The group learned that very night how vindictive Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins could be. The news that half of their friends had walked into a massacre of innocent demons was shocking, but Anya's sudden burst of energy after the story had been told a third time, once for Connor's benefit, once for Greg and Kate's, and once just to make sure they had gotten all the details, was even more surprising.

Anya had made a beeline for the spell supply closet, somehow managing to dodge both Spike and Connor despite their superior speed. Spike immediately recognized the gleam in her eye as a bad thing and tried to reason with her as she gathered ingredients and bowls, begging her to think before she acted.

"Demon-girl, think," he said. "You're human now. You can't go around turning people inside out."

Anya had sniffed disdainfully. "And why not? The son of a bitch deserves it. I recognized those demons, Spike. It took me awhile, after all I have met a lot of demons in my life, but I know what those were. They're mercenaries! Someone paid them to slaughter those har'nesh. And I'm going to make him pay."

"Anya," Greg had tried to reason with her, only to flinch back at the look of horror, pain, and anger reflected in her eyes. "Anya, you don't have all the facts. It may have been a territorial dispute or something."

"It wasn'," Spike stated with certainty, his own face thoughtful. "At least, not according to the one Elder left alive. She said that they hadn't had even a small squabble in over twenty years. She had no idea why anyone would attack them."

"You said that they are hunted for their skin, correct?" Kal asked hesitantly. "It is your belief that these creatures were hired to harvest the skin of the clan?"

"Mos' likely," Spike confirmed. "Wha' would someone need tha' much for, though? Anya, pet?"

Anya looked up from where she was drawing a circle of sand. "Nothing. No spell I know of calls for more than a few ounces. So unless our guy is planning on creating a monopoly, I just don't know."

"Monopoly?" Kal questioned, not understanding how one used demon skin to make an innocuous-looking, but dreadfully confusing to a Pylean, game.

"He would be the only supplier and could name his price," Connor explained, watching the ritual preparations with some distrust.

Beside him, Spike regarded Anya with the same feeling of mild dismay that she had broken out the magicks. While he had been known to participate in a spell or two, on the whole he preferred to use his fists and wits to solve problems.

"Which would mean he'd have to slaughter every har'nesh clan in the world," Kate pointed out. "That would be rather difficult, wouldn't it?"

There was no reasoning with the distraught former demon, though. Even pointing out that she had never had much luck when it came to casting spells. Spike trotted out the story Willow had told him about her vampire double and Anya's part in her transference. He reminded her that the one time she had helped with a locator spell she had set her carpet on fire. He brought forth her participation in the disaster that was the slayer's resurrection.

"Those were all Willow's fault," she dismissed as she continued to arrange her components. "I turned Olaf into a troll. Turning our mystery man into something equally hideous should be no problem." Silently she prayed that Spike knew nothing of what she had named "The Bunny Fiasco."

"Anya," Greg tried. "At least wait until tomorrow. Sleep on it for the night."

"Yeah, pet. Count your money. It'll help calm you down."

Anya turned on them, her eyes flashing with absolute fury. "Money? Money?" She opened her mouth to berate them for their ignorance when a sudden thought struck her.

"Money!" she screamed before dashing back to the supply closet and grabbing a few more vials. "You're brilliant, Spike. Absolutely brilliant."

"I know that, pet," he announced, ignoring the exasperated looks the others shot his way. "What has my brilliant mind come up with now?"

"You're right; I shouldn't turn him inside out or make his privates constantly explode. Instead, I'm going to get him where he'll really feel it: his bank account."

Greg exchanged quick glances with the rest of the companions before coming to a decision. "I can't believe I'm going to say this. But, you're not going to physically harm anyone, so… What can I do to help?"

In the end, they all helped with the curse that emptied the bank account of the last person who hired the demons. The money was sent to numerous charitable organizations, a clause that had been written into the original spell to insure that no one could use it for personal gain.

A week later came Kate's mandatory "leave of absence" from the police force. Minds clouded by the normal human survival instinct to forget anything that they could not fit into their perfect little worlds, the rest of the force once again believed that she had had a nervous breakdown.

Greg, luckily for Kate's peace of mind, had already discussed the inevitable dismissal with Spike and the two of them had hashed out a plan to keep their friend occupied and feeling useful. They were greatly hampered by her continued lack of full mobility due to the cast and her dislike of academics. They finally settled her with Connor, who had come up with the idea of replacing the metal pellets contained in rat shot with wooden ones.

Now, after six weeks of forced semi-confinement, Kate groused as she sat in the front passenger seat of her car. "I can drive myself, you know?"

Greg shot her a look that simply stated that he did not want to have to go over the argument with her once again. He was driving and that was it.

Connor contained a smirk from the back seat. Demon attacks had increased significantly over the past weeks, both against the populace at large and against the group of friends. They had used all of their underworld contacts, but none of them knew who was directing the attacks. Even Wolfram and Hart came up against a brick wall when they searched for a reason behind the hostilities.

While the attacks had not escalated to the point where they felt that no one should go out alone, Greg still insisted on escorting Kate everywhere. He said it was because Kate was still out of the fight because of the cast, but Connor had seen the looks the older man shot the cop when she wasn't looking. The looks contained worry, yes, but also a hint of admiration.

The subtle change in the man's smell when Kate walked into a room was even more telling to the young man. He knew that the two weren't intimate, he had learned the smell of that quickly enough when he was still in the dorms. But Greg was definitely interested.

Connor, for his part, was tagging along in order to grab lunch with his latest girlfriend, who was a candy striper at the hospital. Valerie was completely unaware of the world he had found himself living in. At times it was a relief, to be able to talk to her about "normal" things. At the same time, he often wished that he could tell her about a particular demon he had went ten rounds with, or could answer her questions regarding the bruises he sometimes sported. While his healing ability was phenomenal, it wasn't instantaneous.

He was pulled from his musings on his girlfriend and her possible reaction to the other side of LA – he decided she would call the nice men with the big butterfly nets for him – by the fact that they had arrived at the hospital. They quickly piled out of the car and went their separate ways, Kate and Greg heading for her doctor's office while he went in search of his girlfriend.

"Watch it, kid," a gravelly-voiced man told him several minutes later as he roughly shouldered Connor aside. Connor glared at his back as he continued moving away and wondered what about the man had smelled so familiar. Not just the man's base scent, but an overlying scent of salt and… Dog? No, something a wilder than that.

Connor shrugged the encounter off, putting it out of his mind the moment he turned the corner and saw Valerie staring out a window, a frown gracing her beautiful face. He took a moment to admire her, enchanted as ever by her features. She had chocolate brown hair with deep blue eyes and a nose she called long and he dubbed elegant. She stood only a few inches shorter than his own 5'10," a height he had quickly decided was perfect.

"Deep thoughts?" he asked as he placed his chin on her shoulder. He barely avoided biting his tongue as she jumped in reaction.

"Connor!" she yelled as she whirled around, smacking one hand against his chest.

"Sorry. I thought you had heard me."

"Need to get you a bell," she mumbled before gracing him with a wide smile and kissing him soundly on the lips. "What are you doing here?"

"I thought I'd treat you to lunch. Even if it's in the hospital cafeteria. You can get away for awhile, can't you?"

She hesitated, obviously running through the list of duties she had left to perform. "Yeah, I think so. But only for about half an hour. Then I have to get back to my oh-so-important job of delivering flowers and files."

He smiled in pleasure, thrilled to get even that much time with his busy girlfriend. "Great," he replied as he led her away.

"Why are you here?" Anya asked as they strolled down Rodeo Drive.

"Because you told me that if I didn' come window shoppin' with you, you'd rip off my manly parts and feed 'em to me. From the wrong direction," Spike answered, curling his tongue up over his teeth to show her that he was just teasing. Though, that was the wording of the threat she had issued.

She rolled her eyes and huffed out a sigh that would have made any teenager proud and poked one slim finger into his bicep, which for once wasn't covered by his trademark black duster.

"No, why are you still in LA? I figured once you'd talked to Buffy, found out where she was, you'd be gone faster than a donut in Harris's sight range. Oh, I like that dress. Do you think it would make me look fat?"

"Demon-girl, that is a question you should never ask a man."

"Why you aren't running off to be with your soul mate? Kate told me about the mark. It's very rare for true soul mates to find one another, you know. I've only heard about a handful of couples in twelve hundred years."

"Not time yet. Can't really explain it, pet. I just know that it's not time for us to be together. We both still have a few things to do."

"Will it make me look fat?" she asked again, her attention once again on the dress displayed in the window.

"You'd be beautiful in sackcloth and ashes. In that dress, you'd be spectacular."

Anya nodded her head before continuing down the sunny street. Her companion trailed behind her, enjoying the sunshine.

"What do you have to do?" she asked once he had caught up to her once again. She dismissed the leather pants in the window in front of her as too slayer-ish and instead looked at Spike.

"Not sure, really. Just… Stuff, I guess."

"Well, what kind of 'stuff' have you already done?"

"Since I came back or since the marks showed up?"

"Both," she said decisively as they moved to the next shop.

"Well, I saved you," he pointed out.

"Yay," she stated tonelessly. "The Scooby Gang can be all together again sometime in the future."

"Missing Harris?"

"No," she said after a moment. "Well, in a way, yes. I miss him as a friend, not as a significant other. Miss the orgasms. But my new vibrator does almost as well. It's amazing how far they've come in a hundred years."

"We're not part of the Scoobies," he pointed out, rocking back on his heels. "We're the add-ons."

"Like Oliver Brady," she agreed before coming to a sudden revelation. "We're Scrappy!"

Seeing the confused look on Spike's face, she explained her thought process. "Everyone hated Scrappy after they brought him in. And everyone knows that the introduction of a new, cute, and younger character is the death knell of a show. It's a sure sign that they've jumped the shark."

"Not exactly young, pet," he pointed out as they once again moved windows. "I like that lamp. Do ya think it'd look right in my bedroom?"

"No, not enough color definition. We are cute, though."

"I always thought it was the special guest stars that did it," he continued, still studying the lamp.

"Buffy would hate it," she pointed out, only to see him raise an eyebrow in challenge. "She would. And then you'd have to be all manly about it being your lamp and by God you're going to keep the sodding thing when all the while you want to throw it away because you never liked it that much and it would make her happy."

Feeling as if that explained everything, she grabbed his arm and pulled him further down the street, this time to the window of an art gallery.

"Oh, look, Kokopelli," she pointed out.

"Should get it for the Nibblet," Spike mused. "She hated the fact that Buffy gave theirs away when Willow went off the magicks."

"Hmmm. You would not believe the number of women who wanted me to curse him. I tried to explain to them that he was just an honest demon, doing his part to resurrect his species, but no… It was all 'rip his penis off' and 'I wish he'd feel the same pain I do.'"

"Haven't heard this story," he stated as he led her into the shop.

"Yeah. Poor guy's whole species was wiped out around 200. He spent the next millennium seducing as many girls as he could find, and trust me, there were a lot, and having as many spawn as possible."

"Did it work?" he asked as he looked around for a salesman.

"Last time I talked to him – around 1780, I guess – he bragged about having over a million grandkids. He had retired to the top of a butte in Arizona and was living quite happily doting on all the babies."

Ten minutes later they exited the shop after arranging for Kokopelli's delivery to the Warehouse.

"What else have you done?" Anya questioned again, picking up the thread of their earlier conversation.

"Saved a few people, killed a few demons. The usual."

"No apocalypses?"

"Nope. At least, none I deliberately averted."

"So," she drawled as they studied one window display that seemed to have the mannequins doing something illegal in 48 states and the District of Columbia. "Why are you here?"

"Is that even possible?" he mused, cocking his head to one side as he tried to figure out if it was possible for a woman to bend that far.

"Only if you do yoga," Anya said. "Or if you're a slayer. I'm sure Buffy could manage it. There are many positions that are more comfortable."

Spike looked from the mannequin that had been bent backwards over the arm of a chair until its head almost touched the floor, a book positioned so that the imaginary person could read the words.

"You are happy to be back, aren' you?" he asked, studying her carefully. He would hate it if Anya felt the same way he knew Buffy had.

"I wasn't dead long enough to go to either Heaven or Hell," she said with a shrug. "Or, at least, if I did go to one or the other, I don't remember it. I just remember D'Hoffryn torturing me."

A passing shopper gave them an odd look upon hearing Anya's pronouncement. Both of the resurrected demons ignored her.

"How about you?"

Spike gave a laconic shrug. "I thought I was done, you know? I thought sacrificing myself was the ultimate act of redemption. I guess the Powers, or whoever rules over things like that, felt otherwise."

"That's why you're still here," she said with sudden understanding, looking up into his cautious eyes. "You're still trying to prove yourself to Buffy, aren't you? You're trying to prove that you can be a good man even without her being there to ride herd on you."

Spike winced at her announcement, but had to consider that it might not be too far off the mark.

"Maybe, Demon-girl," he acknowledged before turning back to the window art. This time he twisted his head to the opposite side as he tried to figure out if a human could drink water while standing on his head.

Xander entered the club and was immediately assaulted by the sights and sounds of well over a hundred party goers smushed into a too-small space. The club, a popular hangout for the up-and-coming set, was packed to the point that he hoped a fire marshal didn't decide to drop by.

He slowly bobbed and weaved through the masses, grateful for the loss of the few extra pounds he had been sporting for the past few years. When Clara had suggested the South Beach Diet for him, he had been hesitant, but he had to admit that his nutritionist girlfriend had been right. He looked and felt better than he had since his very public breakup with Anya.

Finally spotting his friends at a table situated at the back of the club, Xander continued to make his way through the gyrating bodies. He got to the table in time for Kennedy to give him a short wave before dragging her reluctant girlfriend onto the floor. His eyes trailed them for a moment as he sat down, not wanting to deal with the question that would inevitably be asked.

"Hey, Xan-man," Dawn piped as she stopped by the table long enough to take a drink of water. A husky young man hovered behind her, ready to resume dancing again. He did his duty as adopted older brother and glared at the boy, warning him to watch where his hands strayed. It was only the rare brotherly moments that he regretted giving up the eye patch in favor for the less obvious glass eye. The patch came in handy for scaring away horny teens.

"Where's Clara?" Dawn continued, ignoring the over protective brother routine.

Xander could feel Buffy's gaze transfer from the dance floor to him. He tried not to shift uncomfortably as he told his lie.

"She… Uh… She had an emergency come up at work. Something about a client who had fallen off her plan in a spectacular way. She said she'd try to get here later."

Dawn nodded in acceptance and moved off with her boyfriend of the month. If he hadn't have been looking directly at Willow at that moment, he never would have noticed her sudden stillness. The stillness that always signaled that she was communicating telepathically.

He sighed as his red-headed friend abandoned her girlfriend and made a bee line for the table. He barely had time to order a beer from the waitress who popped up at his elbow before she was sitting across from him, a serious expression adorning her face. A quick look in Buffy's direction revealed a similar expression.

"You know," he said. "I figured 'Hey, since I always attract the demons anyway, why not just go for it? Surely I'd be able to have a meaningful, long lasting relationship with one.' What's wrong with me?"

"Nothing, Sweety," Willow said, laying one hand on top of his. "Absolutely nothing."

"What happened," Buffy questioned, her own hand taking his free one.

"She said she needed someone who could focus on her," he said with a shrug. "Apparently, I spend too much time fighting the good fight and hanging with you guys."

"Oh, Xan," his blonde friend sighed, tightening her grip on his hand.

"Are you sure you can't just wave your hand and make me gay?" he questioned Willow. "I think I've run through all the demon women in the area. Might as well get dumped by the guys, too."

The two girls exchanged amused glances at this sorrowful pronouncement.

"You could always go after Andrew," Buffy said, trying to suppress a snicker. The warrior who had fought countless minions of evil lost this particular battle, though.

Xander groaned and banged his head on the table. He lifted his now sore head just in time to receive his beer, and an odd look, from the waitress. It wasn't enough to drag his thoughts away from the memory of Andrew's "documentary" of slayer life before the final battle. The gang had all ribbed him mercilessly over the fact that the geek had ignored the highly erotic sight of two girls making out to expound on Xander's carpentry skills.

"My life sucks," he moaned before taking a drink.

"It could be worse," Willow pointed out, rubbing one hand up and down his back. "You could still be dating Cordelia."

"She wouldn't be able to break up with me," he stated.

"Yeah," Buffy agreed. "But girls in mystical comas? Not the greatest of conversationalists."

"Plus there's the whole no smoochy factor," Kennedy said as she came up and proceeded to kiss her own girlfriend. "Life's no fun without smoochies."

"I'll second that," Willow agreed, wrinkling her nose at the dark-haired slayer.

"Maybe a vampire," Xander mused, mostly under his breath. "Never dated a vamp before. And Buffy could give me pointers."

His ramblings were cut short by Buffy's hand connecting with the back of his head. He grinned apologetically at her and took another drink of his beer.

"Maybe you just need a break from relationships," Kennedy suggested. "Of either persuasion. Let things settle."

"You never really took the time to grieve for Anya," Buffy pointed out a little distractedly. She had thought she had caught a glimpse of Dawn dancing in an entirely inappropriate way and was now searching the moving bodies in an effort to find her again.

"Buffy does have a point," Willow agreed. "Anya died and you found out about Cordy all within a couple of days. That's bound to knock someone for a loop. Maybe you should take a break, get your head on straight."

"Maybe," he said with a sigh. "It's not like I lack for female companionship," he said with a smirk, gathering both of his girls into a quick hug. "Speaking of my girls, how have you two been?"

"Good," both answered promptly. It had been hard adjusting to the fact that their male friend had moved over an hour away, both girls had eventually reconciled to the fact that he wasn't libel to pop over with donuts at random points during the day. He still made the trip every weekend, staying in Kennedy and Willow's guest room and loading up on Scooby goodness before journeying back to his lonely apartment in Paramus, New Jersey.

For a time he had thought that Clara would be the one to make the apartment less lonely. Their four month relationship, while lacking the depth of feeling present in his last, and only, two serious relationships, was comfortable. He couldn't help but give a wry grin at that thought. He had settled with Clara, and she had made it a point to tell him that as she broke up with him.

"Anything major happen this week?"

"Nope," Buffy replied. "Normal, boring patrols. No interesting demons. Trators!" she added suddenly as Dawn dragged her boyfriend back to the table.

"Demonstrators?" the boy asked, looking confused.

"Yeah… Uh… The academy was picketed last week by a group of people who said I was corrupting youth by teaching them the ways of violence. Total wack jobs."

The boy, Ryan, nodded but kept any and all thoughts to himself. He had heard rumors of what had happened to Dawn's last boyfriend after he had gotten a little too fresh… After he had gotten out of the hospital from the concussion and dislocated shoulder Dawn had administered to him. And while he didn't really believe that Buffy had held the boy upside-down by his ankles off the roof of a twenty story building, he had decided early into the relationship that he wouldn't press his luck.

"So, we're looking at another boring weekend in The City, huh? You know, its times like these I almost miss Spike's snarky comments."

"Spike?" Ryan asked, turning to his girlfriend. He didn't notice the look of panic she sent him or the frantic head shaking of Willow over Dawn's shoulder. "That's the guy you're going out to LA to see at Christmas, right?"

Willow's eyes had gotten impossibly large as she shot a nervous look at Xander. Buffy and Kennedy had gone completely still while Dawn burst into nervous energy.

"LA for Christmas?" she asked, he voice an octave higher than normal. "What gave you that idea? Hehe… Time to dance! Bye!"

Xander watched he drag the confused young man onto the floor and turned to focus on his blonde best friend. "You're going to LA for Christmas?" he asked neutrally.

"Uh… Yeah. I was going to tell you. I just… Hadn't yet?"

"And you're going to see Spike? Our Spike? Bleached hair, leather coat, bad attitude, dead, Spike?"

"Eh… Not so dead..." Willow ventured.

"And living in LA," he stated, confused and a bit upset that his best friends had apparently forgotten to mention this tidbit. "How long have you known?"

"Uh… How long have we known?" Buffy hedged. "A month. Maybe five weeks."

One look was all it took for Xander to know that Buffy wasn't being all together truthful. Despite all her years as the slayer, she had the worst poker face in the world. It was one of the reasons that she sucked at undercover work.

"How long have you known?" he repeated, his own face set in a serious expression.

"He e-mailed me in March," Willow confessed, wincing when he turned his furious gaze on her. "We didn't know if it was a sick hoax at first or what. We had Angel look into it."

"You told Angel and not me?"

"They knew how you'd react," Kennedy interjected with her usual bluntness. It was her opinion that when something needed to be said, it was better to say it than to beat around the bush. The situation she saw in front of her just went to prove her point. It could have been avoided if they had just told the carpenter from the beginning that there was a possibility that the vamp was back.

Xander's expression closed off as he drained his beer and pushed back from the table. "Well, I obviously know where I'm not wanted," he stated as he walked away. Buffy and Willow exchanged glances before racing after him.

"Xan," Buffy said, catching hold of his arm. Willow grabbed his other arm and hung on for dear life, terrified that her childhood friend would leave and never return.

"You know that guy thing where we leave in the middle of an upsetting conversation? It doesn't work so well if you follow me." Seeing the worried expressions on their faces, he sighed but never-the-less shook off their grips. "I just need some alone time. To think this through. I'm not going to abandon my favorite ladies. I promise."

Both girls nodded and watched him walk away.