A/N: To be honest, I am incredibly disappointed by the response to the last chapter. I got a handful of reviews and it bummed me out a little. That's why this is so much later than it was going to be. Now, as I promised, I'm going to go to the finish but I have a lot of other fics I could work on, so it's reader response that inspires me to write new chapters. Still, thanks to the few people who did review this little story. Also, I have apparently squicked one of my readers, but it was not made clear what was so squicky. I'm happy to listen to constructive criticism, but "Oh my god that was so sick" doesn't help when I don't know what you're on about...
Disclaimer: I feel really, really tired, and I'm not sure why. It's midnight and all, but I'm usually up until two in the morning. Maybe I have yet another flu. Give me sympathy reviews.

The bad stuff always happens all at once

"Hey guys," Buffy called out as she opened the door to the Magic Box. "I think something's wrong with Spike. He got in a big fight at Willy's, and he was okay for a little while after then he just collapsed." Buffy looked around the shop, puzzled. It wasn't like Anya to leave the shop untended, and it would have to be a severe emergency or a mortal wound that left the shop open with no-one in it.

Hearing a sound from the back of the Magic Box, and deducing that it was either one of her friends or some sort of thief, Buffy ambled to the training room door. After all, the thief would have to be pretty big to intimidate the Slayer who had defeated a hell god.

"Hello?" Buffy called out loudly. She felt relieved when she heard Willow's unsteady response. Until she actually realised what that response was.

"Buffy, something's wrong with William." The Slayer charged into the room to see a groaning, thrashing William that was glowing dimly on the floor, surrounded on both sides by a witch. Tara had her eyes closed, and she was muttering under her breath while she clasped Willow's hands over William's chest.

As Buffy watched, blue light emanated from the witches hands, encasing the glowing man on the floor. Slowly, his body calmed and the glowing light melded with the blue, creating an opaque covering. The two lovers sagged from exertion.

"What happened? Is he okay?" Buffy asked, concerned.

"He should be okay for a while," Willow informed her friend. "We don't know what happened. One minute, he's fine and then next he's collapsing."

"What did you guys do to him?"

"We sort of took him out of time," Tara informed Buffy quietly. "Only, not completely out of time. It's complicated. It's a bit like freezing water, only with magic instead of water." Buffy blinked at the almost uncharacteristically long explanation from the blonde, before realising something odd.

"Roughly how long did this start?" she asked, quickly counting back to when Spike had collapsed.

"About forty minutes ago, why?" Buffy's eyes widened at Willow's guestimate.

"Spike collapsed around about forty minutes ago!"

"Do you think that they might be related?" Tara asked, chewing on her bottom lip. Buffy turned and began to stalk out the front door.

"I'm going to find out."

Spike jerked awake when he hit the floor. He looked around blearily only to find that he wasn't in his crypt. He was in the Magic Box, with a very pissed off Slayer staring- no, make that glaring at him. The vampire rose to his feet unsteadily.

"What?" he asked finally, unable to withstand the intense look the Slayer was throwing his way.

"What's wrong with you?" Buffy asked him, looking at him with distaste. Spike drew himself up, and threw a withering look at the Slayer.

"Your concern is just touching, Slayer. I'm a vampire. If we're not dust, we're fine." Spike gave the Slayer one last look, one that indicated how much of an idiot he thought her, and made to push past her to the door. The Slayer gripped his arm tightly.

"You've been unconscious for an hour" Buffy informed him in a low, rough voice. Spike blinked. It couldn't have been that long, surely. He'd only just closed his eyes for a minute after that fantastic brawl at Willy's. Although, his head was feeling a bit fuzzy...

"I'm perfectly bloody fine" he snarled when he saw the blank look on the Slayer's face. So even pretending to care about him was that much trouble? He wrenched his arm out of the Slayer's grip and took a few steps, only to have her grasp the back of his duster and haul him off to the training room. "Oi!"

"You're not going anywhere until Willow is sure that nothing you did is effecting William" Buffy told the vampire in a resigned voice. Spike grew more indignant.

"Oh, so it's automatically my fault, is it?" Spike asked, insulted.

"Yes!" Buffy said in an incredulous tone, as though she couldn't believe that he'd think any differently.

"Of course. If anything happens to that poofter, it must be my fault. Especially since it was old Spike who brought him here, right?" the vampire asked vindictively, smirking at the look of rage on the diminutive Slayer's face. She reacted to her anger in the standard way, punching Spike as hard as she could on the nose, before dragging him into the training room.

Spike dropped on the floor and looked at the Slayer surlily. His head felt like it was packed with cotton-wool and she wasn't helping, throwing him around like that. So intent was he on his internal monologue/complaining, he didn't even notice either of the witches until Tara spoke.

"The two have nothing to do with one another" she asserted. Buffy looked at Spike in confusion, before returning her gaze to an odd, pulsing blue... something on the floor.

"Then what's wrong with him?" Buffy asked, her puzzled tone revealing the depth of her confusion.

"Hey!" Spike objected, only to be ignored by the three women.

"It must have been the reversal spell Ethan Rayne cast," Willow decreed, and Spike realised that they must have been talking about his poncy human self. Spike hadn't been feeling any adverse effects, until he just woke up all fuzzy of course.

"We think he did a complete magic reversal. It takes more power to do, but it is a lot easier if you have the power." Tara added, looking at the blue stuff on the floor. That must be William, was Spike's belated realisation.

"So, why did he react that way?" Buffy asked, obviously concerned. Of bloody course. Spike, the vamp who got tortured by a hell god for her, is unconscious for an hour and he barely gets a mention, even after what they went thro- no, especially because of what they went through. That was just like the bloody Slayer...

"William's only here because of a spell. When Ethan cast the remove-all spell, he damaged the spell that keeps William here, in this time. That's why he was complaining of feeling funny. The spell was breaking apart."

The four conscious people in the room looked at the casing that protected William. Spike watched in mildly hopeful glee. His reputation had been horribly tarnished by demons seeing the wanker doing stupid things, like go shopping with the nibblet. It was annoying to have to kill twice as many demons just to keep his reputation as a bad-ass alive. The girls watched in worried silence.

"Can you guys fix it?" Buffy asked reluctantly, afraid of the answer. Willow hesitated.

"Yes and no. We can rebuild the spell that keeps him here and fix it so this doesn't happen again, not too hard. Only, we're not sure how much of him was changed or even damaged by the spell's break-down. And we can't fix anything like that." The witch's sorrow was painfully obvious. Spike rolled his eyes.

"See what you can do" Buffy said, throwing a worried glance at the not-visible William. Spike stood, and felt his head throb lightly. That shouldn't be happening.

"Hey, ducks?" Spike called to Tara, who spun nervously at the sound.

"M-me?"

"Yeah. Could you take a look-see, make sure that there's nobody trying to put a bit of mojo on me?" He asked, sauntering over to the only natural blonde out of three in the room. The girl looked at Spike tremulously, before nodding gently. She put a hand on his chest and closed her eyes for a short while, before asking him to turn around.

As she put her hand on Spike's back, he noticed the Slayer looking at him with an awkward expression on her pretty face, almost a cross between disgust and horror. That pissed Spike off a lot. Now the Slayer didn't want him getting help from her friends? Well, she could go get fu-

"Spike, calm down" Tara murmured, her hand still on his back. "This is hard enough without your emotions going crazy on me."

"Sorry pet" Spike mumbled, looking away from the Slayer to try and mellow himself a little for Tara's sake. The little witch had been nothing but decent to him. She was a good sort. He would give her a go if she weren't gay.

"No, everything seems to be fine. Nothing wrong with you, magically speaking." Tara told him as she released him. Spike shrugged a little.

"You sure, pet?" When she nodded, Spike looked perplexed. At Tara's questioning look, Spike explained. "I've got a real fuzzy head. Have had since I woke up. It's not normal, and aside from when the Slayer got a little punch happy," a glare for said Slayer, "I haven't taken a hit to the head for a good six, seven days. Plus, my stomach's feeling a little queasy now."

"It sounds like you've got a cold" Buffy told him. Spike rolled his eyes.

"I'm a vampire, Slayer. We don't get sick." Spike said in a clearly mocking tone and with a scathing glance at the Slayer. Anything more, and his anger might give way to lust and he really didn't need that anymore. The Slayer had made her opinion on the matter perfectly clear.

The pair were interrupted by the blue magical coating pulsing brighter than ever before fading into nothing, revealing William underneath. He looked relatively unhurt, but he did look... younger.

"Bloody hell," Spike moaned. "Are you trying to tell me, Red, that all you've done is give the poncy bugger access to the fountain of youth?" The vampire was ignored by all three women, who were worriedly hovering around William, whose eyes flickered open suddenly. He frowned as Willow leaned over him to check his pupil dilation.

"Willow?" he asked pathetically. The red-head nodded enthusiastically.

"Are you okay?"

"I- I think so." William said as he propped himself up on his elbows weakly, before the effort made him sink back to the floor with a low groan. His eyes seemed to suddenly get very heavy lidded, and as they slowly sunk, he asked, "Who am I?"

The other four people in the room stared with open mouths at the now asleep boy on the floor, before Spike started to laugh sardonically. It really was too cliché.

"I'm telling you, Connery was the best Bond!" Warren declared emphatically, waving his arms for dramatic effect.

"Who remembers Connery? I mean, Roger Moore was smooth." Jonathon retorted scornfully as the Trio entered their evil lair.

"You're insane. You're short, and you're insane." Warren said, shaking his head at his diminutive friend. Jonathon frowned deeply.

"I like Timothy Dalton," Andrew declared, wanting to fit in. Both Warren and Jonathon stared at him like he was retarded, before Warren cuffed Andrew as hard as he could on the side of the head. "Hey!"

"What's wrong with you?" Warren asked rhetorically as he sat in the big swivel chair. Andrew walked over to the assortment of collectables and Star Trek memorabilia and sulked.

"Hey, umm, guys? Where's the Buffybot?" Jonathon's voice echoed from the privacy booth of their lair, a.k.a. the laundry. Warren frowned.

"What do you mean, where is she? She should be there."

"Well, she's gone." Jonathon said as he came out. "You don't think your mom got her did you?"

"What?" Warren asked abruptly. "No. Mom knows not to come into our lair."

"Hey, guys?" Andrew called out from the laundry. "Was this window always open?" The other two members of the Trio looked at each other in realisation.

"It's your fault!" Warren decreed suddenly, looking pointedly at Jonathon. "You're the one who left the window open."

"It's your fault the window was open! If you hadn't been complaining every five minutes that there's no fresh air down here, I wouldn't have opened it!"

"Aha! So you admit it! You opened the window!"

"Uhh, guys?" Andrew's voice cut into their argument unexpectedly. "There's a robot out in Sunnydale at night that thinks it's the Slayer. I think we have bigger problems than who let it out." There was a pause.

"That's your fault, you mental!" Jonathon screeched at Warren, who managed to look both angry and innocent at the same time in a strangely unsettling way.

"How is it my fault? You guys wanted the bot just as much as me!"

"Does this ring a bell? "No, it'll be better if we put in all the knowledge we can about the Slayer. Make it more realistic. It's sexier that way." Sound familiar at all?"

"Uhh, dude? That was Andrew, not me..." Warren and Jonathon turned towards Andrew, only to see him bolting up the stairs.

"Come back here you mutant!"

A/N: I couldn't leave the Trio out of this, and hopefully I manage to tie in the next few chapters well enough to pull of the incredibly funny (in my head, at least) scenes that come next chapter. I seem to be very good at the build up, not so much with the delivery these days. Still, review, let me know you care. I had to force this reasonably lengthy chapter out past writer's block over four hours. It usually takes me three at most. Plus, I'm all sleepy now. SO REVIEW!