Thank you for reading! Just FYI, this story was updated both last week and the week before during FF's email alert issue, so you may not have seen those chapter alerts.


They were set up in the cafeteria, waiting for the Mayor and his team to bring Willow. Oz could barely control his need to do something. His Willow was out there, possibly hurt, almost certainly scared, and he could do nothing to help her but wait here and hope the Mayor wasn't feeling whimsical.

He and Xander checked the side doors, making sure they were locked; no one was coming in or out except through the front. No one trusted the Mayor—or Faith—to play by the rules.

"The whole place is locked down," he said, "except for the front."

"Yeah, gives me that comforting trapped feeling," Xander muttered.

Oz got it—he didn't like the feeling that for all that no one could come in, they couldn't get out much either.

"One way out means one way in," Buffy said. She was pissed, Oz could tell—she had her "don't mess with me, I kill things for a living" face on. "I want to see him coming," she added.

Then the lights went out. The Mayor didn't want them to see him coming, apparently.

"I guess they're shy," Xander said.

Angel, looking grim as always, observed, "I can see all right."

The rest of them looked around, wanting to be certain there were no surprises coming up behind them. And then the front doors opened, a pair of vamps holding them while Mayor Wilkins walked in. Like some kind of royalty, which Oz guessed was how he thought of himself. Behind him came Faith, dragging Willow. She had a knife at Willow's throat, but otherwise Willow appeared unhurt. Oz let out a breath he hadn't even been aware he was holding.

The Mayor's party stopped, and then the Mayor and Buffy both stepped forward into the middle of the room.

Suddenly, the Mayor grinned. "Well, this is exciting, isn't it?" He chuckled. "Clandestine meetings by dark of night, exchange of prisoners … I just, I feel like we should all be wearing trench coats."

At another time, Oz might have appreciated a big bad with a sense of whimsy, but not with a knife held against Willow's white skin, a knife that could slip at any moment.

Buffy wasn't feeling it, either. "Let her go," she said flatly.

Wilkins lost his good humor. "No." There was a collective increase in tension. And then he added, "Not until the box is in my hands." He looked down at Buffy with interest. "So you're the little girl that's been causing me all this trouble." After a moment's thought, his gaze moved past Buffy. "She's pretty, Angel. Little skinny. I still don't understand why it couldn't work out with you and my Faith. Guess you kinda just have strange taste in women."

Stone-faced, Angel responded, "Yeah, well, what can I say? I like 'em sane."

In response, Faith jerked Willow's head back, pressing harder with the knife, and Willow moaned in pain.

"Angel," Oz said, keeping his voice low. He felt as though if he didn't, the wolf would howl, and that was not what anyone needed right now.

Faith eased off. Oz could sense Giles moving, readying himself, just in case. Giles loved Willow, too, as Oz and Buffy and Xander did. He wouldn't see her hurt if he could do anything about it. Not that that would help if Faith decided to take her revenge on Buffy through Willow.

Mayor Wilkins went on as if he hadn't noticed any of it. Maybe he hadn't; his focus appeared to be completely on Buffy and Angel. "Well, I wish you kids the best, I really do, but, uh, if you don't mind a bit of fatherly advice, I, uh, I just … don't see much of a future for you two. I don't sense a lasting relationship. And not just because I plan to kill the both of you, but you got a bumpy road ahead." He shook his head, looking as paternal as he claimed to be.

Buffy, who only tolerated anything approaching paternal from Giles, and then only occasionally, said, "I don't think we need to talk about this."

With another chuckle, as if he found her delightful, the Mayor went on, "God, you kids, you know, you don't like to think about the future, you don't like to make plans …" His tone changed, more serious, and Oz could see for the first time the man who intended to become a demon. "But unless you want Faith to gut your friend like a sea bass, you'll show a little respect for your elders."

"You're not my elder," Angel retorted. "I got a lot of years on you."

"Yeah, and that's just one of the things you're gonna have to deal with. You're immortal; she's not. It's not easy. I married my Edna Mae in '03 and I was with her right until the end. Not a pretty picture. Wrinkled, and senile, and cursing me for my youth … Wasn't our happiest time."

The room was silent. At another time, Oz would have felt sympathy for Buffy, attacked here in her most vulnerable place, the place where she had no defenses, by someone who had actually been where she most wanted to go—into the future of a love between an immortal man and a very mortal woman. Right now, though, all he could see was Willow, and all he could feel was the need to go get her, a need that grew stronger every moment, despite his sure knowledge that if he moved, Faith would kill her, and do it with a smile on her face.

"And let's not forget the fact that any moment of true happiness will turn you evil," the Mayor pointed out. "I mean, come on. What kind of a life can you offer her? I don't see a lot of Sunday picnics in the offing. I see you skulking in the shadows, hiding from the sun. She's a blossoming young girl, and you want to keep her from the life she should have until it's passed her by. And by God, I think that's a little selfish."

As he spoke, the Mayor had passed by Buffy, close enough to brush her arm as he passed, and ended practically nose-to-nose with Angel. To Oz, it seemed a sign of how close to the bone his words cut that neither of them had tried to break his arm.

Angel had no response, his face closed off, his eyes dark and shuttered, and Wilkins finished quietly, his final shot: "Is that what you came back from Hell for? Is that your greater purpose?"

The vampire's eyes were burning in his white face, but he made no response. Neither did anyone else. Oz felt for them, he did, but his eyes were on Faith, and that knife, and Willow, locked frozen in the moment, waiting for Wilkins' order.

The Mayor shook his head, and in a tone that dripped contempt, he said, "Make the trade."

People moved, then, as he stepped aside. Angel lifted the box from the table as Faith and Willow moved into the center of the room. Faith shoved Willow at Buffy, who held her arms out for her friend. Whatever she felt about this evening, Buffy remembered why they were there, and who they were there for. Sheathing her knife, Faith took the box from Angel. Buffy pushed Willow back to safety, and Oz stepped in front of her, making sure no one could come at her again, not without having to go through him first.

Wilkins stopped to study the box. His hands were still in his pockets. To the best of Oz's recollection, his hands had never left his pocket. Sunnydale's mayor was a very odd man. "Well, that went smooth—" he was saying, as the doors burst open and Snyder walked in, accompanied by two police officers.

"Nobody moves!" Snyder said.

Everyone turned their head toward him. Oz couldn't help but wonder if Snyder would still have a job tomorrow, after interrupting the Mayor's important business.

As the Mayor stepped back into the shadows, Snyder approached Buffy and Faith, who still held the box. "I knew you kids were up to something."

One of the policemen locked the main doors and stood in front of them.

"Snyder, get out of here," Buffy said.

"You're not giving orders, young lady. I suppose you're going to tell me I won't find drugs in this box." He reached out and took it from Faith's arms, handing it to the policeman behind him.

Faith drew her knife, and Buffy reached out to catch the other Slayer's arm. "Wait!"

At that point, the Mayor stepped out of the shadows. "Principal Snyder."

Snyder turned, shocked first by the Mayor's voice and second by the sight of Faith's big knife.

Wilkins continued, "I think we have a problem."

"Mr. Mayor. I had no idea you were –" The principal's eyes were on the knife. He drew them away at last to look up at Wilkins. "I'm terribly sorry."

"No, it's I who should apologize. Coming down here at night—what must you be thinking?" Wilkins gave a smile and a little chuckle, back to everybody's aw, shucks down home regular Joe. "But you see, I just needed to—uh, no! Don't do that!" he said, his voice loud and alarmed.

The policeman holding the box had opened it and was looking inside. Before he could respond to the Mayor's voice, a gigantic black spider was on his face, and the box was falling, the lid still open. The policeman fell, too, dead almost before he hit the ground, and the spider climbed off his face and skittered away. Everyone stood silent, waiting to see where it had gone.

"Oh, God," Wesley said, making his presence known for the first time.

"Where'd it go?" Xander asked, his spiked club raised and ready to strike.

Snyder hissed at the remaining policeman, "Get that door open!"

"No!" Giles shouted. "You can't let that thing out of here!"

The policeman was fumbling with his keys; they dropped to the floor with a clatter.

Oz kept Willow behind him, moving her back away from the box and, hopefully, out of harm's way.

"I still want to know where it went," Xander said, looking around his feet.

"Listen," Buffy whispered, and they all heard its unearthly shriek, just before it dropped from the ceiling and landed directly on Mayor Wilkins' face.

"Boss!" Faith hurried to his side, yanking the thing off him.

The box had been left where it had fallen, the lid still ajar, and another of the creatures hopped out, its claws tapping on the linoleum. Faith threw the one in her hand across the room, and it landed against a heating vent and disappeared into the darkness. Wesley and Giles both climbed up on chairs, poised to strike if they saw it, while Wilkins struggled to rise to a sitting position, shaking his head. The marks of the creature disappeared even as he did so. Snyder, watching this, stepped backward with a look of horrified disgust on his face.

So, Oz speculated, the principal didn't know about Sunnydale, or at least, not all about it. Poor guy—hard enough to do that job with full knowledge, but fumbling around in the dark, metaphorically speaking? That must suck.

"I wouldn't leave that open," Wilkins said, staring at the box.

Buffy got to it and slammed down the lid just in time to prevent a third one from coming out, the lid slicing off the tips of two of its legs in the process. Then one of the first two landed on her back. She immediately fell over backward, pinning it underneath her. As Angel helped her to her feet, they could all see she had squashed it.

The last one finally made an appearance, climbing up the wall behind Wesley. Faith turned and hurled her knife at it, even as Wesley cried out in fear and cowered, thinking she was throwing it at him. The knife skewered the creature firmly to the wall.

Finished with all this nonsense, Wilkins crossed the room and picked up the box. The policeman finally found his keys and got the doors unlocked.

"Is that all of them?" Oz asked.

"Uh … not really. You see, there's about, uh, fifty billion of these happy little critters in here. Would you like to see?" Wilkins asked.

The policeman shoved his way through the doors and was long gone. Oz put good odds on him quitting his job and leaving Sunnydale at the first convenient opportunity. The Mayor's vamps followed him, and he put new odds on the policeman not making it through the night.

The Mayor, still holding the box, said to Buffy, "Raise your hand if you're invulnerable." He raised the lid half an inch.

Everyone believed he was telling the truth, no one wanted to test him or anger him further and have more of those spiders to deal with.

Satisfied that he'd made his point, he let the lid fall again. "Faith? Let's go."

Faith cast a glance over her shoulder at her knife, still pinned to the wall, and didn't move.

The Mayor stopped in the doorway. "Faith." And he left.

Faith looked at him and back at the knife again, and finally decided she wasn't going to be able to get to it. She followed him through the doors.

The principal, standing there clutching a chair to his chest, as if that would have saved him, watched her go.

"Snyder," Buffy said, "you alive in there?"

He turned back to look at her, his eyes wide with shock. "You. All of you. Why couldn't you be dealing drugs like normal people?"

When there was no answer to his question, he left, too, still holding the chair.

Once he had disappeared and they were alone again, Buffy climbed up and pulled Faith's knife out of the wall, letting the creature fall to the floor.

Still standing on a chair, Wesley said, "Well, that went swimmingly."

Buffy looked at the knife in her hand, and then up at Willow. "We did all right."