"Turnip?" the figure said again, his speech jumbled around the penlight clenched between his teeth. He rose to his feet as he spoke, a process that only emphasized the length of him. It was like watching a giraffe stand up, long expanses of unbending limbs that gracefully pushed him to a height of well above six feet. Which, of course, immediately brought his head in contact with the doorframe.

"Fucking hell!" The penlight clattered to the wooden floorboards, slipping through a crack. And in one movement, he had darted out of sight, tapered fingers clutched tight over his skull. A guttural cry was interrupted again with the plea, "Turnip!"

Dawn blinked. "No? But… I'm Dawn. What?" This felt stupid, talking to open air. She edged closer to the door, carefully staying out of reach, but angling to try and catch sight of the stranger again.

"Can you see him?" Buffy's voice was low and tense behind her; Dawn could sense her sister beginning to assess weapons in the hallway. Faint murmuring sounds floated in from the porch, punctuated every so often by a loud "faugh!" sound.

"No. But daylight, so… not vampire." Dawn reached out and picked up a set of keys from the table, the metal cold and solid in her palm. "Giant redheads just don't vanish, do they?"

"Not that I know of."

Dawn cocked her head towards the open door, hefting the keychain. "Well, what do you think? Should we… just…"

"No!" A woman suddenly darted into view, both hands held up in surrender. Far from the bizarre figure from before, this person was about as average as could be imagined: medium height, medium build, dressed like any woman Dawn might pass in the street. The only thing that truly set her apart was a rather amazing head of brown hair, currently exploding in a halo-like burst around her head. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry – I'm Mina." Her hair wisped into her face as she spoke, and she irritatedly swept it back behind her ear.

Buffy didn't move. "That's nice. Now, who are you?"

Mina froze for a moment, then let out an explosive gust of air, her palms smacking against her thighs dramatically as she brought her arms back down. She leaned slightly to her right, hissing "You didn't even tell them?" before turning her attention back to the sisters.

"I'm sorry, I'd started to go around the back, we don't usually pick locks, we were told this job had a time limit…And frankly, judging from the door, we thought we might be too late." She shrugged apologetically, gesturing towards the splintered and scarred wood. "We've been sent by – well, sort of by your Council, though it's a little more complicated than that. I think your contact is Giles? Or… Is that his first or last name?"

"Last," Buffy replied automatically. She came closer to the door, clearly curious. "And… why would Giles send you? Are you…" Buffy peered past Mina. "There was someone else here, right?"

"OH! Me!" Dawn's voice burst out. "Turnip! Yes! Yes, you can come in, and they're okay, and Giles called!" She shut her eyes and waved her hands in the air, trying to ward off the confusion, and opened them to find her sister staring at her as though she'd lost her mind. "I forgot!"

Buffy snorted, turning to Mina. "I'm sorry, she sometimes goes insane. But apparently you're kosher, so hi. I'm Buffy. Welcome to our happy hovel." She gave the woman a wry grin and gestured inside.

Mina chuckled, her hand going to her wild hair again. "Delighted to meet you. Well, if we're introducing our personal mental patients," she said, her eyes darting mischeviously at Dawn to take away the sting, "then let me introduce mine, Aled. Ali, are you bleeding?"

"Internally, maybe, but don't you bother yourself, it's only my brain." The giant hove into view again, one hand still cupped protectively against the top of his head. Dawn started a little as she recognized a thick Scottish brogue; she wouldn't have expected this lanky man to speak like Sean Connery at all. He winced at them amiably as he came to stand behind Mina in the doorway, slinging a lanky arm over and around her shoulders. "Sorry to have startled you, I honestly thought something had attacked the house and we would have to break in." Mina elbowed him, and he coughed. "Perhaps a little overzealous on my part. Apologies." At Buffy's gesture, they both entered the house and made their way into the living room.

Dawn closed the door behind them. "I'll get you some ice for your head," she called after the couple.

"And backup, please," Buffy muttered as she walked past. Dawn nodded, and went in search of Willow and Xander.

"I have to admit, I have no clue why you're here. Or what you do." Buffy perched on the armrest of Xander's chair, watching the two arrivals on the couch. Unexpectedly, they both seemed to be around her age, maybe a little older. Aled leaned back in the cushions, clearly happy to let Mina do the talking as she perched on the edge of the couch, her eager and open face turned towards her host. The can of soda Buffy had offered lay unopened on the table; she got the impression that Mina planned to talk too much to waste time drinking it.

"Our contact – we work in collaboration with the Council sometimes, so he got the call through official channels from them – well, he said that your sister is experiencing a level of physical and possibly mental dissonance." Buffy's expression didn't change, so Mina plowed ahead, her hands moving animatedly as she spoke.

"We specialize in tracing energy patterns, or more specifically, energy leaks. The pattern of each person is different, of course, so we can't promise an immediate fix – we'll have to spend some time sorting out what's going on with Dawn, but hopefully we'll have her mended and back as she was in no time." Mina checked herself, noting Buffy's obvious confusion. "We know that Dawn is experiencing lost time, in a way that is very clearly affecting others in her environment. We need to find the catalyst, and either stop it from setting Dawn off, or figure out a way for her to deal with it inside herself."

"And… this happens a lot? To other people?" Willow asked hopefully, her eyes flickering between Aled and Mina. That seemed very unlikely, and Buffy's doubt showed on her face.

Mina shrugged. "Often enough. I mean, usually we're called out for people who are…" she cleared her throat delicately and gestured towards Buffy, "not connected like you are. It's usually something that happens to civilians. You know: electricians, people who work in nuclear plants, physicists who work in actual experimentation – not so much with the theory."

"They have no idea what we're doing, obviously," Aled put in from deep in the couch cushions. "You're the first people we've been able to approach openly, so hopefully we can get to the root of it without faffing about."

"And how long does it usually take?" Xander asked pointedly.

Mina shrugged apologetically. "We can't give you a timeframe. As I said, we don't usually work with people who have your sort of connections to alternate energies. And Dawn is a very, very special case. The root of her energy is an unknown quantity, which was fine until recently – but now there are problems, we're going to have to look into those roots."

Dawn arrived with the ice and handed it to Aled, who accepted it with a pathetically grateful sigh, and then settled next to Willow to listen.

"But we don't work with electricity," Buffy said. "We're an axes-and-crossbows family, there's not much technology floating around at any given time, and I don't think any of us have been zapped recently." She turned to Dawn. "Did anything happen while you were at school?"

Dawn shook her head. "Nope, no zappage at all." She shifted uncomfortably, and Willow placed a reassuring hand on her back. She peered back at Mina. "So this is all about me and the knock-out effect?"

"In a way, yes. It's got more to do with where your energy is going – energy doesn't just disappear into thin air, especially life energy. So we need to find out what's making you fail."

"You make her sound like a machine." Spike growled from the hallway. Mina froze, her open expression clouded by uncertainty, though Dawn felt it had more to with Spike's unexpected appearance rather than self-doubt. Compared to Aled, Spike was slight, but he made up for it with a threatening aura that seemed to expand around him, shadowing his surroundings. Next to Buffy, Xander audibly repressed a sigh. Dawn closed her eyes, hoping Spike wasn't preparing for a protective rant.

Then Aled's voice rumbled up from the recesses of the couch. "The human body is very much like a machine, you know." It would have been near-impossible for his presence to have gone unnoticed, had he not been crouched down with his ice pack, but Spike's surprise was evident as Aled unfolded himself and stood at his full height in the small room. "The mind is as well, in many ways. It's just a matter of getting the balance right before all the circuitry fries."

Spike eyed the newcomer. "Dawn's not going to 'fry'." He drew out the last word, warping it.

"Exactly. That's why we're here." Aled smiled calmly, then turned to Dawn. "I don't want to melt all over your sofa – is there somewhere I can put this?" He gestured to the towel Dawn had wrapped the ice in, already soaked through. She jumped up to take it from him, and began to turn towards the kitchen as Aled sat down again, but paused at the doorway.

She could feel Spike behind her, the suspicion radiating off of him. It wasn't his fault, it was just how he was. But she turned back to the group, and with Spike's watchful gaze on her, she went to stand next to Aled.

Aled looked up at her, completely unruffled, and nodded. He bowed his head and Dawn lightly ran her hand across the top of his head, his hair smoothing down under her touch. She found the lump quickly, and carefully parted the shock of red strands.

"No blood," she commented, and Aled lifted his head again. "But it's a pretty huge goose egg. Want more ice?"

"Thanks, love. You've been more than kind," he replied. Mina beamed at Dawn, her fingers lacing with Aled's reassuringly.

Across the room, Spike caught Dawn's eye, a smile twitching on his lips. He raised both eyebrows and dipped his head, the closest to "point taken" he was going to give. He pushed away from the doorjamb and entered the room properly, settling in front of the fireplace, ready to listen.

Buffy took a deep breath. With the ice slowly melting through her fingers, Dawn walked into the kitchen, as the familiar and confident sound of her sister's voice began to echo behind her. There would be a plan, she knew.

Dawn put the ice in the sink and turned back to the room that held her family. There would be a plan, and this time, she would be part of it from the start.