Disclaimer: Not mine! Not mine! Not mine! Not mine! Not mine! Not mine! Not mine! Not mine! Not mine! Not mine! Not mine! Get the message?

A/N: Sooooo sorry this is late, but you know, school work and all. And then FF Net wouldn't let me upload this for the last two days! Grrr. Anyway, I'm on holiday now, with three weeks of nothing to do! Which means, loads of updates!!!

**********

Buffy drilled her fingers against the table impatiently as she waited for Spike to come back.

"Spike! Hurry up!"

"I'm coming, luv. Don't get your knickers in a twist!"

Buffy frowned as Spike walked towards her, carrying a large tray of food. "What does that mean, anyway? Don't get your knickers in a twist. You British people say the weirdest things."

"At least it's not as bad as some of the things you Americans say. Do you have to abbreviate *everything*? And don't even get me started on the spelling."

Spike flopped down next to her, and propped the tray on his lap. "You're the one who wanted popcorn so desperately, anyway." He frowned and looked at the TV screen, which was paused at the start of the episode. "So, what are we watching today, pet."

Buffy grabbed the box from the table, and studied it closely. "Erm, some episode called 'Smashed'."

"What's it about?"

"Dunno." She thought for a moment, her forehead crinkling. "The last episode we watched was what happened just before we got attacked by that Mohra demon, so maybe it'll be about that."

She reached for the remote, pressed play, then snuggled closer to Spike to get some popcorn.

It only took a moment for her to realise something was wrong. This, she didn't remember. Sure, she rescued a lot of people in alleys, but she hadn't dealt with a mugging in God knows how long. She glanced over at Spike, and saw that he looked about as confused as she felt.

"Spike," she said tentatively, "do you remember this?"

"No," he said quietly, frowning.

"Then how come we're watching this then?"

When Spike didn't reply, she thought hard, trying to figure it out. After a few minutes, a sudden idea came to her.

"I've got it!" she said triumphantly. "Anya said that the people in this other dimension see our future. So, maybe this stuff hasn't happened yet. Maybe it's what's gonna happen next."

"Do you think we should still watch it, luv," Spike asked.

"Hell yeh! Do you think I'm gonna stop watching just cos Anya gave me some stupid warning about 'the dangers of messing'? It'll be fun. Plus it'll give me a heads up about all the demons, which means I'll be able to save a lot of lives. And I won't have to research any more, also a plus. And, you know. . ."

Spike put a finger to her lips, silencing her. "Buffy, you don't need to try and convince me. I wanna watch em as much as you do. Just wanted to make sure you weren't gonna blame when it all went wrong."

Buffy blushed slightly, then snuggled back up against Spike. "Okay, good."

On the screen, a person was falling from the roof of some museum place, all connected with wires and wearing a strange black suit. It took Buffy a moment to realise it was Andrew.

"Oh my God! Those geeks are so lame!"

"That's why they're known as 'The Geeks', pet."

Buffy stuck her tongue out at him. "Okay, smarty pants. I was just saying."

She frowned as she watched them use a blowtorch to melt the glass of one of the cases, so they could get the diamond inside.

"Hey, stealing a diamond! Now we're talking!" Buffy said with a grin. "Cos, you know, exploding lint and time warps, not rating highly on the evil meter."

"What are you doing here?"

"Oh no!" Buffy said, sitting up suddenly. "What if they hurt that security guard?"

Spike just raised an eyebrow at her.

"Okay, maybe not."

She stared in disbelief as she saw them pull out some kind of weird. . . thing, and point it at the guard. A few seconds later, the guard was ice.

"A freeze ray?" she commented, disgusted. "And now we're back to the lameness again."

*******

"Well, well, well. Look who decided to show up."

"What are you doing here, Spike?"

"So, you're going to go back to hating my guts soon enough, right, Slayer?"

Buffy shook her head, eyes fixed on the screen.

"Uh, you know, as long as we're both here, you might as well tag along. I mean, as a team we could."

"Yeah, that never really ends well, does it?"

"It did the other night."

*Yeah,* Buffy thought with a grin. *It really did.*

"Stop walking away."

"Don't touch me!"

Buffy cringed as she saw herself punch Spike in the jaw. She cringed more, however, when Spike punched her right back. That was going to smart in the morning. As was Spike's chip, any moment now. She waited, expecting him to cry out in pain. Any moment now.

The on-screen Spike seemed to notice that it hadn't gone off too, and pretended to be in pain before Buffy noticed. She saw herself backhand him, sending him falling to the ground, apparently oblivious to his chip failure. Then, she marched off, leaving Spike to grin evilly.

Buffy turned to glance at Spike, and saw him staring at the screen with conflicting emotions on his face. He seemed half confused, half relieved, half overjoyed, half. . . That was too many halves, Buffy corrected herself, as she wondered what TV Spike, and real Spike, were going to do with this discovery.

"Look at all the goodies."

She watched, wide-eyed, as Spike followed a women into an alley, and started to intimidate her.

"Oh my God!" Buffy said, jumping as far away from Spike as she possibly could. "What are you doing?"

"Buffy. . ."

"I thought you were 'changed'! How can you be changed if the first thing you do when you find your chip has stopped working is attack somebody?"

"Buffy, you do realise none of this has happened yet?"

"Yeah, but it's gonna happen, isn't it! God! I can't believe yo. . ." She cut herself off suddenly when Spike lunged for the girl's neck. She stared, transfixed at the screen as Spike screamed in chip-induced pain, and fell back into a dumpster.

"What the hell is going on?"

*Good question,* Buffy thought.

*******

Buffy watched the rest of the episode in silence. She was still mad at Spike for trying to hurt that girl, but he didn't see to be particularly dangerous now. What was worrying her was how come he could hurt her, but no- one else.

She looked at the screen to see herself bumping in to Spike in some dark alley, and Spike being even more cocky than usual with her. She guessed it had something to do with the fact that he knew he could hurt her. She also guessed he was about to make a point.

She saw herself hit Spike hard in the face, and him turn around and hit her back. Okay, so he definitely was going to make a point.

"Oh the pain, the pain, is gone."

"How?"

"You came back wrong."

Buffy stared at the screen in disbelief for the second time that evening. How? How had she come back wrong? If she hadn't seen the earlier scenes she would've sworn Spike was making it up. But she knew he wasn't.

"It's a trick. You did something to the chip. It's a trick."

"It's no trick. It's not me, it's you."

Buffy shook her head, tears forming under her eyes. She refused to let them fall. She didn't want to seem weak. Lots of her friends were part demon, or ex-demon, or something like that. There was nothing wrong with being demon. But if that was true, why was she so upset?

"Look, pet, I'm sorry. . ."

"Shut up!" Buffy was shocked by the harshness of her tone, but it had just come out naturally. She was fuming at Spike at that moment. If it wasn't for him, she'd have never found out about this. This was all his fault!

She watched as she jumped Spike, knocking him into an old derelict building. She couldn't help thinking that that had to be a bad idea. Fights in abandoned buildings never ended well.

"Poor little lost girl. She doesn't fit in anywhere. She's got no-one to love."

"Me? I'm lost? Look at you, you idiot. Poor Spikey. Can't be a human, can't be vampire. Where the hell do you fit in?"

This fight was getting seriously serious. Everything in the house was getting smashed to bits. Even the walls were starting to crumble. Buffy cringed as Spike smashed into the fireplace. Ouch. That had to hurt.

*******

After a few more minutes of watching Willow hanging out with Amy, which, quite frankly, Buffy really didn't care about, it cut back to her fight with Spike. She was pinned against the stairs, and Spike was holding her up, laughing in her face.

"I wasn't planning on hurting you, much."

"You haven't even come close to hurting me."

"Afraid to give me a chance?"

"What, are you afraid I'm gonna. . ."

Buffy jumped as she saw herself lean forward and kiss Spike so forcefully the wall started cracking behind them.

"That was a change of mood, luv."

Buffy watched intently as her and Spike continued to kiss, and then there were, umm, 'sound effects' and then they sort of started moving against each other and. . .

"Wait a minute! This was on TV?!"

"What do you mean, pet?"

"I mean, people were watching this! What, are they all perverts or something?"

Buffy watched as they continued, well, moving, and noticed that she looked pretty happy.

"You know, I'm looking forward to this now."

"Why pet?"

"It looks gooood."

Spike smirked at her.

"You're very strange, luv."

Suddenly they both fell backwards, breaking the floor, and falling through into the basement. Buffy kept staring at the screen as the credits started to roll.

"Look, pet, I'm sorry about the whole 'trying to kill someone' thing."

"Don't worry about it," Buffy said with a grin. "It looks like you more than made up for it!"

"And I'm sorry for saying you came back wrong."

"It doesn't matter. I don't care," Buffy said firmly, though she was crying inside. She didn't want to be a demon. She didn't want to be a zombie. She just wanted to be Buffy.

"Do you want to watch the next one?" *******

A/N: So that was the VERY overdue chapter. Sorry if it sucked a little bit, but it was *extremely* hard to write. Hence me taking a little late night 5 hour break to write something else. = ) (*hint* *hint* my new fic Helpless *hint* *hint*) Please R/R, and I'll have the next chapter out by Monday!