Giles paused, dumbfounded. How could this not be Ethan's fault? This kind of stuff was ialways/i Ethan's fault. "Are you sure, Riley? Are you absolutely sure?"

"Our null magician is. She's been doing this for a long time now, Giles. She knows what she's doing."

If Ethan hadn't done it, then some other magic user must have. However, transformation magic was highly specialized art. While it was Ethan's speciality, there were very few others who were similarly capable. On top of that, most of the people he could think of that would possibly have a grudge against Xander were dead. The only possible exception was Amy, and she was far more likely to move against Kennedy than Rory.

"Giles, you still there?"

"What? Oh, yes. Riley, if you wouldn't mind coming over, you might be able to help. Even if Ethan isn't behind this, he might still be helpful. Your null magician, too."

"Sure. What's the address?"

Giles told him, then hung up and headed there himself. While he was barely capable of magic on the best of days, he might be able to help.

Xander had survived Sunnydale solely because he had managed to avoid being cornered by and vampires or demons that might want to kill him. At least, not when there wasn't a Slayer or an all-powerful witch to save him. He wasn't nearly strong enough to fight a vampire off if it had him trapped.

Unfortunately, he had thought that, because Rory had sounded scared that she was turning into a vampire, she wouldn't tackle him to the ground with a flying leap and try and bite his throat out. In this, Xander was entirely wrong.

Fortunately, Rory hadn't been a vampire nearly long enough for her to pick up the kung fu skills they inevitably learnt. Her attack consisted solely of her straining to reach his neck with her fangs. Only Xander's trained reflexes had prevented her from doing so after her first assault. Even then, it was only a matter of time before her vampire strength got the better of him.

The only weapon that Xander has was the stake that he carried in his back pocket. And he really didn't want to stake his girlfriend.

So, instead, he tried to break through to her. "Hey, Rory, you don't want to do this. Stop, Rory. You don't actually want to feed from me Rory, you really don't. Please stop, Rory." Xander said, forcing himself to look into her yellow eyes.

The only sign that Rory heard what he was saying was her giving a snarl.

"Okay then." Xander murmured. "I guess that means that it's time for plan B."

Then Xander head-butted his girlfriend in the face.

After years of practice and watching Slayers execute their fancy moves, Xander was perfectly capable of smashing his forehead into Rory's nose. He knew that, although he'd done it hard enough to break a human's nose, it would only hurt a vampire.

When Rory reared backwards, Xander took the opportunity to scramble out from under her and get a few feet of distance between them. He contemplated making a run for it, but this was still Rory (he had to believe that, recent evidence to the contrary) and he didn't want to leave her.

Rory shook her head to clear the pain, face reverting back to her human visage as she did. "Ow! That hurt!"

Xander shrugged. "Uh, sorry?"

Rory waved a hand. "No it – oh, God. I could've killed you!"

"Nah. It takes a lot more than that to kill me, Lion Girl. You, um, alright? I mean besides being a vampire and all that."

Rory stopped looking at Xander, so that she didn't have to see his neck throb with blood pulsing through his arteries to his brain. She stopped breathing so that she didn't have to smell his idelicious/i scent. Now, if only she had a set of sound cancelling headphones so that she couldn't hear his heartbeat, she'd be set. "No! Of course, I'm not okay! I'm dead, for crying out loud!"

Xander shrugged again. "Well, yeah, but that's hardly a big deal, when you come to think about it. I mean, Buffy's got to be a zombie by now, the amount of times she's died and come back."

"Oh, thanks, Xan. That's so comforting." Rory said acidly.

"Well, sorry. 'm just trying to make you feel better." Xander mumbled.

"I know, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have-"

"Don't apologize, Rory. You have every right to snap. But you should know that we're going to fix this. Don't worry."

"What, you're going to sort it out like you did last time? Yeah, because that worked out so well, didn't it?" Rory said sarcastically, and then instantly felt bad. The truth was, she felt a lot better now that Xander was here, although admittedly that might have been because of the rather cathartic panic attack that she had been having before he had arrived. She was hiding her remaining near-overwhelming terror behind a mask of snarky petulance.

"Hey, Rory. Giles got turned into a demon a few years back. We fixed that. Buffy kind of got turned into a vampire a few years before that. We fixed that too. We'll fix this, Rory. That's what we do."

Rory sat on the floor and wrapped her arms around her legs. Xander wanted to go and comfort her, but he'd noticed the way she was steadfastly refusing to look at him. He suspected that having him within arm's reach would be too great a temptation for her. "I'm hungry, Xander." Rory said, so quietly that Xander almost didn't catch it.

Xander sighed. He didn't have any blood in his house, and really doubted that the Gilmores had a nice juicy stake for Rory to suck on until Giles arrived and sorted out this whole mess. "Just try and hold on. Once Giles comes and we get this whole thing sorted out, we can go down to the Dragonfly and have the biggest meal you've-

"Shh!" Rory said suddenly. In her attempts to ignore the tempting sounds of Xander's heartbeat, she'd been focusing on every little sound that she could. And now, she heard the distinctive sound of a car coming closer. "Someone's coming!"

Dawn hadn't dressed up for her not-a-date. That wasn't to say that she hadn't thought about it. She had spent what had felt like entire hours wondering whether she should put on a dress, at the very least. But she'd decided against it, just gone for her standard shirt and jeans ensemble. If Jess wanted casual, casual he would have. And, if she was honest, Dawn was more comfortable with casual herself.

However, Dawn was still extremely nervous when she walked into the Dragonfly. She tried to convince herself that she really shouldn't be – after all, this was hardly the first time that she and Jess had eaten together. Admittedly, grabbing a burger wasn't exactly the same as sitting down to dinner at a fancy inn.

Taking a deep breath and reminding herself that this couldn't possibly be as scary as walking into a cave filled with untold numbers of ubervamps, Dawn walked up to the concierge desk and said "Uh, hi? I'm here for a table. I'm, uh, Da-"

"Dawn!" Dawn turned around to see Jess waving to her from the dining room. "Over here."

"I think you have found your table." The concierge said with a thick French accent.

"Oui, certainement. Merci." Dawn replied, before walking through to the dining room. She was glad to see that Jess had decided not to dress up either.

They walked over to a little table in the corner. Jess paused for a second, unsure whether he should pull out a chair for Dawn or not.

That was what people always did in movies. On the other hand, this wasn't actually a date, and he'd never done anything of that sort for Rory. But, then again, would Dawn expect him to do something like that?

Dawn solved his quandary by smiling and saying "You planning on sitting down at some point?"

Jess smiled back, pulled out his own chair and sat down. "I… uh, I'm glad you could make it."

Dawn shrugged. "I hear that this is ithe/i place to be tonight. I wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Anyway, Sookie tends to cook-"

"Hello, Dawn." Dawn looked up to see Luke smiling at her, Lorelai standing just behind him. "It's nice to see you in a context that doesn't involve you yelling at me."

"What?" Dawn said, baffled. "I see you at the diner every day."

"True. But I'm always so busy that we never actually have time to talk."

"Well, I think you've talked enough now." Jess said.

"Just trying to be friendly, nephew." Luke grinned.

"Hi, I'm Lorelai." Lorelai said, extending a hand. "I don't think that we've actually met."

Dawn shook her hand. "I know who you are. I guess you probably know who I am, too."

"In this town, everyone knows everyone, sweetie. Anyway, we should talk at some point."

"Uh, yeah, sure." Dawn said, voice making it perfectly clear that that was something she really, really didn't want to do.

"Well, it's been nice talking to you." Luke said, mainly to Jess. "I'll leave you to your no doubt entirely innocent date."

"It's not a date." Both Dawn and Jess said at the same time.

"Right." Luke said dubiously, walking away with Lorelai.

"I should've suspected that Luke would do something like that. They'll probably want to go on a double date with us, or something." Jess said.

"Firstly, God no, that would be really awkward. Secondly, it was kind of sweet."

Jess frowned. "Okay, since when did sweet mean annoying?"

"Since your uncle actually seems like a nice guy, and isn't, you know…" Dawn trailed off, unable to talk around the lump that had suddenly sprung up in her throat. So the words "dead because of a brain aneurysm." went unsaid.

Jess was about to say something when he caught sight of someone behind Dawn. "Oh, Hell. Dawn, if I suddenly dive under the table, promise me that you won't accidentally get the wrong idea?"

Dawn frowned. "What wrong idea?"

Jess was torn between making his escape and saying something about how Dawn couldn't possibly be that naïve. Unfortunately, this hesitation prevented him from doing either.

"Oh, hello Jess! Fancy seeing you here!"

Xander couldn't hear anything that indicated someone's imminent arrival, but he had plenty of experience with vampire hearing. If Rory said that someone was coming, she was probably right. "It's probably Giles. Don't worry."

Rory sighed (or at least she thought she did. She barely expelled any air. Could vampires even sigh?). She'd thought that it might be Lorelai, and she wouldn't be able to stop herself from attacking her. "Don't let him come in!"

"Why? He can't really help you from out there."

"If he comes in, I might… you know."

"Oh." Xander said. "But you could still get him outside, you know."

Rory thought about saying that she couldn't actually leave the house, but she really didn't want to talk about the possibility of her trying to feed form Giles. "Can we not talk about this, please? When he comes, just tell him to stay outside, okay?"

"Sure." Xander said. He could hear Giles' car himself now. He thought about asking Rory if she wanted him to go outside too, but he surmised that she would probably say yes even though she didn't mean it. Xander thought that Rory needed someone nearby that she knew cared for her. Instead, he said "Um, Rory? I just want you to know that, even if something horrible happens and you stay as a vampire, I still love you. Just so you know."

Rory knew that Xander was just trying to be comforting. However, mentioning even the slightest possibility that she wouldn't ever be human again ireally/i wasn't comforting in anyway. It entirely negated the fact that he had just vowed to love her even if she was a bloodsucking monster.

Giles knocked on the door. Xander got up and made his way to the door before Giles could come in.

Dawn knew that there were many things worth hiding under the table from. Vampires. Demons. Anya. However, she had never felt the slightest desire to hide under the table from her own mother. Sure, she knew that Liz was a little odd (her wedding had amply demonstrated that) but she was hardly the kind of oddness that she would want to hide from.

"Hi, Liz." Dawn said cheerfully. "Is TJ around?"

"Yeah, he's just over there." Liz gestured vaguely. It looked as though TJ was unsuccessfully trying to engage Babette in some kind of conversation. "So, are you two dating now? I wondered, after I saw the dance at my wedding."

Jess groaned and put his face into his hands. Liz had never met any of his string of one night stands, although she had always said that she wanted to meet his 'girlfriends'. Given that Liz went through relationships faster than just about anyone Jess had ever known, and the fact that he hadn't actually ever felt anything for any of those girls, he had never felt even the slightest desire to introduce them to her.

Dawn smiled, valiantly trying to act as though she wasn't blushing. "Oh, no, we're not dating. This is just a dinner between friends."

"Oh." Liz said, believing her. Dawn was thankful for that. "Anyway, if you're Jess' friend you should come around at some point, have dinner with us. It's always nice to have Jess' friends around."

"Liz!" Jess exclaimed. "I'm not five!" iAnd I didn't bring friends home even then, due to the fact that you were high for a not inconsiderable amount of my childhood./i

"I know, sweetie. But come around anyway, okay?" Liz said sunnily before going to pry TJ away from Babette.

"Sorry about that." Jess said.

"What the Hell is wrong with you?" Dawn snapped angrily.

"What?" Jess said, thoroughly confused. "What did I do?"

"Your mom was just trying to be nice! There was no need to be so mean."

Jess frowned. "Mean? That wasn't mean. I just said that I wasn't five."

"And tried to hide under the table. Your mom's nice, Jess. You don't need to treat her like that."

"What are you talking about? I don't get on with Liz, I told you that already. I don't want to sit down and have dinner with her. What's so bad about that?"

"She's your mother!"

Jess shrugged. "Technically."

"What does that mean?"

"She gave birth to me. That's pretty much it."

"Pretty much what?"

Jess was starting to get angry now himself. He hadn't tried to pry into Dawn's past. He hadn't questioned why she clammed up and looked like she was going to cry when she had done her British accent, or anything else. "Where do you get off, confronting me like this? Dawn, you're the most secretive person I've ever met. You have no right to try and dredge up my past. I don't want to talk about it, okay? So there. I don't get on with Liz, and that's all there is to it. Just drop it."

Jess had a point. Dawn knew that he had a point. She didn't have any grounds to pry into his issues with his mother, not after all the things she was hiding from him. On the other hand, Liz was his mom. Dawn knew that she hadn't always treated Joyce fantastically whilst she had been alive, but if she had the chance to have Joyce back she would jump at it. She'd be the perfect daughter (or at least she'd try to be). Jess actually had the chance to be with his mother, and he was passing it up. Dawn didn't get that. "But she's your mom, Jess. You should at least make the effort."

Jess ran his fingers through his hair, trying to think of a way to change the subject and failing. "Look, if you want my mom, I'll gladly swap."

That was the crux of the matter. Dawn wouldn't see her mom again, so she wanted Jess to at least have a working relationship with his. "M-my mom isn't… she isn't around anymore."

Jess didn't move. He just exhaled gently through his nose, trying to think of something, anything, to say. But, really, what was there to say in situations like this? "I, uh… I'm sorry, Dawn. Seriously, I, um. Crap. I feel like such an ass now."

"It's okay." Dawn said tremulously, although it clearly wasn't. Before Jess could say anything further, she added "Could we not, you know, talk about this? Can we change the subject now?"

"Uh, yeah. Of course."

The pair looked at each other from across the table, neither of them having even the remotest idea of what to say.

"Hey, Giles." Xander said softly. "Don't come inside. Rory's kind of nervous that she might, uh, you know."

"Right, right. Of course." Giles said, nodding.

"So, um, any news."

"Actually, yes." Giles took of his glasses and began polishing them, a sure sign that bad news was on the way. "Riley assures me that Ethan didn't do it."

"iWhat?/i How could he not have done it?"

"Apparently, he's been bound by a null magician. That's a type of magic user who specializes in negating spells." Giles added, seeing Xander's blank look. If Riley actually has a null magician, Ethan couldn't have done it."

"So who did?"

"I'm afraid I don't know, Xander."

"Maybe we should call in Willow. She is our Big Good Witch, after all. She might be able to sort of this out."

"I doubt even Willow can break a spell here while she's in Brazil. I, uh, asked Riley to bring Ethan and his null magician here. They should arrive in around ten minutes or so. One or the other might be able to help. If they can't, then contact Willow, by all means."

"Uh, Giles?" Rory called from inside. "Could you get a burger or something? Something blo- something I can sink my teeth into?"

"Yes, of course." Giles turned to go, but then remembered something.

Many years ago, when Giles had still been a rebellious young adult, Ethan had taught him a charm. It was a simple charm, well within Giles' magical capabilities. He used it to transform the weak dross that Americans chose to call tea into proper, English tea. He might, possibly, be able to use it to transform a different liquid into blood. Given that blood was a magical substance in and of itself, it wasn't certain, but it was better than having a starving Rory launching herself at Xander. "Xander, get me some water. I might be able to help Rory."

Xander hurried to do so. Giles mentally ran through the words that would change water to blood. Xander brought back a glass, and Giles said the words. Instantly, Giles could feel something happening, the magic being pulled out of him and into the cup. Much, much more than the charm usually used. Enough that Giles contemplated cancelling the spell before he overreached himself and permanently burnt out his ability to use magic.

Just as Giles was about to that, the spell was completed, and Giles was holding a glass brimming with blood. He managed to pass it to Xander before his knees buckled.

Rory could smell the blood, the scent trickling into her nostrils even though she wasn't breathing (was that just a vampire thing?). It was the most delicious thing that she'd ever smelt. Then she drank it, and nearly had her brain explode. Apparently vampires had much, much better taste buds than humans did, because the blood was like having fireworks going off in her mouth. It was wonderful. So absorbed was she that she didn't even notice that three people had arrived until one of them said "Hello there."

Startled, she looked up to see a man a few years older than Xander (Riley, she guessed), the man she dimly recognised as the man who had spilt his coffee on her all that time ago, and a dark-haired woman who looked about the same age.

"You want first crack?" the man who could only be Ethan said. The woman nodded, and gently placed her palm on Rory's forehead. Her hand was very cool, even to her frigid vampire skin.

"There is something there." The woman said, with a faint, Russian accent. "But I cannot reach it. I can't do anything."

"No problem, Yelena." Ethan said cheerfully. "I'll take a shot at it."

Then he looked at Rory's neck and frowned. He reached out, lifting the necklace that Rory was wearing. The necklace that had once been a memory-erasing amulet. "Is this what I think it is?" Ethan said thunderously. He whirled around to face Giles (who had managed to lever himself upright and collapse exhausted in a chair) and said "Have you been messing with this girl's memory, Ripper?"

"Not anymore, no." Giles said tiredly. "Why?"

Ethan sighed. "I don't care if you're the foremost demonologist in Europe, Ru. You don't know Jack about magic. This amulet used to hold a spell. Now it doesn't. It's just an empty receptacle. So when I cast my spell, it just dropped right in there, neat as you please. She's got a bloody amulet that turns her into a vampire."

"So, if it take it off, will I be human again?" Rory asked shyly.

"It's not that simple. The spells bound to you iand/i the amulet. Got to cut the link."

"Spare us the lesson, Dumbledore." Xander growled. "Can you fix this?"

Ethan frowned. "Yes. Anyone got a knife?"

"Whoa, what do you want a knife for?" Rory said nervously.

"Relax girl, it's not for you. I need some of my blood for this." Ethan glance at Xander. "You want to get one or are you just going to stand there eyeballing me?"

Xander went and got a knife, and Ethan, wincing slightly, slid it across his palm. Rory instantly focused on the blood.

"This might feel a little strange." Ethan said. Then he reached out and grabbed Rory's amulet, and began muttering in a language that no one else recognised but nevertheless set everyone's teeth on edge.

Ethan had been right. It did feel exceptionally strange. It felt like Rory had pins and needles throughout her entire body, and not just on her skin either. Even her internal organs felt like that. There's nothing quite like the sensation of having thousands of miniature people stabbing you in the kidneys.

Then it stopped, and Ethan drew back his hand. "There you go. I'm all burnt out, and you're human. Happy now?"

Xander looked at Rory for a few seconds, checking to see if Ethan had in fact done what he had said he would. Seeing the healthy blush of blood in Rory's cheeks and the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, he was satisfied. He turned back to Ethan, and then punched him in the face. "Yup, now I'm happy."