"So basically," Joyce summed up, dumping the last shards of Hiko's pot in a dustbin, "You don't really know what's going on with Buffy, or her friends, but you do know they seem to get mixed up in anything weird that goes on near or around the school. And inside the school, weirdness gravitates to the library."

"It's the one place no sane denizen of the school goes, save under duress," Jonathan agreed, sweeping glass dust into a pile with a flourish of bristles. "Which seems rather weird, given how many bodies have turned up everywhere else... I've been in there to get a book or two for class reports. And now that my brain seems to be losing whatever static was making the details fuzzy, somehow I don't think things labeled Vampyr, Pergamum Codex or Du Lac manuscript really belong in a high school library."

Static, Joyce thought, straightening shelves. Something that makes you gloss over all the things that you ought to pay attention to. "Last night, Hiko said the amount of youki loose would keep people from remembering specifics..."

"Demonic energy?" the teenager said thoughtfully, leaning the broom against one of the few bare patches of gallery wall. "Japanese. Whoa, that's still weird. Not to mention Chinese, and German, and Russian, and - yeek - F-18 stats... um. Okay. Mystical energy. Loose last night. Not loose right now. Except-" He looked at his hands, then at her.

"We're still in it," Joyce concluded. "So... because we're part of it, we can't forget?"

"I guess." He dodged her gaze.

"Jonathan." She gave him a look, honed on Buffy, with a shade of the cool dispassion Signet would have used on yet another of Blazon's and Animus Prime's idiotic dominance fights. "Believe it or not, adults don't just inflict algebra on teenagers for kicks. We can actually add one and one and come up with two. Buffy doesn't forget. Buffy's been talking about vampires - or not talking about them - since L. A." Which means Buffy is... like us? How can that be?

"She's been seen jumping the wall at school," Jonathan said reluctantly. "You know, the one you'd have to be a squirrel to go over? She took out those vampires who got onstage at the Bronze last year barehanded. And word around the caf yesterday was she introduced Larry the linebacker to a soda machine." He shrugged. "I don't know how the others fit in. Which is funny, because I remember wanting to ask Xander why his girlfriend Ampata's hands got so rough so quick a few weeks back, it was weird... but then she disappeared, and I forgot."

Ampata, Joyce thought. Ampata the foreign exchange student, who she'd invited into her own home. Who'd turned out to be a girl when they'd been expecting a boy. Who'd just vanished after that international dance at the Bronze, luggage and all.

And she hadn't wondered why. Had barely even noticed. Just one more mystery around her bewildering daughter.

That does it. I'm making a list.

"I really appreciate the help, Jonathan," Joyce said, scribbling things to pin down Buffy about on a separate piece of paper from the insurance list of items damaged or destroyed by last night's chaos. "But you don't have to do anymore if you don't want to. I could run you home anytime; your parents would believe me if I told them you were over the food poisoning."

"No... no, I think I'd really rather be here. At least for a few more hours." Picking up a painting with delicate care, the teen gave her a halfhearted smile. "Dealing with this... it's a lot simpler than dealing with some of the things in my head right now." He puffed a breath across painted canvas, wafting off fine debris. "Now I know why Uncle Robert never wanted to talk about his work."

Knowing how to spy. How to fight. How to kill. Joyce shook her head. I don't know if I can do this.

"Um... hello?" A dark-haired, worried young man in his late twenties knocked on the gallery's front doorframe, a waft of horse and something other drifting from his jeans. "Ah, look. I know this is going to sound weird..." He caught a glimpse of Joyce's black-tipped braid, brown eyes blinking wide before he shoved his hands in his leather jacket pockets. "Okay, never mind, you know weird already. Um. I'm Gary. I could really use some help, and a friend of mine said I should ask you. Of course, she also said I should at least put on a white shirt, and I really don't feel like being that much of a target-"

Joyce set down her notes. "What's the problem?"

"What friend?" Jonathan asked warily.

"Well - I - oh, heck." He glanced down the street. "Marissa? Do you mind?"

A horsy snort, and suddenly what had seemed like a patch of sunlight resolved itself into the form of a white horse with simple leather tack and hackamore, one blue eye giving Joyce a deliberate wink.

What the-? "That," Joyce said, solid in Signet's confidence in what she scented, "is not a horse."

"Oh, damn," Jonathan breathed. "What possessed you, man? To go as a bloody walking target-!"

Gary perked up at that. "You read the books?"

"Skimmed one," Jonathan admitted. "I hate to break it to you, but you're a very long way from Haven."

"Ah, yeah... anyway." Gary glanced at his watch. "We've got about forty-five minutes to sneak something called a talisman of Keltor out of the mayor's post office box before his assistant picks up his mail, and I don't know how to pick locks." Brown eyes beseeched her. "Help?"

Joyce eyed him. "Talisman of Keltor?"

"Well, from what I saw happen... actually, what will happen, about twenty hours from now, if we don't grab it... aw, heck. Tell you on the way?"

I could walk away, Joyce thought. Right now.

But if I do... Buffy won't.

"Let me grab my cell."

"Talisman of-? As if we didn't have enough annoyances." Stepping across the Summers' kitchen from Jenny's bubbling pot, Giles sighed. "Wrap it in something white, dunk it in salt water, and call me in the morning."

"I'm serious!" Joyce protested over the phone.

"So am I. Mischief-attracting talismans may be difficult to locate, but they are relatively easy to disarm. Fortunately." Giles cocked an ear to the road, catching two particular engines among the others. Along with a few, fainter noises. Is that-? Yes. "I believe the children are on their way in. If you don't mind, I suspect I may have to haul Kenshin and Xander out of Hiko's back seat."

"Are they at it again?" Joyce sighed, exasperated. "I thought Animus and Blazon were that bad because they were lion and wolf Bloods competing for alpha, but now I'm beginning to think it's just males in general... um."

"The memories will settle with time," Giles said firmly. "If they're truly vexing, I believe Jenny could take a hand. Smooth off the rough edges, as it were."

"Thanks, but I think I'll try and live with things as they are for a while," Joyce said plainly. "I've had enough magic messing with my head for a lifetime."

"Quite right." Giles made a polite goodbye as Jenny mouthed the words of the unfamiliar spell laid out on the counter, a white chunk of quartz crystals holding his Llyfr o Nudd a Llygedyn open to the key pages with their attached sheets of modern notes. He plucked up a plastic bag of dried blossoms, placed it in her reaching hand. "Foxglove?"

"Menig y tylwyth teg, the glove of the fair folk, to conceal their hand from human sight," Jenny murmured, working out the spell's logic in her head. "Gwymon, the seaweed that nourishes, to exist within the borders; neither land nor sea, neither earth nor sky. Afallen, apple, seed of the tree that joins the Otherworld to ours. Mince them all with the blade of gwydrfaen, the salamander's own dark glass, so that others may see in day as if it were the cloak of night. Sift them three times through the rising wind, mingle them with cleansed water, and stir with the - hoelen arian?"

"Silver nail," Giles translated, handing her the small, silvery point. "Specifically, a silver horseshoe nail. One of the friendlier interactions history records between humans and the Seleighe Sidhe was that of a smith re-shoeing a fay steed so a faerie lord could reach his sidh before dawn. Using silver, as iron would cripple the creature. It cost the smith dearly, but his family prospered ever after."

"Soak the pierced stones therein, and bear them with you to cloud mortal eyes... hmm. Well, you're right, it's not witchcraft. I can cast this. And it looks like it'll work. But it's not a very powerful spell," Jenny warned. "We're going to have to renew it at least once a month to keep the charms working."

"Given the circumstances, I believe the less magic we employ, the better." The Watcher skimmed the ancient words again, checking them against his memory. "Not to mention this is one of the few spells I could locate swiftly that not only is Celtic magic, but employs the five Oriental elements as well."

"Earth, wood, fire, water, and metal," Jenny ticked off. "You think that'll be important?"

"As you pointed out, different magical traditions lead to different vulnerabilities," Giles stated. "Best to spread our net as widely as possible." Two cars grumbled into the driveway. "If you have this under control, I believe I'll go pry our young pups apart."

Testing her obsidian blade with the edge of her finger, Jenny waved him off.

Giles walked out into the sunshine in time to catch Kenshin's quick leap to land, poised, on the roof of Hiko's car, leaving a blinking Xander on the ground with empty claws. Dark eyes narrowed as Giles read the set of Battousai's muscles; the ki not aglow with play, but vanishing into the shadowed stillness of too many bloody Kyoto nights. :Knock it off, pups.:

Xander jerked his head up toward the no-nonsense whoof, ears evidently flattened under his black ball-cap. "Don't do that, G-man!"

"It seems to get your attention," Giles noted dryly.

"Yeah. By grabbing the scruff of my neck and shaking," the inu-hanyou muttered, rubbing under the flow of white hair as if he could still feel teeth there. Sniffed the air, and looked up to where Kenshin still crouched, ready to move like the wind. "You okay?"

"I... had forgotten what it was to be among large groups of people, that I had." The former assassin's voice was cool. Taut.

Yes, he's definitely had enough, Giles concluded, as Cordelia finished locking up her car and the girls headed for the front door, bags in hand. "We'll be inside."

"We will? Hey!"

Giles kept his hand locked on Xander's collar as he hauled the protesting teen inside, closing the door on a glimpse of Hiko speaking softly to the still-tensed Battousai. "He may appear to be handling the dislocation quite well. I assure you, he's not. Give him some room."

"And you know this," Buffy said grimly, shopping bags piled in the middle of the living room. "You know him."

"The man I once was knew him quite well, for more years than I care to count." Giles looked over the four of them, taking in Willow's fidgeting, Xander's fangs biting his lip, Cordelia's uncharacteristic silence. "I take it that disturbs you?"

"It's him knowing us that's freaky," Cordelia spoke up. "I mean, okay, Slayers get the cosmic merry-go-round instead of the one-way ticket, fine - but Kenshin acts like he knows all of us!"

"He does," Giles said gently. "Or did." He met each gaze in turn. "You weren't affected by Jenny's enspelled use of the Force. I've no idea how much you might remember of the past; or indeed, if you will ever remember anything. Do you truly want to know?"

"Not knowing on the Hellmouth is bad," Willow pointed out. "What if he thinks we know something, and we don't? Someone could get hurt!"

"Someone nearly has," Giles observed, half to himself. "He's not as calm as he may look, Xander. Be more careful. He feels very much as he did at the height of the Bakumatsu, and if you accidentally trapped him in a corner... well. It would be very, very messy."

"What's a Bakumatsu?" Xander protested.

Sighing, Giles motioned for them to sit down. "In 1853, Perry's fleet - the 'Black Ships', as Japan came to call them - sailed into Edo Harbor and, under threat of cannons, forced Japan to open its ports to the world. Prior to that time, Japan had for almost three centuries followed the policy of senkoku, the closed country; outside of some very limited trade, they wanted no part of the modern world, and preferred it had no claim on them, as well. Then... well, to use an analogy from your American films, it was as if spaceships had landed on the White House lawn, and demanded at laser-point that Earth join an intergalactic trade federation. On the aliens' terms."

Xander winced. "I think I speak for us all when I say, ouch?"

"The people were terrified, and rightly so," Giles went on. "And the Shogunate, those who served as the Japanese government, had no answers for them. Britain, the United States, Germany... more and more countries forced concessions from the Shogunate, and those few Japanese who had traveled abroad saw their country poised on the brink of what had happened to China. Which had, at that time, been carved up and exploited by several major powers," the Watcher added, considering his audience. "I won't bore you with the details of the Opium Wars. Suffice it to say it was a bloody nasty piece of international history. Educated Japanese believed something had to be done. Yet so long as the Shogunate held power, they thought nothing would. So they went to war."

"What does this have to do with Kenshin?" Buffy asked bluntly.

"Everything." Giles' lips twitched into a shadow of a smirk. "These days we use covert operations teams and smart bombs. The Ishin Shishi, those who overthrew the Shogunate, used hitokiri." He gave his audience a hard look. "For over a year, Kenshin was assigned to eliminate key government personnel and other Shogunate supporters. Often he had to go through their bodyguards as well. And he left no witnesses.

"I... Saitou learned of him only as a shadow at first. A killer who fought like a demon, and left only bodies and blood. We had no name, no description; only what we could deduce from shattered swords and scene after scene of death.

"And then I saw something. Only a glimpse, as the Shinsengumi put the Ishin Shishi to flight... for a little while. A scent of white plums and blood, as a small, redheaded samurai fled from us, holding hands with a young woman as they vanished in Kyoto's night." Giles snorted. "But fool that I was, I didn't expect a hitokiri to love. So we did not pursue them as closely as we might have. Not that I'm certain we'd have been able to stop them if we had."

"The woman - she was Kaoru?" Buffy put in.

"Kaoru would have been about three or four at the time, so no," Giles said plainly. "That time... well, you'll have to ask Battousai about that later. Much later, I would advise; I imagine those memories are still quite painful, and I know they have nothing to do with any of you. Suffice it to say that once the blood began flowing in Kyoto again, Hitokiri Battousai had left the assassin's path. He became a skirmisher instead, guarding his comrades from my fellow troops, offering one blunt challenge in the night: Go back the way you came, or die." Giles shifted his shoulders; a minuscule shrug. "Within a few years, the Ishin Shishi won, the Revolution was over... and Battousai disappeared.

"Ten years later, he surfaced again in Tokyo; a rag-tag wanderer who only called himself 'rurouni', following rumors of a murderer who claimed the name Battousai. And that is how Himura Kenshin encountered a very brave, very determined young kenjutsu master who only carried a wooden sword, who still meant to catch the killer and clear her family name." Giles raised an amused eyebrow at the reddening Slayer.

"Giles, there is no way I'd go after a guy with a real sword with a hunk of wood!" Buffy sputtered.

"Ah, but this was the age of Meiji. Supposedly a time of peace and new ways of thinking," Giles said dryly. "Fortunately for your past self, when the murderer came for Kaoru with a good two dozen of his cronies, Kenshin was willing to back up your ideals with some very hard knocks."

"So he rescued our Buff?" Xander perked up. "Whoa."

"Himura would say Kaoru rescued him, as well," Giles observed. "I believe she was the first person to get his true name out of him in, oh, at least five years." He spread his hands. "In short, Kaoru invited him to stay. He did, and the pair of you encountered a series of interesting characters. Some of whom, over time, became close as family." Giles turned his gaze on Xander. "One of the first of those was a nineteen-year-old brawler by the name of Sagara Sanosuke."

"You're kidding," Xander said in disbelief.

"Rude, rough at the edges, and rather prone to leaving unconscious enemies behind him," Giles said with relish. "But not a bad sort, all things considered. On those rare occasions he actually thought."

"All right," Xander cracked his knuckles, eyes narrowed. "You're going down."

"I rest my case," Giles said dryly.

"But - you-" Xander took in the Watcher's deceptively casual stance, the sword at Giles' side, and the fact of his own blade a few critical feet away with the shopping bags. "Ooh, one of these days..."

"Not too long after Battousai pounded some sense through Sagara's skull, the pair of them encountered a young lady doctor," Giles went on, turning to Cordelia. "Takani Megumi was in a great deal of trouble; enough to need Battousai, Sagara, and the entire Kamiya dojo to handle. Suffice it to say the ensuing violence was of the kind American theaters won't allow those your age to view without an accompanying adult, and I've never been quite sure how Himura escaped prosecution for the property damage. Though I suppose the police were pleased enough to lay hands on a major opium smuggler to ignore certain lesser offenses."

"A doctor?" Cordelia said faintly. "But - I'm not a geek!"

"I assure you, neither was she." Finally, his gaze fell on Willow. "And no sooner had the dust settled from that incident, than one of Kaoru's students met a young restaurant waitress, Sanjou Tsubame. A child of a lesser samurai family, who still hadn't accepted that Meiji truly meant to create a new way of living, where the weak no longer served the strong. But she found her strength in time."

"Eep?" Willow shrank back.

"To address your key concern, Willow, Kenshin does know you - we - are not the folk he knew of old," Giles said matter-of-factly. "But our ki feels much the same, and if the Hiten Mitsurugi style has one flaw, it is that its users react to ki as instinctively as you do Snyder's shadow. He trusts you. Implicitly. And that trust makes him fragile in a way he could not have predicted." Giles fixed Xander with a firm look. "You are not playing with another teenage boy, Xander. You are sparring, however gently, with the Demon of Kyoto. A young man whose every instinct, since he was thirteen, has been to kill his opponent."

A knock at the front door interrupted the flood of teenage questions before it could begin. Giles lingered long enough to see Buffy wave Hiko and his former student in, then escaped to the kitchen. "Well?" he asked, seeing Jenny dust off her hands with a look of satisfaction.

The technopagan nodded toward a pot of simmering green liquid. "Holed stones set and soaking. I'd say we'll be good to go tomorrow."

"Thank god," he breathed.

"Don't let them hear you say that," Jenny said impishly. "This is high school, Giles. The closest Earth comes to Hell without demons?"

"Well, a reasonable prequel is currently waiting in the living room to interrogate me more about Meiji, past lives, and a young ex-assassin with severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder," Giles snapped back. Drew in a slow breath, and gingerly shook his head. "Sumimasen. Forgive me, Jenny, that was uncalled for."

"You're right. It was." Jenny's voice was cool. "Are you that much more worried about him than the rest of the children?"

"Hiko was never involved in the main fighting of the Bakumatsu," Giles informed her. "He never met Battousai; not truly. Even when Kenshin ventured back to lay his life and hopes at his teacher's feet, he'd already been rurouni for ten years. He'd achieved a measure of peace with himself and his actions. Now that peace is gone, and Hiko means to take him under his wing again. And if you believed that sword-swinging potter was sarcastic to Angel..."

"Which is why he's staying with you," the swordsman said plainly.

Giles kept himself from flinching through sheer force of will. Damn; another one! He'd never before met another swordsman who could cloak his ki as well as Battousai. Though given who Hiko was... "I beg your pardon?"

"Don't be dense, Wolf." Hiko stepped into the kitchen, eyeing Jenny's concoction with clinical interest. "I've paid my last debt to my student. He's a master himself; he certainly doesn't belong under my roof anymore. I'm a hermit. I've been a hermit for greater part of two centuries. I like it that way." A shadowed smile crossed his face. "And you're right. I can see it in his eyes. The blood. The nightmares." The shadows faded from Hiko's smile. "Not to mention my deshi still has a fair grasp of tactics. What sane man builds his headquarters on the docks when his target prefers the marketplace?"

"Buffy is not a target," Giles ground out.

"Shinsengumi wa Shinsengumi, hitokiri wa hitokiri. That will never die in him, no matter how much peace he finds. You know it. I know it. He knows it."

"She is... in love with another," Giles admitted.

"Is she? I hope he can run very fast." Hiko smirked. "What, that tormented soul in a vampire's flesh? With a vampire slayer?"

"I find it rather poetic," Giles said stiffly.

"And I find it rather suicidal." Hiko shrugged. "But then, the Hiten teaches its wielders that Bushido is not the be-all and end-all samurai would like it to be. We've never been in favor of shinju."

"I think Buffy has more sense than that," Jenny stepped in before the conversation could turn ugly. "Rupert. I've heard of love at first sight, but this sounds serious. I know you say Kenshin cared about her..."

Giles sighed. "If over half a century of devoted marriage qualifies as caring, then yes."

Jenny gaped at him. Closed her mouth, still staring. "...Oh."

"Himura's an honorable and patient man," Giles began.

"Naive, guilt-ridden, idiotically self-sacrificing..." Hiko put in.

"Call it what you will, he has always loved Kaoru's fierce independence, her strength, and her devotion to her friends," Giles went on firmly. "I sincerely doubt he would threaten those now by doing something - drastic."

"You mean like luring the vampire into a back alley, dropping on top of him with a Ryuu Tsui Sen, and turning up with a nice clueless expression to console her afterward?" Hiko said dryly. "No. My baka deshi's too honorable to consider that as an option. Pity."

Jenny raised a skeptical brow. "Somehow, I get the impression you don't like Angel."

"Angel? Hmph." Hiko was silent a moment, fists tightening under his cloak. "How much do you know about Angelus?"

"The Scourge of Europe? More than you can imagine," the gypsy woman said grimly.

"He didn't just feed in Europe." Hiko looked into the distance. "In 1894, he and his sire, Darla, used the chaos of the Korean invasion to cut a bloody swath through Kobe, and then Tokyo. Kenji and I spent months tracking their kills, their offspring. As they, in turn, were tracking us, sending out band after band of fledglings on the trail of rumors of vampire slayers and redheaded swordsmen. Very canny vampires, dark and evil even for their demonic kind. And their offspring were nearly as canny; Darla had a fondness for turning ronin and ninjas." Amber flickered in dark blue. "Refusing to invite such creatures across your threshold means little when they can use inhuman strength to cast a manriki-gusari through your roof and ensnare your best friend's daughter."

"Sagara Machi," Giles breathed. "Battousai would never say how she'd been injured that night. Only that those responsible had been... dealt with." Which had seemed very odd, for the rurouni who would not kill. But search the dojo as he might, Saitou had found no blood beyond the girl's.

Of course you wouldn't. Not if the corpse turned to dust.

"A bokken can harm vampires," Hiko noted. "Two, and Sanosuke's fists, were able to deal with even three vampire ninjas. But it was close. Too close. If Darla had sent four..." He shook his head. "Battousai may have been a ruthless killer, but he was sane. Angelus is a psychopath."

"Was," Jenny pointed out.

"Is," Hiko said flatly. "The demon is still within him. Sense it through the Force if you don't believe me. No, I don't like him. I don't trust him." Amber cleared from dark blue eyes. "But you say he fights on the Slayer's side now. I won't harm him."

"Thank you." Giles granted the swordsman a formal bow.

Mischief glinted in deep blue. "I'll leave that to Kenshin."

"No, Mom, I can't walk away from it!" Buffy's voice rang out in the night to vampire hearing. "I tried, really I did. Even after we moved here, even after a guy fell out of a gym locker with fang marks in his neck... I didn't ask to be the Slayer! I didn't want to be the one and only girl in the world responsible for heading off Armageddon! I just - am."

Angel winced, listening out of sight in the night beyond the living room window. They must have started this before sunset. Damn.

"So don't be," Joyce argued. "This is magic, isn't it? Find a counter-spell. Find something. Get your life back."

"Unfortunately, Ms. Summers, it doesn't work that way," Giles said firmly. "The Slayer was meant to serve as a counterbalance to the forces of darkness. If the Calling could be undone, rest assured, the greater demons would have done so long ago. Buffy was Called. She is the Slayer. She will remain the Slayer until the day she dies." His voice lowered. "It is her destiny."

"This is America," Joyce shot back. "We don't have destinies."

Works in theory. Angel sighed, heading for the door.

"I would not intervene, that I would not."

It'd been a seriously long time since anything had made the hairs stand up on the back of Angel's neck.

The quiet voice floating down from the roof, however, did it.

Okay. So the kitsune-hanyou likes roofs. No reason to panic. Cool, calm and collected, Angel lifted a casual gaze to the slim shadow on the shingles near Buffy's bedroom window.

Molten gold stared back.

Shit.

If he'd been breathing, those eyes would have frozen the air in his lungs. Not hateful. Not angry, not the way he was used to vampires being angry. Not lost in fury, the way his own inner demon still raged against the humans' efforts to make earthly beauty out of what had once been the elder demons' own hell.

Just... predatory.

"Remember, to the great beasts, the world is really a simple place," the pompous words of a soon-to-be-munched late-night horror movie biologist floated through Angel's mind. "Can I eat it, or will it eat me?"

Predator. Right. Welcome to the Hellmouth, buddy. I've seen worse than you. "Get off Buffy's roof," Angel bit out.

"I do not believe you would appreciate that, Angel-san."

"Really," the vampire said dryly, circling the house to come as close as possible without jumping up there himself.

"Aa."

Japanese. Fine. Two can play at that. "And why would that be, Himura-san?" Angel asked in that tongue's scathing politeness.

"Do not," Kenshin said evenly, "Ask me to demonstrate, Angel-san."

"It seems something has disturbed your inner peace and tranquility," Angel said dryly. "Might one inquire as to the cause of this disquiet?"

"You have been within her room."

Short. To the point. Not a good sign. "We're friends."

"Unescorted. By night. From the strength of the scents, all night." Himura's voice lowered. "How many nights?"

Oh hell. Old-style, traditional Japanese. As in, spend three consecutive nights with an unrelated woman and you're married traditional. "It's not like that."

"Is it not?"

"She's sixteen," Angel pointed out.

"Of age in your living time, or in mine." Himura's left hand was hidden in the shadows, but Angel had a bad feeling it rested on his saya, thumb poised to loosen the blade.

Assassin or not, no way does a shrimp get off trying to intimidate me. "Then I'd say that makes it none of your business, doesn't it?"

Too fast to be believed, blue and red blurred-

And Himura was standing in front of him, eyes narrowed fire. "Her life is her own. Her choices, her own. But if you hurt her-"

A gust of wind, and only shadows remained.

"-I will find you."

Braid finally combed out into loose chestnut waves, Buffy took a bracing breath and brushed a few stray bits of lint off her sweatpants and tank top. Nodded, and opened her bedroom door, smiling at the creature of the night lounging on her bed. "Tada. Just little old 20th-century me."

Angel looked her over carefully. "Sure you're okay?"

I just combed high explosives out of my hair. I keep reaching for a gun I'm not carrying. And when I close my eyes... I remember what it is to be Death. "I'll live."

Angel sat up, watching her as she crossed the room. "I don't get it, Buffy. I asked around about Gundam Wing. Political double-crossing, giant robots, teenagers as hardened assassins... of all the people you could have gone as, why pick Duo Maxwell?"

"First off, I claim a serious case of underestimation of the whole mind-warping aspect, due to unexpected slayage making me miss everything but the first few episodes and Xander's dog-eared copy of Episode Zero," Buffy replied, sitting next to him. Her hand drifted up to her cross. Angel's cross. "Second of all, Halloween's when you're someone you aren't. And last night, just for one night, I wanted to pretend I was someone who didn't have to lie... and you're not really listening..."

"Just - thought I heard something." Angel glanced away from her window, forcing a smile. "Sorry."

"Okay. Who mangled your ego?" Buffy demanded.

"It's nothing..."

"Nothing doesn't make you act like Xander after I kept him from getting pummeled," Buffy pointed out. "Hello? Slayer? If there's something out there bad enough to give you the willies, I want to know about it."

"You already do." Angel smiled uneasily. "It's nothing to worry about. Really. Himura... just agreed to disagree with me about a few things." He lifted his eyebrows. "You could have gone as a nun."

"What, Sister Frank?" Buffy quipped. "Didn't think I could get you to go as Father Dowling. Besides, what do I know about taxis?" She reddened slightly. "Actually, I almost picked up this killer dress Ethan had for a French noblewoman." 'Killer' would have been right. Normal lady up against Spike? Ouch. "You know, the kind of fancy girl you liked when you were my age."

"Oh, ho," Angel said dryly.

"What?"

"I hated the girls back then. Especially the noble women."

Buffy nodded, thinking of the Watcher diaries, and Angelus, and the few glimpses she'd had of Darla before Angel had staked her. "You did."

"They were just incredibly dull. Simpering morons, the lot of them. Oh, you still heard stories about sword-carrying scandals like Julie la Maupin, Grace O'Malley, Dark Agnes of Scotland - everybody loves good gossip, even if it's decades old - but I never actually met anyone like that. I always wished I could meet someone... exciting." Angel looked her in the eyes. "Interesting."

"Really?" Buffy felt her pulse pick up. "Interesting how?"

"You know how."

"Still, I had a really hard day. You should probably tell me."

Smiling, Angel drew nearer. "You're right. I should."

Buffy moved closer. "Definitely."

His lips were chill and soft and wonderful, like rose petals on a dewy morning. Buffy cradled his face in her hands, leaning into the kiss...

Thump.

Startled by the knock, they broke apart.

Out in the hall, Joyce cleared her throat. "School night. I want you in bed by eleven." She paused. "And Angel? The next time you want to make out with my daughter, I advise you to come in the front door. Duo's not the only one who knows how to booby-trap windows."

Buffy winced. Busted.

Llyfr o Nudd a Llygedyn - Welsh, Book of Mist and Ray of Light.

Rurouni - "Wandering swordsman". (Yes, Watsuki made this word up.)

Sumimasen - Excuse me.

Shinsengumi wa Shinsengumi - A Shinsengumi is (will ever be) a Shinsengumi.

Hitokiri wa hitokiri. - "A manslayer is a manslayer until the day he dies."

Shinju - Lovers' suicide, found in a lot of Japanese plays and literature. A "romantic solution" to situations of impossible love, whether by virtue of different classes (samurai and artisan, for example) or competing family duties ("your great-great-grandfather assassinated my great-great-grandfather, so the honor of my family demands I kill you", sort of thing).

Manriki-gusari - Weighted chain, sometimes with a hooking blade on the end to snare and slice.

Aa.- Informal yes.