Spike was positively seething.
His lower half was still buried under crumpled sheets as he propped his skull against the headboard, straining to hear the sound of Charlie's boots clopping back towards the room. But the mansion only provided him with the soundtrack of absolute silence, crisp and unwelcome in his ears. When she returned he'd… he'd...
"Fuck," he snarled.
The previous night, by all accounts, should have gone completely pear shaped. Hell, it could've gone dust-mound shaped, given the stench of unease and distrust that rolled off Charlie like a heavy perfume. After the slayer's ridiculous name had accidentally gone cartwheeling off his tongue, Spike had admitted everything he knew. Well, not everything. But a lot. Enough. Alright, just the parts about how well he knew the slayer and her misfits, but the point was that he'd put himself at risk. He'd opened his desperate mouth and confessed to Charlie that there was a distinct possibility that he'd been involved with the Scooby group, and it wasn't just his own memories that Bleakgrave had wiped speckless. It was probably theirs too.
And to his surprise, she had seemed to accept his admission without much hesitation. Sure, she'd asked a few questions, had gotten a little worked up over the fact that he hadn't mentioned it sooner. But he'd played it off as though his Scooby-flavored recollections were a late breaking occurrence, and it appeared that she was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Spike went to sleep feeling both virtuous and relieved, gladdened that in the morning they could begin trying to sort out who he was.
Which was precisely why he was not expecting to wake up chained to the sodding bed frame.
Though Spike refused to give her any brownie points for it, Charlie had left a note on a giant sheet of memo paper, taped to his left manacle like some kind of hospital bracelet for a nearsighted convict. "Sorry," it read, "Back soon." The gesture did nothing more than torment his imagination as to where she'd gotten off to. Probably went to get the stake-wielding mob of slayer associates so they could shove him through the wringer again. Frustrated, Spike yanked at the chains until the bed frame started to bend and his wrists began to chafe, and then thought better of it. He had nowhere to go, and he wasn't about to leave her behind.
And so he sat, sulking and picking at the chipped black polish on his fingernails, waiting for her to return. With every minute that went by, he became more resentful. After an hour, he was furious. He would've expected the treatment from Rupert or Buffy, or that codswallop Xander. Not her. Never her.
Eventually he heard the scraping noise of the foyer window opening, shockingly harsh in the stillness of the rest of the house. A few more rage-inducing moments passed before she finally shoved aside the drapes and entered the room, a hefty plastic shopping bag looped over one of her arms. For several long seconds, all Spike could do was stare at her; at the creased jeans and rumpled lavender t-shirt, the slender hands that were twisting with the jittery nervousness that only came with over-caffeinating.
The aroma of sizzling grease tangled in the air with the candied scent of maple syrup, and it became clear to Spike that she'd been camped out in a diner, no doubt trying to keep her energy from plunging to rock bottom. Shuddering, he wondered just how many mugs of over-boiled coffee she would've had to chug down to appear that restless. Vampire metabolism burned up human food and drink like a crematory incinerator, hot and intensely fast. If she was still feeling the effects after a stroll back to the mansion...
Of course, Spike had meant to be glaring at her the whole time he was thinking those things, not sitting there gawking like some worried, lovesick sod. Not that she'd even noticed him looking at all.
Anxious exhaustion reigned on her face, with misery as its second in command, and when she finally met his eyes, he watched her soft lips press into a firm, decisive line. He could almost see the human girl she used to be slip away, evicted by the vampire that would do anything to strike at Bleakgrave. That was her end game, he reminded himself. She wasn't swinging down the bell-rope to give him sanctuary because she actually cared about him.
"You're up," she said guardedly, seeming to want a reaction from him before she said anything more. And her tone was just blunt enough to piss Spike off all over again.
"No, not up. Point in fact, seem to be rather chained down. Don't really like bein' shackled to the furniture," he growled, giving her an angry, salacious leer, "'Less I'm stark-naked and plowin' into a ripe little-"
"-Really don't need the visual."
"Where the bloody hell have you been?" he demanded.
"Let me boil this down for you, Mr. Kink-a-rama," she said, voice as sharp as the teeth that were beginning to peek past her lips. "You're a vampire. You're hungry. You needed the sleep, and the last thing I need right now is to have to clean up an undead breakfast special because I didn't take precautions before I ran some errands. Hence your restraints."
Admittedly, she did have a point. Spike's stomach was rumbling like the Hellmouth, and had she not been there, his curiosity and appetite might have turned to exploring what the local cuisine had to offer. Provided he could find a way around that vexsome sunshine allergy, of course. But the crux of the matter was that she'd fettered him and left, as though he had no more worth than an undisciplined mutt, and it stung his ego something fierce.
She brandished a key from a back pocket and began treading carefully towards him, tensed as if she'd flee if he so much as twitched his forefinger. Spike went preternaturally still while she fit the key into the first latch, her bright green eyes locking with his once more before she twisted it. "If you want my trust, I suggest you let me know the next time the bells in your head start ringing. Agreed?"
"Bells, head. Got it," he grumbled reluctantly.
"And as to where I was," she said, unhinging one of his manacles, then the other, "I was getting something you'll want."
Spike rubbed at his liberated wrists. "Didn't know you could pick up basic courtesy at the local five-and-dime. Sell trial-sized versions, do they?"
"No, but if I see a little patience and understanding the next time I'm there, I'll be sure to fill the entire shopping cart for you," she retorted, but Spike was glad to see that she at least looked somewhat guilty. Her face made a subtle shift back to human, and she dipped a hand into her shopping bag to withdraw a clear plastic sac, labeled AB negative in boldface type. The liquid inside it was deep crimson and still radiating cold from whatever medical fridge she'd taken it from.
"Can't heat it, but it'll help you heal faster than with animal blood," she said, offering it to him. "This is a one time thing, though. It's Meat Market's finest from here on out. Breathe a word of this to anyone and it's the last meal you'll get. Ever."
He reached out to grasp the floppy bag, letting his own cool fingers stretch over hers before her hand jerked away and she was off to do some task, as far away from the bed as she could manage. With a silent curse, Spike turned his sights back to his new-gotten fare and examined it gingerly. Turning the bag back and forth in his palms, he watched the air bubbles inside sway with the changes in orientation. Human blood. The prime rib of plasma. Felt like there should be more formalities taken, like served in a silver goblet or a hollow, neck-shaped construction of chocolate and panna cotta if it couldn't be from the living, breathing source.
But given that there were no gilded chalices or master pastry chefs lurking about, nor was there so much as a dirty shotglass kicking around the room, Spike did the only thing that seemed appropriate. He raised the packet to his mouth, nicked the square corner of it with a pointed canine and sucked the blood onto his tongue. It streamed down his throat in a thick, heavenly deluge. Even chilled and tasting slightly of plastic and anti-coagulants, it was the most delectable thing he could remember tasting, and he moaned in loud appreciation.
Midway through a second groan of contentment, he noticed that Charlie was watching him with a expression of mild amusement. "Whatff?" he asked, barely taking his lips off the bag.
"Are you drinking that or impregnating it? The women's clinic doesn't do housecalls."
Christ, she was mouthy.
With a wicked gleam in his eye, he began to tongue the hole he'd made in the bag with explicit, lingering strokes, keeping his unfaltering gaze secured on her face. She watched him stoically for a moment, as though she were trying to prove something to herself, before a tiny shiver gave up her game of indifference. He stopped long enough to grin at her, and she scowled and turned around, shoving her hands into one of her open dresser drawers like there was a cash prize hidden at the bottom.
So maybe she wasn't writhing in pleasure underneath him yet, but Spike was sure he could easily keep her off balance, keep a handful of dirty little thoughts churning in her mind. Maybe he wouldn't have to wait too long for her to come around.
Once he'd drained the bag, Spike ripped the plastic open so he could lick the dregs off the inside, then stuffed the remnants into a bucket that was serving as the room's wastebasket. His entire body hummed with vitality, and he was sure that the tickling itch in his damaged skin meant that it was rapidly knitting itself back together. Hunger abated and mood vastly improved, Spike stood and stretched his muscles languidly.
"So now what? We hunker down and hash over how to snuff out Bleaks for good? Got a coupla' merry notions involvin' sledge hammers and railroad spikes."
"That's the general idea," she said, rolling a hair elastic onto her wrist and glancing at him once, as if to make sure his tongue was back where it was supposed to be. She shut the dresser drawer and then slowly made her way towards the doorway. "We're meeting up with the gang, so it's over the hills and through the streets, to a decrepit hotel we go."
"Takin' my two cents then? Good." Spike peered over at the boarded-up windows, noticing that there was still a bit of daylight leaking through the cracks. "Suppose you meant to say under the hills and through the sewers?"
"A thousand sewage-filled buckets of nope. I've filled my quota for the day." She tossed him his coat and side stepped the drapes into the hallway. "Come on, we're getting some fresh air."
Running around in the daytime was a real treat.
The routine probably had it's own chapter in a self-harm book entitled Seven Habits of Thoroughly Extinct Vampires, Spike decided. Sure, it might have been one of those rare, grey Sunnydale afternoons, where between the low afternoon sun and haze of clouds, they were able to set out for the motor inn with only the occasional need of awnings and trees for cover. But playing peek-a-boo roulette with the sunshine wasn't a quirk that he planned on adding to his traveling repertoire, no matter how often Charlie resorted to it. The top of his hand was still blistering from a split second of not paying attention to where he was walking.
And speaking of things on fire...
Spike patted his leather coat and withdrew a mashed cigarette out from one of the breast pockets. He molded the paper into a poor, lumpy imitation of its original form and stuck it between his lips, searing the end with a lick of flame from the zippo he'd found.
Beside him, Charlie arched an eyebrow. "What, you smoke now? Where'd you even get those?"
"Was a handful in the duster," he replied, releasing a puff of smoke into the breeze. "Calms the nerves a bit. Gonna be a problem, Charlie Girl?"
Her mouth quirked a little. "You know those things will kill you, right?"
Spike smiled at her joke, reveling in that impish smirk of hers, small as it was. In the filtered daylight, he found himself caught up in all the trivial details, his gaze flitting from lips, to speckled nose, to dark frill of lashes that looked as soft and thick as kitten fur. Her hair was wrapped into a simple twist at the nape of her neck, and she was still toting around that heavy shopping bag she'd had earlier.
Then Spike realized he'd been staring too long, and she was beginning to gravitate towards the far edge of the sidewalk. "What's that, then?" he asked, hoping to divert her attention. He inclined his head curiously towards her bag. It had the aroma of human cuisine, but then again, so did she.
"Bribery," she sighed.
"Bribery smells an awful lot like hash browns."
"And hash browns smell like my long-lost humanity. Actually, they're from the Sunnydale Diner, so they're probably evil potatoes that make you think of terrible things," she said, glaring at the triple load of styrofoam inside. "Sinister spuds."
"Yeah, I'm sure starch is real high up on Sunnyhell's most dangerous list," Spike snorted. "You need to stop thinkin' so much 'bout your way back when, pet. Tune it out for a while, you'll feel better for it."
"Says the guy that can't remember his way back anything. No wonder you're adjusting to being undead so quickly."
"Thought I was human when I stumbled into Watcher's abode," he reminded her. "Not sayin' that findin' out wasn't a bit of a curve ball."
"So what's your secret?" she asked. "How are you tolerating it so easily?"
"The trick? The thing that worked like a bloody talisman?" He leaned in close enough that he could've licked the tantalizing little dip just below her ear if he wanted to. And god help him, he wanted to. "I got over it."
"Yeah, well I don't really get over things," she huffed, ducking away from him. "I sort of... puddle underneath them like spilled apple juice and dry into a permanently sticky residue."
"Noticed," Spike muttered, as she walked on ahead of him. It was almost unbearable. He wanted to nibble along her jawline, chase her thoughts away with lips and tongue and teeth. His fingers ached to twist themselves through her hair. He wanted to shove her into the shadowy alleyway they were passing, rip apart the pretty cotton panties he knew she was wearing, bury his face between her thighs. He wanted in a way that no amount of human blood, no wank in a cold shower could sate, and he wasn't sure if she'd fuck him or just fucking kill him if he acted on his impulses.
"Hey... I think that's the motor inn," Charlie said, interrupting his thoughts. She slowed her pace and pointed to a long, squat building a short ways up the street. A stuttering neon sign in front of it promised vacancies and a pool, which seemed more of a threat than a tempting offer given the building's outward appearance.
Spike's eyes roamed over the motel's bushes, which had grown into wild, crashing sprays of green foliage, and the condensation from the multitude of window air conditioners that tinted lines down the building's facade like the tear stains of tenants past. Even the parking lot was more rubble than solid pavement. "Well," he quipped, "always wondered what underneath the bottom of the barrel looked like."
"Now you know. And they say that knowing is half the battle," she reasoned. "Hopefully the other half involves a bulldozer and a wrecking ball."
Side by side, they drew near the glassed-in manager's office, where a man in a grubby, sleeveless shirt lounged in front of a cork board that was jam-packed with room keys. His hand was grounded in a bowl of peppermints, and he was riveted to a sporting event on an ancient, black and white television set. As they ambled past, the man turned up the volume of the game, presumably to drown out the noise of the telephone that was ringing by his elbow.
Charlie looked impressed. "Wow. He's really putting some effort into this neglect thing."
"Yeah, it's bloody commendable," Spike said, halting at the first stairwell and peering at the directory plaque. "Which room is the slayer bunked up in?"
"Lucky number thirteen."
"Straight ahead then."
They traipsed along the cement walkway, passing all the lower number units until they reached the slayer's room at the very end of the building. The window blinds were drawn tight, and Charlie waited until a maid had rolled her cart by before she gave the door a tentative knock. Spike took a last pull from his cigarette and sent it flying towards room twelve.
"Who's there?" A tired, masculine voice called from within.
"It's Charlie."
The door was thrown open and Giles ushered both the vampires inside, cautiously glancing back and forth outside before shutting it again. The rest of the gang was already there, with books cracked, notebooks open, and sitting in one of those touchy-feely group circles on the dingy olive carpet. Most of them looked up, observing the newcomers with uncomfortable, embarrassed silence, as though vampires had been the topic of discussion just moments before.
Determined to play it as cool and aloof as he could, Spike paid them no mind and sat himself at the end of one of the unmade double beds. He studied the peeling wallpaper, eyes drifting to the framed painting of barking English Setters that dangled in the middle of the wall, as though the room was some sort of hunting retreat for the down and out. Clearly, the crumbling, stinking eyesore of a mansion was preferable. By a long shot.
"It's got kind of a post-crime-scene Bates Motel sorta feel," Xander said, catching Charlie's identical grimace as she stood by the doorway. "But the shower curtain doesn't look all stabbed, and the guy who runs the place is named Larry, so I think we'll be okay."
"I didn't see mummy dearest in the check-in office," Charlie agreed. "Not that the manager would notice with his eyeballs glued to the local sports channel."
"Yeah, it's weird times. Our old high school team is close to becoming state football champions. That hasn't happened since… ever."
Buffy groaned. "Don't remind me. Dawn's so upset that she has to stay out of town. If they win and she misses the championship celebration, I will never hear the end of it."
"On the bright side, if Bleakgrave kills us all, you won't have to hear any of it," Xander told her.
Willow smacked him on the arm. "Pipe down, Silver Lining Guy."
The smalltalk didn't seem to alleviate much of the tension in Charlie's posture, but Spike noticed that she at least stopped looking like she wanted to bolt out the door at the first available opportunity. Her fingers tightened around the handle of her bag and she closed the distance to the group, plunking the boxes of food in the middle of their circle.
"And to what do we owe the Mount Everest pile of takeout?" the slayer asked, looking mildly startled by the syrup-splattered container in front of her. "Not that I'm complaining…"
"I don't want our issues getting in the way of dealing with Bleakgrave," Charlie explained tersely, handing out the plasticware and flattened paper plates that had been jammed in the bottom of the bag. "I haven't been the easiest person to be around lately, but I know that we need to work as a team if we want to take him down. So for now, I'd like to bury the hatchet."
"In someone's ribcage or did you mean that proverbially? 'Cause your face still kinda says ribs…" Xander pointed out.
"Sorry. Still working on that."
The slayer nodded, "Good." Her eyes widened at the heaps of biscuits, potatoes, and scrambled eggs that Tara had uncovered.
"Ooo!" Willow exclaimed, opening the last box. "And you got waffles! I like 'em cause they're just like pancakes but with abdominals." She gave Charlie a happy grin, and the vampire returned it with a subdued but genuine smile.
"So how's Amneso-vamp today?" Buffy asked, shoveling a helping of eggs onto her plate and directing her attention to Spike. "Remember anything?"
About to take a bite of fried potatoes, Xander paused and did a double-take at the top of Spike's head. "Wow. Are we sure it's amnesia and not peroxide poisoning?"
"You know, he's quite attractive now, without all the mud and ashes, and the large injury that was leaking blood all over Giles's couch…" Anya decided. She leaned back on her hands, and her eyes slid over him, lingering not-so-subtlety between where his thumbs were tucked into his front jean pockets.
Charlie barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes. "Yeah, well, maybe he's born with it, maybe it's hygiene. There've been some… developments, actually."
Giles pulled a wooden chair out from a desk for Charlie and settled himself in a lumpy, plaid recliner. "Indeed? Do tell."
"He knows us. All of us," Charlie said carefully, sitting down. "And he thinks it might be a little more complicated than just his memory missing."
"How so?"
Spike braced himself for the big reveal, and hoped to the unholy saint of wayward vampires that he wouldn't be dusted for it. "Know all of you like we spent a few years in the slayer's version of Stakeward Bound, the unedible journey," he replied. "Doesn't make a lick of sense, 'less Bleaks ripped it all out from under us."
"So you think we were friends?" Willow asked him, glancing at Buffy. The dubious look that passed between the two girls spoke volumes.
Spike turned the thought of friendship over in his head. He didn't harbor many positive feelings about any of them, aside from Charlie. Teen Witch and her girlfriend were mostly alright in his book, but everyone else seemed to be a source of major irritation. Friends? No, definitely not friends.
"Somethin' like that," Spike replied noncommittally.
"I'm not buying it. Bleakgrave might be powerful, but he can't just erase pieces of everyone's memory with the snap of his fingers," Angel protested. He looked to Giles for reassurance. "He can't, right?"
Giles removed his glasses and rubbed his face. "I.. I- I'm not sure. It doesn't seem likely. At least, I've never read of a magician or warlock being able to perform such a spell on merely a whim. But while it may seem impossible, the impossible has a habit of occurring rather frequently in Sunnydale."
"So why don't we just let the vamp put the impossible where his mouth is? If you know us so well, then tell us, Chlorox, who are we?" Xander challenged.
Impulsively, Spike wanted to lay the truth on them with the brutality of a backhoe dumping mud into a mass grave. But as was his wont of the past two days, self preservation was the thing that kept him from completely unleashing his mouth.
"Goldilocks is the slayer. Giles is her watcher," Spike recited. "The rest of you whitehats stick 'round like limpets, protectin' babies and group hugs or what-have-you from the Big Bads and evils of the world."
"I don't think that confirms anything." Willow was frowning, running her finger back and forth on the metal spine of a notebook. "All you'd have to know is that Buffy's the slayer, and you could figure out the rest with some very basic deductive reasoning," she pointed out.
Spike leered at her. "Know you had the hots for Harris at one point."
The witch's cheeks could've replaced the flags at a bullfight.
"I think the vampire's lying!" Anya cried, before anyone else could verbally respond. "He's a lying liar. That never happened and even if it did it wouldn't have meant anything but it it didn't. Happen, that is. Liar."
"I'm tellin' you, I was part of this soddin' circle!" Spike objected.
"If you can't prove it, you're useless," Angel scoffed, reaching for a book on European occult that was lying crookedly near his foot. "Personally, I think you're a waste of time."
Spike could actually hear the noise his self-control made as it snapped in half.
"Fine, let's start with you, Peaches. You're the big strappin' hero, used to go by the name of Angelus. You've got that perpetual knitted brow, an unreasonable quantity of white tank tops, an' you get sexually aroused by misery and self denial... I'd tell you more, but I'd be bored." Spike tilted his head towards Buffy. "Though I am wonderin' 'bout this new development between you and the slayer. Thought that Titanic pulled out of port years ago."
"Not that it's any of your business, but we're not together. And actually, I really don't think we need to hear any more of this…" Buffy was gripping her plastic fork so hard that her knuckles were turning white.
"No, this is actually hilar-… very important," Xander insisted. He grinned at Spike. "Do Giles."
Spike shrugged and stood, circling around the group like a shark going in for the kill. "Watcher can be found lurkin' in the back of the Magic Box, tenderly strokin' the Pergamum Codex and longin' for the days when he had an actual purpose. What's it been, Rupes? A year since the wanker's council threw you the axe?" Giles was giving him a look so squinty that Spike wondered if the man's neurons were exploding.
"You have the Codex?" Anya asked, directing her query at an increasingly indignant Giles. "Why isn't on the shelf where the customers can get to it?"
The watcher stuffed half a biscuit into his mouth.
"And then we've got Demon Girl," Spike drawled. "Got booted out of Vengeance Club, didn't you? No one ever really knows what you're blatherin' on about, and I'd wager you dry-hump the cashbox when the store's locked up."
At first, Anya looked as though she might protest, but instead she merely shrugged like the description was accurate and didn't bother her in the least. Her boyfriend, however, took offense. "On second thought, you can be done now," Xander demanded, aiming a belligerent stink-eye at Spike.
"No, no," the watcher contradicted, taking a moment to slather a thick coating of raspberry jam onto the second half of his biscuit. "I agree with your previous statement that this is extremely important." Giles raised his eyebrows at Spike. "I don't suppose you have thoughts on Xan… anyone else?"
Spike smirked at the older man's pettiness. So typical. "Oh, well, Harris is practically defined by his lack of real talent. There was that one time he joined the tin soldiers on a mojo-infested All Hallow's Eve, which sadly for him, was as short-lived as every one of his employment opportunities. It's the only bit of usefulness that he can dip into, and boy, is the well startin' to run dry."
Xander's eyes burned like twin coals, smoldering with the fires of deep animosity. "I'll have you know, there are plenty of things that I bring to this group."
"Yeah. Pepperoni and double cheese, is it?"
"Are you finished?" Charlie asked. Her hand had crept up to cover half her face, as though she had just witnessed a horrific and extremely fatal traffic accident. Idly, Spike wondered if she was merely concerned for her friends' feelings, or if her worry was more directed towards his fate. It had grown very quiet in the motel room, except for the clamor of six heartbeats that were galloping like a pack of angry kungai demons.
"Maybe," Spike looked from watcher to slayer to Scoobies, "Anyone else feelin' unconvinced?"
"I feel like staking you if you keep talking. Does that count?" Buffy asked sweetly, her voice like strawberry wine laced with cyanide.
"I think what she means is that you said a lot of hostile, rude, accurate things, and we don't need to hear any more," Anya clarified.
"Brilliant," Spike said, flashing a grin at Charlie. Her hand returned to her lap, but she didn't look any less unsettled. "Yeah, I'm done."
The silence festered in the room for a few moments before Angel spoke up. "Fine, so I guess we're assuming that he is somehow connected to us, though I'm starting to think that Bleakgrave actually did us a favor. But we still have no idea how or why this happened."
"As wiggsome as the whole idea of someone pulling a Nixon editing job on our memories is, I think it's more important that we figure out what Bleakgrave is planning," Buffy suggested. "It's been All Quiet on the Warlock Front for the past few days, but we know he's planning something big, and whatever it is, it's happening tomorrow."
"So, what do you know, Bleach Boy?" Xander asked, folding his arms across his chest and narrowing his eyes at Spike. "What are Bleakgrave's big, evil plans?"
Spike cleared his throat and sat back down on the bed. Finally, they were beginning to break through that wall of distrust. "Well, 'fore I left, that bloke Hodges told me to look out for the… what's-it-called… oh, yeah, the Pluto Personnel."
Unblinking, the Scoobies stared at Spike. Spike stared back at them.
"And? Who are they?" the slayer asked impatiently.
"Don't know. Got all noisy at the palace, and then little Jeeves went sprintin' off like he had a nasty case of the backdoor trots."
"That's everything you have?" Buffy's jaw went stiff. "One name? Is there another part to that, like a copy of Bleakgrave's evil plan playbook or a location or some way to defeat him?"
"Hey! I was a tad too busy gettin' my innards roasted to play Harriet the bloody spy, Slayer," Spike declared. "One name is better than the great towerin' piles of nothin' you've got."
"What could they be?" Tara wondered aloud. Spike noticed that she'd torn half her paper plate into a pile of white confetti. Wasn't a good sign when the witches were nervous. "And why would they c-call themselves the Pluto Personnel?"
"Maybe Evil Cartoon Dog Workforce didn't fit on the ID cards," Willow suggested lightly, giving her girlfriend's hand a comforting squeeze.
"You think Disney's behind this?" Anya asked, her expression darkening. "Those bastards."
Out of the corner of Spike's eye, he could see that the watcher had turned into a fidgeting bundle of nerves. The man kept glancing at the door, his fingers squeezing the cuff of his discarded jacket like he was about to snatch it up and run off.
"Uh-oh, Giles," Buffy said, also noticing the watcher's agitation. "What's that look? I know that look. That's not a look I like."
"It's just that the name sounds very familiar. Tip of my tongue, really. I think I might have a reference or two back at my apartment…" Giles stood abruptly, resolutely sliding his arms into his jacket sleeves.
"Should someone go with-" she began.
"No, everyone should stay here. I shan't be more than an hour."
Worry flickered over the slayer's face, but whatever her concerns were, she seemed resigned to listen to her watcher. "What should we do while you're getting your books?"
"Try to figure out who he is, I suppose," Giles replied, gesturing in Spike's direction. "There must be a good reason why Bleakgrave erased his existence. Perhaps he knew too much?"
"I'll say," Willow muttered.
The man ran a hand through his disheveled hair. "Come up with some theories while I'm gone, and I'll be back as quickly as I can."
"Be careful, Giles," Buffy said quietly.
The watcher nodded once, gave them all a tight smile, and then he was gone.
Within forty-five minutes, there were two notebook pages crammed with theories, three emptied take-out containers, and one slayer who looked ready to stab the next person who made a questionable hypothesis. Spike warily eyed the pencil she was holding. It wasn't particularly sharp, but it was wooden, and certainly capable of piercing a ventricle or two if she put enough force behind it. He scooted himself a few inches further away from her, just to be safe.
"I'm throwing in the towel," Buffy said glumly, slumping forward and pressing her hands against her cheeks. "And my future as a private eye. This isn't working."
"Sure it is," Willow encouraged her. "We just need to keep generating ideas, and eventually we'll get to one that... ya know… sounds plausible."
Buffy shook her head and dropped her pencil. Spike casually reached over and rolled it out of her reach. "We're not anywhere near plausible," she moaned. "We're not even within driving distance. We're a hundred miles outside the country of plausible surrounded by barbed wire fences and strict, armed plausible border patrol."
Anya held up the spiral notebook they'd been using, her eyes darting back and forth as she studied the list. "Well some of these… aren't too bad."
The slayer snatched it out of the ex-vengeance demon's hands and began reading the first page aloud. "Brainwashed Billy Idol impersonator. Rogue watcher. Too-old foreign exchange student who went to the wrong house party. Giles's hot nephew." She let the notebook flop into her lap. "I rest my case."
"What about mine?" Spike asked, noticing that she'd crossed it out.
"You're not the lead singer of the Ramones."
"Don't know that," he argued. "Bleaks could've replaced me with some cheap impostor. Not like any of you would know the difference with the rot you listen to."
Charlie leaned over Buffy's shoulder. "Well, your handwriting looks like a failed sobriety test, so it's more likely that you were a doct-"
Charlie fell quiet and everyone looked up at the sound of the room key turning in the lock, watching with alarm as a flustered watcher came barreling through the door. He had an old tome cradled in his arms, as though it were some leathery, rectangular newborn. Spike assumed it was basically the same thing, so far as Rupert was concerned.
"Giles?" Willow asked, her eyes widening. "Are you alright?"
"Yes… no, not exactly. No, none of us are alright," the man said breathlessly, shutting the door behind him.
"What do you m-"
"-It's not the Pluto Personnel," the watcher interrupted. He placed the book on the desk, and wiped a shaking hand over his sweaty brow. "It's Pluto's Parallel. And believe me when I say that we are in a trouble worse than we've ever known before."