot lie while he is bound to that chair.”

“I got the idea from Wonder Woman,” Willow admitted.

Something fluttered at the edge of Riley’s brain. Spells… memories… clones… And then it hit him, a puzzle whose pieces all dropped neatly into place and then clobbered him over the head.

“You can bring her back!”

Willow blinked. Tara understood immediately though. “No Riley, we can’t. It wouldn’t be right. Necromancy is dark and dangerous magick.”

Anya spoke up. “But it wouldn’t BE necromancy! Not if we transferred her memories into one of the clones! Then Buffy could decide herself to just hop on into the body, right? Like possession or something?”

Tara looked uncomfortable. “Well… assuming she were around to ‘hop in’, it WOULD be her choice but… I mean, it’d be like we were helping the initiative then.”

“Makin’ Slayer copies…” Everyone looked at Xander like he had gone out of his mind. He let out a giggle that did not help convince them to the contrary.

Giles put his own two cents in. “Well, I do think Buffy would be around if Dawn were there, I have no doubt that she is acting as a guardian spirit for her, much as she did when she was alive. But I’m not sure about her ‘possessing’ her new body. First of all, what if there is already a soul in it? And secondly, she might not be able to STAY in it…. No, I just don’t know about this. So much could go wrong.”

Willow had remained silent, fostering the hope that she might get her best friend back. She couldn’t contain it anymore. “Why don’t we ask HER? We could do a séance…”

Tara took her beloved’s hand in her own. “Willow, sweety, we tried that, remember? She didn’t answer…”

Willow pulled her hand away. “I refuse to believe she wouldn’t answer us! Maybe there was some sort of interference. Maybe she was just busy! Maybe she’s saving people on the other side the same way she did here! Maybe she’s in some big cosmic Slayers-in-waiting que for a new body! We could give her a shortcut back!” She took Tara’s hand again, eyes pleading. “It’s not gonna hurt to try!”

Tara looked at the hope in Willow’s eyes, and in Dawn’s & the other Scoobies’. She thought to herself that it might hurt them all very much if they failed. But then she thought NOT trying, being left to wonder, might hurt just as much. She sighed in resignation. “All right. But let’s get a hold of a clone, first. It might increase our chances of making contact…”

As Spike and Angel’s group hovered outside Wolfram and Hart, deliberating about what to do, Spike spied a familiar figure walking out the front door. “Well I’ll be buggered…”

Then Wesley spied him. “Sometimes I hate being right.”

They waited for the man to get close enough, then stepped out behind him.

“Well, well, well. Fancy meetin’ you ‘ere.”

Travers turned and stopped cold, eyes wide, with either fear or astonishment. Either way, when he quickly turned to make a hasty exit, he found his way blocked by the broad shoulders of Angel and Gunn. Cordy and Fred moved in on either side. Cerberus circled the group, vamp face on.

Travers turned back to Spike and Wesley. “What do you want?”

Spike was impressed at how steady the man had kept his voice, despite how he reeked of fear.

Wesley answered him. “What have Wolfram and Hart done with Faith?”

Travers narrowed his eyes at the ex-Watcher. “I knew you were too close to the girl, Welsey. After all she’s done, you still care about her?”

Wesley visibly bristled at that. Spike laid a hand on his shoulder, using his vampiric strength to restrain him without it being obvious. He took over. “I think we’re the ones askin’ questions ‘ere, Travs. What does Wolfram and Hart want with the Slayer— and why is the Watcher Council helping?”

It was Travers turn to bristle. “Since you’re here, I’d guess you already know the answer to that. Yes, the council has been infiltrated by Wolfram and Hart. Hell, Wesley, they’ve been pulling our strings for a few CENTURIES now, for chirssakes!” He turned at Angel’s voice. “But that doesn’t make any sense! Most of their clients ARE demons; if they control the Slayer, why not just destroy her for good?”

“Hmph. Easier said than done, lad. Might as well drain the oceans while your at it. Kill one Slayer and another will always pop up somewhere. No, they control the Slayer so they can keep her out of their hair. AND so they can use her. They have some trouble with a client? The Watchers send the Slayer on a mission to eradicate said client. In fact, Faith was a direct result of their interference. They thought they could make a Slayer who was… more open to their way of thinking. One that they could use more directly. But she proved too difficult to control.”

“So why do they want her now?” Wesley asked.

“Science has made many great leaps in the past few years. Things like cloning…”

Fred spoke up excitedly. “They’re going to make an ARMY of Slayers???”

Travers smiled at her while the others started in horror. “You would make a good Watcher, I can tell.”

Spike stepped in closer, eyes narrowed. “If you’ve got a bloody army of Slayers in the works, why have me train Dawn?”

“I told you, Faith is too hard for them to control. They want you to train Dawn for a year or so, and then they’ll kill Faith. They’ll kill every Slayer who pops up until Dawn is the new Slayer. Then she’ll lead the Slayer army, and every demon on earth will bow before Wolfram and Hart.” Wes let out a growl. “And YOU’RE helping th—“

Spike stopped him again with a hand to the chest. “Why Dawn? Why ME?”

“Simple. Over the years, the Slayer has always been taught to hate and kill all demons. Dawn, however, loves you—a demon. She has the blood of Buffy in her, a slayer who loved another vampire. Dawn has grown to trust you and Angel, as well as Anya, a former demon herself as I understand it. It’s in their own best interest to have a Slayer who’s gut reaction to demons isn’t stake first, ask questions later. Not to mention a Watcher who wont encourage her to hate them because he’s one himself. You stand the best chance of protecting her and seeing that she fulfills the destiny they laid out for her. And you’ll make a good Watcher. I know how knowledgeable you are.”

“Then you know I’m not dumb enough to be suckered into their plans! Now that I know what’s goin’ on, I’m gonna to do everything I can to see to it that Dawn lives out a long, NORMAL life! I’ll be Dawn’s Watcher, all right, but because Buffy TOLD me to watch out for ‘er. So you’re gonna tell me where Faith is, or Cerberus here is gonna ‘ave ‘imself a nice midnight snack…”

In emphasis, Cerberus gave Travers hand a lick. Travers sensed it wasn’t friendly.

“I don’t know where exactly. I only know that the group making the clones is an undercover government agency called ‘The Initiative’.”

Just then they heard a cell phone chirp. Everyone but Fred and Spike checked their pockets. It turned out to be Angel’s. He said a greeting and listened. He held it out to Spike.

“”S fer you…”

Spike too the phone and said hello. It was Anya. First she berated him for not having a phone of his own. Then she told him about the visitors they’d had that evening. She didn’t tell him about the Buffy clones or their hopes of resurrecting Buffy; the Scoobies had all agreed that a) it would be too cruel for him if it didn’t work, b) in his zealousness to have her back, he might screw things up, and c) they didn’t want Angel to know for the same reasons, and Spike most assuredly would tell him. After a few minutes of Spike saying “Uh-huh.” “Yeah.” and “Okay.”, he hung up and tossed the phone back to Angel.

“The good news is, we know where Faith is. The bad news is, we have to wait for Captain Cardboard to get here and get us in.”

*** The Scoobies arrived at Angel’s late the next morning, having opted for a night of rest. The greeting they got was not the happiest of ones. Spike flipped when he saw Dawn with them. They explained that they needed every hand, and couldn’t leave anyone behind to watch her. This only just managed to keep him from breaking something. When he suggested they leave Dawn behind with Fred, who didn’t strike him as the most mentally stable of individuals and they were better off without her underfoot anyway, they agreed.

Wesley informed Giles of Wolfram and Hart’s involvement with the Watcher’s Council. It was clear that there was no love lost between the two men, and Giles tried to deny the possibility at first, but in the end Giles had to admit in his heart of hearts that he had suspected corruption in the council for a long while. The two men talked, Wesly apologizing for his failure with Faith, Giles confessing his feelings of failure over Buffy’s death. It seemed the two might finally get past their differences to find a boatload of similarities.

The situation didn’t seem so promising in regards to Buffy’s ex-boyfriends. Angel and Riley got into a row almost right away, each blaming the other once again for breaking Bufy’s heart. To make matters worse, Spike tried to break it up and ended up getting into it himself. After all, how could he not feel some resentment towards the other two for having what he never could and then throwing it away?

Cerberus tried to join in at first, but he came to understand that this was like a challenge in a pack. Those who were not apart of it did not interfere. So he could only sit by and wince in pain whenever his Vamp-man got hurt.

As much as Spike and Angel had bonded after Buffy’s death, there was a deep-seated resentment in him, first over Dru, then Buffy. Angel had always acted like he was better than him. He was a better bad guy, AND a better good guy. There came a day when a son HAD to fight his father and prove his mettle, or so his 19th century upbringing had taught him.

As for Riley, well the boy HAD staked him, even if it was with a plastic stake. Sure, they had bonded over a bottle of booze after that, but that didn’t mean Spike had forgiven the man of Cardboard. In fact, he had brought about the turn of events that led to Buffy’s eventual dumping of the boy. Riley hadn’t forgotten that either.

So the whole situation degenerated into a three-way throwdown, Angel and Spike getting in the hardest hits, with Riley getting most of his in while the vamps were distracted with each other. Spike didn’t get many in on Riley, with the chip causing him to let his guard down as he doubled over in agony. But when he did, he made it count. Especially his last hit, which knocked Riley out cold, and consequently himself. And poor Cerberus, who was mentally bonded with him.

The females in the group made their disapproval loudly known, clucking and tsking as they dragged the boys into chairs and cleaned them up. Angel and Riley looked almost as bad as Spike had after Glory had worked him over. Spike, the Scooby girls noted with some silent pride, didn’t look half so bad. Cordy and Fred saw to Angel while Anya and Tara saw to Riley, and Dawn and Willow tended Spike. Luckily for the two vamps, they would be back to normal in a day or two, maybe less in Spike’s case. Riley would be hurting for awhile…

When the boys had recovered, the girls forced them to shake hands and apologize. Afterwards, the boys took a good look at the mess they’d made of each other, and got to teasing one another. That led to laughter, and a sort of grudging camaraderie formed. Only there was still a hidden note of bitterness in it for Riley, who knew something the other two didn’t. Buffy might be coming back, and if she did, of the three of them, Spike, the one who HADN’T had her, was the most likely candidate for her to run to. Spike, the vamp with no soul who swore to spend his afterlife protecting her sister, who loved her and stuck by her no matter how badly she treated him…

When the excitement was over, everyone set down to planning the evening’s infiltration. It was decided that Angel’s gang would be a diversion, while Spike, Anya, and Xander would play defense, allowing the newly repaired Buffy-bot, Willow, Tara, Giles, Dawn, Riley, and the fake Faith (whom Riley called “Beta-F” and who would remained tied up for the duration of the exercise) to get to the REAL Faith and trade her for the fake…

Riley carried a figure slung fireman-style over his shoulder as he came up to secret entrance of the initiative. He went through the various identity-checks and waited for clearance. After a moment a voice crackled at him through the intercom. “Agent Riley, where have you been? And what has happened to Beta-F?”

“Hansen, I don’t exactly have time to talk. Buffy and her gang are hot on my tail here—send out some backup, and you’ll have those memories Gage wanted you to get!”

“WHAT???” Riley then heard the man bark out some commands.

After a moment, the door opened. Riley walked calmly down the corridor, carrying his load, as his fellow soldiers ran the other way, towards the Scoobies. When they were alone, he set the figure down gently on her feet. Without a word he led her to the surveillance center. In minutes she had every camera deactivated, all the lights out but the emergency lights, and all the doors unlocked.

“Willow, have you ever considered a career in espionage?”

She grinned.

Outside, Angel’s gang and the Scoobies made short work of The Initiative’s soldiers. When they were through, they ran inside and met up with Riley and Willow, then broke off into their respective groups. Angel’s team drew most of the attention of the panicked soldiers, doing their best to make their presence known. Spike’s team followed close behind Willow’s, protecting them from anyone that came upon them from behind while the witches took care of anyone in front.

After what seemed like hours of navigating smoke-filled corridors, Riley stopped them all in front of a door. There was a small tussle with some guards in the room, which turned out to be a cell block. Spike’s team waited in the corridor while Willow’s went in to fetch the Slayers. Riley stayed in the hall with Spike’s team.

Only prolonged exposure to the Buffy-bot kept Willow, Tara, and Giles from falling apart. They all kept telling themselves that, at the moment, the clone was just an android made of flesh instead of wire. Not their Buffy.

Giles went over to Faith’s cell and tried to coax the girl out of it. She wouldn’t budge. “One cell is as good as another”, she told him, her eyes pools of emptiness.

Giles suddenly believed Angel about Faith’s decision to reform. He admired her desire to, but this was not the time. “Faith, what good are you doing here? How is this going to clean up your Karma, make up for all the harm you’ve done? You’re a SLAYER, it’s your job to HELP people! You’re not helping anyone here but yourself! There is a girl out there who will loose her freedom just like you did, just like Buffy, because if something happens to you, THEY will become the next Slayer! And if you stay here, it WILL happen, Faith. They plan to kill you, and you’ll take another girl down with you, and the girl after her, and the one after her! You owe it to them to give them more time, if noting else! Let them be just girls for as long as you can! And do your job and SAVE people while you’re at it, instead of sitting here feeling sorry for yourself!”

That seemed to do the trick. Faith’s eyes were no longer empty, but filled with a sort of sad resolve as she picked herself off the floor, squared her shoulders, and left the chamber. Giles left the clone in her place, in hopes that it would take The Initiative at least a little while to discover they had been duped and keep them off the real Faith’s trail for a while.

While he did all that he failed to notice the excitement going on in the Buffy-clone’s cell. The girls apparently hadn’t gotten the clone and the bot to exchange clothes yet.

“What’s going on?” he asked them.

“It’s BUFFY, Giles! I mean, the REAL Buffy! I mean, well it’s not the original body, but it’s her soul inside it!”

Giles looked at the clone in awe, tears threatening to spill. “How can you be sure?” He reached out a hand to touch the clone’s cheek. The clone went into a defensive stance, and seemed to be eyeing them all warily, especially the Buffy-bot.

”I can feel her in there, Giles!” Tara told him excitedly. “Maybe this is why the séance didn’t work! She was already incarnate!”

“So… why doesn’t she seem to know us?”

“Well, she does a little. I mean, that’s why she’s not staking us like she was trained to do. But a clone wouldn’t have the original’s memories, and when we reincarnate, we seldom remember much-- if anything-- of our previous lives,” Tara explained. “But if we get her out of here, we can fix that!”

“Except that she isn’t being to cooperative,” Willow added.

The Buffy-bot took care of that for them. She gave the clone a solid whack on the head, knocking her out cold.

Giles flinched. “Well, not the method I would have preferred, but it will do in a pinch.” He turned while the girls switched the clothes. When they were done, he carried the clone in his arms, cradling her tenderly, just wanting to feel the warmth, feel her heartbeat against him and know she was alive.

Willow addressed the Buffy-bot. “Now you know what to do. Pretend you’re the real thing for as long as you can get away with it, then run. If they catch you, then…”

“Self-destruct.”

Willow felt a pang of guilt. They couldn’t let The Initiative have the bot, but it felt wrong somehow to expect it to give up it’s life, such as it was, for them.

The Buffy-bot smiled, and put a hand on Willow’s shoulder. “I’m okay with this. It makes my existence worth something, to do this, to truly be like the real Buffy.”

That did NOT make Willow feel better, but they didn’t have time to debate it. This was the ‘bot’s decision as much as Buffy’s original sacrifice had been her own.

When they left the cell block, Spike thought he noticed something strange, but the smells and the noise assaulting his senses kept him from pinpointing it. He asked Cerberus if he noticed anything.

**There is a new smell, female, but I don’t know where it’s coming from.**

Probably a female soldier. “Let’s get out of ‘ere, people, c’mon, MOVE it!”

As they ran, he noticed Giles carrying the Buffy-bot. “What ‘appened to the ‘bot?”

“Wha-? Oh, uh, something short-circuted, we think.” He stopped short. “Wait! We have to find the clone samples, or they’ll make more of them—“

“All taken care of.”

“…What?”

“While you lot were takin’ y’ sweet time in the cell block, Riley & Cerberus tracked down the lab what they make the clones in and destroyed all the samples, along with the equipment they use to make the clones.”

Just then Angel’s team caught up with them. When they got outside, they separated again into their respective vehicles and made for Angel’s place.

As soon as they got there, Willow, Tara, and Giles mad a bee-line for the nearest room, dragging Dawn and the Buffy-bot with them, and shut the door. Everyone else settled themselves down in the various couches and chairs and began to tend one another’s wounds. Xander jumped up right away when Anya was finished with him , and he with her, and practically carried the two vamps (and one vamp-dog) out the door, claiming they had been nominated to go for a food-run. They took Angel’s car.

When Xander and the vamps were gone, Willow and Giles carried in a bodybag from outside. They’d had a huge styrofoam box in the trunk of Xander’s car, filled with dry ice and one corpse. Angel’s gang protested at the smell, until Anya filled them in on the details. The whole group sat pensively, waiting for news of the outcome from the closed room, even Faith.

After a while, there was a knock at the door. It was Travers. He came in without invitation, and sat himself down across from Faith.

“You need a Watcher, you know,” he said without preamble.

“What make you think that? Just because I’m the Slayer doesn’t mean I’ll have anything to do with the Council again.”

“And why should she trust you anyway? You’ll just hand her over to The Initiative!” Wesley added. He didn’t trust Faith, but at this point he liked the Council even less, and thought only ill could come of her falling into their hands again.

“Wolfram and Hart has pulled their money out of The Initiative. That’s not to say that they won’t ever try again with the clones, but with all the research destroyed, it will be slow going. In the meantime, if Wolfram and Hart really wants you, they WILL find you, Faith. You know that. The Council can at least offer you some protection.”

“The Council is in LEAGUE with them!” Wesley protested.

“We were in league because of the resources they offered. Think of it, Wesley! An ARMY of Slayers! No longer a single solitary girl fighting alone against the forces of darkness! Of COURSE we wanted that! And they offered a wealth of knowledge in magick and demonology, money to keep the program going! Not to mention that being allied with them allowed us to keep better tabs on their activities. We KNOW they’re evil! You could take a lesson from this, Faith. If you stay in contact with the Watchers, you’ll have a better idea of what WE are up to as well. You want to make up for your sins? We can help you do that. We have the resources—you do not. Or you can go on running, run from us, from The Initiative, from Wolfram and Hart. Run from your destiny and try to eek out a living in the workaday world, never mind fighting monsters. I, for one, suggest you ‘Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer’.”

He turned his attention to Riley. “And you, my boy. What are you going to do now? I doubt The Initiative would welcome you back this time, or the army for that matter. Ever consider being a Watcher? You had a taste of it with Buffy, so we know you can handle yourself against demons…”

Riley looked at Faith. He had encountered her once before, and had never met a more vile individual who was not a demon. But now when he looked at her he saw a shy, wounded creature, not the vicious predator she once was. She wanted to have a chance to prove herself and make up for the wrongs she’d done. Just like he did. And Travers was right, he DIDN’T have anywhere else to go. At least this way he could still do something useful. He hoped he wasn’t making yet another huge mistake when he told the Watcher “yes”…

On the other side of the door, Willow, Tara, Giles, and Dawn sat in a circle around tow bodies of Buffy, one living and one dead. The stench from the corpse was making them all ill, not to mention the disturbing fact that it was once the living form of one who meant so much to them. They continued the ritual, but not without difficulty. They all prayed to any deity that might be listening that it would work.

Tara had explained to Dawn that a brain was like a record, full of grooves that recorded things and could play them back. The spell they were working was supposed to dub the recording from one brain to the other. As they each did their part, the corpse’s head began to glow with a purple light. Soon the light became a cloud hovering over it. The cloud drifted over the clone’s body, and sank into her head. Willow, whose eyes had been shut, stopped chanting and opened them.

“Buffy?” she asked tentatively. The clone didn’t respond. A little alarmed, Willow shook her shoulder gently and asked again, “Buffy?”

After a breathless moment, Buffy rolled onto her side and curled up. “Just a few more minutes, huh Will? Class isn’t for an hour yet…”

The four spellcasters gave a collective yelp of joy as they hugged each other and cried.

Buffy sat up groggily, rubbing her eyes with her hand. “I had the weirdest dream! I dreamt I died!” She put her hand down beside her—right on top of the corpse. The smell hit her, and she looked down. She promptly screamed.

Everyone stood when they heard the scream. Riley was the first to the door. He kicked it open, tensed to fight anything that might be beyond. But instead of a nightmare he found a dream come true. Buffy was alive.

Ok, she was shaken, and crying, but she was ALIVE. At least, she was if the spell had worked. But it had to have, judging from the behavior of those closest to her.

Dawn, Willow, and Giles held her in a massive group hug, smothering her with kisses and tears of joy while she cried her own tears of fear and frustration. The others piled into the room and stood around the pair, happy to see Buffy alive even if they hadn’t felt the loss as keenly as those three.

Riley herded them out, save Anya. As much as he wanted to hug Buffy himself, he knew that, for her first moments back with them, he had no place there.

Xander was just coming in the door when he heard crying and laughter. He dropped the bags of food he carried and ran into the open room. He stopped short when he saw his best friends holding his first love tight between them. He wanted to remember this moment, hold it fast in his mind forever, when love conquered death and hope was born anew. He would never doubt happy endings again. But as hard as he tired to hold onto the moment, his heart could not stand still. He ran to them all and held them, his arms big enough to hold the world, which at that moment was comprised of only four others. As the eon-long seconds passed, he gradually became aware that there was still something missing. He looked about and saw Tara and Anya, and gestured them forward. He stroked Anya’s hair with one arm while he continued to hold everyone else in the other, and kissed her. He was overjoyed to have Buffy back; he would always love her. Just as he would always love the other Scoobies, he realised. They were apart of him, and to loose any one was to loose a bit of himself. But Anya. Anya was his heart. So why was there this strange feeling that there was still something missing?

For her part, Willow realised something. She realised the love she felt for Buffy went beyond sisterhood. It was closer to what she felt for Tara, but instead of being an intense and all-consuming roar in her blood, it was a hum, always there, a rythym for the harmony she and Tara shared. And Dawn, Giles, Xander, Anya, they all had parts to play in that melody too. The Scoobies made each other complete. So why did it seem there was still an instrument or two missing?

Giles had his daughter back. True, all the Scoobies had come to be children to him, but Buffy was like his firstborn. He loved all his children, but she was his heir, and the one who held the family together. He was the elder, she was the chief. When she was gone, there was a hole that none of them could fill. So why, now that she was back, did he have the nagging feeling that there was still someone missing?

Tara and Anya had never felt so apart of the Scoobies before. They knew that their respective partners loved them, but both had always felt that there was the original Scoobies to one side of said love, and them on the other. Now they knew it wasn’t so. They had expected to feel left out in the cold for a while when Buffy was back, to feel a surge of jealousy as Buffy once again took a part of their lovers that they could never reach. But instead, as they were held close by all the others, they finally felt on the inside. For the first time they felt truly apart of it all, and realised that they weren’t in competition with Buffy, but in tandem. They felt truly at one with the Scoobies. So how was it that it still felt like some integral part of the group was missing?

Dawn had her sister back, and, in some obscure way, her mother. That was what Buffy had become to her Joyce had died, especially since the monks had actually made her FROM Buffy. And with Buffy being back, the guilt went away. Maybe there was a time when they weren’t sisters, but Dawn had come to learn that time and flesh didn’t really matter. It was now that counted, and now she had her family. Xander, Willow, Tara, Anya, they were like aunts and uncles and siblings all rolled into one. Giles was somehow both father and grandfather. Lines between relationships were fading for her as she had once made the lines between realities do. She understood now that this was what she had been made for. It wasn’t chaos. It was making things whole. But there was still something gone from this family web she had helped to weave, this fabric of reality that she had inadvertently helped shape. A thread that was missing.

And she realised, just as she had more than one mother, she had more than one father. She didn’t mean Hank Summers either. Where was the one who’d watched over her all these months? The one who was father and brother and uncle and grandfather? Spike should be there with them, and Cerberus, who was like a kid brother and son, and even, in a protective way, a father to her too.

***

Burdened by armloads of food, Chinese, Italian, American, Angel and Spike went straight to the kitchen.

Without speaking, Spike began set the table, laughingly cursing the vampdog for getting underfoot. The dog couldn’t abandon his doggy habit of begging even as he had learned to communicate via telepathy and didn’t need food, being undead.

Angel went into the front room to gather everyone for dinner/breakfast. The first thing he noticed was Travers. Cordy and Faith managed to keep him from vamping out on the man. Travers had his say, and Angel relaxed. Some. Then he heard the laughter and crying coming from the other room. No one stopped him as he strode over to it. In fact, it seemed to him that everyone was smiling, and tears touched their eyes. But he didn’t pay them much mind as he made his way to the door, so he wasn’t sure.

He could understand the tears when he reached it; the stench made his own eyes water. Why had the Scoobies brought a zombie over? Then, faintly under the stench, he caught a familiar scent. If his heart had been beating, it would have stopped. There, in the center of the room, surrounded by candles that were more than adequate light for his vampire eyes, the Scoobies held a living, breathing Buffy. It took another moment for his brain to register that the smell was coming from ANOTHER Buffy, a dead one, beside them. He stood there gaping,

Buffy was the first to notice him. She tried to identify what she was feeling as she looked at him, but she wasn’t sure she felt anything at all. She was sure somewhere inside herself she was glad to see her friends, her family. She was glad—relieved-- that they were safe. She knew she had done right, sacrificing herself for her sister, her daughter; if not for that, she would not be able to hold her close now. But she felt… embarrassed? Like she had committed some strange breach of etiquette. It was surreal, sitting next to your own decayed corpse, and not as a spirit, but in flesh and blood. No other Slayer had gotten to come back; why had she? Why DID she? Did the Scoobies, in their love of her, drag her out of wherever she had been? Why couldn’t she remember where she HAD been? Wherever it had been, she felt like she had left a part of herself behind. She could almost picture what it was too, like some sort of dream only half-remembered. There was a time in her life when she would have said Angel was what she was missing, but now he was standing before her, now holding her tight, as she felt his tears on her face, she knew it wasn’t true. They would always have the past, but their futures held no real place, no need, for each other. She thought she should feel sad, and only felt sad that she didn’t.

She had seen Riley fleetingly when she first woke up, but he was gone as quick as he’d come. And she didn’t miss him. Now he was back, took his turn holding her, and she had to force herself to hug him back. He wasn’t what she was missing either, was even less so than Angel. He had been a temporary fix, and all she felt now was guilt over having not seen it before, at having used him, however inadvertently. She would not have regretted not seeing him after coming back from the dead.

The Scoobies couldn’t keep from touching her for so long, so starved for her were they. Had they grown so dependent on her? Hadn’t she shown them how to stand on their own feet? Hadn’t Willow become a powerful witch, and Xander a modern-day knight? Had they lived their own lives, gone on at ALL without her? Had Dawn lived, as she had ordered the girl to? Lived the normal life that she herself had so desperately wished for? How was it that, held close by all she had ever loved, she felt there was a gap between herself and them? How could she feel all this resentment towards them now, this anger? She wondered if she had ever felt so alone before she had died.

And them she realised that the anger was a wall she had built herself, not to keep them out, but herself in. She had abandoned them, left them to fend for themselves to save one who didn’t WANT to be saved. She took away Dawn’s right to fulfill her destiny as the Key, usurped it in her own selfish wish to escape her OWN destiny. To escape having to make life and death choices, from having to love when loving meant being hurt. She couldn’t bear for them to see the truth. What was it the old saying said? “To love others, you first have to love yourself.” She hated herself now, so what could she give them?

***

Spike sat tiredly and started to dig in, sharing a bit of everything with Cerberus. Halfway through his plate, he noticed that no one else had come in yet. Curious, he got up and walked out into front room. Faith and Travers sat there, staring at the half-open door across the way. He didn’t even stop to wonder why the old man was there. There was a horrid scent in the air, the smell of a rotting corpse, and it seemed to be wafting from the open door. That was the room where Willow had taken the Buffy-bot. Spike thought he heard weeping.

**Odd. I smell the same female I did back at The Initiative’s lab…** Spike took a deep whiff, almost gagging on the stench. There it was. He knew the scent now. How could he not have noticed it? He almost emptied the contents of his half-full stomach then and there. “No… They couldn’t have! Willow wouldn’t…”

He wasn’t sure if it was anger or hope that propelled him across the room, through the doorway, through the crowd within. He did let out a bellow of rage at what he saw, Buffy’s corpse surrounded by candles.

“HOW DARE YOU?!? HOW could you… DEFILE her like that?!?” He rushed over the body and knelt beside it. He picked it up, holding it close, no longer caring about the smell, much less the feel of it. He sobbed as if she were newly dead, not caring when the huddle of Scoobies turned and stared at him like he was mad.

**Spike, why are you crying?** Cerberus, asked him, alarmed. Then he added, **Funny, that body kinda smells a bit like that girl over there, albeit not as pretty. She looks like those picture of Buffy you have up in the crypt, too…** And then the dog mindspoke in a strange lisp, **The stowy CAN be wewitten…**

Spike had a sudden image of the dog standing on two legs, dressed in a suit. His vision swam, and he heard someone sing softly, “I will love you, until the end… of… time...". He looked up towards the sound, and saw Buffy there, dressed in a strange dress that somehow seemed familiar. Had he dreamed this all once?

***

Buffy looked down at the weeping vampire, and was oddly moved. In the anguish of his weeping, she found warmth, and was comforted even as he was tormented by it. As she looked at him, it was as if she saw him before he was turned, as the boy he had been. He looked up at her, and for a moment she swore she could see him in the garb of his native time, his hair longer, his clothes an old-style suit instead of his trademark duster. She suddenly remembered the dream she had had when she was dead, if it could be called that. Death had told Spike that Buffy would be allowed to return to the world of the living if he could convince her to do so. He obviously had, because here she was. And she knew how. He had shown her true love, and THAT was what had been worth returning for. She had seen Spike’s true nature, finally seen beyond the monster, to the man. She had liked what she’d seen. But how could she reconcile what she saw in a dream with the reality of who he was?

His eyes held the answer. When she looked into those perfect pools of clear blue, she saw how he saw her, how he loved her. There was darkness in those eyes to, but she found she wasn’t afraid to look there. The torch he had for her in his heart was so bright, she would never be afraid of the dark again, even that in herself. With him, she could face herself, and in turn, face her friends with her head held high and her arms open wide.

She knelt beside him and touched his cheek with the backs of her fingers. He didn’t stir, but stared at her, eyes wide, still as death. “Spike. Put it down. It’s not me, anymore than the Buffy-bot was. THIS is me.” She took his face in both hands, looking intently in his eyes, willing him to see the love she’d found for him inside herself and believe. She whispered to him, only loud enough for him to hear. “Hold ME.”

The corpse slipped from his undead arms and fell to the ground with a thud. He pulled her close in a fierce hug, weeping tears of profound joy into her golden tresses. He shook like a leaf, and she marveled how someone so strong could be so tender, so hard and cold could be so warm and soft. After a moment, she didn’t care. She had found what she was missing, and she didn’t think she’d ever felt so whole.

The Scoobies still stared, most of them not really sure how they felt about this turn of events. It was hard to forget the past, hard to forget all the evil things Spike had doen. But with Buffy’s apparent acceptance, they couldn’t deny the sense of rightness in the air. A feeling like all the pieces had finally fallen into place, and the picture was complete. They just couldn’t help being afraid to look and see what the picture actually was.

All save Dawn, who couldn’t contain her glee any longer, and threw her arms about the pair. Spike and Buffy laughed, and hugged her back. Buffy motioned for the others. The Scoobies shrugged and joined in. And after another moment, Angels’s gang joined in to. They may not have been directly connected to Buffy, but there was no denying that they all were apart of a greater picture. Even Faith and Travers came into the room, and joined by Riley, watching the scene from the sides like they were the borders to the puzzle. Cerberus couldn’t take it anymore, and worked his way amongst the center trio, Spike, Buffy, and Dawn. He barked from his higher vantage on top of the body. The crowd broke up a bit then, realizing they were hungry as if the dog had voiced the complaints of their growling stomachs. Buffy was delighted with Cerberus, doting on the dog all through dinner. When she finished her third plateful, she quipped that she had been eating for two. She noted how Spike blushed at that, and wondered how she had never noticed the gentleman in him before. How did she not see just how adorable he was?

**I thought I was the adorable one…**

“Huh?” Spike said, staring at the dog.

Buffy was staring at the dog too. “Willow, I think something must have backfired in that spell. I’d swear the dog just read my mind, and then talked back.”

Spike stared at Buffy now. “…You can hear him TOO?”

“…What do you mean, TOO?”

Spike told her the story of how he met Cerberus as they finished their meal, and for long after, the Scoobies and Angel filling in details now and then.

Not that the story was boring, but by the time they reached the end, they were all about ready to fall asleep. So that was what they did, right where they sat. Dawn fell asleep first, leaning against Buffy. Buffy fell asleep leaning against Spike. He put his arm around her, and there they lay with their feet up on the coffee table and the dog across their lap. Later that evening, they were the last to wake up.

The others moved back into the kitchen, but Willow stopped to take a picture of the scene. Later she would put it in a frame, along with a photo she had taken a while back of Spike sleeping in his crypt with Cerberus across his chest, held tight like a teddy bear. When Angel asked what she was ding, she quipped “More blackmail photos.”

“For Spike or for BUFFY?” Angel replied slyly.

Dawn woke up next, and carefully extricated herself from the family bliss in favor of the scent of pizza. She thought the dog would join her, but he slept on.

Then Spike woke up. He just sat there for a long while, enjoying the warmth of Buffy next to him, drinking in the sight of her with far more relish than he ever had blood. Afraid that it was really all a dream after all. She stirred a bit, snuggling deeper against him. He smiled and began to sing softly, like she was signing a lullaby.

“Never knew I could feel like this…

like I’d never seen the sky before

Want to vanish, inside your kiss

Every day I love you more and more

“Listen to my heart,

can’t you hear it sing?

Tellin’ me to gi-ive you

Everything

Seasons may change,

Winter to spring—“

Buffy sang the next line, eyes closed and still half asleep as she did.

“But I love you…

until the end... of… time”

“Mmmmm…” she murmured. “What do I know that song from? It seems I dreamed it once…”

Spike’s heart began to beat. Could the dream he’d had been more than just a dream? “You couldn’t know it, love, it came out after you…”

She opened her eyes, and he was amazed to feel the warmth shining from them. “You can say the words, Spike. I’m not dead anymore. Besides, YOU’RE dead, and I don’t see YOU complaining…” She took hold of his free hand. “Mr. Cold Fingers.”

“Well, y’know wha’ they say, luv? Cold hands, warm…” He placed her hand on his heart. She could feel the pulse there. “You do that to me…” he told her in a whisper.

**Oh, shut up and kiss her already! I’m tryin’ ta sleep here!**

Buffy laughed. “Yes, listen to your dog, Spike.”

And he did.