A few days after Xander, Cordelia and Dawn's little jaunt to a couple other Sunnydale's Buffy wandered into her mother's bedroom following a banging noise and saw her hanging something that was way ugly on the wall.

"What's that?" She asked, startling Joyce and causing the hammer to slip off the nail and land in the drywall instead, making a hole. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you and that thing is seriously ugly, Mom."

"You have no appreciation for tribal art, Buffy."

"That's supposed to be art?"

"Yes, it is."

"It's as ugly as that fertility statue you also said was tribal art. I thought that it was a hat rack, for Herman's hats." Thinking of the gentle Frankenstein Dawn had met that only looked like a monster. And his vampire wife who was most definitely not a demon animated corpse. Weird that there were other kinds of vampires out in the multiverse and some would actually have to work very hard to actually be monsters. Xander spent a lot of time chatting about Magic with Grandpa and didn't hate him because he was a vampire. Well, not a vampire like the one that killed Jesse, anyway. She took a longer look at this so called art, it looked like it was carved from a reddish wood with cutouts for eyes, which were slanted inward to appear very evil. There were a series of long, pointed teeth with extra long fangs for incisors set into the upper lip. There was no lower jaw portion. "Yeah, I'm sticking with my first thought, it's ugly."

"She's not wrong." Dawn leaned against the door frame of the door between her room and their mother's. "I'd also add creepy to the description. The eyes make it look evil."

"I was thinking that too." Buffy agreed. "Ugly, creepy and evil is not a good combination, Mom and that's the kind of art that would look good in Satan's bedroom, not yours."

"I will teach you girls to appreciate art one of these days." Joyce vowed, centering the mask on the nail and stepping back to admire it. Okay, so it was ugly, but not all art was beautiful. She ignored the hole for now, she'd get it fixed later. Too bad their house couldn't rearrange itself like the Sanctum could. "It's Nigerian, we got an exciting shipment in at the gallery -."

"And no one wanted that - thing?" Buffy teased, grinning at her little sister, who grinned back.

"Maybe for Halloween." Dawn suggested. "You know, to celebrate the one year anniversary of the vampires all getting sent to Hell and the door being slammed shut behind them?"

"If the world knew, they probably would be celebrating." Joyce agreed, eying her daughters as they united to tease her. Oh well, at least they were getting along, she could hope it lasted more then a minute, even if it was at her expense.

"So, anyway," Buffy focused back on why she'd originally been heading to her mother's room when she'd been distracted by the noise and the opportunity to tease her mother. "I'm heading out to meet the gang at the Bronze."

"Keep your communicator with you, Buffy." Joyce reminded her of the Inhuman tech Xander had given them all. "I know things have really been quiet, but that doesn't mean we should be out of contact with each other."

"I've got it, don't worry. Any chance I can take the car?"

"No, they still won't let you take the driving test."

"You give one Driving Instructor a heart attack and your blacklisted for life." Buffy grumbled.

"Cordelia didn't even manage to do that when Amy's Mom actually made her blind." Dawn reminded her.

"Yeah, yeah." Buffy grumbled, it wasn't her fault her Slayer reflexes were so hair trigger, Cordelia had enhanced abilities too, but she didn't have any problems with her reflexes. It wasn't fair. Although Cordelia had gotten a couple of tickets... "See you guys later." She waved over her shoulder as she headed downstairs and out to walk, grr, to the Bronze.

"Want a snack, Sweetie?" Joyce asked Dawn, who'd hit another growth spurt and was already taller than Buffy. 'Definitely got my height.' Joyce thought.

"Sure, I could always use a bite." Dawn admitted, like the others, having superpowers burned a massive amount of calories, add growth spurts and Dawn often felt like she was starving. Xander, who also often felt like he was starving, occasionally slipped money into Joyce's purse to cover all the snacks he ate when visiting and Joyce pretended she didn't know, to protect his male pride. She'd explained it to Dawn once and Dawn had rolled her eyes. Guys had the weirdest ideas sometimes. The two trooped downstairs and Joyce pulled out ingredients for a ham and cheese sandwich and the two chatted about Dawn's portal mishaps and finally finding another reality that had a her in it, even if she didn't get to meet the other her.

Neither of them were aware that the eyes of the mask hanging on Joyce's wall lit up as it detected a very faint trickle of energy from the not entirely dormant Hellmouth. It might not have even had an effect if the mask hadn't passed through Los Angeles on it's way to Sunnydale and near an unknown Hellmouth, absorbing energy from it as it passed by.

They did however, notice the cat that jumped up on the counter, being it was stinking, rotting and missing pieces of itself.

So much for Dawn's snack, she might never eat again.