IInstinct told me, of course, that this was it. My instincts have been known to be wrong before, but still, I was pretty sure about this one.

C'mon, Giles; couldn't you have given me a couple of days to relax and recuperate?

Apparently, the answer to that was a hearty "hell no," and the main reason Giles was talking about his and Buffy's plans to kill Drusilla was to make sure those of us who either didn't have superhuman powers or years of training would stay well out of it.

"You don't have to tell me twice," Cordelia said. "I've done my part for humanity this month."

Willow and Xander protested. I hadn't expected them to do anything else.

"I know you guys like to help," Buffy said. "And you can help this time by making sure you don't get hurt. Research is fine. But Drusilla and Spike are beyond dangerous."

"Veronica faced her and lived," Xander said.

"That's because, for some reason known only to God and herself, she likes me," I said. I knew this attempt to protect Willow and Xander wouldn't take in the long term, but I didn't think Buffy was aiming at the long term. "I wouldn't last five seconds if she didn't. Neither would anyone here except Buffy and Giles."

"And I would last perhaps ten if I attempted anything on my own," Giles said. He was downplaying his own abilities. He'd managed to do significant damage to Angelus in Passion, though part of that was surprise and part of that was Spike keeping Drusilla from getting involved in the fight.

"This isn't a permanent benching," Buffy said. "You guys are still in the game. It's just for this particular fight I'd rather you guys were safely on the sidelines."

"Buffy, this is Sunnydale," Willow said. "There is no 'safe' here."

"Point," Buffy said. "Safer, then."

"Like Veronica and I were at the Echolls Christmas party?" Cordelia asked.

Buffy threw up her hands. "You know what I mean."

"I do," I said. "Where Drusilla's concerned, I not only want to be on the sidelines, I want to be in a different stadium, playing an entirely different game."

"Thank you," Buffy said. "Again: You guys do not have to stop helping me. At all. I just don't want you actually facing Drusilla. Okay?"

They said nothing.

"Okay?" Buffy repeated irritably.

"Okay," they mumbled. It was obvious they thought they were being shafted.

Given that I haven't exactly been the face of prudence and wisdom when it comes to risky encounters – and get your mind out of the gutter – you might wonder why I was backing Buffy's side on this and not Xander and Willow's.

I could simply answer, "It's Drusilla!" but I suspect that would qualify to most of you as 'sufficient but not necessary,' and yes, I know how that phrase usually goes.

I'll still take risks; but one, that doesn't mean I want anyone else to take them, and two, I've learned a few things. I'm no longer quite the same person who went in alone and unarmed with anything but my wits to face down a bar full of Fitzpatricks. If I had it to do again, I might do it, but I'd have backup (not Backup; the Fitzpatricks wouldn't blink at killing a dog given what they're willing to most people) and an exit plan.

Spike and Drusilla were dangerous enough that Buffy and Giles were planning ahead on how to deal with them, rather than simply using "Find them and wing it." Me and thee and Xander and 2nd-season Willow wouldn't have a chance no matter how we planned, short of flamethrowers or bomb strikes.

Which might not be a bad idea.

If I was so sure that killing Spike and Drusilla now was the right way to go, I might make that suggestion. As it was? Still working out whether to clue the vampires in.

The problem was, is that while I was reasonably sure what I could do about Bad Eggs, things had changed so much already that I still wasn't sure whether a major change like this would be beneficial to the timeline in the long run. In the short run, sure, both of them would kill fewer people. (I'm leaving aside "what if one of the people they might have killed was a serial killer/ terrorist/cured cancer. That was something no one could reasonably predict.)

In the long run? Aye, there was the rub.

I've gone over this over and over in my head, and I still can't figure out whether to help Buffy, help Spike and Dru escape, or just stay the hell out of it and let the bodies fall where they may.

(Note: If it looks like things are going to hell, if Spike and Dru start running riot, I will do as much as I can to stop it, and to hell with concerns about the future.)

And I can't ask anyone for help, either.

I have to figure this out myself.

Dammit.

The Adversary said it would come down to a big decision. And this, apparently, is the decision.

"Veronica?" Buffy said, and it didn't sound like it was for the first time.

"Sorry," I said. "I was just thinking. What's going on that you need my input for?"

"I was asking if you were okay with it."

"With what? Not being in the room with you when you try to take down the crazy vampires? I would have thought that was obvious already, but yeah. I've said it probably often enough that it's gotten irritating, but while trouble is my business, I'm a detective, not a monster hunter. If sleuthing will help, so will I. Otherwise? Fine with you doing it. Believe me." After a second, I added, "Do you need me to sleuth?"

"At the present time --" Giles began.

Buffy interrupted him. "Actually --"

Both Giles and I were surprised at this. "Yes?"

"I was wondering if maybe you could do some research, maybe try to figure out where they might be hiding?"

"Right, 'cause there's only one vampire hideout in all of Sunnydale," Cordelia said.

I said, "Cordelia's sarcastic, as usual, but she's also right."

"Also as usual," Cordelia said.

"There are too many possible places," I said, "For me to be able to pin one down without fieldwork. And that's the kind of fieldwork you're better at than I am."

"Really?" Buffy said.

"Really. Of the two of us, which is more likely to be able to beat a vampire until he talks? Me, or you? Catch the vampire and I can interrogate him. An uncaught vampire? Nuh-uh. Not in my wheelhouse. Anyway, there are way too many hideouts in Sunnydale. Unless, of course," I said, "You're planning to go proactive on all of this and track down every possible vampire and other evil demon in town and kill them. I wouldn't think that would be a bad idea, but you'd need bombs or worse to pull it off. Unless you want to give the bad guys a chance to retaliate, you'd pretty much need to take most of them out at once."

Buffy looked at Giles, who said, firmly, "No."

Snorting, Buffy said, "I wasn't thinking we firebomb Sunnydale. But I was thinking maybe the overkill once we track down Spike and Dru's lair would be a good idea."

"It isn't done," Giles said.

"Neither is a Slayer having her own life, or friends," Buffy said. "And yet, here I am."

Giles said, "I wasn't saying that out of reactionary instinct," Giles said. "This is scarcely the first time this has been proposed. It isn't done because such attempts tend to be large and showy and attract unwelcome attention. A bare handful of times in the past it's been deemed necessary, and always to prevent an apocalypse. Taking on Spike and Drusilla, while important, doesn't quite qualify."

"Well," Xander said, "If firebombing's out, how about just fire?"

"And if they've chosen to lair where the fire might spread?" Giles asked. "I do not wish to burn down half of Sunnydale in our efforts, and I am reasonably certain Buffy doesn't either."

"Which half?" Buffy asked. "Because if it's the half with the school, then I really don't see the downside."

Giles' glare was deadly enough enough to take down vampires unassisted.;

Buffy said, "I'd get everyone out first . . . "

The glare continued.

Buffy sighed. "Okay. Right. No burning, no bombing. You take all the fun out of life, you know that?"

'I believe," Giles said frostily, "That that is in the job description." After a second, he asked, "Do we have any other suggestions?"

I didn't have any. And even if I had had something reasonable, I wouldn't have shared it then. "I probably shouldn't need to say this." I said non-suggestively, "But be careful. Please."

Sentimental? Me?

No point in hiding it now. Veronica Mars still might not be a marshmallow, but she's long since figured out that she has friends, and even occasionally manages not to treat them as though they were commodities to be used rather than people. Buffy's death would pretty much automatically lose me the bet, true, but by this point that was simply extra incentive, and extra incentive only.

I liked Buffy. Over the course of my time here, she'd become an actual friend, rather than someone I'd known because I watched her on a TV show.

Buffy, meanwhile, grinned wryly and said, "So there go my plans to lure them out by dowsing myself in blood and steak sauce and standing in the middle of the graveyard going, 'here, vampy, vampy'," huh? Oh well. Guess I'll have to do this the good old-fashioned way."
And that, as they say, was more or less that.

X X X X X

As we left, I pulled Xander aside. We ended up in a spare classroom.

"What do you want?" he asked, curtly but not meanly.

"I'll tell you in a second," I said.

"Why? What –"

His question was answered the second Cordelia came through the door.

"And what exactly did you think we were doing in here?" I asked. For the record, I was standing behind the teacher's desk and Xander was leaning against the outer wall.

"Um – " Cordelia said.

"And don't go telling me that you needed to find us for something Giles needed," I said, "Because we just came from there and he would have told us."

"I was just –"

Cordelia, in the parlance, had done the universe a solid, so I let her off the hook. "Xander knows that I know, too," I said. "We're not in here making out or doing anything like that. You have absolutely no reason to be jealous. At all."

Xander and Cordelia each gave me dirty looks. I shrugged and said, "It's not my fault the two of you don't communicate," I said. "I'm currently relationship-free and reasonably happy about it." I'd more or less just gotten back together with Logan when the bet happened, but, as I've said before, a Logan newly shedding "Obligatory psychotic jackass" is not a Logan two years older and somewhat more mature. So if I was going to date anyone in this universe – unlikely, given that we were in the bottom of the ninth – it would be Logan, or at least, would wait until such a possibility was completely off the table. Over the course of the last few months, we've been nowhere near ready.

Cordelia opened her mouth, closed it, and then said, irritably but not unreasonably, "Then why the hell won't either of you tell me what you're talking about?"

"Because it's not your business," I said. "It has nothing to do with not trusting you. I wouldn't tell Buffy; I haven't even told Sheila."

"Willow doesn't know, either," Xander said. "Neither does Giles. And they're not going to."

"That's because it's not their business, either," I said. "This is something private that Xander and I are working on. It has nothing to do with you, with Buffy's business, or with a mad passionate affair that Xander and I are conducting in secret. He's not my type, anyway." He really wasn't. "No offense, Xander."

He shrugged. "None taken." And he apparently meant it. Good. "Anyway, Cor, what it comes to is whether you trust us."

"You," she said, pointing to me, "I know you're willing to lie through your teeth."

"Only under certain circumstances. This isn't one of them."

"I guess I have to trust you," Cordelia said, addressing Xander. "But this had better be important."

"It is," I said.

"Good." Without another word, she turned and left.

Xander said, after a few seconds. "Whew. Well, then –"

I held up a finger and walked over to the classroom door, then threw it open.

Cordelia was a hundred feet down the hall and clearly hadn't sprinted to get there. She turned around and said, "Please!" and kept going.

When I shut the door again, Xander said, "She wasn't there, was she?"

"Not even close," I said as I moved back behind the teacher's desk.

"I could have told you that," he said. "Cordelia's got too much dignity for that."

I shrugged. "This is Sunnydale. Better to check than not."

"Anyway," he said, "I assume this is about Lilly."

"Yup," I said. "That's the other reason Dad and I were at the party yesterday."

"I assume you found no smoking gun," he said. "Or rock, in this case." And Grim Xander was back in the room.

"The police, unfortunately, were there to take in an attempted murderer, not an actual one," I said. "Still, we found a lot more lack of character witnesses."

"I hope that waitress isn't one of them," Xander said.

Hmmm. They hadn't called her during the trial in my timeline, so – "I wouldn't think so. Depends how desperate the prosecution gets. Still, Dad seemed pretty psyched about what he'd gotten. He didn't tell me everything, but with the tape of him and Lilly, the tape of him and Holly Takamura, and these witnesses? I think we're pretty good." Of course, we'd had more in the original timeline – he'd tried to murder me, I'd been alive to bear witness, and nothing had happened to him.

And then there was the wish.

"Remember the wish Anyanka granted?" I asked.

"Yeah," Xander said.

"What do you think of it?"

He blinked. "It had a nice rhythm and I could dance to it. What the hell do you mean, Veronica?"

"I mean, do you think it could help us in trying to get him convicted?"

"Lynn Echolls wished that Aaron would be the man his PR department made him out to be, right?" I nodded; that was close enough. Frowning, Xander said, "His PR department makes him out to be half Sylvester Stallone and half Mike Brady. That makes him an action hero who's devoted to his family." Neither one of which necessarily equated to honest or guilty. I should have known it wouldn't be this easy.

"Well, I don't the action hero part's going to do us any good," I said. "Unless he goes and gets himself killed trying to do some stupid stunt."

Xander brightened for a second. "Maybe we could tell him about vampires and encourage him to 'protect his family'."

"With our luck," I said, "The vampires would decide to turn him instead."

"Yes, but then Buffy could kill him," Xander said.

"Point," I said. "Well, that's not something we can directly influence." I looked at Xander. "Don't directly influence him."

"How could I?"

"I can just see you coming up with some scheme worthy of Lucy Ricardo," I said. "Look. If this doesn't make him confess, we've got enough to go to the police."

"The Sunnydale police? Good luck."

That was a good point. Unfortunately. And the murder had taken place solidly in the jurisdiction of the Sunnydale Sheriff's Office. Dad could take it to the state cops; he'd probably have to to get any action. With Wilkins wanting people's attention away from Sunnydale, and Lamb's natural tendency to suck up to the rich and powerful, they could have videotape, forensic evidence so blatant Barney Fife could find it, and the Pope and Nelson Mandela as eyewitnesses, and the locals would still say, "I dunno. What else you got?"

"Yeah, I know," I said. "Anyway, that's pretty much it. I just wanted to keep you in the loop. We are getting closer." Whether this universe would last long enough for close to become close enough would be another story.

"Thanks," he said. "I do appreciate it. Even if I still want to do to him what he did to Lilly."

"You and me both," I said.

We then went our separate ways, Xander probably to beg Cordelia's forgiveness.

Me?

I was off to do some thinking.

Subject:

Should I or shouldn't I?

X X X X X

Afterword: Okay. I know what my answer is going to be, but I'd like to hear y'all's arguments on the topic.

When it comes to going after Spike and Drusilla now, mid-season 2, should Veronica:

Help Buffy?

Warn Spike and Dru?

Or stay out of it and let the chips fall where they may?

You can email me, or if your answer's short enough you can leave it in your review. If I use your thought process, even to argue against, I'll credit you.

Thanks –

Rob aka Mediancat