Just starting to wonder...then I find a nice & long new chapter...oh goody! Thanks for pointing out several things in the last chapter that I missed. Did not pick up that the dead girl looked like Buffy at the end of S5...that was important & spooky...neither I did notice that Spike never said a word...which was incredible because I felt his sadness. How lucky that I have the author available to me to enrich my reading experience. I definitely need to slow down when I read. All of your character voices have rung true to me so far...that is a huge reason why I like your story so much. There is no problem with original characters until it seems that all the focus is on the original characters & they begin to dominate the action. I have noticed that when that happens I tend to get bored unless the story is amazing which is often not the case. You have maintained a good balance between all of the many characters in your story so far. Good to know that you like my extremely wordy & too long feedbacks. OK this chapter: I have such conflicting feelings about Xander...have loved him so much & disliked him so intensely. He was beginning to show some signs that he was beginning to think about & to understand (not just react to) all that he was suppose to be seeing & have seen by the end of S7...whew...hope that makes some sense. I would hope that all that he had experienced lately would make him wiser. This Xander did come across as a wiser version of S7 Xander. I did love the way his showed up in this chapter...a great visual. Gwen Raiden has never been too subtle. Seems like she may set into motion something that could really stir up trouble between Angel's camp & Buffy's camp...not that Angel & Gunn just being all sneaky won't so the trick. Can imagine that Angel's "team" would start to get desperate with Buffy's camp always being one step ahead. Things are really starting to roll so I am looking forward to the next chapter even more.

Author's Response: I was wondering how many people would actually catch that that was Gwen. I intentionally didn't use her first name there and I didn't know how many people would hear the last name Raiden and make the connection. I struggled with this chapter quite a bit, which was why it took so long, and the unfamiliarity of the characters was a big part of that. Xander had some really tough dialogue that I needed to get down perfect. I do really good with Spike, 'cause I understand Spike. Spike, in many ways, even a few of the worst of them, is alot like me. Awkward. Obsessive. Caring but emotionally fragile. I 'get' Spike. Xander is harder because in many ways I think Xander is an asshole. No two ways about it. I don't understand him at all. Him throwing away his relationship with Anya was one of the stupidest things I've ever seen. I just don't get how someone could be that obtuse. He's an ass, and I could write that, but unfortunately Xander the asshole wouldn't work here. I needed something else. I was forced to take what I knew of Xander and shape it into something noble, and that was hard for me. I spent days trying to figure out how to shape the conversation around that. One of my worries writing this was that I'd dragged this particular storyline out too long. I introduced Xander and the two Wolfram & Hart soldiers in Kenya back in chapter four and you haven't seen anything of them since. I had other things I needed to get out of the way first. I've tried to work this story so that each chapter works in some way on its own but all of them are little puzzle pieces that tie into the greater whole. There are links that I've tried to hide that won't pay off until much later in the story. If this story goes over fifty chapters I won't be surprised, which is a really scary thought. I hope people would be willing to hang around that long. Don't expect to wait quite that long for Buffy & Spike to meet up but the rest of the elements will keep on playing well after that. Welcome to my nightmare. I think I created a monster.