C H O S E N

The Insane Works of Dani aka Pandora147

Author's Note: I totally spaced out last chapter and forgot to thank the wonderful ladies of ZA Angels dot com for featuring Chosen as FFotW last week! Totally unexpected I tell you, given that this is just my random crazy muse niggling at me story. So yes, a huge thank you and I'm very much so humbled by the gesture. Speaking of ZA Angels, if anyone enjoys a) writing and b) Christmas; the girls are running a Secret Santa Fic Exchange through the ZA Angels Forum which I highly recommend you check out. Either link to it from the main page, zaangels dot com; or go straight to zaangels dot com slash forums. :-)

6. In The Morning When We Wake Up

When Troy Bolton was seven years old, his mother Lucille took him to see a child psychologist. He'd been having the same recurring nightmare for two months. Two months of being woken up, night in, night out. It was a dream about an eight foot tall, slimy monster with horns and red eyes and claws. In the dream the monster would be hovering over Troy's bed. He would speak in a demon language but Troy would understand the meaning.

Kill. Exterminate. Die.

The psychologist poked and prodded, and decided that Troy was simply a kid with an overactive imagination; the dreams weren't a symptom of some deeper trauma. When it had first started happening, Lucille would indulge Troy and allow the little boy to slip into bed with his parents. During the weeks following the sessions with the psychologist, the routine would continue, with six year old Troy fleeing to his parents room, banging and crying at the door. Jack Bolton would patiently check Troy's room, and ensure that 'the coast was clear.' Per the instructions of the professional, under no circumstances were Lucy and Jack allowed to let Troy remain with them.

Three weeks and four days after the sessions at the psychologist; Troy slept through the entire night for the first time in almost three months. He didn't have the nightmare again.

It was Sunday night. He felt like the day had been going forever. It seemed so long ago that he'd been at Gabriella's convincing her to hang out at Jason's. Just half a day ago, they'd been a whole lot more innocent and naïve.

Eleven and a half hours later and his world had been turned upside down. Vampires. Demons. Stakes. Holy water. Crosses. Witches. Spells.

Superhero girlfriend.

Eleven and a half years after six year old Troy had faced his demons – he'd learned that his nightmare wasn't quite as irrational as his parents had thought.

He'd watched Gabriella fight that vampire with that glint of power in her eye, the authority within her moves.

He'd watched Gabriella come close to falling apart in the aftermath of realising just what she had done – and what she had become.

And now, Troy was back in his room. The same room where he'd woken up every night for two months, three weeks and three nights crying about the monster which was towering over him. He'd dropped Gabriella at home about forty five minutes earlier. A hole had nearly been worn in his bedroom carpet as a result of the subsequent half hour plus of pacing backwards and forwards. He slipped out of his room and into the living area where his mother was sitting in the living area.

"Night mom," Troy said casually.

Lucille Bolton glanced up, seeing her son in his boxers and a wife beater. "You're going to bed early."

He forced a smile. "Tired, that's all."

"You look tired. Didn't you sleep well last night?"

"Not really," Troy confessed. "Hopefully it'll be better tonight."

Lucille nodded. "Well good night then."

Troy turned to head back to his room, but impulsively turned back around. "Mom? I love you," he said quietly.

Lucille's face crinkled up in slight surprise, but she didn't say anything other than a simple, "Love you too, sweetheart."

When he was six, Lucille had stroked Troy's hair comfortingly and told him that the monsters weren't real. She'd sent his father in to fix the problem, to protect him.

In that moment, Troy wanted nothing more than to curl up with his mother and tell her about the demons and the monsters. And to have her make it all go away.

Instead, he returned to his room and immediately grabbed his tracksuit pants to pull on over his boxers. He pulled on his socks and sneakers, grabbed a hoodie and shoved his cell phone into his pocket. He then mussed up his bed covers and turned toward the white French doors which led to the backyard. Quietly as possible, Troy opened the doors and stepped outside. He then hesitated, turned around and picked up the cross which he'd tucked beneath his pillow.

Gabriella was sitting at her desk. She was wearing one of Troy's old t-shirts and a pair of sweat pants. She was working on her English paper which was due at the end of the week. Mrs Perry was a scary old bat and Gabriella had no doubt that she would under no circumstances accept 'emotional weekend of life altering revelations' as an excuse for not completing this assignment.

Gabriella had sensed Troy's arrival, sensed that he was standing on the balcony behind her. But she didn't react. He didn't knock, he didn't try to open the door. She calmly finished the paragraph that she was working on, before spinning around in her chair and making eye contact with him. She stood up and went over to open the door.

"Why didn't you knock?" she asked softly.

"I liked watching you. It was so… normal. I don't know how you could do it."

"It's escape. I'm pretending everything is normal. I know it's not, but somehow it's comforting anyway," Gabriella responded. "Can you just give me a minute? I really want to finish up this next paragraph, I just got a train of thought."

Troy nodded. "Sure."

He slipped off his sneakers and socks and nestled himself back on Gabriella's bed. She had a Cosmo magazine on her bedside table which he picked up and idly flipped through, not particularly paying attention to a single thing on the pages. Gabriella had soft music playing in the background, he knew it to be her 'study' playlist on her Itunes. The tip taps of her fingers flying across the keyboard stopped, and she rose from her desk and came to sit cross legged before him on her bed.

"I hoped you would come," Gabriella confessed. "I wanted to talk about… stuff. But when you dropped me off you just sorta said bye and left and so I thought maybe you just wanted time to process."

"I thought that's what I wanted too. I paced around for like a half hour, trying to sort through my thoughts. But none of it was making any sense. And so… here I am."

"I'm glad you came."

"I'm sorry about before at their hotel," Troy apologised quietly. "When I started to lose it."

"Don't apologise for that! I should be apologising to you for reacting how I did, it was selfish of me. I just… I was at that exact same point of hysteria and I knew if you broke then I would break and I didn't want to break."

"I don't know how you're not falling apart right now," Troy confessed hoarsely.

"Maybe it's because of what Buffy keeps saying about why I just understand it all. Somehow it's helping me to cope with it."

"This is day 1 of this, you know? I mean, I get that you've been feeling different for a few days and really it was Friday when we really realised something was up. But of actually knowing the situation, it's day 1. There's more to come, more information, more hunting, more… more everything. It's just gonna keep getting bigger," Troy said.

"How are you feeling now? Better than you were earlier?" Gabriella asked.

Troy took a deep breath. "I feel numb. I feel like… I don't know how to begin processing it. I keep latching onto little bits – like hearing that other Slayer died the other day. Or that warrior who died in the battle. Or them talking about Scotland. I can only deal with one bit of information at a time. Coz the whole thing…. It's just too big to wrap my brain around."

Gabriella shuffled forward slightly, and took Troy's hand in hers. "Troy? If this… if all this is too much for you…" she paused, and took a deep breath before saying the following words. "I'll understand if you can't be a part of it. If you need to walk away from it."

"Walk away from it?" Troy repeated. "You mean… from you?"

"Well… I understand that it wouldn't be like that," Gabriella said softly. "But if that's what is necessary…"

"Ella, babe," Troy said, his tone soft and imploring. "Nothing is too much where you are concerned. I'm freaked out of my fucking mind, I won't pretend otherwise. But walking away is simply not an option."

Gabriella's chocolate eyes glassed over, her bottom lip trembling slightly. "Are you sure?" she whispered. "You think that now, but if you think it might get too much, I'd rather you back out now. Because… because once I go into this with you, I don't think I'm gonna be able to cope if you suddenly up and leave."

"You're stuck with me forever, I'm afraid," Troy declared resolutely.

She moved over to him, propelling herself to nestle into his side. Troy pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. She tipped her head up, allowing their lips to gravitate together and linger in a sweet, comforting kiss.

"I was so scared earlier," Troy confessed. "In the cemetery. And you know, it wasn't even the whole seeing a vampire thing that scared me. What scared me more than anything was that in that moment in time when you were in danger – I froze. It scares me looking back and thinking that I just… I couldn't do anything. I couldn't think of what to do. If it had just been you and me out there, if Xander hadn't called out and told me to use the holy water… I don't… I don't know…"

"Hey," Gabriella said soothingly. "I believe so whole heartedly that if that had been the scenario, you would have found a way to help."

The couple fell silent, Gabriella nestled further into Troy's side, a leg entwined with his and her arm snugly clutching to his waist.

"I keep thinking this has to be a dream. It just can't be real, how can any of this be real?" Troy breathed. "We're gonna wake up tomorrow and this is all gonna go away."

"Troy?"

"Mmm?"

Gabriella swallowed. She wanted to agree with his fantasy world of wishing it were a dream. But she couldn't. "We're gonna wake up tomorrow, and it's going to be real," she said quietly. "It won't have gone away."

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

"And when we wake up…" Gabriella paused. "I want you right here with me. And then we can face this together."

Troy disentangled himself from her arms and wordlessly crossed the room to her door. He flicked the lock closed, switched off the light, locked the balcony door and then dropped his sweat pants to the floor and peeled off his wife beater. Gabriella shimmied out of her own sweat pants and tossed them aside, and then pulled the comforter cover back. Troy slipped in behind her, her form moulding into his so naturally, his arm encircled protectively around her waist.

The rules about parents knowing where they were, adhering to behavioural expectations, not being in each others room with the door shut, abiding by a curfew.

These rules were discarded.

The rules had been taken away the moment that reality had come crashing down with word that monsters and demons were real.

The rules didn't apply any longer, not to them, not now.

Troy woke up at 5:30am, his body subconsciously pulling him from his slumber. Gabriella stirred as he eased himself out of her bed.

"Troy?" she murmured.

He knelt on the floor beside her, and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. "Go back to sleep, you've got another half hour."

"Is it all still real? Was it a dream?" she asked sleepily.

He swallowed. "Unless it was a very vivid dream which we both had… I'm thinking it's real."

"Damn."

"Yeah."

"Are you gonna go home now?"

Troy nodded. "As long as they didn't hear me leave, I can do my usual trick and just say I woke up early to go for a run."

"Okay."

"I'll see you soon, all freshly showered and ready for school."

"Mmm, can't wait."

Spike was prowling around in the hotel room. The night before had been refreshing. He'd passed through the south route crossing the great American nation once or twice in his years, but he'd never spent a lot of time in New Mexico and had never stopped in Albuquerque before. Spike enjoyed arriving in a new town, exploring, gaining his bearings, sussing out the twenty four hour food places that may sell fried onion flowers.

But now, he was trapped inside. Bloody daylight. He'd been sent to Albuquerque with a specific mission.

He'd spent over a hundred years as an evil vampire, doing unthinkable evil. A brief period of that time as a part of his little fucked up family – with his sire Drusilla, with Drusilla's sire Angelus, with Angelus' sire Darla. Then Angelus had been different, and Darla abandoned them – leaving just him and Dru. The way that Spike wanted it from the beginning.

Life had a funny way of turning out in ways never anticipated.

Buffy had been his arch nemesis, the one person he wanted to kill more than anyone else.

There's sometimes a fine line between love and hate.

Spike never would have anticipated that he would wind up in a search for redemption. Never anticipated falling in love with Buffy. He'd fought to have his soul returned so that he would be worthy of her. And then in one of life's true ironies, was killed in battle a year later. Wasn't that the ultimate sacrifice of a true champion? To give ones life for the greater good? He'd known that, it had been his decision to continue to channel the power of the amulet through him. He could have torn it off, he could have ran away. But he'd remained behind. And been there til the end.

Sometimes, Spike didn't understand why he'd been brought back. Some higher force must have somehow identified that Spike in his reformed, souled state had more to contribute, had a role to play in helping people and in the war against evil. More than what he'd done in just that year.

There was always more to be done.

Spike didn't really understand why he kept hanging around in Los Angeles. Sure, Los Angeles was where he'd been brought back to, and magic had bound him to remain in the area for a while. But he'd moved beyond that, and now he was just hanging around. Angel annoyed the hell out of him. Not long after Spike had been sired, his stupid granddaddy had gone and killed a gypsy girl. Her family retaliated, and had a curse put upon him. The gypsies had forced a soul into him, made it so that Angel would live his life immortally, with a soul, with the guilt of knowing the pain he had inflicted upon so many innocent lives for hundreds of years.

Angel clung to his soul like it made him a better person.

Sure, the vampires had a lot in common. They both had souls. They were of the same blood lineage. They were both now in the business of seeking redemption.

They were in love with the same woman.

Spike knew that they were different. Angel's soul had been forced upon him. Spike had fought for his. Spike had sought redemption when he didn't have a soul. Angelus – the unsouled version of Angel – was the epitomy of evil.

But they had one more thing in common.

Back so long ago, Angel had walked away from Buffy. He'd acknowledged that he couldn't provide her with the life he deserved.

Spike had gone to the other side of the world to regain his soul to make himself worthy for Buffy. He'd died a true champion, somehow had miraculously been brought back, had the ability to go seek her out – and yet he wasn't. He'd been hell bent upon finding her when the magics had kept him in Los Angeles. But now that he was free to go where he pleased, he was staying put.

Now that there were so many new Slayers running around, for the first time Buffy would legitimately have a chance of having a somewhat normal life. To settle down, to fall in love, to raise a family. To walk in the light.

Spike couldn't provide any of those things.

And so just like Angel had so many years ago, Spike was prepared to walk away from his love.

For her.

And so he clung to the mission. If working with Angel was a way to help, then he would work with Angel.

And so he sat in his hotel room with the black out blinds drawn, awaiting the sun to go down.

He picked up the television remote, hoping he could be distracted with some sort of mindless drivel. He flipped through the channels, a bright smile breaking out onto his face as he spotted his favourite show. He collapsed into the arm chair, kicked his feet up onto the table, and turned up the volume.

"Passions! A classic."

The East High cafeteria was buzzing with noise. The football team were tossing a ball around inside; the debate team was rehearsing speeches; a couple of band members had their instruments out and were jamming; the cheerleaders were writing – and rehearsing – a new cheer.

"Sounds like the winter musical is going to be really great," Taylor said.

Sharpay nodded excitedly. "It is! Bigger than ever! It's going to be the event of the year."

"Event of the year?" Jason scoffed. "Please. We had just about the entire school come to our championship game this year…"

"And that's meant to be an accomplishment? It's free. And right after school. When we get people to come to our shows, they actually pay money and come in their own time at night," Sharpay pointed out.

"I still think the Prom is going to beat out both the championships and the winter musical as event of the year," Martha pointed out wryly.

"Well that's a given," Sharpay said, rolling her eyes. "Oohh, did I tell you about the prom dress I was looking at?"

The Wildcat table was filled with a forced brightness – and avoidance. However the moment that Gabriella and Troy appeared from the food line, they fell silent.

"Gee guys, don't go quiet on my account," Gabriella said in a forced lightness. She set down her tray beside Chad, and Troy filed in automatically sit beside her.

"It wasn't like that," Kelsi said, trying to assure her friend. "We were… just…"

"Avoiding talking about everything that happened yesterday like we all have been doing all day? Except that now I'm here it's like a reminder of it all?" Gabriella prompted.

"Kind of," Zeke confessed.

"Please go back to avoiding talking about it," Gabriella requested. "That's what I've been doing after all."

Gabriella pulled a pencil and a print out of her English essay from her bag. She intended to begin to go through what she had written so far, and make notes in the columns of things she needed to change or expand upon.

"But should we be avoiding talking about it?" Chad asked. "Is that normal?"

"I feel like we have this big secret that no one else knows about," Kelsi said quietly.

"That's because we do," Ryan said gently, his hand caressing his girlfriends thigh comfortingly.

"True."

"Well, not necessarily," Martha pointed out. "Other people could know. Jason knew about it and we didn't know that he knew."

"It's not exactly something you bring up in every day conversation," Jason pointed out.

Gabriella had been eating yoghurt with her left hand, her right hand was clutching onto the pencil and tapping on the cafeteria table. At first it had been a steady, quiet tap. But it had escalated and now it was a loud, fast tapping.

"Babe…" Troy said quietly, enclosing her fidgeting hand with his.

"Sorry," she said softly.

"Are you okay?" Chad asked her quietly.

Gabriella swallowed. "Are people looking at me?"

She was clenching onto the pencil between her fingers, not even realising how hard she was clenching at it. Suddenly, the pencil broke in half, one of the pieces flying across the table and landing in Ryan's beans.

"That's cool, I wasn't gonna eat them anyway."

"I need to get out of here," Gabriella said abruptly. "I feel… I need… just… to be away."

"Ella?" Troy questioned.

"I need to go for a run or… something. I'll see you guys later."

Gabriella grabbed her water bottle, snatched up her essay and satchel, and darted away – leaving the pencil fragments behind. Troy waited about two point five seconds before darting after her. He caught up with her in the corridor just outside the cafeteria, and grabbed her arm to stop her from walkig.

"Ella, you're shutting me out again."

Gabriella sighed. "I wasn't just saying what I said, I do really feel like I need to go for a run or something. I feel all… like I have pent up energy and if I don't do something with it then I might just explode. I don't know if it's just the stress or if this is a part of the new power or what. But that's how I feel and since we have a free period after lunch, that is what I am going to go do. Run around the track. Or… something."

"I get that," Troy said sympathetically. "That's how I feel sometimes, like in the lead up to a big game or something. But babe, if you go run around the track at the speed that you can evidently now run at, the track coach is going to be hunting you down and making you join the team."

He was right. Damn him for being right. "Well do you have a better suggestion?"

"I would suggest that we go have wild kinky sex in the utility closet…"

"Troy!" Gabriella exclaimed, and glanced around to make sure no one had overheard.

"But since you have your girly problem of the month, that's not going to be an option."

"It freaks me out when you know my cycle, Bolton," Gabriella said under her breath. Her hands fell to her hips accusingly. "And what, you think that's the only reason I wouldn't do what you just suggested?"

"Well, I recall receiving a blissful blow job in one of the dressing rooms in the auditorium last month, so is it such a leap to assume wild kinky sex in the utility closet would be on the table?"

"You're not helping with the situation by talking about wild kinky sex."

Troy took her by the hand. "Come with me."

They took a detour by his locker to grab a t-shirt, and then headed for the gym. He led her around the side to the work out area. There were a few guys using the treadmills and weights. Troy led Gabriella into a small room which was off the workout area – a room with a bunch of mats, and a punching bag. He locked the door securely behind them.

"Will this work for you?"

On Sunday night/Monday morning, Buffy had been out patrolling late, and hadn't actually gone to bed until almost dawn. She hadn't been going out patrolling regularly since being in Scotland. A part of her missed it, and had loved being back out there, alone, just her and the night air and the vampires.

Back in Sunnydale when she would patrol, she would patrol until late and then only get a few hours sleep. But Buffy slept soundly for the first time in months and months. There was no logical explanation for it – maybe it was something in the New Mexican air. She felt like there was some kind of comforting presence near by – which was also illogical, because there was no one in the area that she didn't normally have around her in Scotland. She woke up around 1pm, and came out to the living area to find Xander, Giles and Dawn hard at work.

"Morning," she greeted them, dressed in her fuzzy yummy sushi pj's.

"Afternoon," Xander clarified."

"Big sleep for Buffy, good work," Dawn praised her sister.

"I never do that, do I? I feel bad, you should have woken me earlier."

"Dawn said you were out late patrolling," Giles said.

"Yeah. Quite a few vamps as well, about five," Buffy said. "Wasn't able to get any information though, none of them were particularly talky. How is the research going?"

"So so. I think after this trip to the morgue tonight, we can clarify a few of our thoughts, know for certain whether these deaths are vampire related," Giles said.

"Still planning to bring Gabriella?" Xander asked.

Buffy nodded. "I'll call her after school and make arrangements."

"Can you tell her to not bring any of her friends along?" Giles specified. "I'm all for having a support network, but we really cannot be baby sitting a bunch of teenagers."

"It is rather difficult to be stealthy with a bunch of curious adolescents lurking around with you," Xander said.

Buffy smirked. "Now you now how I felt when you and Willow used to insist upon coming patrolling with me."

Troy had never paced this much in his entire lifetime. He was currently pacing because he was annoyed. Gabriella had been relying on him heavily over the last few days. And now, she'd called him after school to inform him that Buffy had called her about the morgue trip – and that Buffy had specified no tag alongs. Hadn't Buffy requested his presence the night before? Why was he now not deemed worthy of being invited along? A part of Troy's brain couldn't help but think that after his freezing up in the very moment when he'd needed to act, that Buffy and Xander had decided he was a liability. Troy Bolton was not a liability.

It was sunset. Buffy had told Gabriella that she'd come by Gabriella's house just after sunset.

Troy knew what he had to do.

He tossed a pointy piece of wood, a jar of holy water and a cross into a backpack, along with a pocket knife, an extra jacket, a pair of binoculars and a bag of candy. He shoved his cell phone and wallet into his pockets and swiftly headed to his truck.

He immediately drove toward Gabriella's. She lived on a street with a cul de sac, so he knew that Buffy could only approach from the one direction. He drove straight past Gabriella's and parked up the street at the dead end section. He then had to wait. Wait until a foreign car pulled up.

It didn't take long, in fact it was only ten minutes later when a black SUV pulled up. Troy quickly grabbed the binoculars, noting that Xander was driving. Buffy jumped out of the back seat and examined a sheet of paper she was holding onto, and the number painted brightly on the letterbox. She went to the door and within a minute Gabriella appeared. The two young women headed down the driveway back toward the car. Gabriella was dressed in black, wearing black skinny leg jeans and a black t-shirt. After the girls got inside, the SUV promptly began to do a three point turn. Troy roared his engine into life. He was ready for action.

"So, can you explain this to me? Why we're going to the morgue?" Gabriella asked from her place in the backseat of the car.

Giles was seated in the front passenger seat, and glanced around at the newest Slayer. "We know from our studies that there is increased vampire activity in this area since the collapse of Sunnydale. We aren't certain if it is random, if its just a result of the supernatural spreading out across the nation. Or if there is something bigger at play. The first step is discovering whether the victims of these killings have been turned," he explained.

"So we go to the morgue, to firstly confirm the cause of death. We will know just from looking at the markings whether it was in fact a death at the hands of a vampire," Dawn elaborated, from her place behind Giles.

"And then we wait," Buffy said simply. "Wait and see. If the vampire did in fact turn her, then she will rise tonight."

Troy's backpack was securely over his shoulders. He was clutching to a cross. Xander had pulled over to park a few blocks away from the address Gabriella had told him earlier. Troy quickly had to pull up also, parking on the opposite side of the road. He darted across the busy street of traffic just to keep up. They were cutting through a park, why Troy had no idea. If they'd just stuck to the footpath, then he could have cut through the park and hidden among the coverage of the trees.

He trailed along behind them, darting from tree to tree. He would dash to the next tree, stand behind it, peek behind the tree and check that they were still heading in the same direction. He would then dart from the tree and to the next.

A plan that worked quite well – until Troy almost blew his cover. He trod on a tree branch which he'd failed to see on the ground, the twigs crunching beneath his sneaker. Troy winced and ducked behind the closest tree. There were a handful of other people around in the park, out running in the cool early evening air. So none of the group Troy was stalking seemed to hear him, or if they heard him, they didn't think otherwise. They emerged from the park to the footpath, across the road from the destined location. Troy paused and watched with his binoculars as Buffy gestured to Xander and Giles in one direction, and then to herself, Dawn and Gabriella in the other direction. Troy suspected that she was instructing them to check out the perimeter and each go in a different direction around the building. He quickly made the decision to follow Dawn, Gabriella and Buffy on their side, panning out wider. The morgue was on a leafy, treeish block of land, and he managed to find large tree to hide behind as the fivesome reconvened. He wanted to hear what they were saying but couldn't quite make it out. So he emerged from behind his tree to try to get a little closer.

And then Troy ever so gracefully tripped over a tree stump, stumbled and fell into a bush.

"Fuck!" Troy swore, clutching at the toe he had stubbed.

Five seconds later, he felt a hand grasping his arm. Troy glanced up sheepishly to see Buffy looking at him questioningly. "Oh good. It's you," she said sarcastically, and dragged him out from behind the bush. "Look what I found," she announced to the others.

"Troy!" Gabriella gasped quietly.

Troy gave her a small wink but then turned to look sheepishly at the others. "Err… hello all," Troy said uneasily.

"What the hell do you think you are doing lurking in the bushes near the morgue?" Buffy demanded.

"I'm uh…. Just… out for a stroll. It's a beautiful evening, isn't it?" Troy said lightly.

"Out for a stroll by the morgue?" Xander asked, raising his eyebrows.

"That's right," Troy confirmed.

"With a cross in your hand?" Dawn asked.

"Well, we learnt a lot yesterday. I will now be taking a cross with me everywhere I go. I also have a jar of holy water, a pocketknife and a stake in my backpack," Troy said, somewhat proudly.

"In your backpack? That's not very useful. If you'd been jumped, were you going to ask the vampire to wait patiently while you fished around to get your weapons out?" Buffy asked.

Troy didn't say anything, but he did sheepishly swing the backpack around to retrieve out the stake and holy water to place into his pockets. He noticed Gabriella was shivering a little.

"Are you cold? I brought you a jacket."

"You brought her a jacket? When you were just out for your stroll by yourself?" Buffy asked, rolling her eyes.

Troy opened his mouth and then closed it. "Shit."

"Oh for goodness sake, just keep up, do what you're told and don't get in the way," Giles said, rolling his eyes.

Troy grinned and pulled out the jacket to hand to Gabriella. She gratefully accepted the hoodie and zipped it up.

"I also brought candy," Troy said to her quietly.

"Oh, what kind?" Dawn asked, her interest piqued.

"Sour worms."

"Ohh I love sour candy!" Dawn exclaimed.

"Me too!" Gabriella said, smiling at the less scary of the Summers' sisters.

Gabriella spontaneously gave Troy a kiss on the cheek. "Thank you," she said softly.

"You're not mad at me for stalking you?"

"Why do you think I told you all about it? I mean… I didn't just tell you that we were going to the morgue. I said that Buffy said she would pick me up just after sunset, that they'd rented a vehicle, I told you the address. I wanted you to tag along."

"You could have just…" Troy had been about to say asked when it hit him. "You were testing me! You… you wanted to know if I was just feeling obligated or… if I really wanted to be in this with you."

Gabriella hung her head slightly, feeling a little guilty. "Maybe," she confessed. "Are you mad?"

Troy paused. "Did I pass the test?"

"With flying colours."

Another rustle sounded in the bushes nearby. Buffy stopped and held up her arm, pausing and silencing the group. She stepped out, listening hard, sensing the air around her.

"There's something out there," she said in the lightest whisper. "Wait here."

Buffy crept lightly in the direction of the sound she had heard.

And came face to face with someone who had been plaguing her dreams and her nightmares since the night of the collapse of Sunnydale.

"Buffy," Spike breathed.

"Spike," Buffy said weakly.

And Buffy fainted.

Author's Note: Pretty please with cherries on top leave a review if you're reading this, even if all you say is 'good!' Just trying to determine if people are still into this. :-) But I also welcome anything more specific than 'good' in your comments hehe. -Dani xo