A/N: See previous chapters and chunks for pairings and disclaimers and other such stuff. As for spoilers…Buffy S5, DA S1. That's it. Also, please make sure your review contains an email, if your comment requires a response.

March 14, 2001

Logan looked in the bathroom mirror and pulled at the collar of his dress shirt. He was a little miffed at Max when she brought it to him. She'd borrowed it from one of her poker buddies, saying that if she had to dress the part, so did he. He sighed and inspected himself one last time in the mirror. He had to give Max some credit. He did look pretty good, and knew that more than the chair would draw some eyes to him that night. Max would take care of the rest of the eyes. He sighed, wondering why he'd even agreed to go along with this scheme of hers, and left the bathroom.

He wheeled out through the living room, and met Buffy by the stairs, where she was chatting with her mother. Buffy eyed him and gave a low whistle. "You sure clean up nice. Where'd the shirt come from?"

Logan rolled his eyes. "One of Max's cronies. Considering what she's told me about them, I wouldn't have expected this," Logan lifted his arms, indicating the shirt, "to have come from one of their closets." He looked up the stairs. "I take it Max isn't ready yet?"

It was Buffy's turn to roll her eyes. "She might have been, if Dawn hadn't been helping." She eyed her mother. "I told you we should have penned her up."

Joyce looked back at Buffy and then slid her glance over to Logan. "Which one?" she asked wryly, with a slightly pensive look on her face. "Are you sure Max is up to going out?"

Logan shrugged. "She says she is."

"Why does that not make me feel better?" Joyce sighed. She'd seen Max's face when they'd come back from the Magic Box two days ago. Max had first blinked in surprise at the tongue-lashing she'd gotten from the older woman, and had then laughed it off, unsubtly ignoring any more of Joyce's concerns and protests. Joyce couldn't help but feel a touch of hurt at the blatant move, thinking that Max had finally let her guard down between them when she was ill a few weeks ago. Obviously that guard had snapped right back up.

Buffy walked up a few of the steps and yelled upstairs, "Max, you'd think being in the army would have taught you to be on time!"

Max's voice came floating back to them a few seconds later. "Bite me."

Logan laughed. "You deserved that one, for calling her army."

Buffy shrugged. "Hey, I figure even if she came down to kick my a—butt," she corrected herself with a quick look at her mom, who had raised an eyebrow at her oldest daughter, "at least she'd be down here."

Joyce had a slightly pensive look on her face as she asked, "Are you sure it's a good idea for you all to be going out tonight?"

"Mo-om," Buffy whined, pained. "We've been through this already. Max is fine, has been fine. The gang is due for a break, and Max and Logan need money. The Bronze is the perfect spot for all of us."

"The Bronze? For money?" Joyce questioned with a frown. "Since when?"

"Since Willow mentioned the pool table there," Max replied as she reached the top of the stairs. Ignoring the widening eyes of the three at the bottom, she began down, swatting Dawn's hands away from her hair. "Where there's a pool table, there's always a few sharks circling for a little extra cash."

Logan couldn't comment. He was busy trying to figure out where all the blood in his head had gone. He was also trying to figure out how Max managed to walk down the stairs in those…those…pants.

The bottoms of the black leather pants were tucked into a pair of shiny black boots with a rather high heel. Logan swallowed hard as he followed the path of those pants as they clung tightly to Max's slim, muscular legs and rose to a point very far south of her navel, which now had a silver ring in it. There was a large span of golden skin between the pants and the cropped top, which was a siren red, clung nearly as tightly as the pants, and gathered over one shoulder, leaving the other tantalizingly bare. Logan desperately ratcheted his gaze up to her face, and saw that her full lips were now glistening the same red as her shirt and her eyelids had been shaded a smoky gray.

Max raised one slim eyebrow as she tried not to smirk at Logan's obvious reaction to her clothing. "See something you like?" she asked coyly.

All of Logan's missing blood flooded back into his face as he felt himself begin to blush. "No, just feeling…" he swallowed to steady himself, "overdressed."

Max grinned. "Just checking."

Joyce opened and closed her mouth a few times, looking as though she wanted to say something to Max before she finally settled on asking Buffy, "Who's going to be there tonight?"

Buffy shrugged as she reached for her jacket. "The usual crowd, minus Giles. I think he'd decided he'd rather hang out with his books instead of in the 'den of iniquity,' I think is the phrase he used."

Joyce eyed Max again before saying, "What about Xander?"

Buffy's eyebrows knit together. "What about him?"

Joyce tilted her head at Max, indicating her state of dress. Max raised her eyebrow, intrigued that Joyce wouldn't just come out and say anything. Before Buffy could answer, Max shrugged and replied, "I talked to Anya this afternoon."

All eyes turned to Max in surprise. "You did?" Buffy asked, that either of them would speak to the other willingly. "What did you say?"

"I told her what I was going to wear," Max said simply. "If she has any sense, she's going to knock Xander's boots clean off him."

Logan groaned as Buffy grinned and said, "Sounds about right." Seeing her sister reaching for Max's hair again, she pointedly said, "Dawn, leave Max's hair alone."

Max whirled and gave Dawn a sharp look. "Don't." She turned away from the surprised girl and grabbed her jacket off of the banister. "Let's bounce," she said crisply to everyone, and led the small group out the door.

Flashing lights pulsed with the beat of loud music pounded out by a small band, and young people crowded the floors, dancing to the piercing wails of the female lead singer. More people milled in and out of the throng with either large mugs of coffee, or drinks of an alcoholic variety. All of the dancers, drinkers, and talkers seemed to hover somewhere between high school and college age, and were of all varieties: nerds to jocks to preps to loners.

"Crash, it isn't," Max commented from the doorway, cautiously examining the scene.

Logan glanced up at the tone in Max's voice and saw the longing in her eyes. She was right: the Bronze wasn't Crash. It was another reminder of where they weren't. And, these days, the more reminders there were, the more homesick Max seemed to get. Hell, even though he wasn't a "regular" at Max's usual hangout, he really missed it. They were both saved from further depressing thoughts when Buffy let out a small hoot.

"Oh, there they are!" Buffy smiled and waved to Willow and Tara, who were seated together on a small sofa near a pink-topped pool table. Buffy quickly pranced over to them, with Max and Logan slowly following. "Hey, guys!" she said happily.

Willow and Tara looked up at Buffy's gleeful call and smiled, waving the three of them over. "We've been guarding the table for you," Willow told Max and Logan.

"But not many…many people have been wanting to use it," Tara added timidly.

Max looked at Logan and shrugged. "Once we get going, the sharks will come out of the woodwork." She could already feel some stares from some of the patrons; it was time to begin attracting some of the right attention.

Buffy looked at Willow and Tara and frowned. "I thought Xander and Anya were going to meet us here. They not around yet?"

The two women looked at each other and rolled their eyes. "Oh, they're around," Willow mumbled. Tara glanced over one shoulder and then cocked a thumb in the direction she had looked.

Buffy followed her glance and sighed. Xander and Anya were leaning against a nearby wall…kissing each other as though they were trying to locate each other's tonsils

Buffy saw Max watching the pair with a raised eyebrow. Max gave Buffy a look, and Buffy cleared her throat. This could so backfire… "Hey, guys, look who's here. Logan and…and Max."

"Max who," Xander mumbled against Anya's lips as he began a path from them towards her neck. Anya smiled coyly and moved her attack to his earlobe.

Buffy turned to Max and shrugged. "You were right."

Max smiled, and turned to Logan. "Ready to start this game?"

He gave his wheels a sharp push to where the cues were. "Yup. The sooner we get going, the sooner I can change."

"Right there with you," Max agreed.

Buffy, Tara, and Willow watched Max as she too picked out her cue, and then took a slow walk around the table, running a hand along the surface. "They do realize that this is mostly the high school/college crowd right? Not exactly a wealth of…well…wealth here," Willow pointed out.

Buffy sighed. "They know. They're also pretty desperate. Not that Max had a major income from her poker playing down at the Fishbowl or anything, but something was better than the nothing they have now."

Tara glanced at Logan, who was reaching down under the table to remove the pool balls. "In spite of that, they seem to be holding together okay."

Buffy shrugged and took a sip of her soda. "Considering where they came from…this is probably a picnic." The two women settled back and watched Max and Logan begin a "friendly" game.

Max ignored the ongoing conversation between Buffy and Tara, even though she had a feeling they were talking about her and Logan – again. It was the favorite topic of late, one that Max herself was sick of hearing about. She rarely focused her hearing to catch any words related to her and Logan's predicament. She casually moved to stand next to Logan as he finished racking the balls.

"There's a slight tilt to the far right corner of the table. Could cause some problems. The felt is pretty smooth, though. Nothing that should throw off shots too much," she murmured as Logan carefully pulled the triangle away and sat it back in its slot.

He looked at her, surprised, and smiled as she just shrugged. "Friendly game, right?" He took aim, and struck the cue. The pool balls rattled off of each other and the sides of the table, before several smoothly slid into the pockets. Logan grinned. "Stripes."

Max rolled her eyes as he cockily moved to another part of the table for his next shot. And his next. When he finally missed a shot, Max sashayed over to the table and slowly bent over, feeling several pairs of eyes lock on certain…aspects…of her body. She knew that those eyes were most likely attached to men stupid enough to risk their money on a game of pool to get close to her. The ones who weren't stupid would be drawn because of the quality of play. She sunk her next three shots before she reached a point where she had no more good shots left. She took a shot that left the cue ball in a rather poor position for Logan.

He shook his head as he carefully lined up his next shot, all too aware of the eyes that were watching him and Max. He tried to make sure that his play was clean, but not spectacular. All of his special tricks could wait for later. As soon as he sunk the eight ball and left Max rolling her eyes, he felt a slight tap on his arm. He set his cue on the table and turned. Two young men, both likely college students, were eyeing both the pool table and Max's physique, not necessarily in that order.

"So, man," said the one who had tapped him, "do you and your girl do pairs?"

Logan tried not to grimace at the phrasing of the question. "We might be persuaded to do some team play." At the man's blank look, Logan slowly slid a five-dollar bill out of his pocket, and set it on the edge of the pool table.

The man nudged his friend, who was busy trying to puff out his chest, and said, "Kit, give me a five."

Kit mumbled, "Sure, Roger," as he slowly dug around in his pocket and pulled out everything within, dropping it in Roger's hand, not even noticing as several coins clattered noisily to the floor.

Max slowly sashayed over. "Let me get that for you." She bent down at the waist, and began picking up the coins.

Logan swore the temperature in the room ratcheted up ten degrees before she stood again. He also swore that more coins had fallen than Max handed to Kit.

Roger rolled his eyes at his friend as he set some of the money on top of the Logan's five-dollar bill. He rolled his eyes again at his blustering friend not fifteen minutes later as Max scooped the money off the table, leaving the original five there. "Thanks for playing, try again later," she said as she turned her back on them. She looked out at the small crowd that had begun to gather. "Who's next?"

Buffy, Willow, and Tara laughed and talked amongst themselves as they kept a casual eye on the play. Max and Logan quickly made the most of those interested either in them or in the game itself, racking up a nice chunk of change on the side. They had just finished up a game where a guy couldn't concentrate on what was going on with the table because his girlfriend was flirting with Logan. Finally, in a huff, he grabbed his girl by the arm, leading her away, not even bothering to wait it out to the end.

As negotiations began between the Seattle pair and a couple of people who looked to be hard-core players, Tara cautiously asked, "Have they heard anything from Giles' friend yet?"

Buffy sighed and shook her head as she drained the last of her soda. "Not a word. The waiting wouldn't be so bad if they weren't, well, waiting."

"Waiting for what, love?" came a voice from behind them.

All three turned, and Buffy sighed again, seeing who it was. "What are you doing here, Spike?"

"Heard some rumors, thought I'd see if you heard the same," the vampire answered as he took a seat on the arm of her chair, lifting his feet to rest on the edge of Willow and Tara's couch.

"What rumors?" Buffy asked, coming to attention.

"New creepy. Waiting for what?" he repeated.

"What creepy?" Willow interrupted. "A demon creepy, vampire creepy, or a crawly-type creepy?"

Spike regarded the witch, running his tongue over his teeth before finally replying, "Not sure. Just rumors that there's something new in town. Thought I'd come see if you'd killed anything lately that might fit the bill."

Buffy pulled herself off of the mental high alert, and reclined in her chair once more, looking away from Spike in favor of the pool table. "Spike, there's always some type of creepy in town. I'm all in favor of the rumor mill as a process, but next time, would you mind bringing me something with some substance?"

Spike frowned as he followed Buffy's attention to the pool table, just in time to see Logan perform a fancy jump shot to cheers of the surrounding crowd. "Fine. How 'bout you spread some, then? Rumors, that is. What are you waiting for?"

"I'm not waiting. They're still waiting."

Comprehension dawned. "Ahh. Waiting for Willow to fix her mistake?"

Willow fisted her hands in the couch cushion, feeling slightly hurt. "It wasn't a mistake."

"Looked like a mistake to me," Spike replied, goading the redhead.

The hurt quickly morphed, and Willow huffed an angry breath. She tried not to think of spells to turn Spike into a speck. "Granted, the results weren't what we'd planned, but I know I didn't make a mistake! I've gone back over every syllable of that spell, every movement, bajillions of times. Not the easiest spell in the world to perform, but I know I did it perfectly!"

Rather pleased for getting her riled, he poked at her again. "Well, I can't see as how pulling people through time would be the same as, say, floating a pencil. Can you even do that now, witch?"

Tara's mouth dropped open as Willow began to lean out of her seat. "Don't!" she managed to chirp, worried what her lover was going to do.

Willow leaned over far enough to pick up her bag that was sitting on the floor, and rifled through it. Finally, she whipped out a pencil, and thwapped it on the table in anger. "You wanna see me float a pencil? Fine, I'll float a pencil." She took a deep breath, mentally compartmentalizing the anger into one little anger ball and carefully set it aside before focusing her energies. She braced her hands on her knees, and stared at the pencil.

The pencil slowly lifted from the table and hovered about six inches in the air, where it remained, steady.

Willow smiled in relief and in success. "See? Not a problem."

"Brava," Spike said dourly.

As the crowd dispersed from around the pool table, Max looked up from her final shot to win the game, in time to see Willow float the pencil and smirk at Spike. Max frowned and, leaving Logan to collect this round's winnings, slowly stepped towards the Sunnydale group, intent on examining the trick.

The pencil wobbled. Willow's smile fell away, and she looked at Max.

The closer she stepped, the greater the wobble grew. As she bent down and peered at the pencil, the wobble became a spin. Suddenly, the spin quickly turned the pencil into a flying projectile.

"Ow!" yelled Spike as the pencil jammed sharply into his arm. "Watch what you're doing. You nearly dusted me!"

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Now would that have been such a bad thing?"

Although Spike snorted and simply pulled the pencil from his arm, Willow frowned and stared at Max, wondering.

Giles impatiently walked around behind the counter of the Magic Box as he waited for the operator to come back on the phone. The elevator music on the other end of the line was driving him nearly insane. Finally, after another few minutes wait, the operator came back on the line. "Yes, I'm still here. What…? No connection at all? Did you try re-routing through Fianarantsoa or…? Of course. You tried that, too. Yes, I realize the person I am trying to reach lives in the middle of the mountains in the middle of nowhere. Yes, I also realize that his one phone line in his entire camp may take up to a month to repair. What I'm saying is that…yes. Good evening to you, too." Giles set the phone back on its hook with a bad tempered click. "Hag," he couldn't help adding.

Taking a deep breath, Giles tried to settle down. He was getting frustrated with his continued inability to reach Maurice. "It might be a hell of a lot easier to reach him via telegram," he told himself as he began to straighten some of the books and papers he had left on the counter. "Or possibly carrier pigeon." He pondered that for a moment, then shook his head at himself and turned towards the front of the shop.

Outside the window, a creature lurched by in the dark, its hideous maw chewing on a piece of leg.

Human leg.

"Geeeeyaaagh!" exclaimed Giles, startled. He could do nothing more than take in the hideous form of the monster as it trailed bits of skin and blood and wandered away. When it was out of sight, he turned back to the counter and groped for the phone. "Where is she? Bronze. The Bronze. That's right." Giles shuddered. "Can't go there. Beepy thing! That thing. Need to call the beepy thing."

The rag-tag group slowly walked out of the Bronze and into the alley, chatting and laughing about events of the evening. Willow was more subdued than usual.

"Hey, do you think that pencil—?" Willow cut herself off as she saw several figures step out of the shadows.

"What have we here?" a gravelly voice said. As the man stepped further into the lighted area, his greasy features became more visible, and all present could see the gun in his hand. A large dog in the group began to growl.

Buffy slowly raised her hands, and could see the others mimicking her actions out of the corners of her eyes. "What do you want?" Before she got an answer, she heard Max sigh.

"Trash. I thought you would have been content with the last time I kicked your ass. Come back for more?" Max snarled sarcastically.

Buffy turned her head uncertainly, and saw Logan shaking his while lowering his hands. "I take it you two know each other?"

Max took a short, cautious step forward. "Yeah, we do. You could say we had a bit of an altercation in my early days here, before I picked him up and heaved his slimy self out of The Fishbowl."

Trash's two equally filthy looking partners snickered as his face turned several interesting colors. He extended the gun arm, and shook the weapon menacingly. "You mean when you cheated and stole my money!"

"Actually, it was when you proved exactly how much you suck at poker." Casting a wary look at the dog, Max looked back at Buffy, who still had her hands in the air, and asked, "He happen to be a demon, vampire, or anything else you kill?"

Buffy was entirely confused, but answered anyway. "Um…no, I don't think so."

Max shrugged and turned back to Trash. "Guess I'm gonna have to take down this bitch myself."

"You just called me a bitch!" Trash exclaimed, as he turned more colors.

"Yes, I did. Although, I'd prefer you were a bitch without this…" Max moved, and suddenly she had the gun in her hands, pointing it at Trash. She smiled at his stunned blink, and quickly slid out the clip and ejected the bullet. She tossed the gun to Logan, who deftly caught it. "…because I really don't like guns," she finished up.

Trash could only stare at his empty hand.

"Now, you and your peeps can leave before I feed you to your ugly-ass dog, because this is MY turf now." Max cracked her knuckles as she sidled towards them.

Trash took a sharp breath before looking at his cronies and nodding. "This isn't over," he said. The man handling the growling dog gave an impatient tug on its leash before turning.

Max grinned as she watched them stalk away. "I sure hope not."

The stunned Scoobies clustered around Max, and Logan pulled up next to her. "Mind telling us what that was all about?" he asked.

"He's a sore loser," she said cagily. She frowned down at Logan. "What are you going to do with that?"

Logan looked at the gun in his lap. "Couldn't hurt to keep it, I guess. It's a decent piece. Do you mind?"

"Mom might," Buffy answered in place of Max.

"Oh, right, because she's more comfortable with stakes, crossbows, and big axes," Anya scoffed.

"Do you mind?" Logan repeated, directing his gaze to Max.

She looked at the clip in her hand, and held it out to him. "Not like it's any different than usual."

Before Logan could say more, a strange buzzing sound cut through the silent air. Everyone looked at each other, before realizing that the buzzing was coming from Buffy's purse. "Um…Buffy?" Willow said.

Buffy's brows knit as she rifled through her purse and pulled out a pager. "Geez, I didn't realize I still had this. Mom must still be paying the bill..." she trailed off. "It's a 911 from Giles. Come on, we've gotta get to The Magic Box."

Coming March 5, 2005 – Chapter 8: Acceptance - March 15, 2001