Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or concepts in BTVS or HL (although I may twist them to my own evil ends) and I'm not making any money out of this

Premise: Buffy/HL X-over

BTVS: post Gift. Buffy isn't brought back to life, Willow and Tarra take over protecting Sunnydale using magic instead of hand-to-hand weapons and bring in a couple other Wiccans to help, Giles leaves them his library and returns to England, Anya and Xander break up and Xander leaves Sunnydale.

HL: Duncan didn't kill Richie. Duncan, Richie, Methos, Casandra, and Amanda together defeated the demon. Casandra Hasn't forgiven Methos and still can't stand to be anywhere near him but has acknowledged that he isn't the same person and she gave up any homicidal intentions towards him

If you like this please Review so I know you do. If you don't please review so I know what not to do next time.

Now the Story:

Surprise, Surprise Ch.2 Cleaning up

Richie Ryan loved wandering his old neighborhood although for most people it wouldn't be safe he felt no concern over his safety even walking alone in the middle of the night. Richie's confidence was based on two things. First Richie was not a normal human but rather one of those commonly called Immortals and would recover from even death in hours unless his head was cut off. The second and by far the more important reason was that over the past months since he'd returned with Duncan McCloud and Amanda from France he'd become a sort of arbitrator between the gangs. Richie achieved this position by being someone who knew intimately the workings and relations of the street life and the gangs without belonging to any faction and proving he wouldn't take anything he found to the police. So when Richie gunshots up ahead he hurried forward to see if he could stop whatever it was before it turned into an all-out war. As Richie turned the corner he saw several of the Flames, one of the black gangs in the neighborhood standing next to a beat up old dodge . "Hey, what happened?" He asked as soon as he was close enough to be heard without shouting. "The bastard killed Thomas" replied one of the teenagers. "Who killed Thomas?" Richie asked worriedly, Thomas was the Flames leader and if they became convinced some other gang had killed him they'd be planning war. "He did" someone responded and walking around the dodge Richie saw the two bodies lying on the ground. One wearing the gang's jacket was clearly Thomas and just as clearly was dead from a piece of wood as thick as a broomstick sticking all the way through him. The other was a teenager about 18 years old, wearing jeans and a turtleneck. He was also white which would make matters worse since the relations between the Flames and the white gangs were never that good and had been deteriorating in the last few weeks. Judging by the amount of blood around him he was almost certainly dead already and even if he wasn't wouldn't survive the ride to the hospital but Richie couldn't help but reach down to check his pulse. As he did he felt a faint quiver like the beginning of the Buzz."The kid's a preimmortal?" the thought flashed through his head. "Okay, What happened here?" Richie asked the gang facing him. Immediately every one of the gang members began trying to tell him what happened. After several minutes Richie managed to get what happened straight in his head "So this guy doesn't take the gang seriously as a threat, Thomas took it as an insult and shot him after which this guy killed him and hurt Simon and his brother, got shot again and was killed. Now what do I do." Richie thought to himself. He didn't want this preimmortal to get taken to the morgue, making his death official and almost as important having to break in to the morgue to find him. On the other hand he didn't want the gangs to think he could help them dispose of bodies or learn the tricks Duncan and Methos had taught him for disposing of bodies. After a couple of minutes staring at the bodies Richie reached a decision. "Okay. I know this guy and his family so for their sake I'll take care of it but don't you get any ideas I'll handle messes like this for you in the future." Richie stared at the gang members. Once they'd all assured him they didn't Richie continued. "Okay put both of them in the back seat and don't tell anyone about Thomas getting killed. Tell them he's hiding somewhere or ran off to join the Marines but don't say he was killed. Okay?"

"Ah, Richie... Simon stopped him the guy's car stopped working, how you going to move it and the bodies."

"Let me see" Richie popped the hood and looked under it. A few minutes looking revealed nothing wrong other then low oil. "The engine must have over heated" Richie thought. Luckily the engine had time to cool down somewhat during the fight and Richie's inquiry so by the time both bodies were loaded into the back seat the engine started just fine. Driving away Richie decided to drop of the new immortal at Duncan's before he took Thomas's body to the garden shop, to grind up with a few bags of vine clippings and fertilizer.