Spike was waiting for her, Eddie still unconscious but now swaddled in Spike's T-shirt, in the little stone court that led to Giles' apartment. As soon as he saw her break from the shadows, a delighted, adrenaline-fueled grin lit up his face.

"Helluva girl, you are," he chortled.

She grinned back. "Part of me can't believe I just did that."

Eddie gave a mewling little whimper and twitched in Spike's grasp. Buffy and Spike broke off their relieved, jubilant shared grins to check on him.

"Better get this little one back to his mum, then." He turned to leave when Buffy stopped him with a hand on his arm, and he faced her with a questioning expression.

"Here, lemme hold him for a second while you put your coat on. Don't want you causing any wrecks with that blindingly white body of yours."

"Think I'm a show-stopper, do you?" He leered at her, but his lascivious expression was belied by the care with which he entrusted Eddie to her grasp. While his attention was distracted, she took the opportunity to look him over. Long, smooth muscles flexed and rolled underneath pale skin, webbed with a delicate tracery of lighter scars. She felt herself start to blush and was relieved when he shrugged into his duster.

"More like a giant glow-worm, but take it as you will," she retorted as she restored Eddie to his care. "Come back once you're sure he's safe, okay?"

He just looked at her, nodded, and left.

Buffy shook off the strange, unsettled feeling that was blossoming in her stomach and turned to knock on Giles' door.

The response was swift, as if he had been waiting on her arrival, but the surprise on his face was genuine.

"Buffy! What are you doing here?" He stepped aside to welcome her in, and portal-Buffy gave her a little wave from her position on the sofa. Almost immediately after Giles closed the door, someone else knocked.

"Please, come in," Giles motioned Xander and Willow, who looked slightly sheepish under Buffy's questioning gaze, into the room.

"Scooby meeting and I'm not invited," Buffy pouted.

"Didn't exactly have a means of contacting you," portal-Buffy pointed out. "God, I don't know how we lived before cell-phones."

"Quite," Giles affirmed, and indicated that everyone should be seated.

"So what's the sitch, then?" Buffy asked, curling up on the opposite end of the sofa from her futuristic counter-part.

"First, why don't you tell us why you decided to come calling at," Giles checked the clock on his mantelpiece, "eleven-thirty at night?"

"Fair enough. Spike and I were patrolling -" portal-Buffy cut her off.

"He patrols with you already?"

"Hey, I was bored! And so not the point. Anyway, we were going through Lindyhurst when we heard voices. We checked it out, and there was a group of Initiative soldiers - Riley included - standing around this little demon boy. They'd tasered him, and he was burnt pretty bad. They were gonna take him with them, which is just all kinds of wrong -" this time it was Xander who interrupted.

"Why's it wrong? I mean, demon. Bad, yeah?"

"Xander, he's like, six! What's he gonna get up to? And Spike knew him, said that Clem was a really good guy who just happened to be non-human."

"Uh, hate to break in here, but Clem's a hell of a lot older than six." Buffy was leaning forward, hands on her knees.

"You know this Clem?" Giles asked. "You associate with demons?"

"Says the guy who kept a vampire in his bathroom," portal-Buffy retorted. "Yeah, Clem's good people. One of Spike's friends, and he used to baby-sit Dawn." She fixed Giles with a heavy stare. "Things happened - pretty soon, now, too - that really put paid to my whole bad demon/good human dynamic. And as the guy who spent years buddying around London with Ethan Rayne, I really don't think you can argue that."

Buffy spoke again before Giles could respond. "It wasn't Clem, it was his nephew, Eddie."

"I never knew Clem had a nephew," portal-Buffy said.

"Probably because, if Spike and I hadn't waited for you, we would have been through that cemetery and gone before Riley and his friends took him out." Buffy frowned. "Which was just weird, by the way. I mean, I thought Riley was a good guy, but he was just standing around this little kid with burns all over his back, waiting to get picked up."

"Riley... is a good guy," portal-Buffy offered. "Unfortunately, he's also very easily led. And Professor Walsh is very good at leading."

"Um," Buffy twisted her hands in her lap. "How do he and I, y'know, work out?"

Giles interrupted before portal-Buffy could answer. "Your... Riley is a member of the Initiative?"

Buffy turned to look at him. "Oops?" She offered.

Giles rolled his eyes. "Lovely. This will make everything so much easier."

Portal-Buffy grinned. "Yeah, my Giles wasn't thrilled when he found out, either. But then, I think he was just peeved at being out of the loop."

"Why's our Giles' peevage different?" Xander asked. The other three turned to look at him and Willow, who had almost been forgotten in the exchange of information.

"Because I know more about exactly what the Initiative means to do than my counterpart, I believe. Although I have to admit, not being told is rather disheartening."

"Sorry, Giles. Just, everything's been so busy, y'know? I just found out when the Gentlemen were in town."

"That was weeks ago!"

"Look, I'm sorry! But right now, really not the big issue. What I want to know is: is my boyfriend evil?"

"Again," Xander coughed.

Portal-Buffy sighed. "Hell. I don't really know how much to tell you."

"I'm guessing from your lack of squee that he's not the long-haul guy," Buffy responded. "Just. Tell me if me being with him hurts my friends."

"Again I say 'hell'." Portal-Buffy stood, and beckoned to Buffy. "C'mon. This is private time."

Buffy just shrugged and followed her out the front door, leaving Giles to interrogate Xander and Willow about Riley's role in the Initiative.

"So, what's the what?" Buffy asked once they were outside of the range of the porch-light's feeble reach.

For a long moment, portal-Buffy just stared at her feet. When she finally spoke, her voice was soft. "I know that, right now, you want more than pretty much anything to be normal. The first man to break your heart was a vampire, and part of you thinks that that's why he didn't stay. But it's not true," she emphasized. "Angel didn't stay because he has to be the leader, but you're always gonna be the hero. Angel the man left you, not Angel the vampire. And then Parker fucked you over, and you're not sure about where you stand with Riley. But understand me," she turned to face Buffy, steel in her voice and eyes. "You will never be normal. You will fight, and you will slay; you will laugh and love and be happy. But dressing yourself in the trappings of normalcy when even your very human best friends don't feel that need?"

"What do you mean?" Buffy asked.

"Look. They love you, you love them, all's well and good. But Willow dated a werewolf, and her next lover isn't exactly your standard co-ed. And Xander dated Cordelia, of all people, and is now getting horizontal with an ex-demon who outdates your first vampire honey by almost a millenium. Both of them keep fighting, keep trying to save the world, and even though there are some rough patches, they stick by you. But part of the reason you want to be normal, kid, is because they tell you that you should be. But you have a calling - and I know you hate it when you hear that, but bear with me; I'm not talking about prophecies and destiny and all that crap. I'm talking about the kind of thing that draws Xander to carpentry, to helping people, the kind of thing that gets under Willow's skirt when she works her mojo. The kind of thing that makes you love the night."

"I don't -" Buffy protested, but was cut off.

"You do. And you will spend the next four years of your life trying to separate yourself from the Slayer, trying to squish it down and make it just a job, feeling guilty because you've seen how far you have to fall. But trust me. You are not Faith. Slaying gets your blood up, makes you hungry and horny, sure, but you do it for a reason. Not just because a bunch of old dudes in the desert a million years ago ordained that there was to be one girl in all the world and you got stuck with the check, but because every time you save the world, you save Xander, and Willow, and Giles, your mom and sister, Spike..." She cut herself off before she could list the others that were always on her own mental tally of loved ones.

"You save the world for Spike?" Buffy asked, eyes wide.

Portal-Buffy sighed. "I used to," she gave a little half-grin that was more sorrow than joy, and shrugged. "Then he saved it for me."

"I did what?" Both girls dropped into defensive positions; they had been so intent on their conversation that they hadn't paid heed to the sensory signals of an approaching vampire. When they recognized the voice, they both relaxed - Spike was surprised to notice that the Buffy from his time did so as quickly as the one from the future.

"Bugger." Spike had re-claimed his T-shirt, so only his head stood out from the darkness as he approached. "Why'd I go and do a damn fool thing like that?"

"For dog-racing and Man U, mostly. It's not like you haven't done it before." Portal-Buffy spun the joke, but Spike saw through it.

"Last time I did it for Dru, and I knew I'd most likely get out alive. Sounded like this time around, I wasn't so lucky."

Portal-Buffy shook her head. "Look, what happened, isn't gonna happen here. Or if it does, it's because I screwed up and you forgot I even came. So whether or not you died really isn't relevant." She turned to head back inside, but Spike's voice caught her.

"Did I choose it?" There was hope in it, and no little fear, and it pulled at her gut.

"Yes," she whispered, and he let her go.

Buffy and Spike just stood together for an interminable five minutes before she finally broke the silence.

"So. You get Eddie home alright?" It was a nervous offering, but Spike clung to it gladly.

"Yeah, he came around by the time I got there; scored us an invite to movie night, too. Gertie - 's Clem's mum - was supposed to be babysitting, but Eddie snuck out to follow his folks on their date. Don't know how he ended up in Lindyhurst, though. Anyway, Gertie invited us for dinner to say thanks, and Clem offered to make an evening of it with some films or some such. Didn't know if you'd be interested, but I told them I'd tell you about it."

Buffy looked at him. His hands were wedged in his pockets and he stood pigeon-toed, looking up at her through his lashes. When he realized she was looking back, he snapped erect into his normal big bad persona. She giggled at the metamorphosis, and he gave a rueful chuckle of his own.

"I'd love to. I mean, other-me says that Clem's really nice, and... Well, I can't interview every demon I meet to see if they're good or bad, and you won't always be there to tell me, so I should probably try to get to know some of the good ones, so I can tell the ones who are trying to kill me from the ones who're just out at night because they've got jobs or whatever."

Spike's eyes grew round and Giles, who had just opened the door to ask if they were coming in, dropped his glasses.

)))

"What's the deal? It's a smarter move than I ever made when I was her age." Giles had, after retrieving his glasses, quickly ushered vampire and Slayer inside his apartment, where he proceeded to lambast the girl in question for her apparent willingness to endanger herself by associating with demons of unknown alliance and, furthermore, to create unnecessary doubt that might cause difficulty in the carrying-out of her duties. Portal-Buffy, who had sat silently with her hand waving in the air, had finally been given a chance to speak.

"Again I say: Demons equal bad." Xander sat back as if the discussion was over, only to be turned on by Buffy.

"And I say: Grow up." Every single person in the room rocked back at that statement, including portal-Buffy. "You're dating a girl who, even if she's lost her powers, still thinks like a demon. Oz was a demon. Hell, we don't have a clue what I am." At that, she noticed the slightly guilty look on portal-Buffy's face. "I'm guessing that you do, though."

"Yup."

"Gonna tell me?"

"Wanna hear it?"

"Probably not. But if I go all hysterical, it'll give Spike an excuse to slap me. He'll appreciate that."

Spike just grinned at the prospect, then scowled when he realized that his chip would still fire. "Not nice, Slayer. Givin' me a free shot when you know I can't take it."

Buffy's return smile was wicked. "Where'd you pick up the delusion that I was a nice girl, Spikey?" She tilted her head to the side and ran her fingers along her neck, reminiscent of times spent torturing the vampire in the bathtub. The look Spike gave her was so heated that Giles turned away.

"Yes, well. If you do have more information on the nature of Buffy's powers, I think we'd be best served by learning it," he spoke precisely, deliberately avoiding the possible repercussions.

Portal-Buffy shrugged her acquiescence. "Fair enough." She turned her head and directly addressed Xander, who tried very hard not to make eye-contact. "However many millenia ago, humans were losing out. So a bunch of men with a penchant for getting others to do their dirty work called down the spirit of a demon, or a god, or who the fuck knows, and trapped it in a little girl. That girl was stronger, faster, and a better fighter than the demons she fought, and she died almost immediately. The power left her and went into another girl, one still in the same area. The men tracked her down and tried to train her, but she, too, died before she could really get a handle on her new lifestyle. Finally, one of them figured out a way to find all of the girls whose bodies were capable of holding the power, and took them away from their families and began teaching them. That way, when one died, the next one was right there. And thus the Watcher's Council was born."

"So..." Buffy drew attention back to herself. "What you're saying is, I'm just a regular girl who's been infected with some sort of demon virus?" She didn't looked shattered, though Giles was on the verge.

"Not particularly." Portal-Buffy grinned. "If there was anything regular about us we wouldn't be here. But once in a while the power gets it right, and goes into someone who's got the right mindset to handle it."

"What's that, then? Bitchy, bossy and blonde?" Spike snarked from his position, leaning against the wall.

Portal-Buffy smirked. "Pretty much. Add in gutsy and loyal, and you've got exactly what the Council of Wankers - sorry, Giles; too long with Spike - doesn't want. A girl who can think for herself, who doesn't fight alone, and who can both lead and take the big risks."

"You talk pretty well of yourself," Spike remarked.

"Had a friend, once. Had absolute faith in me. When he died, well, someone had to don the mantle." Her eyes never left Spike's face, and Buffy's mouth dropped open with understanding.

"Okay, I'm confused," Willow walked down the stairs carrying a heavy book. Giles had sent her to browse the spellbooks he stored in his loft in the hopes of discovering the spell portal-Buffy had said could be used against Adam.

"By which event, exactly, in our incredibly clear and easy-to-process evening?" Giles asked.

Willow just wrinkled her nose at him and continued. "So I was eavesdropping like mad, and I overheard the bit about Buffy having demon germs." Buffy's face wasn't the only one to twist into a moue of disgust at that image. "Anyway, I was thinking. If we all combine for this big spell, won't we get them, too?"

Portal-Buffy's face dropped. "Oh, right! I totally forgot about that!"

"About what?"

"And what's she talking about? Combination-huh?" Buffy asked.

"The way we defeated Adam in my time was to combine everyone - me, Giles, Xander and Willow - into a super-being that could make with the mojo, the slaying, and the ancient Etruscan. And the spell totally worked, no worries, but afterwards we all had these weird dreams where the First Slayer came along and kinda kicked everyone else out of her territory. But nobody got hurt, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem." Portal-Buffy's voice raised hopefully on the last few words.

"Much as I hate expressin' ignorance -" Spike began.

"Sucks to be you, then," Buffy muttered.

Spike glared at her but otherwise ignored the interruption. "Who's Adam?"

"Apparently he's a nearly unstoppable demon-cyborg hybrid created by the Initiative. He goes rogue by the end of this school-year and attempts to build an army of similar creatures." Giles turned to portal-Buffy for affirmation of his summary, and she nodded.

"That's pretty much it."

"If he hasn't gone rogue yet, why don't we just take him out now?" Buffy asked.

Portal-Buffy stared at her. "Because I'm a dummy?" She asked.

Spike chuckled, then regained his composure. "Is he government-sanctioned?" He asked.

Again portal-Buffy stared. "Y'know, you were a lot less helpful in my reality." She turned to Giles. "The army came in and closed the whole facility down once we stopped Adam. If we let them know about it, somehow, before anything starts, a bunch of people won't die."

"But the Initiative will still be around," Spike stated.

"Is that necessarily a bad thing?" Buffy asked. He glared at her, but she held her ground. "I mean, they do take out a lot of vampires."

"They don't actually get that many. I mean, you slay more vamps in a week than Riley does in a year. And they don't do clean kills, and they don't care if the demons they catch are good or bad. You said you saw them earlier tonight with a little kid - they just don't care. They think all demons are animals."

"Bad guys've got the right to be taken out by someone who knows what they are, I think." Spike's statement was met with a round of raised brows.

"Spike's dubious sense of honor notwithstanding, I agree that the Initiative is dangerous. Experimentation leading to the development of behavioral control mechanisms such as Spike's chip, and further to the creation of such bastardizations of human life as this Adam creature, are abominable. I say," and Giles' smile was cold, "we take 'em out."

"Well and good, Watcher. But how're we to go about it?"

"The Council!" Portal-Buffy interrupted the silence that followed Spike's question with an excited shout.

"Buffy, in case you've forgotten, we no longer work for the Council." Giles' voice was dry.

"So?" She shrugged. "They've got to have some kind of pull, right? They send wet-works teams over all the time, these days, and you said they could get you deported. They just need to have enough influence to prompt a review, and just mentioning a secret government installation into the right ears should get attention, right?"

"But why would they?" Willow asked. "I mean, they're kinda gung-ho with the equal-opportunity demon hunting."

"And we don't have any actual evidence of experimentation - outside of Spike's head, which I presume we wish to remain attached - so we can't persuade them that way." Spike looked up with surprise at Giles' casual support of his continued well-being.

Buffy looked at her hands for a long time, spinning a stake between her fingers. She held up a forestalling hand whenever anyone tried to speak.

...

Buffy was confused, but processing.

Funny how her life could alter in just a few hours. Not like it was the first time it had happened.

If nothing changed, she would live at least six more years. She would get to grow up. She hadn't expected that.

But life would be hard. Portal-Buffy looked happy, sounded happy, but Buffy saw that face every day in the mirror, and the shadows in her older self's eyes were very, very dark.

Buffy was a demon.

Well. A something, anyway. Not entirely human, not entirely other, but never going to be normal.

Did she want to be normal?

One girl in all the world. And the faith that her friends had always shown her, that she had never truly felt she deserved... it was obvious that portal-Buffy trusted herself. To do the right thing, if she could. To save the world, if she had to. To make the right choices.

Choices that had little to do with normal.

Buffy was twenty years old, and had already been fighting back the forces of darkness for the past five years. She healed unfathomably quickly, but her body was a webwork of almost invisibly fine scars.

She hadn't been seriously wounded in a very long time.

Was she comfortable with the idea? With not just being Buffy and the Slayer, but being Buffy the Slayer? Taking her icky demon disease and making it part of herself?

She spun the stake faster, felt it swivel around her knuckles and glide over callous worn smooth from constant pumice-ing.

She couldn't be just the Slayer. That would kill her on the inside. She was a daughter, a sister, a friend, a hero - maybe someday again she would be a lover.

Her mother knew what she was, but she didn't really understand. Because Buffy had quit once, she thought she could quit again. But Buffy knew better - there was no way she could stop fighting. It's why she'd come back in the first place.

There had to be a way to fight and to live.

And she would find it. Simple enough. Hard enough.

The Slayer. Passed from generation to generation like an heirloom, deadly and bright. It killed everyone who bore it.

And an entire society grew up around it. Around her.

And suddenly, Buffy understood.

...

After nearly ten minutes had passed during her introspection, she raised her head.

"Well," Buffy started, then stalled. To her own private dismay, it was Spike's steady gaze that prompted her to continue. "I'm the Slayer. Their purpose revolves around me. And if I say that the Initiative is causing un-cope-withable problems in the demon community, then hadn't they better get their asses in line and help me out?"

"Now you're swearing!" Willow pointed an accusatory finger, but Buffy just shrugged it off.

"Y'know, it took me at least another year and a hell of a lot of damage to figure that much out." Portal-Buffy watched her with quiet pride. "Good job, kid."

"Will that work?" Xander spoke quietly, as if afraid he'd be yelled at again. Giles only looked pensive.

"I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try. If we do this, though, Buffy... they may demand you rejoin the Council in payment."

"I never joined the Council. I may be the Chosen One, but I think it's time for me to choose. If I accept that this is going to be the rest of my life - slaying, saving the world, late-night research and skipping classes to kill spider-demons in the dining hall - then I'm going to get paid for it. I expect, at minimum, a field Watcher's salary. And if they try to stick me with a Watcher, well, it's sure as hell gonna be you."

Giles beamed.

)))

"I have a job that you have to do." Everyone had left, visions of unmarked black vans chasing camo jeeps dancing in their heads, and portal-Buffy and Giles found themselves once again alone. Though Giles had expected the girl to beg off given the rather emotionally intense night they had had, and he really did want to make notes both for himself and for his report to the council, she had defied his expectations and headed straight for the kitchen to make more tea. Now she was standing, head down, hands braced on the counter, giving him an assignment like she was consigning him to his death.

"Buffy can't do it. It might not break her - she's already so much less fragile than I was - but it will change her. You... You'd do anything to keep her safe. I know that. And you understand more... This thing, you didn't tell me about it for a long, long time."

"Out with it already," Giles snapped. He felt intensely boorish when she looked up at him and he realized that she was crying.

"Next year, sometime, two things will happen. A Hellgod named Glorificus will try to ritually exsanguinate Dawn in order to open up the walls between dimensions, and Mom will die."

"Good lord." Off with the glasses, out with the handkerchief, keep your curses behind your teeth.

Portal-Buffy nodded. "If I don't change things here, then at the end of it, I die. I'm dead for over four months, Giles, before Willow brings me back."

"Before she what?" He demanded, glasses on, now, furious.

"Before she pulls me out of heaven." Her voice was low, soft, the guilt and anger and regret stripped away until it was nothing but the bittersweet undertones of loss.

Giles didn't know what to say, so he gaped, fish-mouthed, at the girl who had gone to heaven.

"The year after that... was a very bad year. And Spike told us, over and over, that magic had consequences. The bigger the spell, the bigger the price. But God, Willow used to be vain. So cocky. So proud. So very desperate to keep control."

"Willow did this?" He was almost stuttering under the weight of conflicting emotion.

"And then she got addicted to the magic, tried to control everything. You have to get her trained, Giles. Send her to the Devon Coven, this summer if you can. Get her restrained. She may never be as strong as she is in my world, but I really can't see that as anything but a good thing."

Struggling desperately to process, Giles clung to the premier question in his mind. "What were the consequences?"

"Huh?" Portal-Buffy sniffed, bent to splash water on her face. When she stood again and faced him over the kitchen bar, her eyes were calm. "Oh. Consequences." She half-smiled. "The First Evil came back and tried to end the Slayer line and unleash an army of Turok-Han that would wipe out the world."

"Oh." Nothing else to say, really.

"That's when Spike saved the world. But not until after we turned all the potentials into Slayers. And he turned Sunnydale into a giant crater."

Really, really couldn't grasp the idea of an army of Slayers. What was easier? "Is that when he died?" Not that much easier, if her look was any indication.

"The first time, yes. But the gem he used to finish it, to channel raw sunlight into the Hellmouth, was part of some big corporate scheme at Wolfram & Hart. So somebody magicked the rock out of the crater and sent it to Angel. Spike was a ghost for months, and then he was fighting another apocalypse." The kettle whistled, and she grabbed at it with relief. Her voice was almost lost under the rattle and bang of tea-making. "He didn't survive that one."

Giles reeled, and she raced to catch him. She settled him quickly on the couch and brought him a cup of tea. "Okay, now?"

Giles shook his head. "I daresay that you, in my position, would find it equally as hard to believe that a vampire renowned for his viciousness and determination would be so easily redeemed. Angel, for example, took a century to truly become a power for good, even after he was cursed with his soul. And -"

"Exactly. Angel has a soul, and Spike doesn't. But you've met both Angelus and un-chipped William the Bloody. Can you really say they're at all alike? Aside from the whole trying-to-kill-me thing."

Giles looked at her for a moment, obviously thinking over what he knew of the two vampires, before resignedly shaking his head.

"Spike has more willpower than anyone I've ever met, and is intelligent enough to rationalize in the place of the basic moral guidance a soul would provide. More importantly, he has a tremendous capacity to love."

"He's a vampire, my dear girl. They cannot love."

Portal-Buffy just rolled her eyes at his patronizing tone. "Who said so? Angel, who as Angelus is brutal and vile and despised me because he still loved me? He staked his sire for me, Giles. The woman he had loved for more than a century, who he went back to even after he had his soul, until she turned him away. That kind of devotion - to a human, of all things - was guaranteed to piss him off."

Giles snapped to attention at this new information.

"And your other source is the Council, of course. The same men who deliberately attempt to keep Slayers isolated, to see all things in black and white. Who really know very little about vampires. Giles, think! Spike fought at my side for four years; I know him to my very bones. And he can love."

Giles nodded reluctantly. "If I take what you say as truth, what bearing does that have upon his capacity to change the color of his hat, as it were?"

She turned fully towards him, earnesty blazing in her eyes. It struck Giles suddenly that this truly wasn't his Buffy, was, in fact, a woman who was practically ancient by Slayer standards. And that she might well have learned wisdom. "He sought sanctuary with his enemies, and has become a sort of reluctant companion. But Spike spent decades with his family before coming here, and he's incredibly lonely. Befriend him, include him, do whatever you can to make him a part of the Scoobies. He'll protect his friends to the death. And... it's like, as a vampire, he's disconnected from human relations. They all pass so quickly and it's easier to isolate himself and think of mortals as something other - though Spike always was a little more human than any other vampire I've ever met. But if he's part of a group of humans, then he'll start thinking about the way they connect to him, and then comes the part where he sees someone and instead of thinking 'prey' he thinks 'that's someone's Dawn, or Willow, or Giles.' It's maybe not as human as guilt or just a sense of wrong-doing, but I'd argue that it's nobler. Not killing not because it's wrong, but because he weighs the value of individual lives and finds them worthy."

Giles set aside his now-empty tea cup and contemplated his Slayer's face. "What happens when the human life he weighs doesn't measure to his lofty standards?"

"Then he makes a mistake. And you do what you can to keep him from becoming another Faith." She shook her head, though, sharply. "But the reasons that he would kill someone aren't just passion and rage - he's a Master vampire, Giles. That says huge things about his self-control. It's when he finds out that the person is in a position to harm his friends. And so you have to make sure he knows that there are ways to take care of people like that, even if the authorities can't."

"This whole point is moot. He's chipped, if you'll recall."

"The chip won't last forever, Giles. And if everything goes right, you should be in a position to trust him by the time it fails." She shuddered suddenly. "Giles, remember when I said you had to do something?"

"Yes, of course."

She stood up and stalked between her position on the couch and the hallway that led to the bathroom, and back again. When she was again standing in front of him, she dropped to her knees and reached out to grip his hands. "The Hellgod that tries to kill Dawn, remember?"

He'd almost forgotten in the midst of everything else she'd told him, but the reminder sparked his memory. He nodded.

"She shares a human body with a man named Ben - I never learned his last name. He's an intern at Sunnydale General, or will be next year. I meet him when Mom gets sick. Right now, Glory's trapped inside him, but the closer it gets to the time she can use Dawn to open the dimensional gates, the more often she can break free. She kills people, Giles. Tortures them. Sucks the energy right out of their heads and uses it to keep her sane, leaving them crazy. And she tries to kill my sister."

Giles' eyes grew wide. "Judging from our prior conversation, I would assume you want me to..." He broke off, choking over the words in his throat.

"Kill him, Giles. Somebody has to. Last time, you did it when it was too late. This time, it might not be."

They froze in that tableau, hands tightly clasped, eyes fixed on one another. Tears spilled down portal-Buffy's face, and neither thought to brush them away.

After an infinite minute, Giles nodded. Slowly.

Then he asked the question portal-Buffy had been dreading: "Why does it have to be Dawn?"