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The Seventh Son Series - Returns -- by Michael Donovan

Rating: PG

Description: Spike and Drusilla return to Sunnydale over the summer, but they aren't the only familiar faces turning up.

Note: The character of Gabriel was introduced in a previous story I wrote entitled Divergent Paths.

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all the characters that appear on the show are the exclusive property of Joss Whedon, the WB and Mutant Enemy, Inc.

Buffy squirmed and thrashed under her bedsheets, her mind caught in the throes of a dream. Gabriel was with her in the dream, just like he had been the last time. Soft, faintly wavy auburn hair, bow shaped lips and endlessly deep green eyes marked with a halo of gold. He touched her, carefully putting his hands on her hips and leaning close to her cheek. Behind him, the sky was black, shot through with veins of fiery red.

"I miss you." He whispered, his lips delicately brushing the skin of her ear.

She closed her eyes and allowed herself a moment of comfort in his arms, basking in the warmth of his body, then pulled back enough to look him in the face. The auburn haired young man was gone and it was Angel who was holding her now. Behind him, the world had become a river of rushing traffic and bright, gaudy lights.

"I miss you." He whispered, releasing his hold on her waist and stepping back, away from her.

She reached out for him, but he was too far away, fading into the background. He was still Angel, but now his hair was auburn and his eyes were gold on green. Flames leaped up around him and he smiled, backing into the inferno.

"The fire will bring me to you." He called, his body dissipating completely into the air. "Remember the fire. It will save you."

She started and sat up straight in her bed, her heart pounding in her chest and her lungs pumping with quick, short breaths.

"That's the fourth time this month." Buffy rubbed her eyes and yawned as she strolled slowly along the sun-drenched sidewalk, "It's getting so a girl can't get a decent bit of beauty sleep anymore."

Beside her Willow kept pace, her hands folded in front of her at her waist.

"It's got to be a prophecy." she reasoned, "Normal dreams don't recur like that. Plus, you've got a track record. But Angel and Gabriel have both been gone for months, it doesn't make sense."

Buffy remembered the partings well. Three months ago, not long after he had arrived in Sunnydale, Gabriel had lost his father and, with him, his apparent zest for life. Buffy, Giles and the others had done what they could to console him, but nothing seemed to have an effect. One afternoon, he was just gone, leaving only a short note behind as explanation.

Two months later, Angel had left as well, pausing to gaze at her one last time from a distance, a forlorn, heartsick look in his eyes. Mayor Wilkins was dead and the Ascension had been thwarted. They had both known that it was time for him to leave.

For Buffy, the past month had been filled with bittersweet memories and longing.

"It must mean something." Willow's brows knitted together in thought. "Is there any kind of pattern to the dreams?"

"Yeah," Buffy nodded, "Every time, Gabriel stays longer and Angel looks like he's in a different place. Except the last two times he's been in a big city with lots of lights."

Willow tugged open the top of a small, cloth bag and began digging around inside. "Maybe I can work a little mojo to clear things up. If we figure out what they mean, the dreams might go away." She muttered to herself, "There must be some casting stones in here somewhere. It's just a guess, but from the sound of it, maybe Gabriel's coming back."

Buffy froze and laid her hand gently on her friend's arm.

"Nice guess, Will. Remind me to get you to buy me a lottery ticket later, okay?" She whispered, recognizing the unmistakable form of a young man up ahead, silhouetted against the bright late-day sun.

His hair was longer than she remembered, falling in loose, tousled waves into his eyes, and the skin of his face was tanned from exposure to sun and wind. The clothes he wore were worn and dusty from long days on the road. He carried a tightly packed travel bag across one shoulder.

"Hi." He smiled dazzlingly, his vibrant green eyes glued to her, and tilted his head, allowing the gentle breeze to lift the hair out of his face.

"You're back." She commented awkwardly, unable to find the words for what she really wanted to say. "You look different."

More than his appearance had changed in the last three months. The last time she had seen him, he had been morose and distant, preoccupied with guilt over his father's death. Now, he seemed older, stronger, his inner turmoil replaced with a sense of calm serenity.

"Yeah," his eyes went wistful for a moment, "I had some . . . things to work out. But I'm back now. To stay."

"Well, I-it's good to have you back." She stammered, dropping her gaze to the sidewalk. After he had left Sunnydale, she had not expected to ever see him ever again. His reappearance surprised her and she was only now regaining her composure.

"I was on my way to Uncle Rupert's, but I felt you nearby and I had to see you first." He took her hand in both of his and smiled at her. "Can we get together sometime?" he asked boldly, "Tonight? I want to talk to you about some . . . things."

"Uh, I, um," she felt her heart start to race as his hands closed around her slender fingers and the familiar tingle that always accompanied his touch flowed through them. "I was supposed to go to the Bronze with Willow. . ."

He turned to Willow, determined.

"Do you think you could go without her tonight, Willow?" he beseeched with an endearing smile, "I'd be forever in your debt."

Willow looked to Buffy and grinned. "I guess I could schedule a little personal time with Oz instead. Besides, I like it when people owe me. It makes me feel special."

"Thanks, Willow. You are special." He threw his arms around her in a quick hug, then turned to Buffy. "What do you say? Is it a date?"

"I-I don't know." She turned her eyes away from him uncertainly, "My Mom is expecting me home early tonight." Everything was happening so fast, she needed time to think, to regain her bearings.

"I thought you were planning on going to the Bronze tonight?" he smirked, raising his eyebrows in question.

"I-I was." She backpedaled, "I just wasn't going to stay late, that's all."

"Not a problem," he offered easily, "We can see the early show at the theatre and maybe get something to eat. I promise I'll have you home before ten. Please."

The familiar tingle in her fingers increased as he gave her hand a soft squeeze, reminding her of the pleasant times they had once shared.

"All right." She relented with a helpless smile, "But I get to pick the movie, okay?"

"Deal!" he grinned, letting her hand drop and bouncing back a few steps, "I have some things I have to do first, but I'll be by your house to get you at around seven."

He waved goodbye and walked quickly, backwards down the sidewalk, watching her still and grinning from ear to ear. Unintentionally, she smiled back, caught up in his infectious good mood. She had to admit, it was good to see him again.

A gold sports car with black painted windows whizzed along the highway, past a huge, weather-beaten sign, which read 'Now Entering Sunnydale' in bold, white letters.

"Oh, for cryin' out loud, Dru!" the blonde-haired vampire complained as he steered the black windowed car through the late afternoon traffic, "I can't believe you want to come back to this dump, after all we've been through."

"Because this is where it all started, love." Drusilla cooed, curled up in the passenger seat with a small crystal globe cradled in her delicate hands. "This is where we were all together, like family. Don't you remember, Spike?"

"Yeah, I remember." He growled petulantly.

"And when we get Angel back," she continued, oblivious to his sour mood, "we'll all be a happy family again."

"I keep tellin' you, Pet. Angel has gone choirboy again. He won't want to play ANY of the games you like, not like I do. This whole trip is just a big fat waste, if you ask me."

"Not a waste." She giggled, holding the crystal orb up to her face and staring, cross-eyed, into it. "With this, we can make him fun again, like he used to be. Then we can all be a family again."

Spike slumped down behind the steering wheel.

"Big, happy family, yeah." He brooded, "Whoopee."

They walked out of the movie theatre and onto the street hand in hand. It had started innocently enough. Gabriel had reached back to straighten his seat and his fingers had brushed softly across the back of her hand. Part way through the movie, he had leaned over to whisper something in her ear and she had been so preoccupied with the closeness of his lips, that she hardly noticed when he had slipped his hand over hers. Now, she wondered with a pleased smile, if he ever intended to let it go.

"How was Giles when you saw him?" she asked, enjoying the slow, meandering pace of their walk, "Did he miss you much?"

"Well, you know Giles." He smirked, "He was careful to be nice, while at the same time biting back a lecture on responsibility. He said a lot's changed in the last three months. He told me about Angel and what happened with. . .Faith."

His jaw tightened in a shadow of his former pain. After his brief yet tortuous encounter with Faith the last time he had been in Sunnydale, Buffy was not surprised to see that he still held a grudge.

"It was a tough fight." She nodded sadly in response, "It's too bad it had to end that way."

Her own last encounter with Faith had been a little confusing and brought up a lot of 'what if's'. Buffy still occasionally wondered if she could have done something to help her instead of putting her in a coma.

"So, you're staying with Giles now?" she banished the memory and tried to focus on the present.

"I dropped my bag off this afternoon." He answered with a nod, "He wants me to move back in for good, but I don't think I will. I'd rather find a place of my own."

"Your own place." she looked at him appreciatively, "You're really serious about sticking around this time, aren't you?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" he arched an auburn eyebrow in her direction, "I like it here."

They strolled in contented silence for a while, merely enjoying each other's presence. The night air was cool and refreshing, filled with the sweet summer scents of pollen and nectar. Finally, Buffy broke the silence.

"You never actually said why you came back." She mentioned casually, leaning her head against his shoulder as they walked.

He was wearing a long sleeved white cotton shirt with the top button carelessly undone and a pair of stylish, gray pants. His hard heeled, black shoes made almost no sound as he walked.

"I imagined you'd figure that one out for yourself, by now." He grinned, leading her around to face him, drawing her in close, and dropping his hands down around her waist, "Guess I was wrong."

"How about giving me a hint?" she cocked her head and leaned back, placing the palms of her hands on his chest, a token resistance to his closeness.

He brought her hand up to his face and kissed her knuckles tenderly, his eyes holding hers. "I missed you." The words sounded like a bizarre echo of her dreams. "Is that enough of a hint for you?"

"I don't know." She frowned in feigned confusion, sliding her fingers up over his shoulders and hooking them behind his neck. "Maybe you should give me another one."

She inhaled slowly, drawing in his familiar scent, feeling the pleasant hum of the blood in her veins.

"A hint?" he smirked, "or a kiss?"

He bent close to her, his eyes warm and dilated. She stepped into his embrace, her lips parted and her eyes closed.

"Well, well, well, take a look at this." A familiar, sarcastic voice sneered, shattering the moment.

Buffy's head snapped up in alarm. Breaking away from Gabriel, she turned to face the speaker.

A bleach-blonde haired vampire dressed in a long black coat sauntered arrogantly into the street. Another vampire, an exotic looking woman, following close behind him.

"Spike?" Buffy gasped, "What are YOU doing here?"

"Call it a bit of holiday, I guess. I got my Dru back, see?" The blonde vampire smirked as his dark paramour stepped into view from behind him, slinking seductively around his torso. "I told you I'd get her back. Looks like you haven't been wasting any time, either, have you? The hearth wasn't even cold and here you are with a new flame already."

"Out with it, Spike." Buffy demanded, ignoring the barb, "I have a feeling this isn't just a pleasure trip."

Drusilla spied Gabriel and, her eyes wide, cowered behind Spike's shoulder, moaning fearfully.

"Spike." She whined, pointing around her lover's shoulder at Gabriel. "It's him, Spike. The nasty boy from Prague, the one who hurt me."

"Well, bloody Hell. I think you're right. I knew he looked familiar." The blonde vampire spat, "Now how did a little pisher like you end up here, of all places?"

"William the Bloody." Gabriel nodded in grave recognition, folding his arms across his chest and glaring at the vampire, "It's been a long time. Seems your girlfriend has recovered. How's your eye?"

Spike's hand flew instantly to the scar that marked his left eyebrow.

"Just fine." He snarled angrily, "Which is more than they'll be able to say for you when I'm finished with you."

Gabriel cut short the vampire's bravado with a cocky smile. "I almost killed you both the last time we met. I've matured since then and I'm not alone this time." He glanced casually in Buffy's direction, "I seem to recall that you've never had much luck against either of us. How good do you think your chances are against both?"

Drusilla hissed and spat at him like an angry cat, crouching cautiously behind Spike's arm.

"Lucky for you, we're not here for YOU." Spike sneered, "Just stopped by to see an old friend." He bared his teeth at Buffy, "How is Angel nowadays, anyway?"

"All your friends from around here are dead now, Spike." Buffy quipped angrily, "And Angel is . . .gone. This is hardly the best place to be looking for a party." She cracked her knuckles meaningfully, "But don't get me wrong. I DO hope you're looking to party."

Spike took a sharp step forward with a savage snarl, his face contorted into a vampiric mask. Gabriel stepped into his path, hands raised into fists and a grim look of warning on his face. Beside him, Buffy was also ready for a fight.

"No, Spike, no!" Drusilla clawed fearfully at his shoulder, pulling him back, "The nasty boy is looking at me with those terrible eyes. He sees me, Spike! He sees how terrible I am inside!"

"Quiet down, Baby." Spike grabbed her roughly by the arms, his face twisted with frustration as he fought to hold her still and pacify her, "He's just a punk kid. I said, quiet down!"

Her strugglings slowed at the stern note in his voice and she calmed somewhat.

"I see Drusilla's still a therapist's dream." Buffy observed blithely.

"This isn't over!" the blonde vampire declared, crushing Drusilla to his chest with one arm and guiding her with him as he backed away. "We'll be sticking around and you better watch your back. Both of you." He retreated cautiously into the alley he had emerged from, Drusilla gibbering and muttering madly under the protection of his arm.

"Should we go after them?" Gabriel watched the dark alley intently.

"No." Buffy shook her head, "I think they're done for the night. Drusilla's probably going to need shock treatments or something. What was she talking about? Do they know you?"

Gabriel inhaled deeply and blew out a long sigh.

"It was two and a half years ago," he began, "just after I turned fifteen. My father decided it was time to put my skills to the test."

"I see." She nodded. She had gone through a similar experience on her eighteenth birthday. Her powers chemically subdued, she had been trapped in an old mansion with a psychotic vampire and forced into a life or death struggle. She had barely escaped alive.

"He took me into Czechoslovakia, to the capital, following rumors he hoped would lead him to the two most famous vampires in eastern Europe. Spike and Drusilla were there, practically running the night life. He told me it was up to me to stop them."

His lips tightened at some painful memory and his eyes went out of focus, staring into the past.

"I turned the townspeople against them, almost had them." He clenched his fist angrily, "But I had no idea how evil a vampire could be. Spike got desperate, caught me off guard, and they got away. Father told me to let them go. He said I had passed the test by defending the people of Prague. I wouldn't have listened if I had known then what he was really like."

Buffy laid her hand consolingly on his arm. The subject of Gabriel's father was a touchy area, for both of them, one she preferred to avoid for the moment. "When they showed up here two years ago, Drusilla was weak and still recovering. They must have been running from you."

"I guess that's why she was so happy to see me again." He smirked, his anger ebbing slowly.

"Yeah, well she and I have some pretty shaky history, too. She killed a good friend of mine. If the two of them are back in town, it can only mean trouble." Her face clouded with worry.

"They have both of us to deal with now." He placed a reassuring arm around her shoulders, "Whatever they're up to, I'm sure we'll be able to stop them together. What do you say I walk you home now?"

"Considering the circumstances," she watched the dark alleyway with concern, "we should probably go straight to Giles' place and let him know Bonnie and Clyde are back in town."

"Who?" he asked, puzzled.

"Never mind. I forget that you missed out on some of the basic childhood necessities like TV when you were growing up." she chuckled, "Let's just go talk to Giles."

She knitted her fingers through his, and walked beside him. After a moment, her face screwed up in thought and she turned her head up to look at him.

"What a minute." She considered cannily, "If you were fifteen two and a half years ago, then that means that you're . . . younger than me."

"Yup." He smiled in response to her astonished expression, slipping his arm around her waist "I don't turn eighteen until September."

"I can't believe this." She muttered to herself, flabbergasted, "I've NEVER gone out with a younger guy before."

"Damn it!" Spike snarled, smashing his fist into the wall. "Every bleeding time! I HATE that Slayer!"

The first place they had stopped upon returning to Sunnydale had been their old mansion lair. Finding it empty, they had quickly moved themselves back in.

Drusilla sat on the floor, against the opposite wall, staring blankly into the empty fireplace. A small, bedraggled, porcelain doll sat staring just as blindly on the floor next to her. Absently, she rolled the Orb of Thesulah back and forth across the floor between her hands.

"He's gone, Spike." She moaned softly, "But every time I close my eyes, I know he's watching me. He's going to tell Mummy what a bad girl I've become."

Spike's mouth twitched in anger.

"If it wasn't for all this mystic prophecy garbage and their 'super-powers', we'd be sitting on full bellies now and they'd be taking up space in the city morgue." He grumbled, more to himself than to her.

His dark eyes followed the orb back and forth as it rolled between her hands. A plan was forming in his mind and, slowly, an evil smirk bent his lips.

Crouching down before her, he pressed the tip of one finger to the top of the orb, stopping it in mid-motion.

"What exactly did you say this little trinket was used for, Luv?" he asked, "Transferring souls, is it?"

"Yes, Spike, it does all sorts of tasty things." She looked to him curiously, "Miss Edith wanted me to use it on Angel, but he's gone now and that nasty boy is here instead."

"How would you like to make him pay for what he did to us in Prague, Pet?" he offered with a smile as he picked up the orb and held it up to his eyes, turning it and watching the tiny motes of refracted light flicker inside.

"What are you thinking, Spike?" she grinned, rising to her knees and leaning in close to him. She picked up the doll in her hands and held it in front of her face, "Miss Edith says she recognizes that look in your eyes and she is very excited. Are we going to do something fun together?"

"You bet your stockings, Luv." He nodded with a sly grin, "It's time we evened the odds a little bit."

Buffy paced back and forth in front of the mall entrance, checking her watch impatiently. She had spent the better part of the early afternoon shopping for 'college clothes' at her mother's insistence. She had hardly needed any prompting and when Joyce had dropped her off, she had attacked the task with relish. Now with three bags full of new apparel, she waited for her mother to return and pick her up again. Unfortunately, Joyce was almost half an hour late.

Buffy didn't mind much, though. The day had been a welcome change from the stress of the previous night. After the threat of the Mayor had been averted, most of the local nightlife had fled or been destroyed and Sunnydale had settled down somewhat. She couldn't help but feel that the return of Spike and Drusilla foreshadowed a resurgence of the darkness.

"Hi." A familiar voiced sounded close behind her.

She jumped nervously, dropping her bags, and whirled around. Gabriel hopped back a step, defensively, a wan smile on his face. He carried a tangle of bags in one hand and a medium brown box under the other arm.

"Whoa, Summers, relax." He chuckled, "It's daytime, remember?"

"Sorry," she blew out a stressful sigh, dropping her hands to the handles on her bags and gathering them up again, "I'm still a little jumpy after last night."

"So it was a good date after all then, was it?" He grinned at her unintentional allusion.

"I MEANT the vampires." She clarified with a roll of her eyes and a smirk tugging at her lips.

"Oh, so the date was no good?" he raised his eyebrows in question, "I thought it went pretty well."

"No-ooo." She shook her head, flustered, "That's not what I meant. The date was fine. I had a good time. It's just that the evening sort of got overshadowed by the return of the twin terrors."

"Yeah," he agreed, "I couldn't have imagined worse timing."

"So if you had a good time last night," he stepped closer to her and reached out, tenderly tucking a stray blonde lock behind her ear, "can I assume that you might agree to go out with me again?"

She blushed a little at his earnest attention. She always felt that whenever he was looking at her, it was like nothing else in the world mattered to him. It was very flattering.

"I might consider it." She smiled, looking up into his eyes, "Of course, you'll have to leave any old vampire pals of yours home this time."

"I was just thinking the same thing." He smirked, his eyes happily alight.

She turned her head up, her breath soft and tantalizing across his chin. He stared at her, openly admiring, his heart pounding in his chest. Her bags slipped out of her hands and fell to the concrete slabs, unnoticed. He touched his hand softly to her cheek and her throat felt tight and dry as his lips inched ever closer to hers.

"Buffy, I've been waiting out front for almost a half an hour," Joyce scolded, coming out through the mall doors, "Where have you-" she froze in midstep, stunned, "-been?"

"Mom!" Buffy jolted, backing quickly away from Gabriel and turning to face her mother. "I thought you were supposed to pick me up out here."

Joyce looked Gabriel up and down, a trace of suspicion in her expression.

"I'm sorry I made you wait, Mom. Don't you think we should be going now?" Buffy nervously snatched up her bags and tugged insistently on her mother's arm, "I know how you hate to wait around these places."

Joyce saw past her daughter's hastily erected smokescreen and kept her attention focused on Gabriel.

"That's all right. Who's this?" she asked politely.

"Uh, he's . . . a friend." Buffy paused, her face tingling with embarrassment, "Come on, it's getting late. Are you sure you don't have to be somewhere?"

Joyce grew even more interested in the face of her daughter's evasiveness. "Does your friend have a name?"

Gabriel stepped up and offered his hand. "Gabriel Giles, Miss Summers." He smiled congenially, "Pleased to meet you."

"Giles?" She considered, taking his hand and shaking it, "You're not related to Rupert, by any chance, are you?"

"My uncle." He nodded, his eyes smiling.

"Moomm!" Buffy implored, giving her mother's arm another tug, "I REALLY think we should be going now."

"All right, then, Buffy." Her mother relented, "But I was just thinking that it would be nice if we invited Gabriel over for supper tonight. So we could all get to know each other a little better, don't you think?"

"Uh, I don't know, Mom." Buffy hesitated, shifting uncomfortably. She could feel the flush in her cheeks deepen. "I think he's probably too busy to have supper with us tonight. Aren't you, Gabriel?"

"Actually, I'm finished all my errands. I'd be happy to." He smiled wryly at the awkwardness of her situation, "How does six o'clock sound?"

"Perfect." Joyce smiled touching her hand to his arm, "We'll see you then."

Buffy hastily dragged Joyce back inside the mall, hoping to at least contain the damage, pausing to shoot him a glance that promised payback for the good-natured torment. He smiled sweetly back at her and waved.

"See you later."

Willow carefully cut the crusts off her peanut butter and jelly sandwich, while Xander finished the last of his own, his attention absorbed in the pages of a magazine. Buffy paced back and forth across the kitchen in agitation.

"So Spike and Drusilla are back together again, huh? That's not very comforting." Willow carefully sliced off a stray piece of crust and flicked it across the counter toward the garbage, "Kinda romantic in a twisted sort of way, but not comforting at all."

"If they're as much fun as I remember them being, I don't see what the problem is." he noted sarcastically, his hand unconsciously snapping up the crust and popping it into his mouth.

Willow regarded him steadily for a moment. "Why can't you do stuff like that when we're fighting vampires?" she asked in disbelief.

"I dunno." He shrugged apologetically, "Maybe it's a skill reserved solely for PB and J."

"Hey, guys?" Buffy raised her hand, wiggling her fingers. "This isn't really helping."

"Don't worry, Buffy." Willow smiled, nibbling on her sandwich, "You've fought Drusilla and Spike before. It shouldn't be any harder this time."

"Drusilla and Spike?" Buffy frowned, "Forget about THEM. Gabriel's supposed to come over to my house in a little while. How am I supposed to avoid my mother's inevitable meddling? I've already filled my embarrassment quota for the week."

"Okay, I think I missed something." Xander looked up from his magazine, "Gabriel's back? Here?"

"Yeah," Willow shared the exciting tidbit of gossip gleefully, "he just appeared, right out of the blue, just like he used to."

"So what new doom did Grumpy bring with him this time?" Xander furrowed his brow, "Lemme guess? He brought his six older brothers along for the ride. Greed, Gluttony, Envy, Lust, Pride and . . .and . . .I always forget these."

"Sloth." Willow supplied, "U-unless that one's supposed to be Gabriel, in which case his last brother would be Wrath."

"No." Xander decided quickly, "From what I remember about Ol' Green Eyes, Wrath would definitely be his deadly sin of choice. Hey, maybe you'll get lucky, Buff, and he'll just disappear again like he did last time."

"Right now, that almost seems like a good option." She sighed, glancing at her watch, "Look, I better get going. Maybe if I talk things over with Mom a little beforehand, she won't be quite so mortifying while he's there."

"You want to Bronze it tonight?" Xander queried, catching her just as she opened the door.

"Maybe, depends on how things go at supper." She answered, "I'll call you. See ya."

"Bye." Willow and Xander both waved as she jogged down the driveway for home.

"Three new arrivals in one day." Xander shook his head, "Aren't WE just the cozy little vacation spot?"

Joyce straightened the table cloth for the fourth time and stepped back to inspect her work.

"The good china." Buffy observed, "He's not royalty, you know, Mom."

"I guess it's just a coincidence that you're wearing your good party dress then, is it?" She turned the table's centerpiece, a small stone statuette, a quarter turn and frowned, considering it carefully, "You never tell me anything about your boyfriends and I think it's time you started."

"There's not really anything to tell." Buffy hedged, looking herself over in a narrow, full length mirror on the wall. "A-and he's not my boyfriend."

Joyce eyed her incredulously.

"I think." Buffy reconsidered uncertainly.

"I'm tired of feeling left out of your life, Buffy." Her mother paused, adjusting the table cloth once again. "And if you really like this boy, I want to be able to share it with you."

"I know, Mom." Buffy sighed, "Just, please, don't do anything to embarrass me."

"What could I do to embarrass you?" Joyce returned, smoothing her hands over the table cloth yet again, "All I want to do is get to know him a little better, so I'll actually have an idea of who you're keeping company with these days."

"That's what I'm afraid of." Buffy murmured.

Her nervousness and frustration mounted as she continued to watch her mother fret over the tablecloth.

"Will you leave that thing alone? It's fine, Mom, trust me. A few wrinkles aren't going to make him run away screaming." She checked the mirror again self consciously and rubbed petulantly at a small series of wrinkles along the side of her dress.

The doorbell rang and both women started. Buffy reacted first, quickly going to the door and opening it. Gabriel stood waiting with both hands behind his back. He wore black, pleated pants and a burgundy, V-neck shirt that accented the auburn of his hair.

"This is for you." He held out a single red rose in one hand and smiled.

"It's beautiful." She accepted the flower gratefully and touched the blossom against her upper lip, inhaling deeply. She luxuriated in the sweet scent and the tickling feel of the silken petals against her lips.

"And this is for you." He offered a second rose, this one dusky yellow, to Joyce.

"Oh, thank you," she smiled, taking the flower in her hand, "I'll go put this in some water and get supper. Is pasta okay with you, Gabriel?"

"Sure."

She took the rose into the kitchen, leaving Gabriel and Buffy alone for the moment.

"You look great." He smiled at her a little uneasily.

"Thanks. You don't look so bad yourself." She toyed nervously with the rose, drawing it softly along the bottom edge of her lower lip. "You want to sit down?"

She sat down at the table, laying the rose across her lap while he took the seat opposite her.

"This isn't going to be that bad." she promised with a comforting smile, noting his tense expression, "My Mom's a pussycat, honest."

"Oh, I'm not worried about her." he smirked, "Moms love me."

Joyce returned from the kitchen with a plate of steaming linguine in one hand and a small glass jar containing the yellow rose in the other. She set the plate down in front of Gabriel and placed the rose next to the statuette centerpiece. After a short return trip to the kitchen, she brought back two more plates and, after placing one in front of Buffy, sat down next to her.

"So, Gabriel," she started before she even lifted her fork, "Are you vacationing here with your parents?"

Buffy felt her stomach take a slow, sickening roll to the left and she cringed at the question. Less than thirty seconds into the meal and her mother was already treading on forbidden territory.

"No, I'm not on vacation. I'm here by myself, staying with my uncle." He answered slowly, "I never knew my mother. And my father, he . . .he passed away. . . a-a few months ago."

His features tensed with remembered pain and Buffy's heart went out to him. She remembered how devastated he had been after his father's death and how the pain of his loss had forced him into a three month, self imposed quest, searching for . . . something.

"I'm sorry," Joyce apologized, disconcerted. "I had no idea."

"It's all right. I've had some time to get used to the idea." He assured her, reaching out to finger the small statuette, "That's an interesting sculpture. Where did you get it?"

"Oh, it's Mongolian." Joyce blurted, happy for the change in subject, "I work at an art gallery. Sometimes, I can get certain pieces for a discount. This one went up for sale last week. Isn't it marvelous?"

"It's very nice." He smiled warmly, a peculiar look in his eyes, like he was enjoying a private joke.

Buffy breathed a sigh of relief. That was one disaster narrowly averted.

"How did you and Buffy meet?" Joyce went on, "Are you starting college with her in the fall?"

"No." he slipped a neat bundle of noodles into his mouth and swallowed, "Actually, I've never been to school. My father always kept me too busy."

Joyce's fork froze, half way to her mouth.

"Excuse me?" she gaped in shock, "You've never been to school? How do you plan to get a job?"

Buffy's respite proved all too brief and her stomach lurched back to the right.

"I guess I'll have to work somewhere that values what I can do more than what some piece of paper says I can do." He shrugged, unconcerned, gathering up another forkful.

"But how much can you know if you never went to school?" Joyce pressed, "Education is very important these days."

Buffy groaned inwardly. Of all the times for her mother to get sanctimonious, why now?

Gabriel put his fork down and regarded Buffy's mother seriously.

"I know enough to tell you that that sculpture isn't Mongolian." He said with a mild edge to his voice.

"What?" Joyce was taken aback.

"It's Tibetan. See those three grooves along the bottom there?" He traced a fingertip across three, almost imperceptible lines across the base of the statuette. "The monks used to place them on metal tripods outside the entrances to their temples. When the Mongols swept through the region, they collected them as trophies. Later, they started making their own cheap imitations without the grooves. This is probably worth a good deal more than you paid for it."

Joyce opened her mouth to say something, then shut it, too stunned to form a coherent reply.

"I told you that I never went to school," he winked mischievously at her, smirking, "not that I was uneducated. Could you please pass the pepper?"

"Sure." She handed the pepper grinder to him absently, a blank expression still pasted to her face.

Buffy looked down at her plate, picking at the suddenly unappetizing food. This was going to be the longest meal of her life.

A half hour later, Buffy stood with a damp drying towel in her hands while Gabriel scrubbed industriously at the last of a sinkful of dishes.

"Well it could have gone worse, I guess." Buffy lamented aloud, accepting a dripping plate from Gabriel and drying it with the rough dish towel. "I mean there could have been an earthquake in my living room or something, right?"

"Don't worry about it, Buffy." He borrowed the end of her towel and dried his hands. "Like I said, Moms love me. She'll come around."

"I don't know." She answered dubiously, "She's having a hard time getting comfortable with the whole Slayer business, meaning that she's not. New things sometimes bring out her insanely overprotective side."

The kitchen door swung open and Joyce brought in the last of the dishes. She looked to Buffy, then, uncomfortably, to Gabriel before setting them on the counter.

A tense silence gripped the room as she paused before him, about to speak. She seemed to be choosing her words carefully before committing them to sound, the way a person does before delivering bad news. Gabriel stood his ground calmly while Buffy held her breath, waiting for yet another awkward moment to unfold.

By some stroke of divine providence, the doorbell rang. Joyce hesitated before leaving to answer it.

"You better make a run for it now while you have the chance." Buffy advised, leading Gabriel by the arm toward the back door. "Maybe you can make a clean getaway under the cover of darkness."

"Buffy," he stopped, shaking his head, "I am NOT running away from your mother. We just got off to a bad start, that's all."

"This isn't your fault." She apologized, leaning over the sink. "She's just mad at me because of the way things went with Angel. I know from her point of view it must have seemed pretty horrible, but now she thinks every guy I meet is going to break my heart."

"I'd never break your heart." He promised, his voice soft and serious.

She smiled to herself, stepping a little closer to him without realizing it. He touched the fingertips of one hand along one of her arms. She looked up at him, breathing in deeply, her body instinctively moving half a step closer.

There was a sharp bang from the front room and Buffy jumped, startled.

She quickly turned and pushed through the door into the dining room and found the front door wide open with a note pinned to it by a thin nail. Buffy plucked the note from the door and the blood drained from her face as she read it.

"What is it?" Gabriel peered over her shoulder.

"Spike." She breathed fearfully, "Last time he was here, my mother invited him in. Now, he has her."

Gabriel dashed out the door without an instant of hesitation. "Come on, he hasn't had time to get very far. Maybe we can catch him. Where would he take her?"

"Angel's mansion." She quickly caught up to him, "or maybe the old factory."

"Lead the way."

Joyce struggled against the ropes that bound her to the old wooden chair. She was positioned against the back wall of a room in Angel's old home, not far from her two captors. One, a dark haired woman, circled her curiously, singing softly to herself while the other brooded impatiently, sitting backwards in his own chair. Orange light flickered from the fireplace, casting harsh shadows about the room.

"Can I eat her, Spike?" the dark haired woman asked politely.

"Not until the Slayer shows up, Dru." Spike waggled an admonishing finger at her, "We can't set a trap if I let you eat the bait."

"Ohhhh!" she moaned in disappointment, slumping into a chair next to his and staring at Joyce with hunger burning in her eyes. "But she looks so tasty."

Joyce's eyes flew wide with terror and she worked at her bonds with frenzied energy. Spike watched her absently as she fidgeted, boredom apparent on his face.

"Keep squirming like that and you'll only entice her." He warned pointedly.

Joyce stopped moving instantly, her eyes darting fearfully between her captors' faces.

"They should be here by now." Spike grumbled, rising sharply to his feet. "You're sure you figured out the spell we need from that book we stole from the old library? Everything is ready?"

Drusilla jerked her fingers back away from Joyce's throat and quickly folded her hands together in her lap, looking innocently up at him.

"I put out all the party favors." She grinned, holding the Orb of Thesulah in one hand, "But I want to cut the cake." Unconsciously, she reached out again toward their captive.

There was a loud thump and the front door crashed open. Gabriel dove through, rolling and coming up in the center of the room with a wooden stake in each hand. Drusilla jumped back, hissing angrily, and Spike moved protectively to her side. Buffy came running through the doorway, leaping over a dusty chair and kicking Spike in the chest, driving him back against the fireplace.

"Mom!" she went immediately to her mother's side and started tugging at her ropes.

"Oh, Buffy, I'm so glad to see you." Joyce leaned forward so her daughter could get at the ropes around her wrists.

"Try and remember this the next time I ask for the car, okay?" Buffy commented wryly as she fumbled with the tight knots.

Gabriel smashed his fist into Spike's throat and spun into a roundhouse kick that caught the vampire in the side. The seventh son reached into the fire and drew out a flaming length of wood, sweeping it before him in a wide swath. Drusilla backed away, trembling, her eyes locked fearfully on the burning brand. With a snarl, Spike grabbed up a blocky end table and whipped it overhand with all his strength. The piece of furniture bounced painfully off Gabriel's shoulder, knocking him to the floor. The burning wood skittered against the stone hearth and guttered down and went out.

"Come on, Dru!" Spike shouted as Gabriel hopped to his feet and tackled him, "Quit whimpering and do the damn spell already!"

Drusilla, staring paralyzed at the combatants, snapped back to attention. Digging the Orb of Thesulah out of her pocket, she intoned the words to a short spell and sprinkled a handful of sand over it. Dull yellow light flared inside the orb, casting stark shadows across her face from below.

Buffy lost her patience with the last of the ropes binding her mother and snapped it cleanly. Pulling her mother up, she shoved her hastily toward the door. Joyce stumbled a few feet and hung, unsure, in the doorway.

"Run, Mom!" Buffy shouted and turned back, coming face to face with Drusilla.

"The candles are lit, dearie." The mad vampire giggled, "Now it's time to blow them out."

She tossed the orb and Buffy instinctively caught it in her hands. The light inside it flared brightly and a wave of disorienting weakness washed over her. She dropped weakly to one knee with a groan, the orb slipping from her fingers and rolling away along the floor. Drusilla stumbled dizzily and collapsed against the wall with a squeak.

Spike wrestled out of Gabriel's tenacious grip and saw her fall.

"Dru!" he cried, backhanding Gabriel viciously and scrambling to his lover's side.

"Buffy!" Gabriel and Joyce both cried out.

Gabriel ran to Buffy as she sank the rest of the way to the floor, and squared off with Spike, bracing himself, his hands open and ready. Spike matched his stance, rage burning in his eyes, but made no move. Between them, Drusilla and Buffy lay side by side, dazed and weak.

"I'm within a foot of bagging my third Slayer." Spike glared at him, inching dangerously close to Buffy.

"And I'm within a foot of separating your head from your shoulders." Gabriel bared his teeth threateningly, ready to intercept him.

"Then it looks like we've got a stalemate." Spike crouched slowly and gathered Drusilla into his arms.

"For now." Gabriel agreed darkly, mirroring his movements and scooping up Buffy's limp form.

Both men backed carefully away from one another, each holding his respective interest in his arms and keeping his eyes locked warily on the other. Gabriel paused in the open doorway, Joyce standing just behind him.

"This isn't over." He promised, his eyes narrowed angrily.

"Yeah, whatever, punk." Spike sneered condescendingly as he and Drusilla retreated deeper into the mansion.

Gabriel backed out the door, curling Buffy's half-conscious body against his chest and tugging on Joyce's sleeve with one finger.

"We'd better get you to my uncle's place." he advised, "You'll be safe there."

Giles walked across the kitchen and took the steaming teapot off the stove. Gabriel and Buffy were in the next room relaxing on an antique couch, leaving him and Joyce alone.

"Would you care for more tea?" Giles offered, as he poured himself another cup.

"Yes, please." Joyce answered from her seat at his kitchen table. As he refilled her cup, she wrapped her hands around it and let the warmth seep into her palms. "I guess I won't have to worry about the caffeine keeping me awake."

"No," he agreed, replacing the pot on the stove, "I imagine not. I still can't believe that Spike would attempt something so bold without a particular reason. Are you sure you don't remember anything that might shed some light on this?"

"I don't think so." Joyce frowned, "It all happened so fast. After that woman knocked Buffy out, we ran and came straight here." She paused to peer into the next room at her daughter sitting on the couch, resting her head against Gabriel's shoulder, subdued and quiet. "I hope she'll be all right."

"I'm sure she'll recover in no time." Giles assured her, taking the seat opposite her, "This was probably just a bit of a fright, that's all."

"Well, it was certainly frightening for me." She sighed and took a tentative sip of her tea.

"Of course, both of you will stay here until we can revoke Spike's invitation to your home. I'll take the couch and Gabriel can set up the cot for himself. You and Buffy can take our rooms. After tonight, we could all use the rest."

As he sipped from his teacup, he glanced into the next room at his nephew.

"How do you feel?" Gabriel stroked his fingertips through Buffy's soft blonde hair as she curled drowsily against his shoulder.

"Drained." She answered tiredly, "And my head is killing me. Is-is Mom okay?"

"Yeah," he smiled, "She's in the kitchen with Uncle Rupert. Probably a bit shaken up, but that's all."

"You took a bad fall back there." He watched her with concern, "What happened?"

"I don't know." She squinted, holding her head, "Drusilla threw this glowing ball at me and when I caught it, I felt like I was being yanked out of my body. Then I snapped back and everything went all blurry."

She struggled to sit up, but her body did not want to comply. After two unsuccessful efforts, she surrendered and sat back against him.

"I feel so weak and tired." She rubbed gingerly at her temples. "And my head . . .it feels like somebody put a blender between my ears and turned it on frappe."

"Here, let me see if I can help." He took her hand in both of his and began tracing a fingertip softly along her palm.

"What are you doing?" she inhaled sharply, feeling the electric tingle of his touch all the way up the length of her arm.

"Acupressure." He smiled, drawing a second caressing fingertip slowly back from her wrist to the center of her palm. "It will make you feel better. Is that okay?"

"I-I guess so." She leaned her head against his shoulder and allowed her eyes to sag shut as his careful ministrations evoked relaxing waves of calm within her.

Tracing his two fingers along the inside of her forearm, he nestled them softly into the crook of her elbow and pressed down slightly.

"Ouch!" she exclaimed, sitting up slightly and her eyes snapping open, "That . . .feels nice."

"I TOLD you." He reminded her with a wry smile, "Now relax or you'll mess up your meridians."

"I hate it when that happens." she mocked quietly, laying her head against his shoulder and allowing her eyes to close again with a contented smile.

He continued to move his fingertips up along the outside of her arm, pressing down and holding at strategic points, until he reached her neck.

"This s'posed to m'k me sleepy?" she mumbled with a slurred, drowsy voice as he massaged the base of her skull and the back of her neck.

"Yeah," he whispered gently into her ear. "But I bet you don't have a headache anymore, do you?"

She rolled toward him and pressed her face sleepily against his chest.

"Mmmm, I like my meridians."

He sat with her for a long time, calmly stroking his fingers through her hair until her breathing slowed and he was sure she had fallen asleep. Carefully, he slipped out from under her slumbering body and eased her into a comfortable position. He smiled softly as she stirred and mumbled something unintelligible under her breath. She looked so beautiful sleeping soundly like this. But his heart grew heavy as he looked more closely, focusing his special vision.

He walked to the kitchenette's doorway and hovered there uneasily. Joyce and his uncle were carrying on a subdued conversation over tea. The pot sat almost empty on a cool burner of the stove.

"Uncle, could I have a word with you?" he asked quietly.

"How is Buffy? Is she all right?" He handed his nephew a lukewarm cup, which he accepted gratefully. "Here, have some tea."

"She's fine. She finally went to sleep just a minute ago." Gabriel took a long swallow of his tea, stress and exhaustion showing on his face.

"What about you?" Giles inquired, "Joyce said Spike gave you a bit of a drubbing."

"Nothing serious. Just a bruised shoulder." He replied nonchalantly, although Giles could see that the joint was already stiff and swollen, "I would have dusted him if we didn't have to escape at the last minute like that."

"Spike is not an easy kill, as I'm sure you know. We'll get him one of these days." Giles sympathized, "Are you sure your shoulder is alright?"

"It'll be fine in a day or two." He assured him, "But that's not what I'm worried about."

"What is it?" Joyce looked at him, concern tensing her features, "Is something wrong?"

"I looked at Buffy, I mean REALLY looked at her, and it was like she was just an ordinary girl." He looked to his uncle gravely, "Her powers are gone."

"What do you mean, 'gone'?" Giles exclaimed, stunned.

"I mean gone, as in no longer in her possession." Gabriel clarified, "Someone's stolen them. And I'll give you three guesses on who."

"Dear God, you don't think Drusilla. . .?" Giles considered grimly, "This is terrible."

"What?" Joyce's expression shifted from concern to a mixture of fear and near-hysterical confusion, "What's terrible?"

Giles slipped his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose with a strained sigh.

"When a human with extraordinary potential, like Buffy or Gabriel, becomes a vampire, he or she is transformed into being of great power." He took a sip of his tea with a shaky hand, "These 'Master Vampires', as they are called, are atrocious engines of destruction. I have only ever encountered one in my life and his power had been crippled, thank heaven."

"But Drusilla wasn't born with the power." Gabriel frowned in thought, "She couldn't just change into a master vampire just like that, could she?"

"I don't know." Giles shook his head, "There are too many variables. I've never even heard of this type of thing ever having happened before. Who knows what effect a Slayer's power would have when infused into a vampire body?"

"I can feel the whole world inside my head, Spike." Drusilla grinned, her eyes closed, as she spun in slow circles around the room with her arms spread wide.

They were in the old bedroom they had occupied while they were living in the mansion alongside Angelus. Drusilla's worn and bedraggled doll lay lifeless on the bed, its limbs spread haphazardly. Spike leaned with his back against the wall, next to a black-painted window, watching his dark lover curiously.

"You're sure it worked, then?" His eyes followed her erratic movements eagerly. "I thought you might have been done for after you were knocked flat like that."

"I never knew it could be like this. So much power." She caught the doll by its tattered dress as she spun and carried it along with her. "Miss Edith thinks that it looks very becoming on me, don't you agree Spike?"

"Everything looks good on you, Luv." He smiled.

"Hmmmmhhh," she sighed, pleased at the compliment, "I can see things now, Spike, things that were never there before. The air is sparkling right in front of my eyes."

She crouched facing into the corner, crossing her eyes at a small, shiny black spider as it crawled about in its web.

"Look," she whispered, noting a small, struggling fly trapped in the web, "It's feeding time. I can hear it screaming, like a tiny bell in my head."

"What say we go test out your new powers, Dru," He suggested, subtly easing her away from the tiny display of carnage. If left alone, she would have stayed there entranced for hours. "We can scare up something for US to eat."

Drusilla's hand shot out faster than his eye could follow and grabbed him roughly by the hair on the back of his head. Pulling him close with a steely grip, she wrapped her arm tightly about his waist, pinning his upper limbs. Leering, she bent his head to the side and exposed the length of his neck, her face transformed into a vampiric mask.

"Um, Dru," Spike struggled uselessly against her incredible strength, a worried quaver in his voice, "this isn't what I meant."

"What's the matter, Spike?" she pressed her cheek close to his ear and drew her pointed teeth across the tender skin of his neck. "Don't you like it when I'm hungry for you?"

Carrying him easily with one hand, she dragged him up and tossed him back across the old bed, crawling eagerly up on top of him. With a lascivious grin, she tore open the front of his shirt and caressed the palms of her hands roughly against his chest.

"Drusilla!" he exclaimed in amazement, "I haven't seen you like this for ages!"

"Quiet, Spike!" she grabbed each of his wrists and pinned them roughly over his head, burying her face in his neck, "I'll tell you when you can speak."

"I can't believe this." He marveled quietly to himself, as she nipped and giggled against him, "I'm about to get shagged by the Slayer."

Birds chirped happily and the sun beamed with beautiful warmth as Buffy, Gabriel, Xander and Willow made their way purposely down the street. Each of them carried a bag stuffed with weapons, consisting mainly of sharpened wooden stakes and holy water.

"Let me get this straight," Xander scratched his head in confusion, "You lost your powers last night and now you WANT to find vampires? Does Giles know you're doing this?"

"I told him we were going over to Willow's, which was true." She said over her shoulder, "I just didn't mention where we were going afterward."

"So where ARE we going?" he reached inside his bag and withdrew a stake, "Judging by the toys you two brought over, I'm guessing it's no place fun."

"Spike and Drusilla have set up shop in their old stomping grounds. They probably moved to a new lair by now," Buffy surmised as they approached Angel's old mansion, "but we might get lucky and catch them."

"Forgive me if I don't consider that lucky." He spread his hands and shrugged helplessly.

"Xander's right." Gabriel touched his hand to her shoulder, "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Yes," she asserted a little testily, pressing onward regardless, "I thought we went over this when you agreed to come with me. Powers or not, this is still my responsibility."

"I thought you'd say something like that." He smirked appreciatively at her.

"So that explains why you called us for back-up." Willow reasoned, mounting the first step up to the mansion's front door, "And the need for a daytime raid. But why such a big rush? You said yourself that Spike and Drusilla aren't going anywhere. Shouldn't we wait until Giles finds a way to get your powers back?"

The door hung slightly ajar, it's frame broken from when Gabriel had burst through the night before.

"They took my mother last night, Will." Buffy flicked the door open with her toe and poked her head inside, "We got her back, but I'm not going to give them the chance to try anything like that again."

Gabriel held the door while Buffy entered with Xander and Willow close behind. He followed and, together, they slowly combed the ground level, opening each door and looking inside.

"Nothing." Buffy's mouth turned down as she opened the last door. "Upstairs, anyone?"

"I'll go first." Gabriel readied a stake and started up the stairs. "If Spike is up there, he's mine."

Buffy readied herself for action as he turned the knob on the first door and threw it open. Her eyes went wide as she saw the condition of the bedroom.

"Whoa, what happened HERE?" Xander gawked over her shoulder.

The room was a shambles. The bedsheets had been shredded and there were long, deep claw marks gouged out of the wall near the headboard. One of the pillows had been cast aside into the closet while the other had apparently been ripped apart, leaving a scattering of feathers everywhere.

Buffy's face screwed up into a distasteful expression as realization dawned on her.

"Ew. Ew. Ew." She repeated in disgust as she fled for the front door. "Maybe I should have listened to you guys and just stayed away from this place. I think I'm scarred for life now."

"What?" Xander raised his eyebrows as Gabriel and Willow hurried to catch up with her. He gestured confusedly to the disheveled room. "You mean Drusilla? And Spike? Man, even the undead get more trim than I do!"

The four quickly exited the mansion and emerged into the warm, sunny outdoors.

"Well, That was a bust." Buffy lamented, "What now?"

"Might I suggest that we put our vampire worries on the back shelf for now and do something fun for a change." Xander hefted his bag in one hand, "Maybe something that doesn't involve weapons?"

"I don't know . . ." Buffy hedged uncertainly.

"Oh, come on!" Xander playfully slapped a hand to her shoulder. "It'll get your mind off things."

"Like the fact that I'm powerless now?" Buffy stopped and looked at him seriously.

"Powerless?" Xander choked, "Who's worried about that? I mean it's not like there are two psycho vampires back in town, right?"

The other three turned their gazes on him skeptically.

"Right." He nodded agreeably, "I'm shutting up."

Gabriel took Buffy's hand in his.

"We'll get your powers back." He assured her, "I promise. But the chances of finding Spike and Drusilla again are next to nothing unless they show their faces again. Maybe a little recreation wouldn't be such a bad idea right now."

She smiled and her face relaxed. The tone of his voice was so confident. She found it very calming and reassuring.

"I guess you're right." She considered, "Hey, it's the summer, I'm supposed to be having fun, right?"

"That's the spirit!" Willow chirped. "But what do you want to do?"

"It's getting pretty hot." Gabriel squinted up at the bright blue sky, "Is there any place to swim around here?"

"Yeah, Misty Falls." Xander suggested, "It's this secret place I know about. It's over by the-"

"No!" Willow blurted, cutting him off, "XanDERR!

"Oh, come off it, Will." He scoffed, "That was like ten years ago. Besides, I'm sure it's still not alive anymore."

"It that EVER the wrong thing to say in the proximity of a Hellmouth." Buffy reminded him, her face clouded with worry.

"Is there something there, Willow?" Gabriel asked, "It sounds like such a nice place."

"So do Sunnydale and Greenland," Buffy snorted, smirking, "but what's in a name?"

"Will you guys relax?" Xander raised his palms, "There's nothing beastly at the falls. At least nothing of Hellmouth proportions." He looked dubiously in Willow's direction, "It was just a frog."

Buffy and Gabriel both visibly calmed.

"Guess we can gear down from combat mode." Buffy chuckled, prodding Willow teasingly.

"Whuh, well, it was really BIG!" Willow insisted, "A-and it . . .it jumped!"

"I promise we'll leave the minute we see anything green and slimy." Buffy assured her.

Spike pried himself out from under Drusilla's sleeping form. Naked, he slid off the cold stone slab and maneuvered his aching body over to the doors of the old mausoleum. Outside, he could feel that there was still a lot of daylight left to burn. Damn, he hated the summer.

His skin was covered in scratches and shallow nip marks, stinging from hours of mistreatment. He smirked to himself, remembering the night's surprising turn of events, as he turned and watched Drusilla twitch and fidget fitfully atop the cold stone crypt. To his knowledge, she had never slept before, nor had any other vampire he had ever known.

I wonder what she's dreaming about?, he thought.

Drusilla spread her arms and flexed her fingers. She was a giant, towering above everyone around her. One by one, she picked them up and dropped them down her gullet like an enormous bird. As she ate, the world grew smaller until she was as big as a mountain. She noted a storm taking shape on the horizon, a red, fiery cloud that approached her at the speed of sound. She grinned and opened her jaws wide to draw the fire inside herself and consume it. Like she would consume everything, in time.

The fire drew up short of her, cautiously, as if sensing her intention. She giggled, reveling in her newfound power, and the stars in the sky overhead sang her name. The firestorm reared and took on the shape of a man, a pair of green eyes with a halo of gold forming where its face should have been.

Drusilla recoiled from those eyes, fearing what they saw in her. The fiery form closed on her and her fear turned to rage. Diving forward, she grabbed hold of her opponent and bore it down onto the uneven countryside. Huge clods of earth flew into the air and her undead flesh seared and smoked wherever it contacted the fiery warrior. She held on tenaciously, like a rabid dog, driving her enemy down into the earth with her body, smothering its flame.

The world went dark and she was underground now, in the depths of a burial crypt. The being in her arms had changed, becoming sensuous and frightening at the same time. It was Spike she wrestled with now, thrashing and writhing against her like a wild animal. He struggled to resist her, his piercing eyes becoming gold on green. She toyed with him, enjoying his pathetic struggles, knowing that she could overpower him at any time. Pinning his head to the floor, she bit deeply into his exposed throat and gorged on a rush of hot blood. The blood filled her with unimaginable ecstasy, tingling excitingly through her limbs. She drank deeply until the body she gripped so tightly collapsed in on itself, shriveling into nothing under her.

She awoke with a terrible hunger, her eyes snapping open like shutters, perfectly able to see in the pitch dark. She crawled to her knees and leaned over the edge of the cold crypt, a low throaty growl sounding from deep inside her.

"Spii-iike." She beckoned with a lilting sing-song voice.

Spike recognized the hungry look in her eyes and backed himself into a corner.

"Oh no, Pet," he groaned, "Not again. What do you think I am, a bloody machine?!"

Grinning playfully, she yowled like a cat and leaped on him, pinning his naked body to the floor.

Buffy trudged down the well-used path and stepped onto a long bed of warm sand on the edge of a freshwater lake. She wore a blue one-piece bathing suit with a light sarong knotted around her hips and brown leather sandals on her feet.

Xander and Gabriel came next. Gabriel was wearing only a plain white t-shirt and a pair of cut-off jeans with his towel draped casually across his shoulders. His sandals were worn and beaten from long days and nights of travel, but were very comfortable. Xander had on a pair of dark sunglasses and a bright, Hawaiian style shirt, left unbuttoned and hanging open. His shorts were faded blue and criss-crossed with old paint marks. He had a small water bottle wrapped up in his towel and slung over his shoulder like a hobo's travel pack.

Willow came next, dressed in a pair of overall shorts and a bright pink bathing suit underneath, embroidered with a small, cute cartoon character and a wide brimmed hat on her head. In one hand, she carried a mid-sized travel cooler filled with juice and snacks packed by her mother and, in the other, she dragged a collapsible beach umbrella behind her. A brimming carry all hung heavily from the crook of her elbow.

"Your secret place, huh, Xander?" Buffy cocked her head skeptically.

Xander looked up and down at the mass of sunbathers, mostly families with their children. Someone had gone through the trouble to truck in a massive amount of sand and spread it over the shoreline of one side of the lake, transforming it into a beach-like setting, a fact that had apparently not gone unnoticed by the people of Sunnydale.

"I guess all those cars parked on the side of the road WERE for here." He sighed, "NOW, what do we do?"

"Hey," Willow frowned looking down the other side of the beach. "Isn't that Anya?"

"Huh?" Xander turned around, craning his neck.

A young, dark-haired girl stalked down the beach with a scowl on her face and a rapidly melting ice cream cone in her hand.

"Is your father a thief?" she muttered to herself in a hollow idiot's voice, "Because he must have stolen the stars and put them in your eyes. Sheesh, like I haven't heard that one before. Humans can be such. . .such. . .-Xander!"

She stopped short with surprise, almost bumping into him.

"Anya, what are you doing here?" he exclaimed, looking her over. "I wouldn't have taken you for a beach person."

The dark haired girl wore a pair of khaki shorts and a tight yet attractively modest white tank top.

"I'm not." She explained, holding her dripping cone away from her body, "I came for the ice cream. They move the stand off the boardwalk and up here on the hot days."

She attempted to take a taste and found it had melted halfway down her hand. With a disgusted face, she dropped the sloppy ice cream onto the ground and kicked sand over it.

"My stuff is farther up. There's enough room for you guys too if you want." She offered, busily licking the melted ice cream off her fingers.

"Gwuh?" Xander's jaw hung open and his eyes were blank, mesmerized by her unintentionally seductive action.

"Geez, guys never fail to amaze me!" Buffy rolled her eyes, "How can ice cream be THAT sexual?"

She turned and noted Gabriel staring at Anya with an intense look in his eyes.

"What are YOU looking at?" she asked in a warning tone, prodding his arm sharply.

"Get back." He stepped between the three of them and Anya, "There's something wrong with her. I think she's a demon."

Anya's face soured.

"Oh, great, a seventh son, just what I need." She groaned, "Where did they pick YOU up? I hoped I'd never run into one of you self-righteous busybodies again. Yes, I am, or was, a demon called Anyanka. But now I'm trapped in human form until I die. Sucks, huh?"

"Anyanka?" he frowned, puzzled, "The patron of women scorned? I thought your kind were dying out?"

"We are." She sighed, shrugging helplessly, "Seems today's woman is a lot better at exacting her OWN vengeance. Which doesn't leave much work for me. Now are you guys coming or not?"

She stepped past him and started irritably up the beach. Looking to each other and shrugging helplessly, the four followed.

"This is it." Anya indicated a small area of sand that was clear of other beachgoers.

"Finally." Xander dropped his towel to the sand and slipped his shirt off his shoulders.

"Do you think there's enough room for all five of us?" Willow asked skeptically, taking stock of her extensive accessories.

"Sure." Anya took hold of Xander's arm, "You can sit next to me."

He sank down next to her, mildly bewildered.

"I think I'll just keep moving. I'd like to get a closer look at the falls." Gabriel softly brushed a fingertip inconspicuously along the length of Buffy's forearm, "Anyone want to come along?"

"That'd be great! I'd love to-" Willow brightened, then noticed Buffy watching her expectantly, "- stay right here. Yup, I'll just sit right here and get some sun."

Digging her umbrella into the sand, she sat down carefully on her towel under its shade. She slipped on a pair of sunglasses and adjusted her wide-brimmed hat. Digging into her carry bag, she took out a squeeze bottle of sunscreen and began liberally coating her arms, lower legs and the tops of her feet, the only exposed skin she had.

"SPF 60?" Xander cocked an eyebrow, "I didn't even know they made this stuff. What are you Will, a vampire?"

"Oh, no." she denied as if he were being serious, "I just like to be cautious, that's all. My skin is very sensitive."

"We'll be near the falls if anyone needs us." Gabriel called, slipping his hand around Buffy's and starting toward the falls.

"Yeah, bye." Anya commented, uninterested.

Gabriel watched the water flow out of the calm pool and over the rocky edge with interest. It wasn't very big as far as waterfalls went, but it was nice. He could still easily make out the forms of Xander, Willow and Anya down on the beach.

"It's such a beautiful day." Buffy leaned her head back and closed her eyes as she lay on her pink and yellow towel, basking in the bright sunshine. "It almost makes you forget that there are vampires and demons out there just waiting for the sun to go down."

"Demons usually don't mind the sun." Gabriel commented blithely as he pulled his shirt off over his head and waded into the chill water.

"Yeah, thanks for reminding me." She smirked, tilting her head up and watching him surreptitiously.

"You coming in?" he looked over his shoulder, his arms held tightly against his body, shivering.

"You look like you're going to die from hypothermia." She raised a shapely eyebrow, "I don't think so. I'm just going to lay out for a bit."

She laid back on her towel and fidgeted until she was comfortable on the grassy slope.

"Suit yourself." He dove into the water with an intentionally heavy splash.

Buffy screamed and sat up as a shower of cold water droplets cascaded across her body. She sat up swiftly, a sharp retort on her lips, but, upon seeing his outline efficiently cutting through the icy water beneath the surface, held it. She watched as he swam to the far side of the pool, then took a sharp turn in the opposite direction of the falls, all without rising to take a breath.

She settled back onto her towel and rolled over onto her stomach, resting her chin on her hands. Allowing her eyes to sag half shut, she continued to watch him through slitted lids. She still could not believe how different he seemed now. Different, and yet very much the same. Her mind wandered back to the time when she had first met Gabriel, three months ago.

There had been an undeniable attraction between them from the start. As Slayer and Seventh Son, they had much in common, but circumstances had kept them apart. Just as things had started to get interesting, he had left Sunnydale and she had thought she would never see him again. A splash in the water caught her attention and she smiled slightly to herself as he broke the surface and flashed her a quick grin before diving under again.

Whatever had happened with him over the last few months had brought about a dramatic change in his disposition. It was as if all the pain he had been carrying around with him had just faded away. Now he exuded an aura of inner calm and serenity, like he'd become a whole new person. She relaxed and closed her eyes completely, thinking of how safe and comfortable it felt to be around him and, tentatively, considered the possibilities of the future.

He reemerged from the water, refreshed and invigorated. Slicking his wet hair back out of his face, he walked up the shoreline to where Buffy lay.

"Don't even THINK about dripping on me." She warned without opening her eyes as his shadow fell across her.

Smiling pleasantly, he knelt down next to her.

"What have you been smiling about up here?" he asked with curious interest, "Were you watching me?"

"How could I be watching you?" she evaded, feigning indignation, "My eyes were closed the whole time."

Shrugging knowingly to himself, he quickly toweled off, rubbing his hair to only mild dampness.

"Come here." He said, dropping his towel and tugging on her hand, "I want to show you something."

He helped her to her feet and led her by the hand down to the water's edge. Crouching, he pointed to a quiet corner of the pool where a few small insects skittered across the surface.

"Do you see that?' he asked, smiling faintly.

"Water bugs?" she shrugged, confused, "Didn't you have those in Europe?"

"Not the bugs. Take off your sandals and step on my feet." He directed, standing with his feet together.

"What?" she looked at him quizzically.

"Just do it." He pleaded gently, "You'll find out what I mean."

She hesitated, unsure of getting so close to him, especially when they were both only partially clothed. He took her by the hands and guided her in front of him so that she was facing away, her heels just in front of his toes. She could feel a soothing, radiant warmth, like the heat of the sun, emanating from his skin. Slipping out of her sandals, she stepped back carefully onto his feet.

"Are you sure about this?" she queried dubiously, positioning herself unsteadily, trying not to put too much pressure on his feet.

"Trust me." He assured her, gently steadying her with his hands on her hips.

She inhaled softly, breathing in the pleasant, exotic scent that always seemed to cling to him. Her pulse quickened and her breathing became shallow as she felt the familiar tingling in her skin that his closeness always evoked.

"Now, hold very still." He whispered, slowly transferring his hands to the top of her head.

His touch was gentle and deliberately careful as he positioned his palms on her head, his fingers interlaced at the top. Since Drusilla had stolen her powers, she had felt unsure and a bit lost, but his presence strengthened and comforted her. Standing this close to him, she felt protected, safe in the knowledge that he was there for her. She clasped her hands on his forearms, but resisted the urge to lean back against him. Sun and significant boy simultaneously touching her skin was an unusual occurrence, a little strange for her.

"Let all that is between my hands and my feet be within my power." He whispered almost inaudibly, "Let all that is between my hands and my feet be within my power."

"What are you doing?" she started to turn under his hands.

"Wait." He shifted, holding her still, "And watch."

He continued to repeat the phrase monotonously as if it was a mantra and, slowly, she started to feel something. Her body shuddered a little and she gasped as a flow of faintly prickling warmth flowed into her head and feet, filling her body and meeting in her middle. She closed her eyes as her every nerve ending flared with sensitivity and her mind opened up to the world around her, bathing her in a sea of sensation. Behind her, Gabriel's body went rigid and his breathing slowed and became tight.

"Look at the water." He muttered, concentrating, "Tell me what you see."

She obeyed, opening her eyes and looking at the pool again. Everything looked strangely intricate and beautiful to her now. It was like the world suddenly possessed an exciting new dimension, like nothing she had ever seen before. She could sense all the tiny creatures that lived within the water and understood, for no apparent reason, that the pool was clean and safe.

"What's happening?" Buffy whispered, awestruck, "Why does everything look so . . .deep?"

"You're seeing with my Second Sight." He explained softly, "If I concentrate, I can channel it into other people. See that aura around your reflection? It's like gold fire, isn't it?"

She focused her eyes on the water's surface and the reflection of Gabriel and herself. His lean, muscled body made an impressive silhouette, outlined in an aura of shifting green and gold light rays. Her own shape was limned with an attractive profile of bright, pure gold, licking around her like tiny flames.

"You mean this is what you see all the time?" she marveled, awestruck, "It's beautiful."

"Usually only when I try." He smiled warmly, leaning forward over her shoulder and touching his cheek to hers, "And you're right, it is beautiful."

Her chest tightened with desire and she felt herself drawn to him. Turning her head, she found her lips hovering temptingly close to his. He closed his eyes and smiled, reaching for her eagerly. Catching sight of their reflections one more time out of the corner of her eye, she turned away from him sharply in surprise.

"What is that?" she pointed quickly to the water.

"What?" he opened his eyes, a little confused, his mouth still reaching for hers.

"Look." she directed, pointing to the water.

Looking at the water's surface, he realized immediately what she was talking about. Almost invisible against the reflection of the bright summer sky, a thin tendril of gold stretched out from Buffy's aura in an unerringly straight line down into the north end of town, close to the largest of its cemeteries.

He eased her off his feet and stared at her, picking out the shimmering line of gold easily now. He wondered how he could have missed it in the first place.

"We have to tell Rupert about this." he stated worriedly.

Giles paced back and forth across his living room in agitation while Gabriel leaned back against one of the walls with his arms folded tightly over his chest. Buffy sat on the edge of a plush chair, watching her mother grow more and more tense without knowing why. Joyce was still at the apartment even though the uninviting ritual on her house had already been performed that morning. She felt she had found an ally in Giles now that he was in much the same situation with Gabriel as she was with Buffy and valued the solidarity.

Giles stopped pacing and looked to his nephew, "So what you're saying is that her powers haven't been stolen, only siphoned in some way?"

"That appears to be the case." Gabriel nodded grimly.

"Can't something be done to just cut the connection?" Joyce was doing her best to follow what was being said.

"I'm afraid it's more complicated than that." Giles scratched his head, uneasily.

"No, Mom's right." Buffy stood quickly, "Why can't we just cut Drusilla off? As long as my powers aren't being drained, I should get them back, right?"

"I wish that were true." Giles shook his head softly, "But from what you and Gabriel have told me it sounds like the bulk of your power has already been transferred. If we cut the connection now, your power may remain with Drusilla for good."

"So how do we reverse the faucets?" Buffy queried.

"Well, I-I-I've been thinking about what happened to you last night." Giles considered, touching a fingertip to his temple in concentration as he spoke, "You're sure Drusilla used an Orb of Thesulah, correct?"

"Either that or a fancy snoglobe." she cocked her head wryly.

"But you said it didn't disappear after the spell was cast." He reasoned, "Most often, an Orb is consumed by the power it channels. Unless. . ."

"Unless what, Giles?" she was usually pretty good at following his deductions, but this time he had lost her.

"Unless the orb is acting as a conduit, draining your power away." He concluded. "Yes, that's the only explanation."

"So all I have to do is get the orb back?" she speculated.

"We'll have to work out some way of redirecting the flow of power," he pursed his lips, the gears already working in his mind, "but that. . .seems to be the idea."

Gabriel's head snapped up and he pushed off the wall. He seemed to be staring at something invisible in the air.

"It's moving." He said ominously, "And that means Drusilla is, too."

"You mean this . . .this thread that you've been seeing?" Giles drew aside the curtain and looked at the half sunken sun, "How could she be moving? The sun hasn't completely set yet."

"Yeah, I know, but she is definitely moving." His eyes darkened and his jaw set with a hard edge, "And where Drusilla goes, so does Spike."

"Gabriel, I know you have had some past . . . issues with Spike," he watched his volatile nephew carefully, "but please, don't allow this to become a personal vendetta."

"Not a problem, Uncle." Gabriel assured the older man unconvincingly, as he started quickly stuffing a handful of stakes into a kit bag, "The objective is to regain Buffy's powers. But if Spike gets a heartfull of stake in the process, you won't see me crying about it."

"So what's the plan?" Buffy hoisted her own bag of weapons and slipped it over her shoulder.

"You are NOT going." Giles and Joyce declared together.

Gabriel and Buffy looked to one another with raised eyebrows.

"Gabriel, tell her to stay here." Joyce pleaded, "She'll listen to you. You're a Slayer, too, aren't you?"

"Actually, I'm not. And she's not going to listen to me, anyway." Gabriel shrugged with a helpless smirk, "Besides, I think she SHOULD be there."

"What?" Joyce sat back in her chair, stunned.

"If she's going to get her powers back, she'll have to get her hands on the orb and Drusilla." He explained, "I can't exactly carry them both home with me."

Joyce began to protest, but Giles cut her off.

"Gabriel's right, I'm afraid." He asserted gravely, "She must regain her powers, there is no question of that. If not for her own sake, then at least to deprive Drusilla of them. Who knows what's been happening with her since last night."

"Well then," Buffy commented with a wry smile, "the discussion portion of our show is apparently finished, now it's time to move on to the physical competition."

She nodded to Gabriel, who followed her to the door.

"You're not going to seriously let him take her with him, are you Rupert?" the pitch of Joyce's voice heightened with stress. "Rupert?"

Giles spread his hands, silent and helpless, and sank into his chair.

"Don't wait up." Buffy piped sweetly, closing the door behind them.

Buffy skipped quickly down the walkway from Giles apartment, keeping up with Gabriel's driven pace.

"Wow, that's two for two with my Mom, now." she observed, "You're really determined to get her to hate you, aren't you?"

"She was wrong." He said plainly, "I wasn't trying to argue with her. I just told her what I thought."

"A little reminder for future dealings with her." Buffy advised, "Speaking your mind is the shortest path to fightland. I'd prefer it if you two didn't end up locking horns every time you meet. Think of it as a stress reducer for me."

"Relax." He laid a comforting hand across her shoulders, "I told you, Mom's love me."

"Then she sure has a funny way of showing it."

Drusilla sauntered down the middle of the street, draining the blood from the body of a lean, uniformed policeman, the last rays of the descending sun beaming on her back without effect. Sprinting from one deep shadow to the next, Spike attempted to keep up with her, while still preserving his skin from the killing sunlight.

"Damn it, Dru." He hissed angrily, "Couldn't you have waited ten minutes until the sun was safely down. We could get toasted out here."

Drusilla spread her arms wide, discarding the policeman's corpse, and closed her eyes in a languid grin.

"I'm not afraid of the sun anymore Spike. I can feel him tickling me, but he's not laughing anymore because he thinks I'm going to eat him. I had a dream about eating fire, Spike, all hot and tingly going down my throat."

"Well, you might be ready for a suntan, Pet, but I'm not." He grumbled irritably, "I don't look forward to becoming a crispy critter the minute I zig when I should have zagged."

"But I'm hungry, Spike." She pouted, strolling over to join him in the long shadow of a large house and draping her arms around his neck.

"That cop was your fifth in the last half-hour!" he exclaimed, baffled, "How can you still be hungry?"

"I don't know Spike, but I want more." She nuzzled against a pair of puncture holes in his neck only an hour old, "Now."

"Forget it, Luv." He shoved her back a little, "My knees are still knockin' from the last feeding you took from me. I need to replenish myself too, you know."

The last sliver of sun settled down beyond the horizon and Spike breathed a sigh of relief. Stepping out from the depths of shadow, he raised his arms overhead exultantly.

"Ahhhh," he smiled, "I love florescent streetlamps."

His grin widened as he spotted a pair of human figures cutting through someone's back yard, approaching them.

"Hello?! Just what I was looking for." He folded his arms across his chest confidently, "You still hungry, Dru? I think this place delivers now."

The figures drew closer and pale light from the street lamp reached them, illuminating their faces. Buffy and Gabriel slowed their approach and stayed protectively close to one another.

"Well, if it isn't the punk and the pussywillow." Spike sneered, "How you feeling tonight, Slayer?"

Buffy gripped a wooden stake tightly in her fist.

"Good enough to dust you." She threatened.

"You're not looking so ship-shape yourself." Gabriel commented wryly, noting the multitude of scratches and bite-marks that marked his flesh, "Wake up on the wrong side of the coffin this evening?"

"Just a few love nips from my Dru." He shrugged, wrapping his arm around Drusilla and drawing her close. "You're going to be in for a heck of a lot worse."

"No thanks." Gabriel made a sour face, "She's a bit too insane for my tastes."

Spike's lip curled at the insult.

"I want the nasty boy." Dru grinned madly, stalking Gabriel, "I want to eat his eyes."

"Everyone got a partner?" Spike opened his arms in challenge and advanced on Buffy. "Time to dance."

Gabriel readied a stake, but Drusilla was on him in a flash. Gripping his wrist, she squeezed until he cried out and dropped his stake. Grinning, she squeezed harder, driving him to his knees.

Buffy moved to help him, but Spike jumped in front of her and backhanded her. Her head snapped to the side and she tumbled to the grass. It had felt like he had hit her with a sledgehammer, but it wasn't because his strength was any greater. Her resilience was nowhere near what it once was. Rolling with the blow, she regained her feet and stood, careful not to let him see her stagger.

"Nice hit." She remarked, feigning nonchalance, "But even without my powers, you hit like a girl."

But I guess so do I right about now, she reminded herself silently.

Spike snarled angrily and lunged at her. She ducked the savage swing and snapped a sharp stake against his chest, the point aimed at his heart region. The weapon struck home, but her wrist turned painfully, knocking the stake loose and only grazing him. She still had the instincts, but not the strength to follow them through. Spike grabbed her roughly around the throat and threw her back through the air to land in a child's sandbox. The impact knocked the wind out of her, left her stunned.

Holding his shallow chest wound, he stooped and picked up the stake that had pierced him. He advanced slowly, holding the stake pointing downward, like a dagger. Half out of the sandbox, Buffy struggled weakly to escape, but her body refused to respond.

Gabriel knelt in the grass, his face a mask of pain as Drusilla compressed the bones in his wrist until he was sure they would shatter.

"I want to taste those pretty eyes." She giggled, holding out a jagged thumbnail just under his right eye.

Desperate to escape, he bit into the flesh of her wrist, and a burst of salty blood filled his mouth. Drusilla screamed in shock, pain and outrage and shook her arm wildly in an attempt to dislodge him. Balling up his free hand into a fist, he smashed it into her face, once, then again and again. She growled in frustration and, throwing him down onto his hands and knees, smashed a kick into his side. The air whooshed out of his lungs and he tumbled across the cool grass. She followed, ready to finish him.

"Here, kitty-kitty, Mummy's got treats for you." She held out her empty, blood-drenched hand in offering.

Gabriel rose into a crouch, cradling his wrist. His bag was behind Drusilla, too far out of reach to make a play for. Why hadn't he listened to his uncle when he had been advised to always keep a stake hidden on his person? Suddenly, the advice seemed very sound.

Determined not to let her win, he snapped a sharp kick at her knee, but she blocked it easily. Spinning into a backfist, he grazed her across the chin, stunning her more than actually hurting her. He followed with a sharp uppercut and a kick to her stomach. The blows could have crippled an average human, but Drusilla shrugged them off with only minor effect. Taking another hit in the face, she clapped her hands tightly around the sides of his head and squeezed.

"I remember what you did to me in Prague." she leered, forcing his head up to meet her gaze, her eyes glittering with bloodlust, "How you and all those people hurt me. Now it's my turn."

Gabriel screamed and sank to his knees, prying desperately at her arms to try and relieve the pressure. Blackness crept into the edges of his vision and his sinuses compressed. He was sure that, any second now, his skull would collapse in on itself.

Spike pinned Buffy to the ground with one hand and held the bloody tip of the stake over her heart with the other. He pressed it hard into her skin and drew a line of his blood along her upper chest toward her throat.

"It's been a long time since I killed a Slayer." He grinned, pressing the tip of the stake against the hollow of her throat hard enough to make her cough.

"Sorry to break your streak." She reached under the collar of her shirt and withdrew a small silver crucifix that hung on a thin steel chain around her neck, pressing it against the flesh of his hand.

"Arrrgh!" he bellowed, dropping the stake and jumping off her, recoiling and clutching his wound, "You bitch!"

Buffy scrambled back, but Spike's attention was focused elsewhere for the moment. He saw Drusilla grab hold of Gabriel's head and start to squeeze. Noting the bloodthirsty look in his lover's eyes, he abandoned Buffy and ran to her.

"Dru!" he barked sharply, grabbing her by the arms and attempting to pull them away from the suffering seventh son, "Dru, stop it! Stop it!"

Drusilla fought him, struggling to keep her grip, like a dog with a bone, "But I'm so hungry, Spike!"

"If you kill him before we cast the spell, I won't get his power." He scolded her, "Think, sweetie, and give Spike the head."

Reluctantly, she allowed him to pry her fingers from Gabriel's skull, dropping the young man to the grass with a pained groan.

Spike jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, "If you're so hungry, you can eat-" he paused, his eyes darting about suspiciously, "She's gone."

"Spike, I need to eat now!" she whined insistently, her dark eyes wandering to Gabriel's prone form.

"All right, all right." He relented, scooping Gabriel's half-conscious form over his shoulder and still watching the shadows for the missing Slayer, "We'll stop for something quick on the way home."

Crouched quietly on the roof of a nearby house, Buffy clutched her kit bag close to her body and watched the two vampires as they headed back toward their mansion.

Gabriel was only vaguely aware of his surroundings for what seemed like a long while. He knew he was being carried by someone and not a friendly someone. He knew also that Drusilla was there, close by. Even though he could not see her, he could sense the Slayer's power within her, burning like the white-hot flame of a blowtorch. He was taken inside a building and dumped roughly into a chair. Coarse rope was looped around his upper chest and rasped against his neck, binding him to the chair. His wrists were pulled tightly together in his lap and encircled tightly with rings of cold steel. Handcuffs, he knew distantly.

Someone shuffled around and lit a small fire. He could feel the heat of it against his legs, but not nearly enough that it would hurt him. He listened closer, hoping to learn more about his surroundings before his captors realized he had regained consciousness.

He felt a sharp prick against his thigh and the pain jarred him fully awake.

"Wakey-wakey." Spike chuckled, tapping a bloodstained stake in his hand.

"Spike." Gabriel growled, ignoring the throbbing pain in his head. "What do you want?"

"I'm going to take your powers, golden boy." He smirked, pressing the sharpened piece of wood roughly under Gabriel's chin, "And, for that, I need you awake."

Dropping the stake carelessly to the floor, Spike held up the orb of Thesulah, rolling it between the fingers of one hand, and scanned the thin, crisp pages of the stolen spellbook.

"I can't read this gibberish!" he grumbled irritably, "Damn foreign languages. Dru, honey, I need you to take a look at this, will you, Luv?"

Drusilla languished against the arm of the chair she sat in, her arms wrapped tightly around her mid-section.

"I don't feel like it, Spike," she moaned in a strained whisper, dropping her bedraggled doll to the floor, "My tummy hurts and Miss Edith is a terrible nurse. All she does is stare at me."

"I wish you'd stop listening to that thing." Spike narrowed his eyes and looked sidelong at her, "It's just a bloody doll."

"She's dying." Gabriel muttered, watching her and smirking triumphantly.

"What the hell did you say?" Spike wrenched Gabriel's head upward, forcing him to meet the vampire's eyes, "Speak. Now, or I'll rip your eyes out."

"She's dying." The seventh son repeated with a small ironic chuckle, "What did you expect? The power of the Slayer is the antithesis of a vampire. It's consuming her from the inside out. And all the blood in the world can't save her."

Spike released Gabriel's jaw and frowned, caught in a dilemma. He began to pace, looking to Drusilla's suffering, then back to Gabriel's cocky smirk.

"What the Hell am I listening to you for?" he jabbed a finger in Gabriel's direction, "You're just looking to mess with my head. She's made seven kills in the last two hours, OF COURSE she's sick! You try eating like that and then tell me you don't want to toss your cookies."

He crouched down next to Drusilla and touched his forehead to hers.

"Dru, Baby, come on. You've got to get up." He urged gently, "I need you to work the magic again."

"Ooohh," she groaned as he slowly helped her to her feet and pressed the Orb into her hand.

"Come on, Baby, just one more time." He whispered softly.

Scattering a handful of sand over the orb, she muttered the magic words, low and tight under her breath, squeezing them out between clenched teeth. Instantly, the Orb began to glow with a soft yellow radiance. Spike accepted the orb from her trembling fingers, pausing only a moment to reevaluate Drusilla's condition as she sank back into her chair, before turning around to stand in front of Gabriel.

The auburn-haired young man watched the vampire carefully, his eyes steady and his face impassive.

Spike pulled Gabriel's cuffed hands forward, forcing them out straight, and held them upturned in his lap. Gabriel's wrists were red and raw where the cuffs had scraped. Spike held the Orb of Thesulah over Gabriel's open palms.

"Now all you have to do is touch this and I can start draining your powers." He grinned, "Then we'll REALLY have some fun."

Gabriel pressed back into his chair, pulling his arms away weakly as the Orb came closer to his fingers.

"I can't believe you were going to have a party without me." Buffy appeared in the doorway with a loaded crossbow pointed at Spike's heart and a sword gleaming in her other hand, the broken door swinging softly on its hinges. "But, that's okay. I still brought you something."

"I knew I should have fixed that door." Spike sighed in annoyance, "Take a hike, Blondie. Without your Slayer powers you're not even worth the time it would take to break your neck."

"I may not be as strong as I used to be, but I can still aim." She fixed him with a hard glare, "That's the great thing about crossbows. You only have to be strong enough to pull the trigger. Even without my powers, I'm still the Slayer."

"Crossbow's only got one shot." Spike sneered confidently, "And there are two of us. Better think fast. Get her, Dru."

Drusilla lurched from her chair with a pained groan and ripped the sword from Buffy's grasp. Throwing the weapon aside disdainfully, she grabbed Buffy's other wrist and shook the crossbow loose. The blonde girl kicked out weakly and struggled to escape the vampire woman's vise-like grip.

As Spike watched her, Gabriel squirmed in his chair and kicked out with his foot, connecting with Spike's wrist. The vampire's arm snapped up and the Orb of Thesulah flew from his grip.

"Buffy!" Gabriel shouted, locking his legs around Spike's knees and toppling him to the floor, "The Orb!"

Spike and Gabriel hit the floor hard in a tangle of limbs.

"Dru!" he grunted, attempting to fight free of Gabriel's crushing legs.

Buffy twisted her body around, reaching for the orb, but Drusilla fought her, attempting to intercept the flying globe. Simultaneously, they both grabbed it, their fingers interlacing around its cool, smooth surface as they tumbled to the floor. The pair came up kneeling, Drusilla's snarling visage only inches from Buffy's as they vied for control of the orb. Their eyes met for a brief moment and, instantly, they froze, their arms falling slack, but still retaining contact with the Orb.

Spike kicked Gabriel in the face and pulled his legs free, clambering to his feet.

"Dru?" he whispered, leaning down close to her and looking carefully at her blank face.

He passed his hand in front of her unseeing eyes a few times with no response. He repeated the process in front of Buffy with the same results. Shrugging, he picked up her discarded crossbow and pointed it at her face.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Gabriel warned from behind him.

Spike cocked an eyebrow and peered slowly over his shoulder. Somehow he had gotten free of the ropes and he stood with Buffy's sword clenched in his fists, which were still cuffed at the wrists. His eyes were hard as green glass and his jaw set in grim conviction.

"Kill Buffy and you'll kill Dru." he elaborated, "They're in a shared trance brought on by the Orb. If one dies, then so does the other."

"I guess that gets her off the hook for now, doesn't it?" Spike's face tightened into an animalistic mask and his fangs bared, "but that don't mean squat for you, punk!"

Whirling, he fired the crossbow. The arrow streaked across the room, grazing Gabriel's neck and punching out through the window. Right behind it, Spike pounced on the seventh son, driving him back against the wall, his hands locked around the boy's throat.

Buffy blinked her eyes and looked around in confusion. She was standing in the middle of a medieval looking church, complete with fine oak pews and stained glass windows. Each window was a depiction of a venerated saint from the bible, not that she recognized any of them, spilling colored light across the immaculate floor. As strange as it appeared to her, she found that it felt familiar somehow. Toward the altar, she could make out a faint whimpering and she stepped forward tentatively to investigate.

"I'm sorry, Mummy." a girl's voice beseeched, "I can't help what my eyes show me."

As she drew closer to the altar, she found Drusilla curled into a ball, laying on her side next to it with her eyes squeezed tightly shut.

"I try not to see these things," she continued, whimpering, unaware of Buffy, "but the harder I try, the more I see."

She flinched violently, like a restless dog in its sleep.

"No, no, Mummy, please. I love our Lord, I would never turn my back on Him. Mummy, please! No! Not that terrible monastery! Don't send me there! There are ghosts there!"

The vampire's eyes snapped open and, instantly, her body stilled. Her face twisted into its vampiric form, she crawled slowly to her feet.

"Hello, Buffy." she purred, stepping casually down off the dais, "Do you know where we are?"

"Well, it's not Billy Graham's church, that's for sure." she ventured, looking around for some sort of weapon.

Near the front there were basins filled with holy water. She edged carefully backward toward them.

"This is the monastery where Angel came to visit me." she smiled, relishing the memory, "This is where he MADE me."

Buffy inched ever closer to the water basins, trying not to let Drusilla's reminder of Angel's dark path distract her.

"My Mummy sent me here so I would be good again, stop seeing things." Drusilla brought her hands up to her mouth and caught the sleeve of her dress between her teeth in a nervous, childlike mannerism, peering furtively up at the figures depicted in the stained glass windows, "She said they would be watching me, to see if I was being bad. I tried to be good, I tried so hard. But Angel wouldn't have it. He said he had to have me, that we were meant to be together."

A flare of anger tinged with jealousy rose within Buffy and she gripped one of the water basins and threw it across the room at Drusilla. It sailed farther than she had anticipated, easily reaching the vampire and bouncing at her feet, drenching her from head to foot. Apparently, it seemed, she had gotten her powers back.

Drusilla screeched with shock and outrage and jumped back as the holy water doused her.

"Look at what you've done to my dress!" she cried accusingly at Buffy, holding her dripping arms out away from her sides and looking down at herself, "Now no one will ask me to dance at the quartermaster's ball!"

"You . . .You should be burned." Buffy gasped.

"You really don't know where we are, do you?" Drusilla giggled derisively, water dripping harmlessly off her chin, "It's the Astral plane, Dearie. The mind is free of the limitations of the body here."

Buffy realized why this place felt so familiar now. It felt the same as her dreams.

"So what are we doing here?" Buffy narrowed her eyes suspiciously, "You're hardly someone I'd like to be sharing a daydream with."

"It's the Orb." Drusilla raised her arms and turned slowly, gesturing to everything around them, "All of it. We have a connection, you and I. I have your power and you want it back. We're here to settle things. Break the connection."

"So all I got to do to get my powers back for real is kick your butt?" the blonde Slayer raised her hands into fists. "This should be a snap."

Drusilla bowed her head and began to chuckle darkly. Her shoulders twitched and began to bulge, rippling with thick, corded muscles. Her flesh changed color, turning a dusky purple-gray, and became bumpy and hard. She reared and roared deafeningly, displaying a mouth full of needle-like fangs and fiery, blood-red eyes.

"Okay, maybe snap was the wrong word to use." She reconsidered, backing away from the terrible creature before her.

Gabriel landed across a wooden chair and felt it smash under his weight, jamming painfully against his ribs. Throwing his cuffed hands forward, he was able to absorb some of the impact, but not much. Rolling, he struck out at Spike with a double fisted swing and followed with a swift kick. Spike dodged the attacks and stepped inside his reach. Instinctively, Gabriel punched with his left, capitalizing on a perfect shot at the vampire's unprotected throat. The cuffs restrained him and the blow never landed, pulling him off balance instead. Grinning cruelly, Spike backhanded him across the face, throwing him hard against the wall. Gabriel stumbled dizzily and shook his head to clear it, a warm trickle of blood crawling out of his nose. The raw marks on his wrists were starting to bleed now, too.

"You know, this might be even better than stealing your powers." Spike considered, cracking the knuckles of one fist. "I'm really havin' fun!"

"Let me out of these cuffs and I'll show you fun." Gabriel growled, twisting ineffectually at the metal restraints.

"You've already had your fun." The blonde vampire scoffed, snapping a kick up toward Gabriel's midsection, "Now it's my turn. Besides, you don't really think I'd let you go, do you?"

Gabriel brought both hands down in a solid block, but left his head unguarded and caught a hard fist across his jaw. He staggered back, blocking two more punches, then retaliated, stuffing a side kick into Spike's mid-section. The vampire snarled, skidding back with the force of the strike, but rebounded with rabid tenacity. Gabriel punched out and when Spike turned his fist aside, his other arm was forced to follow, leaving him defenseless again. Spike drove a knee into his abdomen and clubbed him over the head with his fist. Gabriel felt his teeth clatter together as he hit the floor and his bruised lungs labored for air. The damn cuffs! They were too limiting, to both his mobility and his options. But perhaps there was a way he could turn them to his advantage.

"Get up, punk!" Spike sneered, "So I can throw you down again."

Gabriel complied, rising slowly, and kept his hands close to his body. Feinting with a low kick, he dove forward as Spike stooped to intercept it. He leaped up and looped the short length of chain between his wrists around Spike's throat, circling behind him and pulling his arms back tight.

"Ack!" Spike coughed, straining to pry the cuffs away from his throat.

Gabriel jerked hard, driving the metal chain deeper into his flesh.

"Still having fun?" he grunted harshly in the vampire's ear, driving his knee into his lower back for more leverage, "What's that? I can't hear you."

Spike shoved back with his legs, crushing Gabriel up against the wall, but the seventh son took the pain stoically and held on. Spike's vision darkened and his limbs grew steadily weaker as the blood flow to his brain was effectively cut off and, gradually, he fell unconscious. Gabriel held the chain tightly for another few minutes, just to be sure, then yanked the cuffs over his head and let Spike fall flat on his face.

His adrenaline level starting to fade, he fell to one knee, tired and in pain. He hurt all over, particularly his ribs where he had landed on the chair and a lengthwise strip along his back that promised to bruise painfully in the days to come.

Near the door, Buffy and Drusilla were still locked in their trance, the tiny muscles of their faces twitching occasionally the way a dreaming sleeper's might. Wiping a thin trickle of blood from his nose and rolling Spike's limp body over, he rifled through his pockets searching for the keys to the handcuffs. He paused and looked once more to Buffy's face, hoping that she would be all right.

Buffy ducked, barely avoiding a heavy punch that shattered the back of a wooden pew. Diving between Drusilla's legs and rolling, she came up behind her and kicked her in the back. The Drusilla beast roared angrily and spun around, her taloned hands ready. As the battle progressed, she was continuing to change, the irises of her eyes becoming slitted like a snake's and her skin sprouting leathery, grayish scales. It seemed she was getting bigger, too.

Buffy avoided a savage swing and moved directly into the path of Drusilla's whip-like tail. The impact knocked her bone-jarringly against a tall wooden statue of some unknown saint and she wrapped her arms around it, half using it as a shield. When had Drusilla developed a tail?

She staggered back as Drusilla struck the statue again with her tail. The statue shook violently and Buffy stepped away from it, into the light of one of the stained glass windows. A wave of serene warmth washed over her and a familiar, ghostly voice sounded inside her head.

"Remember the fire." It said, "It will save you."

Drusilla roared and knocked over the statue, toppling a stand of candles, as well, dropping them at Buffy's feet.

"Fight me!" she snarled, her voice deep and distorted.

Remember the fire, Buffy's dream voice told her.

Buffy crouched and touched the guttering flame of one of the candles to her palm and it stuck there painlessly. Cradling the tiny flame in her hand, she held it up in front of her face and blew on it gently. Drusilla's eyes widened and she took an uneasy step back as the flame flared and raced across Buffy's skin, transforming her.

Buffy felt the fire course over her, through her, and reveled in the power it unleashed. Heat washed over her and her limbs sang with newfound strength. She was bigger now, equal to Drusilla, a towering woman-shape composed entirely of searing golden fire.

"You want a fight?" Buffy grinned, the air around her shimmering with the intense heat, "I'm all yours."

Drusilla took another shaky step back, her hulking, scaly form seeming to shrink in on itself. Her stomach was starting to hurt again, knotting in a sickness that was rooted in her mind.

"Spike." She murmured fearfully, rising into a desperate scream, "Spike! Help me!"

Her cry echoed off the walls of the cathedral, gaining resonance as it bounced. A concentrated area of air before her began to shimmer and waver, just above the floor. Thin tendrils of distortion knitted together and fused into the form of Spike, laying prone on his side. Drusilla's face twisted up in an evil smile.

"Come here, Spike." She cooed as her lover sat up groggily.

"Wh-what's happening, Dru?" he blinked in confusion, "Where are we?"

"It's the dreamworld, Spike." She caressed his head lovingly, "You must have been sleeping and heard me call. How sweet."

Spike gripped her arms and pulled himself to his feet. Where his hands contacted her, a cloud of sparkles and glowing light erupted. Tugging his arm back, he found that he was stuck to her.

"What the Hell is this!" he demanded, jerking violently to try and free his arm, "What happened to you?"

"Shhh, shhh, shhh. It's all right, dear." Drusilla comforted him as the glow traveled farther up his arms, engulfing him and fusing them together, "We're going to kill the Slayer together."

Spike shook and fought, his arms and entire lower half melded with her. The radiant phenomenon took the rest of him quickly, and their massive, combined body metamorphosed into a giant two headed dragon-like thing. The head on its left was shaped like a reptilian version of Drusilla, while the one on its right was like Spike.

"Yeah," the Spike head hissed with pleasure between needled teeth, "I see what you mean now."

As the ponderous, four-footed creature stepped forward, Fire-Buffy grappled it around its massive, barrel-like chest and heaved it against the stone altar, crushing it into rubble. As the creature roiled and thrashed trying to right itself, the Drusilla head snapped angrily at her, but drew back from the aura of scorching heat which surrounded her. The Spike head was smarter. Choosing instead to grasp a chunk of stone in its maw, it whipped its long neck around and flung it like a missile. The stone caught Fire-Buffy in the midsection, doubling her over in pain. The flame aura surrounding her dimmed as she staggered back, fighting to put some distance between her and her adversaries.

Seizing the advantage, the beast's two heads shot out, each clamping its jaws around an arm and hoisting her into the air. Fire-Buffy screamed piercingly and liquid light spilled from her wounds, as she was lifted, dangling and defenseless.

Gabriel snapped open the second cuff and dropped the metal restraints to the floor, rubbing viciously at the raw spots on his wrists. Spike lay unmoving at his feet, limbs splayed, defenseless. Scanning the room, Gabriel found nothing that would make a serviceable stake. The fragments of broken furniture were all too blocky and dull. Dragging him out into the sun would be pointless, too. He would definitely wake up long before the sun rose again. If Gabriel had his way, the murderous vampire would never wake up again. That left only decapitation, holy water or fire. The last was too risky to be an option and holy water was inefficient, not to mention messy as Hell. Gabriel picked up Buffy's discarded sword and hefted it experimentally. Guess it would have to be decapitation, after all.

As he lined up the shot, touching the razor edged steel against Spike's exposed throat, Buffy jerked and made a harsh choking sound in the back of her throat. Gabriel edged away from Spike, the sword still pointed at the vampire's throat, and squatted next to Buffy. Her breathing was erratic and strained and her face was tight with distress. It was like she was having a particularly traumatic nightmare. Drawing up her sleeves, he found that the skin of her forearms had become red and blotchy as if from a bad case of poison ivy or a violent allergic reaction. Wrinkling his nose, he was sure he detected the acrid stink of burnt hair in the air.

Drusilla was killing her, he realized, destroying her spirit in a combat of wills. He had heard of such things happening, often between opponents who were psychically sensitive. If the spirit died, then so, too, would the body. He had to help her somehow. At one of the darkest points in his life, Buffy had been there for him. She had given him more compassion than he had given himself and now he hoped to repay a small portion of that debt.

Sitting down next to her in a lotus position, he laid the sword across his lap and covered both her hands with his. He closed his eyes and willed his mind into a state of tranquil calm. Years ago, while he had been studying in Japan, his master had taught him to meditate. Gabriel had found the lesson boring and, at the time, considered the skill useless. Now he prayed that he had not forgotten how.

Inhaling and exhaling deep breaths, he prepared himself, surrendering his thoughts and choosing to simply exist and not to think. He felt his surroundings slowly melt away, although his senses remained as sharp as ever. It had been hard to get used to, this state of unconscious awareness. Concentrating on the soft, warm hand under his, he let himself sink down even further in search of Buffy's spirit.

Fire-Buffy gritted her teeth as the two headed demon pulled her arms in opposite directions, their needlelike teeth digging into her ephemeral flesh. Straining to keep her mind focused, she thought of fire and intense heat. Her skin flared brightly and the two demon heads cried out and released their hold as their lips were seared. Buffy dropped to the floor, cradling her wounded arms against her body.

The Drusilla-Spike beast writhed and glared at her balefully with its four eyes, its jaws slavering to cool its burnt skin.

"You can't win, Slayer." The Spike head snarled, shooting out and snapping its teeth together just inches from her face.

"He's right, Dearie." The Drusilla head agreed, circling around and butting her from the side with its massive maw.

Fire-Buffy stumbled over an overturned pew and fell against the wall. They were right, she knew. Defeating Spike or Drusilla alone would be a task in itself, but both of them together, coupled with her stolen Slayer power would be impossible. This dreamworld was too strange and unpredictable. She hadn't had the time to learn how to use its peculiar laws to her advantage. But she wouldn't go down without a fight. Crouching, she ducked under the Spike head and readied herself for a leap of desperation that would, more than likely, cost her her life.

Fire-Buffy screamed as Spike's needle-filled jaws intercepted her and clamped down on her shoulder, piercing deep and spraying hot, luminescent orange blood across his maw. The head reared, hoisting her into the air and, its lips smoking from the contact, shook her limp body wildly like a rabid dog. It threw her against the wall with brutal force and she collapsed in a heap beneath one of the ornate stained glass windows.

Her flames were flickering now, weakening. She crawled slowly to her knees, too weak to even stand. In this world, Spike and Drusilla were too powerful. She simply couldn't compete.

Spike's head leered and reached into the beam of colored light that streamed through the window, licking it's seared lips with a forked, purple tongue. With a dark chuckle of triumph, it lunged forward with blinding speed, teeth bared for a fatal bite. Buffy raised her arms to shield herself, but the needle-tipped teeth never reached her. Drusilla had pulled her half of the body back, causing Spike's attack to jerk and fall short. Spike tugged on his half of the body irritably, and turned his long neck around to look questioningly at Drusilla. She was staring, wide-eyed and awestruck at the stained glass window above Buffy's head.

Colored beams of light poured through the meticulously laid panes of glass, bathing the Drusilla-Spike beast in a column of bright radiance. The figure depicted in the window was a powerful Archangel holding a gleaming golden trumpet. The glass bent and filled out into a three dimensional shape of the archangel, seeming to gradually gain consciousness as it pulled itself free from the window. Both heads of the Drusilla-Spike beast coiled back cautiously as the archangel hopped off the ledge and dropped softly to the floor between them and Buffy.

"Get up." the archangel whispered soothingly to Fire-Buffy. His voice was deep and resonant, otherworldly.

She reached out weakly and took hold of his twinkling, many-faceted hand and strength filled her again. Warmth flooded up her arm, reenergizing her tired body and feeding her dying flame. The archangel was healing her.

"Gabriel." she smiled, standing near to him and staring into the green glass of his eyes. One word, one touch and she had no doubt as to who he was.

"It's that punk kid!" the Spike head snarled, grinding the thick talons of his forefoot into the cold stone floor, "How did HE get here?"

"It doesn't matter, Spike." the Drusilla head sneered, watching them, its reptilian lips pulling back to expose deadly teeth, "They don't know the rules. This is OUR game."

The Drusilla-Spike creature stepped forward with renewed confidence, slow and anticipatory, its two heads writhing and watching them appraisingly from atop long sinewy necks. Their faces had become longer and boxy, more dragon-like, and their original features were almost unrecognizable. Only their voices, although deep and distorted, held a measure of their former selves.

The Spike head lunged, smashing its heavy snout into the glass archangel's chest. Gabriel's new body crashed back against the wall of the church and he fell to one knee, breathless and in pain. Pressing a hard, faceted hand to his chest, he was glad to find that nothing was broken. Apparently, his skin was very resilient, more like transparent, colored steel than actual stained glass. Still, it hurt like Hell.

"I'm sorry," the Spike head sneered venomously, "Did I hurt you?"

Buffy stepped in front of the two-headed monstrosity and spread her arms protectively before Gabriel.

"Get away from him." She shouted, her fiery body flaring warningly.

The two heads looked to each other and chuckled darkly, saliva dripping from their jaws.

"What do you say, Dru?" the Spike head queried sarcastically, "Should we leave 'em alone?"

"Hmmm, I don't know." The Drusilla head considered, touching the end of her forked tongue to the tips of her pointed teeth thoughtfully, "Remember that dream I told you about? The one where I swallowed fire? I think I might like to do it again."

"Got fire in your belly, have you?" the Spike head leered craftily, "I think I could put that to good use."

Throwing his great reptilian jaws wide, he vomited forth a stream of blazing green fire. Buffy intercepted the roaring jet, crossing her forearms in front of her face and shielding Gabriel from the brunt of the blast.

The emerald flame was cold, as chilling as the void of outer space, and she screamed piercingly as her body was wracked with absolute agony and her inner fire was doused.

"Noooo!" Gabriel lurched to his feet, clasping his glittering arms around her wilting form, and whipped her around, turning his back to the flame.

The Drusilla head cackled and added her breath to Spike's geyser of icy fire, turning a stream into a torrent. Buffy and Gabriel were both screaming now, as the cold seemed to leech into their very souls. The Drusilla-Spike beast redoubled its efforts, engulfing the two totally in verdant fire so that they were lost from view. The screams died off, swallowed in the roaring rush of the flames.

The two-headed creature continued to spew fire until its lungs were completely emptied. Breathing heavily in exhaustion, both heads of the beast grinned in satisfaction, watching the dying column of flame and hoping to find some trophy of its victory. The blaze guttered down into an oblong ball shape that stirred slowly. The Drusilla-Spike beast stumbled back on its thick, stubby legs, aghast.

The inferno had reshaped into the form of an angel, a beautiful androgynous being with flowing hair and graceful, feathered wings, all composed of the same fluid green flames. The being straightened with the innocence of a newborn and held its arms outstretched, enamored by the sight of its newly-formed limbs.

Buffy felt like she was flying. Every movement brought joy to her heart and every breath was like music inside her. And she wasn't alone. Gabriel was with her. No, he WAS her. And she was him. She felt a thousand separate emotions whirling around inside her and saw a dozen different places she had never been.

In Africa, she prowled across the savanna, adapting to the harsh conditions as if she had been born to them, at one in the wild with the lions and the cheetahs. In Czechoslovakia, she wept over the death of a small child, her heart aching with guilt. And on her first trip to America she gazed admiringly into the eyes of a beautiful young Slayer, her perfect match in every way, and felt her heat skip a beat.

Gabriel felt his heart drop into his stomach as the realization of the prophecy sank in and he knew without doubt that he would die fighting the Master. Reaching deep down, he found the strength and conviction to accept the responsibility laid out before him and surrender his life for the good of the world. He rested on his bed with Mister Gordo the stuffed pig in his lap, staring up at the stars, and considered the irony of being a Slayer in love with a vampire. He wept bitter tears as he kissed Angel one last time before doing the unthinkable. Holding his lover's eyes, he plunged the sword in the vampire's heart and pushed him through the portal to Hell.

Together, they shared some of the greatest and darkest moments of each other's lives, all in a matter of seconds.

The luminescent angel opened its dark green eyes and faced the Drusilla-Spike creature with deadly calm. Snapping its wings out wide, it bathed the rafters of the old church with an eerie green light.

"Uh-oh, Luv." The lizard-like Spike head narrowed its dark eyes suspiciously, "I think we may be in for some trouble."

Both heads sucked in a deep breath and blew a thick column of green fire at the amalgam angel as it stalked forward, slow and steadily. The flames licked around the advancing figure without any effect. In fact, the angel appeared to be drawing the flames into itself, growing larger and stronger until the roof of the church could no longer contain it.

The Drusilla-Spike beast stepped back, avoiding chunks of falling roof stones and releasing a fresh blast of fire. The angel threw its great wings forth, casting a powerful torrent of wind before it. The two-headed creature's breath turned back on itself, slamming back down the gullets from which it had originated. The beast fell back, grating its ponderous hind quarters against the stone wall, coughing and choking on green smoke and tiny flames. It made one more feeble attempt to spew fire before the angel was upon it, resulting only in a puff of green gas.

The creature shrank in on itself, its halves separating and metamorphosing back into its component personalities. Spike and Drusilla collapsed weakly to the floor, breathless and stunned.

The angel stooped and took each of the vampires in one of its massive hands, holding them up to eye level like tiny dolls.

"It's over." It stated in a thunderous voice that shook the countryside, sounding like a chorus of Buffys and Gabriels.

The two vampires looked to each other in dismay, then into the giant green eyes of their captor and swallowed uneasily.

Giles approached the old mansion cautiously, with Willow, Xander and Joyce in tow. Each carried two bottles of holy water and an assortment of sharpened wooden stakes. Giles also held a heavy, steel crossbow furtively close to his body as he walked. Joyce had chosen a wooden cross as her only weapon, but had insisted that she be included in the plan against Rupert's advice. The former Watcher had known then, as he knew now, that she would not be dissuaded.

The sight of the place put a knot of discomfort in Giles' stomach. The last time he had been here, he had been tortured beyond coherence. The memory was difficult to forget.

"This way." He whispered, directing the small entourage to the front door, "I'll take the point."

"Point?", Xander cocked his head, "What are we, migrating geese?"

"Without the spell Willow found, Buffy may never get her powers back again. And I'm afraid to say that Gabriel may not be enough to protect her this time." Giles paused at the door, his hand white-knuckled around the knob. The jamb had been shattered and the door hung loose on its hinges.

Nodding to the others to ready themselves, he gave the door a push and stepped inside. What he found there was nothing like he had expected.

Most of the room's sparse furniture had been overturned or broken. Spike lay in an undignified heap, unconscious on the floor in the center of the room. Off to one side, Buffy sat, still as a statue, directly across from Drusilla who knelt in an identical zombie-like condition. Next to Buffy, both his hands over hers, Gabriel sat in a lotus position in a self-induced trance, with Buffy's favorite sword across his lap.

A dying fire guttered in the hearth, shedding only a modest amount of dark orange light into the room.

"Did somebody call naptime when I wasn't paying attention?" Xander scratched his head, experimentally nudging Spike's unmoving body with his toe, "Man, this is like kindergarten all over again. Except with vampires."

"What's wrong with them?" Joyce crouched next to Buffy and hesitantly stroked her hair, her voice shrill with concern.

Giles knelt by Spike and touched the swollen, red line across the vampire's throat.

"Spike appears to have been choked into unconsciousness." He surmised, turning to study his nephew, noting the numerous bruises and the blood that oozed out of one nostril, "Judging by these marks, I'd say Gabriel was the one who did the choking. After that, it looks like he purposely put himself into some sort of trance."

His eyes wandered to Buffy and Drusilla's unblinking faces and then dropped to the Orb of Thesulah in their hands.

"I can only guess what has happened here." He admitted with a puzzled frown, "But I think it's safe to assume that it has something to do with the Orb."

"This looks serious." Willow commented, looking at the pair closely, "Some kind of shared psychometabolic transference, maybe?"

"Quite possibly." Giles rubbed his chin with interest, "They're certainly showing all the classic signs."

"Can I lead the team in a resounding 'Huh?'" Xander spread his hands and wrinkled his forehead.

"Yes, what ARE you talking about?" Joyce eyed Giles, exasperated and confused.

Giles unconsciously slipped into instructor mode. "Well, it's a classic example of - "

"YAHH!" Xander jumped nervously and fearfully held out a cross at arm's length in Spike's direction, "He moved! Heeee moved."

One of Spike's arms had twitched and he began to stir. The room's three other sleeping occupants began to awaken, as well. Buffy and Drusilla released their hold on the Orb of Thesulah and fell back, away from one another, each with a sharp gasp. They staggered to their feet, struggling to regain their senses.

As Joyce rushed to her daughter's side, Gabriel quickly slipped his feet under himself and hopped up, next to her. Across the room, Spike coughed and held his hand against his throat as Dru pulled him to his feet.

"All right." The blonde vampire rasped, his voice box bruised, "Let's start with round two."

Buffy accepted a stake from Willow and looked Spike over dubiously.

"You're kidding, right?" she tapped the stake confidently in the palm of her opposite hand, "There are six of us and only two of you. And by the feel of it, I got my powers back. Do you have some kind of death wish or something?"

"Your mates are your problem, not mine." Spike sneered, "How are you going to watch your own back while you're busy watching theirs?"

"Spike, I want to leave." Drusilla gripped his arm tightly.

"Listen to your girlfriend, Spike." Gabriel counseled, turning his own stake over in his fingers with anticipation, "You might actually survive the night."

"I already kicked your ass once tonight, punk." Spike snarled angrily, "You should be the one who's worried about survival."

"Spike, I have to leave. Now. My tummy. . ." Drusilla dragged him toward the door, her face ashen and sick looking.

"Not now, Baby." he resisted, "Can't you see Daddy's trying to start a fight?"

Drusilla gripped her arm tightly around his waist and her body tensed sharply in a violent convulsion. She retched and an incongruously large amount of dark red blood poured from her mouth, splattering onto the floor between his feet.

"Aw, damn it, Dru, I just got these shoes!" Spike cried in dismay, alternately picking his feet out of the hot blood.

The humans recoiled at the revolting sight.

"I feel better now." Drusilla choked on another small retch and burped quietly in relief.

"Well, good for you." Spike grumbled, stepping back, out of the sticky puddle, and holding her to his side.

"This isn't over." He promised, pointing a warning finger at both Gabriel and Buffy.

Buffy tilted her head toward Gabriel with a sarcastic smile, "Y'know, I think I heard him say that already."

Snarling at their flippant attitudes, Spike flashed an obscene gesture to the room and retreated through the door. Stumbling weakly alongside him, Drusilla held her stomach and groaned under her breath.

"I'M choosing the vacation spot next time." he spat angrily, his voice trailing off in the distance, "Someplace nice like San Francisco or L.A. maybe. . ."

"Well, that was rather odd . . ." Giles slipped his glasses off and scratched his head.

"Yeah. And don't forget disgusting." Xander wrinkled his nose at the pool of regurgitated blood on the floor, fascinated yet, at the same time, repulsed.

"We-we should probably go now, don't you think?" Joyce suggested, looking around nervously.

"Joyce is right. Everything looks to be taken care of here." Giles agreed, turning to Buffy and Gabriel as the rest of the group collectively made their way toward the door.

"Almost." Gabriel held the Orb of Thesulah out to Buffy, "Care to do the honors?"

"Gladly." she accepted the crystal orb and hurled it into the fireplace where it exploded in a fury of tiny shards.

"You both did an admirable job." Giles commended as he held the door for them, "I'm very proud of you."

"Yes." Joyce stopped and looked seriously at Gabriel, "This is twice now that I've seen you risk you life for Buffy. I'm sorry about what I said earlier. My impression of you was completely wrong. I hope you'll forgive me."

"Nothing to forgive." He assured her with a staying hand, "I'm just glad I could help."

Joyce smiled at Buffy then joined Giles at the head of the group, followed by Willow and Xander. Buffy and Gabriel trailed behind, gazing dreamily at one another. Gabriel wrapped a strong arm around Buffy and held her against his side as they walked. His eyes danced with pleased mischief as they held hers, sharing a new depth in the connection between them. She felt it too.

"You know, Gabriel, I was thinking." Joyce said to him without looking back, "I could probably pull some strings down at the gallery if you're looking for a job. You know, get your foot in the door. I bet you'd be a big help in acquisitions."

Gabriel smiled and tilted his head against Buffy's, feeling her silky, blonde hair on his cheek. He slowed and she slowed with him. Her sweet feminine scent tickled his nose and set his heart thumping in his chest. He looked deeply into her eyes and brushed the back of one finger slow and soft along the curve of her cheek.

"Hey, that would be cool." Xander nodded, keeping with the brisk pace, "I applied for a job at the shoe store across the street from there. We could, like, do lunch or something."

Buffy drew her fingers up the back of his neck and stroked them through his soft auburn hair. She was only vaguely aware of the conversation going on around her. All she knew was warm green eyes marked with a halo of gold, watching her with absolute care, tenderness and respect.

"And Buffy and I could visit you guys at lunchtime" Willow chirped happily, "and . . . also do."

Gabriel let his lips hover near Buffy's, gravitating gradually closer to her as if by a will of their own. Buffy closed her eyes and she breathed in slowly, drawing him forward, her mouth turned up in a confident smile. Their lips met with the warmth and beauty of a sunburst and their pulses throbbed in unified glory.

"What do you think, Gabriel?" Xander turned backwards as he walked, "We could hang out, talk a little shop and - Oh, for the love of Pete, would you two get a room!"

Buffy and Gabriel had stopped walking altogether and stood embracing in the street, lost in the midst of a deep, sweet kiss.

"Come on," Willow took Xander by the arm, "We should probably give them some time alone. They've earned it."

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