Author's Note: The Dark Age. Treated with more respect than Inca Mummy Girl and Reptile Boy.

But not that much.

Disclaimer: The plot's mine, the characters, not so much.

X X X X X

The next week or so passed more or less smoothly. I met with Logan and Sheila every weekend and taught them what I knew about monsters. I did not tell them about my meeting with Buffy and Angel. That's their secret to give, not mine.

Sheila also met with Rae Mistwood and began to learn how to meditate. According to Rae, she was doing fairly well – though it was the oddest state of calm she'd ever seen, because Sheila always came out of it with an evil (not literally) grin on her face.

I asked her about the grin. "She said, "'sfun, manhunter. And just because I might be centered and focused doesn't mean I'm not having fun while I'm doing it. It ain't like I have to be a Vulcan."

"So what about all that about being a rabid weasel on Jolt Cola?"

"'m still a rabid weasel. But I'm laying off the Jolt for a while."

I talked with Rae about Sheila's progress. "I can't teach her much beyond meditation, and point her in the right direction after that," she said. "I can supervise, but any but the most basic spells she really wants to learn she's going to have to do on her own."

"Just try to keep her from going overboard," I said. "If there's one thing I've learned, it's that magic tends to corrupt."

"Tends to," Rae said. "Not 'does.' And you know her better than I do."

Among people we saw in the Buffyverse with a reasonably high level of power: Willow; Amy and Catherine Madison; Rack (presuming he was a person); there was only one who was never corrupted: Tara. (No. Family does not count. That's desperation, not corruption.)

I was determined that Sheila wouldn't be another one. That was one of the reasons I was glad Rae was willing to help her.

Logan, in the meantime, seemed to take it all in. He did buy a cross – the kind one shoves in pockets – and he also started carrying around a water pistol full of my holy water-hot sauce combination.

He also laid off giving me a hard time – at least, a seriously hard time. He was still snarky, but then, being Logan, he could do no less. I didn't think he was edging his way towards a "kiss-at-the-Camelot" moment, but since it had startled the hell out of me the first time, I wasn't completely ruling it out.

Buffy, for her part, told Giles, Willow and Xander that I knew about vampires – and that she was the Slayer. Cordelia, I'm not sure of. She and I don't exactly chat. If Buffy did tell her, I wasn't there when it happened.

I wasn't thrilled with this, but since there was nothing I could do about it short of shooting her, I accepted it as gracefully as I could.

Here's how the scene played out. Everyone was in the Sunnydale high library.

"I have something to tell you," Buffy said.

"It's gravy wrestling night at the Bronze?" Xander asked.

Willow said, "Why would anyone want to wrestle gravy – oh."

"As fascinating as this train of thought is," Giles said. "Can we move off of it before I feel the need to have by brain scrubbed with borax?"

"Too late," Buffy muttered.

In case you're wondering where I am, I was standing back in the stacks. Apparently Buffy wanted to pull a little entertainment out of this, and who was I to deny my fellow SOB her fun?

Buffy went on, "Anyway. I have something to tell you. Something supernatural."

Right then was when I walked out of the stacks. Buffy, by prearrangement, was facing away from me. "It's something pretty big," she said.

"Buffy --" Giles began.

Ignoring him, Buffy went on "It's not a vampire, not a demon. I'm not quite sure how to classify it."

Xander and Willow were frantically trying to get Buffy's attention. ""It's just -- what?"

Xander said, "Veronica Mars."

Buffy turned. "Why, so it is. Hi, Veronica."

"Yes, Miss Mars," Giles said. "How can we assist you?"

"Just browsing," I said, walking around the room casually. "Pretend like I'm not even here."

"Right," Willow said nervously. "While we get back to talking about that, that --"

"Horror movie!" Xander said.

"Right! That horror movie we, we were working on! For that class!" Xander said.

"Yes," Giles said. "Now, I think the first thing you need to do is examine some Hammer Horror films. For some stylistic tips."

I watched in mild amazement. Had I not known what I did, it was entirely possible I could have been fooled. It was fun watching them in action.

Buffy and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. "What? What's so funny?" Xander said.

Buffy said, "Veronica knows."

Silence around the room for a minute. And then everyone began talking at once. After a few seconds, Giles managed to raise his voice above Xander and Willow's and said, "How?"

"Well," Buffy said innocently. "You told me I shouldn't reveal my secret identity as the Slayer to impress cute boys. You never said anything about using it to impress cute girls."

Giles snorted. For his part, Xander was now staring off into space. Willow looked at us accusatorily. "I think you broke him."

She slapped him once lightly on the cheek, after which he said "And I'm back."

"I assume you're joking," Giles said.

Buffy must have caught something serious in his tone, because she said, "About the cute girls part, yes."

"Hey," I said.

She grinned. "Sorry. But, about the knowing part -- no."

"How?" Willow said.

I gave them more or less the same explanation I gave to Buffy. "Don't worry," I said when I was done. "I'm not planning on spilling your secrets."

Giles said, polishing his glasses, "It appears as though we've been presented with a fait accompli."

"Yup," I said. "I don't plan on forcing my way into your meetings, or anything, either. Buffy's pointed out that I say this too much, but it's true: I'm a detective, not a vampire hunter."

"Slayer," Giles said. "The word is Slayer."

"Thank you," I said. "Look. Buffy caught on because of the incident in October when that 'gang' -- and we know what they were a gang of - invaded the school. I and one other person had Supersoakers full of holy water."

Raising his eyebrows, Giles said, "Actually, not a bad idea."

"How do you know what a Supersoaker is?" Buffy asked.

"I'm not completely unaware of American pop culture," Giles said. "Miss Mars. Go on, if you would."

"Well, we all know that that gang wasn't a gang, but a group of vampires. I'd had an encounter with one of them a few days earlier –"

"She rescued Sheila Kelly from Spike," Buffy said.

Giles blinked furiously. "You faced off Spike? And you're still alive? How –"

"He apparently didn't recognize me," I said. "Anyway, Sheila was refusing to walk around unarmed –"

"Whoa, hold on, and back up," Xander said. "Sheila Kelly knows about vampires?"

"I'm surprised she isn't trying to become one," Willow said.

Glaring at her, I said, "I don't take shots at your friends, Willow. Don't take shots at mine."

"Well, you do know her reputation."

"True. I also know Buffy's. I don't believe either one."

Willow apparently realized she'd taken a step too far, because she said, "I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted." I knew she was more reacting to the shock of knowing that I knew than out of any real hostility towards Sheila.

"Anyway," I said. "After holding them off for a few seconds, we ran to the back of the school and holed up with Aaron and Logan Echolls."

"That's when he saved you, right?" Xander said.

Buffy said, "That's the official story. Right now I'm not so sure I buy it." She looked at me.

"I can't say anything about it," I said. "But if you want to know the truth, ask Logan."

Sourly, Buffy said, "I don't want to know it that badly."

"I'll cooperate with you," I said. "Need a detective, let me know. Need someone to be the bait to lure a nest of vampires out of a tomb? That's not me. If it's an apocalypse, I'll do what I can. Otherwise –"

"I suppose we'll have to trust you," Giles said.

"I do," Xander said. Willow looked at him in mild surprise. "When I screw up," Xander said, "I go for the grand mother of screw-ups. I was wrong about the manh –" he caught himself – "about Veronica, and I kind of like to make up for my mistakes. Actually, I like to run and hide from them, but that's not an option here." He grinned.

"And on that note, I leave you to your meeting." I nodded to Buffy and walked out of the room.

X X X X X

That wasn't my only encounter with the Scooby Gang over this period, though they did refrain from asking me to research any demons. Of course, I also had my own cases – nothing paralleling anything back in Neptune, but it paid the bills. (One case of blackmail, one case of recurring petty theft.)

And let's not forget Duncan and the DNA tests. I guess the liberal application of lots of money can get something like that kicked up the priority ladder, though I hoped we weren't delaying anyone getting off death row, or arrested, depending.

No points if you guess the results showed that we were not, in fact, brother and sister. He was horrendously apologetic after it finally sunk in that we were not, in fact, guilty of incest, just sex.

Hmmm. There was no Meg around here to distract him, this time. I wonder if he was going to try to pursue me. In Neptune, he'd restrained himself as long as I'd been dating Logan. But when that relationship fell apart, he was ready to jump in.

If that sounds negative, I don't mean it that way.

But our Neptune relationship ended when he ran off with his and Meg's baby, and I really didn't feel like resurrecting it. Not at this point, after all I've been through.

Something else to keep an eye on.

In the meantime, I was trying to do something I hadn't really tried yet: stop an entire episode from occurring. At the end of Halloween, Giles told Ethan to, more or less, get the hell out of town. I'm assuming that he said the same thing here.

I also know that Ethan didn't. He must have maintained a low profile between then and The Dark Age, but he was still here.

How do I know?

I saw him.

In whatever scattered fragments of my life weren't taken up with school, cases, DNA tests, explanations of the supernatural, or dealings with the Slayerettes, I'd been keeping an eye on everyone's favorite sorcerer.

Even gotten a few photographs. Including one in front of a Thanksgiving display at a local grocery store. (For proof of what time of year it was.)

For the final crowning touch, while wearing a while I arranged to bump into him at a local bookstore where he was looking through some mysteries. (Agatha Christie, oddly enough. Never would have figured him for a fan.) I asked him for some advice regarding which one to purchase, talking with a distinct Russian accent.

"The Murder of Roger Ackroyd," he said, pointing to a copy. "Easily the finest ending of any work of fiction. Upended all of the conventions of fiction. One of the reasons I'm fond of Christie, despite her annoying fondness for the English aristocracy." Well, that explained it. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd had one of the greatest twist endings in the history of twist endings, right up there with Usual Suspects, Sixth Sense, and "It's a cookbook."

"Thank you. Perhaps, would you know what today's date is?"

"November thirteenth."

"Thank you," I said, and to keep up the guise I took the book, purchased it, and walked out of the store.

Five photographs and a tape. That should be enough. The next morning, after homeroom, I slipped into the library and left the envelope on the circulation desk.

There was a note inside. It read:

Mr. Giles:

I thought you might be interested in seeing the following items. The tape should play on any tape recorder.

Wasn't he supposed to be gone by now?

Yours truly,

Epimetheus

I heard what happened from Buffy a couple of days later. "So, anything fun and exciting happen recently?"

She gave me an odd look. "Funny you should ask," she said, and then told me what had happened: How they'd tracked down an old "friend" of Giles' -- who, by the way, had been responsible for what had happened to everyone on Halloween --

"I'm lucky I made up my own costume, then," I said. "I wouldn't have wanted to come to with a sack full of jewelry and silverware."

"Knowing the police in this town," Buffy said. "You could have probably hocked it on the sidewalk in front of the station and they wouldn't have noticed a thing."

True, that.

Anyway, how this friend had mainly stayed in town because there was a demon chasing him, and he was hoping to lure it to Giles, or something like that. Temporarily working with him, they devised a plan to trap the demon in a mystical container of some sort, after which they sealed it up in about fifty pounds of cement. Then Angel took it well out into the Pacific Ocean and dumped it.

Hmm. Not as efficient as they'd been in canon. But then, fewer people were now dead. I suppose whether this counted in my favor, or against me, would deal with whether Eyghon ever managed to escape. "Giles says that even if he manages to get out," Buffy told me, "He's all oozy and doesn't like the water much."

So I'll chalk that one up as a well-done. And no complications.

Of course, by saying there were no complications . . . .

At the end of school, Cordelia, of all people caught up with me. "Giles wants to see you," she said.

"And he sent you?"

"I know! Really! Like I have a sign around my neck saying, 'messenger,' or something. But I was in the room, and like an idiot I didn't tell him no."

"I assume you don't know anything else?"

"Got that right."

She went one way, I went the other.

"Ah. Miss Mars," Giles said when I came in. "Do sit down."

I sat at the table.

"There's something I'd like to show you," he said, and I nearly had a stroke when I saw him pull out the envelope I'd given him the pictures and tape of Ethan in.

"Yes?" I said. My mind, as you may imagine, was racing faster than any NASCAR driver.

"I need you to tell me about this."

"It appears to be an envelope."

"Ah. Yes. Buffy has told me of your sense of humor." His voice dropped an octave. "Now isn't the time."

"Right. So, what do you need to know?"

"In the last month," he said, handing me the note, "A friend of mine and I have had three encounters with a person styling themselves 'Epimetheus."

"Hindsight," I said.

"Exactly," Giles said, apparently impressed. "Now. You say you are a detective."

Holy crap. I couldn't be about to be --

Giles went on, "Find this 'Epimetheus' for me, would you?"

That's life for you.

Dodge a bullet and find yourself in front of a speeding bus.