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Giles leapt from his chair and grabbed his key ring before he hurried into his office. In a few seconds he came back out carrying a big book that he flipped the pages of back and forth, searching for some tidbit of information.

“I recognize that book, Giles, it’s the one that predicted my death the first time,” stated Anne with a little apprehension in her voice.

Heads around the room swiveled from the Watcher to the older Slayer. She just shrugged as the vampire beside her huffed and looked down. Anne turned to look at him before ghosting the back of her hand against one cheekbone. Spike looked up at her, his blue eyes tender and full of love. Dawn leaned in to whisper something in Spike’s ear which caused him to huff again and roll his eyes.

“How many times have you died, Anne?” Willow asked.

“Just twice,” answered Anne.

“So I was around to resuscitate you a second time?” Xander crowed.

“Not exactly. I mean, you were around; it just wasn’t the resuscitation type of death. More like the resurrection type of death.” replied Anne.

"How did you die?"

"When did this happen?"

"Who resurrected you?"

The questions bounced around the room until Anne put a stop to it with the lift of a hand. Even Giles stopped thumbing through his book as the older Slayer began to speak.

"It's kind of a long story, so bear with me. In about three years the Key becomes my sister and there is a Hell-god called Glorificus after her. We protect her the best we can, but in the end she was cut. Her blood opened the portal between all of the dimensions. And since she is made of my blood, I refused to kill her and sacrificed myself. I was gone 147 days and then Willow and the rest of the Scoobies yanked me out of heaven by resurrecting me," Anne informed the group and answering all the questions in one statement.

The room was silent except for the flipping of pages in the book that Giles had gone back to searching. Anne appeared to get a bit more nervous with each passing second until finally she pulled something silver out of one of her coat pockets and began playing with whatever the object was.

Spike reached out to grab the item and when he saw it a look of wonder crossed his face quickly followed by a smirk. He handed the object back to Anne who blushed hotly.

"Should have known you had it, you little thief," snarked the vampire.

"Just a memento. Like last time," Anne smiled brightly at Spike as she scooted as close to him as she could. There was no way she was going to allow anyone anywhere come between her and her vampire ever again, "Besides smoking will kill you."

"Already dead, pet."

"Ah-ha, found it," Giles blurted out, placing everyone's attention on him, "'The Key, accompanied by the Dark Champion and his Slayer, will travel between the realms restoring order to the chaos.' That's why what you said sounded so familiar," Giles's face took on a puzzled look, "How does William the Bloody, a highwayman and ruffian before he was turned, become a Champion?"

"What can I say, Watcher, I have always been bad," Spike chuckled.

"Not again," groaned Anne, putting her hand on her head, "Don't encourage him, Giles. Spike wasn't a highwayman; he was just a really bad..." Anne mumbled whatever the rest of her sentence was behind the pale hand of the vampire sitting next of her.

"No spilling secrets, Slayer."

Anne rolled her eyes at the vampire before turning her attention back to Giles. She removed the hand from her mouth but didn't relinquish her grip on it. She didn't care what any of these people thought; she let their counterparts rule her life before, but never again.

"So, what does all that mean exactly, Giles, 'Restoring order to the chaos'?" Anne questioned.

"I don't know, but we will start researching it, Anne," Giles replied, "Can you please tell us the exact circumstances that led you to travel to our dimension?"

"Um, well, someone in this room did a spell that made someone else in this room go all power mad, again, and we had to leave before Dawn was unmade," Anne declared vaguely.

"Could you be any more vague?" Dawn grumbled, "It's not like you owe any loyalty to any of these people. All they have done is mess with your life from day one. Here's the sitch, people..." Dawn waved off Anne and Spike as she stood up and got into her speech.

"Angel over there, with his evil law firm, did a spell that made Willow go all black and power hungry. AGAIN!" Dawn ignored the glares from her fellow travelers and the confused, incredulous looks from everyone else. "And if the coven in England hadn't shown me how to use my Keyness she would have killed us all. It's not like she hasn't tried before and I don't think Xander and his broken yellow crayon speech is going to work a second time."

"Dawn," Anne hissed, "I wanted to break it to them gently."

"We don't have time for gentle, sis. It's only a matter of time before Willow figures out how to find us."

"I know, Dawnie, but now not only are we running from Willow, we just found out we are part of prophecy. Giles? Uh-oh..." Anne trailed off as she saw the expressions on the faces of the others.

"I would n-n-never do anything l-l-like that," Willow stammered, "I don't have that kind of power." Her eyes filled with tears at the thought that she could ever do anything as evil as the girl, Dawn, had proclaimed she did.

"No, not right now you wouldn't, but you do have the power. When you had to resoul Angelus, that is when you realized what you could do," Anne replied.

"Resoul Angelus," Jenny squeaked out. What she was here for had come to pass in the other dimension? Sudden fear enveloped the gypsy's heart.

"Yes, Ms Calendar, and we all paid for it dearly. You most of all," Anne gritted out between clenched teeth. It was then that she realized that she still held animosity against the computer teacher for not informing them of her purpose in Sunnydale, "And Giles when he lost you, me when I had to send Angel to hell, Spike when he lost... I could go on, but what's the purpose of that?"

"Can you tell us what caused Angel to lose his soul?" Giles asked quietly. The pain etched on the visitors' faces told a story that while vital hurt beyond imagining.

"Perfect happiness, Giles. One moment of perfect happiness and the soul flies away leaving an insane asshole in its place," Anne replied.

"I love Buffy. I would never do anything to hurt her. I don't know who you all are, but you are all a bunch of liars," Angel shouted. Adrenaline surged through his undead body as he leapt to his feet.

The entire room heard the other vampire snort and chock back laughter. The look on Spike's face showed the disbelief he had in the words flowing from Angel's mouth.

"You got something to say, boy?" Angel snarled. Something about this Spike was calling to his demon.

"Got plenty to say, Peaches, just not sure you are ready to hear it," Spike snarled back. He had just spent the last few months having Angel tell him that Buffy wasn't interested, but he now knew that wasn't the case. The surprise mating last night warmed the cockles of Spike's undead heart like nothing else ever had.

"Well, I would love to hear what you have to say, William," Angel said Spike's given name with enough contempt in his voice to make Cordelia seem like the poster child for the compassion of others.

"Fine, I will. The girl declares her undying love for you, but being the poncy git you are, you prance off to LA, but not before informing her she needs to find a normal boyfriend. But you can't be happy with that. Oh no, not for the mighty Angelus. You stalk her, pick the rogue over her, beat up her normal boyfriend and on top of telling her you could never be with her physically because of the curse you shagged Darla six ways from Sunday after Dru revamped the bitch." Angel's jaw hung open at the words coming out of Spike's mouth.

"Angel had sex with Darla?" Anne whispered, "When was that?"

"Dru told me when she came to town," Spike muttered. Spike looked down shamefaced. He now knew that the wooing of a Slayer didn't involve chains; well, unless she specifically requested chains. He peered up at Anne through his lashes and was thrilled to see that she had a faint smile on her face as if remembering something special.

"Angel dusted Darla a about six months ago. How would he have sex with her?" asked Buffy. Her inner Buffy was saying, 'Ewwww'.

"The evil law firm that Peaches now runs brought her back to try and make Angelus reappear. Lucky for us they were unsuccessful," replied Spike.

"Why would I beat up Buffy's boyfriend if I told her to move on?" Angel asked

"Not sure, Peaches, probably why you tried to beat up her last boyfriend, too. What you say and what you really mean are two different things," Spike shrugged indifferently.

"Who was her last boyfriend?" Buffy asked. This was information overload for the sixteen year old. She had a sneaking hunch whose name was going to be said, but something made her ask anyway.

"Spike's been my boyfriend for the last 2 1/2 years. He did go to Africa for a few months and then burned up in the Hellmouth, but other than that..." replied Anne, chuckling.

"Oh great, Deadboy here wasn't good enough for you. You had to boink Deadboy Jr, too? What was wrong with that normal boyfriend that was mentioned?" Xander scoffed. This was going from bad to worse with every passing minute, in Xander's estimation.

"Normal wasn't totally normal, Xander. He was part of a government organization called the Initiative that was hunting down demons for experimentation That's what brought Spike into our orbit as more than an enemy. He was captured and chipped. When he escaped he came to us for protection and help. We had a few setbacks but after awhile he was more of a help than a hindrance," Anne smiled sweetly at the vampire she was talking about, "Riley quit the Initiative, but he never got over his jealousy of Angel... and Spike. I wasn't paying enough attention to him because I was fighting a Hell-god and mom was sick, so he felt justified in getting suck jobs from vamp hos."

"Chipped? What does that mean?" Willow asked.

"They put a microchip in my noggin that zapped me with a migraine if I tried to hurt anything living. Thought it was everything at first, but while we were trying to keep some idiot demons from opening the Hellmouth I found out that it was only humans that I couldn't hurt," the vampire smiled at the memory.

"Do you still have the chip?" Willow just had to ask. She watched Spike glanced at Anne for approval on how to answer the question. And when Anne nodded assent he answered.

"No, chip was a prototype so it went haywire last year. Slayer here opted to get it out," Spike answered.

"My God, What were you thinking, girl? Spike is dangerous. He will kill us all now," Angel sputtered loudly.

"No, he won't. He loves my sister and me with everything in his being. Killing others would hurt us and he wouldn't do that. Besides, he has his... " This time it was Dawn's mouth that the vampire covered.

"What did I say about spilling secrets, Nibblet? Ouch, damnit, are you sure you don't have some vampire in you?" Spike grabbed his hand away from the teenager to inspect the wound she had inflicted.

"Oh stop it, ya big baby. It's not like that really hurt you," Dawn said as she rolled her eyes at him, "Okay, research. I can do research. I have been working with Giles since he needed the help. The First blowing up the Council made even my meager knowledge important. Heck, if you had any knowledge you were recruited to into being a Watcher, even Andrew."

Giles's head jerked up when he heard the news of the demise of the Council. Did this mean he became the Head of the Council by default? This was yet another unsettling bit of news that he really wished he had never heard; or maybe he did. He just wasn't sure at the moment.

Dawn moved towards Giles and took the book of prophecies away from the Watcher. She closed the cover, placed her hand on it and concentrated. Soon she began to glow a slight green color and when the glow receded she handed the book back to Giles. Dawn went to the counter to grab a piece of paper and a pen so she could begin writing down the information she had gleaned from the book.

"What was that, Nibblet?"

"Just something the coven taught me about my Keyness," replied Dawn as she handed the paper to Giles, "Comes in handy for the researching. The last one tells of my origins, Giles."

As Giles began to read the list of prophecies that Dawn had written down, a big greenish demon with horns burst through the library doors. It growled at everyone before falling to its knees, weeping. The crossbows that 30 minutes before had pointed at Spike, now pointed towards the newest demon in their midst. Spike surged to his feet.

"No, don't hurt him. It's Giles," Spike stated matter of factly.





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