Ernest Simonson Bledsoe sat at a small table in the front parlor café of MacIvor's Bed and Breakfast, pretending to savor his turkey sandwich on brown bread. Aaron Gossett sat at a table on the other side of the room, reading the Sunnydale Weekly and working on his third cup of coffee. They'd exchanged the polite nods and vague smiles of strangers. It was clear Gossett didn't recognize him.

And why should he? Few creatures on Earth could look into the face of a young man in his prime and see the wizened old fellow he would someday become. Forty-four years had passed for Ernest. For Mr. Gossett, none at all it would seem.

The Varo woman – the vampire – wasn't with him. Naturally not. It was barely after noon. She was sleeping the sleep of the dead no doubt, having taken separate, less conspicuous lodgings at the Dew Drop Inn just off the Interstate exit. An exit that hadn't existed when last he'd been in Sunnydale. Nor had the freeway for that matter.

A curious partnership – Gossett and his vampire paramour. Worthy of study, would that he had the time. Or if he were remotely capable of objectivity in regards the pair. Still, some part of his old Watcher's heart yearned for the opportunity to document their aberrant coupling. Although it was not unheard of for a vampire to keep a human for a number days or more rarely, weeks, Ernest knew of no examples wherein a human kept a vampire, let alone maintained the relationship for decades.

He had, however, made it a point to learn all he could about who they were, and what they'd been hoping to achieve those forty-four years ago when he'd first encountered them.

For example, he knew Sorcha Varo was born in Brazil, and had been living in Greenwich Village for six months before she was turned sometime in the late fall of 1953. He knew she was an artist of a sort, whose work consisted of objects found in rubbish tips intermixed with palmistry charts and various clichéd occult symbols. Glass fuses, and wire tracings, clockwork gears turning the broken wings of angels, provocative little titles seemingly unrelated to the work itself, such as Tantric Morphia Tango or Time Offers Jesus a Cigarette. She practiced Santaria, was considered to be very beautiful, and, some believed, slightly mad. Before she disappeared ("foul play suspected" the papers said, and rightly so) friends claimed she'd taken a new lover. The lover may or may not have been a vampire. May or may not have been Aaron Gossett. Gossett was obviously not a vampire, but vampires were part of the theoretical machine he was building. Ernest suspected collusion of some sort. He wondered if she knew.

Of Gossett himself he'd learned very little that he didn't already know. One charming, manipulative, dangerous man with an agenda. Certainly no ordinary human being. Perhaps not human at all.

The bastard looked exactly the same – same sharp blue eyes, same smug assurance. Less Brilliantine in his hair. Whiter teeth. Black levis instead of chino.

Ernest watched intently as Gossett raised the cup to his lips. Was the scar still there, in the palm of his left hand? Surely it must be! It was the shackle that anchored him to this plane of existence. If Luella had understood it right, then Gossett had only few months at best to accomplish his grand plan. Less, if the Manipura caught up with him.

Ernest's heart clenched. He, too, was running out of time. The doctors called his condition restrictive cardiomyopathy, but he knew it for what it really was. He knew the root and the source and the shameful cause of it.

Luella.

Sunnydale, California. 1957

Three pickled eggs, half a fried chicken, and a jar of peaches got her all the way from Chattanooga to Hollywood. Well, downtown Los Angeles leastways, and by the time she got there she was gnawing bones and drinking syrup from the jar. She'd spent the night on a bench in the Greyhound station. Had to witch herself invisible to get any kind of sleep at all on account of prowlers. She didn't have to be smacked upside her head to know there were men preyed on girls like her. Weren't none of those men could make a girl an overnight sensation no matter what they said – 'cept in the way a girl might regret the next morning, and maybe for the rest of her life.

Well, there weren't no Hollywood stars in her eyes. She was on a different path to glory. Though she probably ought to be more humble about it.

At four in the morning she caught a battered old bus that was taking Mexicans and Indians north to pick fruit. Cost her five dollars and a small glamour to convince the driver to let her ride. He wasn't going Route 12 though, so he'd only take her as far as the gas station half a mile outside Sunnydale. She walked till she came to Main Street, walked past Wilkins Feed and Grain, crossed over to Dick's Five and Dime, past RW Drygoods, until she felt the pull and tug of him, and even then she almost walked by.

He was sitting in Edna May's Diner reading the newspaper, eating bacon and eggs like a regular Joe. She could see his face in profile through the window, fine-boned and long-nosed. A lock of hair, glossy with Brilliantine, fell across his forehead just like Superman's in the comic books. His baggy tweed jacket – same one he'd worn when he'd come to her daddy's house in Sevierville – hung over the back of his chair.

She flexed her palm, felt the tingle of the secret line there. He'd traveled halfway round the world to find her and all because of the line. Called it rare, and a gift. Nothing she didn't already know, but when he said it, when he looked into her eyes and smiled that way, like he could see her soul shining through her skin – well, it seemed different somehow, not just something she'd always had. The Moontree mark. Passed down from great-great granny Selkie Moontree through the women in the family. The women with the mark always kept the Moontree name whether they married or not.

No one ever questioned that practice, nor talked about the mark or what it meant, though each woman had her own special way of using it. Momma called hers Jacob's ladder. Granny Nester called hers the "'twixt and 'tween." Aunty Beebe's was Jumper.

Luella's was a whirligig, 'cause it reminded her of the toy Daddy made her when she was little. A button on a twisted string. When you yanked the string taut, the button skated back and forth, and made a humming sound. Her mark was like that. The Englishman said she could do great things if she learned to focus it, to harness and direct, if she came out to the Institute in California and studied real hard. "You a teacher?" she'd asked him. "Of a sort," he'd replied in that sugar voice. "Though I suspect you have more to teach me than I could ever hope to teach you."

He knew some things about the line in her palm she'd hadn't even told Momma, things she'd only just discovered herself. The way she could move herself along the line like a button on a whirlygig string.

Now here she was, run away from home, facing her destiny, and she was almost too scared to move. As soon as she opened that door, her whole life changed.

But then again, any door you opened up offered change of some kind.

She took a deep breath, clenched her fist over the mark a couple of times, and went inside directly to his table. "Mr. Bledsoe? You remember me, sir?"

He looked up. His eyes were the same mossy gray green she remembered. "Miss Moontree! Of course. What a pleasant surprise. I must say I never expected to see you again. Your father changed his mind, did he?"

"No sir, he did not. But I just spent three days on a bus to get here, and I reckon I ain't going back, even if you changed your mind 'bout me. So I hope you ain't. Changed your mind that is."

"No. No, indeed I have not. Please. Sit down. You must be famished."

"Oh, I ain't all that hungry."

"Nonsense. Young people are always hungry. You needn't worry about the cost. You heard me tell your father the Institute would cover all your living expenses, didn't you?" He cocked his head and smiled. She could feel herself getting flushed. "Come now. You don't think you could find room for pancakes?"

"I reckon that'd be all right."

"— all right?"

Ernest started, blinked. Gossett was peering at him with a sincere look of concern. Was the man speaking to him? Dear god. "What?"

"I asked if you were all right. You've gone all pale and clammy."

"It's nothing really. The – the sandwich. Repeating on me, is all." The fist around his heart clenched again and he gasped. Gossett started to rise. "No. Don't. Don't trouble yourself. I'll be fine." He flailed about for his walking stick and staggered to his feet, knocking the table, the chair. "I'm-I'm late for an appointment. Excuse me."

Out on the street, he fumbled his pocket for the pills. Swallowed one dry and wiped his face with a handkerchief. What in God's name had he been thinking? Risking exposure like that? Practically daring the man to realize just who it was sitting across from him. Egotistical, doddering old fool! He was running out of time.

Time. He would have laughed if he could find the breath for it. It was only a matter of Time, wasn't it? A matter of time before Aaron Gossett found the Timer. Before he turned it and used it and wreaked havoc upon the world. What little knowledge Ernest had gleaned over the years would be years wasted if he never got the opportunity to tell someone who might be able to use it. And that someone currently waited for him at a little shop up the street. He just had to get there.

The resale shop was a total bust. Anya had neglected to tell her that Twice Upon a Time specialized in gently worn bridal and evening gowns. So. Out of two garbage-bags full of clothes and shoes, Buffy had sold one pair of pink satin mules, and a sequined halter top. Grand total? Eighteen dollars. She'd promised Dawn money for a shopping orgy. Eighteen dollars was barely enough for a movie and popcorn. For one person. She could hardly wait for the disappointed, sad-eyed pouting. Maybe the old Watcher Mr. Bledsoe wouldn't show, wouldn't be witness to the lame reality that was her everyday life.

A sudden overwhelming urge to run fast and hard and far, far away skittered through the muscles in her legs. Slaying was, for all its drawbacks, the perfect excuse to flee social and family obligations. Gotta go. Duty calls. Matter of life and death. For the good of humanity and to save the world were pretty hard to argue with. She could go hunt Teletubby demons, get Spike to join her, then tackle him in the bushes and –

Not. Not. Going. There. Anyway, he was through with her. And she was totally through with him. And anyway he probably wouldn't want to, even if she asked nicely. Not that she would. Ask nicely. Besides, she hadn't even found the stupid demons in the books yet.

Glumly she flipped through the Demon Compendium again, hoping a picture of Tinkywinky would leap out from the page – literally – so she could kill something instead of ooh-ing and ah-ing over Anya's stupid wedding gown. Not that the gown wasn't pretty, in a Jessica-Rabbit-meets-the-Little-Mermaid kind of way, but how many times did she have to say so?

"It's gorgeous," Buffy droned. "Very, very beautiful. Really. The most beautiful gown I've ever seen. Ever. Really. "

"Really?" The words finally sunk in and Anya's French-tipped manicured claws clutched the dress to her bosom in avaricious terror. "You can't try it on!"

Buffy sighed. "Really don't want – "

"But, oh! I know. You could hold it up like this – " She demonstrated, one arm holding the bodice over her torso and the other sweeping the fishtail train out as she twirled like a maniacal Cinderella towards the cash register. "This way you could see how it might look on you if you were taller." She stopped, flourished the train like a matador, and gave Buffy an appraising gaze. "And had bigger breasts."

Buffy smiled. Hard. "Oh. Could I?"

"No." Anya was much too giddy to note any sarcastic nuance. "I mean, only because I wouldn't want you to feel inadequate, or in any way hopeless about your future prospects for marriage." She petted the beadwork covering her bigger breasts. "Besides, I think it's bad luck for anyone but me to pretend to wear it."

"Speaking of luck and the possible badness of it, shouldn't you put it away now? In case Xander shows up soon?" Which he will, please, if there is a God, Buffy thought.

"Oh, he won't be here for hours yet. He got called in to work early this morning. Very grumpy about it too. We didn't get much sleep last night." Buffy held her breath, praying she wouldn't have to hear about sex toys of any kind. "I had to send him out late to buy me some ... stuff. You know."

Not sex toys, not sex toys. "Uh...marijuana? Heroin?"

Anya's eyes widened in alarm, then she seemed to realize Buffy was joking but still in need of clarification. Although they were the only two people currently in the shop, she cupped her hand to her mouth, and whispered loudly, "Girl stuff. You know."

For a moment it didn't register. This was Anya, after all, who had no trouble whatsoever discussing anal plugs while eating breakfast at Denny's. Buffy slapped her hand to her mouth in an attempt to dam shrieks of hilarity.

Anya looked both confused and affronted. "What's so funny about that? We're getting married. It's not as if he's completely oblivious to menstruation."

"I'm sorry," Buffy managed to choke out. "It's just – Xander plus feminine hygiene products equals funny."

"Yes. And it took him forever too." She carefully replaced the bridal gown in its bridal white garment bag and zipped it up. "He ran into a demon."

"Oh! Oh ...well ... Is he okay?"

"He's fine."

"So ...what then? He ran into a demon and they went to a demon strip club?"

"Oh my god! Was it that one near the old railroad tracks? That bastard! He told me he was late because he ran into a demon with his car!"

"Anya, I was kidding. Wait. There really is a demon strip club?"

"He knew I'd be too busy worrying about what to tell the insurance company to question what he'd been up to – "

"Wait. Xander hit a demon with his car?"

"You can't get coverage for that."

"What kind of demon? Did he say?"

"I don't remember. I was all crampy and befuddled with pain. He said Spike knew."

"And again with the wait. Spike was with him? They were together?"

"I guess he ran into Spike too. I mean, ran into him in the chance meeting kind of way, not the hitting him with the car kind of way. Spike said he'd seen it before, was going to take care of it, or something? At least that's what I understood. I suppose that was a tissue of lies as well. They probably went to that strip club. And drank hard liquor. And watched girls pretending to have sex with poles – "

"Did it look like a Teletubby by any chance?"

"Oh, I don't know what kind of demons strip there." Anya said, carrying the garment bag to the back room. "I don't go to those places. Well, not anymore. Not since I was a vengeance demon. Strippers have plenty of reason to curse men, let me tell you – "

The bell over the transom jangled and Anya immediately shifted to business. "Good afternoon, sir. Welcome to the Ma –

Ernest Simonson Bledsoe swayed in the doorway a moment, then collapsed across the threshold.