The Scoobies were still at the Magick Box when Spike and Bella returned. The both felt the bristle in the air as they approached.

"No, Giles. That is not what I said," Buffy argued emphatically.

"Actually, it's exactly what you said, " Anya contradicted her. That earned her a steely look from the Slayer.

"Well, it wasn't said the way you think I said it. I didn't mean--" she stopped.

Spike and Bella were standing in the doorway. Their presence took her by surprise. Both so quiet; vampirically stealthy. Both beautiful in their Mutt and Jeff way. He stood there, cigarette dangling from his cold lips, white-blonde hair slicked back to hide the curl, eyes a pale and glimmering blue, bloodless skin pasty-white and cold. She stood below him... nearly a foot smaller than he was. Her thick, black hair was loose and hung below her shoulders. Cigarette dangled from her pink lips, skin sun-kissed and golden. Almost too golden. Too perfect. Eyes a glimmering deep green that felt as though they were fleying her right there. They were so beautiful, Daywalker and Nightwalker. So opposite. So alike.

"Are you two gonna hover there all creepy-like or are you gonna come in?" she suddenly snapped at them.

"Vampire. Evil dead. Need invite," Bella said, unaffected.

Buffy shook her head. Right. Sometimes she forgot.

"I'm sorry, Bella. Come in."

"And?" Bella said before entering.

"You can come, too, Spike." It was like throwing a small bone to a big dog.

"I meant apologize to him, too. He didn't do anything wrong," Bella told Buffy.

"Oh, right" The Slayer reddedned, a bit embarrassed. "Sorry. Spike. Come in."

"I assume that your argument had something to do with us." Spike said, throwing himself down on a vacant chair next to Dawn.

"You know what assume does, right?" Xander issued a smart-ass remark.

"How you doin', Niblet? You okay?" Spike asked Dawn, ignoring Xander.

"Look, all I know is that we all need to work together. Vampire, Slayer, Witch, human... And if Bella knows how to close the Hellmouth, we have no choice but to trust her. If that means blind faith, then fine. I mean, look at Spike. He hasn't tried to eat any of us. Lately..." Willow offered.

So the argument was about her. She looked to each of them and read their thoughts. The Slayer was unsure. She trusted the Vampire. But not entirely the Daywalker. The witch, Willow. She had more trust in Bella than in Spike. But she was a follower. She'd do whatever the Slayer told her. Same with Harris. Regardless of what Angel had told her, she wasn't sure how he fit in. He had nothing really special to offer. And he was annoying.

The Vengeance Demon, Anya. She was stripped of her powers. But she surely was an asset due to her demon age. Bella couldn't get a clear line into her thoughts. They kept jumping... did I leave the stove on? Why do I have to be here? This is so stupid. God, Xander looks hot. Wish I could just take him right here on the table in front of everyone. Buffy should get her hair cut like that girl on Smallville, the girl with the flippy hair. That would look cute. No, too cute. Don't need Xander getting all drooly- like over her again. Bella shook her head with a quiet laugh. No need trying to get into her thoughts ever again. They were as erratic as Anya herself.

Dawn. The kid sister. She trusted Spike. And she trusted him wholly. She seemed a bit confused, too. She had an allegiance to her sister, the Slayer. But she wanted to trust Bella, too. And she tried to play it safe, loved the Vampire with all her heart, but didn't want her sister to think that she was a betrayer. Hmmm... and there was something else about Dawn. Something Bella couldn't quite place. The girl was clearly human. She breathed and she was flesh and gurgling blood. Bella could hear it swishing through her veins, beating in and out of her living heart. But there was something not quite human there, too. She'd have to ask Spike about that later.

The Watcher. Squirrely thing, he was. All twitchy and nervous. Needed to be more sure of himself, Bella decided. He did not trust Spike. And with good reason, she was sure. But what about her? She couldn't get a clear line on what he thought about her. Seemed he was on the fence about that one.

"Oh, bullshit on the chip! If I wanted to eat you, I'd eat you, Harris. Just too worried that your stupidity would infect me in some way," Spike lashed out at Xander.

No love lost between those two, Bella surmised.

"Bella, you've been awfully quiet since you came in. I'd like to hear what you have to say," Buffy told her.

"Quiet, my arse!" Spike told them. "Not stupid, is all. She's been sussing you all out since we walked in. Can feel it. Probably thinks she should pack her stuff and go back to whatever life she had on the right coast. Dealing with you bunch of pillocks probably's more than she bargained, right, Pet?"

"I can speak for myself, thankyou," Bella told him with a glare that said "SHUT UP."

"Look, Bella. Maybe I have no right to ask you this, but I do need your help. Giles told us your history. He told us about your mother, a Grimaldi Witch. And about your father. About Artemius. All of us have seen a lot of things that we can't explain. We've done things that most people see in John Carpenter movies. But I think that it's safe to say that we've all learned that nobody is what she... or he..." said Buffy, casting an apologetic glance at Spike, "appears to be on the surface."

Bella stood before all of them at the round table.

"Well, I'll tell you right now, this is who I am. You will never have to guess about me. I'm not too difficult to figure out. Vampire. Witch. Daywalker. Guardian," she glanced at each of them, her eyes letting them know that she was telling the truth.

"I've never harmed an innocent. And I have respect for nature and for its course. I don't make snap judgements." She turned to Xander, "Something you need to work on, Harris."

Xander looked at his hands, crossed in front of him on the table.

"Let me give you a scenario... Vampire, with or without a soul... with or without a chip," she alludes to Spike. "Charles Manson." She points to empty air.

"Charles Manson... no soul. No conscience. Insane. The man has not changed. Let him out of jail tomorrow and he'll kill again." she told them.

"Spike... has a soul. Has a chip. But the man has changed. Even without the soul or the chip, he couldn't go back to being the monster he once was even if he tried. Conscience may have something to do with the soul, but it's marginal. No soul, no conscience? Not true. But no conscience... and we're in big trouble. Trust me. But trust him, too."

Buffy stood at Bella's side and took her hand. She had made her decision and she wanted to show them that she was with Bella. She wanted them to know that she would trust whatever Bella said. Nobody else knew what Bella knew. Nobody else could help them now. She knew that. And so should they.

"We listen to Bella," she told them. "The evil wants us to fight amongst ourselves. Divide us in order to conquer. We can't let that happen. We must all, and I mean all, be on the same page."

"Xander and Anya, I want you to find out more about the Hellmouth. Go through all the books we have. I want to know everything. The more we're prepared, the better off we are." She turned to Willow. "Will, after that incident at the Hellmouth... if you ever use your magick without supervision again, I will have Bella bind you. You are to go through her on everything. Let her show you how to be responsible with your power. When Bella says you're ready, then, and only then, will you be allowed to practice on your own. In the meantime, I'd like you along with me on patrol tonight. Spike, Bella, you're both with me, too. Dawn, you can either go with Giles or with Xander and Anya. But I expect you to get your homework done no matter who you go with. And no staying up all night. You still have school in the morning." Ah, so many repsonsibilities for one small girl. So many lives depended on the Slayer. Pity, Bella thought.

"What about our bender, Pet?" Spike tossed to Bella with a mischievous grin.

"We can have our bender. After we patrol for a bit. That way, we'll have earned it, right... Pet?" she cracked back at him.

He scowled. All work. No fun. Hope she wasn't going to be Buffy Part II.

"I heard that," Bella said, just loud enough for him to hear.

He couldn't help but laugh inwardly at the irony of it all. He, a bloodsucking vampire, on patrol to kill his own kind with a Slayer, a Wanna- Be Witch and a Daywalker-Witch hybrid. He looked at Bella thinking, at least I won't be the only one killing my own kind. Of course, she was... different. Not like him. Not like them. Not like anyone. They were barely two hours into patrol when the first chill filled the air.

"Smell 'em, Spike?" Bella whispered, giddily. "They're near."

The Slayer's hands were wrapped tightly around a wooden stake, ready to spear the first undead thing she laid eyes upon. Willow followed cautiously. They had felt the shift in the air, too.

It was Bella who lunged first. Buffy and Willow couldn't see what had caught her urgent attention. Spike could and was quickly at her side. Nine of them, nine vampires, three recently turned were suddenly around them. Buffy and Willow staved off four of them, each delivering the crushing blow of the stake that turned them to dust. Bella was all over the other five and held the remaining, quivering fledgling like he was a wet rag demanding to know the location of his sire. He hissed and sputtered, told her to fuck off as he writhed in her grasp.

"You know," she said, shaking her head with regret, "I was really hoping we could just do this the easy way. I mean, either way... you're getting dusted, pal. But I really didn't want to scare off my new friends this early on in the game... oh well." She slipped into game face, one quite different than the ones to which Buffy and Willow had become accustomed. Her eyes went transluscent, a glass-like peridot. Her fangs appeared sharp, white and cat-like. And the tiny veins just under her skin came closer to the surface, making her skin appear to be made of tissue.

"Fine, we'll do this the hard way," she said as she sunk her fangs into the fledgling's jugular. He couldn't wrestle his way out of her grasp, no matter how he tried. No matter the fact that he stood head and shoulders above her in height. After she had taken enough of his blood to sustain her, she staked him through his cold, dead heart.

She knew that they were watching her. Maybe even second-guessing. She carefully wiped her lips, keeping her back to them until she shook off her game face. Ah, now the fun part. She turned to face them: the Slayer, the Vampire and the Wanna-Be Witch. Each with their own expression of terror imprinted on their pale faces.

"Oh, good lord, grow up. I told you what I am. And he didn't want to cooperate," she told them and continued on the patrol as if nothing had happened.

"Uh, I just... was that nec-"

"Yes, Buffy. Yes. That was neccessary. He wouldn't tell me who sired him. He wouldn't even dare to think it. So, I took it. I took it from him," Bella told her.

Buffy was confused.

"You... took?" Willow asked, trying to piece together what sucking the creature dry had to do with taking something from him.

"You. Not saying a whole lot. Forget what it's like to take one of your own? You learn EVERYTHING through their blood." She reminded Spike, who had been staring in silence before that.

"You know where his sire is, then?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Well, then, let's find him."

"Her."

"Her?"

"Her."

"Okay... let's find her then, Pet."

"I don't think so, Spike." she told him.

"What's... what's going on, Bella?" Willow asked timidly. Bella was still locked into Spike's gaze. This had something to do with him somehow.

"Her... who?" Buffy asked, afraid to know.

"It was Drucilla," Bella finally conceded.

But Angel had killed her... killed her and Darla both in a baptism by fire.

"I think that it would be best if you let me handle her," Bella told them.

Dru? His Dru? But he couldn't understand how. And how did Bella know the connection?

"I saw her. And I saw you. It was in the blood, Spike. I don't want your judgement clouded by this. Now, please. Let me do this alone."

"No!" he hollered.

"It wasn't a question," she told him sadly. "I don't want you involved in this."

And then she was gone.