Author's Notes: This chapter is void of Buffy and Faith, but don't worry, they'll be back in the next...had to have this one for continuity purposes :)


Every morning was exactly the same since Buffy and Faith had been sucked inside the portal and from the looks of things it was going to continue exactly that way until they came back. For the most part, Kennedy and Xander weren't a part of the meetings and the research that followed. Xander went off to work, saying it helped him keep his mind off the fact that two of his friends were in trapped in a place they now didn't even know the location of. Kennedy spent those few hours in Faith's room, sitting on the bed and staring blankly out the window, waiting for another one of those flashes even though none had come in almost a week.

Kennedy knew she should be thankful for the fact that Perry and Marshall had offered to help out every other night on patrol. Their unit had been disbanded when Sam 'disappeared'; nobody had told them what really had happened to Sam. The money was still coming in, though. When Kennedy had questioned Perry as to where it was coming from, he only shrugged and told her that there was an envelope in his mailbox each morning along with a list of all of their names and an amount written down next to each one.

There were a lot of things going on and she couldn't seem to keep her mind focused on the one thing she should be focused on. Her relationship with Willow was falling apart, crumbling faster than she could figure out how to fix it. She knew the stress that Willow was under in trying to find a way to bring Buffy and Faith back home had a lot to do with it, but if she was honest with herself it had been happening a lot longer than that. The stupid arguments, the nights when Willow would push her away and tell her she wasn't in the mood, not even for some snuggles before bed, the days when Willow wouldn't even look at her or talk to her. It was all beginning to make her wonder why she was even holding on to the relationship when it wasn't working out. Anyone with eyes could see that.

"Did you want to be alone?" Satsu asked quietly from the door as she leaned against the frame. "I was hoping maybe we could talk or sit in silence together for awhile. I really don't want to be downstairs this morning."

Kennedy shrugged as she shifted on the bed and moved to lean against the headboard, silently signalling the other girl to join her. Satsu closed the door behind her and approached the bed slowly. She smiled at Kennedy a little before she sat down next to her and leaned back against the headboard. Kennedy barely looked at her, her eyes still trained on the window, watching the odd white and puffy cloud roll across the sky.

"Is it always like this?"

"Like what?" Kennedy asked. "You mean with the researching?"

"Yeah. Isn't it a little much? I mean, since we got here two weeks ago we haven't been able to find anything further and Giles said that we couldn't do anything until the women from the coven arrive here."

"It is never too much. It's just how it is. They always need to find out every last detail that they can," Kennedy replied as she finally turned to look at Satsu. "You know, it just occurred to me—"

"Hmm?"

"You're from where—Japan, right?"

"Yes, that's right. Spent most of my life in Tokyo."

"How is it that you speak English so well?"

Satsu laughed, the sound of it making Kennedy shiver in a way she hadn't since her and Willow had begun to drift apart. "I was raised by my Watcher. He was an Englishman."

"Oh. You speak Japanese too, right?"

"Yes, of course," she smiled softly. "You've been with these people for awhile now, haven't you?"

"Yeah."

"And you all came here after Sunnydale? Nobody wanted to branch off, do their own thing?"

"No," Kennedy replied as she shook her head. "I think everyone knew we had to stick together while we could. Look where that got us. Buffy and Faith got sucked into a portal and we can't find a way to get them home. Who knows what kind of hell they're going through, living through every day."

"You were close with them, weren't you?"

"More so with Faith, yeah. She was—is—one of my best friends I guess."

"You act as if she's dead."

"Might as well be. It'll be weeks before we know if we can get them back home safely."

"You mustn't be so negative, Kennedy. The stories I've heard of those two...they are strong and they will come home stronger than they've ever been before. Can't you feel it?" Satsu asked softly, smiling a little as Kennedy turned to her with tears in her eyes. "You can still feel them, can't you? Even without the Slayer essence inside you, it's still faintly there, fading away at the edges of your soul."

"I feel something. Don't know what, though."

Kennedy tensed as Satsu reached out and very lightly ran her fingers over her own and slowly began a soft ascent up her bare arm. Kennedy stared into her eyes, seeing the fire and the passion, the desire and the need burning in them, and she grabbed onto her hand, stopping her.

"I'm with Willow."

"I'm sorry," Satsu said quietly as she pulled her hand out of Kennedy's tight hold. "I must have misread the signals you've been sending my way since I arrived here."

"Signals?"

"Flirting," she whispered, a rather lascivious smile curling over her lips as she leaned in closer to her. "A woman has not looked at me quite that way in some time. It's rather refreshing to know that another sees me in that light."

"I'm not a cheater."

"Your relationship with Willow has run its course. I see it, I sense it, and I sense your desire to feel a lover's touch once more."

"Satsu, no," Kennedy sighed as she slid off the bed and walked over to the window. "Any other time, if I wasn't still with Willow, I'd jump at the chance. You are gorgeous, funny, sweet, and very kind. Any woman would love to be with someone like you."

Satsu didn't move from the bed, but she smiled when Kennedy turned to look at her. "I really hope I didn't overstep any boundaries, Kennedy. I would still like for us to become friends," she said, smiling wider when Kennedy just leaned against the wall next to the window and shrugged. "Since Giles has put me in charge of the group while out on patrol, I will make sure that from now on you will not be alone with Carmen. There will not be a repeat of last night."

"She's a bitch."

"She is. She's my ex."

"Damn," Kennedy chuckled as she walked back over to the bed. "Seriously?"

"Yeah. It may be one reason why she's so...hostile around you and the others. Then again," Satsu laughed softly as she patted the bed next to her and waited until Kennedy sat back down. "Then again, she might not want you or Amber or that girl, Dawn, becoming close to me."

"Dawnie? Why would she..." Kennedy burst out laughing. "She thinks Dawnie swings that way? No way! Far as I know, she only drives stick. Besides, why is Dawnie even a threat to her? She's never around. Ever."

"So she is driving Xander's stick?"

"Satsu!" Kennedy groaned as she playfully punched her in the shoulder. "That's just...gross. Xander is like her brother."

"Oh really? And it's normal for a girl to go around kissing someone that she sees as a brother?"

Kennedy raised both her eyebrows until they felt as if they'd shot straight to her hairline. "What?"

"Two days ago, before dinner, I saw them."

"Did you say anything to anyone else?"

"No," Satsu replied softly. "I did not."

"Good. Don't. I don't think anyone else is gonna take that news too lightly and Dawnie might not look like much, but I hear she's a hair puller of the worst kind."

"I believe it," Satsu laughed as she turned to look up at the ceiling. "Tell me about them."

"About Buffy and Faith?" Kennedy asked. Satsu only nodded her head as she kept her eyes on the ceiling. "Buffy is kind of like you, only more of a bitch with a stick up her ass...although I'm pretty sure Faith helped her get rid of it by now."

"They are lovers?"

"Sure, if you want to put it that way. But they're more than that. They are stronger than any of us could ever hope to be. They've seen things we've only heard of, dreamt of. They've been through things that should have killed them and it didn't. They even tried to kill each other at one point. That whole saying 'what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger' really applies to the two of them."

"I have heard many stories, mostly about Buffy. She is quite the legend."

"She is," Kennedy said with a forced smile. "You know what's fucked up? The fact that I know I shouldn't worry about them, but I do. It's eating me up inside. I even tried to talk to Will, but she doesn't want to listen."

"I'll listen," Satsu said as she reached for her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze before she let go. "I cannot provide you with any answers, but I'll lend an ear and words that will reassure you of their fate."

"Thank you."

Satsu just nodded and they both turned to look up at the ceiling, listening as an argument broke out downstairs between Carmen and Willow. They shifted further apart when they heard the soft knock on the door. Before either of them could answer, Andrew opened the door slowly and slipped inside.

"Can I come and hide out in here for a little while? I really hate it when anyone in this house starts fighting like that."

"Sure, Andy," Kennedy smiled as she moved over closer to Satsu and motioned for him to come sit on the bed next to her. "It's getting bad down there, isn't it?"

"I came up here, didn't I?"

"How bad?" Satsu asked as she looked over Kennedy at him. "Do I need to go down there and break them apart?"

"No, it's not that bad. I don't think. Carmen is just—"

"Talking shit out of her ass again?" Kennedy cut in, smirking when Andrew just laughed. "Satsu, you might want to go down there, make sure things don't get out of hand. There's no way in hell I'm gonna try to come between those two even if it involves my girlfriend. Every time I look at Carmen I just want to—"

"Smack her?" Satsu finished for her before she could even finish herself. "I know the feeling. All too well, may I add."

Andrew laughed uncomfortably, obviously not getting the bigger picture since he did not know that Satsu and Carmen had been together before. They sat there in silence, none of them moving until they heard a crash coming from the kitchen. Kennedy was the first one down the stairs and found herself pulling Willow away from a very angry, red-faced Carmen who was being held back by Xander, just barely.

"What the hell is going on?" Kennedy demanded as she pulled Willow out into the hallway. "Will, what the hell?"

"I can't stand that bitch," she said through clenched teeth, the anger in her scaring Kennedy since she'd never seen her like that before. "She gets on every last nerve I have left! I want her out of this house! You hear that, Giles, I want her out!"

"Calm down, baby," Kennedy said softly as she wrapped her arms around her and gently stroked her back. "Just breathe, baby."

"She thinks she knows more than we actually know! It's infuriating! She shouldn't even be allowed to help us with the research when all she does is criticize the way we do things around here!"

"Baby," Kennedy sighed as she took a step back and gently cupped Willow's face in her hands. "Don't let her get to you like this. This is exactly what she's trying to do to you, get you angry just to see some of that fiery passion we all know is inside of you."

"I know. That's exactly what Giles said to me earlier. I don't know why...I think it's the stress of not being able to find a way to get Buffy and Faith home that's getting to me. I haven't been able to sleep an entire night since they..."

"I know, baby, I know. Come on," Kennedy said as she grabbed onto her hand and headed for the front door. "We'll go for a walk and cool off, okay?"

Willow took in a few shaky breaths, but didn't resist as Kennedy led her out of the house, never letting go of her hand out of fear Willow would try to go back inside and do or say something she'd regret later. No matter where their relationship stood at the moment, Kennedy knew she could get through to her, calm her down. The sun was hot and the onset of a coming heat wave could almost be tasted in the warm, humid air. They came to a stop at the park just down the street and Willow led the way over to a bench under the shade of the trees where she sat down.

The chaos in the streets had calmed down a lot in the last week. People were becoming accustomed to the rapid changes the entire world had gone through. It still wasn't entirely safe to be outside alone, though, since nobody knew when the next round would erupt, but police in the city had gotten things under control. No longer were there gunshots being heard, anguished cries from people being severely beaten, houses and stores being looted. Every day life was starting to get back to normal, or at least as normal as it could get in this kind of a situation. Kennedy wasn't too worried about running into any problems and apparently neither were the handful of children in the park with their parents. There was an eerie sense of calm that just settled over the city and she wished she had that same feeling when it came to her and Willow.

"Every day we find out a little more," Willow said quietly as Kennedy sat down next to her. "Every day we get one more answer, but it's never enough. I can't even do the spell on the scythe..."

"It doesn't matter about the scythe, Will. We need to focus on getting Buffy and Faith back home."

"I know," she sighed as she leaned forward and buried her face in her hands. "I feel so helpless! I should be able to just," she snapped her fingers as she sat back, "bring them home just like that. Whatever happened when that reversal spell...I think I lost some of my power, Kenny."

"No, you didn't. You are a Goddess, Will. Goddesses never lose their power, they only stop believing in themselves and that's exactly what you've been doing since the moment Buffy and Faith were taken from all of us and this world."

"It happened for a reason," she said softly as she watched a handful of young children run across the playground. "We don't know why yet, but everything always happens for a reason. They were meant to go wherever they are, to that world between worlds. No matter what we did, they still would have been sucked there. Giles thinks the Powers that Be are behind this. They always are."

"What'll happen when we bring them back?"

"I don't know."

Kennedy sighed as she picked at the edge of her shorts mindlessly. She knew they were all worried about the state of mind that Buffy and Faith would be in once they were brought home. Nobody knew how being stuck in that world between worlds, the almost Hell dimension, would affect them in the long run.

"Kenny, what's happening to us?"

"What do you mean?"

"We're...drifting apart. We have been since we got here."

"I know."

"I don't know why or how," Willow said softly, choking up as she held back the tears as best she could. "I love you. You know that, right?"

"I know. I love you too. It's just been stressful with everything that's happened since we got here and we're turning against each other instead of coming together. At least Xander and Dawn—"

"At least what?" Willow asked, her voice a little too loud and a few of the parents of the children that ran throughout the park looked over at them. "What are you talking about?"

"It's nothing."

"It doesn't sound like nothing! You know you are just as shitty a liar as Faith is sometimes."

"Satsu and I were talking and she told me a few things."

"Like what?"

"That she saw Xand and Dawn together...kissing."

Willow's eyes went wide in shock, then she burst out laughing as she grabbed onto Kennedy's arm. "Are you trying to make this whole situation lighter with a joke about Dawnie and Xander hooking up? Because I got to tell you," she gasped as she tried to stop laughing to catch her breath, "it's definitely working."

"It isn't a joke, Will. Haven't you seen how close they've been in the last couple of weeks? Tragedy always brings people together in the weirdest ways."

"Oh," Willow gulped as she wiped away the tears that streaked her cheeks. "Oh! I am so going to kill Xander for putting the moves on Dawnie! She's too young! She's only seventeen!"

"What's age got to do with it?"

"There is that and then there's the fact that Xander looks at Dawnie like a sister!"

"Maybe not anymore," Kennedy said under her breath. "Will, would it really matter if something did happen between them? I mean, he's mourning Anya's death and they are both trying to deal with Buffy and Faith being gone just like the rest of us. Shouldn't we be happy that the two of them are finding some kind of solace with each other?"

"Buffy would kill him."

"You think so?"

"Yes...no…I don't know. She wouldn't like it! It's Xander and Dawnie! That's just…gross," Willow said as she shuddered. "Maybe you are right, Kenny. Maybe we should be happy that they've found solace with each other just as long as that's all they've found!"

"You think they're..." Kennedy chuckled as she trailed off at Willow's glare. "Forget it. Let's just talk about something else."

"Anything else."

"The women that are coming, the ones from the coven," Kennedy said as she looked over at her, "do you really think they'll be able to help you and Giles bring them home safely?"

"Yes, they will, but it's going to take some time. Believe me when I say that none of us are happy with how much time it's possibly going to take, but we can't...we can't screw this up. We need to locate the portal and find a way to...reach in and pull them out without getting ourselves stuck there. This is why I can't do this alone."

"I know. I just hate waiting."

"We all do."

"You ever think of what'll happen if we can't—"

"Don't! How can you think that way even for a second? We can't think that way, Kenny. We're going to get them out of there and we are going to bring them home. We'll do whatever it takes, however long it takes. We can't just give up hope and give up on them. It's Buffy and it's Faith."

Kennedy knew exactly what Willow was getting at and she knew that they couldn't give up or lose hope for even a second. Nothing good ever came from thinking that way, but refusing to acknowledge that their efforts might fail wasn't any better. Kennedy was a realist, something the rest of them didn't embrace; the price of failure was simply too high for them to contemplate. She was glad for Satsu, who seemed to have a similar realistic outlook, even if some of her other views on things were completely different from Kennedy's own.

She wanted things to be okay between her and Willow again. She wanted to look into Willow's eyes and see the love she'd finally received from her shortly before the fight against the First. She wanted to spend their nights lying in bed, holding her, basking in the afterglow after making love for hours on an end. She wanted the petty fights to stop, she wanted the lack of interest that had started to become a permanent fixture between them to be gone completely, and she wanted to stop having feelings for Satsu. She knew how wrong it was to look at another woman the way she should only look at the woman she was in love with.

"What else have you found out?"

"Not much," Willow replied quietly. "We'll know more when the women from the coven get here, but until then we're pretty much going on next to nothing."

"I haven't been able to see them again, not since before Satsu, Amber, and Carmen got here. I keep trying. I can still kind of feel them, you know? But it's not enough. I need to know they are okay. Those flashes I kept seeing, they kept me from thinking they...had died."

"They are not dead."

"I know they aren't dead, Will. Wait, how do you know that?"

"Because I can feel them too. You don't think I wasn't affected by the spell I used on the scythe? You think I couldn't feel you, them, or every other girl in the world who were once potentials? I could feel all of you and I still can, just a little. We're all connected one way or another now and that is one thing that will go away only in death—and there will be a void when that happens that you'll never be able to fill ever again."

"You never told me this before."

"There was never the right time to tell you this before now," Willow replied, turning to her as she took both her hands in her own. "Kenny, I think it's harder for us now because of how I can feel you and everyone else. I didn't want this to change things between us. I was just starting to..."

"Starting to what, Will?"

"Really starting to fall in love with you, loving you the way I love Tara. I always thought I'd never be able to love anyone the way I love Tara, but I was wrong and you came into my life when I wasn't even looking for anyone and you...you showed me that it's possible to love another as deeply and strongly as I love—loved Tara."

"You'll always love her more," Kennedy whispered, smiling a little as she let go of Willow's hands and reached up to wipe away her tears as they fell. "I know that you'll always love her more and that's something that nobody will ever be able to touch. Not even me. But you made room in your heart to love me and that's all that matters. You did what you thought was impossible."

She planted a light kiss on her lips, pulling back and smiling at the dazed look on Willow's face. They sat there for a while staring at one another under the shade of the tree before they got up and headed back to the house, taking their time and acting as if the world had slowed down just a little to allow them that moment of peace between them, that moment of the calm before the storm. Kennedy wondered how their conversation had bounced back and forth the way it had without them erupting into one of their petty, useless arguments as they had in the last few weeks. Maybe things were changing; maybe she was starting to look at her relationship with Willow differently now that she was starting to have feelings for Satsu. Whatever it was, she hoped she figured it out.

They shared a quick kiss just outside the front door before walking into the unknown inside the house. Carmen and Satsu were alone in the living room, talking quietly to one another. Kennedy just led Willow into the kitchen and sat her down at the table. Giles was busy going through the mountain of books that had collected on the table over the last week and a half and he barely took notice of the two of them as Kennedy pulled her chair close to Willow and sat down.

"I trust you've calmed down?" Giles asked as he looked over at Willow. "It is not to happen again between you two, understood?"

"Yes," Willow nodded, lowering her eyes at the scowl Giles sent her way. "I still want her out of the house, Giles. She's done nothing but cause a rift between all of us."

"We need her here, Willow, and unfortunately whatever you two have against one another is going to have to be laid to rest. We have much more important things to deal with."

Kennedy left the two of them alone to talk and stood in the hallway near the living room, trying to overhear Satsu and Carmen. She heard nothing and figured the coast was clear, so she walked in to find Satsu sitting on the couch alone. Kennedy took in a deep breath, knowing she should walk away. Instead she sat down next to her, picked up the remote for the TV, and flipped it on. She caught Satsu staring at her and she tried to ignore her as she flipped through the channels on the TV, trying to find something to take her mind off of everything.

By the fifth time she caught Satsu staring at her, she turned to her, wondering what to say to her when that feeling of something deep rippled through her. There was something between the two of them—she could feel it with every breath she took and it was starting to scare her since she didn't know quite what to do about it. She wasn't ready to let go of Willow, especially not after what Willow had told her in the park. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt her and she knew that if these feelings for Satsu continued to develop, in the end Willow would be hurt either way.

They weren't alone for much longer as Xander came in from working out in the backyard and sat himself down on the couch next to Kennedy, letting out a long, exaggerated sigh of exhaustion as he grabbed the remote from her hand. Pretty soon everyone was sitting there in the living room with them and it felt suffocating to the point where Kennedy just up and left, walking out to the backyard to sit under the tree, chain smoking until her throat felt raw.

Everyone was going through changes, most of which she suspected they all couldn't quite see yet. Kennedy hated the changes they were all going through and she couldn't help but think that things wouldn't be changing this way if Buffy and Faith were here. Maybe she was wrong about that too; change was inevitable especially when it came to living on a Hellmouth. That much she'd learned from being a part of that family. Next to Faith, Kennedy had probably changed the most. Faith's changes might seem sporadic to the unobservant eye, but she knew that the woman had actually undergone some very fundamental shifts.

She saw the flash then, seeing Faith sitting upon a rooftop where the sky overhead was glowing orange and the ground shifted beneath her. She could almost feel the sweltering heat along with everything else and couldn't imagine how they could stand it in a place like that. Faith looked exhausted and Kennedy reached out, almost feeling as if she could reach out to her and pull her home. When she tried, however, it faded away quickly and she felt like crying, she felt like screaming out, wondering if the Powers that Be would hear her or not.

She tried to convince herself that in the end everything would work out. They'd get Buffy and Faith back home safely and life would go on as it was supposed to. She could feel the changes that were now happening along with the ones that would happen in the weeks, months, and years that would follow. Not all the changes would be good. There was a lot of bad in the mix and a lot of anguish and heartbreak and grief. Aside from the flashes she'd gotten of seeing where Buffy and Faith were, she was getting visions of the future that scared her, that made her want to curl up in a dark corner and shut herself away from the world. Those were visions she would never allow past her lips for fear if she spoke them aloud, they really would come true.

"Hey," Willow said softly as she sat down next to her. "Thinking?"

"Yeah," Kennedy nodded. "Everything okay inside?"

"Giles told me he talked to one of the women from the coven earlier while we were out. They'll be here in a couple of days."

"How many are coming?"

"Half the coven. Eleven of them."

"And they are staying here?"

"No," Willow laughed softly. "They are staying in a hotel. I don't think Giles is crazy enough to try to find room in this house for all of them. There's barely enough room now and when Buffy and Faith come back...well, no second guesses on where they'll end up."

"At Faith's place."

"Yeah. Without a doubt. I know that spending time where they are, being alone together all the time, it's going to be hard for them to transition back into the way things are here."

"Someone is coming back with them, a woman," Kennedy said softly as she stared at the ground in front of her and picked at the long blades of grass by her legs. "Don't ask me how I know. I just do."

"I know. I...I saw it one night, in my dreams. I wasn't sure whether it was my mind playing tricks on me or not. I guess that confirms that maybe we really are all connected more than we thought and on a much deeper level."

"What does it all mean? This woman? She's human, isn't she?"

"I think so," Willow nodded. "I guess we'll find out once we bring them home, won't we?"

"Are you scared?"

"More than anything."

"Me too, Will. I think we're all scared."

"I keep thinking," she sighed as she looked over at Kennedy with tears in her eyes. "I keep thinking about how I could have stopped this. I know, I was never meant to stop it, but I can't help but think what if I could've stopped it. What would have happened then? What if we stopped Julie and the others from opening the Hellmouth, even from breaking that barrier spell that caused everything to fall apart?"

"We'll never know, Will. Maybe it's better that way? Maybe its better that everything happened like this? Maybe its better we're not all Slayers. Giles even said—"

"That this way the Slayer line can hopefully resume as it has for centuries. There's no way to tell if it will or not. Oh Kenny, I hate this. I just want everything back to the way it was."

"We all do," Kennedy whispered as she slid her arm around Willow and pulled her close. "We all want everything back to the way it was before. Hell, I'd give anything to go back to that day, do it all different if I could. I would've been down there with them instead of staying outside like I did."

"You wouldn't have been sucked into the portal with them, Kennedy. You lost your essence before that happened."

"I know."

"I'm going to get it back," Willow said as she looked over at her and forced a smile. "I will do anything to get it back, Kenny. Even if we do bring Buffy and Faith back, they can't do this on their own. Giles and I were talking and he wants...he wants to set up teams all over the world."

Kennedy remembered that day Giles was talking about doing just that if they could fix the reversal spell and reactivate all the potentials into Slayers once again. There hadn't been much hope then and there still wasn't, really. Kennedy was trying to get it back, trying to believe that Willow and the women from the coven would be able to fix everything. She wanted to be a Slayer again; she wanted to feel like she had a real purpose in life again. Being just herself wasn't enough. It never would be enough, not after she'd had a taste of what having real strength and power was like.

Satsu came out to join them, bringing them each a cup of coffee. She took a spot near them and laid back on the grass staring up at the sky, looking very lost in her own thoughts. Kennedy couldn't stop herself from staring at her. Everything about Satsu completely mesmerized her. She didn't even care that Willow saw her staring at her either. In her books, it never hurt to look. Looking wasn't classified as cheating and neither was fantasizing what it'd be like to be with them, how much better the sex could be compared to the way she was used to it being. Willow was a soft, passionate lover, and Kennedy liked it hard, fast, and rough at times. Despite Satsu's soft-spoken nature and the grace she carried herself with, she'd bet that she liked it rough more than she liked it gentle.

Willow and Satsu started talking quietly about plans for that afternoon. Satsu was desperately trying to fit in with all of them, almost as if she was trying to become a part of their close-knit family. Andrew hadn't been able to get into the fold even though he lived there, but Kennedy always just assumed it was because it was Andrew and not because they wouldn't welcome him with open arms. If it was up to her—and she knew it wasn't—she'd let Satsu into the fold, maybe even Amber, and kick Carmen out of the house and their lives in the process.

"Are you coming?" Willow asked as she and Satsu got up from the ground.

"Coming where?"

"We're going to check out Henry's bar, see what's happened to it since he's been gone. None of us have checked it out," Willow replied. "Are you coming?"

"Why not? It isn't like I have anything better to do," she said with a forced smile as she stood up, grabbed her nearly forgotten cup of coffee and followed the two of them into the house. "Xand, you coming with us?" She asked when they walked inside.

"Coming where?"

"Henry's old bar."

"Oh, you guys didn't hear?" Xander asked, sighing as they all shook their head no. "Burnt to the ground a few days ago. Some of his customers of the demon variety weren't very pleased he disappeared and decided to retaliate against him."

"Nobody knows he's dead and gone, do they?" Kennedy asked as she poured her cold coffee down the sink. "Are you sure it's better that nobody knows?"

"It is," Giles cut in from where he still sat at the kitchen table. "The longer they are believed to have disappeared rather than being 'dusted', as it were, the easier our dealing with those who were close to that family will be. We have no idea what might happen if word got out about their true nature. I imagine not many knew just what they were, not even some of Henry's loyal customers."

They all agreed with him, knowing that there really was no way of knowing how those who were loyal to Henry, to Julie, and to Sam would react if they found out the truth. But the truth couldn't be hidden forever and somehow, someday it would get around. Kennedy's thoughts echoed those of the others—I hope to hell we're ready for it when it does happen.