"Tara? Tara, where are you going?"

Tara's hand halted on the doorknob, growing slowly numb as she realised that now she was going to have to stay in the room and deal with the situation that had arisen. Perhaps if she was able to keep everything on a stable note...

"Spike? What are you doing in here?" Willow sat up in feared surprise, yanking her hand from his as if it suddenly burned.

Nope, no hope of keeping emotions down now, Tara thought, trying not to take overt notice of the hurt expression that came over Spike's face. He masked it quickly though, falling back on his usually crassness.

"Well look, I thought you might be dying... that there might be some blood in it for me after all. I mean, it would still be warm if I got in quick enough. Warm blood, you don't know how much I miss the taste of that!"

With every word that came over of his mouth, Willow grew to look more and more horrified. Even Spike, who was saying the words, seemed unable to control the flow, and when he finally cut it off, he looked shocked at what he had said.

"I didn't mean..." he tried to appeal.

"Get out!" Willow cried, pointing her finger over at the door. "Now! You are not invited. Stay the hell away from me, okay?"

Tara opened her mouth to say something, then wondered what she could possibly say, especially seeing as how she really didn't want to keep Spike in the room any longer than necessary.

Spike cast a look across to look at her. She immediately lowered her gaze and avoided all possibility of meeting his eyes. His expression went cold, emotionless.

"Fine," he all but growled. "Not as though I wanted to stay in here any longer anyway. Got places to be, people to stalk, you know how it is."

Without waiting a moment longer, Spike stormed from the room, his trench coat flapping after him. Tara closed her eyes in a grimace as the door slammed behind him. When she opened them again, Willow looked so bereft that she couldn't help herself from saying something.

"Look, maybe it's best that he went after all. I'm sure he didn't mean those things anymore than he meant for those emotions to get out of control," she said softly, crossing the room until she was again at Willow's side.

Willow shook her head.

"That doesn't matter. We've got more important things to follow up," she said, falling back against the pillows, her face growing pale. "Call the Scoobies. Tell them to get here as fast as they can. We've got some major trouble coming up!"

*

Disorientated, Jenny walked through the somewhat familiar streets of Sunnydale. Everything was so much brighter than she remembered. So much harder. Louder than everything she recalled. Was it just being gone from this place that gave her this perspective, or had it always been thus?

She realised she had to face facts. She could remember the red head witch she had left behind two years ago, and that was hardly the kind of witch one was reasonably able to pine all her hopes on. Why, nice girl that she was, Willow hadn't even wanted to bring Buffy into it. Buffy who might have been able to help. Buffy who might have brought Giles into it.

Ah, but she remembered Giles. So much so that it hurt. Jenny couldn't remember it ever hurting where she had been before here, so why now? She had to find something that could be done about it. She wasn't meant to be here. It was no longer her time. She should be waiting somewhere to be reborn, not aimlessly walking the streets of a vampire hideout town.

Perhaps if she looked up some of the members of her gypsy tribe. Surely there were still some about? She knew that Angelus had killed some, but surely he had not been so thorough as to... but why not? He had done it before, why not again?

As moments passed, Jenny grew more and more agitated where she stood, and she realised that she knew nothing of this time, nothing of what had passed.

As she saw a car driving towards her, she realised she knew nothing of the current dangers of the world surrounding her.

*

Xander and Anya drove by on the way to Tara's somewhat urgent summons to Willow's dorm room. Apparently some witchy spell gone wrong? Xander wasn't sure, he hadn't been able to make a great deal of sense out of Tara's stutters, but all the same, he had gotten an idea that whatever it was, it was serious. He had rounded up a grumbling Anya as quickly as could be managed and the next thing they knew, they were on the road to Operation: Help Willow.

So focused on this goal was he that he didn't see a dark haired woman wondering in the middle of the street until he almost ran her over. Only Anya's hysterical cry alerted him to her presence before it was too late.

"Oh God, Xander! What were you thinking?" Anya demanded, turning a terrified but incensed glare towards him. "You could have run that poor lady over! Aren't you even going to go back and say sorry?"

Xander wiped a sweaty palm over his face and turning his head back over the chair to glance out the back window. What he saw there in that moment stunned him.

"Xander! Are you trying to run us into an accident?" Anya asked shrilly. "You know, because it isn't hard enough that I'm no longer going to live forever, you have to hasten that oncoming mortal death today?"

"I'm sorry, An," Xander murmured as he turned around, but his eyes flashed up to the rear view mirror. The woman, whoever she had been, was now gone.

Could it be a coincidence that he thought he saw Jenny Calendar just as he was on his way to an urgent wicca going wrong summons? Knowing Willow as he did, he somehow didn't think so. The thought only made his foot press down harder on the accelerator, making Anya yelp out in protest once again.

*

"Okay, I'd like to be the first to say, 'What's going on?" Xander said in Buffy and Willow's dorm room, putting one sharp finger up to emphasise his point. "One does not usually make a habit of almost running over already dead people!"

"Well, I mean, in Sunnydale..." Buffy said sheepishly, referring of course to the undead population walking around.

That deflated Xander slightly, but not for long.

"That's true. But they at least wait for night time, when you come to expect it. I mean this, this was in broad daylight!"

Xander was well on his way to being worked up again. Anya patted him twice on the shoulder, consolingly. Willow had the grace to look uncomfortable.

"Look, this is why I called you all over here." She seemed to have trouble getting the next words out on account of Giles' kind face looking into her. "I think I... somehow brought Jenny back... only now I don't know how to put her away again..."

All the room was silent for a moment. Then a moment more. And then,

"You what!?" Giles suddenly exploded, uncharacteristically the most emotive of them all. "What could you have been thinking of, you stupid girl!"

"Giles!" Buffy retorted sharply.

"Well I'm sorry, but do you have any idea the damage she might have done here? Far worse than some imbecile almost running her over-"

"Hey, I resent that!" Xander cut in.

"-She has already died once. Her time has passed. Do you have any idea what it could do to die twice?" Giles ranted.

Buffy lowered her gaze.

"No," she said bitterly. "I only know what it does to die once." She looked up at her former Watcher with narrowed eyes. "Does that count?"

"Buffy, you know that isn't what I meant," Giles said, softening slightly.

"Isn't it?" Buffy asked with a raised eyebrow. "It seems to me that more what we should be doing right now is trying to find a way to fix this. Not throw blame at one another."

Giles had the grace to look properly chastised.

"Of course. You're, you're quite right," he admitted, though all the same, he couldn't bring himself to look across at Willow who was still laying in her bed looking thoroughly miserable. "So, where do we start?"