Once Upon A Time

by katmobile

It's early 2002 in Sunnydale and on the eve of her 20th birthday Buffy is not in a good place. The Doctor has just had his world challenged by being confronted with an entity possibly even more evil than a Dalek that claimed to be Satan. However their worlds are about to collide with each others with other confrontations that are unusual even in their unusual worlds.

Once Upon a Time

Tara felt a profound sense of helplessness as she watched Buffy cry and ask for a condemnation that she couldn't give even had she wanted to. She'd tried her best to stop Buffy feeling so bad about herself as she poured her heart out about how she was sleeping with Spike and she hated herself for it especially since from what she said it was the only thing that made her feel anything these days. Despite the fact that all of this had not been something Tara'd been expecting to hear when she come round to take a look at Buffy to see if she'd come back from heaven 'wrong', and it had come as a shock, she knew all this did not make Buffy a bad person but she couldn't seem make her see it. What did you say to someone when they didn't want to be told that it was ok because life wasn't some fairy story where you were either a paragon or a bad guy and, even in this world full of demons and heroes who had to try and stop them, there were still huge grey areas amongst the black and white. Tara had often wished she knew exactly what to say, mainly in the days before Willow, but she'd never wished so hard. Not being able to help yourself was one thing, feeling you couldn't help someone else was even worse.

"I'm so sorry," said Buffy, through her tears, eventually. "I didn't mean to lose it like that."

"It's OK, it really is," replied Tara, still feeling bad for her.

"Thank you for your help on this, I… guess it's kinda of a relief to find out and to talk to someone…"

Tara nodded, "Are you OK?"

"As much as my totally screw up of a life allows…" Buffy replied, showing a touch of her old insouciance at the end, which made Tara feel she was starting to rally a little.

"Look, I've taken up enough of your time and it's getting kinda late," Buffy continued, "I'll walk you home… least I can do after your help and the major weepy."

"You really don't have to - I can stay if you want."

"That's really sweet but there's not much you can do to help. Willow'll be back from the Bronze soon and it'll just make things awkward all round, on top of having to do a mock-splainy. I think I need some serious duty slaying – you know …do some good and get back the feeling of the righteous... " she stopped with a look of horror in her face as she caught sight of herself in a downstairs mirror, before continuing with "... after I stop looking like a total wreck. Look, do you mind if I do some repair work first?"

"Sure. H…how is Willow?" asked Tara nervously, following Buffy into the bathroom as she went there to re-touch her make-up.

"She's cool, well cooler since she made it through the cold turkey… still on the no-magics wagon... still misses you majorly," replied Buffy, still working on her face.

Tara didn't know what to say to that but was glad Buffy wasn't looking at her directly. "And Dawn?" she continued.

"Not so good… off at her friend's house… said she'd be there for the night 'cause the way she sees it I don't care. That's another whole world of pain and failure I don't want to deal with or talk about right now in case I start crying again," replied Buffy, turning back to Tara.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…."

"Not your fault."

"You're not really failing… Dawn just doesn't get how hard it is for you. I should have been around for her more."

"Really… not your fault. I should be the one there. Why can't I talk to her?" replied Buffy, despair coming into her voice at the end.

"It's so hard for you both right now. You'll find a way…it'll be ok," Tara said, trying to sound positive.

"Look, I'm not rushing you out, am I?"

"It's ok, I've got some college stuff to do. Are you sure you're going to be ok?"

"Yup, I just need a good slay….and oh my god?!... Did I really just say that!"

Tara was looking a little shocked, "B….but aren't you going to have problems running into Spike?" she said.

"I've got to go patrolling sometime and I've got a feeling he'll just show up here if I don't….which would be bad….I'll deal…somehow."

As she was talking to Tara, Buffy left the bathroom and walked around the house, closing windows before throwing a couple of stakes into a small shoulder bag and grabbing it along with her coat.

"I'll do alleyways tonight anyhow… keeping out the graveyard should help the resisty," said Buffy, amongst other things she thought, and then realised she probably didn't want to think too much about how the beating she'd given him last night was going to make him look like hell.

She coated up and slung the strap of the bag over her shoulder. "Okay, ready to go?"

Tara nodded and they walked out of the house with Buffy locking the door behind her.

"You know, you really don't have to do this. I can find my own way home," insisted Tara.

"No big, anyway I know all too well what this place gets like and I don't like the idea of you walking back in the dark muchy… Willow'd never forgive me if anything bad happened, even if I could. And changing the subject to the more upbeat….what's this course stuff you've got to do?"

"Antigone… it's a play, the modern…well more modern, the early twentieth century French version not the ancient Greek tragedy. It's interesting, the contrast between the two … " Tara said, realising she might be able to find a way of showing Buffy what she so desperately wanted her to see, "…the modern version's much more ambivalent… especially the character of Creon, the king, Antigone's uncle. In the original, he's a tyrant but there he's just a guy trying to deal with a bad situation he didn't create or ask to be in charge of."

"Is that make Buffy feel better subtext?"

Tara looked nervous and started stammering.

Buffy looked back at her kindly, "You're so good to care to do that, I appreciate, I really do, but this is my call to make things good. Until I'm ok with me and what I'm doing nothing you say's gonna make any difference."

With that they moved onto slightly awkwardly talking about things which did not involve hidden messages, covering Tara's course, books, movies and various everyday stuff which didn't matter until they got to Tara's door.

"Buffy, if you need to talk…"

"You're there with the non-judgemental… I get it… means a lot… trust me."

"I'm really worried about you. Is it ok if I call in the morning just to check you're alright?"

"Sure….call…maybe arrange coffee… we'll see how it goes from there… and thank you again… muchly appreciated."

Buffy waited for Tara to close the door and, stepping away from the house, said to what would have looked like to the casual observer the open air.

"So exactly how long have you been following me? 'Cos gotta say that's a new low in your stalking."

Unsurprisingly she heard Spike's voice replying, "Yeah, well, you weren't in a rush to come round and tell me the good news of you finally seeing sense and all, were you now? Pardon me for being all worried," as he stepped out of the shadows behind her.

"Afraid play time was over?" she said sarcastically.

"No! Not just that. I don't enjoy watching you beat yourself up over …"

"… You prefer doing the job yourself."

"You're one to talk. Go on! Look me in the face and say that."

Buffy did and it wasn't pretty. She knew it was going to be bad but seeing the bruised swollen mess that had been his kinda hot looking face the night before was something that made her look away quickly. It helped the resistance of him a lot but did nothing to stop her feeling like total crap. She started ducking in and out of the dark alleys nearby with the hope that there would be some other vamps there to break up this conversation she did not want to be having.

"Didn't think you could for long," Spike said, striding after her. "Still, at least being your punch bag for the night stopped you turning yourself in."

"No, it really didn't. I heard them say that girl's name at the desk and remembered she was Warren's ex."

"So, the sad little git and his mates made monkeys out of both us then? Bleeding marvellous! I'll have to pop in to smash up their toys for that."

Buffy whirled round to face him again, pissed.

"Is that all you care about… that they made YOU look dumb?! This isn't about you! They killed someone! And I'm not even going to start with the speculative about what she got put through before she died. The things I said about you not getting that this was a person and the total unbelievable wrongness that she's dead still holds … that's why you got to be their fall guy 'cos you were so hung up on getting rid of the body that you failed to see that – it's something you'll never ever get!"

"Well, as it happens, I'm bloody pissed off they put YOU through hell, that's what you don't get."

It was at that point two late teenage boys with long lank hair wearing heavy metal band t-shirts and those baggy skater styley shorts lumbered up.

"Hey, tough guy!" shouted one of them. "Don't bug the babe!" he continued with the kind of stance that he obviously thought made him look hard.

It was a total non-surprise that they both vamped after that, with the other one saying in a way that showed he thought he was now a real bad ass, "That's our gig."

Oh thank god, thought Buffy. "You know, you guys may just have made the worst mistake of your un-lives," she said out-loud.

Spike was tempted to vamp too and say something like "snap" but he had a feeling that it was going to smart too much with his face in its current condition. Then he noticed something.

"What's that noise?" he said.

"Nice distraction move, tough-guy..." said one of the loser vamps sarcastically.

"Yeah bozo, you might want to use that bloody enhanced hearing of yours," Spike countered.

Then they could all hear what Spike had - a weird unearthly sound that sounded half like nails being scraped across a metal board, half like a bird's call, and was getting louder.

"Jesus fuck!" shouted one of the loser vamps upon seeing a rectangular, blue, person-sized box appear from out of nowhere in the sky just above the walls of the alley, spinning and looking like it was descending fast.

All three vamps and Buffy dived for the cover of bins rapidly. The box cannoned off the wall landing in and knocking over set of bins on the opposite side of the alley.

After it stopped, Spike looked at it, taking in the light on the top and the words "Police Box" emblazoned on the side and top with the feeling that things had just got seriously bloody surreal.

The loser vamps were circling around it and staring at it dumbly and then noticed Spike and Buffy and seemed to hang around, unsure whether to go for them or watch the box.

"Ok Spike, what is it?" said Buffy noticing his look of wtf.

"It's gotta be a bleeding joke," he replied.

Before she could draw him on that she saw the door of it open. A blonde girl's head poked out from it and she was promptly grabbed by one of the loser vamps, who dragged her kicking and shouting into the alley.

"And here goes the ear-splitter," said Spike sarcastically.

He wasn't wrong except it didn't come from the girl. A few minutes later, a tall, rail thin guy in a suit emerged from the box and shot a beam of what looked like sunlight into the loser vamp's face as it went to bite on her neck.

Ow! thought Rose as the monster screamed like a little girl right in her ear before letting her go. She saw another bumpy faced t-shirted bloke running up to the TARDIS and yelled to the doctor to look out. He jumped back but not quite quickly enough to stop it grabbing his wrist, although Rose managed to jump to the other side of the beam of light quickly enough to stop it grabbing her throat with its other hand.

"Drop the death ray dude!" he snarled, sounding to Rose like a cross between Kevin the teenager and Snake off 'The Simpsons'.

"No," the doctor said.

"I'll snap your bony girl arm like a twig if you don't comply man," the thing continued.

The doctor was about to query if the vampire thought trying to sound like that robot from "Robocop" was supposed to make him scarier, when the other one cut in with a frustrated cry.

"Oh just bite the geeky asshole already!"

"Dude!" the vampire replied, sounding annoyed, "I don't bite other dudes…"

Out of the darkness in the alley, Rose heard a bloke laugh and a growly cockney accent quip sarcastically.

"…Yeah, 'cos you don't already look like a poofter, out-hunting with your mate here."

If they're arguing like this we might be in with a chance thought Rose, catching the doctor's eye and edging along the side of TARDIS to try and grab the device off him in order to shine it at the vampire who was holding him.

"But your babe, tough guy…" said the vampire holding the doctor, reaching its free hand around to grab at a slightly built, short figure that was emerging behind it out of the darkness.

"…just slays you?" said a girl's voice emerging from that figure. She sounded so much like Americans did on the telly that Rose half expected her to say 'because I'm worth it'. As quick as a flash, the girl skilfully avoided the vampire's arm and plunged a stake into its heart. This made it slowly turn to dust before Rose's eyes with an odd zing-poof noise, getting one last swear word out just before it did. "And why does no one ever listen?! He is NOT my boyfriend!," the girl carried on saying as its remains blew away, mostly over the doctor's suit. Rose could see by the light of the TARDIS and the doctor's device that this girl was probably about the same age as herself, give or take, but put her in the shade easily. She was so stupidly glamorous it was almost like she wasn't a real person but some slightly anorexic actress in one of those shows about teenagers where no one ever looked like the people Rose had been to school with who'd had zits and flabby bits. This one didn't have a shiny hair out of place and, with the perfect make-up and trendy gear, looked more like a pint sized Barbie with smaller boobs.

"Nice shot," the doctor quipped.

Oh here we go again thought Rose, but before glamour puss could reply she heard the other teen Snake shouting.

"You're so gonna pay for that, you fucking bitch!"

Buffy prepared to meet the headlong attack of the loser vamp part two but Spike beat her to it by punching him in the face.

"Well, your mate might not have been into jollies with another bloke but he got buggered alright," he said, following it with another punch and, "It's just not your night, is it Beavis?"

She saw the couple dodge back into their box out of the corner of her eye and then the guy's light shone into her face, dazzling her slightly.

"Hey! you guys ought to be careful with that, you're ruining my night vision."

"Sorry about that, just thought you might need some help, quid pro quo for helping us out," said the suited guy in a accent slightly like Spike's, moving the light above her head.

He was standing with the blonde girl just inside the doorway of the blue box and they were looking a little squished in the effort to both be there. Buffy was having to stop herself from thinking about them as trailer slayer and less old than usual, wannabe-cool watcher, as that's what the clothes, her dark roots and eye make-up abuse and the age difference said to her, along with their relative cool and fight backy ness in the face of being attacked. In fact, this guy had way more guts than Wesley'd ever had, had someone grabbed Wesley's arm like that vamp did he would probably have fainted, although Angel said he'd changed since he'd been hanging with him. Anyhow, these guys didn't behave like most of the would be victims she'd rescued, who had a "thank god" wide-eyed look, like rabbits caught in headlights and thanked her profusely post-slay with a sense of wonder that they were still here and usually not bit. But if they were the real deal, the girl needed serious work and the cute sci-fiy gadget showed this guy was kinda outre by Watcher Council standards, as was the big blue box. Slayers and watchers still showed up in cars or on buses like normal people and not in dark alleys without weaponry and prep, so Buffy was thinking not. The girl had a look on her face which said 'I'm kinda bothered at having you hanging around my guy but I'm gonna pretend I'm cool with it' which was not the kind of dynamic you got going between slayer and watcher or if it was ewww! In a way that kinda made Buffy like this girl – it was sorta cute and with her digging older guys meant they had something in common besides the age and blond hair. The guy was looking at Buffy too but his look wasn't a predator thing, it said more 'who are you?' than 'how do I get in your pants?'

"Look guys, I know you mean well but I really don't need the vamp-repellent halo. I can look after myself," she said.

Yeah you've got that look to you in spite of being a slip of a thing, thought the Doctor, realising that the way she stood, held her stake and went into alert mode when that vampire shouted at her reminded him of Leela the savage. Then he thought about when he'd last seen Leela, which was on his home planet, which didn't exist anymore and realised he didn't want to dwell on that. I hope this one's luckier, was all he allowed himself to think. She was talking again and the distraction was welcome.

"You know, you guys oughta maybe think about getting somewhere safe, rather than hanging out in this thing in a vamp magnet alley," she said.

"Threshold rules apply, don't they?" he queried.

She looked at him a little blankly.

"Vampires can't enter your home without an invite?" he elaborated.

She looked shocked. "You guys LIVE in that thing?"

Bolshy cockney bloke's voice interrupted her. "It's bigger than it looks, ain't that right, doc?"

"What makes you say that?" The Doctor replied, moving the beam of light from above the blonde girl's head to where the voice came from in the dark. It illuminated the back of a white blond head, which then started smoking. So we've got a cockney version of David from 'The Lost Boys' here, he thought.

His suspicion was confirmed when the owner of said head swore in the same accent, before thrusting teen vampire back into the light and saying,..-

"Mind making yourself useful and finishing this wanker off? You've already bollocked his depth perception."

"Nah, I think I'll leave you to it," replied the doctor, moving the ultra-violet light beam back around the blonde warrior girl. It's probably better all round if you're fighting each other and one or other of you isn't bothering her. She seems like she can handle herself, but it's more than a bit off to make her life harder and there's only so much you can do with the ultra-violent laser, he thought. He was pretty curious about rude vamp's info sources on him too, and about to talk about that when he got put off his train of thought by vampire Keanu.

"Dude, why you beatin' on me?! If we're both vamps – we're like brothers man! If you want the babe that bad, we can share her!"

"Yeah 'cos she really wants to get munched by you two," chipped in Rose, sarcastically.

"She was gonna say pretty much the same thing herself, but thanks for the back up," Buffy cut in, before Spike had the chance to make some skanky remark about what went down between them. She figured it was best to keep talking so he didn't get the chance and she was getting to like this girl.

"I was kinda rude not to make with the intro before so…hi, I'm Buffy."

The loser vamp laughed and was going to say something, so Buffy headed him off with a, "Yeah, and I've heard every lame joke on the name going, so really… just don't."

"I think she's saying it's not big and it's not clever," said the Doctor.

"Don't think he's very clever anyway. The blow he stinks of has probably rotted whatever brain he had, which I don't reckon was that much to begin with," Rose carried on.

"Dude! You gonna beat on me and let the bitches and geek keep making with the dis?" whined the loser vamp, still trying to get Spike on side.

Buffy kinda knew how futile that was and wasn't surprised when he replied. "They only had a go at you mate, and I don't give a piss about you." He punctuated his words with punches to the guy's face.

"Blimey! You're a right charmer aren't you? I'm Rose, by the way," Rose said, waiting for the Doctor to introduce himself as she was never sure if he wanted to go by his real name or some alias he'd made up.

"…and the ponce in the suit is the Doctor," said Spike, beating him to it.

This bloke is starting to become really annoying, thought the doctor. "Right then, I'll just shut up and you can tell Buffy and your mate here just what you managed to pull off the web about me. Internet caffs obviously stay open late around here… I can't imagine your crypt comes all wired up – it'd be all too tempting to bite the nice man doing the job, wouldn't it, even you did have a proper address that's not in the middle of a graveyard 'cos they tend to be a bit picky about going places without one, even discounting all the problems of getting the connections set up. They should warn the locals though, or give everyone a free connection so they log on in the safety of their own homes," he said.

"I don't think it'd work," chipped in Rose, "you'd always have at least one bloke nipping in to look at porn away from mum and dad's prying eyes. Is that what happened to you two and the other bloke? You look like the types."

"Reckon you're right about this one and his dusted mate but I'm alright for getting to see birds in the flesh so to speak," Spike said sardonically, looking straight at Buffy, who winced. "And since when you have been on the web?" he followed up by asking sarcastically.

"Oh everyone's on the web these days. Did get a mate of Rose's ex to remove all traces of me on it but we all know what the web's like - anything goes, pull something off it and it just crops back up again in another place, bit like weeds really," said the Doctor.

"Hate to spoil your little theory but I don't know about you from the bleeding web," Spike replied.

"Then where does your information on me come from?" asked the Doctor, seriously.

Spike laughed, "Oh doc – you don't want to know! It'll make that famous brain of yours explode."

The doctor crossed his arms. "Try me!" he said, neutrally.

"I saw you on the telly, you see, you don't exist, you're a bloody fictional character."

The Doctor laughed. "Brilliant! Is there some little toy me somewhere which blurts out 'reverse the neutron polarity flow' – I went through a phase of saying that a lot - if you squeeze its hand. Here's the thing though – I'm thinking and I know I'm thinking, which means by Cartesian logic I must exist independently in some form or other outside of someone's imagination. How do you explain that one - David?"

Spike started to say, "They completely ripped off my look for that sodding character. I reckon you're here, doc, 'cos three very sad little fan boys of yours conjured you up with my accent…"

"Your accent?" queried the Doctor. "Were you always an egomaniac or it did it take vampirism to turn you into one? Do you know how many people there are in London right now? Only about seven and a half million, give or take…and that's just now. As an immortal being, you could have picked up that accent from any time in the past…so if you add together everyone who's ever lived in London up to this point in time, you're talking a fair few million. Lots of people, or in your case, things that look like 'em have got this accent or something like it."

"Yeah, but I'm the only one round here with it, smart arse, so that's why they created you with it … as a part of them making you a bit cooler…just a bit mind.. 'cos too much and you wouldn't be the same boffiny, badly dressed git we all know and .. in their case, love."

"What about me?" cut in Rose. "Am I made up too?" Before Spike could answer she continued, "'cos I reckon there's a bit of paper somewhere in London which says different, go and look if you like, pick up your white van too while you're at it."

"Do I look like the type of bloke who drives a white van?" Spike queried angrily.

"I can't see in the dark much but you SOUND like one. All mouth and trousers, as my mum would say." Rose replied.

"You've lost it big-time dude!" said vamp-Keanu punching Spike in the face. "You got hit too much and gone loco."

"Gotta say, liking that theory," said Buffy.

"Yeah love, you keep believing that, you're getting good at turning a blind eye to the bleeding obvious. Tell me something though, if you've finally managed to drive me completely sack o'hammers, how I do know what I know?" answered Spike, taking the upper hand and pummelling the loser vamp again.

"I've got a number of theories on that," said the Doctor.

"Why I am not even remotely surprised?" replied Spike, sarcastically.

"I think you're lying," chipped in Rose.

"That's one of them," said the Doctor, "but my favourite one is to do with legends. It's not hard to end up being a legend on the telly, is it? There's lots of blokes there that no one's quite sure if they really existed or not. You know – Hercules, Robin Hood…"

"…Count Dracula," interjected Buffy, with an example of the entity that proved the doctor's point about legends sometimes being real.

"That poofy shirt didn't have his own TV series," countered Spike.

"Course he didn't," replied the doctor. "Baddies never do – appearing in age after age on stage and screen is alright as long as you get bumped off in the end each time. Rule one of storytelling that – good guys always win. People need the hope and someone to look up to. You can't have a telly series about someone like Dracula, unless you did a serious 'he's so misunderstood' job on him, which Coppola had a bit of a go at and even he could only take that so far 'cos even if he's searching for his lost reincarnated love then what he was up to was still more than a bit wrong – love may never die but you can't let ride rough-shod over everyone else. I don't think you could really let him have a Xena-style epiphany and change of loyalties either, not without changing who he was. Even good Xena continued to have a bit of a thing for Ares, didn't she? No two ways about it - old Vlad's bad, if he got his own show you'd end up wanting him to get his own way and that's just not on."

"So, by your reckoning, Tony Soprano's a hero then," snapped back Spike.

"Not really seen 'The Sorpranos' but that's a different sort of a storytelling. I mean it's swearier for one thing. Heroes, like the ones we were talking about, don't tend to swear, not unless they're blowing things up at the same time in some action film," countered The Doctor.

"You know, I find it really depends on the day you've just had," Buffy said.

"So, judging by the lack of swearing, this is about average for you then?" The Doctor asked smiling.

"The existentialism's a little freaky but, apart from that, pretty much same deal as usual. You know that should be telling you that being here, not a great plan," Buffy replied, thinking that she should be checking they were somewhere safer. They didn't seem like they were here to do an evil scheme, but this was all kinda freaky.

She saw the guy, who she was a little too weirded out at the idea was actually called the Doctor, pull a face.

"Ah, you see, I don't think we've got much of a choice in that," he said.

"We sort of broke down," continued Rose.

Spike laughed. "Bloody knew it," he said.

"Actually, shot down's closer to the mark. I suppose you think your teenage lads did that then?" the doctor replied.

"Well, they did summon a bunch of time warpy demons last night," said Buffy.

"Now THAT I'd stick around for," said the Doctor playfully. "Seriously though, where are we exactly? By the accents I'd say California. You all sound a bit San Demus apart from Billy Idol over there."

"I so do not," countered Buffy.

"Billy Idol copied me I'd have you know," Spike bit off, pulling a stake out of his coat pocket. Advancing towards the loser vamp, he snarled, "Go on say 'Bogus' for the doc while I finish you off."

Buffy knew that the loser vamp was going to be dust any moment now and did a quick weigh up if the possibility of going into a weird box thing with possibly non-existy or evil people was worse than having to talk to Spike again, probably in front of them. She decided quickly to risk the box – if they were evil, she could probably take them and it was better to know.

"Can I come in and talk to you guys?" she asked.

"'Course," replied Rose.

The guy didn't look so into the plan but, before he could do or say anything, Rose stepped inside away from the doorway giving Buffy the opening she needed to dive through it and into the weirdest room she'd ever seen, which for her was no mean deal. It looked like some insane cross between an evil scientist's lab from some hokey horror movie and a Gerry Anderson styley submarine interior, with an endless mass of wires running through the grided floors and along the ceiling into the blue-lit sci-fiy hubby thing in the centre. She was starting to wonder if Spike might just be right, as it did look like something out of a TV show, especially since he was definitely not wrong about the inside being bigger than the outside, although he hadn't mentioned that it had a domeiness to it that shouldn't have been inside a box without being a hell of lot smaller and just added to the wrongness of the whole thing. It was like someone had put the inside of a European style cathedral nave, like ones Buffy had seen in books, inside a phone booth. Ok, I'm now officially wigged out, she thought.

"Oh my God," she said slowly. It was only Rose sitting herself down in a stool near the hubby thing and putting her booted feet casually on it which gave this place any sense of normalcy.

Buffy heard the guy close the door behind her, cutting off the sound of Spike shouting, which made her feel a little panicky. She was kinda tempted to make her excuses and leave, but she needed to find out what these guys were about and was damned if she was gonna give Spike the satisfaction of seeing her walk out of there again so quickly.

"So, you're not keen on the place then?" the guy said, looking at her a bit like he was trying to work her out again, which she was found a lot creepier inside here than she did when he was doing it outside.

In a weird way, the Doctor found the fact that this Buffy person looked a bit thunderstruck reassuring in its familiarity; most people looked like that the first time they clapped eyes on the TARDIS. It made her seem more like a normal human being and less like someone who might be up to something, unless she was a very good actress which you could never totally rule out. There was still that question bothering him though, and he couldn't just let it lie, not this close to home anyway.

"Sorry Buffy, but I've got to ask this with you actually being in my home. Why are you so scared of that bloke? I thought you could take care of yourself," he said.

Before Buffy could answer, Rose cut in. "Oh come on! You wouldn't have wanted to listen to him for much longer, he was starting to wind you up as it is and I've not seen anyone do that in a while," she said.

"I don't usually get someone trying to tell me I don't exist, that's a new one, but that's not supposed to be the point, is it? He's supposed to be trying to suck your blood and not annoy you to death," the doctor countered.

"So, what are you saying, I'm in league with him or something?" Buffy queried, aware she was sounding more than a little defensive.

"Don't know exactly, but there's something a bit odd going on. I mean odder than just vampires roaming around," said the Doctor, frowning as if he was concentrating.

"So, you've been here all of about five minutes and you know how it's supposed to go down?" replied Buffy, starting to lose her cool.

"I don't know what you've got against her when she did help us out," Rose said, sounding annoyed with him.

"Fair point, but at the risk of sounding like your mum, age teaches you a thing or two. Like, just as an example, inviting some person you don't actually know that well, but you've got a bit of idea that they might just be hiding something, into your home might not be the smartest idea in the world especially if you've also worked out for sure that they could probably lay you out if they felt like it. People aren't always all that they seem," replied the Doctor.

"And showing up in the world's freakiest RV is so selling me on you being Mr. Regular guy, especially with a name starting with The," countered Buffy sarcastically.

"Ah, but freaky's just a word really for what you don't understand, it doesn't make it automatically malevolent," replied the Doctor.

"You know, I find, it tends to equal not good," said Buffy.

"But there must have been at least once when you met someone a bit weird and found they weren't eating people. It only takes one exception to bring the rule into question," the Doctor said.

Buffy was going to counter that and then she remembered Sid the possessed dummy, who turned out to be a good guy even if he was kinda letchy and Kendra's whole world of assumption from seeing her kiss Angel in vamp face, and she realised this guy had a point.

"I don't think you're evil Buffy, and the fact that you haven't actually threatened me or Rose yet suggests the feeling's at least a bit mutual. We've got off on the wrong foot but you've got to understand I've got the right to be a bit cagey about you standing where I live," he continued.

"And you're in my town, which gives me major trust and need to know issues about you," countered Buffy.

He smiled. "I was going to make some joke about you being a bit young to be the Mayor round here, but Mayors don't tend go in for direct law enforcement, do they?…You're more hands on, like a sheriff …"

Buffy interrupted him. "We had a mayor and he was evil, so change of comparison was a good call. Ok, so I'm Wyatt Earp, does that make you the Man with No Name?"

"Closer to Shane actually, but that reference would be before your time…let's say I'm the Lone Ranger. That way we've got Tonto and Silver here to round off the analogy," he replied playfully, moving up the steps from the doorway towards the main hubby thing.

"Is this undead Deadwood then?" asked Rose, sounding amused.

"It's not quite hickey enough not to have made it into the twentieth century. Maybe we're not with LA and London in the twenty first yet, but we do have a mall," replied Buffy in a deliberately whimsical way and then keeping the same tone as she followed the Doctor guy to get closer to the two of them as it seemed dumb to be talking to them from the doorway, "although if you guys are planning major league evil there I will have to kick your asses back to England, got to protect the clothes stores."

"Wasn't the plan, was it? World Domination," Rose asked the doctor, humorously.

"Nah, far too much effort and never was keen on shopping," replied the Doctor guy, in the same way. Buffy noticed he had put on a pair of glasses and was looking at the centre hubby thing with a torch like thing that made a weird bleeping noise. The whole deal made him look even geekier than he had outside and, since the Troika had started being ass pains and had now graduated to killing people, she was starting to associate geeks and their rigged up toys with bad.

She walked around to where he was but, as she was starting to move into a position where she could look over his shoulder at what he was doing, he stopped and turned round to look at her with raised eyebrows, as if trying to get her to back off without making a big deal of it.

"So whatya doing, Inspector Gadget?" she said, trying to sound casual, covering.

"Determined to give me a nickname, aren't you?" he replied, slightly musingly.

"I've got issues with doctors," she explained casually. "Whole personal deal I'm not getting in to."

"Fair enough, I've had bad experiences in hospitals, as it happens. It's not a big secret experiment, I'm running a diagnostic on Silver here to find out just how poorly she is and what I need to do to make her all better," he said.

"Well it's gotta be at least partly okay for the magicy thing with the big room inside the small box to still be working – right?," asked Buffy.

She saw the doctor guy smile wryly at that.

"Ok, what's the joke?" she queried, a little disturbed he was amused when she hadn't meant to come out with a funny.

"Sorry, don't mean to be rude but the belief in that smoke and mirrors stuff sounds a bit odd coming out of the mouth of someone from the Stargate SG-1 generation," he replied.

Ok, thought Buffy, you're either trying to provoke a reaction to find out stuff or throw me off scent or you really are that clueless when it comes to magic; either way, I don't trust you enough to make with the major reveal I know witches yet.

"Never really been into the sci-fi, gotta say. So, if it's not a magic deal Scully, where does the space distorty effect come from?" she asked.

"Oh come on! At least give me a nickname that's the right gender," he said, still sounding amused.

"I think you know what I'm getting at," she replied, seriously.

"Yes, but you're seriously wide of the mark. Scully was a scientist, with a medical background none the less, but she was only a sceptic about the existence of aliens," he said.

"And we know they exist," piped in Rose.

The Doctor guy gave Rose a 'what did you say that for' look, which reminded Buffy painfully of Giles. Did all these English guys learn that at Oxford or somewhere in a condescension 101 class? she wondered.

"Ok, so you guys are like the guys who replaced Mulder and Scully, whose names I can never remember cos I kinda lost interest after David Duchovney quit, only without the sharp suits," she said.

"What's wrong with my suit?" asked the Doctor, returning to look at the TARDIS now the danger point had passed, relieved that Buffy hadn't guessed what Rose had about the TARDIS and then him those two years ago. Rose had been a bit knocked for six by it at first, but she'd got over it quickly and he didn't think this Buffy would take it quite so much in her stride as her, she didn't seem like that type of girl.

"It makes you look like a wannabe-hip librarian, especially with the gym shoes," he heard Buffy reply.

"I'll take that as a complement. 'Libraries gave us power' as the Manics sang, wonderful thing being the person who helps make knowledge available to you for free," he countered with.

"Mum always used to say the library saved her a fortune in books," said Rose playfully, "Mind you, she used to read a lot of Jackie Collins, so I don't think she got much knowledge out of them. Well, not the type you mean anyway."

"I bet she taught you to read using library books when you were little though," the Doctor replied.

"Probably," she admitted.

The mention of Rose's mom reminded Buffy of her own, who hated Jackie Collins with a vengeance, and she decided to change the subject before she started tearing up again. She noticed the Doctor guy had stopped studying the consoley thing.

"What's the diagnosis on Silver then, Doc?" she asked, trying to sound casual.

"It'll live, just needs a few spare parts and a little TLC from yours truly," the Doctor replied, equally casually.

"You know, to a warped mind, that could sound really gross," Buffy said, trying to sound playful again and ending up sounding a little wistful.

"Don't start on that one!" replied Rose, laughing.

The Doctor shook his head and looked like he was playing along. Buffy guessed that, like a lot of jokers, he was a little fazed when the joke was on him.

"Do you girls always go into hen night mode then you get together? Seriously though Buffy, do you know where you get hold of electrical stuff round here?" he enquired.

"Not so much," Buffy replied. She debated in her head if it was worth the risk of taking these guys back to hers and decided that, with Dawn not being home, Rose's normalcy and how easy she seemed in this guy's company making her think they were probably ok and if they weren't it was probably a good call to keep an eye of them, that it was. Especially since she starting to think that they just might be a nerd herd summon after all, the sci-fi ness of this place looked like something those guys might have dreams, maybe even dirty ones, about and so she might be able to gain ground on them by hanging onto these guys.

"But my roomie's good with the tech, she'd know," she continued, "I guess if you've trusted me on your turf then I can trust you on mine."

You seem to blow a bit hot and cold about us, don't you? thought the Doctor. Do you trust us now or is this some sort of trap or test? He knew that he had to have a very good reason not to give into his curiosity and it always seemed a shame to go somewhere and not spend some time with the locals. If she was up to something it was best to find out, but he didn't think she was, she just seemed a like a local guardian a bit in over her head.

"Alright, you're on," he said, "unless Rose's got any objections."

"You're the one who's being all suspicious. Thanks for this Buffy, much appreciated," replied Rose.

"Are we likely to run into any more vampires en-route?" asked the Doctor.

"Maybe, but I've got your back if we do," replied Buffy.

"Give me a minute to rig up another ray of sunshine then. It's not that I don't trust you, but it never hurts to have a bit more protection, does it? A bit of night vision might not be a bad idea either," the Doctor said.

"Actually, once we're out of the alley, town's pretty well lit and, since you didn't land that far down it, you should be okay without the x-ray specs. I'll do a scout ahead." Buffy said, opening the door and seeing Spike standing outside.

She'd forgotten about Spike.

"Have fun with our new mates, did we?" he said.

"Sure, we're going back to party at mine. You're not invited," she replied.

"Bit late for that. That's low for you though – dragging round an 'innocent' couple you know bugger all about just so you don't have to talk to me," he countered.

Buffy hadn't thought about that, but it added to the list of reasons for having them around, especially since Rose seemed keen to verbally defend her.

Emerging in the doorway behind Buffy and, obviously having overheard the conversation, she said,

"I wouldn't want to talk you if I could avoid it, neither"

"That's right love! Strike a blow for the bleeding sisterhood! Shame you ain't got a sodding clue what you're talking about, innit?" Spike countered, sarcastically.

"I know a bully when I see one," quipped back Rose, refusing to be cowed.

Buffy looked for a way to change the conversation before Spike started spilling about things, not that she thought Rose would believe him, but the doctor guy might, or Rose noticed how trashed Spike's face was as he was, she reckoned, just about visible in the light coming from the weird paradox in a box's doors. Buffy noticed that Rose was wearing a short denim jacket that she'd probably just picked up and Buffy thought that she should mention this, as it was kinda insane, as well as being a handy subject changer.

"Is that all the coat-age you're wearing?" Buffy asked.

"We are in California, aren't we?" asked Rose.

"Uh-huh, but it's not always toasty here, you know, late night January still late night January," Buffy replied.

"Which I bet you is still like the Caribbean compared to back home. Anyway, it's not like we're going to be sitting around in it, is it? Nothing like a good bit of a stroll to keep you warm," Rose replied.

"You should see what the average Londoner wears on a night out. Freezing cold and all the girls walk by in what looks like a strip or two of flimsy material. Never understood that," chipped in the Doctor guy from behind Rose as he emerged into the doorway holding what looked like two small remote controls.

While he was demo-ing to Rose how to use the sunlight ray, Buffy noticed that, unlike Rose, he was wearing a coat which actually looked like it had some potential for keeping him warm, although the ankle-lengthiness of it was laying him way open to more 'made in my image' crap from Spike, even though the browny colour and suede-esque nature of it made it totally different to Spike's duster. Still, at least if he was bitching about the Doc guy's dress sense, he was off her back.

Although he wasn't doing either at the moment, Buffy noticed, he was kinda pre-occupied with watching out for the ray, then dodging it and then snarking to Rose about how predictable she was in aiming it his way to test it, which was also welcome. She needed to be rid of him though, before the questions came up.

"Maybe you should take the English guys both being armed with things o' burniness as your cue to get gone before you get hurt," said Buffy, going for intimidating for their benefit.

In the darkness, out of the visibility of the light streaming from the boxy thing and so out of the visiting Londoners' sight, she saw Spike smile nastily and knew instantly that his next move was going to be taking things nowhere good.

"Funny thing is," he said slowly, clearly and menacingly, "that only one of us knows who can hurt who round here, don't we? This'll be a fun little game, watching your faces as you all try to work it out and the skeletons come falling out the cupboards. Be fun for me too, to see just how much you've all told each other about it and how much you really trust each other. Who wants to start?"

"I don't know what you're talking about?" said Buffy, trying her best not to seem nervous and suddenly feeling very exposed.

"You're not fooling Brainac there, he knows I'm on to something," said Spike, keeping the same tone as before.

"Is that right?" the Doctor asked coolly.

"You're bluffing too, 'cept you're better at it than she is," said Spike in the same vein.

"Well, you can hurt us for starters and I was right about you being a bully," Rose chipped in.

"That's the thing, ain't it? If you're right about your bit of paper back in London, I can't a lay a finger on you. Now isn't that interesting? – everyone get that?" Spike continued, in the same creepy way as before.

Buffy was looking really nervous and trying desperately to think of what to say to throw him off scent.

"I don't believe you," said Rose. "This is just a trick so I think I'm safe and do something stupid like attack you."

"Care to enlighten little Rosie Greer and the Doc here, slayer? You really didn't tell them, did you? Shows you care – ta for that," Spike said in reply, and Buffy could hear that crowning tone he got in his voice when he thought he had a point over her.

"You know, really wasn't thinking about you, like, at all," she replied casually, starting to rally a little.

The doctor laughed. "Oh, of course, you're talking about a Clockwork Orange type job, aren't you? Now things are starting to make sense..."

"Yeah, funny that! Now why would I bother to tell you a thing like that? Work it out Doc, you're supposed to be smart," snarled Spike.

"And I thought you knew all about me," replied the Doctor with a half musing, half sarcastic tone. "Well if did, you'd know I've had threats from much scarier things than you, although they don't usually come quite so veiled…"

Spike interrupted him, "And why would I be threatening you, when …."

"Oh, just shut up! Give all our ears a rest," cut in the doctor dismissively and Buffy could see Spike bristle with anger in the darkness, which got worse as the Doctor guy mockingly continued with, "You're like a big nasty dog, all the more bad tempered since it's teeth got pulled and all you've got is – snarl, snarl, yappety, yap, yap..."

"You want to come out here and say that without the protection of the mother ship?!" Spike cut in, his voice dripping with menace.

"Why would I do that?" replied the Doctor nonchalantly.

"Needs some balls, that's all, if you got any" Spike spat back at him.

Buffy could see the anger in Rose rise at that comment and knew intervention was needed to stop a total all-out fight developing.

"Ok, and calling a rain check on Snarkfest 2002," she said sarcastically. "Could you get to the point Spike?"

Before he could speak, the Doctor guy interrupted him, "You mean the point he's so desperate to prove, which doesn't actually prove that much, really..."

Spike started to interrupt but the doctor talked over him loudly, "I THOUGHT I COULD BE RUDE BUT YOU'RE OPERATING ON A WHOLE OTHER LEVEL, AREN'T YOU SPIKE? TELL YOU WHAT! WE COULD CARRY ON TRYING TO SHOUT EACH OTHER DOWN WHICH IS GOING TO GET REALLY ANNOYING FOR EVERYONE OR YOU COULD ACTUALLY JUST LISTEN TO SOMEONE FOR A CHANGE." Then he decreased the volume and continued with, "the point of all this is about what we all are or aren't, but we all know what you are and the real clue to it all is what's in a name. You see the reason why you call you lot vampires and it fits pretty well is not because you resemble the old vampire bat physically, is it? I mean, you haven't got wings or sonar ..."

Spike cut in, "I've got bloody good hearing which ..."

"... isn't quite the same, is it? You can't close your eyes and find your way round just using sound, you're just not set up for it, in fact you're still pretty close to human really as far as form goes" cut in the doctor, interrupting him and then continuing with, "You see, the reason behind the name isn't really to do with what you are but what you DO, that ability to literally be a draining pain in the neck, which if you think about it makes you a bit different to the rest of your lot, since you can't do it anymore. Now, that's got to be more that a bit frustrating for poor ickle you, it does mean that, since you are not a direct threat to humanity, Buffy here doesn't feel she has the right to kill you."

"Nice theory doc, shame it's bollocks," replied Spike nastily, "and we both know that humanity being safe from me don't help YOU now, does it mate?"

"You're not really following this, are you? Not surprising really, you don't strike me as being that bright. Alright, lets spell it out", replied the Doctor slightly caustically. "Buffy," he continued, turning his head towards her, "if I'm right about you being a hero or general defender of humanity, which I think I am, you can't kill or allow anyone to be killed just because of what they are or aren't. They have to be a danger to human life which can't be removed any other way. Any other mentality's a bit too close to the thinking of a certain short, unpleasant, shouty German bloke with a comedy mustache who at least one of your grandads or great-grandads would have risked his life to fight against."

Spike looked exasperated,"Oh, that's a cheap shot! The pushing of the old buttons marked flattery and guilt."

Rose cut in with, "But he's not wrong is he?"

No one was totally, and that was the problem, thought Buffy. Why was nothing ever simple these days? All she'd wanted to do was to see Tara got home safe and do a little confidence boosting slaying. But, oh no, that was never going to work and she'd ended up being confronted by Spike, which she'd kinda expected and the reasons why she couldn't just slay him, which she didn't. He was right; the reasons were way more complicated and went beyond the not a threat to humanity thing. The doctor, whatever he was, was right too though, her whole moral deal meant she couldn't just let Spike hurt him just because he wasn't human - she just knew it would be totally wrong. She liked Rose too much too, despite barely knowing her, and wished she could go back home just with her - she seemed nice, totally human, kinda issue-free and willing to keep Spike off her back and not take his crap. But Rose had a whole loyalty to her guy thing going, which in fairness she got and since he was the one who knew what things they needed for the machine, the one that the nerds were probably after talking to and the one who was going to be pulling any bad deal if there was one, then taking just her back was pretty pointless. Buffy'd just reached the 'really just want to go home' stage, but no way was it gonna be that easy - she had two choices. She could just bail on these guys who would probably be safe if they didn't come out of the weird machiney thing 'til daybreak. Then again, that felt irresponsible and she would have to deal with Spike boasting she'd seen it his way the whole way home, which along with the lack o'responsiblity and being against all the reasons she'd wanted to take them back in the first place meant that was a non-starter. Which was meaning that the original plan was being stuck with only it now came with complications of the continual watch of the at least partially inhuman guy's back and Spike bitching about how she'd sided with the doctor guy-looking type being rather than him, all promising a world of not fun. It wasn't as if she was even sure what the hell to make of that -fiy weirdness anyway - the reveal of at least partially non-humaness just added to the bizarro tech and the steeliness that lurked just underneath the Jim Carrey-esque goofball surface in unnerving her and were those really 3D-type glasses he was now wearing?

"Ok, I thought you weren't doing the x-ray specs," she said.

He replied, "Well, I thought I'd rig them up just in case, which as it turns out is just as well since I've got a minor nemesis here..."

"Who thinks you now look like a complete wanker," cut in Spike.

"If you're embarrassed to be seen with me, if I'm damaging your 'street cred', you know you've only got yourself to blame for that one," replied the doctor guy, back in goofball mode.

Spike laughed, "Yeah, cos that's really shown me, hasn't it? Although mate, you might be onto something in making it more of a laugh to leave you alone and just watch you carry on making a tit of yourself. Congrats on that!"

"It's funny, for a bloke who can't look at yourself in the mirror, you been so image-obsessed," cut in Rose.

"Yeah, and funny how not being able to do it, I can still manage to keep my roots dyed when you can't with the full benefits of one. Little tip love, the two-tone barnet makes you look a tart," Spike laconically quipped back.

"And enough with the bitching and more with the getting back to the plan of walking home," Buffy said before Rose could reply, continuing with, "It's ok doc, I've got your back."

"How does it feel being all protected by a girl," snarked Spike as the Doctor closed the TARDIS door behind him and the party all started walking, with Buffy sticking by the doctor's side.

"Thing is, I don't define myself in physical terms - my main weapon of choice is between my ears and I'm clever enough to know blokes' don't have the monopoly on that one. Speaking of brains, how did it feel realising that you'd lost your ability to throw your weight around because someone outsmarted you?" he replied, in a similar way.

"I got the last laugh in the end. The bitch who set me up for this got stuck by the very thing she'd stitched me up to help with the creation of and I'm still here and having a lot more fun than you'd think," Spike replied, looking at Buffy pointedly as he said the last bit.

As the party of three walked out of the alley and into the street, Buffy saw the doctor remove his glasses quickly and, before she could think about the consequences in time to stop him subtly, he glanced over his shoulder into the face of the emerging figure of Spike. She read from the look of shock and disgust that crossed his face that this was the first time he'd seen Spike clearly enough to have noticed how beat up he was.

"Who did that to you?" he asked, suddenly serious.

"Careful doc, you sound all concerned there!" said Spike, smiling sardonically, which looked all the creepier coming from out of his trashed face.

"I am a bit. You see there's no need for that, it's just viciousness for the sake of it," the Doctor replied.

Buffy knew that she was overcompensating and drawing attention to herself but couldn't stop herself saying, "Hello?! He was threatening you with the same deal, like, five minutes ago."

"Oh well, that makes it all right then, doesn't it?" the Doctor replied sarcastically, with a hint of anger before continuing in a more serious tone, "You can't just do what might be done to you because that reasoning can justify anything and nine times out of ten it makes you just as bad as what you defend against."

"Well, that's bloody irony for you! It takes someone from sodding outer space to treat you like a man," cut in Spike, looking pointedly at Buffy. He was glad she was looking uncomfortable but not that peroxide Rosie was looking at her all suspicious-like. However much of a bitch she'd been, she didn't need gyp over it off the Doc and his latest bint. "Ta for the concern and hate to kill the illusions an' all but I can't claim to be the innocent party in all this. You're right doc, I do miss not being able to hurt people, so I get my fun by having a go at demons instead, 'cept every so often one of them feels like he's got to teach me a lesson on behalf of the rest of 'em, like so," he pointed to his face before continuing, "demons don't play nice you see. And you're wrong Goldilocks, I wasn't going to give the doc the work over I got - he was maybe going to get a bit of a smack to prove my point and wipe that smug grin off his face, but I'd have left it at that." And I wouldn't have minded having a taste of him out of curiosity, if nothing else, except saying it's gonna make me sound like a nancy and a bloodthirsty one at that, gotta show the slayer my good side, he added mentally before continuing saying, "But he would have to go and be all compassionate and take the fun out of it though. Night all!"

He shot one last quick look at Buffy to see if the fact he gave enough of a piss to let her off the hook had registered with her and saw she looked pretty noncommittal, but then she wasn't going to show her true colours in front of these two, which left him wondering what he'd been looking for, the bleeding miracle of some appreciation, he supposed. Then he turned on his booted heel and walked away from the rest of them in that swaying, cat-like way Buffy had come to know so well.

His departure seemed to render the group motionless and mute for a moment, as they watched his retreating back. Buffy had wanted him gone and the snarking to stop, but now she got both it felt hollow.

It was the Doctor who broke the silence with a mildly sarcastic, "Nice town you've got here."

"Welcome to Sunnydale," said Buffy wistfully.

The doctor and Rose looked amused at the name, so Buffy continued with "Yeah, I know, I'm living the horror movie cliche where So Cal hell town has a cutesy name. And your guided tour of Amityville continues this way," she said, pointing and re-commencing the walk back to her house with them in tow.

"I dunno, last place we went had 'Welcome to Hell' written on the wall and turned out to live up to it," said Rose as she was walking.

"I'm guessing not a place you went to by choice," replied Buffy.

"You didn't tend to see the writing on the wall until you'd already got trapped. Curiosity to see what was there got you into the place - talk about it proverbally getting cats killed," the Doctor continued.

"So, how did you get out?" asked Buffy.

"Someone else had already done most of the legwork, tying up big nasty's body. I just put in the finishing touches of getting it into the nearby black hole. Rose got the really nasty job of doing the same to the poor bloke who been taken over by its brain," he replied.

"Wasn't there, like, some way to do some kind of exorcism and save the poor guy?" asked Buffy.

"Not really, he was sitting in a rocket at the time and I'd already stopped the rest of them from finishing him off after the first time he got possessed. There wasn't a priest around and I didn't think it was worth the risk of this thing coming back out into the world, since it had already taken over him and bumped off a few people," Rose explained, "Anyway, if 'The Exorcist' is anything to go by, the only way to get rid of the devil is to let him possess you and then top yourself, so it wouldn't have solved anything."

"So, you guys have meet Satan?" asked Buffy, sounding a little dubious.

"Don't know. It claimed to be Old Nick himself and it looked pretty impressive, like a colossal red painted Arnie with great big horns and it had a booming laugh too. I was lucky it was already chained up - it could have used me to floss its teeth by the look of it. As I said to Rose, the fact it's dead is good enough for me," replied the Doctor, before asking, "You meet a lot of things that make that claim round here, then?"

"Not so much, although I did get the whole spiel from something that claimed it was the First Evil TM...beyond my understanding, beyond sin, beyond death..yada, yada, yada.. After I'd kicked the crap out of its priests and it was on its way out," replied Buffy.

"Not impressed, then?" the Doctor said, slightly flippantly.

"It almost got ...someone I cared about to kill himself; that was impressive in a really sick kind of way and something I wasn't keen on thinking about," Buffy replied. She could now understand why Angel had done that, what it was like to feel the need to do things that made you feel disgusted with yourself afterwards without being able to stop, to be so seriously scared of yourself that it felt like the only way out was death, and she didn't want to dwell on it.

"I think that's the real power of a devil - it's what it does to your mind. Whatever that monster was, it caused the real trouble with its force of will alone, which managed to get free in a way its body couldn't. Makes sense that the threat of your big evil went away with its priests, its the power of the idea which holds sway," the Doctor said.

"Oh, I don't know - if you've ever been seriously beat up by something big and scary, you learn fear of the physical pretty quick. It's harder to fear something when you can kick its ass," Buffy replied, wanting to change the subject.

Buffy's attitude that all problems could be solved with violence worried the Doctor, but he didn't see the point in starting an argument about it now, en-route to hers. It seemed to be a planet Earth wide failing that Americans were particularly susceptible to - that gunslinger mentality that meant they were always rushing in there without asking the right questions.

"LOOK OUT!" shouted Rose, stopping both his and Buffy's trains of thought. They turned around to see a robot aiming a gun at them and along with Rose had just enough time to dive out of the way of the laser beam that came out of it.

"Hate the gun bunnies," muttered Buffy. As Rose activated the device the Doctor gave her to shine into its eyes to distract it, Buffy took the moment to leap towards it and knock its gun out of its hands. The gun was attached to the robot by a strap which made it hard but she managed to give it a good enough pull to send it crashing to the ground, taking the droid's arms with it. As she was stomping on the gun to make sure, she heard a familiar bleeping-cum-whirring sound and the robot dropped in front of her to reveal the Doctor standing behind it. He was holding his maglighty thing at an angle that suggested he'd shocked it in the neck to shut it down. Then he pulled those dweeby glasses of his out of his coat pocket and putting them on, crouched to hover over it and using the same device he had as a scanner.

Taking a good look at it, Buffy noticed the bad bot was depressingly recognisable. "Ok, all-purpose electro-gadgety thing is cool but I don't think you need it to see it's one of the battle droids from the lame neo-Star Wars movie. Probably just another nerd herd construct, to help drive me insane," she said.

"Thought I recognised it from somewhere, only not in the flesh so to speak," said Rose, backing her up.

"Only problem with that is, not only is our metallic menace here a bit too well constructed to have been made round someone's house which I could understand, but the metal it's been made from doesn't come from Earth, or for that matter any other planet I know, which considering I know about a lot of them is more than a bit odd," said the Doctor, pulling another one of those bizarro facial expressions Buffy was coming to expect from him.

"So, what are you saying? This thing fell to Earth straight from a Lucasverse galaxy far far away?" she queried, incredulously.

"Which doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? To be honest, don't know quite what to think yet. This one's got me a bit stumped, which Rose could tell you isn't like me," he replied, continuing to look the bot over.

"So until one of us can think of what the big picture here is, I guess the real question is what are we going to do with this guy?" asked Buffy.

"Strange you see it as a bloke, since it's not got a gender. Robots don't need one, I suppose. I was just going to remove its memory circuits to see if they've can give us any clues to how it got here but leave its body behind. Don't get me wrong, it's nicely made enough, love the dog like head... nice touch, even if there's not much of it, but not very interesting or useful," the Doctor said.

"A bit like Kate Moss, you mean. Yeah, from what I remember of the film it's a bit rubbish without its gun," added Rose.

"And you wonder why I see it as a guy," said Buffy whimsically, "earth guy that is," she continued, covering, after noticing the Doctor's pissed-off look, which she didn't understand came from him thinking she meant it literally and not getting the double entendre. Changing the subject she continued with, "could be worth hanging on to since Willow, my roomie, might be able to re-program it."

"Actually, I could, easily. Could do it here, so it can walk back and save you the bother of carrying it. May as well I suppose, might come in handy as a decoy if nothing else," the Doctor replied.

"I'd really just like to get home. I'm good for taking it and much stronger than I look," said Buffy, looking down to see if they could save the gun, she saw that she'd trashed it beyond repair and said she was sorry for that.

"Don't be! Can't stand the things, completely useless beyond murdering people or threatening them with it," the Doctor replied, looking at the smashed remains on the floor with disgust, like they were giving off a bad smell.

Buffy couldn't disagree with that and didn't want to go into how she'd saved the day once with a rocket launcher so she shrugged, tucked armless Roger Roger under her arm and led her guests off homewards again.

"Was that the main centre of town?" asked Rose shortly afterwards, breaking the silence that had descended, as they seemed to pass out of the lines of shops into the residential area, which looked to her like pretty cliched tv Americana with its nicely painted two-storey houses big enough to have cost a fortune in London, fronted by neat little lawns and gardens cordoned off by those white fences with pointed tops on either side of the wide tree-lined streets.

"Yup, not a whole lot of town," replied Buffy.

"Is it so quiet around here because everyone's scared of what's out in the dark?" asked the Doctor.

"Nope, they do a great line in denial about that, I guess it's so folks can actually have lives not living in fear. It's more like a small town thing, if London's like LA I'm guessing it's going all night. Here you get more of a cut-off, we're way past closing time for the only nighttime hang-out in this town, which is usually crawling with vamps, although they do just chill there as well as trying to feed in the alleyways outside, in case you were wondering. It's not a big enough town for the all-night hot-spot and I guess if the people ain't around there's not so much for the vamps to feed on. The demons and vamps have kinda got their own places, which for your own safety were not included on this tour, so they tend to hole up in there once the main dining hours are over. Sorry, world of not funny I know, you kinda fall into the making of the sick jokes after a while," Buffy replied, and noticing her door up ahead, continued "And here we are - hope you enjoyed your brief Amtyville tour," she concluded playfully as she unlocked the door.

It felt weird letting near-strangers into her house, especially since they seemed to be totally unfazed by it, casually walking through and only hanging up coats when Buffy suggested it to them. It was like passing through other people's homes without stopping long enough to de-coat came second nature to them, like teenagers dropping by a friend's house. Buffy knew her mom would actually have found their cool kinda rude.

"I'm guessing you guys want a cup of tea," she said, trying not sound mildly pissed as she lead them through into the kitchen, after leaning the remains of the bot against the coats.

"That'll be lovely, thanks," replied Rose, "I suppose you found out about us Brits liking a cuppa off the telly."

"Actually, no," Buffy replied feeling friendlier towards Rose again. "We used to know an English guy. He got us all into the whole tea thing. I even picked up enough to ask after the milk/sugar are...?"

"Milk, one sugar," said Rose. "My mum got me into bad habits."

"And you, Spock?" Buffy asked, trying to sound playful.

"Neither, I'll just drink it plain if that's alright, Captain," the doctor replied, sounding amused. "So, what's the plan?" he asked, raising his voice slightly to be heard over the sound the kettle that Buffy had just put on boiling while she busied herself getting cups, bags, milk and sugar ready.

Once the kettle had boiled she replied, "I was thinking - drink tea, go to bed, talk to much perkier Willow about stuff when shops are open in the morning. Does that work for you?" She poured out tea into cups, realising suddenly Willow was going to be kinda freaked being asked for favours by strange people in the house.

Talk of the devil, thought Rose, noticing that another slim, pretty girl, this time with long ginger hair, wearing stripy red Pjs, had appeared in the kitchen doorway and was understandably looking a bit gob-smacked.

Ok, and this isn't weird, thought Willow, as a blonde, cute but too blue collar looking to really be her type, girl she'd never seen before in her life but who looked about her age, greeted her with a "Hi, you're Willow, aren't you?" in a Spike-esque English accent with a big smile. Also greeting her with a creamy smile and cheery London accented "hi" was an equally unknown brown haired guy in a brown suit, who looked around ten years older and more than a little watcher-like. He had a quirky, almost nerdy, cuteness that she would have probably have been crushing on a little in the days when she was still into guys and wasn't missing one girl in particular like crazy.

Buffy turned round and seemed to be the only one who was even remotely weirded out by any of this, saying, "Hey Will, I thought you were already crashed."

"I just had, then I heard the door go, and voices and started with the minor freak, especially you saying you were too beat to come out, so I was figuring you were already out of it when I came back in and so I went to wake you and you not being there and now relieved you're ok, but what's going on?" Willow said, aware her voice was starting to get a little squeaky the way it did when she was nervous. Willow wondered if this was the slayer called to replace Buffy after death number two and her watcher but didn't want to say anything in case she was wrong and spilled to guys she shouldn't.

"Tea help the wiggins?" Buffy asked, while she was dealing out cups of it to the two strangers.

"Some," Willow replied, sitting down at the kitchen table.

"Sorry about dropping in on you like this," said the guy, "but our vehicle broke down and your friend here thought it might be a good idea if we stayed round here until we could pick your brains about where to go to pick up the parts to fix it in the morning."

So, not a watcher and slayer then, thought Willow, continuing to wonder who they were and what the hell they were doing here.

"Okay, you know, don't mean to be rude, but aren't there like break-down services and insurance deals that get you back on the road all fixed or put up in some of our nicer motels while your car gets fixed - you know, I mean, sorry if I'm like missing something here but you guys coming out of the blue, you know major curve ball," she said, still a little nervous as Buffy handed her a cup of tea.

"They wouldn't know what to do with it. It's custom built," he said.

"I know this is like seriously left-field, but I think they're a nerd herd summon and I kinda of want to keep them close because of that," said Buffy.

The guy looked a little annoyed at that.

"You didn't say that before," he said.

"You know Buff, hate to make a call on your judgement, but you're starting to sound a little conspiracy-theory wacko here on top of the assumption about the time distorting demons. I mean, those guys are jerks but, ya know... not everything bad in town is down to them," Willow cut in with.

"Do you really believe Spike about this?" asked the girl.

Willow was shocked. "You're going with a theory of Spike's?!"

"Kinda, he seemed to know a whole bunch of stuff about our guy here. Doc, you did say you'd been shot down," Buffy replied.

"Not by a trio of Harry Potters. I'll need some serious proof before I'll accept that, and they're definitely NOT my Frankensteins - Frankenstein being the creator, not the monster, hardly anyone gets that reference right, would have annoyed Mary Shelley no end," said the guy, looking kinda pissed.

Buffy cut in with, "Actually they're more like a series of lame, wannabe Voldemorts."

"You mean like Malfoy and his two mates?" suggested the girl.

"I think they're a bit smarter than that, but guys, you know, throwing round the Harry Potter references, really not helping get to the bottom of this," Willow commented, and turning to the guy, continued, "So you were like in some sort of aircraft and you got shot down by something - what do you think it was?"

"It felt like some combination of laser and tractor beam but it would have had to have been incredibly powerful to have pulled my craft down. Although it felt like a very strong surge of energy, shall we just say that said craft was a long way away from here when the energy beam that disabled it hit it, burning out several circuits in the process, I might add." he said, scratching the back of his head as he spoke.

"You mean like far away as in not in this plane of existence?" asked Willow.

"Well, it technically depends on your precise definition, but you could say that," he replied.

"So, you're like some big deal that showed up here in some sort of thing that can fly between planes of existence, like some dimension-hopping Wonder Woman, only not a woman, and you're sitting in my kitchen. Okay! I'm now officially freaked and hoping you're nice as well being scary, otherwise we're screwed, whoever the hell you are."

He smiled. "The Doctor - alien genius, sorry if I'm scaring you, I only try and do that to the monsters. I'm a bit rude sometimes but that's another story," he said, continuing more gently, "You haven't got anything to fear from me, I promise."

"Well, you're an improvement on the giant snot monster," Willow came out with. The instant later, she realised her nerves had made her say the totally wrong thing, not just because it was rude to him but the look on Buffy's face reminded her why she just might want to forget that baby.

"You mean, the gross thing that tried to kill mom," Buffy said flatly.

"Buff, I'm really sorry, brain has totally gone to lunch from the weird," Willow cut in with, half-hoping that this would be some dream she'd wake up from, or some spell that would be broken, saving her from how much more damage she could do with her mouthiness.

"That alien still managed to do something nasty to her, didn't it?" the doctor asked gently. "I'm so sorry."

Buffy found it difficult to reply to him; it surprised her how choked up talking about her mom made her, even after all this time. She shook her head, managing to come out with, "Not your fault, not anyone's, even mine ... see I saved her but she died anyhow. It attacked her cos she was sick and we thought she'd get better and she did ... but then, out of the blue...I guess it's what irony is ...town full of monsters and mom dies of a natural brain tumour."

She suddenly felt exhausted and realised she couldn't even pretend to want to talk after that. "And on that seriously depressing note, I think I'll call time out and go to bed before I totally kill conversation around here."

"We need to work out where everyone's going to stop it all getting farce-like later with everyone walking into the wrong rooms. I guess it helps some with Dawny not being home," Willow said and off the depressed look off Buffy's face continued with "and boy am I the queen of saying the wrong thing tonight?"

"It's ok Will and I guess you've got a point although I'm not liking the idea of putting someone in Dawn's room. It feels wrong and like I'm adding to the reasons for her to freak. I'll guess if I crash in her room I can be up before she comes back and knows I was in there, although I got a feeling it'll get out somehow and I guess if she's got find out someone's been there it's better if it's you who she's less pissed with right now," replied Buffy sounding tried.

"and you should have your own room," continued Willow trying to make up for the tactlessness, "and this is going to sound so wrong but you guys had better have mine," then she realised she was making with a possibly embarrassing assumption quickly continued with, "it's got the largest bed in the house so if you don't have to snuggle if you don't have that sort of deal...if that's ok?" realising she was in danger who making it a trio of faux-pas.

The two looked at each other and a look of query seemed to pass between them so they obviously weren't like a couple who slept together the whole time.

"We'll work it out," said the girl who Willow realised she'd totally forget to ask the name of but before Willow could do it so she turned to Buffy saying "if you're calling it a night I think I'll join you that way you can show me where I go, save the embarrassment of wandering the wrong room like Willow says."

Willow wondered briefly if this girl was somehow making a play for Buffy and then realised that it was probably best to assume not, it made her less likely to continue to be saying the wrong things.

Willow didn't know it but she wasn't that far off the mark and had picked up on the fact that Rose did have an agenda although it wasn't the one she thought. Rose saw the look that crossed Willow's face as she followed Buffy out of the kitchen and the way she'd been clocked it make her feel more guilty than she'd already started to after Buffy's mum got mentioned but she had to do this and it was probably now or never.

As they reached the door of Willow's room and Buffy pointed it out to Rose before starting to head off to her own room Rose bit the bullet so to speak.

"Look, you're not gonna like this but I've got to ask you something and it's for the best if our mates can't overhear us," she said quietly.

Buffy was a little taken aback, "ok you wanna do this in Will's room or mine?" she asked. There was something in Rose's tone which didn't invite the joke about that sounding wrong and Buffy wasn't in the mood for jokes anyhow.

Rose debated in her head if it was better to be in Buffy's room where she could throw her out if it she got really narked off or her mate's where she could storm out. She reckoned her mates was probably a better bet as she could just leave whereas getting someone out of your room meant you had to tell them to leave which was harder, "I s'pose in here will do" she said gesturing towards Willow's room and so they walked into there and Rose closed the door behind them.

"You might want to sit down," suggested Rose.

"Ok, now you're really creeping me out," said Buffy uncertainly as she sat on the bed.

Rose decided to jump straight in, "You're a weird one, you'll let this Dawn person walk over all you but you made a right mess of Spike's face for some reason."

Buffy was about to query the first half of the statement and talk about what Dawn meant to her before what Rose said in the second half hit her leaving her stunned.

Rose thought it was best to keep talking before Buffy had the time to take umbrage or to start denying it, trying to sound as gentle as possible she continued with "it was all in your face when the Doctor was talking about it ... the guilty look that said you'd done it and you knew you shouldn't have...look it's 'cos I can tell you're not a nasty piece of work that it's bothering me what made you do a thing like that."

Buffy suddenly understood what they'd meant in that song by killing me softly. Tara'd done it earlier, Willow'd done it five minutes ago and now Rose was doing it. She didn't know what to say, sat on the bed with her head in her hands trying to get the words out without crying.

"I...I thought I'd killed someone - I mean a real someone not a monster - a young woman, about our age - give or take. Turns out the summon of the time-warp demons was a set up to make me think that but I didn't know it at the time. Spike was talking like it didn't matter and about balances, like killing one person is ok because I saved a whole bunch more, and then he's about getting rid of her body like she's some piece of bio-hazard garbage that trashing will making ok and...I..I just lost it.. I guess you know the rest."

"Why did the Slytheren lot set you up like that?" Rose asked gently.

"She was one of their exes so I guess it was to stop me coming after them for what they did to her, which has really backfired because I'm so gonna make them pay," noting the horrified look on Rose's face she continued, "I mean in the sense of them getting some serious jail-time, you know legal pay-back. I know what I've done is really bad but I'm not so far gone I'm beating on normal guys ... or you know normal girl's alien boyfriends," looking pleadingly at Rose, "you've gotta believe me on that."

"I know, look I'm not judging, I know I'd be in bits if anything happened to my mum. Saw a version of her get killed in a parallel world and I had to go and see her in this world .. you know just to see she was still there," Rose said feeling guilty for dredging up Buffy's pain.

"We saw Willow as a vampire from a parallel universe, that was pretty creepy especially for regular Willow. I don't think that excuse flys though, it's coming up to nine months since mom... and I wasn't acting crazy like this when she first... ".

"Sometimes it just hits you later I suppose. It doesn't sound like that long ago," Rose replied sitting down next to Buffy in sympathy, she'd felt like a right cow standing over her and she was looking more and more like someone who just needed a hug.

"It should be getting better, easier ... I don't know... I guess it was having to get through the first Christmas without her a month ago... you can imagine how fun that wasn't," said Buffy still feeling fragile but starting to feel guilty that she wasn't telling the whole truth and like she was milking the sympathy card even if she didn't mean to, "you won't tell him, will you?...please. I mean I know it's all lot to ask with you guys being so gestalty... but I don't think I could..."

"I won't - promise," Rose agreed and tried to cheer her up by asking more playfully, "is that gestalty word some sort of trendy slang from round here."

"It's a me customise from a psych term... meaning tight team," Buffy replied starting to rally a little, "psych class not your thing then?"

"School wasn't really, spent half the time bunking off before I left 'cos of a bloke who turned out to be well dodgy, which wasn't the Doctor by the way. I'm not thick, it just didn't grab me," Rose said.

"A couple of guys I knew were like that ... And yet you wound up hanging with a genius," Buffy replied playfully, feeling better.

Rose smiled. "Yeah, funny old world!" she said

"Since you owe me a little pick me up do you want to tell me how a girl meets a self-confessed alien genius?" Buffy asked playfully.

Rose told Buffy the whole story of the plastic people and how she'd got so interested in the Doctor she had to find out who he was. She included the bits about poor Mickey getting cloned which she didn't think mattered since Buffy was never going to meet Mickey.

As Buffy heard about how Rose had kicked the plastic guys into the big boss in vat with the poison Buffy thought that in a way it was a shame that Rose wasn't a slayer as she would have been good and obviously had a lot of gutsiness. Then she again she wasn't sure she'd have wished all the beatings, horror and early death on anyone especially someone who was kinda sweet. If Rose had been a slayer she would probably not still be around.

"You know, it's a cool story but you get you're mildly insane, right?," Buffy said slightly whimsically.

"Yeah, a few people've told me I'm a bit mad. Do you mean not running away when the Doctor said or going travelling with him when I already knew it could get a bit hairy around him," Rose replied cheerfully relieved Buffy was starting to sound better.

"I mean following the vaguely cute in a nerdy older guy-shaped, so not my type so don't get jealous, white rabbit. He could have turned out to be a total creep"

Rose didn't think Buffy was up to hearing that he'd looked different when she'd first met him than how he did now but talking about it had made her nostalgic. I suppose even with what he'd called his 'daft old face' there was just something about him, she supposed that's why everyone had thought they were a couple right from the off, there was something about them that just clicked - gestalty as Buffy would say.

Rose laughed. "You're one to talk roaming round bumping off vampires... and don't deny it. You don't turn up in a dark alley in a town full of them with a stake unless you mean business," she said.

"I could have just heard your scream... which you didn't do or the weird noises that thing makes... which had I been a regular person would have made me run the hell away from," she said the playful wistful way which Rose found quite sweet before sounding down again as she carried on with "I guess that's the difference between us. I didn't sign up for this, well not really, it wasn't my call it's a calling. It's written in some dusty old book somewhere 'every generation a slayer is born, she alone will stand against the vampires and demons', that's me."

"How do you know it's true? That someone didn't just see you pull a real fluke and think that's her - the great slayer. You know, like Dorothy bumping off the Wicked Witch of the East with her house and everyone thinking she's a witch cos of that and her blue and white dress."

Buffy took a deep breath and continued wearily "I guess my cyclone is like your white rabbit. It always starts with some weird older guy, we've got that in common although mine was less cute than yours. One day I'm met out of school by him and he tells it to me. Now, I've never seen him before and he's got this white hair which makes him like ancient by the way I thought at the time. I'm thinking pretty much what anyone would - you know he's a wacko or some kind of gross predator who's using it as a 'get into the kneel before Zod cult' type pick-up line - until he asks me if I'm having weird dreams about being someone else in like different places and I'm guessing different times by the clothes, speaking languages I don't know. As you're probably getting turns out he's right and the real kicker is he names some of the places without me telling him what they were. After that I know that there's something freakier than a warped old guy's imagination happening here."

"How did you know that the dream stuff wasn't a magic trick or something?"

"Well, for one thing - didn't occur - I didn't know about magic back then and the other thing..." she didn't really want to talk about the other thing but she kinda owed it to Merrick, who she felt bad that she hadn't thought of in years, to share, "... he gave his life to stop a big bad vamp and a group of his minions from siring him and using him against me, you know these days I could have taken them but back then different story I was just starting out and weaker then. He... kinda... blew his head clean off... Kurt Cobain style, pre-emptive decapitation I guess," she finished in a flat tone of voice.

"You've had a rough old life haven't you?" said Rose feeling really guilty for getting her to bring that up.

Buffy couldn't deny that. "You know sometimes I just wish I could walk away from it all," she said laying back on the bed width ways and looking up at the ceiling.

Rose sort of lay down next to her on her side with her feet dangling over the edge of the bed, "you mean like I did from mine," she said. "It wasn't as hard as yours but it was boring me to tears. You could do the same thing - travel around saving people," feeling like she should try and do something for this poor girl.

"Not so much. You see for one thing - even figuring without my complete lack of funds, there are bills to pay on this place and I can't just leave the guys to pick them up. I had to drop out of college and I couldn't do the same thing to Will, especially since she could have gone to Oxford if she wanted and choose to stick around here and help out."

"Couldn't you sell this place and split the money between the three of you?"

"It's not worth a whole bunch, I can't even borrow money against the mortgage to fix it, for pretty much the same reason I hit every time I've been here with the dreams of getting away. It all really comes down to that this place is being special for all the wrong reasons and it being my call to make sure it doesn't become more so. That's the thing, destiny hands a you a life and believe me lack of walkout is not from lack of trying but every time I'd think I was done I'd see someone getting or about to get hurt and I knew it was down to me to stop it. It's a Silence of Lambs deal you know, like Clarice I hear the screaming and I can't not work on stopping it and live with myself. I guess as well I just can't leave because Dawn needs roots and the social guys would just take her away before you could blink if I did anything that meant she was in school even less than she is now. They're already in my face about it."

"I'm sorry I didn't realise she was a kid. I still think she's walking all over you though."

"She's my sister so, you know, losing mom hit her hard too."

"...as well as you and she doesn't have to pay the bills or save people from vampires. Don't you remember what you were like at that age?...How old is she?"

"15"

"There you go, right at the age where you think the world revolves around you and never mind anyone else," said Rose cheerfully trying to cheer Buffy up.

"Bad example. At 15 I'd had my visit from the guy I mentioned - Merrick, so in a way it kinda did," Buffy said trying to make a joke of it.

"I led my mum a right dance at that age and she had a hard time of it bringing me up all on her own and being broke at the time."

"Did your dad run out on you guys like mine did?"

"Not unless you count getting run over dashing across a road," off Buffy's concerned look, "it's alright I was a baby when it happened so it was worse for mum." Rose didn't think Buffy would want to hear about how she'd gone back in time and saved him only to have to see him die - she'd probably find it a bit weird. "Sounds like you've got the same problems mum had with me, only you're younger and you've got other important stuff to do. She must have felt like I hated her too sometimes, I think it's just what teenagers do to people."

"So I'm like supposed to just let her do whatever and pay no mind cause that's really gonna show her I care," Buffy said getting upset, "I'm sorry I know you mean well but...I can't... I'd be abandoning her and...it's just another thing...that's wrong...why... can't... I... not...do...the...wrong," thinking about Dawn was the last straw and for the second time that evening something inside Buffy just broke and she started crying again.

Rose didn't really know what else to do except give her that hug.

There was an uncomfortable silence in the kitchen as Willow finished her tea and tried to think about what to do about the fact she was stuck with some strange guy from outer space whose friend or girlfriend may or may not been making a play or have some other like plans of evil villain nature with Buffy. Well thanks a whole bunch Buff! cos this ain't awkward, I mean what do I do here? Is this guy distraction, some total patsy or like that alien cook guy in 'Enterprise' who had some totally like open relationship where everyone had lots of husbands and wives who were all free to go with whoever they want or are these guys just friends and have I got it totally wrong about peroxide girl being interested in Buff?. Should I bail now or should I keep an eye on his guy and how to open mouth without wrong thing coming out considering track record ...

"A penny for them," he said.

"Huh!" she said in response not being able to think of anything smarter.

"For your thoughts, it's just a phrase they say in London when someone looks like they're deep in contemplation. It means what are you thinking about?" he replied gently.

This girl looked like a frightened animal but she was possibly a bit spooked by the situation or bit nervous around people she didn't know thought the Doctor. He wondered if he should have dropped the bombshell of who he was on her like that but it was probably better to be honest so she didn't get more suspicious when she found out he'd been hiding things from her and Buffy had been told enough to work out the truth. They seemed to be a paranoid lot around here but he could understand that living in a nasty town with vampires and what they called demons where nothing was ever quite what it seemed would do that to you.

"Kinda trying to think of something that's not going to be like the totally wrong thing to say?"

"Don't worry about it. I've already had an earful of Spike going out of his way to be as rude as possible so whatever you say can't be any worse especially since you seem like a nice person who's not doing it deliberately."

"Yeah, gotta say, any welcoming committee with Spike on it, never good," she said.

"Mind you, he was better than the first locals we met, at least he wasn't actually trying to bite us," the Doctor replied wryly, pulling a face.

"That's a pretty much the traditional Sunny D nighttime welcome, usually the welcome to the Bronze," Willow replied equally wryly. She was starting to relax a little. There was a kind of friendly quirkiness to this guy which she felt sort of familiar with in a good way, she guessed it was a universal nerd thing.

"Ah, that must be the local nightclub Buffy mentioned, she did say you got a few vampires down there, wonder if they 'shake their thang' in-between trying to feed off people, actually probably don't want to think about that do you? There you go - it's not just you who puts their foot in it unless Buffy's right about the gallows humour being normal round here."

"If you're meaning like black jokes, pretty much, I guess it makes things seem less bad if you can see the funny side and you get used to the weird and imminent danger - we've done debate about the plural for apocalypse."

"I don't think there's supposed to be one - an apocalypse is supposed be the universe's last word, except the end of the world tends to refer to just to planet Earth most sources - you lot really do seem to think you're the centre of the universe - oops that was a bit rude, sorry about that."

"You've joined in with the loose canon mouthiness," said Willow wryly.

"Nope, that's my own special type of rudeness, can't blame you for that one," replied the Doctor and raising a coffee mug continued with, "here's to the tactless twosome."

Willow smiled and responded in kind, "the dorky duo".

There was a brief silence before Willow asked, "so you're really an alien?"

"Yup, I'm really a genius too," the Doctor replied, smiling.

"Saying that, you're selling me on it with the Ford Prefecty confidence in the brain power. Here on Planet Earth they beat that out of you."

"Literally?! I didn't think you lot were THAT violent or scared of what you didn't understand!" he replied, sounding a little shocked.

"Usually just with words, although minor to major physical abuse and your head being flushed down the john not unknown in bad schools," replied Willow a little whimsically. "I lucked out in just having the verbal but this is gloomy and I think we OD'ed on the gloomy with the talk of Buffy's mom."

"Not that poor Douglas Adam fared much better, shame - he was a nice man and you seemed to have liked his sense of humour, judging from the reference to one of his characters."

"I kinda identified with the universe being a little crappy and with Marvin - you know brain the size of a planet and surrounded by morons who everyone thinks are so much cooler than you - I could relate to how that made him cranky."

"He didn't have to take it though, did he? Could have found a way to stand up for or just amuse himself, that's the thing about having brain you can always find a way to outwit everyone else and being clever is something no one can ever take away from you. He did just like moaning - I knew someone like that once," he said thinking of Tegan who he'd have probably just teased these days.

"It's hard when no-one around you backs you up and you're not so good with the talking. Also, you've got to live with people, you know. I guess you're right though, you've just got find your people who just like you for you, it worked for me in the end - which was good." Willow said smiling, not wanting to be depressing about the past, having pissed off some of her friends and losing her favourite person out of her life.

"It's not easy being different or lonely - I know that. You sound like it took a while to find friends - I suppose Buffy helped."

"Yeah but she came along later. I guess growing up there were three of us against the world, you know like the Three Musketeers... except do you? " she hesitated, flustered and not sure he'd get the reference.

"Don't worry, I know my Dumas, quite like Dumas actually - although you've got to take the history with a pinch of salt. I know my history too by the way. So Buffy's your D'Artangon?"

"That's a pretty good way of saying it, she is D'Artangony."

The Doctor grinned broadly, almost as he was about to start laughing, before saying playfully. "Now that's not a word, you just made that up. She does that too. It's interesting the way two customise language to create it in your own form, it's like a dialect, a verbal code or choksba, all of its own. Did the Three Musketeers all talk like that or did she influence you in it or is a bit of both?"

"You know, never really thought about it, I guess it was us with Buffy mixing in a little LA, I don't know. Anyhow talking of how we talk, how come you come from outer space and sound like Spike?"

"I don't really, his voice is a lot more gravelly than mine. Anyway how I am supposed to sound - Mork? Spock? Hugh Grant?" the Doctor replied playfully.

"Ok, this has brought back the weirdness of this, you know, even in this place there are questions you think you're never gonna get asked. The icky thing, the Queller it was called in case you were wondering, was pretty much it as guys from space went until now and it didn't really talk, so not much to go on. Ok, I'm pretty lost, the films lied - they all said classy British, like a guy who went to Oxford type. So it was a dumb question... only not so much since you've got to have picked up that accent from like somewhere, otherwise you'd be talking something like the alien guys on "Galaxy Quest" or in some like machiney way or in like some total incomprehensible way you know like the 'Mars Attacks' ak ak ak."

"I've met aliens who sounded like that, you don't want to meet them since they're about as friendly as that lot too. Alright, you've got a point. I've been around here long enough to know how to blend in although you could probably get away with saying you're from some Eastern European country if you couldn't quite get it right, next alien invasion might come from a bunch calling themselves Lithuanians. I'm not sure why I've got this voice exactly but I think it's to do with Rose. How do you know about posh English blokes and Oxford?"

"I got an offer to go there. Is Rose your like... friend, the one who just went to bed?"

"Yup, the very same, born and bred in Old London town. You hang around someone enough you start talking like them I suppose."

"She doesn't look old enough for you guys to have been hanging out that long."

"Before her there were other people who I started sounding like. It's a bit complicated and not something I control."

"Doesn't it weird you out that your voice keeps changing?"

"Oh you get used to it, happens to lots of people - actors, people like me who move around a lot," the Doctor said airily, and it's not as weird as your teeth being re-arranged on you or your face for that matter, he added mentally thinking that explaining regeneration to a near stranger was probably best avoided.

"You said you could have gone to study at Oxford, which must have been tempting to get away from this dangerous place. Did you stay to keep Buffy company?" he asked partially because he was interested, partially to change the subject.

"You know it was more a go where the really smart English guys went than I get away from here kind of temptation. Buff didn't ask me to stay, she wouldn't do that, but yeah I wanted to help out and I kinda had my own deal going which blew up in my face and ... I so shouldn't have said that."

"Why not?"

"Cos you're gonna want to know what it was..."

"And you don't trust me enough to talk about it or maybe it's a sore point. It's alright, I understand, you've had a few things who aren't what they seem take advantage of you lot haven't you?"

"Some, gotta say, I mean you seem nice and all, but..."

"You can't be too careful?"

"Well yeah."

"I suppose unless it's the reason I'm here it's none of my business, which on the outside chance it is you can tell me I won't be angry I promise," the Doctor said gently.

"I don't think it's to do with me. Anyone ever tell you you're kinda nosy?"

"Not usually in those words but it's been implied. I'm just interested in people and places. It's not really my style to turn up somewhere where there are monsters and not want to know what's going on. It feels like being callously indifferent."

"Even if it's like somewhere you didn't plan on being?"

"Especially then, usually if that happens there's some serious trouble brewing."

"Actually, it's pretty quiet right now by Sunnydale standards. The biggest threat are the nerd guys which compared to some of the big bads we've faced are pretty small time."

"They seem to be mentioned a lot. Do you think I'm here because of them?"

"Could be, summoning an alien genius guy is the kind of thing they'd pull. They're pretty heavily into the sci-fi although the guyness is kinda a curve ball, the one who's name I keep forgetting's a little gay but for the most part their ideal would be that Vulcan hottie from Enterprise, they were posters of her like everywhere where they lived before, and she seems pretty smart. Buff thinks one of them killed his ex so maybe they're looking for help with that."

"If they think I'm in for that they've got another thing coming - I'm more than a bit insulted if they didn't realise that about me! Mind you I don't think she would either - vulcans are a moral lot, you'd think they'd know that too. The likes of us only help nice boys and they're not that or the brightest ones by the sound of it."

"I think Jonathan and the other guy are just dorks playing at being bad. Warren the lead guy and the one Buff thinks is a killer's got a mean streak though and he's smart enough to be kinda sneaky and so much for being careful...huh."

"I must have a trustworthy face," the Doctor said slightly playfully, smiling.

"Yeah, or you're just good at this and I talk too much, also a possibility," replied Willow dryly, thinking that there was just this friendly expressive quality to this guy you just trusted without thinking but then guys like Ethan Rayne, stinky Parker man and 'Malcolm' alias Moloch the corrupter on-line had all seemed sweet until they showed their true colours so what the hell did she know.

His voice broken into her train of thought saying.

"The thing is though that if I were Malfoy and co. channeling a stupidly large amount of power to drag someone into my world I'd do more to make sure that they didn't end up eaten by the nastier locals. Rose got attacked before she'd even set foot outside, just popped her head out to have a look around. Now, I've been some dangerous places but you don't usually get attacked the minute you open the door. They must know this place well enough to know what happens in alleys after dark so unless they're complete idiots you'd have thought they'd have planned that better."

"Their planning isn't always so great but gotta say it doesn't take much for the magics to go a little wonky. Sometimes if you do a summon and mess it up a little what you summon shows up a different place or if you get a time delay it turns up later than you figured and sometimes you can bring something you didn't count on."

"You've done this before haven't you?"

"Ok, I've been totally busted. I did one summon and I was trying for a ball of sunshine and ended up with Olaf the troll, who turned out as bad you'd think by the name. In defense of me, that screw-up was someone else's fault as they were like yammering away at the wrong time and it was their former squeeze, long story, but which seeing how much those guys argue about geek stuff the whole time I can see that happening."

The Doctor laughed, "so they may have been trying to summon some sexy Vulcan woman and ended up with me and Rose. Mad!"

"We kinda don't know it for sure but hey that's magic."

"Which is what blew up in your face?" he said his curiosity getting the better of his suspicion that it might rub her up the wrong way to ask about it.

Willow nodded, looking ashamed, feeling exposed someone she didn't know so well could see right through her.

"You wanted to do the right thing with it and you found you couldn't control the power of it which was influencing you to do bad things? I've seen it happen to others, at least you were strong enough to stop it before people got hurt," he said gently.

"Not so much, Dawny's been pretty much not-ok with me since I almost got her killed, it took the reality check of that to get me to give it up. It wasn't really the magics fault, you see a lot of magic's in the why you're doing it and it went bad when I started doing it for all the wrong reasons, it can be good if you like respect it and use it in the right way, it's like the force in Star Wars like that," she said thinking about the way Tara saw magic and wanted for her sake to show this guy not all witches were bad even if he never met her, "I guess I went dark side when it became all about me and how just I wanted to be something special - you know bitchin' Wicca mama," she said sadly figuring trying to keep things quiet wasn't working and going with the catharsis of the talking instead.

"You don't have to have extraordinary abilities to be special. If Buffy's chosen to live with you then you're special to her."

"Except I just moved in without asking."

"But she's hasn't asked you to leave, that's got to mean something. I bet there are times when she's felt you were special. Believe me I know that sometimes a friend can be the most important thing in the world."

"She said as much but I don't know, she's so distant these days, it's like no one really exists for her."

"She's just depressed probably, losing people does that to you but it helps to know someone's around to talk to even if you can't bring yourself to do it yet."

"I do know a little - we lost our Aramis, he got vamped and we had to stake him. Facing his mom with her wondering what had happened to him and us not being able to tell was a real downer and the talk's got gloomy again. Is that why you're called the Doctor?...cos you get people to talk about their issues."

"Not usually...sometimes I end up doing it to get to the bottom of things or to stop someone doing something really appalling because of their problems but I don't make a habit of it. I suppose the name comes from trying to make things better on a universal scale, although it's a bit unfortunate that Doctors get a bad name in fiction - Dr. Mabuse, , Dr. Lector, you can see what Mike Myers was sending up with Dr. Evil, but I'm not a trick cyclist, that's a long game best done by people sorting themselves out, with a little help from their friends of course."

"As sung by the Beatles. I guess you're right and in the movies it's the whole evil genius thing, you know I'm smart so I'm really dangerous and they call me Doctor to show everyone. I'm hoping you're like just with the genius and not the evil 'cos otherwise that's not a whole bunch of not good and I sorta like you in a totally non-sexy way and don't want you to be someone who Buffy has to ass-kick or who turns out to be with the imperiling and I have to feel dumb for having told too much to, you know. Talking of which I think I've done enough spill here... it's your turn."

"You sound like you I made you tell me your secrets, which I didn't."

"Actually you kinda did," said Willow trying to sound playful, "you know I could see you as sneaky with the asking and the gentle persuasion."

The Doctor replied in kind, "so what do you think my nefarious purpose is then?"

"I don't know, could be anything with you being a genius and all," a thought was forming in Willow's head though and she continued with whimsically, "but you're probably just being a guy, you're pretty much the same the universe over. You like to know about everything and everyone but still have the whole mystery within an enigma within a riddle thing working for you - you seem to think it makes you cool."

"I'm not like that. I'd say I'm pretty chatty," he said in a flippant way, feeling a bit uneasy about where this conversation was going.

"Expect you don't actually say much though, you know not personal stuff."

"I've only just met you. Do you make a habit of telling strangers personal things?"

"Some of stuff I told you kinda is and you did probe for it a little."

"I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I suppose I know my history and just find other people's more interesting and usually less painful. Why do you have to know about me? Most people prefer talking about themselves."

"I guess I'd feel less like you have something over me. Some guy I don't know knowing that stuff makes me feel a little, you know, creeped out. I know that sounds a little paranoid but ..." Willow hesitated realising she might be pissing him off before continuing a little more playfully, "anyhow aren't I allowed a little curiosity of my own here? I mean we don't get guys from outer space dropping by every day even around here, you're a pretty big deal like that."

"The last bit makes me sound like specimen and I've had bad experiences with that so I don't like being probed for the sake of it. You need to bear that in mind if I get a bit cagey. You've got a point with the first bit I suppose although I'm claiming the right to the right to silence with some things which I hope I can do without you thinking I'm evil. What do you want to know?"

"Since the discomforting revelations started with the why I stayed when I could have gone, I guess I'm interested in the why you're here. I mean I know you got shot down, but something must have made leave your home-world in the first place"

The Doctor paused for a second, thinking about how he could say this without feeling disloyal to all of his people who had died and who he was learning to appreciate more since they were gone. "You have to understand that my home changed a lot after I started travelling but when I was growing up it had become very stuck in its ways and I knew I didn't fit in there. You see, you don't have be cleverer than the people around you to have that sense you don't belong ...it's a question of seeing the world in a different way and I think... I always just wanted to see what was out there in the wide universe and once I did I couldn't just leave it to be bullied. Most of them wanted to just stay at home and keep their own world exactly the same whilst just treating what went on elsewhere as a giant laboratory experiment that was not to touched no matter how much suffering some of the people in it were experiencing and how unfair that was. Some of them of course just wanted to get to be the ones who controlled things back home."

"You mean like Stearpike in Gormanghast with you being Titus?"

"That's actually not a bad way of putting it except it was much more technologically advanced than that and I wasn't the king. We didn't have kings actually we had a nominated high council with all the problems you tend to get with that. Adams was right mostly, that you shouldn't give power to anyone who actually wants it, although the last person heading it was a fantastic person, one of the few I've met that was brighter than me too," he smiled at Willow, "a woman of course."

"You keep talking like it's past tense - did it all go like Krypton in the end? Sorry if that's a bad question."

"It is but you weren't to know that. You see it wasn't some natural disaster that destroyed my home in the end, to cut a very long story short we picked a fight with a particularly nasty alien race because sooner or later they were going to come for us and yes we did know that for sure. It wiped out almost everyone leaving me as the sole survivor. Now that's gloomy!" noticing Willow's concerned and guilty look he continued with a reassuring "...don't worry I'm alright, I wouldn't say you get over it but..."

"...you're dealing?"

"Pretty well actually..." he smiled, "I even manage to have fun most days, Rose's company helps with that. You don't have to feel sorry for me."

"So if Rose like makes you happy are you guys like ...you know?"

Willow became suddenly embarrassed, realising she'd probably opened her big yap to say the wrong thing again but the Doctor just looked slightly eyebrow raised mildly amused rather than 'how dare you ask that' pissed.

"You know, I knew, you were going to ask something like that," he said.

"The elementary my dear Willowly genius deduction?"

He smiled, "something like that. You see if every bloke wants to be an enigma then everyone on planet Earth is completely obsessed with who's doing what with whom. I've learnt more than I ever wanted to know about all that."

"You're sounding a little holy roller here," Willow countered with playfully.

"Oh they're the worst of the lot! Did you know some moral campaigner bloke, mate of a real busybody called Mary Whitehouse, sat through 'The Last Tango in Paris' numerous times so he could go on in detail about how no one else should see it? Now if that's not obsessed..."

That made Willow smile, "so you're a guy who doesn't think about that it the whole time. I guess it proves you're from a different world."

"Oh come on - you're exaggerating!"

Willow grinned broadly, "I got proof, Buff got a telepathy thing from some demons she was fighting and sure enough, before it started driving her insane and we had to take it away from her, she found out for sure our guy friend was thinking the sexy thoughts constantly. That said the guy I was dating at the time was doing the existential but he was kinda a strange one... in a good way." She was going to say that even Oz had ended up cheating on her in the end but since it was sort of to do with the wolf thing and not the guy thing she decided it wasn't really fair to say it.

"It's amazing how many great thinkers you've managed to produce if that's the case... explains a lot about Freud though and why Einstein forget where he lived once."

"Do you think that's why you are so smart not having that going through your brain. A guy we used to know said it was a great leveller that turned all guys into morons."

"It probably helps. I hate to say it but it's not just the blokes, I've seen the girls go a bit stupid too," the Doctor said thinking of how Rose bringing along that pretty idiot Adam had almost spelt disaster but realising it would be a bit unfair on her to bring it up in front of someone she didn't know.

"Not me," quipped Willow.

He raised an eyebrow in 'get outta here' way that reminded her slightly of Oz. Then she remembered how she sort of cheated on Oz with the inappropriate touching of Xander and how it had taken getting busted to make her stop.

"Ok, so you're right about us being slaves to the biology," she conceded, suddenly feeling tired and yawning, "as it turns out in more ways than one."

"You look a bit tired actually. I shouldn't have kept you up so long," he said gently.

"Not your fault, I got too interested in you. I mean in the talking not the dumb biology sense."

The Doctor chuckled slightly, "I know what you mean, don't worry."

"You know it's kinda strange, in fun and interesting way."

"Since it's looking like the time to call it a night, I'd better find out what I supposedly came here for which is to find out where you find the electrical stuff to fix a very complicated piece of machinery."

"If you mean your spaceship, you'll have to ask in the morning 'cause no way I'm giving you the get out to go away in that without me getting to see it. I'd lose any claim to self-respecting nerdom and that's a pretty serious deal for me," she said playfully.

"Alright, but you're not allowed to touch anything."

"So we've got a deal, cool! and I'll be holding you to that, so weaseling out is not an option," Willow continued grinning broadly.

The Doctor smiled back, "wouldn't dream of it."

He found himself wondering as he followed Willow up the stairs to the bedrooms if he hadn't made a bit of mistake in agreeing to let her inside the TARDIS. He could see what she'd meant earlier about letting yourself get roped in by someone because there was this sweetness to her that you just trusted in spite of yourself. He hadn't been hoodwinked that many times so it was probably going to be alright to trust his judgement on this, still I bet you could get anyway with murder if you put your mind to it ginger he thought just before she showed him to the right room.

They exchanged goodnights quietly before ducking into other peoples' rooms and Willow had this sense of childlike excitement she hadn't felt in years as she got into Dawn's bed. Maybe it was that the first time in a long time she'd had something cool, interesting and totally out of the blue happening that didn't seem to spell doom. She had a feeling tomorrow was going to be fun.

Buffy woke to the smell of Giles, except he was now using hair product and had been around burnt electronics, moving bedclothes around her. She was kinda groggy and so it took a moment to get her eyes open enough to see what was happening and by that time he'd had drifted from being over her to moving out of the room. She followed him into the bathroom but by the time she got there he'd gone and instead was the heart-rending sight of Rose inside the bathroom mirror striking at it with her hands against it in a desperate attempt to get out.

"How did you get in there?" Buffy asked worried and wanting to help as she walked up to the mirror.

"Same way you did, love and saving the world. I'm graduating and it hurts so much I can't breathe," Rose started crying as she said last phrase, her tears running down the mirror obscuring her face in it. Buffy gently wiped them away but they seemed to be endless like a waterfall.

Then Buffy heard a hiss in her ear but before she could react a white snake was winding it's ice cold, slimy body around her right arm. It was squeezing it so hard it hurt and its mouth was opening, the fangs heading straight for her neck. The horror of this shook her wide awake. "NO!" she yelled, grabbing a can of deodorant from the shelf in front of the mirror with her left hand and hitting it hard in the mouth, breaking its fangs. She felt its body loosen and she took the opportunity to grab it and throw it away from her. It hit one of the walls with a crack as its head got broken by the impact, leaving a bloodstain on the white surface as its lifeless body slid down it. She turned back towards the mirror looking for Rose but saw Willow trapped in there instead.

Willow responded to Buffy's unspoken question of how she'd got there with a shrug, saying "I think you can guess but that's not important right now. I know it's a lot to ask but I really need that key that the snake had, it should still be on it."

Buffy didn't want to but she walked towards the revolting mess that was the snake's body. Close up she could see it's skin had split and shriveled up and inside that was as a slimy looking pod.

"I know kinda weird looking for a key," Buffy heard Willow saying in response to what she was thinking.

"Not to mention seriously icky," Buffy replied, really not wanting anything to do with it.

"Hey! Do you think the stuff of life, metamorphosis and the quality of mercy is clean? You have got to get over thinking that - if you hold it you'll see, mess is not all bad."

Very reluctantly Buffy touched the pod and it cracked open with a ray of dazzling light. A white moth fluttered past her ear, then suddenly it was darker and she was in a European cathedral nave like the ones she'd seen in pictures. In a nearby side shrine amongst the old women dressed in black she saw Dawn lighting a candle.

As Buffy approached her Dawn said, "if you're looking for Willow, she's in Rio with her new girlfriend. Sounds like she's having fun everytime we talk to her, so it's cool."

"Where are we?" Buffy asked her.

"Doesn't matter, only that we're here and sharing. It took you a while 'cos you really suck at listening," replied Dawn and Buffy was relived to hear she didn't sound pissed. Dawn turned to Buffy and continued, "look, you can't stay here right now, it's not time yet. You've got miles to go before you sleep and talking of time and sleep try not to wake Rose right!"

With that Buffy woke up for real this time. Her head was on Rose's shoulder and they were both still lying across Willow's bed fully clothed so Buffy figured she must have fallen asleep being comforted after last night's breakdown. However what she found a little creepy was that Willow's duvet had been folded over both of them and there was a pillow under Rose's head. It didn't take much to work out who'd done that and she found herself with the wanting to know where the hell he was now. She eased herself out of the bed slowly and carefully so not to disturb Rose who was still out of it. After checking Rose was ok and tucking the duvet back round her, Buffy went in Dawn's room quietly and checked briefly on the sleeping Willow before swinging into her own room which was empty but reassuring looking untouched. She caught sight of herself looking not her best in her bedroom mirror and felt compelled to fix the worst of the damage quickly before drifting down the stairs hoping she wouldn't find him doing something bad or just plain gone. Thankfully from the stairs she could see him reading in a living room chair and apart from the style crime of wearing the same dumb glasses that he'd had on while looking at his space ship thingy and Star Wars bot there was nothing heinous going down.

"Good morning Buffy", the Doctor said looking up from the book.

She had been thinking of maybe going upstairs to get a shower, into the kitchen to have a coffee and possibly even having a quick look through his coat pockets before he noticed her but it was looking like that wasn't happening. She really wasn't in the mood for chatting with this guy, but as usual she wasn't gonna be getting much of say in that without cutting him dead, which she was still hard-wired enough into being her mom's daughter not to do, aside from the fact she didn't really want to piss Rose off by being rude to someone she cared for.

"Hey," she replied and trying to sound playful continued with, "don't you need sleep?"

"Not as much as you lot, anyway I could ask you the same thing," he replied in kind.

"You kinda woke me and it didn't seem worth getting back to sleep," she replied walking over to where he was sitting.

"It been about half an hour since I came in so I couldn't have been that bad. I didn't wake Rose."

"I'm guessing she's probably used to you being around her when she's sleeping, with me not so much," she said, sitting down in a nearby chair, realising as she got close up it was the smell of his old English clothes and the tea he'd drank earlier on his breath that had fooled her half sleepy brain into thinking he was Giles, before continuing to say, "it kicked in some sub-consciousy stuff that led to weird dreaming which since it involved Rose winding up trapped in a mirror I'm hoping's not a prophecy deal."

"Probably not, most dreams are just a bit of subconscious catharsis to stop you going mad. I'm surprised you got disturbed by a bloke moving around in your room. Didn't your dad tuck you in when you were little?" he asked, realising the instant he said it since Buffy'd never mentioned her dad he probably just put his foot in it like Willow seemed to keep doing.

He wasn't surprised to hear her say confirm his suspicion by saying "you don't want to go there. My dad skipped out on me, mom and Dawn when I was 16 and we haven't seen him in the last three years. Too busy living the cliche with his secretary in Spain to even show up for mom's funeral."

"He might have thought you were better off without him..." he said, thinking of how he'd left the last of his family behind for that reason.

"Well it wasn't his call to make and I'm way past caring," Buffy interrupted, shocking them both a little with vehemence of which she said it.

"I'm sorry," he replied more gently realising he'd upset her.

"Why? It's not something you did," Buffy said more harshly than she'd intended to. Feeling guilty she backtracked with "look, I'm sorry about that but I got so tired of everyone saying that the whole time when mom died. It becomes pretty meaningless after a while... I guess I don't like it muchy anyhow. It's pretty easy to screw up and just say it afterwards expecting that to make it all ok, like it's some 'get of jail free' card."

She seemed incredibly cynical and careworn for someone so young the Doctor thought, which reminded him the way he'd been just after the time war, it must have been because of her mum he thought.

He was about to talk to her about that, but she said "I'm surprised you're reading and not taking advantage of the time to look at the bot." and the moment passed.

"I need another machine to download the information off its circuits, regardless of what you might have seen or read in science fiction, you can't telepathically read a robot's mind," he said.

"and you can't expect vultures to be kind," said Buffy, playfully and off the Doctor's look of 'huh' she explained "sorry it's a lyric from a dumb song with Kim Basinger from years ago I dug at the time".

"Any good?"

"Like I said dumb but in the fun dumb on purpose way, so it's a yes unless you think everything's gotta be Radiohead styley meaningfully angsty. All a taste thing anyhow I guess and talking of the arty what's the book?"

"'The Hunchback of Notre Dame du Paris' but not everything I read is that miserable," he told her. "I saw it there on Willow's bookshelf and I thought that's good and I hadn't read it in a while and no one else's is going to be up for hours, so I borrowed it. I didn't think she'd mind. Although I've got to say you lose a bit in the translation reading it in English though."

"You read French!?"

"Well, I cheat a bit, my ship acts as a babel fish..." From the look on her face he could tell that, unlike her mate, she didn't get that reference anymore than he did hers to silly song lyrics and so elaborated with "...universal translator."

"Oh!" she said in reply.

There was a brief silence, then Buffy decided to do the subtext, as the image of Rose in that mirror saying she couldn't breathe and how hung up she seemed on this guy was giving her a bad case of the deja-vu, and she had to do something to try and stop Rose from being put through what had happened to her with Angel and Riley.

"You know I always felt Esmeralda was kind of a skank for letting Quasimodo do all those things for her and then just walking off with some other guy," she said.

Now that's an odd thing to say the Doctor thought, detecting some sort of agenda underneath it. It was typical that everyone focused on the wrong things with that book and he felt compelled to point that out to her.

"It's not really about that. Hugo wasn't writing Mills and Boon, he wanted to be invoke Paris at a certain time. It worked too, well enough to stop the talk of demolishing the cathedral which was knocking around during his time. Had Quasimodo actually been real seeing his home reduced to rubble would have broken his heart more than losing Esmeralda did," he said.

Ok, either you're was missing the subtext or kinda of ignoring it Buffy thought. "I don't think so," she said, "it's just a building in the end, never gonna mean as much as a person."

"That's the thing though isn't it? The point that Hugo was making is that buildings aren't like trees, they don't exist apart from people and if you destroy them then you wipe out a residue of all the lives that went on in and around them. You've never been in a really old place, have you? If you did you'd know that it gives you that little bit of a feel of another time and you'll never understand Quasimodo or even Esmeralda without that. You see you've got to understand the age and place someone lives in to be able to judge them," he said, partially because it was true and partially because he'd realised what she was trying to do and wanted to point out that she was talking from a position of ignorance.

"So the past is another country but I guess you get a clue enough from the guidebook," Buffy replied nonchalantly, thinking she was not letting him talk his way out of this.

The Doctor grinned broadly, "now by you saying that, I can tell you've never really travelled much either."

"I don't need to, I get Quasimodo and Esmeralda's deal. Some things are kinda universal."

"But not that many. You'd be surprised by how much being a citizen of right here and now affects you in ways you don't even realise."

"Maybe, but here's the thing, I figure if I'm coming from a better time and place I should impart a little about how the other guys deal with things."

"Except Esmeralda, if she was real, would still have to live in her own. If she could come here and hear you talk, she might point out your time's attitudes' have their flaws too."

"Like?"

"Well, it's a bit daft how everyone on earth right now seems to be united in their worship in the likes of David Beckham. I mean he seems like a nice enough bloke but it's not as if he's invented the cure for cancer, brought about world peace or come up with any radial bit of insight for making you lot better people, is it? They may have committed atrocities in the name of a god in the past but at least they believed that the bloke you were supposed to impress and aspire to be like was an all-knowing, benevolent being rather than just some famous pretty boy in trendy clothes who can play a bit of sport."

"You know, that might have more validity if it didn't come from a not-that unpretty guy, who the smell of product I got just backs up what I know about the work you gotta put in to get that scrunchy hair effect, " Buffy said, sarcastically.

"Yes, but I see you re-did your make up before coming downstairs and I bet your shiny blond helmet is fairly well-maintained too, so I'm not the only one who puts the effort in," the Doctor replied, slightly mockingly.

"But you go for getting it to look like you're not trying when you so are - pretentious much? and hey, I'm a part of the age of the superficial, you said so. What's your excuse?"

"I've probably been around here too long and got infected by it," adopting a posh English accent for comic effect he continued with, "gone native, don't you know, dear girl".

"Thinking on it, I figure that you're way more guilty of the whole vanity deal in that it's probably totally your call to be anyway you want... with you being from outer space you're appearing a little too human for that to be like natural...I'm guessing you don't need the glasses either, its all a part of the whole cute nerdy look you got going."

The Doctor grinned, "now you see that's where you're wrong, I'd be ginger like your mate, possibly with different teeth - never been a hundred per cent about these ones..." he said, running his tongue over them for a moment, "... if that was the case. I just like the glasses. So we're both a tad vain, so what! We're allowed, at least we can see the wood for the trees."

"Meaning?"

"When I was in London over Christmas last year I saw this ad poster for Ben Sherman shirts which said 'looking good isn't important, it's everything', which apart from being another great big, shining example of what I was just talking about and the fact I didn't think they looked that fantastic, is just plain wrong. I think you know it as much as I do."

"How do you figure that?"

"Because you stepped in to help in a bloke who you reckon looks like a librarian poser and his mate who doesn't look like a model either, you didn't have to do that."

"Actually I kinda did, in case you hadn't noticed, helping other people - pretty much what being a human being's about."

"No, it's what being a nice human being's all about. I don't get the impression that my head summoner Warren would do that unless there was something big and important in it for him. He's not exactly full of the famed 'milk of human kindness' from what I've heard."

"I'm not sure Warren really qualifies as a human being," replied Buffy, reluctant to admit that this guy had her on the ropes with that one and trying to make a joke of it.

"What is he then?"

"A lot of things I'm not saying as I'm getting you're not a fan of the swears."

The Doctor grinned broadly at that. "I'm not actually that offended by swearing, just seems a bit pointless, usually the result of intimidation as employed by the likes of our mate Spike, expression by those too thick to have anything else to say for themselves or the desperate attempt to provoke an 'ooh shock-horror, isn't he outrageous?' reaction which usually ends up being over-used enough to wear thin really quickly. I'd have missed out on some great music if I let a bit of so-called bad language put me off. Anyway, where I was I?... oh-yes, like any species capable of being intelligent you all have choice about what you do which means if you choose to save people that means something."

"It means I'm not a heartless bitch. What are you trying to say here, that I should be thinking I'm a big deal just because I don't let people get bit?" protested Buffy a little angrily, not sure why he seemed to want to get her to talk about slaying and her motivations for it but not liking it.

"I don't think you see it as important because it's something you do a lot, maybe even everyday. You feel responsible for this place, probably because you're the local super-heroine due to somehow getting with a little bit of the power of its main menace."

"Ok, you can kill that assumption! I'm not Blade anymore than you're Superman."

"Actually I've got more in common with him that you might think. You see Superman as well being famously super-humanly strong and speedy is also super-humanly intelligent, like me. The real difference between us that makes him look stupider than he is that he doesn't question the values he was brought up with which would have made him a lot less heroic if he'd been dreamt up landing as a baby in Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia. He's sort of a bit like both of us since you're the one who's 'faster than a speeding bullet' though."

"I'm so hoping you mean that in the moves being fast due to lots of training."

"What else would I mean?" he replied in an non-ironic, slightly confused way from which backed up with a slight frowniness of 'huh' gave it to Buffy that he really didn't know, before continuing with, "your speed it doesn't come from training or at least at not just from that. You see I know Kung Fu, well a form of martial arts, and I know it won't make you move that fast - you move like they do."

"So you know 'The Matrix' and I'm Supergirl, cause those muscles on me not a good look but I'm guessing you already know who's got the rep as the brainy guy in that verse."

"Yup and I could start going on about how you lot always distrust the clever clogs so much that they're usually the villain but I've known a Lex Luthor and, like in the latest telly series, we actually used to be mates before he turned to the dark side. So, since I've seen first hand how much damage a mad megalomaniac with a enormous brain can do, I can understand where the fear of it comes from. The thing is though, considering how much of a run for his money Luthor with nothing more than being a genius always gave Superman in spite of everything Mr. Universe could do and how hard it was to stop him, you've got to wonder what it would have been like if Lex was actually the alien hero."

"But still Superman always wins. That's kinda a big tick in that world working fine as is column."

"Ah, but you see I think that the real secret weapon Superman has isn't the Charles Atlas body or the ability to fly around or the near invulnerability, Luthor could always get round those with a bit of Krytonite and trust me everything big and powerful's got some flaw you can use against them. The amount of Krytonite Luthor always seems have his hands on makes me think if he was real, he'd be replicating it in a lab somewhere. It's not even the over-looked intelligence as Luthor can match that or get close enough. No, his secret weapon is his mates and his ability to inspire people, the fact he listened to his dad's message from beyond the grave when he said that some people on this planet were worth putting the effort into getting to know. That's what gave him the edge. It's what always does, the nasties don't make friends and if they do, they don't look after them enough to keep them. They don't know how and they don't understand why it's important, that's their Krytonite if you ask me. If Luthor and Superman were reversed the good guys would still win because of that."

"Except bad Superman would know and could use it against good Lex."

"For someone that heroic to become a menace there's got to be a large amount of arrogance involved, which is going to make him think he can do anything he wants single-handedly. He'll forget that he needs other people and even if he doesn't, the only people who'd help him for anything more than what they could get out of it would be trying to redeem him and they'd be working against him doing anything that's wrong. The ones out for themselves will only help so far, being benevolent gets you a better class of mate in the end like that, which I reckon you already know."

"I'm guessing that means you and my best friend hit it off last night?"

"She's a hard person not to like," he paused smiling and looking upwards, "mind you same could be said of Rose."

To her surprise Buffy heard Rose's voice reply playfully, "yeah, but it's cheating if you know I'm there."

Buffy turned round to see Rose on the stairs.

The Doctor responded to Rose in a similar manner, "you shouldn't be eavesdropping then, should you?"

"I wasn't really, I just came down to check with Buffy if it was ok if I grabbed a shower and scrounged a bit of shower gel and hair stuff. I brought me make-up along but didn't think to bring anything else, which was a bit daft really. I suppose it's been ages since I stayed over at someone else's house overnight, so I forgot about how your hair ends up stuck up at weird angles when you sleep on it meaning you've got to wash it in the morning to stop looking a right state."

She didn't look so great Buffy had to admit, her smudged eye make-up gave her a doped Marilyn Manson look and her hair reminded Buffy a little of Tina Turner's wacked-out styley that she seen on old VH-1 shows with 80s themes. In some ways it made Buffy happy to see the Doctor looking at Rose with obvious affection even in the state she was in, then again if they lived together then he'd probably seen her like this before.

Buffy gave Rose the ok, explaining which were her products, where the towels were and that she could borrow her hairdryer which was in her room. At which point Rose thanked her and went back upstairs, presumably headed shower-ways.

"So it's morning? You know I kinda lost track of time," Buffy said by way of explanation as she wandered over to the curtains and started to draw them letting the sunlight into the house.

"Shame we missed the sunrise," the Doctor replied.

Buffy shrugged. "I didn't have you pegged as a sunsety watching kind of guy."

"I think it's one of the nice things about this planet. The little changes you get in the conditions, the transitions from day to night and back again, the weather patterns, the way its never the same in one part as it is in another. Some planets and their satellites stay the same all the time wherever you are standing on them which is nowhere near as interesting."

"Don't you mostly get rain in London? That's what the English guy I used to know said."

"Not really, seems to be completely random for what I've seen."

"Weather here's pretty much the same everyday which since it's usually sunny is good."

"Depends what you go in for I suppose. I like the variety and the element of surprise. Don't you find it a bit boring that you know what it's going to be like everyday?"

"Cept for my sucky day job, I'm good with boring, it means nothing bad's going down. The sunshine gives me a break most days, since it keeps the vamps holed up in their crypts."

"I see why you and Rose get on, she doesn't think much of the jobs she had either. I didn't realise weather made a difference to vampires, I thought they couldn't stand daylight at all."

"Gotta be direct sunlight, they can move around fine otherwise," said Buffy, not wanting to say about how some vamps like Spike and Angel had been known to find ways of moving through direct sunlight at their most determined. She didn't want to raise the subject of or even think about Spike.

"It seems a bit mad that they're here in droves when they're stuck inside half the time."

"I guess they've got to sleep sometime and daytime's good for it."

"Na, you don't seem to need much sleep and if you don't then I don't think they do. There's more to it than that, something's drawing them here, them and what you call demons."

"You're still stuck in the wrong thinking that I'm like a vamp-like," Buffy said a little defensively, not loving his comparison backing up what Spike kept saying these days and what Dracula had said in the past, before continuing with, "and what else could demons be? You know, whatever your Men in Black deal is, they're not aliens!"

"How do you know?" The Doctor asked. He didn't usually set out to be an iconoclast. After all otherwise intelligent beings all around the universe had a tendency to believe all kinds of mad things and for the most part, unless someone was likely to use them to do them or anyone else harm, then there wasn't any point in trying to destroy those beliefs, as John Lennon once sang 'whatever gets you through your life, is alright' he thought. However he was interested in why and frankly a little bit annoyed by the fact that Buffy was so utterly dismissive about anything that challenged her world view.

"The old books say and that those guys don't fall out of the sky. The same old books said that the giant slimey thing was from outer space and it left a shippy thing behind when it which it got summoned in so there's a difference," Buffy replied.

"You see, I tend to find what most people think are gods and monsters actually turn out be aliens."

"and magic's their tech, right?"

"I didn't say that. I just pointed out that it sounded a bit odd that a twenty-first century girl would chalk an unusual effect down to magic. Rose knew it was alien technology right away."

"I guess it all comes down to what you're used to, magic being real is a given by now, space distorty tech from a human looking alien guy going Tarantino on Superman not so much."

"Except what I was saying then actually has more of a point to it than talking about what McDonalds in different parts of this world call a cheeseburger. I don't really like Tarantino actually, it's all a bit style over substance and his films don't really show you anything that you're better off for seeing, if you want my opinion."

"I could do without it gotta say, everyone's a critic these days. So what was the text behind the sub-text?"

"I suppose that in a way we're both Superman, not just because I'm not from round here and you've got a few superhuman abilities, which I'd be interested in knowing where they come from but I've got a feeling you're not going to tell me, or even really in the sense of the Man of Steel at all but of Nietzsche's version of being the one who's a bit special. Now I've got problems with a lot of what he said about behaving how you want and hang reason but he did say that with that with great power came great responsibility. I've always assumed that meant the more you have in terms of ability the more you have to use it for the right things and I think you know it too. In our case this means keeping monsters at bay on behalf of everyone else, although one thing Nietzsche wouldn't agree on is it's an idea to help and inspire other people into helping out doing it too."

"You know, I could angle for the trade of my origin story for a list of what you've got in the superhuman line working for you which I don't think you'd go for and, seeing as info on that front is pretty well not there and there's not much I know that didn't get imparted to Rose last night, you'd be right to and the info dig is getting tired. So what you're saying is that you're my natural like partner and we should team up along with our friends and fight monsters together in buddy cop summer movie styley, right?" Buffy was going to add something about his whole spiel sounding like a pick-up but even if a guy wasn't human she could mostly tell if he was into her like that and is one just wasn't.

"Well it does seem a bit of a shame if I'm here and I don't help out at least a bit."

"Thing is, I'm not sold on there being much you could do that I haven't already got covered and I always found in the past that guys who showed up to help out turned out in the end to be clueless and too full of themselves to see it. They never really made things better and sometimes ended up making them a whole lot worse."

"And I've met more than my fair share of petty little locals with closed minds and a habit of using whatever influence they had to try and throw their weight around regardless if they actually knew what they were doing or not. For the most part they were never a fat of good either, usually quite the reverse. Sometimes you just have to give people the benefit of the doubt that they're not like the idiots you've seen before."

"So what did you have in mind?"

"I'm not sure yet but I've got a feeling it's going to involve having a long chat to these summoners of yours."

"So not mine! They're nothing to do with me! I'm guessing you mean like saying 'I'm the genius god of your nerdom so get repenty and give yourself up to the cops' cause I really don't think that's gonna cut much ice."

"You'd be surprised. I've got through to more willfully destructive beings than they seem to be."

"'Cept one of them has not got what I had to say to him twice and the other one I'm thinking just doesn't give a - unless like you said he's getting some pay-off which getting him to do what he owes means he won't. Maybe you're better at this than me but I'm thinking you're on a loser there."

"To be honest I'd be surprised if something doesn't happen that means I've got to try."

"How come?"

"Because last night's encounter with that robot just confirmed what I thought might happen. Whenever I go anywhere it's hardly ever as simple as just going away again and the exceptions are never when I've been pulled into somewhere by force. It's probably all connected and whatever's happened to bring me here is going to raise its ugly head again before the day's out. Mark my words."

"You know that could be read as a threat."

"No, that's experience talking that is and if this place is as fundamentally wrong as everything you've said implies then that it just makes it even more likely. We're talking about being on some sort of inter-dimensional rift aren't we?"

"Close enough and sadly not closable, even by a genius's cute gadgetry."

"That I know, I've seen one before you see."

"Seen what before?" asked Rose as she came downstairs. Obviously having had a shower since she looked way better.

"We seem to have found ourselves on another inter-dimensional rift" the Doctor explained.

"So that's what makes this place special, only you didn't get vampires kicking around Cardiff," replied Rose.

"You probably did, you know. They get pretty much everywhere," said Buffy continuing with, "anyway I'm gonna grab a shower and then we'll head electro-tech ways." She wanted to get things moving and didn't want the Doctor's theories about how they were no vampires on the last rifty thing he'd seen.

"Don't we need Willow for that?" asked the Doctor.

"She's probably still gonna be sleepy and being at college she's not used to doing mornings. So I'm thinking I'll get her to say where we need to go and leave her to catch up on the zeds."

"She seemed pretty keen on coming along when I spoke to her last night and I did promise her she could take a look around my ship," said the Doctor.

"Ok, but I'm holding you responsible for any major league grouchy we get," replied Buffy, deliberately whimsically, as she went upstairs.

"So, you said she could look at the TARDIS just like that after all the fuss you kicked up over Buffy coming in?" Rose asked, a little peevishly, after Buffy had gone.

"Yes," he replied.

"What's so special about her?"

"I suppose I had longer to talk to her and get to know her a bit and she did ask nicely, unlike Buffy who just barged in."

"She asked too."

"But she didn't exactly wait for permission from me and it is my ship."

"And so you can do what you like and I don't get a say? I live there too you know!"

"And you've be known to invite the odd person along."

"Yeah but I always cleared it with you first."

"Apart from Buffy."

"Yeah! but I didn't know you'd got something against her!"

"I haven't got anything against her," the Doctor replied a little indignantly, before continuing in a more playful tone, "someone got out of the wrong side of bed this morning, didn't they?"

"I s'pose I'm a bit narky cos I didn't get that much sleep. Still think you're a bit hard on Buffy though."

Rose realised she'd lost her audience as a bleary eyed Willow emerged at the top of the stairs and the Doctor greeted her with a cheerful "Good Morning."

"Hey guys," she answered sleepily, "anyone else need caffeine?"

"Cuppa would be lovely thanks," replied Rose.

"Okey dokey," Willow said as they followed her through to the kitchen where she shuffled towards the sink and started filling up the kettle.

"We didn't get you up too early didn't we?" asked the Doctor.

"A little but I wanted in and Buff wants to head so I'm cool with it, especially since I'm holding things up by grabbing a shower since walking out smelling of last night's Bronze, kinda anti-social," Willow replied before asking everyone what they wanted and used the tea bags still out from last night whilst getting coffee out of the cupboard and heaping a couple of spoons of it into a cup for herself.

Just after the kettle boiled, the phone rang.

"Hey Dawnie," the Doctor and Rose heard Willow say cheerfully upon picking it up, "did you have a fun evening?". Rose spotting the cups signalled to Willow, who nodded and mouthed 'thank you' at her.

Willow went on to explain Buffy was in the shower. As she poured out the cups Rose wasn't surprised to hear a pleading tone creep into Willow's voice as she asked when Dawn would be back and ended up the exchange with a slightly anguished sounding "it's really not like that" before it became obvious she'd been hung up on.

"Well I guess Dawn's not coming back home 'til the evening," said Willow, trying to sound resigned as she replaced the receiver.

"What's she stropping about now?" asked Rose, handing out of the filled cups to people.

Willow looked a bit shocked at that and the Doctor wasn't surprised.

"That's a bit harsh, don't you think?" he said.

"You didn't see Buffy in floods talking about her last night," countered Rose.

Well at least Buff's talking to someone thought Willow, would be nice if it was me though. She knew Dawn had her own reasons to be pissed which she wasn't going into in front of Rose but felt she had to say something.

"Not meaning to be rude but hey, three sides to every story here," she came out with.

"She has a point Rose," said the Doctor gently, "You only have Buffy's side of the story and she isn't you?"

"Oh I don't know if you're doing the over-identify that's pretty like her," Willow said, injecting with "which is usually well-meaning," before Rose could think she was being dug at ,"it's actually kinda of sweet how when things ain't going so well for her she becomes focused on making them as ok as possible for everyone else... and talking of her I guess I'd better get my caffeine intake before she comes out of the shower."

"Actually Willow, there's something I might need access to a computer for, if you're up for picking a robot's brains," the Doctor said, with a kind of playful conspiratorial manner.

"Ok?! much as that's always a whole lot of geeky fun, when did a robot come into this? Since it didn't get mentioned last night," Willow replied, slightly fazed.

"It had a go at us on the way here," explained Rose.

"And you looked a bit bamboozled by our presence alone to have to explain that there was a robot who turned up too," the Doctor added.

"So does Buff reckon this is also a summon?" Willow asked.

"She said something about the same group sending it round to bother her, although she seemed to think they'd built it," the Doctor said and reiterating his comments that the metal hadn't come from round here or anywhere else he knew.

"You get some weird stuff a coming through the Hellmouth from all kinds of dimensions not in Outer Space and that and a friend finding a powerful mystical item on E-bay is making me think it could be a construct," Willow replied.

"It looked factory made," countered the Doctor.

"Warren's once built a Robo-Buffy that was good enough to fool us for a little when he was living with his mom. So unless it was really smart, quality is doable by him but if you want to take me to it," Willow replied.

Rose told Willow what it looked like thinking that seeing it might come as a bit of shock otherwise while they walked towards it.

"Okay?!" said Willow in reaction and in spite of the heads up she was still a little freaked when she found herself faced with an exact copy of the Star Wars episode one battle droid without its arms or gun. "This is starting to look like a mind-game being played on us here. Speaking as a nerd, it's kinda weird they'd put the effort into creating something that not that cool by nerd standards. I mean the shooter thing I get if it's meant to take out Buffy but if you're going create a droid based on Star Wars why not have something classier and less easy for her to break apart like an Imperial Stormtrooper?"

"That's why I was hoping to take a look at it's memory and programming circuits for to see if there's anything there to tell us how it got here and who programmed or re-programmed it," the Doctor explained.

"We need to talk Buff first since it depends on the schedule she's working on. That stuff's gonna take hours to do to download and de-code. We might be better off setting it off and coming back to it after we've fixed up your ship," Willow explained.

"Not if you've got me," the Doctor said. "Do you always do what she says anyway?" he asked, smiling with his eyes glinting, in that slightly mischievous way that reminded her of Xander suggesting they skip school when they were little.

Willow smiled back, "Is he always naughty?" she asked Rose, who wasn't looking into this for some reason Willow didn't get, which along the sound of the shower stopping and the bathroom door opening indicating the return of Buffy being able to hear what was going down here, made her want to bail on this conversation.

"And that's my cue to get a showering, I can be thinking on rebellion options while I'm doing it," she said, skipping upstairs to grab one and not get drawn into an argument.

The Doctor started using the sonic screwdriver to detach the robot's head from its neck.

"You're being a bit presumptuous aren't you? That's she's gonna go along with you looking at that thing," Rose said quietly so not to be overheard by Buffy, watching him, whilst sipping her tea.

"I thought we might take it back to the TARDIS if she doesn't," the Doctor replied, not taking his eyes off the droid while he worked on it. "Don't know what you've got against me having a go trying."

"Nothing I suppose, it's just that Buffy's got enough problems without you stirring things up between her and her mate."

The Doctor turned round to face Rose, looking slightly miffed. He glanced quickly up the stairs before saying quietly, "well, it might help if she didn't try and boss everyone else around all the time."

Rose looked back at him and also keeping her voice down replied, "you mean like you do! I dunno why but you've got some funny ideas about her."

"I'm not the only one! I don't know what you two were talking about last night but you seem to have picked up one or two about each other."

"I don't see how thinking she having a hard time is a funny idea."

"It's not that I've got the issue with since you know that I know it's not an easy thing to bear responsibility for the fate of others if you are still coping with losses of your own. What I'm talking about is the sweeping judgements you're both making about the people around you whom the other one knows nothing about. I know you've got it in you to be a bit bossy because you've had to be sometimes, like on the Sanctuary Base, I was proud of you over that by the way, and I'd be very surprised if the same isn't true for her. What you've got to realise though it's one thing to order people around to save lives but quite another to stick your nose into what goes on between them and their nearest and dearest. You don't have the right to do that and it all it ever does is get peoples' backs up."

"Including yours by the sound of it. What's she been saying to you?"

"She seems to think I'm her dad which is a bit annoying."

Well she's not that far off the mark. Since you've walked out on people before I can see how she'd think that thought Rose as she watched the Doctor take advantage of the silence to put the finishing touches into detaching the robot's head, but we've talked about this before and you promised not to do it to me so there's no point in bringing it up again. I know want you mean though in that Buffy's obviously not thought that we might have sorted things out between ourselves.

"I s'pose, you two don't really get on do you?" she said a little sadly, breaking the silence, thinking it was a shame 'cos it left her feeling a bit torn.

"I wouldn't say that," he replied whilst carefully lifting the robot's head and then turning back to her "but what worries me that she reminds of someone who originally thought the solution to stop everything was to stab it, no questions asked. I think that coupled with her tendency to leap to conclusions without thinking about things has the potential to cause a lot of problems."

"But that's the problem innit, you're assuming she's like someone else too."

"There's a lot of it about which is weird because it's not usually the case, not with me anyway."

Buffy appeared at the top of the stairs, "And the usual no-case would be?" she said.

"People not assuming that they're talking to someone they met before rather than a stranger they don't know anything about," the Doctor replied neutrally.

"You mean like projecting," Buffy said as she walked down the stairs.

"Yes"

"You could have said. I did Psych 101 so I get what projection is."

The Doctor was half tempted to make some remark about if she knew that then why didn't she understand how daft it was that she was doing it with such gusto when the phone in the living room rang.

Buffy ran down the last of the stairs to pick it up.

"Hey Tara," they heard her say into the receiver, since the hall pretty much went straight into the living room, and then in response to the voice at the other end, "I'm fine... look, it's a long story but something's come up and I need to do a thing with Willow. I'd really like to meet up afterward though."

There was a pause as Buffy seemed to remember or think of something which resulted in her saying, "actually it's a thing that might need some magicy back up if it doesn't go so well, so if you can get to the Espresso Pump for as soon after now as you can and hang there in case I need you, if that's ok? ... thank you...anyone ever tell you you're kinda wonderful... well, I'll be seeing you soon one way or other so I'll give you the whole story then...ok... bye."

She hung up and said.

"I'm guessing you guys got that."

"The question is were we meant to?" the Doctor asked.

"Not sure since I did it on the fly but you get the satisfaction of the told you so on me getting your point of whatever's brought you here is probably gonna be coming at us again when we move out."

"So you're keeping an ace up your sleeve which no one else knows about? Clever!" the Doctor replied.

"See, not just a pretty face with superpowers," Buffy replied, sounding almost happy for the first time since he'd met her.

She looked up the stairs to check Willow wasn't within earshot before quietly continuing with "although it's not just a tactical thing Tara's Willow's ex and I'm wanting to keep her out of the way if I can to cut down on the awkward for both of them, until they've got things worked out between them anyhow."

"Hang on a minute! Tara's a girl's name and Willow mentioned some bloke she used to go out with last night," said the Doctor.

"She switched teams a couple of years back, shook most of us up and took a little getting used to gotta say, I'm thinking for her too since she did a minor wig at her vampy self being kinda gay when they met before," explained Buffy, noticing the look on Rose's face of relief that Will wasn't sexy rival material.

"Parallel world," said Rose in reply to the Doctor's unspoken question about vampire Willow.

"Ah," he said in reply, completely unfazed.

"Tara's really sweet though so you could totally see how Will got switched if you met her," said Buffy partially because it was true and partially as a set-up to make one last subtexty appeal at the Doctor that the big L was a precious thing worth hanging on to. The last bit didn't work 'cause Willow appeared at the top of stairs fully dressed, looking a little shocked.

"Did you just out me?!" she said.

"I didn't think you did the closet?" Buffy replied a little defensively.

"I don't but that's kinda personal stuff to say to folks when I'm not there. You could have cleared with me first ya know."

Buffy was going to apologise but Rose spoke first.

"We don't mind. We take all sorts in London - there's a big gay pride rally every year with boy bands in the park afterwards and there's never much hassle," she said, feeling more friendly towards Willow than she had been before.

Willow responded, killing the apology moment with, "sounds like it's more for the guys in that case. I was never into boy bands even when I thought I was into boys and talking of bands Buff... "

"I'm sorry but we kinda of need to get moving Will," interrupted Buffy gently.

"What's the rush? I mean the Doctor wants to do a download on the robot and I was thinking he has a point about a little more info about what's happening not being a bad thing," Willow protested.

"Except we might also get a big fat zero and I've got to work a shift starting early afternoon at Double Meat, which they might just suss I was faking a call in sick if someone sees me walking round town with a gang after then. I'm thinking if the nerds are mixed up in this and you guys are important then I need to be there in case they send another wacky visitor from a nerd-verse for us," Buffy said, but since this Doctor guy was pissing off her a little, she couldn't resist adding, "but hey Doc, if wanna go for it, I could phone them up and get them to let you cover for me. You're not gonna fit into my cute bright orange uniform and cap but I'm sure they could fit you out with your own version and that way you'd get the true Planet Earth experience of working in fast food retail complete with deep fat fryer stinkiness."

Rose shot the Doctor a look that said 'and don't you dare try and sign me up for it'. She felt a bit guilty for finding it funny that someone had actually suggested that the Doctor actually try doing the sort of rubbish job that she'd had to put up with and felt really sorry for Buffy, whilst being relived that at least she could say she'd never worked in a burger place.

"I don't think I suit orange but I could adapt Willow's computer so it works a lot faster," the Doctor suggested.

"Which could also totally screw it up I'm guessing and aside from issues of Will needing it for college coursework she's way behind on, we just might have to do computery mojo to save the world after you've gone, which I'm guessing is going to happening 'cos I gotta say if I was looking to put down roots somewhere on Earth Sunny D would not be it, although I could use the company of someone I know working alongside me at Double Meat sometimes," Buffy countered with trying to keep it sounding playfully rather than pissed.

"I could work on it from here and just tell you guys where you need to go" suggested Willow to stop an argument from breaking out.

"Don't worry, if it takes ages then we're not going to get anything out of it before we're likely to be attacked again. I'll get what I need out of it faster on my ship and I know you'd probably be quite interested in me seeing do that," said the Doctor with a smile, realising that it wasn't worth continuing to argue the point.

With that agreement they were all going was reached so they grabbed coats and headed out of the house. Once outside the Doctor, on the advice of Buffy that it would be drawing attention to them if he was seen carrying a Star Wars battle droid head around, slipped it into his coat pocket, commenting to her that he had deep pockets at her look of surprise.

Willow started talking again once they got through into the street to try and keep the atmosphere friendly. "As I was saying before, talking of bands there's rumours of The Breeders and Amiee Mann playing The Bronze later in the year."

"That's cool Will but kinda off-topic. We need you to focus on showing us where we need to be going," Buffy replied, as she locked her front door.

Ok, walk and talk. I'm smart, I can multi-task," Willow said after giving the name of a hardware store and further prompted by Buffy taking the lead in walking to there. She looked a bit put out that Buffy didn't seem to be interested in talking about these bands on at the local club so the Doctor asked her about them and suddenly Rose felt like everyone else was talking a different language. Willow and Buffy were surprised Rose'd never heard of some lot called the Pixies who the Breeders were apparently a sort of offshoot from and then Buffy sang a few lines about a monkey going to heaven which the Doctor joined in on and Buffy was surprised didn't ring any bells. Then the Doctor and Willow went off into a conversation about music and, prompted by the fact this Amiee Mann person had done some music for the film "Magnolia" which was out when Rose had gone off to see "Gladiator" instead, her and Buffy started talking about Russell Crowe.

By the time they got to the store, Buffy and Rose had moved on to comparing notes about the crappy jobs they'd both done which came out of Buffy remembering the Doctor's comments them having this in common and bring it up in front of Rose. Buffy was surprised to hear that the 'Double Meat Palace' hadn't made it to the UK when they had all the other food fast chains except she'd heard from Giles that 'Taco Bell' hadn't really taken off there. They continued talking on this in the store while keeping an eye for trouble and sticking close by the Doctor and Willow who were picking out electronics and having their convo about sciencey stuff and the alien language his handwriting was in.

Rose noticed Buffy see someone and call out "Xander!" to him.

A nice looking, dark-haired bloke in jeans and a t-shirt worn underneath a checked shirt reacted and turned to look at them. Rose was about to ask if this was Buffy's boyfriend when she saw something else. Nine black ghostly hooded things on black horses like the ones in those Lord of the Rings films emerged out of nowhere. Even without the funny business last night, she'd seen enough travelling with the Doctor to not spend more than a sec thinking it couldn't be real, so she shouted at everyone to look out.

Xander had the same reaction but he quickly realised he had to get to a large amount of water like in the film.

"This way!" he shouted, running to where he thought the water tanks would probably be in the store.

Why the hell didn't I bring a weapon along thought Buffy as she ran along with everyone else, hanging back slightly to cover the group's back. She grabbed a pitch fork on her way past. It made her feel better to be armed and she thought for a second about taking them on until she heard Willow shouting "BUFF NO!" Then she realised that Will had a point, that even with her - nine guys on horseback verses one on the ground was not good odds and there was the others to think of in that if she failed to take the bad guys they were toast.

As Xander tried to get through the doors separating the public area from the staff area of the store an employee challenged him. He was going to point to the black figures on horseback and the screaming customers running away from them when the strange guy in brown he'd just seen with Willow thrust a pass thing in the employees face and ordered him to get everyone out of the store in an accent that sounded a little like Spike's. Then the employee was all 'yes sir' and with the doing what he said. Xander wanted to know who the hell this guy was but they had bigger problems right now. Aside from the fact that resembling Spike in any way, shape or form was never a point in favour as far as Xander was concerned, the guy especially bugged him by asking him if he had a plan and responding to his outraged response to the positive with a casual "just checking".

They all dived through the door and the chase to the water tank room with the riders in pursuit continued. It was a relief to everyone when they got there until Xander realised in horror that he had nothing on him to work the tanks. However, the other guy was already on it before Xander could tell the group. That would have made Xander feel better except what the guy was using on the values didn't look like any tool he'd ever seen, well not in real life anyhow, and it had a flashing light and made a weird noise which gave him a creepy sense of deja-vu. Before anyone had much chance to think on it the Nazgul were in the room and everyone backed up into it to make them come in while Buffy covered them with Willow shouting at her not to get too close. Long experience of facing the strange had taught everyone to move as one and the Scoobies were practiced in being directed in what to do from signals by Buffy whilst the Doctor and Rose were quick to pick up a plan and go with it. The Doctor started on working on the tanks at the back of the room while they were there and Xander realised the second flaw in his plans at how fast the guy worked at doing it, he'd never been able to do that with anything normal.

When the Nazgul were in the room as much as they could be Buffy looked at the Doctor who nodded back at her as if to say he was done. The whole group on her signal did a disciplined bolt for the door. Willow was going to say that the Witch King wasn't there but then he showed that he was their leader by being the smart one. He appeared in the doorway cutting off their exit, swinging his sword at Rose who was in front of the fleeing pack. The Doctor pulled out the droid head and lobbed it at the guy. It smacked into the side of his head and Buffy saw her chance whilst he was distracted and leaped at him pitchfork drawn. He obviously hadn't seen that coming. She managed to land on him and quickly stab him in the chest to the sound of Willow screaming "NO!". The Witch King breathed into Buffy's face before slumping back in the saddle and she jumped down and she shoved his horse's ass out the way. She felt a little unsteady on her feet but didn't have time to dwell on it as everyone else ran through the doors. This was except for the Doctor who aimed his bleepy thing and exploded the back tanks. The water pouring out of them was starting overwhelm most of the black riders as he and Buffy ran from the room. Then he exploded the front tanks in a similar way cutting off the escape of those few riders who got ahead of the first surge. The water from the exploding tanks seemed be dissolving the black riders. Then the door got closed and the party of humans and alien all ran away from the scene to keep ahead of the flood with Buffy wondering why she wasn't moving as fast as usual. They finally burst out of the building through a fire door in the back in the store, finding themselves in the car park. The riders didn't follow them indicating their submission to a bad case of the drowning but they now had another problem. Once through the doors Buffy said she felt funky and collapsed. Rose managed to support her to stop her falling to the ground but Xander snarled at Rose to leave her alone, taking his beloved friend in his arms.

"What's wrong with her?" asked Rose in horror.

"Black breath," said Willow, sounding equally upset, "it's what the guys who fight the black riders breathe in and it's toxic."

"But that didn't happen after Eowyn finished the head one off in the film," Rose blurted out, her fear and guilt at what had happened to Buffy making her forget she was five years in the past here. The look of shock that she could see in Xander and Willow's faces reminded her that she just mentioned seeing a film that wouldn't be out for another two years and she didn't think they'd believe it if she tried to say she was a mate of Peter Jackson and had a got a look at a rough cut.

"We're time travellers, sorry I didn't mention it before," said the Doctor casually, realising that it was best to be straight with them and decrease the amount of suspicion.

As it was Willow and Buffy's mate was having none of it, "you'll be telling me you're the Doctor next," he commented sarcastically.

"Funny you should say that," the Doctor replied casually.

Before Xander could lose it completely, Willow interjected with a panicky, "Guys this is not helping! We need to make for the Magic Shop like now," and with that she ran off.

Xander started after her as fast as he could carrying Buffy, yelling at her to stop. By the look on the Doctor's face Rose could tell he didn't think what Willow was doing was a good idea neither.

"We need magical back-up," he said as he strode ahead of Xander.

"You think?!" said Xander, again sarcastically, "and how are gonna get that?"

"Good point!" replied the Doctor, "I suppose we could make ourselves useful and just go and get a round of coffees in instead. Buffy mentioned this place - 'The Espresso Pump' I think it was. Any idea how you get there?"

Xander was wondering how this guy could talk about coffee when Buffy was possibly dying on them but turning round he saw a look on the girl's face as if she'd remembered something like the guy'd been talking in code.

"I'll go after Willow and let her know," the guy said and they both broke into a run too. This was all giving Xander a sense of doom but since his hands were literally full he could nothing about it, not without putting down Buffy and leaving her which was not an option.

It turned out Willow hadn't got far, as there was a crowd at the front of the building that had stopped her and were firing a lot of angry questions at her. The Doctor could see she was getting upset so he flashed his psychic paper at them, telling the crowd to let her and Rose through. They did but then they all started questioning him instead. He managed to fob them off eventually but it enabled Willow to get ahead of him. He did manage to get someone to tell him where this 'Magic Box' was and start chasing after her before her mate carrying Buffy turned up. Before he did he give the crowd a description of Paranoid Porthos and asked them to let him through, after all the poor bloke did have to cart Buffy a bit of a way and he needed to be able to do it since they wouldn't be able to work on doing whatever they had to do to save her remotely thought the Doctor.

Willow could hear Anya yell at her as she ran into and through the 'Magic Box' to the spell books. She couldn't afford to get waylaid by Anya but Willow knew Anya being Anya always had to make you deal with her. So it wasn't a big surprise to Willow that when as she started searching through the books for the spell she needed, she got interrupted by Anya's voice nearby asking her what the hell she was doing in a stage whisper.

"An, I really don't have time for this. Could you do something useful and find someone in here to cast the Oracle spell I'm trying to find?"

Anya looked dismissively at her current customers. "With this bunch in today, fat chance!" she said a bit too loudly which made everyone stare at her. "I mean of anyone doing anything evil," she continued saying, trying to cover and then smiling awkwardly.

She was about to ask Willow what in crap's name she was thinking in casting that spell when she got distracted by a tall, scruffy mod looking guy in a long brown coat rushing into the shop who then stopped and seemed to be looking for something then see it in her direction and came running over.

Willow was still looking through the book hoping she'd get a caster for the spell when she'd got it to set up when she heard Anya yapping again and was just zoning that out when she felt a coldish hand on her shoulder. She was about to do some yelping herself when she heard the Doctor saying gently.

"Willow, you need to listen to me."

"And who are you?" he heard a female voice bark next to him, which he reckoned probably came from the young, slim, blonde woman who'd been standing with her back to the bookshelves next to Willow since she was close by and she had a look of someone with a fair amount to say for herself.

"Anya, Doctor, Doctor, Anya... look guys, I really need you both to get off my back so I can work on this," said Willow sounding stressed.

"No you don't," said the Doctor levelly, continuing with, "Tara's coming, Rose has gone to fetch her," before she could contradict the first thing he said.

A look of relief crossed Willow's face. "Oh thank God!" she said, "but it still cuts out a whole bunch of time that we need to save if I can get the right spell set up for her to cast when she gets here... which is right there ... so if can hold this..." she handed the Doctor the opened book "... and keep the place in it while I get ingredients."

"Which you WILL be paying for," Anya said pointedly to Willow's retreating back.

"Bit paranoid about being ripped off, aren't you? Is that why you won't take your eyes off everyone shopping?" the Doctor asked.

That made Anya pissed, she lost it slightly and started ranting, "well I'm sorry mister but Willow's always getting round people by being cute at them and I'm getting sick of people getting freebies out of me and it's not paranoia if you know it's happening. Someone's already stealing from here, little things they don't think I'll miss but my math is good enough to see disappearing off the accounts and I've got a wedding to pay for..."

"...Oh you're getting married...congratulations! Who's the lucky man?" the Doctor enthusiastically interrupted her with, adding mentally poor bloke's got a challenge on his hands with this one.

Then she totally surprised him by losing all her hostility in an instant, she was even smiling as she said, "he's called Xander," dreamily and then seemed to realise something and then interjected with, "he's Willow's friend, haven't you met him yet?" Since the Doctor now had a good idea who this Xander might be and knew he could be a bit pig-headed too he'd didn't feel quite so sorry for him anymore.

At this point Willow appeared carrying three small plastic bags, one with what looked like herbs in it, one containing some coloured sand and the third with some odd looking eyes in them.

"Ok, I'll be needing the book back now," she said.

"Tell you what, since it's quite heavy I'll carry it for you," offered the Doctor.

"and you can make sure I don't cast nothing at the same time," she said, reading the agenda behind his offer, "a little more trust would be nice but since the lack of gets me off carrying the heavy book, I guess I'm cool with it," she continued playfully, before walking off towards the training room with the Doctor carrying the book in tow.

As they left Anya realised that she still had no clue who that guy was, apart from being some sort of doctor. She carried on speculating about it she walked back from where she'd been standing to her desk, still keeping an sharp eye on her customers as she did. Well, he's a doctor which means he's gotta be smart, he's got Willow's freckles, skinniness and the same way of being cute to put you off-guard and they seem pretty friendly and she's not like that with strangers from what I've seen and I know from experience this little group don't welcome new people with open arms; so he could be some favourite cousin of hers visiting from London. It explains the geeky look and it makes sense of them being from different countries, Jewish people get everywhere ...except she'd have mentioned a favourite cousin before though, she doesn't have much time for her parents and they get mentioned and Xander mentions his family, even before the wedding planning meant he had to, and he hates them. This man could be a replacement for Giles, he seems to know it's not a good idea to let Willow use magic for some reason, he could be both for all I know or neither, just someone mixed up in this and he might even be someone evil who managed to work his way into the group either using magic or plain old chutzpah. Maybe I should check he isn't doing something to Willow right now. And why in the name of vengeance didn't I find out what the crap's going on?

Her train of thought got stopped by Xander coming through the door carrying someone in his arms who looked like Buffy. Then she knew that whatever was happening it was serious. Unfortunately the sight of an unconscious girl being carried had told the same thing to everyone else in the shop and they had all started crowding around Xander, bombarding him with questions, offers to drive them to the hospital and haranguing him about why he wasn't already on his way there. Anya was having to fight people off taking the phone on her desk to call 911 and racking her brains to find a way of getting them to back off. She knew this crowd mostly consisted of people who wouldn't know how real magic worked if it bit them in the ass, which ruled out telling the probable truth that whatever was wrong with Buffy needed magic not medicine to fix. Then that strange Londoner and Willow came back down the stairs and he took charge instantly. He started flashing a piece of paper at people, telling them he was a doctor in an accent still British but much classier than the one he'd been using earlier and getting them to let through an exhausted and pretty pissed looking Xander.

At the same moment the Doctor spotted Rose coming in through the door with a young woman whose long blonde hair and flowing pastel clothes gave her a sort of hippy look. That'll be our witch and not a moment too soon he thought, calling out "Ah, sister Tara! thank goodness you're here. Could you accompany our good man here and help me take a look at our patient."

Tara was a little freaked by being addressed by a strange guy especially since she'd already been more than little shaken up by being approached in the 'Espresso Pump' by a girl she'd never seen before telling her Buffy was in danger and that she was part of what Buffy had said on the phone had come up. Part of the reason she'd agreed to come along was her mystical insight was telling her that there was something really wrong about this girl being here too even though she was completely normal apart from that. Tara looked at the girl again to see how she was reacting and then caught the eye of Willow who was standing at the back of the shop waiting. They both nodded at her in a way that said "play along" so she did and thankfully with some encouragement from the strange guy, the crowd let her follow him and Xander who she could see was carrying Buffy. She also saw that Willow had already slipped upstairs ahead of them.

Even after the group surrounding Xander had disappeared upstairs, the crowd were still on about calling the ambulance and trying to get hold of the phone next to the till to do it. Since some people were making their way out of the door to do find a phone outside the shop, Rose knew that weren't going leave it until they saw or thought they saw someone do it. She took the initiative and jumped behind the counter to pick up the phone there, hoping the slim, leggy, blonde behind it would see she was with Tara and realise she what she was up to. She could tell by the way she'd been talking to the other people in the shop that this woman knew calling the ambulance wasn't a brilliant idea and so Rose could sort of understand why she was seriously miffed and tried to grab the phone off her even though she came as across someone who could be a bit of cow anyway. Rose pretended to punch a number into the phone quickly in such a way that the crowd wouldn't see she hadn't really done it. Then saying loudly in a fake posh accent which sort of echoed the Doctor's "you'd better talk to them since you know where we are" and passed the receiver to this bolshy glamorous shopkeeper whilst she wondered why out of all the women she'd met here so far only Tara didn't look like she could have been a model if she'd been taller.

On hearing no sound on the other end of the phone Anya got it and started to carry on the brief conversation for the benefit of the crowd before putting down the receiver. That seemed to get the customers off her back at least. After she'd put the phone down the trashy British blonde turned to her and whispered "don't thank me or anything, will ya?" in a voice much less classy then the one she'd just used.

"What are you whispering about man?" asked one of the customers who had a studenty look with her short flowery dress, nose pierced with a coloured stud and braided hair.

Rose adopted the mock posh accent which she knew wasn't very good but she reckoned would fool this lot anyway since from what you saw on telly most yanks didn't have a clue what a real Brit talked like and said "I was saying we should get you to leave here since the paramedics will need free access to the patient upstairs".

"and I was about to ask what she knows about that" said Anya in reply slightly snarkily, reluctant to shut up shop and lose money through something that wasn't her fault.

Rose said she was member of the ambulance crew off-duty but was relieved to be saved from having to come out with more cock and bull when the Doctor came back down the stairs with Willow and Xander. He started to announce to the anxious looking crowd that the 'patient' had been stabilised and the 'nurse' was tending to her. Rose said she'd called an ambulance but before she could start fibbing about crew access again The Doctor, who'd obviously also realised that the crowd were going to smell a rat when one didn't come, started making similar suggestions, prompted by Rose about access.

Anya who was pissed with these two strangers trying to order her own customers out and no one telling her what in seven hells was going on said she wanted a word with this doctor in private since she had the right to know what was happening in her own shop. Xander who'd come in behind him said he would too.

Willow said awkwardly "I thought you said it was REALLY important, not to disturb the patient."

To which Anya suggested having the talk in research section raised by a row of stairs above the main level of the shop. Rose didn't look happy at this but Willow caught her eye meaningfully and so did the Doctor trying to signal to her subtly that it would be alright. He reckoned that this couple needed to have it out with him and it was best happening away from where Buffy was as what Willow had impressed upon everyone re-enforced the impression he'd got about the havoc that spells going wrong could cause from her last night.

Willow waited until the departing group got out of earshot and then turned to the crowd saying quietly, "look, I know this sucks but this is like my friend in trouble here so anything that helps her to the hospital faster I'm kinda going to do. You guys understand if this means we've got to shut up shop for like half an hour or so don't you?"

Most people nodded and then Rose had an idea and said in her fake posh accent "if you want to buy something quickly I have some previous retail experience so I can let you purchase what you want if you're sharpish about it before we need to close and if you all form an orderly queue that will help."

That seemed to go down well and with Willow pointing out to Rose where the price list was and helping identify ingredients on the list people were paying for, they were able to clear the store quickly. It wasn't going to make Anya happy, thought Willow, but they'd deal and at least they had the paid for stuff to offer up as an olive branch which was better than a whole bunch of pissed people wondering where the paramedics were and bugging them over it. As the customers left Rose used the access excuse to get them to stay away from hanging around the front to try and rubber neck and then get suspicious when nothing turned up. Once the shop was empty it was decided that Rose should stay and wait for Tara to tell them where everyone had gone while Willow did her best to stop her friends bitching at the Doctor.

"Couldn't you come up with some hooey about a condition Buffy doesn't need an ambulance for and then pretend to cancel it?" Anya asked angrily in response to the Doctor's explanation of why he wanted the shop cleared.

"I thought about it but the problem is that anything that'd make someone unconscious is probably going to need them to go to hospital at least to be kept an eye on. People aren't stupid, they know that," the Doctor explained with his arms folded as he had a tendency to do when he found someone else's stubbornness frustrating.

"Not this bunch of new-Age morons! They who know as much about medicine as they do about magic, which is crap all," said Anya angrily.

"You can't rely on that and they'd be clever enough to know something's wrong if I go back on what I've already said before in front of them," the Doctor pointed out.

Anya was still not happy but the guy had a point that it was too late to feed them another load of bs. "Ok and since you lost me a day's profits..."

"On come on! It's not that bad!" the Doctor protested cheerfully, "you'll only need to be shut for a bit, it shouldn't knock your sales down that much."

"Ok wise guy some profits...then you could at least tell me what's happened to knock Buffy out in the first place?" said Anya, desperate to know.

Xander had been listening to the argument for some time, waiting for a break to speak in while thinking I love you Anya but sometimes you remind me why I'm doubting the getting married, like right now not getting this guy probably having something to do with what happened to Buffy just might be more important than him closing the shop. "And I'd like to know what you've got to do with it?" he said unable to stand for him telling Anya his version of events as he looked pointedly at him.

"You know, I knew you were going to say something like that," he said, but before he could say anything else...

"What makes you think he's got anything to do with it? Whatever it is which no one will tell me," interjected Anya, saying the last part with emphasis, before continuing with, "apart from the fact he turns up out of blue, suddenly very friendly with Willow and we have no idea who he is."

"Xander does, except apparently I'm not supposed to exist outside of fiction," the guy said, "mind you the same could be said for those Nazgul who attacked us less than half an hour ago and ..."

"What are Nazgul?" interjected Anya, before the Doctor could continue or Xander could respond.

"Remember the film we all saw just before Christmas that you hated," Xander said.

"You mean the one that seemed to go forever and still wasn't over at the end about some little barefoot freaks walking around to get rid of a stupid ring that was only worth watching for some nicely shaped men, most of who still needed a shave and a shower apart from the blond one with the pointed ears. The same one which you and Willow talked on and on and on about how great you thought it was afterwards which made me re-live it in ever more boring detail until I wanted to kill either myself or one of you, probably Willow," said Anya getting more irritated by the memory of it and the doctor's man obvious attempts to stop himself laughing at her, "and I don't know what you find so funny."

"Remember the black riders guys in it?" Xander continued with wanting to get past the explanations of what had happened to get to the why of it happening.

"You mean the ones I almost got thrown out of the cinema for cheering on? THEY attacked you?! They didn't knife Buffy like that pipsqueak in the film so we have to worry about her turning into one of them and trying to hunt us down for that dumb thing," Anya said slightly incredulously.

"No, she got overwhelmed by black breath which doesn't happen until the last book of the three and you don't see that in the last film says someone who claims to be a time traveller," replied Xander, emphasising the last part and looking at the guy who was claiming to be the Doctor.

"You do get a bit of Eowyn and Faramir in the healing rooms in the Director's cut on DVD though and you see Eowyn keel over after Theoden's dying speech along with Merry which I think is in the original film although that might just be on the special Extended version too, it's been a while since I've seen either of them. Talking of Merry the bloke who plays him is in this thing in about three years time set on a desert island called 'Lost' which is supposed to be quite good..." said the Doctor stopping short as he noticed Anya reaching for his neck out of the corner of his eye and grabbed her hand to stop her. He was about to ask what she was doing when, to the accompaniment of Xander shouting at him to let her go, she started undoing his shirt cuff on the hand he was using to hold her with her free hand and then he realised.

He let go of her hand. "Go on then," he said slightly begrudgingly, finishing the job and presenting his bare wrist to her.

With Xander asking her what she was doing Anya took it. It felt slightly cold as she inched her fingers across it but any suspicion she had of him being a vampire was stymied when she found what she was looking for except it was so freaking weird that it left her even more confused than she had been before.

"Well he exists but what he is..."

"He's an alien," everyone heard Willow saying as she walked towards them.

Xander was about to query that when Anya cut in with, "well that explains the back beat pulse."

"'The what?!" said Willow, looking confused as she got to where they were.

"You used to have regular sex with a musician and you don't know what a back beat is?!" asked Anya incredulously.

"I used to date a GUITARIST not a drummer!" Willow replied a little peevishly.

"Well he can't have been a very good one if he didn't have a sense of rhythm," Anya responded matter of factly, before continuing with, "in fact from what I remember of his band ..."

"So you're a music fan then?" the Doctor asked Anya cheerfully, seeing that she was upsetting Willow and thinking it might be an idea to get her talking about something else other than Willow's ex-boyfriend.

"She used to curse cheatin' guys for a living so I'm guessing she met a lot of musicians through that. Here on earth they tend to be slutty as a rule, Oz was an exception," said Willow.

He was about to ask more about that when he noticed something.

"Xander's gone!" he said running back towards the main shop area with the horrible feeling he'd gone to bother Rose. Predictably he was right and he could hear and see Xander bellowing at her accusing her of stealing from Anya from the bottom of the stairs. He was about to take Xander to task for that but Willow, who was behind him, beat him to it.

"Xander! which part of thing I said in the training room about ANY distraction INCLUDING shouting could make the Oracle spell screw-up big-time, with consequence of large amounts o doom, did you NOT get!" she exclaimed at him in a horrified voice.

"We're not in the room with her," he said more quietly.

"Sound that loud kinda carries, hello?!" Willow replied still sounded shocked and annoyed.

"It's ok Willow I've finished," they heard Tara say quietly as she came down the stairs from the training room. Noticing the concerned faces she continued with, "it worked, Buffy's going to be ok, she just needs to sleep off the effects a little."

"So quiet would still be good to help her do that, right?" said Willow pointedly, "and FYI I was with Rose at the till the whole time so I know nothing's been stolen, okay?"

Xander was about to say she'd been on her own downstairs without Willow but with the till and Anya was about to point out this would be checked before Rose went anywhere when Tara spoke again saying, "Guys... this whole thing that caused the attack is not over...something's really wrong here." It was the first time she'd had a chance to concentrate on the strange guy and her mystical insight was telling her he wasn't supposed to be here anymore than the girl except, unlike her, he had an aura so bright it was almost blinding and read as nothing Tara could recognise. It made her think of angels which, since she'd grown up thinking she was part demon, she'd always found scary.

Xander was about to voice his suspicious about the two strangers in their midst but Anya said matter-of-factly, "it's obviously an Oracle spell royally crapped up by the geeks. Think about it - villains from a stupid fantasy story attack and an alien who isn't supposed to exist but has a very real double heartbeat..."

Xander felt a chill run down his back, "What did you just say?" he asked.

"Yes she said 'double heartbeat'," the Doctor said.

"I worked it out that's why your pulse seemed like a back beat. Why does that matter?" said Anya.

Rose was about to say something but the Doctor looked at her meaningfully. "Let the penny drop," he said.

And it did as Xander realised the weird device he'd seen this guy use on the tanks was a sonic screwdriver, the blonde girl was a companion, Anya had felt his two hearts beating through taking the guy's pulse and so although he looked different this guy must be the Doctor like he claimed, only regenerated again which since according to the canon he knew the last time the guy had been on Earth was two years ago and this companion was from at least two years in the future actually sort of made sense.

"HOLY FRACK!" he exclaimed as it hit him.

Willow looked at the Doctor, "you shouldn't be too hard on him 'cos the next bit's where we have to go we were wrong about the doubting of what Buffy said about this being the troika's doing," she said.

"And what's worse is she knew about it because of a tip-off from Spike. Yes that really does take the fun out of being right, doesn't it?" he said ruefully.

"We have to find those guys," said Tara, who'd been relived to hear what the strange guy was and a reason for him and the girl being here which seemed to make sense but was disturbed about what this meant, "not just because there might be another attack but ...I know no one here really likes them but if they're the source of this, they're going to be in real trouble too and if they can't handle it, it's going to get worse for everyone."

"Movement all over the place!," squealed Andrew, as the aliens from the eponymous film series came from the window of the Troika's van, having melted it with their acid spit.

Warren was shooting at them with a gun he'd customised in case of screw-ups by the other two but even he didn't think they'd ever do it on this scale.

"WHY DON'T ONE OF YOU TWO MORONS DO SOMETHING TOO?!" he loudly snarled at them "since this NOT my total FRELL-UP!".

Jonathan was panicking way too much to think straight until he heard a voice in his head.

"Remember me?" it said. It sounded like his own, only it had an authority and confidence to it that sounded like it belonged to someone who would actually know what to do.

But what about the monster Jonathan thought.

"We'll deal with it," it replied, "you need me"

Jonathan knew he was so right, he really did.

Andrew saw Jonathan nod, and then a change came over him, like he became a totally different person. Jonathan still looked the same but he seemed to grow an inch or two in height as he stood up very straight. Very un-Jonathan-like too was the look of calm Bond-esque determination in his eyes and in the way he moved as he waved his hand and said "bring" which pulled Warren's gun into his own hands.

Warren lost it and rushed Jonathan. However, Jonathan, holding the gun and shooting at the aliens with one hand, waved his other hand saying "shield" and Warren hit some sort of force field. Andrew felt for Warren a little but that got outweighed by the sheer coolness of it. It got even better when after shooting a few aliens up on his way round there, Jonathan pressed himself against the wall of the house with the gun wedged between it and his body. Then he waved his hand again, opening up an awesome looking black hole vortex which started pulling the aliens through it with a vengeance, while he remained stuck to the wall by the hands like Spiderman wedging the gun against it with his body too. Andrew realised that the neato force field must be protecting him and Warren as he could see the g-forces blowing Jonathan's hair around which was cute and making his face go all Jim Carrey which was a little freaky. Andrew got kinda scared when the van started moving towards the vortex too especially since Warren getting so pissed it was like he was almost about to Hulk out. He was relieved when Jonathan closed the portal with another wave soon after then and, looking very cool holding the gun commando style, walked to the van.

Jonathan knew he didn't have long until the monster appeared and so after blasting the last of aliens away with Warren's gun, he sat down and mediated into a magical trance state to find what else had broken into this world that didn't belong here. He could see cracks in reality like the surface of a broken mirror at the place in the van where he'd set up the spell that had apparently failed last night. It didn't surprise him but, until he'd confirmed there weren't any other weak points in need of repair, he couldn't afford to fix it as it would get rid of this Ace Rimmer version of himself and regular Jonathan just didn't have the skills to work this. He mentally scanned the town for the same sort of fractures and his heart sank as he found another one in an alleyway close to the house bordering on the centre of town. He now knew that he was wrong about the spell failing and that it had summoned something at random. This would make it a whole lot harder to fix things. He mediated further and could feel it was a kind of living machine. Oh crap! we didn't summon Moya did we? he thought. Predictably it was impregnable, despite the damage he could feel had been done to it, so he couldn't see if anyone was still inside, like a pilot for example, much less contact them telepathically. Still there was a chance some of the crew were in the town to find the materials necessary to repair what was probably some kind of space ship and they'd be creating a similar destabilising effect around them. He continued the mental search finding two such effects close together in "The Magic Box" now that's a weird place for them to be he thought, but he could definitely feel two lifeforms and so he magically locked on to them in order to teleport them back to their ship, thinking he'd communicate with them and conjure the stuff to help them fix their ship once he'd got them there as least it would concentrate all the weaknesses in the fabric of reality in one place. However, as he tried it, one of them blocked him and a voice that sounded more like Spike's than John Crichton's sounded in his head.

"Oh no you don't" it said.

You don't belong here and need to leave, Jonathan mentally projected himself saying firmly but neutrally at the guy.

"Yes I understand that," the voice replied equally firmly. Then the guy mind-melded with him and it felt slightly painful like having a very bright light shone into his eyes "but you don't either - not in this state - all souped up like a cheap car with a flashy owner. What ARE you up to? That's the question, isn't it?"

I'm trying to fix this.

"I can see that. I suppose you deserve some credit for that although you did mess it up in the first place and ..."

How is he doing this? wondered Jonathan.

"As a very clever girl once told me, a door once created can be opened both ways, same goes for a channel. You might want to be a bit more careful who you try and mentally beam up next time Scotty."

And man don't you just love the sound of your own voice? I haven't got time for this.

"before the side-effect of your little upgrade turns up you mean?"

But the snark ain't helping and guess what it's already too late Jonathan thought as he could feel that the monster about to appear. He needed to hold it back but he couldn't risk it stopping him working on the problem and then a way of doing it occurred except he forgot he was still mentally linked to the telepath guy who was now angrily saying in his head.

"NO! I WON'T LET YOU DO THAT! There has to be another way!"

But I haven't got time to hear it, thought Jonathan as the monster appeared.

Then the mental link broke suddenly as if cut. He quickly found British vulcan plus one with his mind again but he could feel that there had been another reality breach near them and one of them was under attack.

Before the Doctor could mentally block Jonathan and work out how he could solve his problem in a different way to the one he had in mind, a monster that looked like representations of the grim reaper all ghostly, skeletal (not just in the euphemistic way some people said he was but literally consisting just of a skeleton) and swathed in black appeared in front of him. The instant suspicion that this couldn't be good was confirmed when he heard Adric's dying words in his head as he could feel it psychically attacking him like a sentient, cold, dark shadow that was stabbing into his head with icy fingers. Then he knew it was a dementor. In a matter of seconds another one appeared, followed another and another and another and he was back in the time war the horror and despair as fresh as it had been then. NO! YOU WILL NOT BREAK ME! YOU HEAR? he thought especially since I know this isn't real. He began focusing all his thoughts and feelings into the memory of that evening in 1941 when the nanobots were healing everyone and he knew that for once everyone was going to live but before he could say those words he heard...

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" incanted Tara, in a much more commanding voice then she'd ever used in speaking, as she re-lived with all her heart and soul the love she'd felt for both Willow and life itself on that morning she'd been singing and dancing in the park under that musical spell when it had all seemed wonderful. It worked. The dazzling white apparition of a beautiful Arabian looking mare with a long flowing mane shot out from her extended fingers. It charged at the black cloud of dementors around the Doctor, scattering them like birds. They disappeared after that to everyone in the room's intense relief.

"I'm alright," said the Doctor anticipating people's concern for him, the shakiness of his voice betraying the fact it wasn't strictly true. Well I've felt better... he thought, his hearts were both pounding, the banging of the blood in his head intensifying a vice-like ache, his throat felt dry and tight and his legs like they were made out of jelly ...But give me a moment, he continued thinking, while simultaneously wondering if this was what panic felt like to a human being. Then, as he took a deep breath and willed his hearts to slow down, he heard Anya saying, "well you look like crap," and couldn't stop himself from laughing.

"And you've clearly gone insane," she continued.

"I'm fine," he said through the laughter, "you're just hilarious."

"An, the guy's just been attacked by magical inducers of extreme doom and gloom. I think you need to cut him a little slack," said Willow, knowing what he'd been through in a way that the others couldn't and relieved that the fact he was laughing in a way that didn't sound like he'd lost it meant he was probably ok. Offering him some chocolate she continued with, "this should help, present from Tara, it's magical goodness."

"It certainly is," he said, "finest substance planet Earth has to offer," then spotting Willow was about to say something he continued, "oh!...you mean that literally, don't you...never mind still true... thank you Tara and not just for the chocolate."

"T..that's ok," she stammered, not used to being thanked by a near-stranger and on the subject of near-strangers she noticed something else. "D...did anyone see where Rose went?" she asked.

"Jonathan abducted her," mumbled the Doctor as angrily as he could with a mouth full of chocolate. And talk of the devil he thought as he heard Jonathan's voice in his head asking if he was ok.

Just about, no thanks to you. What about Rose? he thought at Jonathan before reaching into his mind to find out. He was far too annoyed with Jonathan to listen to his rationale for his actions and didn't really care if what he was doing hurt a bit.

The crowd in the shop were talking at him, obviously as keen to find out what was going on as if he was. Most of them had known Rose for about hour at most and yet they still cared what was happening to her, human beings could be quite wonderful like that, he thought.

"She's alright," he said as he could see from Jonathan's thoughts that she was. "He's got her holding back the nasty flip-side of the effect that turned him into a cross between Gandalf and Rambo but at least he was enough of a gentleman to give her most of his physical strength to do it so she's managing it with no problems. I'm not very happy about it to put it mildly but..."

"How do you know all this?" asked Anya incredulously.

She saw the Doctor open his eyes. "I'm reading his mind," he said matter-of-factly.

"Remotely?" she queried.

"Well, the job's he's done on himself has given him enough mental power to lock on to me psychically so he can get me to clear off out of here as both mine and Rose's presence are literally cracking this place up, which is what's causing the fantasy monsters to attack, something about seeping through cracks in reality. I can see from the look on Tara's face that she knows this too and only hasn't said anything because she's being nice and doesn't want me to think that she thinks it's my fault which I know she doesn't. As Xander probably knows, I've got a few mental abilities of my own and so I'm in effect using the link Jonathan set up to find out what he's up to, which in fairness to him he's letting me do because he's got nothing to hide and is only really trying his best to clear this up. I don't like some of his ways of doing it, but there you go and there you have the reason of why I have to leave right now before something attacks him and Rose and they're both in danger. The same mind-meld tells once I've managed to get my ship up and running he will return Rose and go back to being who he actually is after using this superhero self to mend the cracks."

Willow asked, "how are you going to mend your ship without the stuff you came to the hardware store to get?"

"I'll be sending him a shopping list as I go, which he'll helpfully conjure into my coat pockets," he replied. "So this is goodbye everybody. It's been ..."

"Oh no you don't!" interrupted Willow, "a deal's a deal even in extremis and I'll take you some time to fix up your ship that I can use to look around."

"And being around a monster magnet on the way there won't put you off, will it?" he said with a mixture of mild concern and affection for her curiosity that was so like his own.

"Nope, as a slayer's best friend I'm kinda used to it," she replied cheerfully.

"Didn't think it would but it's only fair to point it out. The same goes for you, I suppose," the Doctor said looking at Xander.

"Hell yes," he replied.

"Well, I'm not being left out again!," piped up Anya.

Willow looked longingly at her ex-girlfriend but she said "someone should stay and look after Buffy."

"But you're our magics, as in working and not going to be dangerously playing with reality again if we used them, magics anyhow," said Willow a little pleading, "and Anya will want to open her shop soon."

"I know what I want to do. I'm not stupid," said Anya stridently.

"We do have a link to a magician and since he's not trying to fend off his Mr. Hyde, he should be quicker off the mark if and when the next bit of a trouble hits," the Doctor pointed out gently, "you'll be back here soon enough".

Tara gently but firmly stated to quash any more objections to her staying, "it might be nice if Buffy had a coffee for when she wakes up. So if you could bring one on the way back..."

"What do you both drink?" asked the Doctor. Willow who knew them both so well told him and after a beat they appeared by Anya's till on top of one of her bridal magazines.

"I told Jonathan it was the very least he could do for you both as both a thank you and an apology," he explained and with that the party of four left the shop.

Once they got outside Xander said "Ok, as the only one here who doesn't have a scary IQ and-slash-or large amounts of mystical knowledge could someone explain to me how if Jonathan's done his Superstar spell again, we're not all falling over each other to kiss the ring like last time."

Anya spoke up, "well, last time his spell created a parallel universe or reality where he was the big I am. This time he's working in our reality. He probably didn't even summon this version of himself, well not apart from screwing up the Oracle spell which has weakened the boundaries between fantasy and reality. As Superstar Jonathan counts as a fictional character from his own fictional world, even if we thought he was real at the time, he has probably broken into this world the same way the monsters are doing. This means he's come through with all of the skills he had in that reality but since we're living in this one, we know this time he didn't do all the things we thought made him worthy of our admiration like saving Sunnydale from the Mayor's Accension or staring in 'The Matrix', which I still can't believe I thought was something to be proud of even under the influence of a spell."

"Yeah, you can tell the ambition of what he created was a bit lacking in that. I'd rather have been Morpheus he got better dialogue and it's a much more interesting role. Then again it illustrates the rather showy attitude he had to the whole thing really," said the Doctor.

It was turning into a day for strange epiphanies, thought Xander as he realised that maybe Jonathan wasn't so different from himself.

"You know what's weird," he said. "I felt so let down when the truth got revealed, betrayed even, but in a way I kinda feel for the guy. I mean, who doesn't want to be a hero?"

"The problem is he didn't turn himself into a hero," said the Doctor ruefully. "A hero is just someone who tries to help people, which is something that by rights ought to be its own reward. You don't do it to be worshipped which is what he did, becoming someone everyone thought was so perfect that they gave him everything he wanted without question. That's not being a hero, that's being a god and I've never met one of those I liked yet."

They turned into an alleyway.

"Ok, so what idiotic story has a police box being anything important in it?" said Anya, noticing the TARDIS.

Xander and the Doctor exchanged an amused look between them like it was some joke that only they got but, before Willow could ask about that or even what a police box was, Captain Hook appeared in front of it. He acknowledged the group with an evil stare which was way more scary than the Disney version and everyone was just getting ready to run back to the Magic Box when Peter Pan appeared in front of him and they started fencing. Then they disappeared again.

"Ok, at the risk of trivialising danger. Raise your hand if you thought that the buckling of swash was cool and you could have done with seeing some more," said Xander.

Both Willow and the Doctor responded by doing so. "Although it hurts to say it, much as being deprived of our own little taste of Dumas is galling, I think you have to see the reasoning behind it." the Doctor said.

"Yeah," said Willow playfully, "sometimes being responsible is no fun."

"We've still got coolness to come though," said Xander cheerfully. "Ladies, yonder carriage awaits," he said gesturing towards the Police Box as he followed the Doctor walking to it.

"This is the space ship?" asked Willow, looking dubious, although not as much as Anya who said, "this is one of your jokes that I don't get, isn't it?", as they both followed him.

"Nope," said Xander grinning like the Cheshire cat and continuing talking as he walked, "this is a big moment for me, you know. You see my dear best friend and wife-to-be, you may both be smarter than I'll ever be and seen and done things I never could but while one of you was watching the Roseanne finale and the other was probably ruining some cheating schmoe's day somewhere in the world I was finding out something neither of you know and I gotta say the knowing of it when you don't feels good. You think you know magic but storytelling's got a mojo all of it's own and I can't wait to see your faces when you see it." He paused for effect just outside the doors and, as if he was a stage magician about to do the big reveal, he gestured with his arm towards the now opened door...stopping to say "patience young Padawan," to Willow as she tried to peer past him into the ship while Anya hung back looking at him like he was mildly insane.

"It's time to boldly go where no one has gone before," he said offering his hand to Anya.

"Ok! I'm coming but only as a statement of how much I love you," she replied, slightly grumpily.

With that the three of them followed the Doctor inside and Xander felt his heart lift seeing the look of wonder that crossed his childhood friend's face.

"Ok Xander, you can kill the smugness right now since I asked to come and see this before you said anything," she said.

"She did you know," said the Doctor from the TARDIS console where he was at work fixing it.

Ever the pragmatist, Anya just looked confused. "This makes no sense, how can it be this big inside when it's a police box unless it's outside is a camouflage that makes it look like a police box and if so why a fricking police box?" she said.

"That's two questions merged into one Anya," the Doctor answered her without looking up. "I'll explain the easy one first. My lovely ship you see is fitted with a device that was supposed to make it blend into its surroundings except I left London in 1963 once in a bit of a hurry and it broke leaving it in the form of a police box. The chameleon circuit as I call it, despite the fact that chameleons don't actually change colour to blend into their background but do it at random and according to mood, was never vital to the ship working so I didn't bother to fix it. Someone else did a few years later and it promptly broke again, confirming that trying to mend it was probably a waste of time and to be honest I'd got used to my ship looking this way anyway. No one ever pays a blind bit of notice to the fact it sticks out. I think most people on Earth probably just think its one of those modern sculpture installations. Talking of modernity, you're showing your age a bit knowing about police boxes."

"That cursing guys gig I mentioned in the 'Magic Box' came with immortality bonuses apparently," Willow pipped up with.

"Nice perk, and you didn't get tricked into taking it without taking eternal youth either I see. There's a Greek tragedy where a woman fell for that one, that can't have been nice especially on this appearance obsessed planet," the Doctor cut in with before Anya got to take issue with Willow speaking for her.

"I don't have it anymore since I gave up vengeance." said Anya. She hadn't talked about her fears that she would one day become old and ugly and Xander wouldn't want to have sex with her, and might actually start having it with someone else instead, as she'd seen happen with some of her former clients, since that demon had made her blurt it out in song and she wasn't going to start again in front of Willow and this strange man from outer space.

"Although it does mean I'll grow old with Xander which although it scares me, I don't think I could live without him now," Anya said instead which was also something she thought about to stop herself worrying about aging.

The Doctor found it quite endearing how in the midst of her bluntness Anya could sometimes be artlessly romantic although it didn't last for long.

"Vengeance did teach me it's very rude to say anything about a woman's age so how old are you?" she continued with.

He told her and while Willow did a double-take, Anya asked "what keeps you looking young?".

"Oh, mostly just the result of being a member of a long lived race, a bit being one of the elves in Lord of the Rings. I'll leave Xander to tell you about that because he probably knows about the other tricks I've got up my sleeve on that one." the Doctor answered.

Making a mental note to self to ask Xander about the guy's age thing later Willow realised she had another question in mind. "Coming back to the second thing Anya was asking about. I know it's more than just a camouflage device that means this very pretty womby looking ship is like bigger on the outside then it looks. I can see there's like way more space going out of this room which it's only knowing that I haven't got long here or much of a sense of direction that stops me going to look around," she asked.

The Doctor smiled. "And you said I was nosy!" he said flippantly, before continuing with, "now that's harder to explain. The best way I've found of doing it is it's like a television except that the picture contained in the box is actual size as well as the box and so if you stepped inside the screen you would find yourself in the landscape it showed."

"You mean this place is a kind of pocket universe and the door's is a portal?" Willow asked.

"Sort of, except that its more like a spacial distortion that allows it to fold itself to fit into the space whatever it's disguised as occupies." the Doctor explained.

"Cool!" replied Willow before going onto to ask what all of the doodads on the central console did. Anya quickly became bored listening to this Q&A session and tried to talk to Xander about wedding planning.

"Hon, I'm kinda listening to what's being said here," he protested.

"You never want to talk about our wedding," she said moodily.

"We've got all day to do that. This is a once in a lifetime deal." he countered with.

"Do they always argue like this?" the Doctor asked Willow with a sense of deja-vu as if he was watching the way that his sixth incarnation and Peri must have appeared to other people.

Before Willow could reply Anya did. "Yes, but we have great made-up sex."

"Anya!" exclaimed Xander blushing, Willow looked purposely at the console with a 'I'm staying way out of this' attitude while the Doctor just burst out laughing.

"It's a shame I can't take you to meet Rose's mum, Anya. You two would probably get on like a house on fire," he said after he'd stopped, continuing with "you'd be pleased to know I've almost finished here and I've got a little something you can do for me while I'm doing it to make things a bit more interesting for you."

"Is it difficult or dangerous?" Anya asked.

"Nope, all you've got to do is pick the phone and dial the number I give you." he replied.

Rose's phone started ringing in the pocket of her jeans and she wondered how she was going to answer it with her hands full holding back this pale ugly thing snarling at her when out of the corner of her eye she saw Jonathan lift his hand and saw "answer". She heard a muffled female voice and then he raised his hand again saying "amplify".

The stroppy woman from the magic shop's voice shouted "CAN YOU HEAR ME?" at ear-splitting level.

"Just about now my ear-drums have recovered," Rose answered.

"Well it's not my fault! You didn't seem to able to," the bolshy woman's voice continued.

"Yeah, couldn't at first, Jonathan did some spell that made it loud enough. How come you're phoning me in the first place?"

"Your ... what exactly is your relationship? ..."

Rose heard a male voice muffled in the background and that woman's voice again saying "...friend wants to talk to you."

and she wasn't surprised when a minute later she heard the Doctor's voice more clearly.

"How's monster fighting going?" he said.

"Not too bad, Jonathan's being a bit quiet though, needs to focus on stopping things keep attacking apparently, so it's a bit boring. I've missed having someone to talk to. What way have you found of keeping an eye on me then?" she asked playfully.

"I've got a physic link to Jonathan. We're sort of monitoring each other telepathically, I'll explain more about it later. I thought I'd give you a bell to let you know I'm alright and I've almost finished fixing the TARDIS so we'll be off soon...oh and Xander's gesturing wildly which I think means he wants a word."

She was about to ask how many people he had round there when she heard Xander's say.

"I kinda just wanted to apologise for being a jerk earlier, in case I don't get to say it before you leave."

He's got a sexy voice, you notice it more on the phone, she thought, replying "S'alright, you were only looking out for your mates. Speaking of which is Buffy around?"

"She's still sleeping off her dose of the black breath back at The Magic Box. Tara's looking after her so she's in good hands." Xander replied.

"Shame, I wanted to say bye to her in person, doesn't look like I'll get the chance."

"Sounds like you got guys bonded."

"Yeah, you will look after her won't you? She really needs her mates, however many things she can beat up."

"As always will do my best," he said sounding a bit awkward and then before she could say anything else about it, he continued more cheerfully, "and can I just say that being in the TARDIS is pretty much making my day and I'm insanely jealous you get to be here the whole time. Go on tell me it sucks sometimes before I end up having to hate you and be a jerk all over again."

She laughed, "apart from being in danger all time you mean".

"That doesn't work. I can get that without ever leaving home," he said playfully. "Bye Rose, I would say take care of yourself but you've one of the best covering for you on that one."

"Yeah, shame I didn't get to talk to you more," she said.

"I'd love to hear about all the things I've seen and done even if it would do nothing for the jealously. The Doctor's wanting to talk to you again so I'd better hand you back."

She said bye, then she heard the Doctor's voice saying "like I said I'm almost done so we'll see you in a few minutes. Just hold on in there."

"No probs," she said.

"Bye for now," he said and the line went dead.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a dark-haired bloke run into the van and say with a nasty undertone to his voice. "What the fuck is this, short-round?" Then Rose noticed him looking at her before he continued with "and who is that bitch?" pointing at her.

"Blimey! You kiss your mum with that gob of yours?" she said in reply, realising him and the fair-haired bloke behind him must be the other two out of the three wizards everyone kept talking about and she had a pretty good idea who the one who'd bumped his ex off was.

Jonathan had walked across the van to stand near them. "As you can see she's helping us out so you could stand to be a little nicer to her Warren. I screwed up and I'm sorting it out, like you asked, only I need your help to do it," he said.

"Is going to be something cool?" asked the fair haired one, sounding excited like a little kid, which made Rose wonder if he wasn't a bit what got called special by teachers 'cos it didn't sound like something you used to have a go at someone for being thick.

"You get to be superhero strong so a little," Jonathan replied kindly.

"Why do we have to fix your screw-up?" asked Warren.

"Because I need someone to help and it's what real friends do, because it's fairer than her doing it since she didn't cause this and because she needs to go home and I'm telepathically linked to a friend of hers you really don't want to piss off," replied Jonathan.

"Why the hell do I care what some betazoid thinks?" snapped Warren.

Uh-oh, thought Andrew as he watched Jonathan's whole body language change for the second time. This time he thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and his dark eyes took on a look of cold anger as he leaned right into Warren's face.

"Because Mr. Meers you wouldn't like me when I'm angry," Jonathan said in a voice that sounded like he was trying to do an impression of Spike at his most sardonically intimidating and obviously wasn't his own.

Warren started to snarl, "what the..."

"Shut up," said 'Jonathan' very clearly and coldly interrupting him in the same voice he'd just used.

Warren's mouth closed. His face darkened with anger and his hands bunched into fits.

"And sit down" 'Jonathan' said in the same tone.

Warren did it with a look of total shock on his face like he couldn't believe what he'd been made to do.

Then 'Jonathan' turned to Andrew with a smile that seemed to cover the entire width of his face. It would have been cute if it wasn't creeping him out by being nothing like his friend.

"Hello Andrew," he said in the same accent as before, although with much more warmth and friendliness.

"Please don't hurt either of us, whoever you are," Andrew whimpered.

Whoever had possessed his friend looked out of his dark eyes more kindly at him and in the same voice said more gently "I don't hurt people and I don't even use 'the Voice' on them useless they insist on being really unpleasant like your so-called mate," he said, turning to glare at Warren before turning back all smiles to Andrew continuing, "you're not like that though, which makes me wonder why you keep such bad company but gives me the feeling that you're going to listen your other friend when I let him back in the driving seat. Aren't you?"

Andrew nodded.

"Good boy," said 'Jonathan' cheerfully, patting him on the shoulder. He smiled at the girl, who grinned back. Then he blinked and stood up straight becoming the hero Jonathan who was at least still somehow still Jonathan again.

He left his hand on Andrew's shoulder and reached over and touched the girl's shoulder with his other hand. Andrew could feel strength flowing into him like he'd said. It was pretty cool. Since he didn't have be scared anymore he took his first good look at the girl who was actually sorta cute. He smiled at her, she smiled back and, although it had a little of the 'I'm doing this just to humour him' quality, it was still sweet.

Like the Doctor, Rose wondered what this nice lad was doing hanging around the likes of Warren who she noticed was getting up to have another go at someone. Since her hands were still full holding the monster she swung her leg out to push him away. She wasn't sure if she meant to stop him in the way she did but it did the trick and he was such a nasty piece of work she wasn't sorry even if it did make Andrew wince. Especially since even doubled up in the agony she'd inflicted on him Warren still was putting in the effort of calling her a bitch through gritted teeth.

She had bigger problems anyway since was starting to feel knackered with the effort of holding back the monster as she got weaker.

"Andrew this is where you take over," said Jonathan.

"She hurt Warren," Andrew whined.

"It was self-defense and if this thing hurts me my mate's gonna get seriously miffed and like he said you don't want that to happen," said Rose through gritted teeth.

"You've got super strength, you can kick his ass for both of us," said Warren, getting up.

Jonathan waved his hands toward Warren and Andrew and saying "hold".

Andrew saw Warren freeze and found he couldn't move as Jonathan put a hand back on his shoulder and looked him intensely in the eyes.

"Now you get that I can take that strength I gave back anytime I want. So when I release you, Rose'll let go of the monster and jump away and you're going to grab it or that's what I'll do, right?" Jonathan said, realising that since Andrew couldn't move his head to nod that he had to take it on trust he'd got the message.

He waved his hand at Andrew and said "release" and was relieved that when Rose let go of the monster, he did grab it as it charged at them even if it was a little shakily.

Jonathan thanked Andrew and waved his hand towards Warren saying "sleep" which predictably enough did what it said on the tin. Then he turned to Rose and Andrew saying "Andrew I need you carry on holding but on no account hurt the monster and both of you to be quiet for a moment" before he sat down and closed his eyes.

Andrew looked like he wanted to say something but Rose put her finger on her lips in a hush gesture and he zipped it.

After a minute or two, Jonathan then spread his fingers towards Rose and said "send". After a few secs he lowered his hand and explained "ok, Rose if you pull out your phone you'll see I've just sent you a map of how to find your way back to your friend who's pretty close by. I'll be watching your back telepathically as you go so if anything comes at you I can deal with it. It's a real shame we can't hang but this place is going to go to hell unless you go so you need to do that. Goodbye, it's been nice meeting you."

As she pulled out her phone to look at the map, she heard his voice in her head adding "and between you and me Warren had a kick in the balls coming although I'm glad it was an accident since it's not something you should do the whole time."

As the girl said her goodbye and ran out, Andrew saw Jonathan turn to him smiling, and it was in a him way so he hadn't been possessed again, saying "You're doing great. Although it's going to be a little boring I just need you to keep on holding back that monster without hurting it. That spell we did kinda of messed up the world so we need to be heroes and fix it together and for me to work I need to focus so I need you to be quiet. I've got some cool stories out of this and all the explanation you could want both of which I can tell afterward if we do this right, Ok?"

"Ok" said Andrew, he'd actually kinda got into being the strong guy for a change and out of the corner of his eye it was pretty cool watching Jonathan sitting all Buddha-like sat on the floor of the van. He really liked Jonathan being all masterful and Warren looked peaceful and cute sleeping away. So the girl's name is Rose he thought it's a pretty name but it's not one I heard before except in "Titanic" and she was definitely not that girl and it would have been a little uncool if she had been as well as being weird with her friend having rad Bene Gesserit mental domination powers. I wonder if they're what got summoned. He didn't sound like either of those guys they'd been trying to reach but he was kinda cool if a little scary. Who is he? Does Jonathan know? Andrew carried out speculating about that as he held the monster back.

Relieved that Andrew for once appeared to have shut his big yap (he did think about magically silencing him except for the suspicion he'd freak and let the monster loose as a result) Jonathan monitored Rose running back to the TARDIS with no problems. He guessed the fact she kept moving, shifted the crack in reality fast enough to not have it there long enough for something to break through. He was impressed how fast she got there but I guess being a Doctor Who girl she'd got the running practice in he thought before he had time to think about who he was still mentally linked to.

"She's pretty athletic anyway, managed to do a brilliant gymnastic manoeuvre to defeat Nestene Consciousness... yes they came back in answer to your question. Is that what I'm called around here ...Doctor Who?" he heard the Doctor saying in his head.

It's kind of a bad joke that stuck after Ian Chesterton came up with it when you said it in response to him asking if you were called Dr. Foreman.

"Now, that's a blast from my past! Mind you I was just thinking about him when I recycled the goggle box analogy about the TARDIS's dimensions for Willow's benefit. This is where you get out of my mind but as a parting gift you can taken this piece of advice. You want to get yourself, and if you can Andrew too, anyway from Warren. He's a bad influence on you both and more people are going to get hurt or quite possibly even killed because of it."

I can't make promises that the real me might not be able to keep. It ain't that simple.

"Yes it is but sadly I don't have time to argue with you about that one. Goodbye Jonathan, try and do the right thing. As the song goes 'search for the hero inside yourself' and I mean inside the real version."

It's been a pleasure working with you Sir, Jonathan projected myself saying which he didn't get a response too. It didn't surprise him, he loved the Doctor but the guy had always been kinda full of himself, consequence of being a genius who knew it he guessed, and some things just didn't change.

He reckoned the mental link had got cut when one or other of them said 'goodbye'. That final mental conversation had been interspersed with the goodbyes between Buffy's friends and the TARDIS crew and Jonathan felt more than a little jealous that the Doctor seemed a lot more genuinely sorry to say goodbye to them than he did to him but he knew he needed to get over that to get things done. He focused on the area where the TARDIS was and felt the two lifeforms that he now knew as the Doctor and his companion called Rose moving into the TARDIS and got ready to heal the fault line left by the TARDIS as it lifted, hoping Andrew wouldn't start yapping and distract him. As it turned out that the slipstream of a time machine brought it's own distractions and Jonathan started seeing things, visions so vivid it was as if what he saw was happening in front of him. None of it was cool. It started with Rose striking a white wall whilst crying her heart out. He had just had enough time to realise she wasn't wearing the same clothes he'd just seen her leave in, so something weird was going on, before he saw Warren, also in different clothes to the ones he'd been wearing, holding a gun and shouting "YOU THINK I'D JUST LET YOU DO THAT TO ME BITCH!". Warren fired the gun but then suddenly his arms were thrown back, his skin ripped off and he was set on fire. Jonathan had just enough time to reel from the shock of that before he saw Andrew standing before him, eyes glowing a milky white. A split second later he saw Andrew's arm move and felt a sharp, nauseating agony in his belly and the taste of blood filling his mouth. Looking down he could see it pouring out of his chest and a fancy blood stained knife falling. Then suddenly it was clean and Buffy was there holding it up to Andrew who she was also holding up the scruff of the neck. There were tears running down Andrew's face as he blurted out "And this is what Jonathan felt". Then it seemed like the ground was falling away beneath them like the whole town was being sucked downwards and it was at this point that Jonathan got a grip. He sealed over the crack, after what he'd seen told him to cast one last spell at the departing TARDIS before he did. The visions stopped but even in hero mode he was freaked out. I can't afford to lose it now he thought. He did one last meditate to check that all the cracks bar the one in the van had gone. He found three more cracks, one on the edge of the centre of town, one in the back of a hardware store and one in Buffy's house, which all seemed to relate to a robot which had been broken apart so he sent these parts back to where they'd come from, thinking if it mattered in that world someone would fix it and that seemed to heal the cracks. Wake up, time to die he thought, knowing he was done after that, he stood up and moved forward to take his strength back off Andrew.

It was cool feeling as the strength followed back into him but he knew he couldn't live in that moment and he kinda got it for the first time that being a hero was never about what you wanted anyhow. So, as soon as he was back to full strength, he sucked it up and got on with magically healing the crack in reality, taking apart the monster whilst he did. He could feel strength, skill and knowledge drain out of him and the fear and uncertainty within him rise the whole time it was happening as he turned back into regular Jonathan. He could also feel the breach healing, which made him happy, although he knew that the warm glowy feeling that you got from making something right wouldn't last since the memories of what had happened were becoming blurrier and less real seeming.

When it was done, reality was healed and he was regular Jonathan again, it was like his legs gave way as he sank to his knees. Andrew looming over him like in the vision along the blood on his shirt and the taste of it in his mouth made him start. Then he realised that his nose was bleeding not his chest and he felt better although kinda stupid for freaking.

"Are you ok?" Andrew asked and Jonathan realised he forgotten why he'd found him scary. He also suddenly felt totally drained and all he could do was mumble something about being beat before curling up into a ball and falling asleep exhausted.

"Do you think they'll be alright?" asked Rose asked the Doctor, after the TARDIS was flying again.

"You don't usually ask that about people once they've left a place," he replied, sounding concerned.

"Usually we solve their problems though, don't we?" she said a bit upset she didn't have the sense of happiness she usually had from knowing that.

"Well, the imminent ones. You can never solve everyone's problems, it's up to them to do that." he said, knowing that the long-term work of trying to make a particular place better was something he didn't have the patience and dedication to saying put to achieve but not really wanting to admit that out loud or bring up the fact that unlike some of the people he'd travelled with it wasn't in Rose to do it either. At least not yet, she was too in love with this way of life for that right now and he suspected that if she settled it would be with her mother.

"It's not our world Rose. We were destroying it just by being there," he offered as an explanation as it was also true, "which is not something I'm used to. We weren't real in their world and there was something unreal about theirs too with all that readily available powerful magic, vampires who resembled pop-culture re-interpretations of the myth more than the ancient race I know them to be and the way Spike along with a few others knew a bit too much about me for comfort."

"And everyone apart from Jonathan and his mates was a bit too good-looking to be real twenty year olds like they were characters in the OC or something," Rose chipped in, "and talking of Jonathan, did you really possess him?" she asked.

"Yes and no. It was my voice and a trick I can do with it he was channelling but the rest of it was him reading my mind enough to copy my body language. He's not a bad actor, a lot better than Keanu Reeves who he once tried to convince everyone he was."

"You serious?" asked Rose laughing.

The Doctor was about to explain about Jonathan's alternate universe where he'd starred in 'The Matrix' when he noticed something much more important on the TARDIS's console. "That's not good!," he said followed by the quick explanation, "a void spirit's broken out into Earth and we have to find it and kill it before it leaves a lot of other people dead," as he worked quickly on getting the TARDIS to track it. Then away it went to arrive in time for the Doctor to save Elton as a kid but not his mum. After that, with life carrying on the way it had for the past two years and then changing suddenly, painfully and in a way that demanded a re-think on what she had to do with it, Rose forgot all about that Californian town and the people she'd met there until...

"It never snows for Christmas does it? It's like in that song they keep playing 'instead it just kept on raining, vale of tears for the virgin birth'" said Rose as Mickey asked her what she was thinking about on as he drove them home from the pub on Christmas Eve.

"Never did, not that I can remember," he replied, "you're thinking of the time everyone back in the world we grew up in thought it did, when it was that spaceship breaking up, aren't you?"

She nodded. "I know why you used to get all upset about your nan over Crimbo now," she said.

"It's not the same. He's not dead," said Mickey sounding a bit annoyed.

"It feels he is to me since he's gone for good," said Rose a little surprised about how painful saying it loud still was. "Anyway she's isn't or at least a version of her here isn't," she continued with to change the subject.

"Yeah, thanks for letting me bring her over tomorrow. I know it's going to be a bit weird for you all having to call me Ricky all day," Mickey replied, sounding more cheerful.

"No probs, it'll be lovely to see her again," she said with genuine warmth, knowing it was true and thinking it was the only thing that might help her get through the day, when she had so many memories of the Doctor from the last time she'd sat down for a Christmas meal. She was going to ask how Mickey found being called Ricky by his nan but she supposed you just got used to it like having to call your dad Pete which he insisted on her doing. They were becoming mates but it was a bit odd for both of them. She suspected it was worse for him, at least she'd always known about him and what he looked like and stuff but for him it must be like in those films where a bloke suddenly finds he's got a kid all grown-up he never knew he'd had.

"Are you alright?" Mickey asked, as they went back into Pete's mansion where they both now lived.

"Yeah" she said, mentally adding as much as can be expected.

"You know if there's anything I can do?"

"Yeah I know. Just get some kip."

"You too, alright?"

"I'll do me best," she said, just wanting to be alone and to try and sleep.

As she walked into her bedroom she noticed there was a weird shimmering effect in the mirror on her dressing room table. She rooted in her handbag and grabbed the device from work she thought of as 'the tech net', since it captured anyone you wanted, just in case it turned out to be something nasty but half hoping against the odds it would be the Doctor. She kept an eye on it without looking at it directly 'cos ever since been fed off by the The Wire she'd been wary of looking directly at anything that even remotely resembled like a telly screen when something funny was going on with it.

She saw a face appear in it that it took a mo to recognise and its owner picked up on that delay.

"I know, not who you wanted to see," he said, "I'm not the coolest guy in the universe and I only tick the wrong one of the tall, dark and cute boxes."

"You're not that bad looking and you don't strike me as being that boring Jonathan. There you go you made enough of an impression for me to remember your name," Rose told him still not looking directly at him but feeling a bit sorry for him for some reason.

"Yeah, kidnapping someone is gonna make them remember you," he said slightly cynically, before continuing more kindly, "look you can face me. I'm not going to do anything bad and you really don't have to be nice to spare my feelings. I've heard most of the things people have said about me and I know most of them are true or true enough. Anyway I'm done trying to impress people and be someone I'm not."

Rose looked into his face. "If you don't mind me asking, what are you doing here? Did you botch another spell?" she asked.

Jonathan smiled wryly and said "logic would make you think it but no, me, well superstar me anyhow, knew what he was doing. It's an 'Inner Light' deal. I know you don't get the reference not being a huge geek but there's this episode in Star Trek - The Next Generation where Captain Picard gets possessed by this thing and thinks he's this other guy and it turns out it's from a bunch of guys whose planet was dying and so they sent this thing just to tell the life story of an ordinary guy from this place so someone else knew they'd existed, it's a little like that."

"So that place where you lived and everyone in it has gone?" asked Rose, sounding worried about the fact that Buffy and her mates might be dead.

"Well the place is gone but Buffy's still alive you'd be happy to know and Xander" though you really don't want to know what got done to him instead seeing how much you liked him Jonathan mentally added, before continuing to say, "and Willow. It's just me who's dead?"

"Why did you come to haunt me? I mean you only knew me for a bit and we weren't exactly best mates," Rose asked a bit confused about that and slightly worried it was 'cos of some sort of weird crush he'd got on her.

"'Cos the big bad in our world, the one that Buffy mentioned to you guys, the First Evil that said it was beyond sin to her, was using dead peoples' faces to manipulate the guys back home around the time I died" he said adding mentally and its already tried using mine with Andrew but I'm not gonna weird you out or get into more questions as it's gonna come up how I know what happened after I died at some point before continuing to say, "and I guess me, well super me anyhow, thought it sucked we didn't get a real chance to hang last time as I-slash-he was busy fixing my own screw-up. Sorry about the swear."

"Oh don't mind me! I heard a lot worse at school."

"Really?! I thought you English guys were all like polite."

"Goes to show what you know 'cept I'm surprised Spike didn't cure you of that one. We swear more than you lot from what I've seen on the telly."

"That's 'cos the guys in the bible belt would go nuts if you had swearing on prime time and the companies putting up the ads don't like it 'cos it puts people off and it gets them bad publicity for the product. TV's all about the commercial breaks over here unless you're on the subscription channels like HBO so people get to swear on those programs the whole time. Don't you get them over in the UK?"

"You mean stuff like The Sopranos? Me mum wouldn't have things like that on and we only had one telly. Didn't really appeal anyway, a bit too depressing."

"Is it 'cos of your mom you don't swear?"

"Nah, I used to eff and blind with the best of 'em only behind her back and it's not like she couldn't get a few choice words in herself. I s'pose having to be civil while doing all that waitress and shop work then hanging round the Doctor, who I don't have to tell you doesn't do it, sort of got me out of the habit."

"Yeah, I know Spike told you us guys were fans."

"Do you know that from reading the Doctor's mind?"

"Like I could if he didn't want me to even in super mode?! I'm surprised you even thought it knowing him like you do. He's way too in control of what's in his head for that and he was pretty selective about what he let me get to. The first time I even knew who he was when Xander mentioned the TARDIS talking to you on the phone. That was a jaw-dropper! It's kinda hard to explain how I know what went down in your world and mine since I'm not really sure how super me worked it but when I died it was like I went into a dream where I saw everything that happened to in my town and then what happened to you with the ninth and tenth doctors. I think super me put some sort of magical trace on the TARDIS after it was going as he saw what was going to happen as the time stream wash he got from watching it as it went showed him things that were going to happen. He knew I was going to die and somehow you guys were going to be split up and then he made me forget it or I just did. I forgot a whole bunch of stuff from the last time I became that guy."

"Last time? So you'd done it before is that when you made the world think..."

"... that I was Keanu Reeves. Yeah, I know, although the Doctor was exaggerating a little on that one I just fooled them into thinking I'd starred in the Matrix although it was along with inventing the Internet and fighting all the monsters better than Buffy did... I know - deeply pathetic! I could sing like Crosby at his best too - I miss that."

"Never would have thought you were the sort into old crooners."

"Most guys've got something that breaks out from their usual pattern. Buffy's got a whole ice skating obsession going, Tara rode horses one time, you got a Bronze medal in a gym contest at school, the Doctor likes some punk rock. I guess that's the nice thing about the whole 'American Beauty' out of body deal I got when I died is I got to know that stuff. Anyway it's from the time I'd done it before that I knew about the monster when that thing came and ripped people apart. Buffy said I turned the guys I knew into sock puppets and the Doctor said I turned them into worshippers but I only did it to make people like me."

Rose felt really sorry for the poor bloke then. "It's a shame I didn't get the chance to be your mate," she said.

"I don't know, by that time I was involved with Warren so it would have been a bad call hanging round me. If you'd been in school with me you'd would have ignored me except as an occasional joke it's what most guys did and I'm done hating them for it now."

Rose wanted to contradict that but she knew what she'd have been like at school.

"I would probably have ended up been bumped off by one the local vampires. First bloke I fell for was a right piece of work, if that Spike was a looker without the bruises it might have been 'im. That would have served me right!" she said.

"Girls think he's hot, so yeah, that could have happened, but I wouldn't wish it on anyone. One girl I knew who was really mean to me ended up as a vamp. She dated him, he treated her like crap and you know in spite of her being a real airhead with the emo depth of a paddling pool I still kinda felt for her seeing that."

"That was when you saw everything just after you were dead? So what happened after that?"

"My spirit just like got stuck on the TARDIS until the Doctor sent you the goodbye hologram of himself then it kinda of got passed onto you"

"but that was a while ago so why?..." Rose said, then it dawned on her, "you just waited didn't you? So you could appear on Crimbo Eve 'cos that's when the ghosts show up in stories well that and Halloween but you didn't want to scare me or have a go, this is more..." Rose paused looking for the right word.

"Spiritual? I was thinking of 'A Christmas Carol' or 'It's a Wonderful Life' I guess? "

"You didn't strike me as the type who knew about 'A Christmas Carol'!"

"I dug the Muppets version big time, lame I know!"

"Not really, the Doctor said it got the spirit of the whole thing better than some versions he'd seen. I liked it too. You can't knock anything with Micheal Caine in it."

"You never saw 'Jaws the Revenge'? Really don't! I did on TV one afternoon when I was really bored and I kept watching as I couldn't believe it could carry on sucking that much and man was I wrong! That's an hour or so of my life I could have spent better. It goes without saying not the big one but still a regret."

"The big one would be getting yourself mixed up with Warren?" she said.

"Well that's a no-brainer, although I've been thinking on this and the three of us had some good times before he put all the stuff about taking over Sunnydale in our heads. I miss talking about nerd stuff with Andrew and with him before he went kinda evil and started calling me stuff like Frodo and Short Round the whole time. I think the real regret I got was not being braver after the girl got killed. She would have got killed without me being there and the stuff we were doing before was mainly stealing and fairly minor stuff but afterwards, when I knew it serious and what Warren was capable of, I should have gone to and worked with Buffy or the cops. It wouldn't have been easy on me, as I was in deep by then, but then doing the right thing never is, I get that now. I don't have to tell you, since you talked to a couple of heroes and you know about the crap that they went through and had to deal with while still keeping going and saving the world, what it takes sometimes to be a good guy. Buffy once told me that her life sucked beyond the telling of it sometimes and I see now what she meant. I wish I'd at least tried to help."

"What stopped you?"

"Mainly being an extreme wuss, again preaching at the choir, but you've got to be brave and honest to face up to what you've done and take the consequences and that takes guts I just didn't have. I didn't have it in me to stand up to Warren or even to just sneak out and say to Buffy 'look I know I've been a tool but here's what I know that could help take Warren down' but like the Doctor said I should have searched for and found it in me somewhere. Well that and I was just clueless sometimes, I guess like Buffy said, you can't look for short cuts to get what you want - you know easy is the path to the dark side - and I went wrong as I was just looking for a quick way to get the stuff I wanted."

"I don't want to know what that was. Do I?" Rose said playfully.

"I think you can guess - sex, money, respect, fun times with friends. I think I mainly just wanted to be someone - you know to be enough of a big deal for people to know I existed. I was dumb enough to think being a super villain was about that and breaking a few rules having a blast doing it. I didn't get that it involves sacrifice too, to be a player always does - to be a good guy you sacrifice yourself and to be bad it's always other people."

"I'm not sure about that. I didn't sacrifice myself or anyone else for that matter."

"Yes you did, going to make sure that lever stayed down, doing the right thing, almost got you killed, as it is you lost someone else. Even if it had worked out for you the way you planned you'd have lost your mom. You got them to pay for your fun time through putting them through the pain of missing you, not saying that makes you a bad guy just saying. I guess sooner or later life has a way of getting you to sacrifice something or someone for what you want to get done."

"I suppose it was you that got sacrificed in the end for what Warren wanted."

"Actually it was Andrew who did it." from the look of shock on Rose's face, "yeah I know! I didn't see that coming either. He was possessed at the time but then again he kinda let himself get possessed."

"What was he after?"

"This is going to sound so moronic it's un-true. He wanted us to be gods," he said, almost laughing.

"What gave him that idea?" she asked him.

"You know the First Evil I said was pretending to be dead guys, well it was that pretending to be Warren."

"Did Andrew know Warren was dead at the time?"

"Oh yeah but it just told him if he killed me the three of us would all be resurrected as Gods."

"And he fell for it? Did it hypnotise him or something or is he just a bit thick?!"

"He's pretty smart really it's just he was even more clueless than I was. In his mind everything was always cool as long it was going his way. He wasn't mean like Warren, he just didn't let himself see what he didn't want to, like it didn't really exist or something. Buffy made him face up to what he'd done to me in the end though and he's got he can't ignore out the bad stuff anymore. He knows now that like she said 'life isn't a story' and that you get to decide what you do or go along with and there are consequences for it you've got to think of. He's probably going to be someone who makes a difference for good now so I can't hate him. I guess thinking on that it means my death counted for something in the end."

"It's a shame that you had to die to get him to see it. That someone couldn't get through to him before."

"Yeah but there's not much I can do about that now. Maybe I should have tried to talk to him and get him to see what we'd done with Warren before we got back to Sunnydale."

"Sorry but I've only got half the story here. What happened to you lot before that? You said Warren was dead and you'd come back to Sunnydale..."

"...which means we left and Warren got killed. I didn't want to go into that 'cos it's a really nasty story."

"Worse than you getting killed?"

"Yeah, there are things I could and should have done that would have stopped that, so although I wasn't anywhere near evil enough to deserve death, I guess it didn't suck as much as Tara dying. Warren's dead because he shot her down while literally gunning for Buffy and Willow lost it big time and literally like toasted him for it. I really didn't want to have to tell you that since you met Tara and knew she was sweet and I kinda wanted you to remember Willow for being nice like she usually was."

"I don't think any less of her. I know what she did it wasn't right but I can see why she did it."

"I can too but it wasn't a good thing since it was pretty extreme and it really screwed her up inside to do it. She was so filled with hate Xander had to talk her out of pulling the world apart. She's over the rage now and dealing with the loss and guilt over what she did in case you were worried about her. I guess you can relate to how out there she got though knowing what you'd feel like if someone shot down the Doctor with stuff that would just kill him and stop him regenerating but I was kinda biased against her issues since she was pretty driven about wanting me and Andrew dead too at the time. It scared the crap out of us and even though you can say we should have done more to stop Warren and we were pretty guilty for not doing it we didn't deserve to die. We were both in jail for the robbery we tried to do with Warren when she came looking for us, so we were kinda getting paid back already."

"I wouldn't like to say. It's not an easy question about how deserves what."

"Many live who deserve death, many die who deserve life'," Jonathan said unable to resist it.

"Had a point didn't he Gandalf? I suppose there's no point in thinking about it when like you said it's done now, isn't it? Was that what casting the 'Oracle spell' that dragged us into your world was about. Were you looking for a way to stop Warren back then?"

Jonathan nodded. "I wanted to summon some guru who'd tell me what I could do without having to make hard choices myself although I don't think I'd even got that far in my thinking. This was the night after the girl died, so my thoughts were pretty much all over the place. I just knew I was in too deep and I wanted out but I didn't know how to go about it. You've probably worked out that what the Oracle spell does is let you talk to someone who's mythical, legendary or just plain not real outside of fiction, right? Willow and Tara used it to talk to Aragorn and find a black breath cure for Buffy. Anyway I decide I'm gonna talk to Merlin - I figure he's a magician like me, and wise and knows a little about dark sides of guys without being judgemental like Gandalf would be," noticing Rose looking amused he said, "Like I said before I was a doofus! Anyway, I'm doing this pretty late out in the van, which is why you ended up there, and I'm thinking Andrew and Warren are sleeping except Andrew wasn't or he woke up through a nightmare or something and he comes downstairs. He must have noticed the light on in the van since he comes bursting in the middle of me doing the prep and since he's still living in Andrew world where getting away with murder's kinda cool..."

Rose shock her head, taken back again by how that bloke could think like that. "So it wasn't just when it came to you his brain was away with the fairies then?!" she said.

Jonathan nodded. "And he was crushing big-time on Warren which blindsided him even more. Yes he is kinda gay. That's where Spike's theories about Doctor created by us in his image came from since Andrew'd got the obvious hots for him too," he said.

"What was he like?! Never thought I'd meet someone who made my taste in men when I was teenager look good in comparison!"

"Warren could be really persuasive if he wanted to be and you know we all bonded over geek stuff. It took a dead girl for me to see how far he could go in getting what he wanted and, even though I wasn't as capable of denial or crushing on him, seeing a guy I thought was my friend do something like that still took some adjustment. It may well have been another reason why I didn't run to turn him in, that on some level I couldn't believe he was that bad, it was an accident even though none of us come out of it well if I was to tell it except her. I know I probably can't convince you on it but Spike's got more layers than you'd think too."

"You're dead right about that! He reminds me of the blokes who used to give me and Mickey aggro just 'cos he's black. You sure you don't fancy him?"

Like Willow and the Doctor said you do projection pretty well Jonathan thought but then again Spike had done some pretty bad things that made him sorta not totally worth the defending including one which caused his epiphany and change into good which your identifying with Buffy would make it really hard for you to hear. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm not gay." he said, deciding to leave the subject of Spike's layers alone.

"I thought Andrew was giving me the eye a bit too. Does he fancy everyone?!"

Jonathan shrugged. "Anyone who's cute, maybe," he said.

"Just as well he never met the Doctor."

"Yeah but he might have had some fun with that Captain Jack guy!"

Rose looked daggers at him.

"Sorry!" said Jonathan, not sure if she was pissed because she had the hots for the guy or didn't know what had happened to him but thinking backing down was a good call in any case.

"So Andrew burst on you doing the spell and that's how it all went wrong!" Rose said wanting to change the subject but also because she was interested in how they'd ended up in that world.

"Yeah," said Jonathan taking the hint, "so, because he's so massively in denial I couldn't tell him the truth, I come up with this crap about doing the spell to get some help for us against Buffy and say who I'm summoning and he starts talking about how Captain Kirk would be so much cooler and then somehow while we're fighting the spell got set off. I think it was him who read out the words.. anyhow the mystic forces kinda get confused, so they sort of split the difference between Merlin and Kirk dragging the Doctor into this world but like cracking reality up at the same time because you're only really supposed to use Oracle to talk to someone not pull them into your world. If you do that it's like the barriers between that's real and what's not crack and it got worse the longer you were there and the more people you were around and you know the rest."

"It's like the Doctor said we didn't belong there, isn't it? You're wrong about him being like Merlin or Kirk though, 'cept the travelling through space part's a bit like Kirk I suppose."

"Not to mention interfering at will for the greater good but man would you be pissed if he sucked face with every girl he ran into! I think it's why we got the version we did though - you know the cute one who knew it," realising he was on dangerous ground there Jonathan continued quickly with, "as for Merlin there was this one time that a bunch of guys turned up from the middle ages including Arthur's like nemesis and her son and the good guys with Arthur all thought the Doctor was Merlin and he didn't explain why but you got the impression that in that version of reality he'd done something then that fooled people into thinking he was Merlin or something."

Rose was a bit dubious if this had really happened or if it was just some version of the Doctor that had got televised for some reason but before she could start wondering about that Jonathan said "you know how lucky you are, right?" and she just lost her temper.

"You what?! I loved him and I'll never see him again. What's lucky about that?!" she said angrily but almost crying.

"If you want to go there it's luckier than getting stabbed to death aged 20 by the only guy who really misses you. If you disappeared tomorrow lots of guys would be eating their hearts out to know where you were."

"So only you're allowed to feel sorry for yourself? Is that it?" retorted Rose angrily.

"I'm sorry," Jonathan said more gently, "that first bit came out kinda wrong." He smiled, before continuing "you know first time Buffy ever really talked to me it was because I was about to kill myself which is pretty ironic considering how things turned out. I told her that she couldn't understand what I felt because the way it looked to me at the time she had everything she could want and that I didn't. I mean she was hot, she was athletic and she had her group of friends but then, after telling me the part about her life sometimes sucking, she told me that no one saw my pain as they were too busy dealing with their own. After I died I saw the way it had gone for all the guys I knew in school and I really get what she said now. It's not just her and my lives that blowed sometimes - it's everyone's. There isn't a single person who ever got what they wanted the whole time and like the song goes everybody hurts. So the way I see it is what makes life worth it is those times when it does come good, so you've got to celebrate them and hold onto the thoughts of them because as Cole Porter wrote the memories of them are something no one can ever take away from you. I don't know what you're going through it's true but that's only because I never had something so good that it really hurt to lose it. What I do know is that if the Doctor'd offered me the same deal he did to you I'd have been so blown away that it wouldn't have mattered how it ended, I'd still have been the luckiest guy in the universe. It's like Sarah-Jane and the French king's girlfriend said some things are just worth it. You should focus on that because at the end of the day the only thing, apart from what you do, you've got any say in is how you look at things. You're sweet but you need to get over yourself a little. You've still got a cool job, a great family including your dad back from the dead and as your little brother grows up you'll have some seriously awesome stories to tell him."

"I know that and wouldn't have missed it for the world," said Rose sadly. "It's just hard sometimes to know it's over and sometimes I'm scared I'll forget it, even what he looked like. I know that sounds stupid but..."

"Not really," Jonathan interrupted gently and then more cheerfully said "Hey, I just figured there's something I can do for you as a thank you for listening and I've still got a little magic and life force that's good for it. Maybe it's what I'm here for. It's been really great talking to you but I think I'm done...".

Rose tried to interupt him which he knew was to ask him to tell him to stay but he hushed her to tell her sadly "I kinda need to go because I don't belong here and even though it's great to tell all the things we can't say to anyone else I wouldn't be really living and you'd need to leave here and do stuff and I'd get bored here without you. Anyhow, being here it's just wrong and if I stay the universe will just notice and things will go screwy somehow because of it, like they did when you came to my world. So goodbye Rose, and thank you. Have a really cool life!"

With that there was a bright flash in the mirror, Jonathan's face vanished and a small piece of paper fell out of it.

Before Rose could hunt for it, her mum appeared in the doorway. The baby, which the scans had shown was going to be a boy, was due soon so she was big now and tired a lot of the time.

"What were you shouting about, sweetheart?!" she said sounding worried, stretching to ease the pressure on her back.

"It's nothing, just lost my rag at something stupid. What are you doing up?" asked Rose concerned she'd got her mum up when she should be taking things easy.

"It's this one moving around again," her mum said instinctively looking at and putting her hand on her stomach. "Better get used to it though if he's anything like you he'll be banging on me and your da...Pete's bedroom room at four in the morning one year desperate to see what's Santa's brought him," she continued saying, sounding happy, before going back to sounding concerned saying, "are you alright love? I'm still your mum too you know and little mite here won't stop me being here if you need anything. You shouldn't be sat up in front of the mirror at this hour still dressed - it's not right!"

"Yeah, I know, just got thinking about a few things - time of year for it I s'pose."

"You're thinking of who was here the last time you were with me for Christmas Eve?"

"Yeah but I'm alright. Go and make yourself comfy. You're gonna need your energy for tomorrow."

"Tell me about it! You get some sleep too, alright madam!"

"Will do," Rose said. After her mum left she took one last look in the mirror to see if Jonathan's ghost was still in there before looking for that bit of paper. She eventually found a normal-sized but good quality photograph of the Doctor stood inside the TARDIS smiling that warm, wide smile she'd always loved and she wondered if this was what ghostly Johnny had meant. She flipped it over and wasn't surprised to find writing on the back reading 'I'm sorry if I was hard on you but I guess I wanted you to see that your life is a gift like this one or the closure you let me have for losing mine. Don't forget either of us. Happy Xmas. Jonathan.'

She looked at the photo again briefly and then popped it into her purse, before doing what her mum said and getting ready for bed. As she did she remembered the words of another Crimbo song they kept playing about a Spaceman coming travelling. Then she remembered a line in it about it all beginning again with a baby's cry. Well of course the song was really about Jesus and he wasn't coming but another little boy would be here by this time next year and their mum was right the next few year's Christmases would be filled with his excitement about presents. Then she remembered another line from the song she'd quoted the beginning of at Mickey earlier 'And I believe in Father Christmas, I look to the sky with excited eyes, I woke with a yawn at the first light of dawn' and she realised she was looking forward to seeing that kid's wonder not just at Christmas but the other times when he saw something for the first time and thought it was brilliant. She could re-live the last time she'd felt like that, as Jonathan said, when on nights like Christmas Eve and other times when the little mite couldn't sleep or was bored she'd tell him stories of what had happened when she went travelling with a real-life spaceman. Well I didn't get the ending to that story I wanted she thought as she got into bed but it wasn't a bad one all things considered except it was only really a part of her life that had come to...

THE END