When Willow first told Buffy on Wednesday afternoon she'd uncovered the Nerd's location through a complicated system of tracking server access that Buffy wasn't even going to try to understand, her first instinct had been to go after them immediately and wreak a little well-deserved violence. Giles had argued for preparation, however, and there'd been that pesky evening shift at the Doublemeat Palace to help pay the bills. Those, combined with the home visit from Mrs. Buckelew, had convinced her the raid needed to be delayed.

She couldn't stand too long a delay, though, and Thursday morning found her approaching the house the trio were renting as their latest lair. "Looks different during the day," she commented to Xander and Giles.

"You've been here before?" Giles asked, squinting into the California sunshine.

"This was where I was tracking them the night I got attacked by that unpronounceable demon." She curled her hands into fists then flexed the fingers outward, rippling to ease the tension. "Should have come back as soon as I got over it and grabbed them then."

"It's okay, Buff. You had other things on your mind."

For some unaccountable reason, Xander's gentle pat on her shoulder irritated her. It shouldn't; he'd called in sick to help her with this and she knew she should be grateful. There'd been a time when she hadn't thought twice about dragging her friends away from whatever they were doing to help her. Now there were jobs and businesses to consider, squeezing in slaying between paying the bills.

Maybe it was just all the changes that were irritating her. Maybe it was the fact she'd had almost as much trouble dealing with these stupid nerds as she had dealing with a hell god. Maybe it was the idea they might have been watching her in a moment of weakness she didn't want anyone to know about.

Deciding that last was a path best avoided at this moment, she checked her watch. Nine-seventeen. At nine-twenty, Willow would begin her attempted hack into the nerds' computer. Buffy, Giles and Xander would deal with Warren and his cronies themselves.

"Have you given any thought as to how we're actually going to get into the house?" Giles asked.

"The back door," Buffy told him. "Willow found the plans for this subdivision in the city planning files. We go through the back door and to the basement. I'll lay odds that's where they are since they don't want to be spotted. It was dark the last time I came and I didn't see any lights on."

She checked her watch again. Nine-seventeen and forty-five seconds. She should have worked out that morning, burned off just enough excess energy to keep her calm. When this was done, maybe she could ask Spike if he'd…

Definitely not going down that path! Spike was too complicated and she needed simplicity…like putting her hands around Warren's throat. She just needed to wait another few minutes.

At last, it was time to go and she started across the street, Giles and Xander following in her wake. Breaking and entering wasn't anything new for them, but daytime made the risk of being seen greater. They could have waited until dark, but every moment that passed increased the possibility that the trio might realize the Scoobies were on to them. Better to go now.

***

In the basement, Andrew looked up at a monitor and saw the three figures approaching. "Hey!"

There were noisy grumbles from the other two, but they didn't stir from under their covers. "Hey!" he called again.

Still no response. This time, Andrew took a more direct approach. "Hey!"

When Andrew's foot connected with Jonathon's side, the smaller man stirred. "Stop that!"

"Uh, Slayer approaching. I think we'd better wake up now."

"What?!" From across the room, Warren was on his feet, heading for the bank of monitors. "Why didn't you wake us up?"

"I tried," Andrew answered petulantly. "She's got friends with her."

Jonathon staggered up to join them. "Great. Xander and Mr. Giles. Now we're in trouble."

"No, we're not." Warren frantically tapped buttons, changing the angles of the observation cameras. Around them came ominous thuds and grinding sounds, as if some trap was being slid into place. "Andrew, I need you to summon up a demon, something nasty."

"I'll get my pipes," he said and scurried off.

Warren continued his work while Jonathon just stared. "Make yourself useful, Frodo," Warren snarked. "Come up with a spell that'll make them disappear or something."

"It doesn't work that way. Magic's got to be more specific than that or it'll go wrong."

"I don't care! Just get them away from here."

"Who moved my pipes?" Andrew called out.

"Didn't you put them away the last time?"

"Somebody moved them! Jonathon, I told you not to touch my stuff!"

"I didn't touch anything of yours, nimrod."

"Will the two of you just shut up and…" A light started to flash urgently on the console. "Oh, God, no."

"What?" Jonathon asked. "What's happening?"

"Someone's trying to hack their way into our system." Warren's fingers flew frantically over the keyboard. "Correction. Someone is hacking into our system. They're not trying for any finesse; just brute force."

"I bet it's Willow. She was always the one who knew about computers and such."

"I still can't find my pipes!"

Warren's cry of "Shut up!" was lost as the upstairs door was kicked in. Footsteps on the stairs heralded the arrival of Buffy and company as Jonathon decided diving for cover was the best course of action.

She stood on the steps where Katrina had fallen, surveying them with an expression of supreme pissed-offness. "We need to have a little talk, guys. Something about breaking and entering, illegal surveillance and just generally being a pain in my butt."

Even in the face of total destruction, as Jonathon fought with Andrew for the most space under the table, Warren stood firm. "Come and get me, Slayer. You won't win."

Buffy didn't need a second invitation and lunged, Giles and Xander right behind her. In comic books and movies, the battles between the good guys and super villains were always of epic proportion -- and the bad guys often won, too, sending the hero to an almost certain doom from which they would naturally escape, being good guys. In the meantime, the bad guys managed to get away to fight another day.

Jonathon had signed on for epic. So why were their battles with the Slayer always just pathetic? That thought got pulled out of his head as he was pulled from under the table where he hid and tossed against a wall. Worse, it was Xander who did it. He didn't even rate the main hero, just the sidekick. Buffy was busy concentrating on Warren.

It didn't take long for Warren to have enough. "I told you we're your arch-nemisises, Slayer. You don't mess with us lightly."

"I don't want to mess with you at all. I just want you out of my life."

"Then I'll oblige." Warren dove for the control console and hit a button. A grinding whir filled the basement. "Let's see you fight that!"

Giant buzz saws suddenly appeared, threatening death to whatever stood in their path. Andrew grinned at the sight. "Cool."

"Down, you idiot!" Jonathon pulled Andrew out of the way of a sweeping blade even as Buffy did the same with Xander and Giles. Only Warren remained erect, cackling in the standard evil mad scientist manner.

Then one blade struck another and stuck, the push of the angled edges holding the blades in space. The high-pitched whine dropped to a sullen grind as the other blades stopped, still spinning but unable to move further due to the collision.

All parties froze in place, looking from one to the other. It was Jonathon who moved first. "Run!"

For once, Warren and Andrew didn't argue with him, almost pushing each other out of the way in their race up the stairs. It was only the fact that Buffy and her companions had been trapped with one of the still-spinning blades between them and the stairs that allowed the three to make it to the garage and the van. The doors were barely closed before Warren gunned the engine and headed down the street with no regard to the speed limit. "Is she after us?" Warren asked after they'd run three stop signs and a red light.

A peek out the back window showed nothing other than normal traffic. "No," Jonathon said. "I don't think she even has a car."

"What are we going to do?" Andrew was sitting on the van's floor, arms curled around knees that were drawn tightly to his chest.

"I'll tell you what we're going to do," Warren said, his eyes never leaving the road as he slowed the van to a reasonable speed. "We're going to hide out in the caves in the North Wood for now, then we're gonna come back tonight after they're gone and see what we can rescue."

The tone of Warren's voice warned that they shouldn't even try to argue with him. Suppressing a sigh, Jonathon sank onto the floor of the van next to Andrew. He knew the plan. He knew that Warren needed him for. It had seemed such a good idea of the time, but he was tired of the running.

Andrew frowned, and then turned to Jonathon. "We are going to be able to rescue the action figures, right?"

***

Buffy, Xander and Giles managed to extract themselves from behind the blade, but only with great difficulty. "I can't believe it. Aren't things like this usually, I don't know, special effects or something?"

"Guess it's part of their 'look, I'm a super villain' equipment," Xander said, wandering toward the control panel. "Hopefully, one of these buttons should turn it off."

Buffy stood next to him, peering at the various buttons. "How about this one that's lit up and says 'Secret Weapon'?"

She punched it and the grinding noise slowed to a halt as the blades stopped spinning. "Secret no more."

"So, what now? Report them to the police? Hey, Willow has Riley's e-mail address; maybe we should drop him a line."

Buffy glared at him. Right. Make her life more complicated than it already was. "No Riley. I don't want the Initiative or whatever they're calling themselves these days involved. Giles, any suggestions?"

"Hmm?" Giles looked up from the book he was perusing. "Probably gather up things and take them back to the shop. There seems to be a fair amount of items of mystical origins I'm loathe to leave lying around."

"Then you gather up what you think is important while Xander and I poke about. Goodness knows what else they may have hidden down here."

It felt good to be doing something, even if Warren and company had gotten away. It was action, something that'd been foreign to her for quite some time. Maybe it was a sign of life. Buffy smiled at the thought as she carefully poked through the piles of stuff stored about the basement. Most of it were pieces of equipment far too sophisticated for her to fathom; tubes and wires, cables and cords. It would take someone like Willow to untangle it all, and even then it might remain a mystery.

She dug deeper, mindful of possible traps. More electronics, though they seemed to be smaller pieces now. At the back, against one wall was a work bench with what looked to be a human arm lying on it, wires extending from the elbow. Great. Another bot. Wonder whose image he was making it in this time?

A dust sheet-covered form leaned against the wall next to the bench, most likely the near-finished product. Experiencing a deep moment of squick remembering her first encounter with the double Spike had ordered up, Buffy steeled herself. As much as she hated the idea of seeing another one of Warren's creations, it was always possible the thing might provide a clue into whatever long-term plans he'd been hatching.

The sheet pulled away to reveal a woman somewhat taller Buffy, with dark glossy hair pulled back away from her face and impeccable bone structure. The left arm was missing, but she still wore the same black turtleneck Buffy had seen her in.

"They've got a cool collection of action figures," Xander said, coming up behind her, "but most of the rest of the stuff I can't even begin to under…sweet Jumpin' Jehosaphat! What is that?"

"It's a bot," Buffy said mechanically, feeling much like a bot herself. A tired and run down bot. "Sam was a bot."

"Wait. You're saying Riley married a bot?"

"No, I'm saying that wasn't Riley and Warren had something to do with it."

She tossed the cover back over the figure and turned away, not bothering to check if her aim had been accurate. "Let's get what we can and go. I just want to get the hell out of here."

***

Willow grinned broadly at them as they entered the shop, laden down with spoils. "Are we good or what? I didn't get as much as I wanted from Warren's system before he cut the connection, but I've been skimming what I did get and I'm pretty sure there's some clues to what he's planning."

"Great." Buffy dumped her load on the table. "Let me know what you find. I'm going to go work out."

She could feel their eyes on her back as she started for the training room. She didn't want to deal with this right now. The memory of making a complete idiot of herself in front of Riley was bad enough; that it might have been one of Warren's bots or some other trick tied her stomach into knots.

"Did everything go okay?" she heard Willow say, but Buffy didn't let that stop her movement.

"Warren and Co. were there, but they got away. Oh, and we discovered that Riley's wife might have been a bot."

Xander's words elicited a sharp squeak. "What?"

With a sigh, Buffy realized her workout would have to wait. She desperately wanted to go into denial mode, pretend none of it had happened, but that didn't seem to be working out too well for her lately. Reluctantly, she turned back. "We found a bot at the hideout. It looked like Sam."

"But…but…that would mean that wasn't Riley who came to Sunnydale, but someone else." Willow looked from Buffy to Xander to Giles back to Buffy. "Of course, that would explain why the e-mail I sent Sam bounced…"

Buffy started to open her mouth to ask Willow why on earth she'd sent Samantha Finn an e-mail, but decided some things were best not known. "Maybe I'm over-reacting. Maybe it's just a bot that looked like Sam. I mean, Warren didn't even know about Riley. He'd already taken of for…wherever it was he took off for by the time we met Warren."

"But Jonathon did know about Riley," Giles said, carrying the cup of tea he'd fixed over to the counter. "He even knew there were some troubles. I remember you saying he'd given you some advice following the, ah, difficulty with Faith when he cast that glamour over Sunnydale."

The memory was hazy, faded with time and the dissipation of the spell Jonathon had used, but Buffy could dimly recall sitting in the Expresso Pump and pouring out her troubles. "Oh, my lord."

Giles picked up one of the packing slips that were strewn across the counter, peering at it. "He wouldn't even need to remember details, just that there was some trouble and Riley went away. We know he's capable of some fairly powerful magic. He could have quite possibly cast a glamour to make us think it was Riley."

"Wait a minute, you're saying that it wasn't Captain Cardboard come to rain sunshine and destruction down upon us?"

The voice came from behind and above her and Buffy squeezed her eyes shut for a moment before turning to find Spike on the steps that led up to the shop's balcony. There was anger in his face, as well as disbelief. She opened her mouth to say something, but suddenly found her throat had gone dry.

"Spike," Giles called, "did Terasmic Imports really ship us five dozen petrified hamsters?"

"Yes, which I'm getting ready to ship back because we didn't order any." Spike continued down the stairs until he was face to face with Buffy. "Was that Finn or was that one of the nerds?"

She could feel the tension in him, see it in every line of his body. She'd come to him for comfort and ended up destroying his home on Riley's say-so. If it wasn't Riley… "I don't know," she managed.

"You want to give her some space, Evil Dead?" Xander was coming toward them, the movement caught in the corner of her peripheral vision.

"Back off, Harris. This doesn't concern you." Spike's eyes didn't leave her face. "You don't know?"

"It might be Warren or Jonathon." Riley had offered to stake Spike. Had Warren wanted to be rid of him? If so, why? "When Riley showed up, I just assumed…"

The anger was still there, but there was hurt now in the way he looked at her. "Yeah," he said softly. "I know."

He turned on his heel and headed back up the stairs. Buffy watched him go and a few seconds later heard the thump of boxes being moved about in the balcony. Turning away, she saw her friends ready to offer her sympathy, tell her he was out of line and couldn't stand it. She fled to the training room.

She had changed into workout clothes and was pummeling the bag when Giles walked in, closing the door behind him. He didn't speak at first, waiting until she paused to catch her breath. "Buffy, is this going to be a problem for you?"

"What problem?" Buffy wove a little in front of the bag before striking it again. "We find out what Warren's up to and we stop him. I know I haven't been as focused as I should be, but that's going to change. This is the new Buffy: all focused and ready for action."

"That's lovely, and I'm glad to see your commitment, but that wasn't what I was talking about."

The Clueless Slayer routine wouldn't work this time, she realized and stopped pounding the bag. "You mean Spike."

"He's currently upstairs unpacking inventory and refusing to speak to anyone. Part of me would like to describe it as a sulk, but I think it goes deeper than that." Giles took off his glasses and began to clean them. "I will confess to some surprise at how much energy he's put into the shop. Given Tara's school schedule, he has, for all intents and purposes, been running the place in Anya's absence. He's an asset and one I'm loathe to lose, but if his presence is going to cause difficulties, I am going to have to make some choices."

Buffy tapped the punching bag lightly, just enough to set it swinging. "You mean, if I'm here, he can't be." She hit the bag again with a little more force. "Maybe I should train somewhere else. That would make things easier."

She forced herself not to look at Giles. She knew the look he was giving her, the one that said he was going to ask her difficult questions and she wasn't going to be able to get out of them. "Not long ago, you would have said it was better if he wasn't here."

"Gaaaah!" Buffy gave the bag a final punch before flopping on the old vinyl-covered couch that stood against one wall. "It really was easier when he was trying to kill me. Now, every word has a double meaning and it's all so complicated."

Giles didn't speak, but replaced his glasses, seated himself on the other end of the couch and waited. She hated when he waited. She hated when Spike waited. It meant neither was going to let her wriggle out of talking by filling the silence themselves.

When did Spike and Giles start having similar characteristics?

She let the silence stretch on as long as she could bear before giving in. "Giles, I've done some things you wouldn't like since you were gone. I've either completely neglected Dawn or overcompensated by smothering her like Glory was still a problem. I've never told Xander or Willow how I feel about what they did…how angry I was…still am, in some ways…at them, especially Willow."

"I wish you'd told me," Giles said softly.

"I wish I had, too. I thought about it, but then I heard you talking to Willow in the kitchen that first night you were back." She blinked, feeling tears begin to prick at her eyes. "You were so angry and I knew that if I told you where I'd really been, you'd be even angrier. I didn't have the strength to deal with that. I felt so numb and it was taking everything I had to pretend I was anywhere near approaching okay. The only one who just let me be was Spike."

She dragged the back of her hand over her eyes to wipe away the tears that threatened spill out. "Do you realize how many times he showed up on the back porch when I was out there? I'd want to be alone and he'd just materialize. Wouldn't say anything, just sit down beside me. I don't think I could have gotten through those first few weeks without him. He didn't want anything from me, didn't demand anything. He was just there for me to lean on."

Giles had moved down the couch and put an arm around her shoulder. It was meant to comfort, but only served to make the tears come faster. "I used him, Giles. I used him to feel and then blamed him because I felt disgusted. I took every opportunity I could to be with him, but wouldn't let him in my life. I told him I was using him and it was killing me and we had to stop; it was the truth."

"When did you tell him this?" Giles asked quietly.

"About a week before the wedding. The morning after I blew up his crypt." The tears were sliding down her face now, but she didn't care. "I thought it was Riley. He said there was a dealer in Sunnydale, black market stuff for international terrorists. He showed up at Spike's crypt after and we were…we had…he accused Spike of being the dealer, of having the eggs. Then they started hatching and I threw a grenade…if it wasn't Riley…if it was Warren…I wouldn't listen, wouldn't let him explain."

She buried her face in her hands. With her eyes closed, the images played out all too easily, all the hurts, the slights and worst of all… "You should be so ashamed of me," she whispered.

A tight squeeze from Giles. "We've been down this road before. I wasn't ashamed of what you did with Angel and that had far worse consequences from what I can see. Why should I be ashamed of anything you did with Spike?"

"Because it's not what I did with him; it's what I did to him. I said I used him? You don't know the half of it. Everything I felt, all the unhappiness and loathing, he let me put it on him." She looked up. "I beat him, Giles. I beat him and left him in an alley, not caring if he'd make it out before morning. And I never said a word about it. Not to him, not to anyone. I don't know what to do, Giles. I don't know how to change what I've become."

He pulled her into his arms. Here was safety. Here she could forget about everything that was wrong with her life. "Can you forgive me?"

She waited for the words of comfort and absolution, but they did not come. Instead, Giles pulled back, holding her at arm's length. "I'm not the one you need to ask that of."

Buffy swallowed. "I can't."

Giles frowned at her, that disappointed, paternal frown he wore when she didn't live up to his expectations. "Buffy, in all the time I have known you, there has never been an occasion when you have not risen to whatever challenge has threatened. If you truly want forgiveness, surely it is not as hard to ask for as facing Glory or the Master or even your mother's death."

"It is." Her throat was tightening and words came out barely above a whisper.

"Why? Are you afraid Spike won't forgive you?"

"He'd do it in an instant. But asking would mean…" She squeezed her eyes tightly closed as if she could shut out the images playing in her head. "I can't care for him. If I did, if the chip failed…if I let myself feel for him, I don't think I could put a stake through his heart."

"If you truly feel that, send him away. Don't let him stay because it will only hurt you both."

The standard complaint that she'd tried to send him away but he wouldn't go sprang to Buffy's lips, only to die before she could speak the words. A week ago, Spike had given her the opportunity to end it and she'd taken him up on that offer, walked out of this very room. She'd gotten halfway down the block before she'd come running back, terrified at the thought of truly shutting him out of her life.

He hadn't balked, hadn't turned her away, hadn't even questioned the sudden change. He'd just held her and kissed her gently, silently letting her know how he felt. Then the realization she was standing on the precipice hit her and she bolted, running all the way back to Revello Drive.

How could she expect him to go if she kept telling him to come back?

She looked to Giles, but there was no help there. This was going to be one struggle she had to face alone.

***

Giles closed the door to the training room behind him. Leaving Buffy alone at that moment was hardly his plan of choice, but she'd been insistent that she needed some time to think. That she actually appeared to be doing so was what convinced Giles to let her be.

A number of customers were in the shop, two in line at the register while Spike rang up a third. Willow was busy at the research table, laptop open and rooting among the booty from that morning's raid, while Xander sat opposite her, lost in whatever place it was Xander went to when research was happening and he was not involved.

Stepping behind the counter, Giles asked the next customer if he could help them, beginning to write up their sales slip. They worked together smoothly, quickly dealing with the line. "Didn't mean to leave you alone for so long," he said when things had quieted.

"No worry. She's your first concern, as she should be." Spike hesitated as if he wanted to say more, but didn't continue. Instead, he took advantage of a customer looking lost to beat a retreat toward the front of the store.

The idea of locking Buffy and Spike in the training room and not letting them out until they had worked out their differences was fast becoming an appealing one. The last time Giles had had such an urge, they'd been at each others throats; he wasn't certain which state was preferable.

He chose to distract himself by seeing how Willow had progressed with what they'd captured that morning. "I've almost got everything sorted," she burbled. "Magical tomes there, amulets here, stinky herbs in the bowl. I only touched stuff to sort it, promise. Over here I've got printouts -- those are gonna take a while to get through -- maps and schematics are in this section, and the discs are next to the iBook. Good thing I sprang for the DVD drive."

Giles looked down and sighed. He supposed his table was still under there somewhere. "We should get to it. However, I don't want the table left alone at any time. Wouldn't want the customers to think the items were for sale."

Willow smiled and Xander laughed as Giles took a seat and reached for a book. "That probably means I should go be Food Boy," Xander said. "Lunch run to the deli?"

Orders were taken, Xander scribbling the list on the back of an envelope. "Should I ask Buffy?" he said when Willow and Giles were done. "I mean, she probably should eat."

Giles hesitated. He doubted Buffy would appreciate the interruption. "Willow, do you have any idea what might she might want?"

"Depends. She's always hungry after patrol, so you'd think she'd want something after this morning's raid." Willow frowned. "Of course, she had that nasty shock about Riley and that might affect her appetite…"

"Chinese Chicken Salad." Spike had drawn near, standing his ground as three sets of eyes turned toward him. "She had the deli's Chinese Chicken Salad one time when she had lunch here."

Xander looked as if he was about to tell Spike exactly what he could do with the Chinese Chicken Salad, but Willow started nodding. "Great idea. I know she likes that. Get her the salad, Xander."

Xander glared, but Xander went and peace descended. Giles started the lengthy process of identifying each item and its possible use while Willow's fingers clicked across her keyboard. Customers came and went but nothing arose that summoned his attention away from the work.

When Xander returned with the food, Willow took a break to take the Chinese Chicken Salad into Buffy, only to return a few minutes later with the container still in hand. "She says she's not hungry."

"Do you want me to…?" Xander asked.

"No." The response was uncharacteristically terse for Willow, who buried her nose back in the computer discs. The salad remained untouched.

The afternoon stretched on. Tara arrived, followed by Dawn. Unlike earlier in the week, Willow didn't make a beeline for Tara at the first available opportunity, caught in whatever tangled web Warren had woven. Giles found his work far less engrossing. There was a fair variety of material, much of it having to do with demon summoning and spells of illusion and transmutation, but nothing that led Giles to believe there was coherent plan behind the collection. Rather, it was as if the items had been gathered on an individual basis, tools to support something else.

Feeling there was little left to discover, at least for the moment, Giles rose, rolling his shoulders to work the kinks out. Moving around the table, he noticed Willow had what appeared to be a schematic of some kind on the screen; she didn't seem to register his presence, lost in the play of images. Content to let her continue, he made his way over to the teapot.

A certain peace had settled over the shop. Xander was slouched in a chair, lost in a book he'd pulled from the shelves, well away from the counter where Spike and Tara were quietly discussing something. Dawn was busy in the front, straightening the merchandise. There were no customers at the moment, for which he was profoundly grateful. How many times during the troubles with Glory had he dealt with customers as the Scooby Gang had tried to work on one possible solution or the other? Nor had Anya ever let him forget he'd sold Glory items which could be used to track the Key partially because he'd been distracted. In retrospect, it was amazing that not only had no Magic Box customers ever been caught in whatever work they might be doing, but that the students at Sunnydale High hadn't gotten wind of the strange goings on in the library during his three years there.

Of course, perhaps they had and used it as another excuse to avoid the place.

Tara and Spike seemed to come to an agreement about something and Tara made her way across the floor to Giles. "We were thinking," she said in her soft voice, "that perhaps we should close early because of the stuff from Warren. That way we could stop worrying about the customers getting into it."

Giles suddenly felt less paranoid. "Excellent idea. Go ahead and…"

At that moment, Buffy emerged from the back room. She looked tired, but it also appeared several hours of solitude might have done some good. There was still a shadow to her face, but the fact she'd made the decision to rejoin the group on her own instead of being fetched boded some good. At least, Giles hoped it did.

Tara moved first. Whatever she said to Buffy was too quiet for the others to hear, but it brought a bit of a smile to her face. Deciding his slayer was in good hands, Giles moved a few steps tap Xander on the shoulder and draw his attention. For once, Xander took the hint immediately, turning his eyes from Buffy and back to the book. At least the D&D manuals had proved useful for something.

There was no need to give Willow a hint; she had turned back to the computer, though more than one surreptitious glance was cast toward the two women, a flash of jealousy in her eyes. Not surprising; Willow had always been the one Buffy confided in. Now, Spike had held the secret of Buffy in heaven, while it had been Tara she had turned to in order to figure out why Spike's chip didn't work on her. Secrets were being kept, alliances and friendships shifting and changing, never to be the same. Giles had seen it happen before, but for these children it was a new -- and painful -- experience.

He knew Spike understood what was happening. The vampire was doing his best not to be obvious, but Giles saw the way his head had come up the moment Buffy entered the room, his concern tempered only when he saw her respond to Tara. Giles also saw how his eyes flicked from Xander to Willow and back again, as if it was his responsibility to make certain they didn't bother her. "Put the sign out," Giles said as he approached the counter. "We're done for the day."

Spike nodded and headed up to the front. A quick word to Dawn and the two began the procedures for closing while Giles started with the cash register. Tara was still busy with Buffy, having fetched the previously-rejected Chinese Chicken Salad in an effort to convince her to eat. For the moment, all was quiet save for the closing of the front grate and the soft whir of Willow's computer as she exchanged one disc for another.

"That's strange…" Willow's words caused Giles to look up from the register. She was frowning, hands poised over the keyboard of the laptop. "Doesn't appear to have any viruses…"

"What is it?" Buffy asked, stirring from where she'd sat and laying the salad aside after only a few bites. "Something interesting?"

"Not certain." Willow hit a few keys. "It's video files, but the names don't give any clue as to what they might be."

"Probably part of his prodigious porn collection," Xander commented. Giles noted he rose and positioned himself where he could see the screen.

"We'll know in a second. I'm gonna hit play. Prepare to be offended."

Willow hit a key and the image on the screen began to shift. Giles shut the cash drawer and drew closer himself. He wasn't particularly enthusiastic about seeing any video Warren Meers might deemed as collectible, but there was always the possibility it might have some significance.

The low moan that came from the speakers assured him it didn't and he turned away. With any luck, Willow would come to the same conclusion and continue on to the next disc.

"Oh, like that, do you?"

At the sound of Spike's voice, Giles whipped around. The images were not the best quality, details hidden by shadows, but there was more than enough to identify Spike and Buffy in the lower level of Spike's crypt. Candlelight flickered across bare skin as he leaned forward to slowly draw his tongue along the curve of her neck, hands roaming sensuously across her body, gliding ever lower.

"Spike…"

At the sound of the word, drawn out like a caress, Giles turned away. It was one thing to know intellectually that Buffy had chosen to take Spike as a lover; it was another thing entirely to discover the evidence with his eyes.

He looked toward the others, but they were all staring at the screen, shock plain across their faces. Except for Buffy. Here was a half-healed wound ripped open.

A low chuckle, followed by an all-too familiar tone of annoyance. "Think you're so clever? Try this."

It was like being in a bloody Sam Peckinpah movie. Giles glanced back at the screen, a movement that seemed stretched out to infinity, yet the video images moved normally, unaffected. Buffy flipped Spike on his back, moving atop him, doing something with her hands that he mercifully could not see. Spike's head pressed back against the pillows as his back arched, Buffy's laughter and his moan of pleasure mingling and floating through the stillness of the shop.

The screen of the laptop being slammed into the closed position brought time back to normal with a wrenching jerk. "That's enough," Spike said through clenched teeth, glaring down at Willow.

"Totally agree," Willow said, glancing up at him before twisting in her chair. "Buffy?"

Buffy's face had turned to stone. She looked at Willow, then turned away and walked to the furthest edge of the shop. Xander made to go after her, but Tara stretched out her hand to stop him. "Don't."

Xander looked a bit confused at the request, but did as she asked. "Well, that was lovely. I thought you said you found out where all the cameras were, Will."

Willow frowned, looking at Spike's hand as if figuring out how to extract it from the top of her laptop. "I thought I did. The one in the crypt was probably destroyed when the place got blown up."

"Maybe. Or maybe someone else decided to have a little video fun."

He looked pointedly at Spike, who rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. "Will you get your head out of your ass, Harris? It happened. Deal with it."

"Deal with it? Is that the solution? Just forget it happened and move on until the next time? I want you to stay away from her."

"Well, that's not your call, now is it?" Spike took a step toward Xander, which gave Willow the chance to open her laptop again. "She wants me to stay away, she can tell me herself."

The posturing was beginning to reach dangerous levels and Giles felt ready to intervene when Willow spoke up. "Uh, Spike?"

She offered the disc to him, a slightly worried look on her face. He took it, staring at the patterns of light playing across the surface as Willow turned back to her machine. "So what do you plan to do with it?" Xander taunted. "Keep it for…"

CRACK!

Spike's hands easily snapped the disc in two. Deliberately, he took another step toward Xander, closing the gap between them. "Allow me to explain in words you might actually understand. If you think I am in any way, shape or form happy about the idea that those pathetic losers had a camera in my home and decided to keep video of what happened, then you're a sicker bastard than I ever imagined."

When Xander's arm cocked back, Giles stepped in. "Stop it, both of you. This isn't helping. Right now the issue is dealing with Warren and his compatriots, not seeing which one of you can best play leader of the pack."

He almost hoped one or both of them would offer some resistance. The tension in the room was starting to affect him as well and the idea of knocking two certain heads together was becoming quite tempting. Spike stepped back, however, a strategic retreat that left no doubt he was perfectly willing to pummel Xander despite any headache the effort might deliver, and dropped the pieces of the broken disc into the trash can Tara offered.

Xander wasn't quite so cooperative, making as if to go after Spike until Giles stepped into his path. "You're just going to let him get away with that?" Xander demanded. "Does it matter that I don't want him anywhere near Buffy or Dawn or Willow? Does it matter that I don't want him messing with Anya's store? Why is everyone so concerned all of a sudden about how Spike feels? Am I the only one who remembers that he's a vampire?"

"I haven't forgotten," Buffy said as she walked back toward the group. She looked toward Spike. "I don't think I could ever forget that."

Spike smiled ever so slightly. "Don't think I've ever asked you to."

She held his gaze for a moment longer before turning toward Xander. "As to the other…Spike's helped us enough that we should show him some common courtesy. All of us have been somewhat deficient in that area."

Giles felt his eyebrows rise at Buffy's use of the word "deficient." It was all too easy to forget there was a bright and clever girl beneath the California Blonde."

"But it's Spike," Xander protested.

"Who helped me stop Acathla, wouldn't tell Glory about Dawn despite the torture and helped keep the vampire population down while I was dead. Has he screwed up? Big-time yes. But since he's working for Giles and we will probably need his help at some point, maybe we should play nice for once. He at least deserves that."

It wasn't one of Buffy's infamous "he's my boyfriend, nobody touches him," speeches Giles had heard during the years she'd dated Angel, although it might as well have been, given the way Spike was looking at her. It did, however, prove she had been thinking about he'd said during her time alone in the training room. Xander's mouth hung open as she turned toward Willow. "Anything of interest besides Warren's twisted idea of entertainment?"

Willow looked a bit shaken, her eyes darting from Buffy to Xander then back again. "After that, uh, surprise, I turned off the sound and started scanning the discs. Most of it's files and maps; it'll take me some time to go through them. Unfortunately…" She picked a disc up off the table and extended it toward Xander. "It looks like Warren made a disc of stuff the camera picked up in your apartment. It's you and Anya."

Xander went pale. He'd never been good at hiding his emotions and they all played out across his face now: shock, anger, pain, sorrow. That his hand trembled slightly as he took the disc from Willow was not surprising; that he managed to control it as well as he did was. Much as Spike had, he stared at the offending object before looking up. At that moment, he was an easy target, feelings open and raw for any to poke at…and the most obvious person to take advantage of that was standing right behind Giles.

Spike said nothing; merely took the trash basket Tara still held and offered it. Xander looked at him, looked at the disc and dropped it in. Spike gave a tight nod and returned the basket to its place behind the counter.

"I want to hurt them," Xander said to Buffy. "I just feel…that they would have a camera…that he'd keep it…"

He trailed off as Buffy patted him on the arm. "Believe me, I understand," she told him. "We're going to stop this."

"So what's the plan?" Spike asked as he rejoined the group. Xander grimaced slightly, but didn't offer up one of his usual comments about Spike not being involved.

"Get through this stuff and try to figure out what they're going to do next, I imagine." Buffy turned to Giles. "You can handle the magic things, can't you? Willow and I can haul the maps and stuff home."

"Are we sure we've gotten through all the pornography?" Dawn's voice came from the front of the store. "I mean, sounds like there is stuff I would definitely prefer not to see. Don't need the visuals."

Buffy looked at Willow. "It's all clear, Dawnie," Willow called out. "Looks like the rest of the discs are just data. Except for these three," she added in a much lower voice. "Regular porn. Can someone get rid of them?"

Spike took them off her hands and headed back toward the counter. Tara hovered for a moment, looking as if she wanted to say something, but went to join Spike, leaving Giles with Buffy, Willow and Xander. "Now that we've tracked them to their lair, I fear time may be of the essence," Giles suggested. "We need to move as quickly as we can."

"I think you're right, Giles. Willow, any ideas yet?"

Willow shook her head at Buffy's question. "Still trying to sort through this stuff. Some of it's schematics, others are maps, some are lists. It's going to take a few days - maybe longer."

"Just do the best you can. Until we figure out what he's up to, all we can do is wait." Buffy sighed and brought her hands up to massage the back of her neck. "God, I'm glad I don't have to go into work today."

Giles offered a smile. "If it's any consolation, I don't think slaying and flipping burgers were ever meant to mix." He patted her on the shoulder. "You did well today. Even in the face of…well, that little discovery."

Her face went hard in a way he found disturbing. "Oh, Warren's going to pay for that — don't worry. I'm tired of us being his little action figures he can move around whenever he wants."

An uncomfortable silence settled over the group, broken only when Xander spoke. "Why don't I grab some boxes so this stuff will be easier to carry? Empties still down in the basement?"

"Yes. I believe Spike keeps…well, the mail-order supplies are down there. Take what you need."

When he'd finished with Xander, Giles realized Buffy had wandered back to the last bay of the shop once more. He considered following for some private conversation, but caught sight of Spike moving out of the corner of his eye, apparently set on the same course. For a moment, he considered intervening; the two needed to work out their differences, but he wasn't at all sure he could stand much more of the high drama both seemed to thrive on.

Then, Spike reached out and gently touched Buffy's shoulder. She turned, her expression showing she didn't want to be disturbed, but there was a softening as she acknowledged his presence. Giles couldn't hear the words, but watched them as they spoke, both struggling. More than once Spike looked toward the ceiling as if searching for guidance or inspiration, while Buffy studied the pattern of the linoleum. While there was tension between them, neither relaxed nor comfortable, their voices did not raise and there were no angry gestures. When Spike caught her hands between his, Buffy did not protest but looked up at him, her eyes seeking comfort. Spike seemed to speak a bit more fervently in response and ended by raising her hands to his lips and pressing a kiss upon them.

It was an intimate, private moment and Giles turned away, not wishing to bear witness to it any more than he had wished to see what Warren had placed on that disc…and found Dawn behind him, her face split with a grin that stretched from ear to ear. "I think they would like a little privacy," he suggested.

"I think the building could fall down around them and they wouldn't notice." However, she let him lead her away as Xander emerged from the basement, armed with boxes. Buffy and Spike could not have been completely unaware of what was going on around them, as they also emerged, Buffy heading toward the table to help box things up and Spike returning to the work of closing the shop for the evening. Every so often, Giles noticed, one or the other would look over to where the other was. The one time they both looked at the same time, Spike's smile probably could have illuminated most of downtown Sunnydale.

Locking them in a room together would probably not be a good idea at this point.

***

"Are you sure it's safe for us to come back?" Andrew whined. "The Slayer might be waiting for us."

"She's not going to be waiting for us," Warren answered sharply. "She and her little friends are probably off celebrating. We need to see what they left behind."

Jonathon didn't say anything, but he agreed with Andrew that coming back wasn't such a good idea. Whatever he had in that basement wasn't worth the possibility of getting caught. That included the action figures.

Of course, if he could get the action figures, maybe he could sell them off and raise enough money to get him out of town. He had an aunt who lived in Cleveland; he could go there and start over. Greyhound couldn't cost that much.

The basement was a mess. Papers lay on the floor, shelves emptied of their items. "They took Boba Fett!" Andrew wailed.

That had probably been Xander. He was the only one of the group who might appreciate the value of the item. "Looks like everything's pretty much a total loss," Jonathon said. "Maybe we should just get out of here."

"Check your magic stuff, Frodo. I wanna know how much they took. Great, they found the bot."

"I guess the Slayer won't be too happy about that, huh? Wait, here's Boba."

As he tried to sort through the mess, Jonathon realized Andrew and Warren never called Buffy by her name. She was always the Slayer, as if that was her title. Well, it was, but she was a person as well, someone he knew. And she'd found the bot. If she ever figured out he'd had anything to do with that, Jonathon knew he was a dead man. Why had he kept that picture, the one he'd had taken of the three of them when they were under his spell? Since it had a physical reality of its own, the picture hadn't disappeared like most of the other items. Maybe he'd kept it because Buffy was actually smiling at him more than Riley, something he'd always wanted to happen. Then Warren had seen it, asked who Riley was and the plan had been formed.

Like everything else, it had gone wrong.

"They got all my books, everything," he said at last. "Mr. Giles probably saw to that."

"And they got all the computer discs I had sitting by the computer." Warren sighed. "Just great."

"All the discs?" Andrew asked. "I had the "Best of Crypt Cam" sitting there."

They were so dead.

"Well, if you think I'm going to just pack it in and let them get the best of me, you're sadly mistaken." Warren began rummaging in a box, extracting what looked like a remote control. Brandishing it, he announced, "We're going to get the stuff back and make sure they think twice about coming after us."

Go on to Episode 9: Retribution

Go back to Episode 7: Searching