The night was usually wet and cold, even for Cardiff. Not even the undead population would be out in that sort of weather. So where was Buffy on a Friday night? In the Hub working with Tosh on new recognition programs to include more aliens and demons. Of course Buffy didn't work on the programming part; she just helped fill in details with what information she had that Torchwood lacked.

Buffy was washing her hands in the Torchwood loo when she heard it. First she felt it: the tingling sensation that was her slayer "spider" sense. Then for only the briefest moment came fairground music. Though the music stopped, the feeling lingered.

She left the loo and walked back into the central area of the Hub.

"I hate it when he does that," she heard Tosh muttering.

"When who does what?"

"Jack," Tosh said. "I'm talking to him one moment and before I finish a sentence he's vanished. Are you all right? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Nah, I'm fine," Buffy lied. "It's just really spooky here tonight."

"You aren't the first to think so. Jack was hearing strange music before he left. He said it was like a pipe organ…"

"At a carnival?" Buffy interrupted.

"Yes, how did you know?"

"I heard the same thing a moment ago."

"I haven't heard anything."

"Maybe it's nothing." She switched the subject. "So you didn't want to join the theatre goers tonight?"

"No," Tosh said shortly. "Pathetic, isn't it? Here on a Friday night working. What about you? Why didn't you go?"

"It's Ianto's thing. Being trapped in an elevator naturally causes some bonding, but the whole 'he's dating my dad' thing is still a bit weird for both of us."

"I suppose we'll all get used to it in time."

Buffy didn't know what to say. Somehow at Gwen's wedding her relationship to Jack had come out. No one was really surprised, but then Owen, Ianto, and Rhys already knew, Tosh had guessed, and Gwen was still too befuddled by the notion of demons to truly be anymore shocked. More than anything everyone just had to get used to it being openly acknowledged.

Buffy didn't even realise that Tosh was talking. "Sorry, what was that?"

"I said I'll keep a look out in the rift activity. Things are behaving oddly; we may have something tonight."

"Yeah," Buffy said, still distracted. Something was in the air; it was tense and buzzing with mystic-mojo electricity. Something was coming.

Feeling suddenly confined and itching for activity, Buffy told Tosh she was going out for a short walk. Tosh seemed to think this idea was crazy, but she didn't say anything. The rain wasn't too heavy just then, but the wind from the bay was strong enough to render an umbrella useless. Buffy walked aimlessly and ended up on the Plass. She was about to call and ask Tosh to activate the secret lift when her senses went off again.

She looked across the wide pavement and saw a pale, gaunt figure walking out from the overhang of the Millennium Centre. Though she stood on the block with the perception filter, he stared directly at her as he came nearer.

"Hello, cutie."

A thousand questions came to mind, but what came out was, "How can you see me?"

"You feelin' all right, Slayer? You're standing right in front of me."

She rolled her eyes. "But right here is different. This is our secret, invisible elevator."

"That right?" Spike was giving her his sceptical look, a look perfected after a century with a crazy woman.

"It's got a perceptio… oh never mind. What are you doing here?"

"I had to see you," he said. "Seemed as good a time as any. The Bit's growing up. Doesn't need me so much anymore; she's got Angel's super-powered brat looking after her now. Plus with what's been going on, thought you could do with a friendly face."

"Reeeaally?" She started walking back the long way to the office door. "So this is just an unexpected social visit…"

He shrugged. "There might have been words exchanged with the hair-gelled Neanderthal making it clear I'd worn out my welcome. So I come to see you, but not before Giles had to get his word in about portents and rumours. God, that man needs a shag."

She ignored the last part. "What does Giles have to say?"

"Got a letter, but best not get it out in this rain."

"We're nearly to the Hub."

They walked in a comfortable silence—though the fact that it was a comfortable silence with Spike was in itself rather uncomfortable for Buffy. The weather didn't help either. Buffy was glad she had the foresight to keep a spare outfit in the Hub.

As they walked into the tourist office and then down to the inner sanctum, Spike shook his head. "Sloppy. What good is a secret base if any old vamp could just waltz right in?"

"One, you aren't waltzing, you're walking; second and most importantly, you're being escorted. Plus, secret! No one knows to waltz in here."

"Walk," Spike corrected with a smirk.

The cog door rolled open with its usual fanfare. Buffy walked straight to her desk as she pulled off her wet jacket. Spike stood still by the door staring. She didn't see anyone else about. Her top was only slightly damp in places, so she grabbed the sweater she kept on her chair. She was vaguely aware of Ianto walking by.

"You!" he shouted. Buffy turned in time to see Ianto punch Spike square in the nose. Being unprepared, Spike fell to the floor.

"Oi!" Spike shouted indignantly and with no small amount of surprise. He got up only to have Ianto punch him immediately again. Spike was about to retaliate so Buffy jumped between them.

"Oh my god!" She heard Gwen say. The rest of the team were coming from Jack's office. They all looked as if they knew Spike… and hated him.

"Buffy, get away from him," Jack said forcefully.

"What the hell is going on, Jack? I bring Spike here and you all…"

"Spike?" Ianto cut in with surprise and disbelief. "His name is Captain John Hart."

"You are off your bird," Spike scoffed.

Buffy looked at Spike to read his face. She knew when he was lying, and right now he honestly had no idea what was going on. "Spike's had a few names, but John Hart was never one of them."

"The hair and clothes are different, but he's Hart," Gwen said with conviction.

"Does he have a twin?" Owen asked Jack.

"Who is this John Hart?" Buffy demanded.

Gwen, Owen, and Ianto started speaking over one another so that Buffy only caught bits and pieces: liar, thief, murderer, and from centuries in the future.

"Not from the future, you pillocks," Spike said. "Try a century and a half past."

Owen and Gwen scoffed.

"You're a vampire," Tosh said. A scan of the Hub was on her screen behind her.

"At last, one with a brain," Spike said.

"Shut up, Spike," Buffy retorted.

"He's a vampire?" Gwen asked with complete distrust.

"And if he is then he couldn't be Captain Hart," Tosh said. "Right, Owen?"

"Well, yeah, that bomb was programmed for a living humanoid, but…"

"Oh, that's easy then," Spike said while Owen was still talking, and his face melted into its demon visage. He gave Ianto a particularly toothy grin. To Ianto's credit, he didn't even blink.

Buffy looked straight at Jack who still seemed wary. She said, "I don't know who this Hart person is, and I can see how much you all hate him, but Spike isn't him."

"Well I don't care who he is," Owen said, "but you can't just waltz strangers in here uninvited."

"See!" Spike said to her. "Waltzing."

"Point of fact: vampire and a vampire slayer," Owen continued. "Why isn't he dead?"

"Been dead a long while," Spike answered smugly. Owen growled, "Deader then."

"He should be dust," Jack said directly to Buffy.

"Long ago, maybe," Buffy answered. "But that's another story. Spike, this was obviously a mistake. Just give me Giles' letter and then you can wait at my flat."

"No way, I'm not leaving you with this lot. I don't trust 'em."

Buffy stared at him with annoyance. "Don't."

But Spike's attention was diverted by Jack, who by this time was livid. "The feeling's mutual. You've broken too many rules, Buffy. I'm not comfortable with him here, but he stays till we have it sorted."

"Not exactly comfortable with you either, mate," Spike said, answering Jack's implied threat with bravado and still in game face. "The last time I was in a secret government underground base it didn't go so well for me."

"It seems you came out of it." Jack walked back into his office and motion for everyone to get back to what they were doing before.

Spike spoke loudly over his shoulder. "Didn't go so well for them either in the end—thanks to a certain Slayer… with some help from yours truly." He added the last bit more for himself.

"Help?" Buffy said incredulously. "You didn't help, you tried to split us up. You were working with Adam… you…" She spluttered angrily, but no one paid it much mind. They were gathering for a debriefing in Jack's office and Ianto was setting up a projector. "Spike!"

"Yes, luv?"

"You can get rid of the grrr face." She angrily pushed past him and stood to the back of the group. He followed and stood close to her.

If she was honest with herself, Buffy wasn't really angry with Spike. She was angry with the team's reaction to Spike, with not knowing what or who they were talking about, with Jack calling her out, and with her own guilt at not even thinking about any Torchwood rules. Spike was one of her team and she never needed anyone's permission to have him at her side. If she was completely honest, she knew it felt good to have Spike back.

But when was Buffy ever honest with herself?

She ignored her thoughts, stewed in denial, and directed her anger for the moment at Spike.

"So to fill everyone in," Jack said, "we've got mysterious pipe organ sounds, weird film clips playing themselves, unusual rift activity, and people who, despite having the breath and moisture sucked out of them, are still somehow alive. We've got the film, let's look for an answer. Ianto."

Ianto switched off the lights and Tosh started the projector. Scenes of circus people flashed on the screen. For the moment they focused on it and forgot the vampire in the room.

"I knew those two," Jack said as they watched two clowns. "They argued day and night."

The show continued.

"That is you," Owen said. Tosh rewound the film so they all saw Jack on the screen with a gun in his hand. "All right, now I've seen everything!"

"I told you so," said Ianto.

Gwen asked if Jack did stand-up; he denied it emphatically. She asked her next theory in an affected southern accent. "Okay, then, a song and dance."

He replied in similar fashion. "I was sensational!"

"I don't believe this, Jack," Tosh said with some awe. "What were you doing there?"

"He was part of the freak show," Owen snarked.

"Some things never change," Jack replied with hostility obviously directed at the vampire in the corner behind him.

"I do love his leotard," Gwen joked to lighten the tension.

"Piss poor imitations the lot of them," Spike said. Everyone turned around to glare at him. "What? You want circus freaks, see the ones they had on Coney Island back in the day."

"By back in the day, you mean…" Buffy trailed off the question.

"1905."

"Anyways," Jack said angrily. Attention was back on the screen and the troupe now waving at the camera. Jack gave a slight gasp. "The night travellers."

"The what?" Tosh asked.

"Can't be," Spike scoffed. "That lot?"

"Tosh, play that back," Jack said and then turned on Spike. "What do you know about them?"

"Stories mostly," Spike answered. "I only encountered them once, and it was their victims I met. Like you said, no breath. Just lying there with their hearts still pumping away."

"Oh god," Buffy moaned with disgust, "you didn't?"

"You know me, slayer. Happy meals that just sit there."

"Uhh," she moaned in disgust.

"Not proud of it," he murmured for her ears only. She could hear the guilt—the reminder that he had a soul.

"So who are they?" Tosh asked Spike.

"Five words or less," Jack snapped.

Spike shot a look at Buffy. "He's your dad, right?" He turned back to Jack and counted on his fingers as he spoke. "Soul sucking rain demons… wanker." Buffy threw a hand over her eyes. Soul or no soul, Spike was the same old Spike. "They like water. That's why they take it with the soul."

"Jack?" Ianto said it as if to ask if what Spike said was true.

"It fits," he grudgingly admitted. "They only performed in the dead of night and left a trail of damage and sorrow wherever they performed. Anyway, it was just a tale that was around at that time—a ghost story. 'They came from out of the rain.' That's how people described them."

"Not a ghost story then?" Owen said.

"Depends on what you mean by ghost," Spike said. "I'd say they're more vampiric than anything else."

"Do you know how to stop them?" Buffy asked. She was vaguely aware of Tosh and Ianto messing with the film.

"No idea," Spike said. "Wasn't interested in stopping them back then. I followed them for a while, but I got bored."

"So you are of no help whatsoever," Owen said.

"Now you know how I feel," said Buffy. Owen frowned. Buffy could sense the unasked question from her Torchwood companions: then why do you have Spike around? It was a valid question, but not one she was ready to answer.

"Jack!" Ianto interrupted. "This film. It's not the same one we saw at the cinema."

"Course it's the same one," Gwen said.

"No, things are different. Tosh?" She started the film for him. "Easy to miss at first, but after watching it a few times I realized. Just there. There was a woman in front of that water tank."

They all looked at the empty spot while Gwen and Owen voiced their amazed agreement. Another image without a person showed and once again, the three pointed out that someone was missing. This time a man in a top hat.

"Are you sure you brought the right can of film back?" Gwen asked.

"Positive," Jack answered.

"When did they disappear?" Buffy asked, her mind whirling. "The Night Travellers in general, not the guys on the screen. They obviously had to disappear sometime between the cinema and here."

Spike shook his head, and Jack thought for a moment. "Travelling shows faded away as the cinema grew. No one came to watch them and without an audience they died out—forgotten. All we have to remember them by are these film clips." There was a pause while the light bulb brightened over Buffy and Jack. "Like Ianto said—trapped in film."

"Only they've been let out now that they've had an audience," Buffy concluded.

"So they've become physical? They've escaped the film?" said Ianto.

Jack started giving orders. "We need to find out more about the havoc they caused in the past. We need evidence. Possible witnesses."

"We need to track them down and kill them before they take more victims," Buffy said. "I'll take Spike and we…"

"No," Jack stopped her.

"Jack, these are demons! I'm the Slayer, and if Spike has followed their trail before…"

"What you don't seem to get is I don't trust him. You'd be going in blind with no idea how to stop them."

"But…"

"There are children's lives at stake," Gwen interjected on Jack's behalf. Rather than be grateful for her support, Jack silenced Gwen with a glare.

"This isn't your call to make!" He looked at the rest of the group who hadn't moved. "What are you all staring at? Move!"

Buffy walked away angrily as her mind still continued to turn. Spike followed her to the far side of the Hub. "What's on your mind, Slayer?"

"I'm not blind! This is just like a demon I've seen before—trapped until it had an audience. My first year at Sunnydale, they were scanning books into the computer. Only Willow scanned in the wrong book and transferred the demon trapped in the book…"

"Into the computer," Spike finished with her.

"And thus into the internet. In the end it took Giles and Miss Calendar forming a circle of… oh what was it? Carebears? No, not that. Careless. Cables. Or maybe it was…"

"Kayless?"

"Probably, unless you really think Giles got a circle of Carebears in cyberspace."

"No," he said with a smirk. "The Circle of Kayless is used to trap demons in books. You say it worked even with the thing in the internet?"

"Well, sort of. He had this massive robot built and it trapped him in that. Then I killed him and no more bad demon. How are we gonna get a circle for these film demons?" She watched as he paced a bit as he thought. "And the souls… do they need them for food?"

"It's their audience," Spike said as it dawned on him. "The water and breath sustain the form but the audience gives them immortality."

"Which is why they were trapped and released from film. An audience is the key. So just the film should trap them again; we won't need the circle."

"Where'd you get so smart?" Spike asked with awe.

"Where did you learn about this circle thing?" she asked in return.

"Been around a few centuries now," he said. "And the Kayless Circle comes up every now and then at the poker tables. It's typical demon talk stuff."

"So we've got the how to kill them, now for the how do we find them."

"I'm registering the sea!" Tosh's voice cut across the Hub. Owen and Gwen crowded around Tosh while Buffy and Spike used their heightened senses from afar. "The sea? Inland? Running through the centre of town?"

"There's your how to find them," Spike said to Buffy. With a look at Tosh's map, Buffy and Spike slipped out of the Hub.

HXHXHXHXHXHXHXHXHXHXH

Jack and Ianto heard Tosh's astonished cry and left the conference room to see what was happening.

"What is it, Tosh?" Jack asked.

"She was picking up the sea," Gwen said.

"In the middle of town," said Owen.

"It's gone now," Tosh said, still puzzled. "I was getting the sound of waves. Seagulls. I could almost smell the ozone."

"No other sightings?" Jack asked.

"No."

"What the hell are they up to?" he mused. The whole thing, start to finish, was getting weirder and weirder. And like Estelle's fairies, these circus film creatures left him feeling desperately helpless.

"Uh, where's Buffy?" Ianto asked.

HXHXHXHXHXHXHXHXHXHXH

"You aren't telling your team about this," Spike said and questioned as he drove the car they "borrowed" from Torchwood.

"It's Slayer business," she said.

"And they don't get involved in Slayer business." It was both a statement and question.

"They have no idea!" Buffy let it all loose. "Most of them aren't even really used to aliens. And Jack! He says he knew a Slayer, but he doesn't know anything about us, or the calling and the responsibilities, and the power… He's always holding me back from doing what I know how to do."

"And he's in charge," Spike said. "It's all wrong."

"What?"

"You aren't just another member of his team. You're special—more than just being a slayer. You're always going to be The Slayer. You lead and others follow, you stand and evil falls, you carry the world's destiny. If he doesn't understand that, then he's putting the fate of human kind in peril. You don't keep a champion on the sidelines."

Buffy sat in silence for a moment. She had felt all of what he was saying before but put it aside; once again Spike came in and found pieces of her that she didn't want to see.

"He's my father," she said softly.

"Doesn't make him right." Spike sighed. "The trouble is he's the boss. But you, you don't have a boss. You never have. You're the Slayer who told the bloody Council where to shove it. You don't follow orders, Buffy. It's not who you are."

HXHXHXHXHXHXHXHXHXHXH

"I'm going to kill her," Jack muttered as he drove the team in the SUV. Drove—a verb meaning speeding like a madman who learned to drive from Italian cabbies.

"Jack," Owen said with a warning in his tone. He rode shotgun with the others in the back. "She's a slayer. If that vampire is right and these are demons…"

"She can't ignore orders!"

"What orders? This is what she does, what she's always done. Jack, she's been doing this since she was fifteen."

Jack didn't answer.

"If you two keep butting heads, she's not going to stick around much longer," Owen warned.

There only followed a tense silence.

HXHXHXHXHXHXHXHXHXHXH

Buffy and Spike found the creepy master of ceremonies and his mermaid slut at an empty pool not far from the Electro Cinema. They had stopped there to take one of the cameras. Now they crept towards the concrete depression surrounded by candles. The demons were too wrapped up in each other to notice anything. When the man held up a strange flask, Buffy knew instinctively that that was her goal.

She surged forward and swiped the flask. Spike swooped in and hit the man. The woman screamed and scrambled after Buffy. She was no match for the Slayer's strength, so after a few blows, Buffy picked up the camera set aside in the fight and began filming the prone woman and the man still fighting Spike.

Somehow the man got the better of Spike. But he broke away gasping. "It's impossible. There's no breath in you."

The man turned. He saw the woman out cold on the concrete and flew in a rage at Buffy. Buffy threw the camera aside and braced for the fight. As she struggled with the man, Spike lurched over to the camera and ripped out the film. Talking out his lighter, he set the film ablaze. With a scream, the man and the woman vanished.

"See," Spike said. "Rubbish next to the freaks on Coney Island."

"Yeah," Buffy said with a laugh and feeling the rush of an ended fight.

Spike laughed in turn. "I remember this one bird. Gorgeous body and great talent, but completely off her nut in the end. When trying to off herself she accidently killed the world's best soprano. Shame she had to spend the rest of her life in an asylum. The stage really lost something."

"What is it with you and the homicidal crazies?"

"Reminds me a bit of you," he said, obviously still thinking in the past and not the moment.

"Excuse me?" Buffy said, good humour gone. "Do I look like Drusilla?"

"What? Oh. No. Blonde, athletic, gorgeous. Not the crazy thing. Though speaking of crazy…"

The Torchwood SUV pulled up with a screech and the team came running out to the pool. They looked around with tense yet puzzled expressions.

Buffy walk to them and pulled out the flask from where she had kept it in her bra. She handed it to Owen. "Get these back to where they belong. Return those souls and everyone should be fine. You all missed the fight. Two demons down, but the rest of the film should be destroyed just in case."

She stared directly as Jack, almost as if challenging him to argue.

"Get in the car," he said in a tone no one in Torchwood had heard before.

Buffy moved to do so when Spike's voice rang out. "You're welcome!"

She looked back at him and shook her head.

"I don't know why you're here," said Jack, "and I really don't know why Buffy hasn't staked you, so I suggest you shut up."

For once, Spike kept his mouth shut. While Gwen and Owen took Gwen's stolen car to the hospital, Buffy and Spike sat in silence in the back of the SUV on the way to the Hub. Buffy was gearing up for the coming storm between her and her father.

A.N. I'm not dead! But seriously, thank you to the people who are still sticking with this. I'm a terrible person when it comes to consistency. But I have new motivation in my life now (plus the boredom of summer vacation) so I'm not going to leave you hanging. This story will see an ending. Eventually. Not there yet. It will continue through the rest of Series 2 and then the DrWho episodes with the Stolen Earth. That should wrap things up. I've had questions about events in the Stolen Earth, and all I'll say is that Buffy will be there to make some changes. What are those changes? SPOILERS! Not saying! (No, really, I don't really know right now it's been a while since I watched that episode. Feel free to drop a suggestion and I'll see what works.) And if you think you know the names of the Coney Island people Spike mentions... you're probably right. Stupid sequel with its terrible black hole of a plot.