Rose was puzzled by the summons to Gunn's office. She had absolutely no idea why he would want to see her. But Wesley had sent her on her way, and here she was. She didn't know Gunn as well as the others, and somehow, it didn't feel right, just ghosting through the door to his office like she would anyone else's. And he wasn't quite important enough to rate his own secretary. She considered the possibilities of knocking. That was one area where Spike had exceeded her in ghostly talents. She could affect air currents, and ape human mannerisms so well, that it looked like she was actually touching someone. If Spike could do it, she told herself sternly, surely you should be able to. After all, you've been doing it longer than he did. Concentrating fiercely, she balled up her fist and struck the door. And watched in dismay as her hand went right through it. She was about to give it one more try when the door opened.

"Come in and take a seat, Rose," Gunn said with a smile. He'd just happened to look up in time to see her hand come through his door. "You know, when your boyfriend was in your shoes, he wouldn't have bothered with knocking."

"I usually don't," Rose admitted. "But..," she stopped cold, not knowing how to put it without the risk of hurting his feelings.

"You worked for Wes, you stayed at Angel's place, you've lived with Spike, and you have that woman thing going with Fred," Gunn filled in. "Not to mention the fact that Lorne practically worships the ground you walk on. It's cool, Rose, I understand. You and I haven't really had the opportunity to get to know each other." The smile broadened. "Just remember who it was that rescued you from that spider."

"Is that why you wanted to see me?" Rose asked. "To get to know me?" Somehow she'd thought he was more professional than to waste company time that way.

Gunn shook his head. "Wish I could," he replied. "Actually, I'm trying to get to know Daria McBride, and you and Spike are the only people here that we know have been around her when she wasn't putting on a show. So, I thought I'd talk to the two of you and see what I could shake loose. The more I know about Daria, the better I can do at creating a client profile that will impress her."

"I see," Rose said dubiously. "I really didn't see all that much of her. I was stuck in one room most of the time I was there." She thought a minute. "She likes hurting people."

"Did you just see it, or did she try it on you?" Gunn asked. For the life of him, he couldn't figure out how you could hurt a ghost. If it was possible, there'd been a couple of times when he really would have liked to lay one on Spike.

"Well, she couldn't hurt me directly," Rose murmured. "I mean, not physically. But she found ways to.., get to me."

"Through Spike." Gunn stated quietly, and mentally kicked himself for not seeing that one coming. "We don't have to go into that if you don't want to, Rose. If it makes you uncomfortable, move on to something else."

"She thinks she has everything because she has money," Rose remarked, happy to leave the painful subject of how Daria had tormented her, behind. "She seems to think that money is the key to everything, and she can't or won't understand just how much she's missing out on."

"So a client with a similar lack of values might appeal to her?" the lawyer suggested.

"It might," Rose conceded. "She also has an.., appreciation for masculine beauty."

"You mean that she thought Spike was hot," Gunn elaborated. "What in the hell has that guy got?"

That made Rose smile. "I don't think I could explain it to you."

&&&&&&&

Spike walked into Gunn's office without knocking, and sat down without being invited to. "The Watcher said you wanted to see me," he announced. "So here I am."

"Your girlfriend at least tried to knock," Gunn remarked. "Nice manners, Blondie Bear."

Spike flipped him off for the 'Blondie Bear', before the first bit registered. "What were you doing with Rose?" he asked suspiciously.

"Same thing I'm gonna do with you," Gunn informed him. "Which is to ask you to tell me all that you can about Daria McBride."

"You mean you weren't..," Spike left the question dangle, a little embarrassed now that he'd even started to ask.

"One, and no offense, sport, but your girlfriend's not all there, literally," Gunn pointed out. "Two, I may be good, or at least I was until I started spending so much time behind a desk, but even so, I wouldn't try to be moving in on a vampire's action. I may be some dumb, but I'm not plumb dumb." He leaned back in his chair.

Spike laughed at that one. "Didn't mean to make a complete ass of myself," he half-way apologized. "But I have trouble believing that every bloke that sees her doesn't find her as fascinating as I do."

"Sounds like the man's got it bad," Gunn remarked to no one. He turned back to Spike. "But I think everybody in this damn law firm knows that. So do you think we could get down to business now?"

"Not a lot I can tell," Spike replied. "Didn't see a whole lot of the bitch, and even then, I was mostly concentrating on Rose. You might say we didn't have much in the way of conversation."

Gunn got a calculating look on his face. "She hit on you?" he asked.

"Yeah," muttered Spike. "But I didn't take it personal. She was trying to get at Rose every time she tried something on."

"So it happened more than once?" he prompted.

"Damn near every time she was within arm's length of me," Spike confirmed. "Grabby little bint. If I didn't know better, I'd have thought she was warm for my luscious form."

Gunn fought back the urge to gag. "You sure that scoring on Rose was the only reason?" Spike started to glower, so he decided to move on. "Rose said she likes to hurt people, but she didn't elaborate. Could you?"

"She gets off on it," Spike stated. "I think she near about went over the edge a coupla times when she was having at me with that cattle prod."

"That is just so sick," Gunn muttered. "I guess I'll have to talk to the company shrink to find out what causes that."

"Listen, you nit," Spike said. "It's not that hard. If you can hurt someone, you've got power over them. Get it? It's a power trip, nothing more or less."

"And Rose said that she was into money," Gunn mused. "She comes off like some kind of classy lady, then you find out she's just another money-grubbing power freak."

"Who also happens to be a multi-dimensional bounty hunter," Spike added. "The only other thing I can think of is that she's got a mean right hook." He rubbed his jaw at the memory. "Okay, so it was only a slap, but it damn near knocked me over, chair and all."

"I'll try not to piss her off," Gunn remarked. "At least not unless it's at a distance."

&&&&&&

Rose had taken a break from the researching and was standing quietly by, watching Fred and Knox assembling the robot. So far, it was just a stainless steel skeleton with a complex array of wires and computer boards tucked away inside it. She wanted to ask questions, but she didn't want to disturb the work. When Fred looked up to find a tool she needed, though, she spotted the specter.

"Hi, Rose. Want to come in for a closer look?" she asked.

"If I won't be in your way, Fred," Rose replied. "It looks very.., complicated."

"Well in this case, the looks aren't deceiving," Fred remarked. "The more human you want a robot to act, the more there is that has to go into it."

"Isn't that the truth?" Knox spoke up. He looked at the clock. "You worked me through lunch again, boss lady. You said you weren't going to do that anymore." He grinned at her to let her know he was teasing. "What say I go and grab us both a sandwich or something?" Without waiting for Fred to answer, he ambled out.

"I did interrupt," Rose said guiltily. "Fred, you should have asked me to leave."

"Oh don't be silly," Fred scolded gently. "Sometimes people can use an interruption. Like me," she admitted. "I get really interested in what I'm doing, and I kind of tend to forget that the human body needs food sometimes."

"Been there, done that," Rose quipped. "Try remembering when you've spent forever without a body, then having to learn all the details from scratch and in a hurry."

"No thanks," Fred demurred. "I've got plenty to keep me busy as it is. So, what do you think of what we've got so far?"

"It's awfully big," Rose murmured. "Is it necessary to make it that large? I mean, do you need the space for all your electronic stuff?"

"Well, not quite that much room," the self-admitted science geek replied. "But I thought the idea was to make it impressive."

"I'm not sure that sheer size will impress Daria," Rose muttered, half to herself. She shook herself out of her reverie. "But, you've already gotten it this far. I don't suppose you could change it now without going to a lot of trouble."

"Some trouble," Fred conceded. "But why do you think that a big, muscular man wouldn't impress her?"

"Just one of those odd, random thoughts," Rose said lightly. As she started to disappear, Fred thought she heard the phantom mumble, "She seemed impressed enough by Spike."

&&&&&&&

Since she'd been gone so long, Rose decided that it wouldn't hurt to be a little bit longer. She wanted to take a peek in at Lorne. In fact, she felt a little guilty, not dropping by to see him more often, remembering how he had taken care of her when she'd been ill. A grin tugged at the corners of her mouth as she recalled the demon spoon-feeding her with Spike nearby making unhelpful comments. She went invisible and slipped into the Pylean's office.

Uh-oh, a bad time. Lorne was doing the emergency screenings. She couldn't interrupt him now, this was important, it was to help put Daria McBride in her place. Maybe she could come back at the end of the day. She was sure that Lorne would be ready to see a friendly face by then.

&&&&&&&

"Angel." Harmony's voice came hissing over the intercom in a stage whisper. "That McBride woman is on the phone."

"Put the call through, Harmony," Angel ordered, wondering why on earth the bounty hunter would be calling. Surely she must know that she wasn't on their exclusive client list any more. He picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"Hey there, tall, dark and broody," Daria replied. "Listen, you won the round, so why don't you call off the surveillance? It's cramping my style and making me cranky. When I get cranky, people suffer for it."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Angel snapped. "There is no surveillance on you. At least none from Wolfram and Hart."

"Like I'm supposed to believe that," Daria growled back. "Don't say I didn't warn you when your people come back in body bags."

"I don't give a rat's ass what you do or don't believe," Angel stated. "But I did not order continued surveillance on you. I called it off after we got our people back. Maybe," he suggested, "it's a dissatisfied customer. I'm sure you must have had those before."

"I was being nice and warning you first, this time." Daria's voice sounded pouty. "Why don't we just let bygones be bygones?"

"You threaten to kill people that you think work for me," Angel started. "And, in fact, you already have killed people who worked here. Not to mention imprisoning two of my people. What makes you think I'm going to forgive and forget something like that?"

"You're not a very gracious winner," she sulked. "But, if that's the way you're going to be, that's the way you're going to be. Ta-ta."

Angel hung up the phone and just stared at it for a minute. For the life of him he couldn't figure out just what the bounty hunter was playing at, but he was sure she hadn't called for the purposes of burying the hatchet. Unless of course, it was to bury it in someone's back.

&&&&&&&

Daria hung up and turned to a bespectacled man surrounded by electronic equipment. "Did you get enough?" she demanded. "Because I'm about ready to get sick just from talking nice to that damned snooty vampire."

"I think I got enough to gauge his voice patterns," the technician replied. "Just give me a few hours to sort through the tones and inflections, then, I'll need to know what you want said, so that I can match the voice and message."

Daria looked out at the mid-afternoon sky. "Here's the message," she said, thrusting a piece of paper at him. "If I don't have that message taped and ready to go by tomorrow, you're going to be missing some body parts that you're very fond of."

"Not to worry, Ms. McBride." The technician gulped nervously. "I'll have your message in a usable form by then."

&&&&&&&

The day was nearly over. Rose asked Wesley to call Spike and let him know that she might be a little late arriving at Angel's apartment. She thought it might be overly cautious of her, but seeing as how she'd abandoned him the previous night, she didn't want him to worry that she was going to do it again. Then, she went back to see how Lorne was doing.

&&&&&&&

Lorne had his head down, rubbing his throbbing temples. Today was one of those days when he couldn't believe just how petty some people were. The obnoxious little visions that had been visited on him had only been rivaled by the number of sour notes that had fallen on his sensitive ears.

Rose saw the demon hunched over his desk and felt sorry for her sweet, green friend. Sometimes she thought that Lorne must have the hardest job at Wolfram and Hart, but no one ever saw it because they didn't seem to take the job seriously. They took Lorne seriously, but she wondered if they realized just how much it took out of the Pylean. She popped into place behind him, and started concentrating for all she was worth. And this time, perhaps because she cared, she came through. She started rubbing the taut muscles in the back of his neck.

"Mmm, god that feels wonderful," muttered Lorne, just closing his eyes and enjoying it, and not even stopping to think that he hadn't seen anyone enter the office. "Whoever you are, I think I'm in love."

Rose started to say something, but it was just taxing enough to her focus that she lost it, and her hands went plunging through the demon.

Lorne saw the dainty pair of feminine hands suddenly sprout from his chest. "Rosebud?" he queried. "Was that you, sugarplum?"

"Yes, it was me," Rose confessed, walking around to where he could see her. "Sorry about the interruption, but I can't seem to talk and concentrate at the same time.

"Too bad," Lorne replied. "Because I was just thinking that if you could do that and sing to me at the same time, I'd probably be off to sleep like a baby in no time." He finally remembered to be surprised that she was there. "What brings you to my little slice of heaven, lambkin?"

"I just realized that I hadn't seen much of you lately," Rose answered. "You've been my friend almost right from the start, Lorne, and I felt badly because I've been neglecting you."

"Honeybunch, you've only been back a few days," the demon pointed out. "And we've all been busy as bees trying to sort this whole business out. You don't need to be going out of your way for me."

"And you didn't have to go out of your way for me either," Rose remarked. "But you did anyway. You took care of me and fussed over me and worried about me. So, 'Uncle Lorne' I guess you're just going to have to deal with it."

Lorne threw his hands up in the air. "I surrender doll-baby," he answered with a chuckle. "Does Spike know just how lucky he is to have you?"

"I try to remind him from time to time," she said lightly. "But I'm afraid that if I'm much later, he's going to start climbing the walls. I just wanted to see you and say hello." With the ease of practice, she leaned over and brushed ghostly lips across his cheek, then disappeared.

&&&&&&&&

Okay, so it was only about fifteen minutes or so, Spike thought. And she had had Percy call to say that she'd be late. Nothing at all to worry about. Except that he did. Why'n hell did she have to run whatever little errand was taking her away tonight after depriving him of her company last night? He was almost starting to get the aggrieved (and mistaken), feeling that he wasn't as high on Rose's list of priorities as she was on his. Then, there was a vague distortion in the middle of the room, and Rose shimmered into view, giving him the smile she reserved for him alone, and it was all he could do to remember that he couldn't sweep her up in his arms.