A sleepy haze fell over the group clustered in the Magic Box, though the two English gentlemen in the mix remained immune for a brief moment. A bright light flashed in both of their corneas, rendering Spike and Giles temporarily blinded. As sleep overtook them as well, a dreadful sense of falling pulsed within their bodies. A faint “Bloody hell” entered their ears, though neither knew who had spoken.


--

Spike awoke to the violent shaking of his shoulders at the hands of a petite, young blonde woman. He shifted uncomfortably beneath her when he realized she was straddling him in the chair he sat on, and he squinted at her face, trying to register what this unknown, yet intriguing, woman was saying.

“Spiiiike,” Buffy whined, “I knew you weren’t listening to our wedding plans, but I didn’t think you’d fall asleep! Now, please, listen…I’d like to have an outdoor ceremony with….”

Staring at her still, Spike was flooded with an inexplicable sense of undying love for this woman, despite the fact that he had no idea who she was.

“I’m sorry for dozin’, love, but…well…I can’t remember falling asleep…or anything else for that matter, except that I’m apparently British. Who the bloody hell are you?”

Buffy’s face blanched slightly and her eyes brimmed with tears.

“Oh God, Spike! You’ve lost your memory! No doubt some relation to whatever evil blinded Giles,” she said, pointing over to the sleeping form of the Watcher on the couch. “I must be immune because I’m the Slayer.”

“A spell? You mean, like, a magical spell?”

“She-yeah!”

“Witches are,” Spike hushed his voice to a mere whisper, “they’re real?”

Rolling her eyes, Buffy playfully swatted at Spike.

“Of course they are, silly, you know that. Witches, werewolves, demons and vampires are all real…and you’re a vampire…you should know this, sweetie!”

Spike’s complexion paled more than Buffy thought was possible.

“I’m…I’m a sodding…oh, bloody hell.”

With a determined huff, Buffy hoisted the unconscious Spike over her shoulder and carried him into Giles’ bedroom, fully intent on sexing the senses back into him.



Although he couldn’t quite remember who she was, this blonde was strangely familiar to Spike. This strange familiarity got even stranger when she shed her pants and tank top. He wet his lips as he stared at her taut frame. Buffy flashed a bright smile at him, though concern still clouded her eyes.

“I know we’ve been waiting for our wedding night, but I can’t think of any better way to help you realize how much we love each other.”

Spike was speechless, in the back of his mind, despite his totally blank memory, he knew that he loved the girl in front of him.

“Pet, are you sure you want to….”

Buffy cut him off with a penetrating kiss, pushing him back onto Giles’ bed and straddling him. He moaned and thrust up beneath her, realizing the necessity for shedding his own clothes as he strained against them. He raised an eyebrow when Buffy slid off of his waist, taking his shirt with her. She made short work of his boots and pants as well, tossing them to the floor in a heap. The internal hunter inside of her shone forth as she crept slowly up to Spike’s naked form, growling as she jumped on top of him.



Three hours later they emerged from the bedroom to a just-awakening Giles; Spike, exhausted, plopped down on a chair across from the Watcher.


--

Giles blinked a few times before registering that he was in the middle of a conversation with a beautiful young woman; but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember her name, or anything else for that matter.

“Oh, dear Lord,” he said, his head throbbing angrily when he sat up too quickly. “Excuse me, Miss,” he asked the tall, auburn-haired woman with impossibly blue eyes, “but, I can’t seem to recall your name, or my own, to be quite honest.”

The woman’s expression faltered slightly, but she regained composure after a brief moment.

“Oh, darling…oh, oh, my poor husband! Oh that fall from your horse yesterday must have knocked your senses from you…I knew that stallion was not yet ready for the bridle, but we shall not discuss it now. Here,” she cooed, offering him her arm for support, “Let us retire a trifle early tonight. Perhaps I will be able to jar your memory.”

“As you wish, Miss…uh, I’m sorry, dear, I didn’t catch your name.”

“It’s Anne…Mrs. Pratt, darling, your wife…you know that…oh…oh, Rupert, dear. Oh, oh, darling, I daren’t even think of it, but perhaps the shock of our recent marriage caused you to lose your senses instead of the fall? Oh, my poor darling! Shall I have Terrence fetch the doctor?”

Giles, confused at why he felt as if he were acting out a scene in a book he had read, shook his head.

“No, don’t trouble yourself…it is probably just fatigue from the fall, my dear.”

“Of course…I shall have Terrence fetch you a cool compress, though….let’s get you off of your feet, love.”

Anne led him into a small, but decadently furnished bedroom, and bent over in front of Giles, turning back the sheets of the large bed. Casting a lascivious eye at Anne, whose thin frame was wrapped in a delicate pink muslin gown, Giles realized that he perhaps needed a cool compress in other areas of his body. Turning around, Anne smiled coquettishly when she noticed his lustful gaze.

“Why, Mr. Pratt, I don’t believe that you are fatigued at all.”

“What kind of husband would I be if I didn’t do by duties to yourself and God,” he asked, pulling her flush against his body.

Anne moaned in response, and shut the door behind them, a moment before Giles ripped the muslin gown from her frame.

--

Buffy woke up in a daze on the stairs of the Magic Box. Peering around herself and recognizing nothing, she walked toward the closest light switch, muttering “Huh?” under her breath. Willow and Xander, snuggled up on the floor, were startled to attention, and then started at each other in trepidation. Xander quickly diagnosed his gut, or more honestly, nether regions’ reactions to the red head, and smiled.

“Hey….”

Willow smiled back, meekly.

“Hey?”

Tara, Anya, and Giles slowly awoke next, followed by Spike, who rolled off of the counter and sent himself, screaming, to the floor. A short shriek announced Dawn’s awakening, and she fidgeted nervously.

“Who…who are you people?”

Buffy moved toward her, cautiously.

“Don’t worry.”

“Please don’t hurt me….”

“Oh, it’s okay, I don’t know anyone here either.”

Spike scoffed.

“Well that’s not true, love. I remember you clear as…well…er…I don’t remember your name, exactly…or mine for that matter, but last time I saw you we were ‘in flagrante delicto,’ remember?”

Buffy raised an eyebrow at him.

“In a what?”

“In fla…oh sod it, pet, means caught in the act.”

“In the act of what?”

Spike stared at her for a moment until the realization finally sunk in.

“Oh.”

Spike applauded.

“And the final horse crosses the finish line.”

Buffy stuck her tongue out at him.

“You don’t have to be mean…I can’t remember anything.”

Tara cleared her throat.

“Ne…neither can I.”

“I think we’re all suffering the same problem,” Anya interjected.

“Right,” Buffy said, “Well, we should probably figure out where we are…or…who we are, for that matter.”

“Looks like someone fancies herself the boss,” Spike said, rolling his eyes. “If we do get married, pet, there are going to be some changes.”

“Shut up, whoever you are.”

Staring for a brief moment at Anya, Giles tried to remember anything he could.

She looks just like the woman…could she? Bloody hell…she couldn’t be. Her eyes aren’t the same…but we did wake up together.

Giles turned to Anya and cleared his throat.

“Yes, well, I’m afraid the only memory that I can recall is of you, my dear…in quite the same position as he can remember…but I get the impression that we were not in this area…maybe another country, perhaps?”

Anya patted his hand and then gasped, pointing at her ring.

“It’s okay! We’re engaged! It’s a lovely ring.”

Buffy pouted when she looked at her barren finger, then sighed at Spike.

“Where’s mine?”

Spike thought for a moment, then grinned.

“We’re getting you a better one than I gave you…but I distinctly remember asking you, love, and you accepted…B…Betty? No…Belinda? No…BUFFY! You’re Buffy!”

“Buffy? Shyeah…what kind of name is that?”

“I don’t rightly know, pet.”

Shaking her head, Buffy smiled at Anya.

“Do you think we’re having a double wedding?”

“Probably. It does seem like the most efficient manner of getting married. We would split the cost, you know, and weddings are awfully expensive.”

Willow frowned at the shelves of the room.

“Where are we anyway? Look at all this stuff on these shelves…weird jars of weird stuff...weird books with weird covers like ‘Magick for Beginners.’ Oh!”

Tara gasped.

“This is a magic shop…a real magic shop.”

“Well, maybe that’s it,” Buffy said, “Maybe something magic….”

“Hey! I exist! I’m Alexander Harris,” Xander interrupted, beaming at the group and flashing his license at them.

Tara, Giles, and Willow pulled their licenses out and smiled, reciting off their names one at a time. Anya looked puzzled for a moment at the key she had pulled off of her necklace, then pepped up considerably.

“I’m Anya! This key fit the lock on the cash register…and I found some papers…Rupert and Anya own this magic shop together!”

“Well, that‘s…enterprising of me,” Giles said, “Aside from a few bits and pieces, I’m afraid we don’t know a bloody thing. Except I seem to be British, don’t I? And a man…with glasses. Well, that narrows it down considerably. I think we should all be fine…it’s probably just some reaction to a bad dinner or something…we’ll get our memory back and it’ll all be right as rain.”

“Oh listen to Mary Poppins…he’s got his crust all stiff and upper with the Nancy boy accent. You Englishmen are always so…bloody hell. Sodding. Blimey. Shagging. Knickers. Bollocks. Oh no. I’m English.”

“Welcome to the Nancy tribe.”

“You don’t suppose you and I are…we’re not related are we?”

Anya smiled.

“There is a ruggedly handsome resemblance.”

Giles frowned at Spike.

“And you do inspire a…uh…well, a particular feeling of familiarity and…disappointment. Older brother?”

Spike scoffed.

“Father. Oh God how I must hate you.”

“What did I do?”

“There’s always something. And what’s with the trollop?”

Anya smacked his arm.

“Trollop?”

“You’re not too old to put across my knee you know, sonny,” Giles said. “What do I call you anyway?”

Spike patted his pockets, and, finding nothing, pulled his coat flap open.

“Made with care for ‘Randy.’ ‘Randy’ Giles? Why not call me ‘Horny’ Giles, or ‘Desperate for a Shag’ Giles? I knew there was a reason I hated you.”

Rubbing his neck, Buffy smiled at Spike.

“Randy is probably a family name, sweetie, and it isn’t that bad, really.”

“Not any worse than ‘Buffy,’” Spike said with a chuckle, before the back of his head was slapped.

“We should probably get to a hospital…see if they can figure out what’s wrong with us…any suggestions on how we can get there?”

Spike sauntered over to Giles and patted him on the back.

“Dad can drive. He’s bound to have some classic mid-life crisis transport…red, shiny, shaped like a penis.”

Two vampires growled at the group as they opened, screamed, and then quickly shut the door.

--

Buffy took a shuddering breath.

“Did you guys see that?”

Spike nodded.

“Vampires!”

“Maybe its Halloween,” Tara said.

“It doesn’t feel like Halloween,” Dawn whimpered.

“Even if it is, those guys are definitely not kids, and those are definitely not costumes. Randy's right. Looks like we have vampires,” Xander countered.

A shout demanding that the group send out ‘Spike’ came from the creatures outside of the Magic Box. Two vampires burst through the window, and, instinctively, Buffy leapt across the room and dusted the first, as Spike simultaneously beat and dusted the second vampire. She smiled broadly as the dust settled.

“I think I know why Buffy’s the boss! I’m like a superhero or something…and so are you, sweetie! That must be what brought us together.”

Smiling, Spike drew Buffy against himself and kissed her deeply. Dawn rolled her eyes.

“Geez you guys, get a room!”

Buffy frowned at her.

“We’re in a room.”

“Shyeah, you know what I meant. Ick, it’s like watching my parents make out.”

The vampires still outside pounded on the door.

“Send us Spike! Now, Slayer!”

Anya frowned.

“Well this is just enough. As a shopkeep, I feel it is my duty to protect our livelihood and my money and the books and stock and my family’s safety and such,” she said waving a random book in the air. She grabbed a handful of herbs, lit a stick of incense, and waved it in front of herself. “Ostendo meus prosapia nemus!”

A bright red light shone at the hearts of Spike, Buffy, Giles, Dawn, and Anya, linking them all together in a branch-like manner. Giles took off his glasses and cleaned them.

“Oh, dear lord.”

Anya frowned at him.

“What? What did I do wrong?”

Giles rolled his eyes.

“You just cast a spell!”

“I know!”

“Do you know what it did?”

“It protected my money by making red lights connect us!”

“No, you daft cow, ‘ostendo meus prosapia nemus?’ Don’t you speak Latin?”

Anya scoffed, but was mesmerized for a moment as the red lights faded into nothingness.

“Of course not. I’m too pretty to have to do any intense reading.”

“Obviously. You told the spell, or gods, or whoever the hell you invoked to show your family tree. That is, if they could understand your horrific Latin!”

“I read it right out of the book you…you jerk!”

“Well that’s obviously not the right book!”

Grabbing another book at random off the shelf, Anya scowled at Giles.

“Then, here’s the one for us. Bara bara himble gemination!”

Anya shrieked in terror at the fuzzy white rabbit that appeared in front of her, and, without thinking of the consequences, ran to the door and opened it, attempting to shuffle the bunny outside. Four vampires ran in, and Dawn, Willow, Tara, Giles, Xander and Anya ran into the training room, locking the door behind them. Buffy and Spike set to beating the crap out of the vampires, Spike slipping into his vampiric visage as he fought. When the vampires were disposed of, Buffy gasped at Spike’s face. Spike raised an eyebrow.

“What?”

“You…you’re a vampire!”

“What? No I’m not.”

“Check the teeth! And the lumpies….”

Spike ran his hand over his forehead and teeth, and shrugged.

“Huh. Well, that would explain why you were feeding me blood before.”

“What do you mean?”

“The only thing I can remember, love. The night we got engaged…we were talking about claiming or something and then you gave me a novelty mug full of blood.”

“Ick. Wait, what’s a claim?”

Spike shrugged and then grabbed a book off of the shelf, smiling as he handed it to her.

“Well, lookie here, ‘Vampire Mating Rituals.’ Sounds promising.”

Shoving the book underneath her arm, Buffy nodded at Spike.

“Right. I’m going to go let the rest of them know we’re okay. Then I think we should take a walk.”

The Scooby Gang settled in around the table, books piled high in front of them, as Buffy and Spike walked out of the door into the night, promising to return within the hour with fresh information. Anya doodled a diagram on the back of a piece of receipt paper, writing a few names on it, and passed it to Giles.



Me (Anya)
V
Rupert
V
Randy -- Buffy
V
Dawn

Giles squinted his eyes at her.

“What does this mean?”

She shrugged.

“I don’t know. I’m just diagramming how the red lines appeared. They connected for Randy and Buffy and pointed to Dawn, but there were just single lines pointing from me to you and from you to Randy. What do you think it means?”

Willow leaned back in her chair a bit too far, and fell onto the crystal in her back pocket with an “eep!” It crumbled underneath her, and she looked up, ashamedly.

“Oopsie.”

--

Buffy and Spike sat, propped up against a gravestone in Restfield cemetery, which they were drawn to, for some reason beyond their amnesic comprehension. Buffy shoved the book into Spike’s lap, pointing at a small section.

“It seems pretty simple. You have to draw blood from each other during sex and one of us says ‘mine’ first, and the other says ‘yours,’ and then we repeat that, only doing the opposite.”

Spike nodded in understanding, and then smiled leeringly at her.

“So…you want to do this now, love?”

“Well, we should probably wait until we get our memories back….”

“Love, we were already planning our wedding. This can be just our little secret…no one has to know what goes on but us…we can have your big to-do wedding with doilies and such…but this is just for us.”

Buffy nodded and crawled on top of his lap, straddling him.

“In that case, I think it’s a great idea.”

Their mouths crashed together, and their clothes were quickly thrown in a heap on the grass next to them. In a desperate thrust, Spike slid into Buffy’s dripping slit. She threw her head back in ecstasy, an act just enticing enough for Spike to pounce on, and he gently pierced his fangs into her throat.

“Mine!”

“Yours,” Buffy assented, as she nipped at Spike’s throat, drawing a trace amount of blood. “And you’re mine!”

“Yours, pet, always,” Spike moaned.

With one deep thrust, their orgasms finally pulsed through them. Buffy rested her head on Spike’s shoulder as a strange fullness passed through her, and he covered them with his duster, neither wanting to move just yet. Spike took a deep breath in Buffy’s hair, smiling and thinking to himself, She smells bloody great. Buffy giggled.

“Thanks, but you don’t have to talk about me in the third person, considering what we just did.”

“Wait…what? You heard that?”

“Stop being stupid Ran….”

The harshness of their memories fell onto Buffy and Spike, coupled with the added bonus of their new mate’s memories. After a few painful minutes that seemed like hours, Buffy sat up and looked frantically at Spike, who had begun to scream and moan, clutching his head and rocking back and forth on the ground.

“Spike?”

--

Everyone in the room scowled at Willow, whose face had turned bright red. She stood, brushing herself off absent-mindedly.

“I’m gonna…I’m just gonna go.”

Tara scowled at her as Willow exited the Magic Box, her eyes filling with tears. Anya and Giles made a point of separating themselves, while Xander and Dawn attempted to make themselves scarce, busying themselves by stacking the books on the table. Tara wrapped her arms around herself and desperately tried to avoid making eye contact with the group.

“I…I’m j-j-j-j-just going to t-t-t-t-take a nap on the cot in the b-b-back,” she stammered, before turning and walking into the back training room.

Xander broke the uncomfortable silence with a light laugh. He looked up sheepishly as everyone glared at him.

“Sorry. I just got back the memory of seeing King Ralph.”

Anya nodded and grabbed the list she had scrawled down linking five of the Scooby Gang together.

“Well, I think this is probably an important focal point that we can discuss to take our minds off of the sex that Giles and I would have had later if we hadn’t gotten our memories back.”

Xander sighed.

“Ahn….”

“I’m right, and you know I am, so just sit down and make yourself useful. Giles, since you’re so high and mighty with your Latin, would you care to regale the group with your translation of the spell I cast while under Willow’s influence?”

With a curt nod, Giles stood before the other three people in the room and sighed.

“‘Ostendo meus prosapia nemus’ very roughly translates into ‘show me the family tree,’ though for the life of me, I can’t discover how…oh, oh good Lord,” he said, whipping his glasses off and cleaning them at a quick pace.

Xander blanched at his actions.

“What?! What’s wrong, G-man?”

Giles stared at Anya, and then Dawn. He sat down with a slump on a chair and grabbed the note from Anya’s hands.

“Right before we awoke in the Magic Box without our memories, I recall…I, well, I’m wasn’t sure if it was lucid dreaming or what, but I awoke first in what I believe was the 1800s in Britain? I can’t be entirely sure, but there was…ahem, there was a woman, who…Anya, were you, when you were a Vengeance Demon, do you recall ever living in England as a Lady?”

Anya’s eyes widened.

“Yes…for a very brief period of time…I had a daughter there…I named her Anne…we…her father and I had come to an understanding. He was married, but his wife couldn’t bear children…she had been attacked and her internal organs were damaged, and she couldn’t carry a child to term. She had called for vengeance after the attack, and I fulfilled my part, but she was just so…broken…and her husband was a hell of a looker, so, when they asked me, I took a maternity leave from the Vengeance career so I could give them something they deserved.”

Xander stared at her in disbelief, and Giles continued to clean his glasses.

“But you’re sure that the man you,” Giles said, trailing off, “Ermm...ummm…had relations with wasn’t me?”

“Of course not. His name was Brassel…Ludwig Brassel.”

An understanding clicked in his mind, and Giles’s face paled.

“You said you named your daughter ‘Anne?’”

Anya nodded.

“Yes. We all settled on it as a suitable name.”

“Oh good Lord. That was the name of…I mean…the woman that I…had relations with…was your daughter? No…no it couldn’t be. It must be some coincidence.”

“That spell is ironclad, Giles…despite my marring the language slightly. But usually it only works on linking non-blood related individuals if each generation procreates. Wait…wait,” she said, pulling the note back from Giles’s grasp.

Anya scanned the note and pointed to the link between Giles and “Randy.”

“Spike! The spell says that Spike is your son, Giles!”

As Giles’s limp body hit the floor of the Magic Box, Dawn stood with a smirk.

“I’m going to go find Buffy and Spike. They’re gonna flip!”

--

Buffy crawled to Spike’s side and grabbed his shoulders roughly. The vampire was staring blankly ahead of himself and mumbling incoherently. With a determined glare, Buffy punched him in his nose, but fell back herself when the sharp pain shot through her own nose as well. Spike, for his part, barely flinched, and remained staring forward. Shaking herself free of the pain, Buffy moved back to his side, and put a calming hand over his mouth, stopping his mumbling.

“Spike. Spike! Hey…please…please stop…wake up, or whatever, okay?”

The soft touch was enough to wake Spike from his near-catatonia, and he looked at Buffy with wild eyes.

“Get away from me, Slayer…I’m no good for you.”

Buffy scowled.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“I saw your life, Slayer…saw your light…I…I’m a monster…can’t take your light and mar it with my filth…can’t…won’t.”

With a sigh, Buffy sat down next to him, leaning back against a gravestone.

“You aren’t filthy, Spike. I saw everything you are…everything you were. And I can still sit next to you without disgust. You were,” she trailed off as she thought of the violent acts she had seen flow through her mind, “You were killing out of instinct and need. Yes, you enjoyed the fight, but a cat will play with its food before it kills it…it doesn’t make you a monster.”

“They were innocents…and I….”

“Were fighting to survive. I…I never understood that before,” she said, earnestly, as tears rolled down her cheeks.

Spike saw the moisture falling from her eyes and moved closer to her, his rough hands lifting to wipe the tears away. He pulled his hands back before he made contact.

“Sorry, pet…I…I don’t mean to be forward…you…you wouldn’t want me to touch you, I know.”

Buffy sighed.

“Spike, you just had a lot more than your hands on me, so wiping a tear away is really not going to sully my virtue,” she said with a light laugh.

Spike stared at her in disbelief.

“How can you be so flippant? Who are you, and what have you done with the Slayer?”

Buffy smiled at him.

“I’m right here, Spike…I’ve just…I’ve realized something. I’ve been too harsh…too harsh on everyone…on everything. I can’t go on like this…it’s going to kill me. As soon as I get close to someone…after Angel left me, I never let my heart open again…I can’t let myself do that anymore. I was pulled out of Heaven to do good…not to be a detriment, and not to live half of a life.”

Spike nodded and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, tentatively.

“I understand, pet. Believe me.”

“How so?”

“Well, for starters, I think our little session got my soul restored.”

“What?”

“We claimed each other, pet…would make sense that I’d inherit some of your qualities…the soul-having first on the menu, which would account for the pain I felt when I got your memories.”

“What does it mean for me?”

“The claim? Can’t rightly say, pet…could mean any number of things…don’t recall it ever being performed between a vampire and a human, let alone a vampire and a Slayer. We’re going to have to talk to the Watcher about it.”

Buffy sighed and began to rise from the soft ground.

“Alright. Back to the Magic Box it is.”

--