Disclaimer: "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" and all its characters are property of Joss Whedon, 20th Century Fox, Mutant Enemy and the UPN Network.

Summary: Things have been going just a little too well lately so there must be something wrong.

Spoilers: Up to and including "The Gift".

Distribution: If you want it, here it is, come and get it.  But you better hurry 'cause it's going fast.  Oh yeah, and let me know.

Feedback: I encourage it greatly if you want me to continue.  (Blackmail?  Me?  Never!)

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PART VI

EXPLAINING THE EXPLANATION PART I

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"Are we in trouble now?" Buffy asked sheepishly, knowing that in the badly deteriorating shape she was in there was little she could do to ward off any danger.

"Actually…-" Lucy began, but she was immediately cut off by Giles.

"Let's see," the watcher said.  "We have the very devil himself right here, inside my apartment and all we have to put up as opposition is a middle-aged magic shop owner, a construction worker and a slayer so brittle that standing too close to an air-conditioning vent could be fatal to her.  We couldn't even start a Village People cover band like this, much less do any real fighting."  He paused for a moment in the aftermath of this somewhat uncharacteristic rant, and then drew his conclusion.  "Yes, I think this qualifies as trouble."

"Just a…-"  It was Bill this time.  But he quickly learned that it is very hard to get a word in when your interlocutors are bordering on mass hysteria.

"Oh, man," Xander whined.  "And my day was going so well.  No hangover.  No work."

"Speak for yourself," Buffy retorted.

"And now the world is going to end.  And the most exotic place I've ever seen is Oxnard!  I've never even been to the Bahamas where bikini-clad beauties would feed me Margaritas."

"Could we…-"  Bill wasn't for giving up easily, but he was still not able to capture people's attention.

"Bikini-clad beauties don't feed you Margaritas in the Bahamas," Giles was too busy explaining to pay any heed to the one named Bill Z. Bubb.  "It's all just an illusion they keep up for advertising purposes.  I know that for a fact, I've been there.  They also don't feed you Mai Tais or Milkshakes or Martinis or other types of drinks that don't start with the letter 'm'."

"I never much cared for Martinis or Milkshakes," Buffy commented.  "But I'm quite fond of Manhattans and Mind Erasers."

"I like sex on the beach myself," Xander threw in.

"Not me," Giles mused.  "I can't drink Vodka anymore.  Had too much of it in my youth."

"I wasn't talking about drinks," Xander clarified, "but have it your way."

Bill and Lucy had momentarily set aside trying to speak and had taken up doing some open-mouthed gaping.  They felt it better illustrated their utter disbelief at the conversation that they were witnessing.  They were certain that, if at some day in the future they were going to tell their grandkids about this, the younger ones would start crying and call for their mommies and the older ones would walk off shaking their heads and commenting on how grandma and grandpa had gone all weird.

And so Lucy Fehr decided it was time to take action.  "HELLO!" she shouted in a voice so loud it would have made a heavy metal vocalist (or Robin Leach) turn green with envy.

This finally got the attention of the three humans.  They stopped arguing about which drinks starting with the letter 'm' bikini-clad beauties in the Bahamas would or would not feed you (and sex on the beach) and turned to look at Lucy.

Lucy turned back her volume to normal speaking levels and asked: "Is this a bad time?  Should we maybe come back later?"

"Would you?" Giles ventured.

"No," said Lucy.  "I just thought it would get your attention."

"Can we please explain why we're here now?" Bill pleaded.

"What?  You are going to give away your unbelievably diabolical plan to take over the world to us before you kill us?" Xnader inquired.  "That is very James Bond of you."

"We don't have an unbelievably diabolical plan to take over the world," Bill explained.

"So you come here to fight us and you don't even have an unbelievably diabolical plan to take over the world?" Buffy wondered.  "That's pretty shoddy plotting considering you are the very devil himself."  She paused for a moment.  "Or herself?  Which one of you is the devil anyway?"

"Well, we're kind of a team," Bill explained.

"We're married," Lucy added.

"How quaint," Giles commented.

"And we're not here to fight you, we're here to help you.  Not that corpse girl over there could really put up much of a fight."

Giles, Buffy and Xander looked at each other in a very confused manner.  Then they looked at Bill and Lucy, also in a very confused manner.  Then they looked back at each other in a manner no less confused than the last time they were looking at each other.  Or something.

"Let me explain," said Lucy.

"Please do," the three confused ones replied.

"Me and Bill are what you people refer to as 'The Devil'," Lucy Fehr began.  "We run what you know as 'Hell'."

"So far you're not telling us anything earth-shatteringly new," Buffy commented.

"Please shut up," Lucy scolded her, and shut up Buffy did.  "Our job, in the grand scheme of things, amounts to that of running a prison.  Souls of people who have been evil are sent to us to receive their just punishment.  We ourselves are not evil, that was all just a misunderstanding that can be ascribed to some bloody awful PR.  We actually have some very strict guidelines that forbid us to get directly involved in human affairs."

The undead vampire slayer and her two helpers nodded dumbly at the information they were receiving, still not understanding where any of this was going.

"Which leads me to explaining why exactly Bill and I are here: we decided to get directly involved in human affairs."

"Aha!" Buffy announced.  There followed a brief silence during which all persons assembled looked at the slayer expectantly.

"What?" Bill finally asked.

"Nothing," Buffy replied sheepishly.  "I just thought it would be a good moment to say it."

"Now I lost my train of thought," Lucy complained.  "Where was I again?"

"You decided to get directly involved in human affairs," Giles suggested helpfully.  "Which, by the way, you just explained to us you are forbidden to do."

"Yes, thank you."  Lucy paused for a moment or two to sort out in her head how she was going to explain the present situation.  After realizing she was unable to she decided to just go for broke and see what happened.  "I'll start at the beginning."

"That's usually a good place to start," Xander commented.

"Indeed," Giles agreed.  "I always try to start at the beginning myself."

"What did I say about interrupting me?" Lucy fumed as she was slowly turning the same hue of red as her hair.

"Ooh, I know," exclaimed Buffy quickly raising her hand, which made another one of her fingers fly off.  "We're not supposed to do it," she announced with a satisfied grin.  "And you are turning so red that your head is starting to look like radicchio so I'm just gonna shut up now."

"Thank you," Lucy replied through clenched teeth, trying to calm herself down.

"Radicchio?" Xander whispered to Buffy.

"The salad section at the store is on the way to the Mac'n Cheese," the slayer whispered back.

"Can I continue now?" Lucy asked.

The three humans thought better than to open their mouths and just nodded dumbly.

"It all started when dad turned himself into a duck," Lucy explained.  "Then accounting took over and buggered this place to hell."  Maybe explaining things wouldn't be so hard after all, Lucy thought with a satisfied smirk.

Xander, Buffy and Giles decided that it was now their turn to attempt some open-mouthed gaping.  They thought it to be very appropriate at this point in the conversation.

Seeing their reaction Lucy quickly lost her self-confidence.  "What?" she asked.  "Was any of this unclear?"

"Made perfect sense to me," Bill interjected helpfully.

"Which part did you not understand?"

"Well," Xander answered, "That part in the beginning with the duck."

"And that thing about accounting in the middle," Buffy continued.

"And also the bit about the buggering in the end," Giles concluded.

This provoked a rather exasperated look from Lucy and she turned to Bill who just shrugged his shoulders in response.

"Look, this is giving my half-decayed brain a half-decayed headache," Buffy broke in.  "Can't we just fight instead and call it a day?"

"What is it with you and fighting, for dad's sake?" Lucy asked further adding to her exasperation.

"Well," Buffy replied sheepishly, "It's kinda what I do.  And I'd rather fight in the state that I am in than try and make sense of what you just said."

"For the last time," Bill explained slowly, "We are not here to fight you.  We will not engage in any kind of physical combat with you, not now, not tomorrow, not ever."  Before thinking better of it he added, "What do you think we are?  Evil?!"

"Well… yes," Giles replied.  "We kind of expected you to be evil."

"And red," Xander said.  "We expected you to be evil and red.  With horns and a tail."

"And naked," Buffy added.

Bill just shook his head.  "You kids watch too many cartoons.  Thing is, we're not.  Evil that it is.  Or naked.  Well, not always at least.  We're not now," he pointed out gesturing at his and Lucy's clothing.  "And you're wrong about the redness and the horniness as well."  Lucy's head snapped around to Bill and he frowned.  "That didn't come out right!  We're not the kind of horny you were referring to.  We're actually quite a lot of the other kind of horny."  Lucy hit him on the arm.  "I probably didn't need to mention that."

"Well, I don't blame you with a wife like that," Xander replied without thinking, rather taken with Lucy's good looks.  This comment earned him a stern look from Buffy, which he did his best to ignore as it burned twin holes in the side of his head.

"Could we please get back to the main plot and explain why you are here?" Giles wondered.

"Honey, would you care to give it a shot?" Lucy asked of her husband.

"Not really," Bill said giving his head a good shaking, "You're better at explaining stuff."

"We're boned," Buffy mumbled to Xander.

"Maybe we should try using diagrams," Lucy mused aloud.

"Yup, we're boned," Xander whispered back.

"Or puppets," Bill said excitedly.  "I've always been rather fond of puppets!"

"We are so boned," Giles muttered.

When Lucy had finally convinced Bill that he was not going to use any puppets for his explanation, he cleared his throat and gave the whole explaining thing a go: "Well, there's the duck and Lucy's dad, who is also the duck, and accounting who took it over, not the duck but Lucy's dad, or at least his job, and their really buggering it, not the duck or Lucy's dad, which are the same, but his job."  He paused for a beat.  "Any questions?"

Three hands shot up in the air and a fourth rapidly decomposing one was raised rather carefully.

Bill looked at his wife who was standing next to him with her hand in the air.  "Lucy, do you have a question?" he asked.

"No, I just really need the bathroom," she answered.

Everybody turned to Giles, who didn't notice, as he was still trying to piece together what Bill had said and at the same time worrying that his skull might explode.  Even under considerable load his brain was still capable of multitasking.  It was quite a remarkable feat indeed.  Don't try it at home, kids.  Or anywhere else for that matter.  Finally the ex-watcher looked up and noticed everybody staring at him (Wait, was there a pun in there somewhere?).  "What?" he asked morosely.

"The bathroom?" urged Lucy, who had taken to hopping from one foot to the other.

"Oh, right this way," he gestured and he escorted one half of the duo that made up the devil down his hallway.