"Spike! My man!" Angelus yelled out. Spike was not aware that he was actually in the dream. Evidently Angelus thought he was still bad, so Spike decided to play along. He was wearing black jeans, a black t-shirt, and his long black leather coat, so he did look the part.

"Angelus! It's been too long, mate. I see you're finally back to normal."

"What are you doing here?," Angelus asked.

"What the bloody hell do you think? Came to kill myself another Slayer. They say the third one's the charm."

"Bout time somebody took out little miss congeniality," Cordy snapped.

"Now where are my manners? I haven't introduced you to my girls. Spike, this is Cordy. And over there is little Dawny."

Dawn finished feeding. She dropped the corpse and looked at Spike. Her face instantly went from vampire to human. She smiled. "Dawny like Spike!" She walked towards him. Spike tried to figure out how to handle this. He was human, so he couldn't let her put her hands on his chest and feel his heartbeat. But he couldn't back off or push her away. That would be too suspicious. So when she got within arm's reach, Spike took her hands in his hands. That way she couldn't grope him.

Problem was Dawny took this as a sign that Spike wanted her. She kissed him. Stuck her tongue down his throat. If this were a dream, Spike would wake up screaming right about now. But he didn't wake up. And she kept on kissing him. So he kissed her back, pretended he was interested. After all, what would William the Bloody do?

After the longest ten seconds of Spike's life, Dawny disengaged. She walked back towards Angelus, staring longingly at Spike. "Looks like you made a new friend," Angelus told Spike.

"Can we keep HIM, daddy?," Dawny asked Angelus.

"Oh yeah. Spike's definitely a keeper," he answered. She was making doe eyes at Spike. He tried to keep his cool. Then he thought of an exit strategy.

"Angelus, it was great meeting your little family, but I should get to work. You know me, business before pleasure. Time to kill your little, what's her name?"

"Buffy," Cordy answered.

Spike laughed. "Buffy! What kind of a name is Buffy? Bloody laughable. Spike rolled his eyes. "Only in California. Probably blonde. Am I right?"

"Bad hair, bad teeth," Dawny told Spike.

"Wretched fashion sense," Cordy added.

"Sounds tasty. I'll tell you how tasty when I get back," Spike said before turning and walking away.

"I love his hair," Dawny told Angelus.

"I don't," Cordy commented. And the accent's annoying. "He's in America. He should learn to speak our language."

Once Spike was out of view, he started running to Buffy's house. He could could still taste blood in his throat, the blood from the boy Dawny ate before zealously exploring Spike's tonsils. He assessed the situation. Buffy was still alive. So why hadn't she killed Angelus or Cordy or Dawny? That wasn't like her. Spike burst into the Summers residence.

"Buffy! Buffy? Joyce? Is anyone home?" No answer. He ran upstairs to Buffy's bedroom, to see if she was sleeping. Her bedroom was empty, just like the rest of the house. He looked around. Peered through her closet. Old habits died hard. Then Spike heard the front door open. He heard voices downstairs. Buffy's and Xander's. They were laughing. And they were coming up the stairs.

Spike was trapped. He couldn't let her meet him like this. He didn't have time to open the window and escape. So he hid in the closet. Buffy's closet had wooden blinds with slits in between, so Spike could see the rest of the room. He heard the door open. Buffy entered. She grabbed Xander's shirt and pulled him towards her. They kissed. They put their arms around each other. They were going at it like lovers.

Spike couldn't believe what he was seeing and hearing. The hearing was the worst part. The heavy breathing. The panting and moaning The palpable joy. They ripped each other's clothes off. They got on the bed. Maybe it was a mirage, a hallucination, a horrible vision of some sort which would melt away any second. But it didn't. Xander and Buffy were naked, barely six feet from where Spike was standing. And he was trapped for as long as either of them stayed in the room. He didn't know what was worse – making out with Vampire Dawny, or watching this. Both experiences would scar his mind forever.

Spike closed his eyes and turned his head. He thought about gouging his eyeballs out. But even when he wasn't looking, he could still hear them. He put his fingers in his ears, but that didn't block out all the noise. And the worst part, on top of everything else, was that she sounded happy. How was that possible? Spike couldn't believe his ears. So he had to look again. Not at their entangled bodies (anything but that). Just at her face, in isolation. Spike had seen that look on her face, when she was with him. But she was with Xander. XANDER! Spike truly felt dead inside.

Maybe this was Hell. He knew he was evil. He was finally being punished. And his punishment was to spend eternity watching and listening to Buffy and Xander screw. I didn't get much worse that than. Then he recalled Clem asking him if he could imagine what Sunnydale would have been like without him. Eureka! It wasn't pretty, but it was better than Hell. He had no idea how to get out of this place, or if escape was even possible. So if this was his new world, he would have to make the best of it.

Trying to block Buffy-Xander lovemaking out of his mind, he put the pieces together. Buffy slept with Angel. He went bad. Drusilla wasn't around to stoke his apocalyptic streak. So Angelus did what he had always done – torment people. Plot perfect murders. But no grandiose schemes. He was lonely. So he took Cordelia. When Dawn came along, he sired her to hurt Buffy. That would be an Angelus thing to do. Spike didn't even want to think about the other things "daddy" did to Dawny.

But how to explain Buffy and Xander? To Spike, that was an abomination, a sin against nature. (To be fair, Xander considered Buffy sleeping with soulless Spike to have been a sin against nature.) This was almost impossible for Spike to rationalize. Or was it? There was always a chance Buffy would sleep with Xander if he were the last man on earth. And now he kind of was. Angel's gone. Riley – for whatever reason – is out of the picture. Spike never showed up. Being a Slayer made it impossible to meet normal guys. Who was left? Only Xander. So she settled for always faithful, eternally devoted, ever worshipful Xander.

Spike began scheming. This world could be great fun if he played his cards right. Since this Buffy had never met Spike, she would not automatically hate him. He could make a new first impression. And he knew just how to impress her. Now if only she and Xander would stop making the beast with two backs. Mercifully, it ended 15 minutes after it had begun. Shorter than Spike feared, but then again this was Xander, he thought to himself. They got dressed and went downstairs. Spike quietly left the closet, opened a window, climbed out onto the roof, closed the window behind him, and jumped down to the ground. He ran around to the front of the house and burst into the hallway for a second time.

"Who are you?," a surprised and suspicious Xander asked.

"Did that Spike guy really kill two Slayers?," Cordy asked Angelus.

"I guess," he answered nonchalantly.

"And how many have you killed, honey? Oh, right. Now I remember. Zippo!" Angelus hated it when Cordy nagged him.

"Your point being?," he asked back.

"My point being, why haven't you killed any? Is Spike stronger than you?"

"Of course not. He was my sidekick."

"Spike's come to take our problems away, make the world as it should be," Dawny swooned. "He's our Champion."

Angelus laughed. "Do you say champion? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard a vampire ever get called. Cordy, promise me that if anyone ever calls me a champion you'll rip their lungs out."

"I'll rip their lungs out even if they don't call you that. But this is what just what I'm talking about. If Spike's strong enough to kill two Slayers, and you're stronger than Spike, why aren't you strong enough to kill the one measly Slayer who happens to live in my home town?"

"Because darling, it's more fun to have her alive so we can torment her."

"Yes, that was fun for a while. But it's getting old. It's been five years! I'm sick of playing it safe, watching my back."

"You make it sound like you've been stuck in Sunnydale your whole life. I've takes you around the world. We came here the other day because YOU wanted to kill Willow."

"I'm also sick of running."

"Running? You think this town's boring. How is going somewhere more interesting running?"

"Because she's here, and you're still afraid of her."

"Would I be here if I was afraid of her?"

"Then why can't you take that bitch down? Is it because you're not man enough?"

"Spike's man enough," Dawny taunted.

Angelus didn't like where this was going. "Cordy, you don't understand. Spike's insecure. He's always been something of a patsy and a wimp. It makes him feel inadequate. So he overcompensates by fighting little girls. It's pathetic."

Cordy wasn't convinced. "No honey. What's pathetic is that he fights little girls you run away from. When I got with you, I was under the impression that I was going steady with the biggest, baddest vamp of them all."

"And that's exactly what you got," Angelus replied with his trademark swagger.

"I always thought so. But now I wonder. Sure, Spike may look about as tough as Depeche Mode. But he's done stuff you've only dreamed of doing. Do you have any idea how humiliating it will be when Spike kills Buffy and everyone thinks I'm going with the next-to-best vampire?"

"And I'm going with the best," Dawn added with undisguised delight.

Angelus had to put an end to this madness. "Cordy, have you ever thought about what life would be like if something were to happen to me?"

"You mean if some yucky gypsy gives you your soul back?"

"Or, if I died. What would you do without me?"

"I don't know. I've never thought about it."

"And why is that, baby?"

"Because it's scary and depressing. I want be with you forever."

Now Angelus was getting somewhere. "There you go. Nine times out of ten, I fight Buffy and kill her. But one time out of ten something happens, some fluke event, and she gets lucky and stakes me. Do you really want me to take that risk?"

"I wouldn't mind," Dawny huffed.

"Children can be so ungrateful," Angelus said to Cordy as an aside. "But you see my point. I won't take that chance. Not while I have you."

"Oh, Angelus," Cordy cooed. "I'm sorry I doubted you. You know how badly I always want you near me. Come here, lover." They started kissing. Dawn thought this was gross. It was so embarrassing when her parents got all mushy in public. She tugged on Cordy's jacket.

"Mommy? Mommy?" Cordy turned around.

"What is it, Dawny?," she said with a forced smile.

"I'm going out to play."

"Fine. Have fun, deary," Cordy answered. Dawny smiled and ran off.

"She's a good kid," Angelus told Cordy as they walked off together.

"A little too mouthy if you ask me," she responded.

"They're all are at that age."

"Just our luck she'll be that age forever," Cordy noted ruefully.

"Sometimes I think she feels left out and ignored."

"Maybe Spike will take care of that," Cordy hoped. "Having a guy of her own will be good for her."

"When it comes to taking an extra girl off my hands, there's no one better than Spike. And then I can devote all my energies to you." Cordy cooed and ran her hands down Angelus's chest. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I thought you'd never ask." She gave a quick purr. Angelus growled back. Cordy looked to her left. She saw five tall boys in their varsity jackets. Must be the starting five on the high school basketball team. She turned Angelus's head to see them. He was intrigued.

She started whispering in his ear. "That's good. That's real good," he told her.

"And here's the best part." She whispered some more. Angelus looked quite aroused. Vicious and devious. Cordy was learning fast.

"Better not just be getting my hopes up. You think you can pull that off?"

"No. But I think WE could pull it off. You with me, lover?"

"Always." He ran a finger along her lips. She nibbled on it. They were ready.