A/N: This chapter is mostly filler. It is mostly filler for two reasons; one, I am an evil bitca who loves to leave you all with cliff hangers and two, I've had a bunch of stuff keeping me busy in life and seeing Advent Children has me writing a FFVII fic that is still quite a ways from being posted. I'm just all distracted and excited and junk. I'll try to write more quickly because the end of this story is in sight. Y'know, if you're me and all. Anyway, only the first and last scene are within the actual time of the story.

Disclaimer: This fic has been nominated for a few awards. I will save you all of my gushing that I've been doing at my friends and simply extend a thanks to the person or persons who nominated me. If you'd like to see what I was nominated for, just have a little look-see at my profile page.

XXXXX

Missing scenes

The dank sewer chamber was filled with green light as the portal opened. A demon stepped through, shading his eyes with one hand as the portal winked out of existence. He dusted his expensive black suit with one red scaled hand. He looked around with black eyes.

"Where the hell is everyone?" he asked irately, his voice oddly sibilant.

A rat-like demon jumped to its feet and clutched its ragged clothes to its chest. "What are you?"

"I'm the Nerilthen," he said pointedly. "Why aren't you and your brethren observing the rites of Hokeruthem?"

"You're late!" it chittered angrily

The elegant demon stared incredulously. "Do you have any idea how busy I am?" he demanded. "I had to show up in about six dimensions for seven summonings in the last week and you're going to quibble over seven damned minutes?"

The rat wrinkled his nose. "Seven minutes? You're weeks late!"

The lizard demon rolled his eyes. "Please don't tell me you were too stupid to factor in the Sumerian's calendar with the Babylonian lunar cycle."

The rat stared blankly.

"I have this problem every single time I have to come to this crappy dimension," he sighed. "Last time I was here I made revisions to the damned spell and you lot still can't figure it out? How hard is a little bit of advanced calculus?"

"What should I do for you, master?" the rat murmured obsequiously.

"Get the rest of you down here," he said before wrinkling his nose. "On second thought, find a better place than this because this place stinks. It's downright unhygienic."

"And then?"

"Then we do what I'm here to do," he replied with a toothy grin.

XXX

Any time after Chapter 7. Revelations

Oz stared.

David stared back.

It was decidedly odd, Oz decided after some musing, to find someone other than Angel who could simply stare. Most people twitched or got bored, tried talking. After seeing the three little hellions he was very surprised a child was capable of this lack of motion.

David adjusted his glasses and, for one instant, looked exactly like Rupert Giles.

Oz couldn't help himself. "You lose."

David scowled and Oz felt his heart wrench. He had Willow's frown.

"Why aren't you playing with them?" Oz asked after a time, nodding towards the three rampaging children in the other room.

"They're too loud," David explained. "I like it here."

Oz steeled himself for spending time with the living embodiment of his worst mistake: leaving Willow.

XXX

Shortly before Chapter 8. Achievements

"Do you really have to go?" Katie asked plaintively.

Angel nodded solemnly and hugged the little girl tightly. "Afraid I do, Rosie. Someone has to make sure Auntie Fred is looking after herself."

Katie pouted harder when Angel ruffled her hair. "I don't want you to go yet, Uncle Poof," she whined. "You didn't take me to a circus!"

"There isn't a circus around here, sweety," he tried to explain.

"You're just not looking hard enough," she accused darkly. "'sides, you haven't seen me go to school yet."

"I have to go, sweety," he murmured. "They need me back in L.A."

"I don't need you in L.A.," she sulked.

Shaking his head, Angel deemed the situation a lost cause and stood to make his goodbyes to everyone else. "Spike, I'll catch you later."

"Later Peaches," the other vampire nodded, before grinning suggestively. "Don't have too much fun when you get back to your lady, it'd be a right pain in the ass to have to hunt Angelus down."

Angel rolled his eyes. "Faith."

The Slayer smirked. "Angel."

"Feel free to stop by whenever," he said with a soft smile. "Buffy."

"Angel," Buffy nodded.

"You'll have to come by for a visit soon," he told her. "Fred would love to meet you."

"I'll try," Buffy promised.

"I better go," Angel said to the room at large. "I only have a few hours before sunrise."

XXX

Continued scene from Chapter 9. When animals attack

Oz lay back in the bed and listened to the shower patter quietly in the bathroom. That had been something. He opened his eyes as he felt a subtle shift in the room and found himself looking at a very startled Buffy.

"Uh, Buffy?"

The blonde girl continued to stare.

"This is kinda a bad time," Oz said, as unruffled as ever. "Next time, call first?"

He continued to stare into the empty air as she disappeared. Well. That was something a little bit different. The sounds of water falling cut short suddenly, and Oz heard the soft padding of feet and turned to face the doorway before she returned.

"Who are you talking to, babe?" she asked in her throaty voice.

"No-one," he said, knowing it was easier than explaining… anything.

"Well," she pouted, sliding to lay her body on his, "we might have to fix that."

"Jools, you just had a shower," Oz pointed out dryly.

She grinned lasciviously. "Maybe I'm still dirty."

Oz nuzzled her neck. "Smell clean to me."

"Care to remedy that?"

XXX

Any time after Chapter 9. When animals attack

Katie dug her spoon into the massive bowl of Coco Pops with determination. Faith watched in amazement. The little girl was very one-minded in some respects, and her choice of foods was one of them. She would eat Coco Pops fifteen times a day if she thought she could get away with it and it always amazed Faith how much of the damned cereal she could put away without throwing up.

"Enjoying yourself?" she asked the child drolly. Katie nodded rapidly and shot the Slayer a chocolate coated grin before returning to her single-minded determination to destroy the cereal as fast as possible. "How's school been, Kiddo?"

"S'okay," she managed between bites. "Andy follows me around 'cos I saved him really hard in the head with the stick and Juliet has lotsa things to talk about like building houses and bridges so the monsters can eat all of Alyson's princesses because they don't want to play and Seth keeps climbing the tree even though Miss said he wasn't s'posedta and Miss locked Vani up in a glass cage that keeps it from being evil so I don't have to kill it but we still don't let Seth get too close because it wants to eat him."

"You saved Andy really hard in the head with a stick?" Faith asked slowly, trying to decode the ramblings.

"Uh-huh," Katie nodded with her spoon in her mouth. "There was this big rat as big as his head and Marc said he saw it explode when I saved Andy in the head only I didn't have any bits on me like you and Daddy sometimes have well I did have some but they were Andy bits not rat bits but maybe rat bits look exactly like Andy bits so maybe Marc was right and there were rat bits but Juliet didn't see any rat bits and she was looking extra hard while Miss was yelling to keep the rats from coming back to eat Andy all up."

"You saved Andy really hard in the head with a stick?" Faith asked again, trying to understand.

"Yeah," Katie said blithely. "Even though he was a bloody wanker."

XXX

Buffy suppressed the rising panic. Soon, it'd be over. One way or the other, she'd have her answer. If he said no, she could pine away in peace and look elsewhere for love. If he said yes, well, she wouldn't dwell on that unless it happened. Always better to be pleasantly surprised than horribly crushed.

"Spike, I…" she began hesitantly. "Spike, I like you."

Spike smiled fondly at her. "I like you too, Slayer," he said warmly. Buffy felt her heart soar before noticing it was the same smile he'd use for Willow. The anxiety came roaring back.

"I mean, I like you like you," she clarified.

Spike stared blankly. Buffy wrapped herself in the comforting warmth of the duster. "You…"

"Like you," Buffy supplied with false cheer.

He looked confused. "But you like girls."

"No, no I don't," the Slayer said, mortified.

"I don't know what to say," Spike mumbled.

"I just… I just need to know, okay?" Buffy pleaded. "Is there a chance at all that there could be something between us? Again?"

An acutely harassed expression was on the vampire's face. "I need time to think. I don't… I need time."

Buffy gripped his forearm tightly. "Please. Yes or no?"

She stared into his cerulean eyes intently. Sudden terror clenched its fist around her heart. Suddenly she knew, with ice cold certainty, that he wasn't interested. She'd missed her chance. He'd moved on. He wasn't interested anymore. She felt close to tears.

Spike opened his mouth. "Buffy…"

XXX

A/N: Evil, I know. Immensely evil, in point of fact. Still, a lot of these scenes are ones I wanted to include but didn't for various reasons. Like forgetting, never having the time, being too focussed on the primary plot and not having a good place to put them. Next chapter should be longer, but I'm pretty burned out at the moment. I'm actually trying to bring a little bit of plot into this fic, and I find it easier to break it into manageable pieces.