Disclaimers: Buffy the Vampire Slayer belongs to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy & Fox. Numb3rs belongs to Cheryl Heuton and Nick Falacci…I think. (NOT me!)
AN: I've noticed some of the authors of fics I'm reading like to recommend fics THEY read at the start of chapters, and have found a few great reads that way, so I thought I'd do the same. It's hard to pick just one, but for this chapter I'll go with Carving Out A Future by Dreamfall. It's a BUFFY/FIREFLY crossover, which won Best Unfinished Television Crossover in 2007. The story is centered in Firefly and excludes everyone except Xander—all the other Scoobies have been dead for centuries—but it's been a great read so far.

I would try recommending a BUFFY/NUMB3RS crossover that's not listed here on TTH, if I could. Unfortunately I haven't found any. There's a few one-shots on , but that's all I've seen so far. If anyone else has had better luck PLEASE tell me. Oh, and any recs for other good fics would be appreciated too. I follow a LOT of fandoms, so I'm not going to list them all. Feel free to recommend anything you liked. I prefer finished fics, but they're obviously a rare-breed so anything worth reading would be appreciated. ^_~

Once again, thank you to NeverTooOld for beta-reading.

Enjoy the chapter! ^_^

Warnings: I can't think of any. If you do while reading this chapter, please let me know and I'll add them in.

A Call Away

Part II in Mathematics & Magic

By Jess S

Chapter 7: Mortal Peril

Part II

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Mrs. Eppes' Car, , Los Angeles, California – Friday, October 4, 1996

Buffy rolled her eyes, "I said I'd bring it, didn't I?" she turned her direction to Lily, who was sitting on her left side, smiling. "Honestly. With how many times he brought up that book in the last week, a stranger might think I'm one of those people that forgets stuff all the time!" Then she turned back to her right again to remind Charlie, who was also smiling, "Which you know I am not."

Everyone laughed and Charlie shook his head, his smile a little rueful. "I'm sorry, Annie," he shrugged apologetically. "I just really want to start working on it."

"Yes, Charlie can be a little enthusiastic when he finds a new project to work on." Mrs. Eppes interjected lightly, smiling as she glanced at the trio of teenagers in her backseat—because all of them had wanted to sit together, thus leaving the front passenger's seat empty—before turning her attention back to the road when the traffic started to move again as the light they'd stopped at turned green. "What's this one about, anyway? I don't remember hearing much about it."

Buffy blinked and glanced at Charlie, and was immensely relieved when he quickly replied. The secrecy surrounding the supernatural had always been hard for her. She was pretty sure that if not for the seemingly innate desire almost all human beings shared—wanting to deny the existence of demons and magic—everyone that came into contact with Buffy herself would probably know about it.

"Just a statistical analysis of female athletes of a special skill set," Charlie was telling his mother, the ease with which the white lie rolled off his tongue telling Buffy he'd planned it, a suspicion confirmed by the twinge of guilt she sensed along their bond. "I started it a few weeks ago, but the book Annie found has a lot of data I can't get anywhere else."

"Oh? What kind of athletes?"

"Exceptionally gifted girls," the genius replied immediately, making Buffy blush and Lily smile. "There aren't many records of women performing athletic feats in any way before the early 1900s, but Annie found an exception."

"And it was really just sitting in your high school library?" Mrs. Eppes shook her head, continuing without waiting for a reply. "That was lucky, wasn't it?"

Buffy shrugged, "I guess." Then she smiled at Charlie, "Can't wait to see what Charlie comes up with, though."

Mrs. Eppes nodded, smiling back at them again after coming to a stop for yet another red light. "Yeah, it sounds interesting," the older woman commented, before raising an eyebrow at Buffy. "So how are things back home, Annie? Charlie said you had a bit of a rough start?"

Buffy looked down, sighing softly before replying. "Yeah. Had some issues to work out with my mom and my friends, but that's mostly taken care of now."

"Mostly?"

The Slayer shrugged, "We're still workin' some of kinks out, but we're all friends again, at least."

"That's good," Lily interjected, smiling and shaking her head when the others looked at her. "Obviously I didn't know your friends that well in Sunnydale, but you don't deserve any trouble from them. Not with everything you do for everyone."

"I wouldn't say that," Buffy shrugged uncomfortably. "I owe my friends a lot, too."

"But real friends don't tend to collect those kinds of debts," Mrs. Eppes commented, her gaze growing concerned as she looked back at them. She paused for a long second, then opened her mouth to continue, only to be interrupted by her son.

"Mom, the light," Charlie pointed out just before the car behind them honked as the traffic around and ahead of their car moved forward. He blinked as he actually heard his mother bite back the later half of a softly spoken curse as she turned forward, and Buffy smirked at him, her superior hearing easily confirming the older woman really had said what he thought.

"So how was your trip?" Lily asked curiously and Buffy smiled.

"Great. Don't remember anything past the bus pulling out of the station in Sunnydale and waking up just outside of the city limits."

"I thought you had trouble sleeping when you travel?" Charlie asked, and Buffy nodded again. Usually she did, at least since she'd become the Slayer. Her superior senses made little distractions standout all the more for her, little bumps that most people could ignore, the sounds of speed her vehicle and others, the lights of other vehicles, the smells. But then again, she had exhausted herself with the second patrol she and Faith had gone on.

"Usually I do, this time I didn't though."

"That's good." Lily commented and Charlie quickly nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, it is," Buffy agreed, before asking curiously. "So how are things going at the House, Lily? Charlie said you've been expanding a lot?"

"Yeah, it's been great. We get more volunteers for everything every week." Lily nodded at Charlie then, "Actually, a lot of people have signed up for the classes too. Charlie's math for dummy's—"

"It's not math for dummies," Charlie cut in with a severe frown as he insisted. "It's math for non-mathematicians!"

"Gunn renamed it math for dummies." Lily told him, smirking slightly while Buffy giggled at the genius's shocked expression. "He thought your name for it might scare people who didn't finish high school away. Math for dummies is more approachable."

Charlie shook his head quickly, frowning severely as he shot her a glare—and Buffy blinked as a very clear and seemingly deliberate burst of irritation hit her from over their bond—even as the mathematician turned his eyes back to Lily. "No one will want to come to a class called m—"

"Actually, almost all of your classes are full," Lily told him, still smirking as his frown gave way to a look of pure shock. "Your class, the First Aid one that Bob's gonna be teaching and the Self-Defense class are the only ones that have full houses so far."

Buffy smiled as Mrs. Eppes turned her car onto a familiar off-ramp, "Imagine that."

"What other classes are offered at the shelter, Lily?" Mrs. Eppes asked curiously.

"Oh, tons." Lily enthused, smiling brightly. "We have the ones that are full, plus one for helping people get GEDs and get into college—that one's bringing in a lot of funding from the government, and we've already had some representatives from a bunch of schools in LA visit to check it out—"

"I can imagine," Mrs. Eppes chuckled, "It's a great idea."

Lily laughed even as she nodded in agreement, "Yeah, it definitely pays to have a genius hanging around." At the confused look Mrs. Eppes directed at her when they stopped at a stop sign before moving on, Lily explained, "That was Charlie's idea too."

"Actually Gunn did most of the work for that," Charlie objected. "I wanted it to be there originally, but he and Bob are the ones that figured out how to make it work."

"And it was your name that probably drew all of the schools to us," Lily commented. "CalSci was the first one to call."

"That's wonderful," Mrs. Eppes commented, a very clear note of pride in her voice.

"Yeah, it is," Buffy agreed immediately, smiling as she deliberately sent a warm wave of approval and pride over their bond, just to be sure Charlie was aware of how both she and—she was sure—his parents felt about this. Charlie looked down for a moment, his cheeks reddening slightly, and Buffy quickly redirected the conversation to give him a chance to collect himself. "Have you been to the House yet, Maggie?"

"No, dear," Mrs. Eppes sighed, now clearly regretful even as she turned the car onto a very familiar street. "I'm afraid Alan and I have both been frightfully busy these last couple weeks. Though we certainly want to see it." She chuckled shortly as she turned into their driveway, stopping right alongside her husband's car. "I don't suppose you need a lawyer? I might be able to get the office to write some hours off as business if that were the case."

Buffy frowned as Charlie's part-embarrassed, part-proud emotionally state suddenly shifted to something between panic and horror as he exchanged a look with a suddenly very tense Lily. "Wh—"

"I-I'm not sure, Mrs. Eppes." Lily replied quickly, shaking her head and forcing a smile as Mrs. Eppes glanced back at her after putting the car in park. "I'd have to check. Maybe."

"Of course," Mrs. Eppes nodded easily while she moved out of the car, even as the trio in back did so as well, Buffy easily sliding out right behind Charlie.

Buffy wanted to question her two friends on their sudden tenseness, but realizing it definitely wasn't something Charlie wanted discussed in front of his Mom, turned her eyes to the familiar, welcoming sight of the Eppes family's Craftsman home. She raised an eyebrow at her friend's mother, smirking slightly as she nodded towards the front door. "No doormat?"

Mrs. Eppes snorted in seeming disgust as they walked towards the house. "We've gone through four so far. Since you left, Charlie's somehow destroyed every single one I've bought." Then she smiled at Lily, "Why don't you come in for dinner, too, dear? We haven't seen much of you lately."

"Thanks, Mrs. Eppes."

"Lily, I've told you to call me Maggie a dozen times already."

"Fourteen times, actually," Charlie corrected, smiling as the quick mock-glare his mother sent his way, which melted into a small smile as he held the front door open for the three women.

Mrs. Eppes then chuckled, "It still seems amazing," she murmured to Lily, nodding towards the younger blonde's house. "Annie's cousin moving in next door."

"Oh, uh, that was actually my fault," Buffy quickly admitted, continuing as everyone looked at her while Charlie sent a wave of reassurance over their bond, letting her know she could continue. "When Charlie told me it was for sale, I told Lily." She shrugged slightly, "Since she wanted to move here anyway, I though it'd be a good idea for her to live near friends of mine."

Mrs. Eppes smiled at them, nodding. "Well, we're happy to have her." Then she waved towards the living room seating area. "Make yourself at home," she told them as she headed towards the kitchen, where they could hear pots and pans clicking together inside. "While I check on my husband."

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Eppes' House, Pasadena, California – Friday, October 4, 1996

Charlie had to chuckle as he watched Annie watch Lily and 'Lyla'—Denise in disguise—walk home. After all, they were only going right next door in one of the most peaceful streets in the city. A street that had become especially peaceful in recent months as the watch and all of the gangs in LA—or at least the ones aware of the supernatural, which most were out of necessity—now associated both Charlie and Lily with it, meaning—according to Lily at least—it was to be protected. So the gangs did not allow crime of any kind they could control near it, and the watch patrolled this area much more frequently then any other protected area, despite the fact that there'd been one vampire sighted—and staked—on the this street after the ones that had attacked him and met their end at the eldest Slayer's hands.

Still, Charlie knew he'd usually watch Lily walk home too. It was hard not to be protective of your friends, when you knew what was out there. And, of course, 'Lyla' was actually in very real danger, and thus needed all the protection she could get. Hopefully what they'd given her would be enough until her problem—the vampire that was obsessed with her—was taken care of this weekend. It should be, as it'd worked for several days already, but that fact didn't make any of those who knew her situation any less protective.

"What?"

"You don't even realize it, do you?" He asked, a wide smile stretching easily across his face as he met her eyes. "When you do that."

Her brows came together in a clear expression of confusion as she shook her head, "Do what?"

"Watch us. You watch everyone."

Annie blinked slowly, frowning slightly as she considered it while long, dark-brown eyelashes came down over vivid green eyes, followed by lightly colored eyelids that rapidly receded into shadows again as her eyes opened and her face settled into a thoughtful expression. "I guess I do, don't I?" she shook her head, looking down and away as she finished softly, "Sorry."

Charlie shook his head quickly, "No, don't be." He told her firmly, smiling as her eyes came up to meet his. "One, it's probably smart, and doesn't harm us at all. If anything, it could one day lead to you saving our lives at a completely random moment instead of just when we're expecting to come up against danger. Two, it's natural to you: the desire to protect your friends and family. And it's sweet." She looked away for a moment again, but he knew she believed what he was saying, and accepted it. As they'd told Lily in one of brief times they'd had away from his parents well-meaning, but necessarily ignorant ears, the power of their bond to one another had clearly grown much more then either had consciously realized.

He could now feel every single emotion that passed through Annie's consciousness, and she could feel his. Sineya's voice was louder too, but for the most part she'd refrained from speaking, and only expressed her happiness at their closeness through the faint purring both had heard in the backs of their minds for the last several hours.

An apparent drawback to their heightened ability to sense one another, however, seemed to be the almost complete inability to sense anyone else. Something Charlie hadn't fully realized he'd started to depend on, if only a little.

It'd been very, very useful to him. His brilliant mind was not as easily distracted as it used to be, but he could still get caught up in his work and knew that that occasionally worried his parents. But the first twinge of worry on his radar would always draw him out of his work before they spoke up, and his apparent awareness of their presence quickly reassured them that he was quite able to take care of himself. But with Annie here, her emotions—engulfed by Sineya's delight—almost completely drowned out the emotions of everyone else around him.

So it had come as a great surprise to him when he realized halfway through dinner that both of his parents minds were elsewhere from time to time. Oh they were excellent hosts and happy to have Annie staying with them and Lily dining with them, but still they weren't always completely focused on the evening. Maybe they were thinking about their respective jobs. Maybe they were wondering at Annie's abrupt visit.

He didn't know. He didn't even really know what there emotional state was.

He was sure they were happy with Annie visiting, though he couldn't feel it because whatever happiness they were feeling was easily outshone by the joy that Sineya, Annie and Charlie all shared together.

He supposed he should at least be happy that whatever they were feeling in their distracted moments wasn't poignant enough for his and Annie's developing empathetic senses to stand up and take notice. At the very least, their emotions were not extremely bad, they were just unknown. And that, after weeks of being able to sense the slightest changes in his loved ones emotional state—in anyone's or almost anyone's, with the interesting exception of the lawyers from Wolfram and Hart and the mages that could control and shield themselves—it was a little disconcerting.

More so for Charlie, he assumed, than it would be for Annie. The world had known that Charles Eppes was exception since he first proved he was capable of mathematics far beyond his age-groups level of understanding several months before his fourth birthday. From then on he'd been cocooned in a world of numbers and learning. A world that had fascinated him almost entirely, the only real exception being those times he allowed himself to wonder what it might be like to be normal. To play with kids his own age, to be welcomed by them and not ostracized by his intimidating intelligence and to truly enjoy playing games with them and not worry about his too-brilliant brain being bored. Surrounded by special tutors and all the wonders of mathematics and everything else he could learn from his teachers, that curiosity was frequently subdued. It'd started to show itself much more around his big brother, Don.

Especially when he'd joined Don in high school. When he'd learned to hate school. He'd still loved learning, but learning with Don's peer group—being ostracized and occasionally bullied by teenagers five to eight years his senior but angered by or at least uncomfortable his presence amongst them—had certainly not made him like going to school.

He'd been so excited when his parents had decided that it would be okay for Charlie to join Don in high school the year his brother entered the tenth grade. After all, Don'd be able to look after him. And Charlie'd get to spend more time with his brother. Only it hadn't worked out that way.

Don had protected Charlie from bullies. Thus Charlie had only actually gotten beaten up, shoved in his locker and stuff like that a few times before Don had sorted them out. It hadn't been that hard for him. Don'd been one of the most popular guys in school, and most of his teammates on the school baseball team—boys Don had been friends with since he'd first started playing in Little League several years before—were used to Don's kid-brother and willing to tolerate him. And look out for him, if Don asked it. Charlie had had to be careful and not run to any of the newer jocks—boys that Don hadn't grown up with but only met in high school—but most of them were willing to at least make sure he made it to school, to all of his classes, to lunch, and home at the end of the day. Most of the time. But heaven forbid he might actually want to do something with any of them.

Thus Charlie had ended up being more than a little socially handicapped. He'd been forced out of his shell a bit at Princeton, but it wasn't until Annie'd dashed into his life—saving it and giving him the gift of not only her friendship, but the slowly developing ability to truly read others as well—that he'd started feeling more comfortable with meeting new people.

Since then his circle of friends had grown immensely. Before his 'friends' had really only been his family and a few of the professors he'd grown closer to. And all of them—save his brother, Don, who frequently didn't want anything to do with him—were much older than him, and most of them—including Don—lived far away. Though Dr. Fleinhardt, his first physics professor at Princeton and an avid and helpful friend and mentor thereafter, was considering moving out west to teach at CalSci. But now, only a few months after Annie's intervention, Charlie was friends with many people from all different backgrounds. True, all of them were people he'd met through the House or some other affiliation with the supernatural, but it gave him a great deal of hope for his upcoming job. After all, that would be another opportunity to meet potential new friends.

Though he might need to really work on learning actual social cues if he wanted Annie to be around more. Obviously he couldn't be dependent on their empathetic abilities. And they certainly weren't worth giving up time with Annie herself.

"Charlie?" A note of clear worry—not extreme, but there—rang across their open bond before he even shook his attention back to the present and met Annie's concerned gaze again.

"Sorry, got a little distracted," he explained unnecessarily, his tone a bit sheepish.

Immediately an even clearer note of affection echoed his own feelings, followed abruptly by amusement and then playfulness. "That's OK. It's natural for you, after all."

"Oh hey!" he cried back, not really offended but more than willing to give into the childish urge to start—or at least try to start—tickling his friend, who gracefully slipped out of his grasp and danced away, giggling all the while.

There really was no point to playing this game, and his ever-logical mind knew that any time he actually managed to catch Annie—if only for a second—only occurred when she chose to let it happen, but it still brought smiles to both their faces and soft laughter filled the air around them and the bond between them as they danced and dashed around the front yards for several minutes of meaningless fun.

A kind of fun that Charlie had never really known as a child. Oh, his mother had played these sorts of games with him occasionally, but one disproving glance from his revered big brother—who at five years his senior found such things to be silly—had quickly put an end to his willingness to admit any kind of interest in it. He'd still done plenty of things with his mom, of course, even somewhat 'girly' things like baking cookies. After all, Don hadn't been able to resist 'helping' with that either, not when it meant snacking on cookie dough and large numbers of cookies afterwards. And it put a big smile on their mom's face, which was always a good thing.

Still it was very late, and his parents—along with most of the neighborhood—were sleeping or trying to, so they soon forced themselves to settle back down again. Though both were still smiling, giggling and outright laughing for a while thereafter.

When he finally caught his breath Charlie asked softly, "Could you sense them?"

Annie blinked at him, but he was absolutely certain she was not remotely confused by his question. Their bond was so powerful now at close range and with no need for any subterfuge that he could sense everything she felt. "What?"

Charlie just raised an eyebrow at her and silently refused to elaborate. She already knew what he was talking about, and she proved it by sighing after a moment of silence.

"I could kind of sense them," the Slayer admitted, shaking her head. "But not like before. I was getting used to being able to read everybody without really needing to concentrate at all, but..."

"Now we can't sense much more than each other?" the mathematician finished, also sighing when she nodded. "I know what you mean. I'd gotten used to it too." He grinned slightly as he explained, "It's actually been really useful for keeping my parents from getting worried for or bothered by my zoning out when I'm focusing on the numbers. Whenever they started to get worried, I'd sense it and could usually stop what I was doing. But now I have to really pay attention to anyone else to notice their emotions."

"Except for me."

"Except for you," Charlie agreed with a nod, then quickly added as both felt the slight stirrings of irritation originating from their bond. "And Sineya, of course."

"Of course," Annie agreed, shaking her head slightly and then rolling her eyes as the spirit of the First Slayer gave a purr of approval before quieting again, apparently content to simple listen to their conversation with little or no input of her own as long as She wasn't being forgotten.

Charlie chuckled softly, before whispering, "It's things like that that remind me of how young She is." He winced at the same time as Annie did at the somberness associated with that thought.

"Yeah," Annie sighed. "'S not very encouraging, though. To think She was probably younger than me when She died."

Both winced again as they sense a small, surprisingly emotionless confirmation from The First Slayer.

After several moments of heavy silence Charlie spoke up again, not really moving away from the slightly depressing topic, but instead choosing to keep the discussion going and not fully dwell on it. "Do the Watchers know much about Her?"

The eldest living Slayer shook her head again, her long golden hair swaying back and forth with the motion. "No," then she shrugged. "I mean, they might have more that they just didn't put in The Field-Watchers Book, but—"

"That's actually what it's called?" Charlie asked in surprise. Considering what the book was supposed to contain, that title fit but it still seemed a bit odd. A bit too scientific for something that was so full of the mystical.

"No. The real name's in Latin." Annie said, her tone and the look she was sending him telling him not to press the issue.

Charlie bit back a laugh, though he knew full well she could sense his amusement. And it didn't help that Sineya—much more active with them sitting right next to each other near the time when the Slayer would generally start hunting—was apparently amused by Annie's adaptation.

But he also knew that Annie wasn't half as annoyed by his amusement as she looked. That was why she didn't work more at remembering such things. The trouble with names and anything not-English made the Slayer seem a little less-intimidating.

Not that Charlie had ever found her intimidating. The first time he'd 'met' her was when he woke up in the hospital, and by that time they already shared their empathetic bond. While he hadn't been aware of it—at all, really—at the time, even then he'd been absolutely certain of two things. One was that this woman would never harm him. And the second was that there was no safer place in the world than by her side (or a little ways behind her).

It was a feeling he'd found a little unsettling at first. As it was a level of trust that had surpassed the hero-worship level of trust he'd always had in his older brother, who was now so far away and rarely seen the last few years that the kinship they'd once shared really couldn't challenge Annie. And while he loved his parents, what safety he might have felt in their presence and in his childhood home was tainted by the night three vampires had violated that sanctuary. And Annie had saved him from those three. Even when he hadn't fully remembered what had happened, he'd known that.

Suddenly a strange sensation—almost like someone was poking him with a finger, but poking his mind itself—jolted him out of his thought and he started, blinking rapidly for a moment before turning his eyes to Annie, who wore an expression of innocent amusement.

"No retreating into math-world when we're talking, remember?"

Charlie frowned, "I wasn't doing math," he protested half-heartedly.

"I know."

The genius blinked at that, but decided to let it go and continue on the course their conversation had been taking before his mind had wandered off on a somewhat random tangent. "So Sineya's in the Watchers' Book? Which is in your bag?"

"Yes. But it's mostly just comments about myths on how the Slayer might've come into being. They weren't actually sure her name was Sineya, but a demon that was supposedly driven out by Sineya kept calling a Slayer—in the 1500s—that, so they made note of it. Yes, I have the book. And no, you will not be seeing it yet."

"But—"

"We're both going to go up to bed now. And I will let you see the book tomorrow morning. After breakfast."

"But we're meeting with—"

"We're meeting everyone tomorrow afternoon. And some of the witches are going to make a copy of the book anyway. So you can't complain about any kind of time limit. Now come on," she rose to her feet suddenly, dragging him up as well with the firm grip of a deceptively small hand on his arm. "Time for bed."

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Eppes' House, Pasadena, California – Saturday, October 5, 1996

Buffy couldn't suppress a smile as she woke to the familiar sound of cheery little song birds twittering about in the Eppes' backyard. After lying there in bed, listening to the happy songs, she slowly opened her eyes and lazily looked around the very familiar guestroom of the Eppes's house.

Even after weeks away this room still felt like home.

She'd noticed that someone—probably Mrs. Eppes, though Charlie had definitely added a few things here and there—had gone to a lot of trouble to keep it just like it was when she'd left.

The bed had been re-made with her favorite sheets and the room itself was freshly cleaned—the pleasant scent of a barely-there air-freshener only just over-powering the lemony smell of the cleaners that had been used—but all of the tiny decorations and knick knacks she'd compiled over her summer here and neglected to take back to Sunnydale with her were right where she left them, artfully arranged in their proper places after the room had been cleaned. Obviously Mrs. Eppes wanted to make sure she felt completely welcome, and the thought sent a warming sensation through her heart.

Her smile widened as her eyes landed on one particular decoration again. A photograph in a slender silver frame. It was the only thing on the bedside table aside from the lamp that was meant to be used for reading. She'd taken a copy of that picture with her and it now sat in a similar frame with the exact same placement in her room back on the Hellmouth.

It'd been taken a little over two weeks before she'd left LA. When she and Charlie had dragged Lily out of the city to one of the nearby parks for a small camping trip. The picture had been taken that first night, before lack-of-showers and sleeping in bags on the ground had done anything to their hair and smiles. Lily had taken the shot of Buffy and Charlie sitting on a large boulder that was actually the edge of a cliff overlooking the park, with the sun setting in the background.

In many ways that picture, of her hugging Charlie with both of them smiling as widely as they possibly could, had become a symbol of everything good about this past summer.

Buffy blinked as she noticed something else lying by the picture for the first time, then chuckled as she realized what it was. Someone had placed a small dish of candies on the table, and seeing what they were she knew it had to be Charlie.

After all, she hadn't mentioned liking Smarties to anyone else, and Charlie had been rather amused by her joking observation that the name seemed to imply that eating the pure-sugar-goody was supposed to make you smarter.

Shaking her head, Buffy laid back further, her eyes closing as her head sank a little deeper into a soft pillow. She took a slow, deep breath, sighing in contentment as the still just-cleaned smell of the soft comforter on her bed drifted into her nose.

Her eyes still closed, she listened for several moments—wondering at just how early it might be—then chuckled as a single sound made it very obvious that it was too early to be up. Mr. Eppes hardly ever slept in, even on weekends, so if he was still snoring it must be very early. She tried to listen further, listen with her mind and after several long moments her mind was suddenly flooded with a sense of peace and restfulness that just as suddenly vanished in the wake of a jolt of annoyance.

Oops. Seems she woke Charlie up.

Raising her head slightly to glance at the clock that was on the other side of the room, Buffy winced. She really didn't want Charlie up—and researching—before six-thirty in the morning. So she closed her eyes again and tried to send back the feeling she'd felt a moment before—of peace and rest—and waited.

After several long moments she had the distinct impression that Charlie was grumbling as he rolled over and went back to sleep, one pillow thrown over his head. And several moments later that feeling of sleepiness started to return as Buffy slowly drew herself out of her friend's awareness, ignoring the amusement she felt from Sineya as she did so.

Once she was sure that Charlie was asleep again, Buffy tried to go back to sleep herself. But since they'd gone up to bed just before eleven last night—right after calling the House­ to make sure they weren't needed that night at all—she'd had more than enough sleep. Most nights three to four hours was enough for a Slayer. Five was more than enough, even when injured. Six was almost impossible to imagine, except when badly injured. Which she wasn't.

So, with another sigh Buffy quickly swung herself out of bed and started moving around the room, quickly gathering a change of clothes from her bag and two of the towels Mrs. Eppes had laid out for her and snagging her bathroom kit off the dresser before heading towards the bathroom.

At home she might worry about waking her mother with an early morning shower, but here she'd learned that Mr. Eppes had gone out of his way to make the walls of this house virtually soundproof. To human ears, at least. The Slayer still heard plenty, but then she was used to that. So when their bedroom doors were shut the faint noise of the plumbing and running water wouldn't bother them at all.

After setting her clothes down on the counter, hanging her towels on a nearby wrack, and quickly hanging her bathroom kit from the bar the shower line hung from, Buffy looked at the shower knob for a long moment before shrugging and—after checking to make sure the shower liner was in place so no water would escape—she turned it on. It took almost no concentration to escape her pajamas, which she then folded up and set on the counter a little ways away from her change of clothes. Then she slipped into the shower, biting back a gasp as slightly too-cold water hit her skin and quickly reaching for the shower knob to turn it up even as she closer her eyes and let the water run down her face and through her hair. That was one of the problems with visiting somebody else's house: trying to figure out how things were set there. But she really should've remembered that the Eppes' shower was generally cooler than the one back home. But then again, she was usually half-asleep when she wanted warm water in the morning. And though she tried to avoid showers at night after patrols as much as possible here, because Margaret and Alan Eppes knew nothing about the supernatural, when she did need an after-patrol shower she liked the cool water on semi-sore and potentially bruised muscles. Unless she had to wash some sort of grime out of her hair or skin—sewer sludge, demon goo, whatever—then she needed hot water and a lot of soap.

Here she really had to work to find vampire nests or demons-in-need-of-Slaying. And the air wasn't polluted by their darkness. The dirty feeling that registered so poignantly to the Slayer's senses, polluting everything in Sunnydale but barely drifting on the air here. Here the influence of the Hellmouth wasn't powerful enough to constantly contaminate the air and the numbers of demons and vampires just weren't enough to build up over time, defiling everything.

Buffy sighed lightly as she opened her eyes, shaking her head a little to clear the water away from her eyes before turning towards her bathroom kit. As she did, she glanced towards the little shelves in the corner of the shower and blinked in surprise when she noticed that the shelf that had been hers when she was staying here full-time was fully stocked with all of the products she liked. Her favorite facial cleaner, shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and shaving gel were all there. All were obviously brand new as some of them still had little pieces of the price labels that had been peeled off just enough to not show how much each had cost, but left enough behind that it was easy to see the bottles couldn't have endured the damp environment long.

The Slayer smiled softly as she reached out and snagged the face wash and quickly squirted some of it into her hands, then lathered it up on her face. Then she grabbed the bottle of shampoo, gently squirting just the right amount into the palm of one hand before clicking the top back into place, then rubbing her hands together before bringing both up to the top of her head to start scrubbing her scalp and running long fingers through her hair as she stepped back under the shower's spray. She made quick work of scrubbing her face free of soap, then went back to washing her hair. Her smile widened slightly as she took a deep breath and the familiar, pleasant fragrance of roses and some other herbs she couldn't quite place washed over her senses.

Of course, demon-goo hadn't really been a problem this past summer, even after she did started actively patrolling again. The demon and vampire populations here just didn't compare to the hordes of them around the Hellmouth. That was probably why the city felt so much cleaner, too. Most people would probably think her crazy for thinking that a major city like Los Angeles was cleaner and safer than a small town like Sunnydale, but it was. At least when it came to demonic activity.

Here Russell Winters—someone the Council classified as 'relatively harmless' because he only killed a few girls a year and spent the rest of his time living as an immortal but upstanding, tax-paying American citizen—was an awful monster, but he was among the worst. In Sunnydale, she'd probably agree with the Council. He wasn't that important. She'd still go through the trouble of dusting him though.

All too soon her hair was bubble-free, though her super-sensitive sense of smell could still detect the lingering traces of the pleasant fragrance as she leaned out of the shower's path to start applying her favorite conditioner. She rubbed light circles into her bangs and scalp for a moment before spending several more carefully pulling her fingers through her hair, making sure every strand was well covered before moving back under the water again. She kept the motions going as she stepped under the shower's spray again and let water wash through her hair at the same time. The tangles that her hair had slipped into as she slept quickly gave way to her tugging fingers, turning into smooth, silky strands under the influence of her fingers, the water and whatever it was the makers of conditioners put into their mixes to make them work.

Buffy shook her head as she deftly unzipped the pocket of her travel kit that held her sponge and pulled it out. As she reached for 'her' shelf again she smiled as she remembered Charlie's explanation for why this was 'her' shelf. It wasn't that the Eppes' had actually needed to move everything around, the rack had five shelves. But the bottom one was supposed to be for guests, the top four shelves were for family.

She put the bottle of her body wash back after squirting a generous amount on the sponge, held it under the water and then began to later up. The sponge left a tingling trail of softly scented, sparkling suds as she half-consciously dragged it around her body.

According to Charlie, Buffy—or 'Annie', as they still knew her—was family, so she shouldn't have to use the guest shelf. Part of Buffy thought her friend just wanted to get away with stealing his older brother's shelf, which was originally one prong higher on the rack than his own and the one he was currently using. But she still appreciated the sentiment. And she was also pretty sure that Charlie was fairly serious about it. Enough so that if his big brother came home while she was there, Charlie would move his stuff off Don's shelf. But he wouldn't have her move hers.

Buffy frowned and she felt her nose wrinkle up slightly in disappointment as her sponge ran out of bubbles, but she sighed and quickly made sure it was rinsed out, then finally wrung all the water out of it before setting it down on her shelf. Then she fished her razor out of her bag before reaching for the bottle of gel on the shelf.

Of course, the way coming to LA made her feel—the cleaner feeling of having so much human emotion there to overpower the little pockets for monsters instead of the other way around, like it was on the Hellmouth—made her wonder what coming to Sunnydale would feel like to Charlie. That was part of the reason she didn't want to let Charlie come by himself the first time at least. Especially since their empathetic senses seemed to really focus on just each other when they were close.

Even before Buffy had known about the Hellmouth being in Sunnydale, directly under the high school library, she'd known there was something off about it. When they first entered Sunnydale, with two moving vans trailing her mom's SUV—packed with their belongings and a bunch of stuff for her mom to start the gallery with—she'd felt it as they grew near. Especially when they'd driven by that awful 'welcome' sign that Spike—in an unusual show of taste for a vampire—had knocked down last year. It'd felt like they were jumping into quicksand that had been heavily doused with kerosene, and fully aware that somebody not too far away was plucking a match out of little book of them.

Buffy sighed as she carefully slid the razor up one leg, watching as it wiped away a trail of smooth white foam and barely-there-but-still-there stubble.

Hopefully Charlie wouldn't react quite as badly to Sunnydale as she had.

Of course, she'd been too self-centered—or at least too caught up in her angst-filled world—to really notice what her Slay-dar was telling her. She hadn't wanted to listen. Hadn't wanted to be the Slayer anymore. Supposedly because—but really in spite—of Merrick's sacrifice.

When they'd crossed into Sunnydale she'd shrugged the feeling of impending doom off as what any city-girl would feel when moving to a town so small that it only had one Starbucks. And she had really wanted to fit in with Cordelia's posse of popular followers without a real care in the world. Unfortunately, that wasn't something reality was going to allow.

But Charlie, she knew, wasn't like that at all. And he had next-to-no survival sense on his own. He'd definitely gotten better at that, of course. She hated that. Hated that he didn't really feel safe in his home—the house he'd grown up in—and probably never would again. Not after he'd already been disillusioned by a pathetic little trio of monsters that'd been walking around in the bodies of little girls that had died long before their times.

Having finished with one leg, she set her razor down and grabbed the bottle of gel once more, to apply to the other.

Still, no matter how disillusioned he may be, she wasn't about to let him wander around on the Hellmouth on his own. She'd only finally relented on his coming to town at Faith's insistence. And the younger Slayer was right. With two Slayers—two of the champions that were supposed to stand alone as humanity's greatest defender—looking after him, how much trouble could he really get into?

Though, Buffy smirked slightly as she finished shaving her second leg, she certainly wouldn't make that comment out loud.

And according to everyone she'd asked, she was right; Charlie was still very naïve.

Charlie's mom and dad agreed that a severe drawback of Charlie's brilliance was that it'd made it very difficult for him to connect to his own age group when he almost never saw them. Which had left him more than a little socially awkward outside of pure academia because he didn't really know how to talk small talk or shrug off gossip. At least not before he met her, which was another thing it was easy to see his parents were supremely grateful to her for. For her drawing him out of the world of lonely numbers into the 'real' world. Though knowing the 'real' world included her own, Buffy had never really been comfortable with this gratitude.

And according to Lily and Gunn, though Charlie was very, very slowly making some progress while training with Gunn—apparently he was pretty good at falling, ducking and dodging now, but—he still had a long way to go. And Gunn agreed that it wouldn't be a good idea to let Charlie go anywhere with potential dangers without some kind of protection. As in members of the Watch or one of the Slayers. Lily worried that a bad thing about the House was that Charlie didn't really pay attention to the fact that there weren't people the House turned away, but there were people they kept very close eyes on. That's why at least two watch groups always had the night off each night of the week. They were technically still watching, it was just in the House itself. Charlie knew this, but he didn't get it.

Buffy sighed as she rinsed her razor off and stowed it way again after she'd finished shaving under her arms. Then she looked at her body sponge and shrugged as she grabbed it and the body wash again. Maybe she was spoiling herself as she swiftly lathered up again, but she didn't think there was anything was wrong with being super-clean her first day back in the city.

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Angels' House, Los Angeles, California – Saturday, October 5, 1996

Charlie shook his head in slight bewilderment, "I really don't understand how they could leave a blind spot this big. I mean, it's fairly simple math—"

"For you or me and everyone else?" Annie cut in and the genius looked up from his notes to see both she and Gunn were wearing almost identical expressions of confusions as they stared at the pages of math he'd laid out on the table around the blueprints.

"What?" Charlie glanced over the numbers again, then looked up at Annie, frowning. He pointed at the start, "It's just—"

"Hey, man, I dropped out of high school, remember?" Gunn interrupted quickly, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender.

"And I'm still in high school," Annie added, also a little defensively. "Remember just a month ago you were telling me I had to keep both sides of an equation equal for the algebra to work? I mean, I've gotten better. I'm actually doing pretty well in pre-Calc, but—" the Slayer shrugged.

"Well—" Charlie paused, then sighed and nodded. "Alright, but for a mathematician—such as the one the company that installed the cameras would have hired to determine proper placement—this is fairly simple." He shook his head. "There's no way they could have missed this! I mean, even you've gotta see it!"

Seeing neither was following him, the mathematician grabbed a piece of paper and quickly drew a rough outline of the mansion onto it.

"OK, this is Russell Winters' mansion—"

"In 2-D," Annie nodded, grinning when he tried to glare at her.

"Yes, in a very simplified, two-dimensional model." He dropped the black pen and swiped a pencil in its place, then speedily sketched out the camera placements before shadowing the areas that would be in the cameras' line-of-sight. "OK, see these three corners of the mansion? All are completely covered by the security system. Directly to the north, northeast, east, southeast, south, southwest and west, there's no way the system can miss anything. They even placed an additional camera on the northeast corner to ensure that the blind-spot that didn't exist on the north-western corner didn't repeat there. You see? On the fourth corner—" he pointed to the offending corner, "the cameras don't cover anything. The two cameras that are supposed to monitor this corner, and more importantly that entryway," he waved his hand away from the sketch, shaking his head. "They just aren't there."

"Hey man, don' look a gift horse in mouth, right?" Gunn shrugged. "If his security has a hole, we can exploit it. This's a good thing."

"But there's no way they could miss this! It's—"

"So it's deliberate," Annie cut him off, and both men looked at her.

Charlie blinked, then nodded slowly. "I-I guess. But...why?"

"Cops?" Gunn suggested after a long moment of thought. When both the genius and the Slayer looked at him, he nodded towards Charlie. "Your Ma said the law's gone after W&H, and probably a lot of their clients, right? If they got a court order couldn't they seize the videos?"

Annie nodded in understanding a second before Charlie did, "Even if they couldn't force it, the tapes could only give him a solid alibi if there wasn't anything that could be used against him on them. He needed a way to get people in and out without recording them."

"Probably to get the bodies out, too," Gunn suggested, and Annie nodded again but Charlie was frowning.

"Why doesn't he just use magic?"

Deborah laughed, making everyone turned towards the middle-aged witch as she shook her head and her shoulder-length dark hair seeming to float around her as she glanced up from her own perusal of Charlie's quick-sketch. "Magic isn't something everyone can do, Charlie." She shrugged when he frowned at her. "The meditative exercises and mild magicks, as well as some of the smaller rituals, anyone can handle, of course. But the more powerful and complex spells are the territory of truly a select few."

"But Wolfram and Hart—"

"Could, undoubtedly provide the service," Richard—Deborah's brother—confirmed, but both Lincrofts were shaking their heads. "But that would cost significantly more money for Winters and his lawyers. They'd almost certainly have to keep a dark-mage on retainer full-time and they'd have to find a new one every time their mage went off the deep end."

At the confused looks Charlie and Gunn shot the witch, Annie explained, "Dark magic isn't all that good for long life and saneness." She raised an eyebrow at the mages, "Not from what I've seen, anyway."

Deborah nodded, "No, it really isn't. I don't personally know the exact statistics," she shot Charlie a small grin, which quickly faded as she continued, "But the vast majority of human, dark-magic practitioners don't live to see their thirtieth birthday." She shrugged, "Either they burn themselves out by using too much magic or too many magic-enhancers or they cast too much and can't handle the after-shock. Or they fight other dark-users and kill each other off." She sighed sadly, shaking her head again as she continued. "No, though Wolfram and Hart undoubtedly has more then a few demons and mages in their employ that could be used in such a way, it would be wasteful to an extent even they won't consider. An unnecessary misuse of limited resources that could exhaust said resources before they're really needed."

"Like finding someone who's in witness protection?" Charlie murmured softly, half to himself as the realization hit.

The witch nodded again, wincing slightly at the horrible—but probably very realistic—implication. "Yeah. For something like that."

"I know the Council has certainly suspected as much," The Council's team-leader—Mr. Collins—spoke up for the first time since they'd all gathered in Lily's office. Though he was the only Watcher that had come in, the rest of his team was waiting in the gym outside. A part of Charlie wandered if they were all just standing where they'd left them when Collins had agreed to meet in here, as they hadn't seemed to be moving at all when they walked in, but he quickly pushed that thought aside as Collins kept talking. "We know they have more than enough mages in their employ for such tasks, despite the risks and complications for the mages."

"If they have enough of them, they can spread out the castings amongst them so that the mages can recover in between," Deborah nodded in agreement at the thought. "That'd be why some of their mages might last a few years instead of just a few weeks in their employ. If they only have to cast big spells like that once a month or so for them, that gives them time to recover."

"That's what we'd theorized as well," Richard agreed and his sister nodded again.

A long moment of silence hovered over them, before it was broken by a faint buzzing sound and everyone looked at Collins, who was slipping his cell phone out of one of his—probably many—hidden pockets. "Pardon me," he nodded to them, specifically to Annie before he flipped his phone opened and answered, "Collins." He listened for a second then nodded, "Right, bring it in." He flipped his phone shut and slipped it back into the hidden pocket before meeting Annie's gaze once more. "Miss Summers, my 2IC's here with the rest of my men. They've just finished checking Winters' Mansion."

"For what?" Annie frowned slightly, though Charlie could sense she wasn't really confused at all.

Everyone glanced towards the door as it opened and another man—dressed all in black and a lot of just-barely concealed gear like Collins—entered even as the team leader replied, "Just making sure he hasn't made any important changes to his security features and whatnot." He quickly nodded to the newcomer, raising an eyebrow as he asked, "Well Robertson, has he?"

'Robertson' shook his head, "No, sir. Ma'am," he nodded to Annie respectfully, though he continued reporting to Collins. "Though a larger team from Wolfram and Hart stopped by earlier this morning, they all left a short while afterwards."

"How do you know they were from Wolfram and Hart?" Lily asked curiously.

Robertson blinked at her, but didn't hesitate to reply: apparently recognizing her presence there meant she had the right to ask. "The lawyer, Lindsey MacDonald was there, Miss. And everyone in the group deferred to him."

After another moment of silence Collins nodded again, "Good work, Robertson."

Charlie sent a sharp glance towards Annie and bit back a smirk when he saw her shift a little, but was pleased when she immediately knew what he wanted and instead of looking at him she smiled slightly towards the younger Watcher. "Yes, thank you, Mr. Robertson, wasn't it?"

The twenty-something Englishman nodded, bowing his head slightly with his response. "Thank you, Ma'am." He didn't show any other outward sign of emotion, but both Charlie and Annie could easily sense that he was pleased by her attention. And really, Charlie figured, it couldn't hurt to stay on the good-side of the Council's 'special operatives', right?

"Will that be all, Ma'am?" Collins asked and Annie nodded again.

"Yes, thank you, Mr. Collins. We'll meet back here at eight o'clock, alright?"

"Twenty-hundred hours, yes, Ma'am."

Then both Watchers left, closing the door behind them, and only a second later Annie released a sigh of relief.

Lily chuckled softly, "They seem helpful," she pointed out, shaking her head slightly. "I mean, we certainly couldn't find any of those plans."

Annie shrugged, "Yeah, I guess." She grimaced slightly.

"You just don't like being called 'Ma'am,'" Charlie chuckled when the Slayer shot him a glare.

"I'm seventeen years old, so no, I don't."

"It's a sign of respect, Annie." Lily objected, frowning slightly.

"I know," Annie sighed, shaking her head.

Gunn laughed at the defeated look on her face. "Can't say I blame you," he held his hand out as he moved a few steps closer, one eyebrow raised. "We weren't really introduced. I'm Charles Gunn. Friends just call me Gunn."

Annie smiled slightly as she accepted the older vampire hunter's hand and—judging by the immediate wave of slight discomfort that shot off of Gunn and made Charlie frown at the Slayer—squeezed it a little too hard as she shook hands. "I'm Buffy Summers. Known to the Council as The Slayer. Or maybe the older Slayer now. And I'm known around here as Anne O'Connor, or Annie to friends."

Gunn cocked his head to the side slightly as Annie released his hand, rubbing it slightly with his other hand—though he gave no other outward sign of discomfort—and he looked her up and down, a clearly considering look on his face. "Nice ta meet you then, Annie." Then he shook his head, "Though I gotta say," he nodded towards Charlie and Lily, "they warned me but—"

"You thought I'd be a bit butcher, I know."

"Well, yeah. Little taller too," Gunn shook his head, smirking slightly as Annie shot him an obvious mock-glare. "I mean, my little sister's three inches taller than you."

Annie sighed and shook her head, "I know," then she smiled brightly. "But it makes sneaking into places and surprising vamps so much easier."

Gunn laughed, "I guess. Though I'd think you'd have ta cover y'ur hair if you wanted to sneak in anywhere."

Charlie frowned and scrutinized his friend's long, shiny golden locks for a moment before shaking his head as he spoke up. "Actually, she usually doesn't." When everyone looked at him, he raised an eyebrow at the Slayer. "Guess that's another power hidden in there?"

Annie was frowning slightly as she also considered it, but then nodded slightly. "Yeah. I've never had any trouble sneaking anywhere, really. You think...?"

Charlie shrugged when she frowned at him, "Well, we'll have to test it out later. Ma—"

"Guess so," Gunn cut in before Charlie could really get going, and smirked when everyone looked at him. "I don't know about you, but I'm starvin'. Anybody up for pizza?"

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Eppes' House, Pasadena, California – Saturday, October 5, 1996

Buffy glanced up from her nearly finished nails and chuckled slightly, shaking her head at her friend's almost-anxious expression. "You're acting like you've never snuck out before."

"I haven't," Charlie grimaced ruefully. "Tried to a few times, but someone always caught me."

"Mom or Dad?"

"Usually Don, actually."

Buffy bit her lip, pretty sure she shouldn't ask, but gave into temptation anyway, asking her question in an offhanded tone even as she kept her eyes on her nails. "What were you sneaking out for?"

"I wanted to see where Don was going."

At that she just had to laugh, "Oh, so your brother didn't really catch you sneaking out. He just caught you following him when he was sneaking out?"

"Yeah. My mom caught me a few times too, though. And Don did catch me once when he wasn't going anywhere. I'm still not sure how he knew I was going to try that night."

"Where—"

"There was a guest speaker at CalSci that for some reason was only speaking late in the evening. Mom and Dad had some kind of business conference, so Don was supposed to babysit me. He mostly ignored me for several hours after he invited his friends over. But then he caught me when I was about two blocks away from the house." Charlie shook his head, "And he really seemed to be pretty focused on the horror flick they'd started, too."

This time Buffy managed to suppress her laughter, though it wasn't easy with the image of little-Charlie all dressed in black trying to climb out his bedroom window quite clear in her mind.

Obviously a little too clear, she realized, offering the sweetest, most innocent smile she could muster in response to the sour look he was sending her.

"You know, I'm still not sure why we're sneaking out," Buffy commented after a seconds of ignoring his unhappy expression.

Charlie rolled his chocolate-colored eyes, "My parents—"

"It's Saturday, Charlie. We don't have a curfew."

"Yeah, but you know that at least one of them would wait up for us with a whole bunch of questions if they knew. We can't say we're doing something with the House because both Mom and Dad are free and might want to come too." When she opened her mouth to comment, he hurried on. "And you're not going without me."

Now Buffy rolled her eyes. "Yeah, you've made that clear, don't worry," she reassured him, even as her attention returned to finishing the last application of the shiny, clear nail-polish her nails had so desperately needed.

Charlie watched her for several seconds—and a part of Buffy wondered if she'd ever looked more 'valley girl' to her genius-friend—before he asked, "Shouldn't we be going?"

The blonde didn't even glance at the nearby clock. "It barely takes half an hour to get there, Charlie. And Lily's giving us a ride so that we don't need to worry about a taxi and whatnot."

"Well, it'd be better to be earl—"

"And your Mom's still awake."

"What?" Charlie frowned, glancing in the direction of his parents bedroom. "She went to bed hours ago."

This time Buffy did glance up at him, one golden eyebrow raised even as she expertly twisted her nail-polish bottle closed, carefully avoiding smudging the still-wet polish. "I really hope it's not a mystery to you," she commented, then raised one hand to start blowing on the drying nails.

"What?"

Buffy really tried to suppress the slight smirk that wanted to come out, but it wouldn't be contained as she replied, "Why you never managed to sneak out."

"How do you know she's still awake?"

The Slayer shrugged slightly while dropping one hand carefully down before raising the other to start blowing on those nails. "Your mom hums a lot when she's reading."

Charlie blinked, glancing towards his parents bedroom again—clearly incredulous—before looking back at the Slayer. "She does?"

"Uh-hmm," she nodded.

"And you can hear her still? Even through Dad's walls?"

"Yup."

Charlie stared at her for a second, then shook his head when she switched hands again. "Does that actually make them dry faster?"

"Don't know," Buffy admitted, shrugging again as she switched hands. "Probably not. But it's something to do till they set. And the smell doesn't bother me as much if I keep blowing it away."

"Oh."

Buffy paused abruptly and held a manicured finger up to silence Charlie as Mrs. Eppes gave a slightly deeper sigh than normal, just before setting something lightweight—her book—down and turning off her lamp with a distinctive 'click.' "Finally," the teen muttered, even as she kept listening and heard Mrs. Eppes shift around slightly making the couple's bed creak while she tried to get comfortable.

"What?"

Buffy started slightly as Charlie's much closer—and therefore louder—question broke her concentration, but shook off her surprise and smiled at her friend. "Your mom just turned her light off."

"So we can go?"

Buffy rolled her eyes, "Soon as she's asleep, yeah."

"But you just said—"

"Charlie. Do you fall asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow?"

"No?"

"No. We'll go in 'bout a half hour," she told him, then raised an eyebrow again. "Which means we should change," the Slayer pointed out, waving a hopefully dry-manicured hand at their PJs.

Charlie glanced at their ensemble, a soft smile crossing his face as he was reminded of her too-cute, kitten-covered pajamas again, but then shook his head. "Annie?"

Satisfied her nails were, in fact, dry, the Slayer looked up again, frowning at the clear note of concern she could distinctly feel along their bond and hear in her friend's voice, "Yeah, Charlie?"

She watched as Charlie bit his lip for a second, then forced himself to continue. After a moment, he seemed to collect himself and continued. "I j-just wanted to point something out."

"Yeah?" she cocked her head to the side, letting one eyebrow raise even as she tried to project warmth and calmness along their bond.

"There's, uh," Charlie took a deep breath, then forced himself to continue. "There's a bunch of studies that indicate that the act of observing something—especially something that can certainly think for itself—will change the actions of the subject under observation. It-it's called the observer effect*, or the Hawthorne effect*. In physics, it's related to the Uncertainty Principle*." (1, 2 & 3)

"Yeah?" Buffy repeated her earlier reply, keeping her voice gentle and completely neutral as she let him continue, even though she had a pretty good idea of what he was getting at.

"And it's not just the tools used for measurements, by necessity, effecting the state of what they're measuring in a lab." The genius shook his head, "I mean, psychologically: people change their behavior when—" (4)

"They know their being watched," Buffy finished with a nod. She didn't need a college degree to recognize that simple fact.

"Um, yeah. That's known as the Hawthorne effect. It's a form of reactivity that Dr. Henry Landsberger coined established in 1955, when he was studying the experiments done at Hawthorne Works, where researchers were trying to see if workers were more productive in higher or lower levels of light." Charlie shook his head again, hurrying on as he noticed Buffy was struggling to fight boredom for his sake. "The problem was that the workers were aware of the observers, and therefore—"

"They worked harder all the time, no matter what the lighting was," Buffy nodded again.

"Right," the logician nodded again. "That's why the term's used to identify any type of short-lived increase in productivity when under observation. But the point is: the act of observation will affect the observed. So when you watch something, you change it, and, uh—" Charlie shook his head, forcing himself to pause and take a deep breath before he finished, though his concerned gaze remained locked with Buffy's compassionate one. "Winters has to know you—or at least someone—may be coming. His security—"

"Charlie," Buffy cut him off gently, reaching out to catch one of his hands and waiting till his gaze came back to hers before she continued. "Don't worry, we know that. We know it might be a trap, but with all the back-up I've got for this it really doesn't matter. Trust me. No matter what Winters has got, what we've got is a lot of overkill. And we're still gonna be really careful." She smiled softly, "But it's not like I can not go after him just because he knows someone might. Besides, with all the security he already has in place—security that we've already figured out how to get around or overwhelm—I doubt he's given anything the House might do for Denise a second thought."

Charlie nodded slightly, sighing as he replied. "I hope so."

Buffy pushed him away gently, nodding towards her nearby clock. "Now go change, or we will be late."

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Vehicle near Winters' Mansion, Los Angeles*, California – Sunday, October 6, 1996 (6)

Charlie glanced at the clock as he watched everyone in the large van the Council had brought in for them finish getting ready for the attack. Half-past midnight and it looked like they were all ready to go. Looking at Annie, he had to smile slightly as he took in her attire. The nearby Council's team-leader had been quite insistent that she take as much of the tactical gear they'd brought for her as possible, just in case, and the sight of all the equipment on her darkly-clad form was surprisingly reassuring. Still, he couldn't help but be at least a little nervous. "A—Buffy?"

Annie spun around, a glimmer of surprise in her eyes—and, again, flying over their bond due to their close proximity—at his use of her first name before she remembered the Council operative's presence and gave a barely perceptive nod of approval. "Yeah, Doc?"

Charlie blinked at her equally unfamiliar use of Angels' House's nickname for him, but also continued quickly to avoid attention. "B-Be careful."

A bright smile split the Slayer's serious countenance, making her look like a teenager again, "Always am." Then the smile disappeared as she raised an eyebrow at Rye and Devon, cocking her head slightly to include the Council operatives that were also staying behind—one of them just to guard the van—in her sight. "Anything happens to him—I don't care if you do something, if a vamp gets by you or if you let him do something stupid like follow me—"

"A—Buffy, I won—"

"Anything happens to him, you're gonna regret it. Got me?"

Both of the Angelinos nodded immediately, their faces respectfully serious and Devon replied verbally, if briefly, with a "Yes ma'am," which all of the Council operatives echoed.

Annie nodded while her eyes went back to meet Charlie's, softening for but a moment as she ordered, "Stay here." Then she looked at Collins and jerked her head towards the van's exit. "Let's go."

Collins nodded, his pale eyes serious, and a moment later both were gone.

Charlie's eyes immediately went to the monitor that was tracking their movements through the Lincroft siblings carefully crafted spell. He didn't really know how much time passed, as he watched different colored dots move around on the screen, staring specifically at the little white dot—the only one that was that color—that he knew was Annie. It took him a while to realize someone was watching him, in turn, but when he finally did he glanced around and was surprised to find the nearby Council guard's surprisingly concerned gaze focused on him. "May I help you?"

The older man smiled slightly and shook his head, "She'll be fine, Doctor." He continued before Charlie could say anything in response, "I've worked with a few Slayers over the years, and trust me; as intimidating as Winters' security may appear to us, everything we've got here—" he nodded to indicate the special monitors and the men that were keeping track of all the Council operatives and the Watch members, "—plus The Slayer, is quite excessive."

"But the setup—"

"Does indeed look like it could be a trap," the light haired man nodded. Then shrugged, "Maybe it is. That's why she's not going in alone."

Charlie nodded slowly in understanding, then really looked at the older man. He wasn't entirely sure of what he was looking for, but something to explain his dislike of the organization he represented would be good.

The problem was, he didn't see anything. From what he had seen of the Council's team all of the operatives were extremely disciplined, well-trained and polite young men who all certainly respected the Slayer, at the very least, and many of whom seemed to respect everyone involved with the House and Watch, too.

If Annie had a team like this backing her up all the time, would he have any reason to resent the Council at all? Especially considering, according to their special book—which he'd spent hours reading earlier today—the Watchers Council hadn't even had anything to do with the Slayer's creation. As most of the mages he'd met had mentioned, the Watchers might have ties to the infamous Shadow Men of ancient times, but if those ties were there the Watchers themselves didn't seem to know about them. And the Shadow Men had been even less supportive to the Slayer than the Watchers generally were. All the Shadow Men had done was give the Slayer—give Sineya—her powers and then abandon her to her Calling.

Perhaps his dislike of them was directly from Sineya, resentment at being abandoned by the Shadow Men so long ago. But he knew that resentment was felt at least in some small degree by Annie herself, regardless of Sineya's generally minute influence.

"Can I help you with something, doctor?"

Charlie jumped slightly, then shook his head a little sheepishly as he met the older man's eyes, realizing he'd probably been staring right at him. "Sorry." He bit his lip for a moment, glancing towards the screens that boasted numerous blinking lights and the supremely calm men that were watching them and listening into the radios the Council's team had brought for all of them to communicate with. He nodded slightly in return when Mr. Lincroft—Deborah's older brother—glanced up and nodded to him before turning back to the monitors. Deborah herself was in some kind of deep trance, keeping their spells going, to notice him. Finally he looked back at the Council operative and nodded, "I'm sorry, I don't think we were introduced?"

The Englishman nodded in return, "Peter Caldwell."

"Charles Eppes." Charlie blinked, "No title?"

"No," Caldwell shook his head. "No need for them. When we work with government agencies or military operations, we're generally consultants, sometimes just 'specialists' of an unnamed organization. But the Council itself has no need to give us titles. They know who we are and what we do."

Charlie nodded slowly in understanding, then continued a bit hopefully. "And what do you do?" At the look the older man sent him, he shrugged. "I'm sorry, but I've been trying to help Bu—umm, Miss Summers, with—" he waved his hands towards the nearby vampire's mansion, "All of this since I found out about it. I've spent a lot of time with her and it just doesn't seem like the Watchers Council does all that much to help her."

Caldwell actually sighed at that, nodding slightly in evident agreement. "No, I'm afraid we don't help the Slayer as much as we might like to."

"...Why?"

0 0 0 2 2 1 6 6 2 5 0 1 9 0 0 0 1 6 1 5 9 1 4 2 0 0 0 0 1 5 6 0 0 0 2 2 9 5 2 3 0 0 0

Winters' Mansion, Los Angeles, California – Sunday, October 6, 1996

Buffy couldn't help but grin as she caught the edge of the balcony with one hand and easily pulled herself up while all of the men around her had to depend on the grappling hooks they'd brought with them to climb up the ropes to the third story. While a two story jump wasn't necessarily easy for her most of the time, after sitting around all day just waiting for this operation, she had more then enough energy to manage it. She glanced down at the Council operatives that were a little more than halfway up and considered just grabbing the hooks and pulling them the rest of the way but figured that might be a little dangerous. The last thing they needed was for one of the men to panic, let go and breaking something on landing.

Charlie's analysis of Winters' security had definitely helped in getting them into the mansion. According to Collins they'd already noticed that this corner of the mansion was poorly covered—apparently breaking into buildings with advanced security systems wasn't something new to them—but they hadn't really realized just how poorly covered it was until Charlie pointed it out. Hadn't realized that they didn't even have to go in through the guarded doorway that the cameras didn't cover: they could just come up along the other side of the building and go in through the upper levels.

Of course, they'd still knocked the guards out. No reason to leave them standing around and available to come storming in to help Winters if he got the chance to call for help.

Buffy herself really didn't like the fact that a vampire had a bunch of heavily-armed humans guarding it. And she wasn't all that comfortable with watching the Council's guys knock them out. She was pretty sure both of the two guards were still breathing afterwards, but she wasn't entirely sure about one and Collins had made her move on before she could try to check.

She wasn't all that surprised when Collins' was the first of the men to make his way over the railing. The others weren't far behind him, and they were all close enough in age that it wasn't like that could be counted against any of them. And Collins' himself had to be in pretty good shape to deserve leading this team, which according to Giles he did.

She reached for the balcony door's knob to force it open, but stopped when Collins deliberately stepped in between her and the door, shaking his head. When she frowned at him, he pointed towards the corner of the door and then tapped his ear. Still frowning, she looked at the door again and tried to listen, then bit back a gasp while wincing as her sensitive ears obediently focused on a very quiet, but high-pitched noise coming from the other side of the door. Realizing it must be something related to the security system, she nodded and stepped aside as another member of the team moved forward with what looked like a really big remote in his hands.

The redhead—not that she could see his hair now, it was hidden under his snug black hat, but that was the only unique feature she could remember about him was his hair and lots of freckles—pointed down towards the bottom of the door and pushed a few buttons. A little red light came on near the top of the remote, and the redhead hit a few more buttons. A moment later the red light blinked rapidly for several seconds and then went off, and Buffy sighed slightly in relief as the offensive noise vanished with it. The redhead raised the remote a little and hit a few more buttons, but no more red lights came on. When the redhead nodded to Collins, everyone looked at Buffy again and she nodded in agreement. (5)

Collins nodded to the door and Buffy moved forward again and easily turned the doorknob, breaking through the lock that was supposed to keep it shut like it wasn't even there. Pulling the door open she moved in, pushing aside the dark drapes that were probably installed for the comfort of the mansion's owner: allowing him to move through his massive home during the day without having to worry about sunlight coming in through the windows.

The Watchers followed her in, splitting up as they did so with a few going off to the right—the redhead with the remote among them—and a few more going off to the left, another remote with them. Collins and a few others stayed with her, but she frowned slightly when she noticed they had fewer men with them then when they'd started.

When she raised an eyebrow at Collins, he pointed outside and down slightly—towards the formerly guarded doorway where Gunn and a bunch of his guys were supposed to be coming in if needed—and realizing he'd left a few of his men downstairs to help them, she nodded in understanding. Then she closed her eyes and reached out with her Slay-dar.

It only took her a moment to find Winters, but she focused a little more on his presence when she sensed someone else was with him. Someone who wasn't a demon. Reaching out with her empathetic senses instead, she winced as she realized his frightened guest probably wasn't supposed to live through the night. Apparently he wasn't quite as focused on Denise as everyone thought.

"Miss Summers?" Collins asked after a long moment of silence, his voice probably inaudible to everyone but her.

"He's on the second floor," Buffy whispered back, a bit louder as he didn't have super-hearing. "In his office, I think. But he has company."

"Extra guards?"

"No, a guest. She's scared." The Slayer replied, then bit back a wince when she opened her eyes and noticed all of the team members gathered around her were watching her closely. After all, a Slayer wasn't supposed to be able to sense human beings...were they?

But maybe they were, because Collins nodded after less then a second of silence, and she could sense the clear respect she'd been sensing from the calm man all evening increase as he did so.

"OK." He nodded to one of the other Watchers, who immediately started doing something to their radios that made weird clicking noises across the comms.

After a moment, she realized the series of long and short clicks was probably some kind of code. Maybe Morse code?

Then Collins nodded in the direction redhead's group had gone and Buffy nodded, moving off after him.

She didn't particularly like letting the Watchers go first, as endangering any human being was against the Slayer's very nature, but she didn't particularly want to try and stake Winters while he was surrounded by a bunch of human thugs with guns, either.

0 0 0 3 8 1 1 8 1 2 9 5 0 1 9 0 0 0 1 6 1 5 9 1 4 2 0 0 0 0 1 5 6 0 0 0 2 2 9 5 2 3 0 0 0

Vehicle near Winters' Mansion, Los Angeles*, California – Sunday, October 6, 1996

Charlie nodded in understanding. He wasn't too unhappy about being understanding, but he was a math prodigy, so he couldn't not understand the numbers. "But why doesn't the Slayer receive more support? I mean, even Dr. Giles isn't really supposed to help her at all, right?"

"Not in the field, no," Caldwell nodded in confirmation, shooting yet another glance towards the monitors, then back towards the vans closed doors before turning his attention back to Charlie. "But, generally speaking, there really is no reason the Slayer shouldn't work alone."

"But—"

"It's much more dangerous for us, for any ordinary humans, to try and go up against a demons and vampires." Caldwell cut in, shaking his head. "And realistically we really are needed elsewhere. It's the Slayer's job to cover the Hellmouth and any prophesized Apocalypse we might not be able to handle. We handle everything else, as frequently as possible. But the Council's resources generally only stretch so far. That's why we're more often involved as consultants or specialists for military operations and government agencies."

"Like the NSA?"

"Rarely," the 'specialist' shook his head again. "We actually don't interact with most of the Colonies' agencies. But yes, when we do need to step in to handle a problem in one of your states, it's always through the NSA."

"Why don't—"

"Most people aren't willing to accept the supernatural is real, doctor. And it's not just a phenomena you see around the Hellmouth, it's everywhere. That makes covering it up very, very easy for the most part. So only a few people in your government really know about it, and most of them only through the military or the CIA."

Charlie frowned a little, the military he'd obviously expected but, "The CIA?"

Caldwell shrugged, "Spies are a bit harder to confuse about these things, and if you travel enough it's something you're bound to see. So it's something anyone they send into the field is deliberately prepared for."

"And the military?"

"Special Ops, yeah. All of it about as classified as it can get, obviously."

Charlie nodded as he thought about that for several seconds, while Caldwell made his habitual glanced towards the monitors and doors, then he shook his head. "But they're so young." He didn't need to elaborate for the Watcher to comprehend that, as he immediately sighed.

"Yeah, they are." Caldwell shook his head, and Charlie sensed a note of distinct remorse and/or sadness at that. For some reason, it was very easy to read people standing in between him and wherever Annie was, as Caldwell was now. "And they don't last long. But that's the way it's always been, doctor. The Slayer's always been young. Always been needed. And always died young, and hard. It's not something we can change."

Charlie's frown deepened at the older man's somewhat-defeated words, and even further as he sensed a distinct note of guilt come off the man at the same time. "Why not?"

Caldwell shrugged, "It's not like we can change the Calling, doctor. The Council knows for a fact that The Slayer has to be Called while she's in puberty. Supposedly as that's when her body can handle the changes." He continued before Charlie could question him further, smiling slightly as he tried to change the subject. "Still, Summers' seems to be doing a pretty good job."

The genius shook his head. "She was killed two years ago."

"Yeah, heard about that," Caldwell shook his head. "Puts CPR into a whole new light, huh?"

"I guess... But Kendra didn't even last a full year."

"No. Most don't." Caldwell frowned, stopping suddenly to move towards the monitors. "Report," he ordered, and the Watcher that was monitoring the comms finished writing down a series of dots and dashes before replying.

"Looks like it's got a vic with him now."

Charlie's eyes widened as he thought of Denise, but then shook his head as he remembered she was still safely hidden and disguised in Lily's heavily warded house: where they'd left her as Lily drove them in this evening. Apparently Winters wasn't quite as focused on her as they'd thought, then. Which meant that the Council's belief that he only killed a few girls a year was probably inaccurate.

"Dead?"

"Not yet."

Caldwell sighed, at that, glancing at the monitor, where Charlie could see a bunch of little lights—including Annie's white one—moving around the screen as the people they represented moved through the mansion. "In its office?"

"That's where Ms. Summers says it is."

Charlie blinked as he noticed just how consistently the Watchers refused to assign the vampire a gender. Despite knowing its physical form was undoubtedly male. A reminder of the fact that it wasn't human, he guessed. But he had to wonder how that came into play when they were dealing with demons. Of course, maybe knowing a monster's gender generally didn't matter all that much. He shook his head as he saw Caldwell moving back towards him, and frowned in askance.

"They're fine," Caldwell reassured him, though he didn't say anything about the vampire's 'guest' and probable victim-to-be if the team didn't move fast enough. Leaning back against the wall in the vantage point he'd chosen earlier, the specialist glanced towards the van's rear doors again, then looked back at Charlie. "So you've been keeping track of Miss Summers? Helping her?"

"Um, yeah. As much as I can."

"How'd you meet?"

Charlie blinked, then hesitantly reached up towards his collar, pulling it down to show the strange scar that he knew was hidden there and that the Watcher would certainly recognize. "She saved me. Earlier this summer, some vampires attacked me. They looked like little girls, but," he shook his head ruefully, letting go of his collar to let it pop back up again even as he pushed down the horror that he still felt in response to that memory. The reason he was still uncomfortable with answer the door after dark. "I was lucky, I guess. She was walking by and I guess she sensed them."

"And you remembered afterwards? Didn't make yourself forget?"

Charlie could sense a clear amount of rising respect from the older man—he thought Caldwell was probably a year or two older than Don—and from his associates watching the monitors and the comms. He pushed back a sheepish look even as he shook his head. "Not right away. I passed out from blood loss, and shock, I guess. Woke up in the hospital," as Annie didn't want the Council to know how close they were, he carefully avoided mention her involvement therein. "I tried to forget but," he shook his head again. "It just didn't make sense to me. Any of it. I knew she was the one who'd found me, I was still conscious when she'd shown up so I kind of recognized her. Thought she was an angel when I was passing out, but," he shrugged sheepishly even as everyone in the van nodded in understanding. He glanced towards the monitors and wasn't surprised when all of the people that were supposed to be watching them immediately turned away. "She kept checking up on me, so finally I talked her into telling me what really happened."

Caldwell nodded slowly, "That was brave of you, doctor. Very brave."

Charlie frowned slightly, but nodded slowly. "I guess..."

"No, really. It was." Caldwell shook his head again. "I'm from a Watcher family, most of us are. We all grew up knowing about all of this." Then he shrugged. "Used to be a time when more people were able to accept the supernatural. But the more science-orientated the world's become, the more prone to forgetting even the survivors of vampire and demon attacks have become."

"I saved my fiancé from a vampire the night I met her a few years ago," one of the other specialist spoke up, though his eyes were still locked on the monitors. "She doesn't remember most of it. Took weeks for my family to convince her that vampires and demons were real after I'd proposed."

The Watcher listening to the comms nodded in agreement.

"That's the way it is for most people, doctor. Most people just can't accept it. They black it out, avoid thinking about it, rationalize it away, whatever. " Caldwell shook his head again. "So for you: a scientist, to accept it, is rather astounding."

Charlie couldn't help but wonder: if Annie hadn't hung around or if it weren't for the possible subconscious influence of the empathetic bond born from the blood transfer, would his curiosity have still managed to overcome the desire to not know? "Thanks, I guess," he replied quietly, then sighed.

"If it helps at all, doctor," Caldwell told him quietly. "As long as she survives past her eighteenth, she should be fine for a good while yet."

Charlie frowned, "Her eighteenth birthday?"

"Sir," the betrothed-Watcher spoke up, drawing their attention to him. "They're moving in."

0 0 0 2 2 1 6 6 2 5 0 1 9 0 0 0 1 6 1 5 9 1 4 2 0 0 0 0 1 5 6 0 0 0 2 2 9 5 2 3 0 0 0

Winters' Mansion, Los Angeles, California – Sunday, October 6, 1996

Buffy shot the body on the floor—a redhead that looked younger than her—a sad glance, but quickly turned her full attention to the surprised vamp that had finished draining her only moments before she'd broken down his door. She shook her head when he glanced towards the destroyed doors and then slammed his hand down on a button on his desk. "They won't be able to help you."

The vamp glared at her, its creepy yellow eyes narrowed in anger even as he pulled a handkerchief out of a coat pocket to wipe the blood off his face with as he shifted it back with a little bit more difficulty than most master vamps would have. But then again, he wasn't a master vamp like Spike or Angelus. He'd only been a vamp for a few decades according to the Council's report and from the obvious look of confusion on his face as he looked her over and then glanced at the door again, his Sire hadn't told him about The Slayer.

"You don't know who I am, do you?"

The vampire—who really looked a bit old for any vamp to want to turn, but maybe the younger-looking ones that she was used to seeing were just drawn all the way to the Hellmouth more than the ones that were turned into vamps later in their lives—cocked his head to the side and frowned at her. "I don't believe we've met."

"Oh we haven't," Buffy confirmed as she stalked slowly towards him. "You'd have been dust a long time ago if we had."

"Some kind of hit-woman, are you?"

Buffy blinked, then shrugged, "Something like that."

Winters shook his head. "You really don't want my name on your list. I'm one of Wolfram and Hart's most valuable cli—" he stopped, his eyes dropping to stare down in shock at the stake she'd just thrown at him, directly through his heart.

"Given what I've heard about their clients, that's really not a great defense," Buffy offered, shaking her head as his form collapsed into a pile of dust halfway through her reply. She turned towards the door just in time see Collins come through, two others behind him. "He's dust. But he called for security."

"We've got them," Collins told her, then glanced at the body on the floor. "And her?"

"She's dead."

"Will she rise again?"

Buffy looked at the still-warm corpse, then shook her head, sighing sadly as she replied. "No. She's just dead."

Collins nodded, then glanced towards the door as another member of his team came through. "Caulfield?"

"Security's tied up outside. The army's sending a team to take 'em in."

Collins nodded in approval, "And?"

"We found the lab in the basement. And it's a bit bigger than expected—covers more than half of the mansion's underground—but shouldn't be a problem."

"Lab?" Buffy frowned at them. "Like a meth lab?"

"One of the things Wolfram and Hart has defended Winters in court for is the sale and production of methamphetamine," Collins told her. "They never had enough to put him away, I assume because the lab itself was hidden magically?" he finished, glancing at Caulfield, who nodded.

"Yah, it took our sensors a while to find it, even with the enhancements," Caulfield replied, holding his remote up slightly, and Buffy realized he was one of the Watchers that had headed in the other direction when they'd split up.

The Slayer shook her head, "Why would a vampire make meth?"

Collins shot her a rueful smile, and Buffy was surprised to sense a bit of fondness coming off him as he replied, "Same reason any human would, Miss Summers. Money." Then he shook his head, "Fortunately, it does make clean up easier."

"Clean up?"

0 0 0 3 8 1 1 8 1 2 9 5 0 1 9 0 0 0 1 6 1 5 9 1 4 2 0 0 0 0 1 5 6 0 0 0 2 2 9 5 2 3 0 0 0

Vehicle near Winters' Mansion, Los Angeles*, California – Sunday, October 6, 1996

Charlie smiled as the van's rear doors finally opened and he was moving towards them even before Annie stepped in, as he'd already sensed her approaching and watched her little white dot on the monitors for several minutes now.

She returned his hug with a smile, but gently pushed him away almost immediately, silently reminding him of all the Council operatives who weren't the slightest bit disturbed by the show of affectionate concern.

Collins was shaking his head slightly, but smiling as reached into one of the van's closed compartments and then withdrew a box, which he threw to Annie. "Miss Summers, here."

Annie easily caught the thrown object, and smiled brightly, nodding her thanks when it turned out to be a full box of granola bars. "Thanks," she offered even as she tore it open and pulled one out, quickly unwrapping it to start munching.

Collins nodded then waved towards the empty seats around the van. "Time to go, everyone."

"I thought you said we had to do some kind of clean up?" Annie frowned at him, even as she kept munching away on her snack, opening a second bar after she stuffed the empty wrapper of the first back in the box.

"The other van's taking care of that, and they'll leave as soon as they've handed the security team over." Collins replied, then nodded more firmly towards the seats.

Annie was still frowning slightly, apparently unhappy with the idea, but moved towards the seat next to Charlie anyway, easily clicking her seat belt into place while Caldwell closed the rear door and the van started to drive away, every seat in the now tightly packed vehicle full. Except most of the Watchers specialists were missing and all of the crew Gunn had brought with them were packed in here, meaning most of the Watchers were probably in the other van.

Charlie glanced at Annie repeatedly, frowning slightly even as she kept frowning at Collins. But the van stopped again, after several tense minutes of silence, before either of them could think of anything to say.

"Here, sir?" The driver asked Collins, who'd taken the passengers seat up front.

Collins nodded, looking out the window. "Yeah. Van #2's pulling away now. Everything should be set."

"For what?" Annie finally spoke up, shaking her head and glaring as Collins ignored her.

Before she could made any further demands, though, a loud noise tore through the air outside, and Charlie was only a few steps behind her after both unlocked their seat belts and hurried out the back.

Charlie slipped out hurriedly behind her before Caldwell could rise from where Buffy had pushed him aside, and he knew Gunn was right behind him. Any thought of the van though was pushed from his mind as he looked down the road they'd been driving on, his eyes widening.

Normally the sky would be dark at this time of night, or at least as dark as any area close to the metropolitan cityscape could ever get. Where Winters mansion was supposed to be, the ground was glowing a bright orange color as fire ate away at the large house's ruined remains. Smoke rose from the debris of a massive explosion, mixing with the city's already polluted air to make the stars even more difficult to see. While the flames they rose from made the nearby horizon glow with a flickering, false dawn.

"Miss Summers, gentlemen," Collins' firm voice broke into Charlie's thoughts and he turned to meet the older man's serious gaze. "Get in the van, please. We need to go."

Charlie nodded, a little dazedly, and turned to follow Gunn back into the van, but stopped when he noticed Annie wasn't following. He turned back to frown as her, hesitantly reaching out to pull her along but was stopped when Collins' caught his reaching wrist in a gentle but firm grip.

Collins shook his head and nodded towards the van again, gently pushing him towards it before turning to Annie. "Miss Summers, the job's done." He glanced down the road again as a van identical to theirs stopped a little ways down the road. "It's time to go."

Charlie couldn't see Annie's face as it was still turned towards the flames, but he knew she was staring at the ruined mansion. He could feel her horror—though he didn't fully understand it—even as she shook it off and nodded slowly before turning. Charlie moved into the van and back to his seat, slipping his seatbelt on and gently helped his shocked friend with hers even as he continued to watch her warily.

It took him almost the whole ride back to the House to figure out what she was so upset about. The Slayer was supposed to protect human beings, even bad ones. And Wolfram and Hart had sent heavily-armed men to guard their vampiric client.

Supposedly the security team was going to be 'handed over' to someone, but even if none of them had been seriously harmed or killed: what about Winters' neighbors? They'd heard the sirens of countless emergency vehicles passing by on their way home, undoubtedly to investigate the explosion, but what if the fire spread?

There were so many 'what if's' that could be bothering Annie, really. But he knew it was the explosion and the resulting fire that had really upset her. When he'd felt her horror not too-long before, he'd almost seen the flames through her eyes.

Who knows, it could be some lingering guilt at sending Angel to Hell. Or memories of their own experience in a Hell dimension. Or a combination of everything he'd yet managed to think of and more.

He hesitated only a moment before reaching for her hand and gently taking it in his own, hoping the slight physical contact would be enough to drive the flames from her mind.

At least for a little while.

End of

Chapter 7: Mortal Peril – Part II.

AN: OK, I didn't really want to end it here. I had a great cliff-hanger set up, but this chapter was getting a bit long, and the part I wanted to end with was still several scenes away, so Mortal Peril might end up being a four-parter.

Anyway, I hope the chapter was worth the wait. Which is, of course, the other reason I ended here. It's been a bit longer since I last updated then I like. Sorry about that. :-(

My muses haven't been behaving lately. On the plus side, I haven't, per say, hit a writers block on this fic. No, I've written plenty. The only problem is my muses seem to be much more interested in the later parts of the fic than this one. Which I don't really understand, I really like this part of the outline, but my muses don't want to write about it. Thankfully I ended up with the day off, so I could spend almost all day forcing myself to finish this. I hope it didn't come off as too forced though.

And, on the plus side, once we get near the end of the fic—still several chapters away—my updates should be much faster, since I've written so many of the scenes in those chapters.

Some notes from within the chapter:

(1-4) Obviously, this was all played off of 'Uncertainty principle,' as it was mentioned in the early NUMB3RS episode by that name. I just changed it around a lot because when I looked at it on Wikipedia, the Observer and Hawthorneeffect(s), seem to be much more relevant to the explanation—and reason for their being mentioned. Still, I suppose the NUMB3RS writers' thought Uncertainty Principle sounded neater, and it fit better with the episode as a title—what with Charlie being made uncertain of his math and whatnot. Still, if you want to read into any more of this, I was pretty lazy and just went with what Wikipedia had on the following pages: (1) .org/wiki/Observer_effect, (2) .org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect, (3) .org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle, and (4) .org/wiki/Observer_effect_(physics).

(5) OK, I know next to nothing about security systems, and despite attempting to research it more, most of the information I found online just confused me more. So I just stuck with Wikipedia again, going with what they said on Ultrasonic Detectors on: .org/wiki/Burglar_alarm. I know quite a bit of the information listed there as been contested, and is apparently out-of-date, but logically this is supposed to be taking place more than a decade ago, so it certainly wasn't out of date then. And the remote thing they used to deactivate the alarm I just made up: a techno-pagan sort of thing that BTVS's obvious supernatural focus and writers license makes possible. I'd appreciate any suggestions anyone might have on improving that scene.

(6) I don't think where in the Winters' mansion was supposedly located was ever mentioned in the episode, so I just said Los Angeles. Sorry if that seems inaccurate.

Anyway, I hope everyone liked this chapter and constructive criticism is ALWAYS appreciated! And fic recs! I NEED MORE FICS TO READ! :-P

Bye for now! ^_^

Jess S

NEXT: Chapter 8: Mortal Peril – Part III.