Author's Note: Another exemption from parodying Buffy episode titles,

And yes, this does mean we're closer to the end than to the beginning, but I'm still not sure how much longer the story's going to be.

I know what the ending line is going to be, and the climactic scene, and have a general idea of how I'm getting there but not quite the exact road yet.

X X X X X

And tried.

And tried.

And yes, I know trying to sleep is almost a guarantee of never being able to fall asleep, but I couldn't do a whole hell of a lot about it right then. We didn't have any sleeping pills (which normally I wouldn't think of using, but these circumstances? Far beyond normal.); at that point I would have settled for chloroform, but we didn't have any of that, either.

I knew Buffy was out there keeping an eye on me, which is what was keeping me from running screaming into the streets, and please take that metaphorically, because I know that running into vampire-infested streets equals a bad thing. It wasn't helping me sleep, the way I wanted it to. The warm bath didn't, the crying I did while I was in the tub didn't; right now it would probably take a prescription sleeping pill, and even then? Not so sure.

So I turned my light on and found a book to read. I didn't have a lot of mindless entertainment around (I've never been big on mindless anything), but eventually I found an Agatha Christie novel -- a Poirot mystery, Cards on the Table -- which wasn't mindless but at least had nothing to do with the current situation.

I didn't finish the book; the last thing I remember, I was somewhere on page 80. (Not as impressive as it sounds; I read quickly. Still, that's not ten minutes' work, either.)

I know I didn't, because that night, when all I needed was a good night's sleep, I got a visit from the Adversary.

We were sitting in the outside dining area at Neptune High. Nope, no symbolism there, no sirree. "What the hell do you want?" I snapped. "Tonight, of all nights, I finally fall asleep, and now you decide to pay one of your visits?"

"I come when it's convenient for me, not you," he said. "Still, I don't want to interfere any more than I am right now, so once we're done I'll make sure you stay asleep until you would have woken up anyway."

"People don't remember dreams they don't wake up during," I said.

"This isn't an ordinary dream. Really, Miss Mars."

I sighed. "Okay. I appreciate that, then. So. What do you need today? I've avoided interfering with Aaron Echolls – I assume that was what you meant."

"That was what your friend Lilly meant," he said. "I was simply making sure you understood her."

"So is that Lilly?"

"I believe so," he said.

"You believe?"

"I'm not omnipotent or omniscient. I may be the closest you'll ever see, but there are things hidden even from me. I didn't know of your nonpredictability until that insane vampire told you about it." He took a drink of soda. Note: Diet Pepsi. The Official Soft Drink of Near-Omnipotent Beings. Then he said, "In any event, that's not why you're here."

Note: On those occasions we met 'in public' in the dreams, he always behaved appropriately for the scene. I have no idea why.

Also, I describe him as 'he' because he always appeared male. He didn't always look the same; everything varied, skin tone, hair color, height, weight, looks. But always male. No, I have no idea why. If you ever meet him, and I wouldn't wish that on Don Lamb, ask him.

"Really?" No, I know smarting off to a being with the ability to kill or resurrect with a thought might not have been the wisest thing I'd ever done, but honestly, at this point, I didn't care all that much any more.

He ignored the sarcasm. "Yes. Really. Do you follow sports, Miss Mars?"

"Not the biggest fan. Mild rooting interest in the Padres. Why?"

He said, "Okay. I can work with baseball. You're the home team."

"Okay. . . " I said, not sure where the Adversary was going.

"And this bet between us is a baseball game."

"Okay."

"There are now two outs in the bottom of the eighth inning."

That meant the bet was almost over. "You're saying it's almost decision time?"

"It is," he said. "It's not going to happen in the next five seconds, but it's not that far off, either."

"Will I make it to Christmas?" I asked. He gave me an unreadable look and ate a french fry. "I need to know if I need to go Christmas shopping."

The look was no longer unreadable. "Knock it off, Miss Mars," he said. "This is serious."

A bitter laugh escaped my lips. "You don't need to tell me that. I know how damn serious it is, and that's not even counting our wager. One of the few bits of relief I get comes when I make sarcastic remarks, and that barely lasts longer than the remark. So if you wanted to make a bet with someone serious, someone who wouldn't have wised off to all and sundry, you should have picked Katherine Janeway. Or Margaret Houlihan. People who have some concept of respect for authority figures. Not me."

He chuckled. "I suppose you're right about that." Then his face grew grave again. "Still. This is your only warning. The race is in the last twenty laps. There are six minutes to go in the fourth quarter. We're in the middle of the thirteenth round."

"And down the stretch they come," I said. "I think I got the metaphor, but thanks for spelling it out, just in case."

"Is there anything else you can tell me?"

"The mercy rule is not in play." Of course not. He would have nothing remotely to do with anything close to the concept of "mercy." "But if it were," he continued, "Nothing that's happened would have caused me to invoke it."

I hated to say it, but: "I don't know what the mercy rule is."

"Ask someone," he said. "And with that –"

The next thing I knew, I was waking up from another dream – an anxiety-ridden one, whose contents are none of your damn business – and it was 7:12 AM. Cards on the Table was on the floor.

Around five hours of sleep. More than I thought I was going to get, if much less than I needed.

I remembered the dream. Of course. Because otherwise I couldn't have just described it.

The bet was coming to an end.

Oddly, that took a bit of the weight off of my shoulders. Not all of it, but enough so that I felt I could get through the day without either murdering anyone or running and not stopping till I got to Kern county.

Still, it wasn't over yet.

We'd see what that meant, when.

For the moment, I had to live my life and keep doing my best to improve the future.

Deranged vampiress or no deranged vampiress, I still had things to do.

Opening my eyes again, I turned and saw one of them, perhaps the most important.

And he was wagging his tail and holding his leash.

It actually made me smile for a second.

With a loyal, loving dog, no place is hell, no matter how close the resemblance.

X X X X X

I managed to get Backup and me out of the apartment without waking Dad up, and we went for a walk.

We being me, Backup, and Buffy, who stepped out to greet me after I got out of the apartment complex's parking lot. "Hi," I said. "Trot and talk?" Backup sat and let Buffy scratch him behind the ears while we talked. Like I said, he's an excellent judge of character.

"Trot?"

"I can't run as fast as you and Backup can," I said. "If we want to talk, the best I can make is a trot."

She nodded. "Good enough," and we were on our way.

The sun was up, so I wasn't worried about Drusilla – at least, not worried about her jumping and 'protecting' me from the big bad Slayer.

"First, did you stay out all night?"

Buffy said, "After you left the library, I went home and took a quick nap – maybe an hour and a half. I've been here since around midnight, though."

"Thank you," I said.

"For a fellow SOB? Anything," she said. "I wasn't alone, for part of the night, either."

I knew who. "Sheila."

"Yup. Joined me around 1:30 AM and asked if I'd seen anything. I think she hoped I hadn't, so she could be there if Drusilla rolled around."

"She's not up for it," I said. Backup barked and a nearby squirrel darted up a tree.

"I don't think she wants to hear that," Buffy said. "Or that she cares, if she knows. She really doesn't like the concept of anything happening to you."

"Something she and I have in common," I said.

"I was finally able to get her to go home by promising to call her if Drusilla showed up."

"You were lying, I hope."

She gave me a don't-be-stupid look. "Of course. She's good – she gave me a demonstration. She could probably take on a normal vampire by herself. She's not a half-bad fighter, either. None of which makes her anywhere close to a match for Drusilla. Being pissed off doesn't really help a whole hell of a lot in a fight like that."

"Thanks. So, did you find anything last night?" I asked.

"Well, I killed a couple of vampires who were wandering by, and chased off a demon with burglar tools who seemed interested in the place next door," she said as we turned a corner.

"Okay, let me rephrase that. Anything related to the crazy lady?" I asked.

"No. Maybe she figured she'd done a good enough job protecting you by killing those ten people." She snorted. "Of course, the morning paper says it was two."

"Two?" Of course, this was the "Monsters Definitely Not Involved" Sunnydale Press, which was pretty much the polar opposite of the weekly World News, even if they did share the same commitment to printing the truth.

"There's already enough focus on Sunnydale because of Ted and Dad getting Abel Koontz freed," Buffy said. "I guess they figured a double homicide would bring less negative pub than a – tenple one.'

"Decaple?" I said. "I think. Anyway, they're probably right, but still. That's eight people whose deaths are being swept under the rug. Who're the two people officially killed?"

"Jenna Brownley and Amy Madison." Jenna was a wannabe Cordette. Apparently she was a wannablessedbe as well. Who knew? I didn't remember seeing her last night, but I wasn't really paying too close attention to people's faces after the first ten seconds or so. "Everyone else is being brushed off. Maybe they were from out of town."

"Some probably were," I said. "Some'll probably be listed as having keeled over of heart attacks, or hit by cars. I didn't recognize anyone but Amy."

"We knew she was a customer," Buffy said. "We knew that his customers probably wouldn't be happy being cut off."

We were in a park, now. Buffy and I sat down; I had one of those extendable leashes, so Backup had about fifty feet to play with, and with him I didn't need to worry that he'd see a squirrel and chase it to a tree two hundred feet away, dragging me with him (and he could, too); he had too much discipline for that.

"Yes, we did," I said. "So?"

"So we should have anticipated something like this," she said.

"Probably," I admitted as Backup rolled over on the grass. "Should we have anticipated them trying to murder me in the middle of the street less than three hours after we got done negotiating with Rack?"

"Well, we didn't, and you almost died, and ten other people did," Buffy said.

"I know. Problem is, I don't see how that was going to end well even if the entire gang had been walking with me. I'm the only one who's immune to magic."

Yes, I get the irony. Buffy's trying to take the guilt and I'm arguing her out of it by saying it's something A, we couldn't have anticipated, and B, it wasn't going to end with everyone happy and alive anyway.

All this knowing that it pretty much is my fault, simply because I'm here, and I wasn't supposed to be.

Well, hell, why should they suffer? I'm a big believer in contributory negligence – if a drunk driver kills a jaywalker, it's partly the jaywalker's fault. But truth be told, even if we kick out that it's my presence here that did cause all of this, it's not really something Buffy and company bear all that much responsibility for.

"Well, if that, then Drusilla might not have started killing everyone."

"Or maybe she would have and more people would be dead. She doesn't want me hurt. Everyone else, I'm not so sure of. Anyway: The ten people who attacked me are more at fault than you guys, and Drusilla sure as hell is."

"Yeah," Buffy said. "I think I might need to do something about that."

And here was another potential fork in the road, the road being canon, of course. There was pretty much nothing I could do to stop Buffy from heading down the "kill Drusilla" road, and I wasn't so sure I wanted to.

I'd been thinking all along that the test, the ultimate decision, would be whether I let Angel lose his soul. Now, particularly with the dream last night, I didn't think I was even going to get there.

I might not even make it to Bad Eggs before the bet ended.

All I could do in the meantime was the best I could. While I would think about whether I wanted Spike and Drusilla dead, anything I said remotely opposing it would be the height of suspicious. I wasn't omniscient, or even close; I might be able to logically predict what might happen if, in the short term, but there were too many factors for the long term. All I could say, beyond what wouldn't happen in the second season if Spike and Drusilla were killed, was that things would change, and probably beyond all recognition by the time seasons 4 and beyond rolled around.

I may have had some variations on these thoughts recently. If so, I apologize. I've been kind of emotionally strained for the last week or so and I'm pretty sure I'm nowhere near my most coherent.

"Sounds like a good idea to me," I said. "And why not take out the blond guy -- what was his name --"

"Spike," Buffy said. I knew, of course, but I hadn't heard it nearly as much as Drusilla.

"Right. Spike. If he's willing to go through all that trouble for that ritual, then I imagine he might be somewhat less than thrilled if were to kill the love of his unlife." Backup was done romping and pooping and was back to sitting at my feet.

"That's a definite 'No shit, Sherlock,'" Buffy said. "Any plan we come up with to kill her is going to kill him too."

"My advice?" I said, standing up. "Overkill. Don't take a chance. Take out the entire block if you have to."

"I don't think Slayers are allowed to use nuclear weapons," Buffy commented as Buffy commented as we started to head home, this time at a walk.

"A regular bomb will do just fine," I said.

Okay, apparently I'd made my decision.

X X X X X

Once we got back, Buffy took off, headed home to sleep till noon; Dad was already awake and making breakfast.

After eating, I called Logan as early as I could to call off the 'study group,' but he said he'd been about to call me.

"Have to plan all of our spontaneous and witty dialogue, Mars," he said.

"Knowing your dad, I'm surprised he hasn't hired scriptwriters."

"Don't give him any ideas," he said. "Anyway, I won't be expected to be there long; just 'for appearances' and when Dad's 'special Christmas surprise' comes. Beyond that, I'm setting up a poker game. Me, Duncan, a few others. You're welcome to join."

"Thanks. I may take you up on that."

Some things didn't change.

This was good.

Until the evening, though, I had to pick up my car, and that was all I was going to do until then.

To pick up on the sports metaphors the Adversary'd used in last night's dream:

I was calling a time out.