Looking around her room, Buffy was struck by how... small it was. The slanted ceiling made it seem even smaller, but it looked like the room of a child, which, in hindsight, she realised she had been. Still was, if she was being honest, but the posters and stuffed toys and knick-knacks just didn't feel right anymore. Over the next few days she made a project of removing the old posters (which weren't that old, she'd just changed so much) and boxing up most of the stuffed toys. She kept Mr. Gordo, and a few other favourites, but most of the rest went into the basement in cardboard boxes. The bedspreads were next, and Joyce helped her pick out some more adult styles. The makeup and jewellry clutter, as well as the photos on the mirrors stayed, and her wardrobe didn't change, much. But the room felt more mature, in keeping with her new outlook.

Her reunion with Xander and Willow had been a pile of teenage exuberance and excitement. She'd had questions rained on her about the extra training her mother and Watcher had covered her absence with. Willow was interested in what she'd learned, and Xander had wanted to know what England was like. She'd deflected most of the questions with vague answers, trying not to give too much away about where she'd really been and how long it was. She wasn't ready yet to have that conversation with her friends, and since they hadn't known why she was gone, she was content to let them keep their innocence for now. She headed home as soon as she was able, citing homework she needed to catch up on.

Buffy had had the same feeling looking at her friends as she'd had when she saw her room after her year-long absence. They seemed somehow smaller, or younger, and she had a guilty pang that they no longer meshed so solidly as they once had. She hadn't actually thought about how her relationships would be affected by her absence, especially since they wouldn't have had as much time as she had to grow and learn. The things they were interested in and the worries they held close felt somehow petty and childish, making Buffy feel now that maybe she was being a bad friend for thinking that. But now that she'd had a chance to see how her life had changed, she could figure out as she went how to fit back into the rhythm of the hellmouth town she called home.

It felt like a fresh start, and honestly, as much fun as she'd had this last year, learning all she had, this was home. There was no comparison, nowhere else she'd rather be. Sure it was on top of a Hellmouth, and there was an apocalypse almost every Tuesday. But her friends lived here, and her mom was becoming a happier person away from LA, so really she couldn't complain. *Hmm.* she thought. *Something's still not quite right in here… ooh, I know!*

Almost tumbling down the stairs in her haste, Buffy galloped into the kitchen. 'Mom! Mom!'

Joyce started and dropped the pot she held back on the stove, 'Honey? What's wrong? What's going on?'

Her daughter paused in the doorway, and thought for a minute, 'Oh… um… nothing, really. But you know you said I could have that wall-rug thing you got from your aunt last Christmas?'

'It's a tapestry dear, and I thought you weren't interested?' Joyce picked up the pot again, glad nothing had spilt, and made her way to the sink to drain the spaghetti she'd been cooking.

'Yeah, one of those, but I just realised, after all the work we did on my room, it's missing something on the wall. I figured I could take another look at it maybe?' Her voice was hopeful.

Joyce smiled indulgently. 'Well of course, but why did you come rampaging through the house like a bull in a china shop just to ask me for a wall hanging?'

Toeing the linoleum sheepishly, Buffy blushed a little. 'I… think maybe I got excited. It's so good to be home, you know? I missed you this past year I've been gone.'

'Buffy… dear you were only gone for a month.' Joyce was confused. She'd been grief-stricken to find her daughter dead at her Watcher's home, but she knew how long it had been since then.

'Oh yeah. Taliesin and Ceri said it wouldn't be as long on this side. I was a whole year at Ynys Sci with them training, but Ceri said it'd only be like a month here.'

Joyce swallowed hard, starting to shake a little as everything really sunk in now that her baby was safely back home. A year. She'd known that, had heard it mentioned that more time had passed on the other side, but she hadn't a chance to process it before. Buffy had been away from her friends and family for a year. She must have been so lonely and confused. She reached out and pulled her daughter into a hug.

'Oh god, Buffy. I can't believe all you've been through.'

Her daughter smiled. 'It's alright mom. Apart from missing you guys like, all the time, it was a pretty cool place. I learned a lot about my calling while I was there. I had the greatest teachers; seriously, why can't school be that interesting? I'd never flunk a class.'

Joyce couldn't help a slight chuckle at that. Buffy did often try to see the bright side of things. She'd been like that herself, once. 'I think it's more a case of it being relevant material for you. Do you often need trigonometry to beat a demon?'

Buffy grimaced. 'Well no, and you're probably right about that. History is much more interesting with the demony bits left in.'

'No, no. The Bubonic plague wasn't fleas you nit. Or not all of it. Most new diseases are demonic in origin. There's simply no way to control a population boom of humans any other way.'

'So, what, they resort to bio-weapons?'

'Sort of. See, mutations in a virus are to be expected. But 99 times out of 100 they end up less effective than the original strain. When it changes so drastically as to become a virulent plague, chances are magic had something to do with it.'

'That doesn't make much sense. I thought demons were all "Kill all humans- Arrrgh!"'

'Sure, the stupid ones. But like humans, there are geniuses in the outliers. Just so happened that the epidemic of Black Death in Europe was the direct result of a particularly clever scion of the Parere Plaga genus.'

'Huh. The more ya know.'

Taliesin laughed condescendingly. Buffy never could tell how he'd react to anything she said. Sometimes an innocent aside would have him nodding approval. Others, an agonisingly structured and [she thought] well plotted statement would incur his scathing regard. If she could only figure him out, Buffy thought, she could avoid the embarrassment of disappointing him so often. Why his disapproval rankled was something that didn't bear thinking on, but she'd come to truly respect his opinion, much like she had with Giles back when she was alive.

Without much thought she snapped, 'It's easy for you, Merlin, you practically lived this stuff. I have to learn that everything I thought I knew was a lie. It's not like this is new information, or well, it is, but I have to make it fit with what was stuffed in my head before. I'm the Slayer dammit, I don't do alternative filing arrangements. Point me at what I need to stake and I'll dust it! I'm action girl, not study woman.'

'Ah ah ah, princess. You are far more than you claim. You feel the satisfaction of learning new things and you are much more observant that you take credit for. Did you really think I could turn you into something you are not? You have the seeds of greatness within, you just need to feed them and let them take root.' Taliesin's eyes were kind at times, though not often. Right now, they were twinkling with a mix of sympathy, mischief and exasperation. 'You know, back when I was just myself I had a similar problem to you.' Smirking, he flapped a hand at her incredulous spluttering, 'Oh not that! Freya's tits you silly child, I've got the wrong plumbing. What on Gaia's green bosom is your Watcher teaching you?'

Buffy wondered at that moment, if it was possible to make the ground to open up and swallow her if she could only will it to happen hard enough. She knew this of course, mere instants after she had made the wrong connection in her head. But he made everything so damn cryptic all the time that she twisted herself in knots trying to follow what he was teaching her. Her brain felt all stretched and floppy, like an old hair lackey, or the waistband on her favourite sleeping shorts that had finally given up any pretense of being elasticy.

Added to that she had the sneaking suspicion that he could read minds at least part of the time, and especially when he was angry or distracted. Mostly because several times over the last few months she'd caught him responding to things she'd never said out loud. It was really uncomfortable to think that he'd seen what she'd thought of him, especially in the early days, because her mother had raised her to be polite. Not that she always was, just that she was uncomfortable with the idea that he knew just how bad she could be.

'Look, Buffy. When it comes right down to it, you are capable of anything you set your mind to. Not every Slayer has the ability to process and learn from the things you take as given. The only other Slayer brought back from the brink of death went utterly mad and was put down by a branch of the Inquisition that handled actual supernatural phenomena. You are a remarkably resilient creature.'

Buffy winced a little, 'That's me alright. Nuclear holocaust or successful apocalypse, the only survivors are me and the cockroaches.'

He snorted. 'We can but hope. The nice thing about the demon essence is that over time it refines its search. There have been Slayers for thousands of years, and the subtle differences in each have changed with the needs of their environment. The First was savage and cunning, as the demons she hunted were closer to the Pure Ones that had only recently been locked away. The American slayers have tended to blend in with the general population and use misdirection and the general assumption that small and petite is weak and easily killed. Nikki Woods was a little different to that however, but that's because the demons in New York were a different kettle of piranhas.'

She goggled at him, her mouth gaping like a hooked fish. It was quite amusing, really. 'What are you talking about, demon essence? Slayers have demon essence? No… no. We're of the good, we can't have demon ick!'

'Oh for the love of …! Do you mean to tell me that they've gone back to denying your origins again? How do you think you are so strong? What about that healing factor?' It was Taliesins' turn to go slack-jawed.

Buffy shrugged, in full denial mode and on more even footing with a question to focus on. 'I never asked, and Giles took one look at me and threw out the Slayer Handbook. I pretty much figured it was a Powers thing and stopped thinking about it. There were more interesting things to do, like killing vampires. You know, my job?'

Taliesin was aghast. This … tiny gods this girl would be the absolute death of him. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed disgustedly. 'Ok, ok, I think I get it. What exactly do you know about Slayers and the whole Chosen One business? You can't have been Council raised, you're too bloody ignorant of even the basics they indoctrinate you with. Frankly, that's a mixed blessing for me.' Sighing, he turned away and beckoned her to follow him. Travelling into the stacks of the library she started to get a good idea of the amount he had to teach in the time she was there. She half expected to see mist curling off in the distance, that's how large the place seemed. And books, as far as the eye could see, stuffing the shelves to capacity. Buffy began to appreciate the sheer scope of knowledge that the man she followed had access to, and she began to worry that she'd never measure up. Even her competitive nature quailed under the weight of her mammoth task.


'One wrong move and I'll bloody tear you to shreds. Only reason I'm doin' this is because of Dru. She still loves her Daddy, for all that you were right quick to abandon us as it suited you.' Spike was just itching to lay into the Poof.

His grand-Sire sneered. 'Save it, you peroxided puppy. You couldn't take me on your best day.'

'Maybe not way back when, but I've been fightin' this last century. I'm not some green lad to knuckle under to the great foreheaded Angelus anymore.'

Angel sighed as he lit the herbs in the censer, sounding like the put-upon wanker he was. Souled up berk didn't know how good he had it. Even though she was a poor mad thing, he held all of Dru's attention. A century of one-sided devotion to an unreachable… *Bloody. Buggering. FUCK*. He laughed bitterly. *Din't that just beat all?* He'd heard somewhere that some traits were hereditary, but until now hadn't thought unrequited love of distant paramours might be one of them. And yet it changed nothing. He'd still bring down the moon and stars for Dru if he thought she wanted them.

God, he wished this were over already. Dru was cooing and wailing 'bout her buggering Daddy again, and it fair got on his tits it did. Just once he'd like to have that devotion directed his way. A hundred years, was it too bloody much to ask for a bit of affection that wasn't tainted by her vacant eyes and hollow, distracted attentions? In the wake of Angelus abandoning them, he'd taken up the slack and poured himself into caring for her. He was everything to her, father, friend, mother, lover; whatever she'd needed, he was there. Angelus waltzes in and BAM! Persona non grata and not even a fare-thee-well. God it burned.

Looking up, he watched as Angel (because apparently the soul-having meant he was a different person) waved the smoking metal ball and chanted some crap about Eligor and black medicine. It sounded like a penny-dreadful, it did. Bloody rituals. Why did everyone an' his sodding dog have to go and make it as dramatic and overwrought as possible? Like if it din't drip with dark metaphor and weird phraseology it didn't count. And who the hell was Eligor anyway? He'd never heard of the twit. Not that it mattered, Angel's recital would bore the tits off the Venus de Milo. It was like the wanker was recitin' a grocery list.

Spike yawned, his jaw cracking, as Angel came to the end of the chanting and mounted the dias. 'Get your pasty ass over here, Spike. Once I finish this, you can take Dru and leave Sunnydale. You have 24 hours to get out.'

'Or what? You'll stake me?' He snorted. 'Love to see you try mate. You couldn't even do it when I blew in last time, and you think you'll get up the stones now?'

Angel growled. 'I need you to stab this damn knife through my hand and into Dru's. If you do it the other way it won't work, and I don't have the right angle here.'

'Why din't you say so?' he leapt up the steps with glee. 'Never knew you enjoyed bein on the receiving end.'

Angel just snarled. Spike approached his Sire and her maker, wrapping a rope around their wrists to keep the hands from slipping, trying to ignore the way they were entwined already. Taking the hidden knife from the Du Lac cross in his gloved hand, he grasped their wrists with false gentleness, smirking at Angel as he did so. He set the point of the blade between the bones of his grand-sires' knuckles and started working it through the skin. 'Here's a technique you might be familiar with, gramps.'

His grand-sire winced and hissed at the burn. 'Just get on with it, boy.'

He tutted. 'Now, now. You wanted this, remember? So we do it my way this time. Yeah, it'll hurt, but don't worry,' he leered. 'I'll take it nice an slow til you're opened up proper.'

The dark-haired vampire shuddered and winced, as his own words were thrown back in his face. Spike felt a vindictive glee as he dropped the pretense and shoved the blade home. *Take that, you bloody wanker!* He stepped back to view his handiwork, enjoying the pain-filled groans. Watching the emotions playing over the brooding poofter's face was better than anything on telly, and certainly more satisfying.

'What the hell is going on here?!'

Angel looked up, and while the deer-in-the-headlights expression of his would stay with Spike forever, he was also curious about the interruption. Turning slowly, he flicked his gaze to the doors of the main hall. It had to be a Slayer. He'd recognise the expression anywhere. Made 'em all look related, way that uncanny gaze would put the wind up you. He did a double-take.

This new Slayer must have actually been related to the last one too, she was almost identical. If it weren't for the subtle differences he'd wager they were twins. This one was older, for sure. Seemed a bit taller, too, and the hair was darker. As she approached he noticed other little things about her. That walk was bloody lethal, all loose-limbed and predatory. He felt a frisson of heat as the adrenaline started flowing through his body. The tension ramped up even further. Any second now she'd explode into action, and he had to be ready to hold her off long enough for Dru to get what she needed.

'Buffy?'

Spike rolled his eyes. ''Course it's not your bloody honey, you daft twat. Did for the bint weeks ago. Din't you know?' Looking at the poleaxed expression gracing his grand-sires face yet again, he started laughing, tears starting from his eyes as he tried to speak through his paroxysms. 'Oh God, this is bloody priceless, this is! Watcher din't even tell you, did he? What, you think she went on sodding holiday? That he went back to Merry Old for a sabbatical?'

'Wow. For a guy out of the loop you got pretty close, Spike. I mean, sure, I died. But you just can't keep a good girl down, ya know?'

'Bull. You may be her sis, Slayer, but you don't even smell like her. She smelt like cotton candy and vanilla. You, pet, smell bloody delicious too, just in a very different way.'

Angel snarled at his words, starting to fight the connection to his childe. Spike didn't even spare him a glance. The ritual would hold him until Dru had what she needed.

'Ok, for the record, this weirdo vampire smelling thing is just ew. And yeah, I might have had a bumpy ride back to the living. Something about mystical mojo crap, you know how it is. Anyway, Angel, was that you I heard chanting earlier? Why were you chanting? Are you actually helping the evil bleach-head and his crazy ho-bag?'

He smiled. Admittedly, it had an angry edge to it, she'd insulted Dru after all. But the Slayer had a bit of spice to her. Obviously not Council-bred then. This could be interesting. 'Yeah, Angel, were you helpin' lil ol' me and Dru? Tsk, tsk. Evil, here. You're 'sposed to be soul-up-arse and goody-goody now, ain't it?' His saccharine grin mocked all parties. 'Now, slayer. You here to wag your finger at us like naughty toddlers, or we gonna dance?'

'Oh we can dance, you peroxided pest, but I'm gonna kick your ass. I've been in a, shall we say, accelerated learning program while I was gone.'

'Come at me then, pet. Lessee what-all you're made of.' He cocked his head at her and invited the girl to make the first move, gentleman that he was. She didn't disappoint, smoothly gliding forward, perfectly balanced, to the clear area before the pulpit. But there she waited. He bounced down the steps gleefully. This was gonna be all kinds of fun if her skills lived up to her mouth.

They began to circle each other like sharks. Top predators of their kind, sizing the other up. He feinted forward and she barely flinched. The girl returned with a short snap kick at knee-level that he danced away from with a chuckle. That ended with a 'whuff' as she quickly centred and drove the ball of her foot right below his solar-plexus. Spike flew back and landed ungracefully in a old, splintery pew. He slid along the bench for a few feet, then flipped himself over and back to his feet. Well, girl clearly knew better than to make a move that she didn't mean to connect. Time to take it up a notch.


Buffy watched the vampire flip back to his feet and narrow his eyes at her. She smirked back at him, confident of her abilities in a way that was unimaginable last year- a few weeks ago. God this would take a while to get used to. *Focus. He won't fall for that one again* She slowly moved toward him again, guard up. She needed to end this soon and take care of whatever he was doing that involved Angel and his wacky goth girl. 'So, whatcha doin' anyway? I thought vamps didn't go with the whole religion thing. Bad allergy to crosses and all that.'

'I'm bakin' a cake, luv.' He rolled his eyes and dodged a punch. 'What the soddin' hell does it look like?'

'Funny looking cake. You gonna build it around them, have a pop-out for your birthday?' Now that was a wiggy thought. What kind of cake would a vampire like? Would it be safe for human consumption, or would there be all sorts of ew like blood in the icing? She leapt over his leg-sweep, turning it into a fancy cartwheel to avoid his follow-through.

He actually stopped for a half-beat at the thought. 'Was thinkin' about it. Dunno about havin' grandpops in there though, he's a bit maudlin for a party.' Shrugging it off he came after her again, taking advantage of the glance she flicked at Angel to pop her a shiner.

Buffy shook off the sparklies that erupted from the blow. 'I think we're getting off topic here. You need to go down, and I have a stake with your name on it.'

'Aw pet, din't know you cared.' Spike leered and waggled his tongue at her. It was wigsome when he did that. It was also kinda gross, but she couldn't help feeling a little tingle at the suggestiveness of the gesture. His eyes sparkled in the light of the torches, a shade of grey-blue that hovered between ice and azure, nearly glowing with vitality. Buffy frowned, sternly reminding her brain about all the things wrong with the guy. Top of her list was him managing to kill her. She wouldn't realise until later that her almost-boyfriend being in the same room didn't even factor in.

They fell into almost a pattern. If she didn't have to keep avoiding his strikes, and if he was a little less with the 'gonna kill you'-ness, she would almost say it was the dance he had called it at the start. It was certainly a lot more fun when she had the skills to match, if not best him. In fact, if it weren't for him knocking her into the wall, which dislodged a torch into the pile of dust-covers in the corner, she could have happily 'danced' all night. Alas, all things come to an end, and with Angel downed by Spike after leaping into the middle of their fight (why, she didn't know, she wasn't in any danger after all) and the fire growing with no way of combating it, Buffy pulled the plug. Threatening to go after Dru made Spike beat a hasty retreat, though not without one last smoldering glance that promised a 'later'. She dragged Angel's inert form from under the wreckage of the organ, and carried him to safety outside. As she fled the scene, the fire service was just pulling up to the conflagration.