A/N: Thanks to everyone who’s reviewed or favorited this story so far! I’m glad people are enjoying it. ) This chapter turned out longer than I’d really planned, but when Lorne grabs onto a scene, sometimes he just won’t let go … Hope you enjoy!

So deep in your room, you never leave your room;

Something deep inside of me, yearning deep inside of me,

Talking through the gloom,

What in the world can you do?

What in the world can you do?

-David Bowie, “What in the World”

Bethan slept straight through the first day and night. Her sobs had slowly subsided, and by the time they had gotten her home, she barely stirred as Clio changed her into pajamas and tucked her into bed. It was strange, Clio thought, how the other woman could look so frail, without any weight loss or injury or apparent illness at all. But she seemed barely there, somehow, and almost transparent – Clio would have been unsurprised to lay a hand on Bethan’s shoulder and find it resting on the mattress underneath instead.

Dante wanted to call a doctor, or an ambulance. Clio explained as best she could that most hospitals weren’t equipped to deal with sickness of the supernatural variety. Dante grew more and more frustrated, and then Spike and Clio had to extinguish Bethan’s coffee table.

It was at this juncture that Clio pointed out that Bethan had books – piles and piles of them, many in very strange and very old bindings. Most of the ones that didn’t have to do with science were not written in English – not modern English, at the very least – nor any of the other five languages Clio had taught herself since arriving in Cleveland. This caused Spike to pace around cursing for several minutes, before making a rapid series of phone calls. The first was short and to-the-point: “Not in the mood to chat. I just need a phone number. No, I haven’t got around to it yet … Okay, you have the country code on that? Yeah, all right, thanks. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

The second call was longer, and as soon as Spike introduced himself to the person on the other end of the line, Clio could hear a woman’s voice – high-pitched and speaking fast – coming through the earpiece. “Yeah, I know. Should’ve called. Didn’t. Well, but—hey! Leave off, Red, I was busy saving the world, again. No, you’ll do no such thing.” Spike looked over his shoulder Clio’s level gaze, and put one hand over his mouth to muffle his words as he trotted off to continue the conversation in Bethan’s flat’s bathroom. “ … what you think … None of your sodding … already. Yeah, fine, I’ll … eight two nine … Yes. Sure. I’ve got … won’t tell her. Right? Okay.” He pushed open the bathroom door. “Yeah, I’ll keep in touch better. Sure, Christmas cards and everything. Take care of yourself, hedge-witch.”

Clio saw Spike hesitate a moment before he punched in the third number. “I need to talk to Giles. Yeah, I’ll hold. Who’s calling? Uh … tell him it’s Randy.”

Randy? Dante mouthed across the room. Clio shrugged.

Spike was pacing around the room now, peering closely at the bookshelves. “Yeah, it’s me. Let’s keep the tearful reunion to a minimum, yeah? Wasn’t ever much love lost between us before I died, and I hate to break with tradition. Listen, I need a quick favor, and then I’ll be on my merry way. I’ve got the standard ‘supernatural coma, no obvious cure’ situation and a pile of weird old books that I can’t read. I can track down a translator eventually, but I need to know which of these things is worth pawing through. Yeah, perfect.” He began stumbling through the pronunciations of various titles, making his way down one shelf at a time. Clio studied the covers of the few books he pitched onto a pile in the middle of the room: Brihat-Samhita, Lorica, Hibernia Saecula …

The phone conversation was finally terminated with a brief word of thanks; Spike hung up and tossed the phone onto the couch. “Right,” he said. “So let’s get started.”

For the rest of that first day, they paged carefully through the fragile old books, looking for images or diagrams that might give them a hint of what they were looking for – anything that would let them know they were on the right track. Often Spike would head out for an hour or two at a time, combing the streets for a tip toward someone who could help them decipher the strange things they found – without luck.

On the second day, Clio dug Bethan’s work planner out of her backpack. There was a department meeting penciled in for noon; Dante called the building’s administrative assistant, and explained that Bethan’s emergency appendectomy would keep her out of the lab for some time now. Then it was back to the books.

It was well into the evening of the third day when Dante slammed a book down onto the floor in front of him. “This is insane,” he announced. “We need Bethan to figure out what’s wrong with Bethan. We’re just stumbling around in the dark like idiots … who are also in the dark. Without flashlights.”

“Perhaps,” Clio said, her eyes not leaving the book as she rapidly flipped through pages, looking for a familiar marking of some kind. “Or perhaps it will just take more time. Thirty-one hours and fourteen minutes of work is not a particularly large unit of time.”

Spike sighed and shoved a large leather-bound volume off of his lap. “Dante might be right. I can’t chase down a translator, and without Sleeping Beauty in there to tell us what’s wrong with her, we’re about as useful as a chocolate teapot.”

“We should still keep looking.” Clio paused to look up from her book. “There is nothing else we can do. I would like to help her, if it is in our power to do so. She has been kind to us, when it would have been in her evolutionary best interests not to do so.”

“Oh, god.” Spike rolled his eyes. “You’ve discovered the Nature Channel, then, have you?”

“Yeah, Clio, she’s been really great, which is why we need her to fix her. I mean, really.” Dante waved his hand at the ink drawing on the page in front of him – a more detailed version of the little dragon that appeared on the Welsh flag hung in Bethan’s lab. “Stupid squiggles and words that might not even mean anything, and we’re supposed to tell this difference? It’s useless!”

With an angry noise, he ripped the page free. All three of them jumped as a stream of brightly-colored sparks flickered up to the ceiling from the damaged binding. They watched, open-mouthed, as the sparks drifted back down and fizzled into nothingness. “Oops,” said Dante.

“Well, I never,” said a hoarse voice. Clio craned her neck to see Bethan herself, leaning on the doorframe. The older woman had thrown a ratty bathrobe over her pajamas, and still looked a little worse for the wear – but better than she had looked in those sewer tunnels. “I take a little nap, and straight off you go messing up my stuff. Some thanks I get for taking you into my home.”

“Beff!” Dante jumped to his feet and almost tripped over a footstool as he rushed over to her. “You’re not dying anymore!”

“I was never dying,” she protested, but returned his hug. “I just have low blood sugar, that’s all.”

Clio raised her eyebrows.

“Very low blood sugar,” said Bethan firmly. Her tone dared them to contradict her. When they didn’t, she moved across the room, supported by Dante’s arm, to the piece of paper he’d thrown on the floor. She picked it up and unfolded it as she dropped to a seat on the couch. “Oh, bother.”

“What? What is it?” Spike demanded. “Don’t tell me. Another irritating and probably unsolvable problem?”

Dante gave Bethan a sly look. “He’s just grumpy because he had to call in favors on this one.”

“Favors? For me?” Bethan’s hand flew to her throat, and she fluttered her eyelashes in a poor parody of a Southern belle. “You weren’t worried about me, by any chance, I suppose?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Well.” Bethan smoothed the wrinkled sheet on her lap. “Irritating, this might well be. Unsolvable? I’d hope not.” She held up the page, which was now entirely blank. “I’m afraid Dante’s set loose a bad luck sprite.”

Dante withered a little under the blistering looks he got from Spike and Dante. “I didn’t do on purpose.”

“Do you ever?” Spike muttered, and began pacing. “So, what now? The entire city is blasted with a wave of stubbed toes, unwanted pregnancies, and misplaced decimals?”

“No,” said Bethan, and watched innocently as Spike slipped on the tile floor and laid himself out flat on his back. “Just us. Excepting the unwanted pregnancies, I should hope.”

Bethan’s door buzzer sounded, causing all four of them to startle. “Great,” said Dante. “The mail’s here – paper cuts all around. No, no, don’t get up, I’ll get it.” He strode across the room and grabbed the doorknob. “Hey! I didn’t get an electric shock. Worst bad luck sprite ever.”

He flung open the door, and let out a shriek. “Monster! There’s a monster ringing your doorbell!”

“Now listen, sweet cheeks,” said a voice from the hallway. “I’ll have you know, it’s a buzzer, not a doorbell.”

Spike’s mouth fell open. “That’s not—”

“Spike, you old dog, you are here! Looks like I greased the right palms after all.” Nudging past a still-gaping Dante, a fabulous-looking monster sashayed into Bethan’s flat. He was dressed in a bright salmon-colored suit under his trenchcoat and fedora – the whole thing clashed horribly with his bright green skin. “Long time no see! Uh … hm. Am I interrupting something? Naptime, maybe?”

“Lorne,” said Spike, climbing to his feet. “How … unexpected. Aren’t you supposed to be playing to a packed house in Vegas around now?”

The creature tut-tutted as he doffed his coat and hat and tossed them onto a nearby chair. “Even stars deserve a vacation now and again, n’est-ce pas? I tell you, if Kermit had half as good a gig he would’ve been singing something different about being green.”

“So this is … a Lorne demon?” Dante asked nervously, letting the door close. “Is this one of those situations where thanks to amnesia I’m just not socially-equipped to know what to do, or is it actually just really weird?”

“It’s not a Lorne demon,” said Spike, “it’s just Lorne.”

“Just Lorne! A little chilly of an introduction for an old friend, don’t you think?”

“Spike has old friends?” Bethan asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, yeah!” Lorne took the seat on the couch next to her. “It just so happens that the Little Vampire That Could and I have saved the world together more times than you can count on one foot.” He shrugged. “Assuming you only have two toes. Which I do. So who are these new friends of yours, Spike?”

Dante folded his arms. “Hang on. We just woke up a bad luck sprite. Getting a visit from an old friend is not supposed to be a bad luck thing, is it?”

“Well …” Spike looked thoughtful for a moment. “Yeah. I guess not.”

“So he must have turned evil!” Dante concluded, looking thunderously pleased with himself. He rounded on Lorne. “Admit it. You’re evil, aren’t you? Aren’t you?”

Clio shot Lorne an apologetic look, but the demon just shrugged. “No more evil than the next person, and no better either. Just another person, passing through this life as best I can.” He rubbed thoughtfully at one of his horns. “The vampire that was following me through town, on the other hand … pretty much your standard, one hundred percent evil type.”

“You let a vampire follow you here?” said Bethan, sounded horrified. “Oh, shite. In the state I’m in?”

“The state of dress you’re in, maybe,” said Lorne, casting a keen eye over her dress. “That bathrobe has seen better days, dear.”

“She has low blood sugar,” said Clio, interceding politely.

“Uh-huh,” Lorne said, and turned back to Spike. “But listen, Nilla Wafer, I need some serious help. I planned for this to be just a friendly visit, but that’s going to be seriously strained if I wind up with two holes in my jugular.” He tugged a little at his cravat, looking around. “Hey, any chance of a drink for a weary traveler?”

“Water, beer, or blood?” asked Bethan.

“Blood?” Lorne blinked. “Ohhh, sheesh, you big green lug! Should’ve realized you were shacking up with Spike. Those cheekbones are hard to resist, aren’t they?”

“Lorne,” said Spike, from between gritted teeth. “We are not ‘shacking up’. Me and the little bits are just staying here before I get on my feet in a new city.”

“Oh, really? Well, more’s the pity, she looks like a sweetie. I’ll have to make you sing for me later, sweetheart.”

“Excuse me?” said Bethan, her eyes narrowed.

Spike pulled Bethan up from the couch by one elbow and transferred her to a chair farther away from Lorne. “He means that in a very literal way. Lorne’s an empath demon.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Clio. “Like that woman who was working for Lilith – Mellorskith.”

“Cousin Mellorskith!” Lorne slapped one knee. “She’s here in this dimension? What’s she up to these days?”

“Umm …” Spike grimaced. “Being evil, mostly.”

Dante dug a toe into the carpet. “We kind of … killed her a little.”

“Huh.” Lorne shrugged. “She always was a bad apple anyway. A bad apple among bad apples. One huge, smelly, rotten bad apple pie. How about that beer, anyway?”

…

Seated around the still-uncleared wreckage of Bethan’s kitchen table (trying to move it had resulted in a humiliating number of slivers) Spike, Dante, and Clio tried to explain their lifestyle to Lorne, while getting the whole story from him on the vampire who had been stalking him. Bethan excused herself to take a shower and change into clean, non-bathrobe clothes.

“Yeesh,” said Lorne. He tipped back his beer bottle and let the last few drops trickle out. No Sex on the Beach, but it’ll do. “My complete and total bad. I didn’t realize your lady-friend was such a big deal in vampire-dom around here, or I wouldn’t have led Vampire Bitch straight here. On the bright side, all this goober knows is that his prey – me – is here, not that she is. I mean, maybe he couldn’t even get inside! I had to sweet-talk my way into the building, and vamps aren’t really known for their affability. Present company slightly excepted.”

“Well, I vote we play our cards close to the chest, then,” said Dante, then hesitated. “That’s a thing people say, right? What I mean is, let’s stay locked up in here until we’re given a reason not to. Vampires don’t seem like the kind of guys into putting in enough effort to go door-to-door looking for dinner. And even if they did, there’s got to be easier prey out there than a big green demon guy.”

Lorne guffawed. “Well, I’m flattered, lambkin, but I think you’d be hard pressed to find a bigger puddle of screaming damsel-in-distress than yours truly.” He looked around. “Speaking of puddles, I don’t supposed there’s a spare restroom in this joint?”

“Beff’s a total bathroom hog,” said Dante philosophically. “Just go bang on the door until she hurries up and finishes. That’s what I do.” He didn’t see Clio roll her eyes.

“Charming,” Lorne muttered, and excused himself.

He hurried in the direction Dante had pointed out to him – along the ugly, beige-carpeted hallway all the way to the back, last door on the right. He raised one hand to knock, and then froze.

Bethan was singing softly to herself.

Lorne didn’t recognize the song, or even the words – it was too soft for him to make out anything more than the melody. That was, however, enough. In one startling and discomfort-inducing flash, he knew Bethan’s secret.

The singing stopped abruptly. It was another moment before Bethan slowly opened the door and peered out. She was clad only in jeans and a sports bra, with a towel over her hair. “Oh,” she said. “Well. That didn’t take long, did it? Of all the cack-handed … Fucking bad luck sprite.”

“I don’t … uh … wow. Um. You’ve struck me speechless, dumpling, and that’s a feat in itself. So they’ve got no idea?”

“None.” She pulled the towel off her head and tossed it over the shower bar. “Well, I don’t think so, anyway. No one’s said anything about it, but then again it’s not the sort of thing that comes up in casual conversation, now is it? Where’s my damn shirt?”

“I suppose not,” said Lorne slowly, ignoring the second question. “But it might be a good idea, for what I would think are obvious reasons. Low blood sugar, my green buttcheek!”

“It’s enough to get by on, for now,” said Bethan defensively. She fished a green t-shirt out from under the sink. “These three need me. They like me, and they want me around. That helps. And it doesn’t feel right, otherwise. Like cheating. Like coercing it. There’s those who don’t mind getting it that way, but I’m not one of them. Gives me the collywobbles, it does. Besides …” She shrugged into the shirt, and stretched languorously. “You’ll be around a bit, and you know what’s what. That’s enough to get me by for a long stretch, these days. And when you’re gone, and that’s run thin, I’ll find my way clear. There are places left.”

“So, what? You’ll just be up and gone one day, no explanation?” Lorne shook his head. “You’re not one of the benevolent ones, then, I take it.”

“Nope.” Bethan combed through her hair with her fingers quickly, checked herself in the mirror. “I just am. There you are, then – I’m all done. Help yourself to the cludge.” She grabbed his elbow as he started to move past. “And Lorne – thank you. For believing in me.”

Shaking his head, Lorne shut the door behind him. What a flock of loons, he thought. The things a guy has to put up with for the sake of old friends …

As he washed his hands and dried the sink, he noticed the sound of raised voices from the other end of the flat, and cringed. “Ugh. What are they arguing about now?”

He opened the bathroom door, stopped, and stared. There is a vampire in the apartment. She is not Spike. She is a non-Spike vampire. Why is there a non-Spike vampire in the apartment?

The yelling, as it turned out, was not in fact a group argument, but was directed mainly at the invading vampire. Spike, Clio, Dante, and Bethan all had stakes taken from the broken kitchen table, but apparently none of them had been successful at actually getting them into the other vampire so far. As Lorne watched, Clio lunged at the vampire with a violent stabbing motion … only to slip on a banana peel, sending her flopping well out of the creature’s reach.

“Why is there a banana peel?!” wailed Dante. “We don’t have any bananas in the house!”

“Do I re-eally have t-to expla-ain it?” stuttered Bethan, apparently between a crippling round of hiccups. “Ba-ad luck spr-rites loo-oove bana-ana peels. Cla-assic trope.” Seeing her chance, she heaved a stake at the vampire’s chest, missed by three feet, and buried it in the plaster of the living room wall instead. “Oh, bo-ollocks.”

The vampire hissed, and launched a re-doubled attack on the hapless Dante, who flailed helplessly with a table leg, which shattered instantly when it connected with the vampire’s fist.

“Dante!” shouted Spike. He was pulling as hard as he could at the edge of his coat, which was stuck between the couch and the wall. “Flame on, already!”

“I can’t!” Dante crawled between the female vampire’s legs to get away from her as Clio managed to successfully land a punch on the monster’s head. “I might hurt someone – someone not evil!”

“Oww,” groaned Clio, “my hand …”

“Look out!” screeched Bethan, and leapt across the room to shove Spike out of the way of the other vampire’s attack. Unfortunately, her bare toes caught in the carpeting, and the two of them flipped over the arm of the couch, landing on the cushions on the other side. “Oof,” she said, before realizing that she was sprawled out on Spike’s chest, with her face an inch over his. “Um. Hi.”

“Uh,” said Spike, “hi?”

“No time like the present,” she said, and planted a kiss on him before jumping to her feet. “Okay. Back to killing monsters now.”

“Hey,” said Dante, “that was really good luck! You must’ve broken the curse with the Kiss of True Lust or something. Now let’s take care of the creepy critter. Hiii-yah!” He thrust the point of his broken table leg at the vampire’s heart, but she snatched the implement out of his hands and swung it into him like a baseball player gunning for a home run. “Uurgh,” said Dante, and crumpled to the floor.

“Fook,” said Bethan, and dodged a similar attack. “Gah! Clio, where are you?”

“Coming,” came the ridiculously calm reply. There was the sound of cupboards rattling, and then a light rapping noise. Clio came trotting out of the kitchen, carrying a wooden cutting board.

Immediately the vampire lunged at this new target. Clio didn’t hesitate to deliver a jumping kick to the woman’s face, sending her flying. Following her across the room, Clio lifted one foot high, and brought it down across the vampire’s face, knocking her head solidly against the wall. Clio retrieved a broken stake, and drove it through the vampire’s chest with one hand.

Lorne was still watching through his hands as the monster crumpled to dust. Clio then trotted across the room to Dante, and held out the cutting board. “Knock on wood,” she informed him.

He did, and got unsteadily to his feet – but without tripping or slipping. Clio went across the room and held out the board for Spike and Bethan to do the same. They wordlessly obeyed her, and Spike found himself able to pull his coat free from its trap.

“You could have just take it off, you know,” Bethan pointed out, as Lorne joined them in the living room and Clio went to go put the board back in the kitchen. Spike ignored her in favor of pulling a cigarette out of one pocket.

“Hey, check this out.” Dante stooped down in the corner and picked up the crumpled piece of paper that Bethan had discarded earlier. He smoothed it out against one wall, so that everyone else could also see the ink lines redrawing themselves across the page. When it was finished, the dragon picture had rather a smug expression on its little beaked face.

“Cheeky bugger,” muttered Bethan. “I should’ve guessed.” She took the page back from Dante and placed it back into the book it had originally come from. The sheet sealed itself back into the binding with a bright streak of light, so that it looked like it had never been damaged at all.

“Is it always this much fun around here?” Loren asked, and rubbed a hand over his face. “Geez. I might never want to go home at this rate.”

“There’s more beer in the fridge, Green Genes,” Spike said. “Knock yourself out.”

…

Two hours later, Lorne was passed out on the couch, with Clio and Dante curled up together in Bethan’s biggest and comfiest armchair. They’d all passed out shortly after getting the mess from the vampire attack cleaned up (and after emptying the multiple beer bottles littering the living room). Spike and Bethan settled for the remaining kitchen chairs, watching their wards sleep.

“I still don’t get why she was able to get in here,” Spike muttered, sloshing the last ounce of beer around his bottle. He set it aside, glaring at nothing in particular. “I didn’t hear anyone say ‘come on in, we’d like to be bitten now, thanks!’ Did you?”

“Eh,” said Bethan, lolling in the hard-backed chair as best she could. “I guess this manky old flat has never felt much like home to me. Not surprised she didn’t need my say-so to drop in like that.” She frowned into the bottom of her empty glass. “I wonder – how does it work with hotel rooms, and such?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Spike. “I’ve eaten tons of people in hotel rooms.” He caught himself, looking suddenly guarded. “Used to, that is.”

“Ah, come off it. We’ve all got a used-to or twelve in our past somewhere. Otherwise we’d be a fearsomely boring lot.” She picked up Spike’s unattended beverage and downed what remained in it.

“Yeah? So what’s yours?”

“Well, you know. I used to have this silly one-sided crush on a vampire with a soul, of all things.” She grinned into the now-empty bottle.

“Used to?” He smirked. “What, my incredibly manly display of defense against the invading baddie wasn’t enough to light your fire?”

“Used to have a one-sided crush,” she repeated, and set the bottle aside.

“Ah.”

“Yes, well, I know perfectly well you find me attractive only because you think I’m all strange and dangerous and such. Which, to be fair, I rather am. And I know equally well that I’m not your little Slayer-thing. And I’m quite sure you know that too.”

“Yeah. Okay.” He raised one eyebrow. “So where does that leave us, then?”

“My guess?” She got up from her chair and settled onto his lap, one leg on each side. “That leaves us with … a regular bickering companion. Good sex. A warm bed. That good enough for you? For now?”

“I think …”

She kissed him for the second time that night. She had a strong smell, so close to him, she always did even after a shower, and then there’d been the fight too – she smelled like sweat and adrenaline, and like malty beer and the peppers she’d picked off Dante’s cold pizza, and then there was that underlying metallic smell, like that of a far-off smith’s forge – the smell of blood.

Spike pulled back, pursed his lips, shrugged. “If you can avoid being quite so bloody Welsh, then …yeah. Good enough.”

Bethan nodded seriously. “Better than a slap in the face with a wet kipper, huh?”