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Author's Chapter Notes:
School's back in for me. Life is full of drudgery like comm 101, which translated to speech class. Plus the torture of Chem 101 and the one and only course I've actually really been looking forward to, A+ Computer. In case you haven't figured it out yet, I'm a big ol geek, but I love it.
Time

"Well. That's it then isn't it? We can go on home now." Spike said looking down at Buffy. He was most definitely ready to leave this place as soon as he could.

Giles waited for a reaction from Buffy. "I do believe Spike is right. You know what it is the Council is trying to stop. And now Quinton is aware he may be to late."

"There's no tellin' what he guy will do, Buff." Xander pleaded with his friend. "We need to get you and Spike out of here, and quick."

Dawn sat back, she listened to everyone begging Buffy to leave. "We can't!" Dawn wined. "Not with everything Michelle and everyone knows now. They need us."

Buffy turned in her seat and watched her sister's face tighten. "She's right." Buffy looked back at Giles. "Those scrolls, they said that when The Council was formed, it was so people, regular people could help The Slayer. Right."

Giles leaned back in his chair. "Well yes, Buffy. But that was another time. This Council is-"

"A pain in my ass?" Buffy looked around the room. "But you guys have been my Council for almost 7 years now. If it weren’t for any one of you in this room, I would be dead and gone. Still." She smiled lightly. "That's the problem here. These guys don't care one way or the other. If a Slayer dies, another is called. So why worry about one getting herself killed? As long as the job gets done."

Anya seriously doubted it would work. "You can't teach Mr. Travers how to have a heart, Buffy."

"I don't intend to."

Tara looked at the Slayer. "What are you thinking?"

Buffy sighed, and began explaining her idea to the group. "I was barely fifteen when I was called. Willow and Xander were the same age when they started helping, and fighting with me. I think the problem could be solved by simply letting The Children of The Council, become The Council."

Giles's head popped up Quickly. "Are you suggesting letting the Children run The Council, alone?"

"Quinton isn't just going to hand over all authority to the kids, Buff." Xander added.

"Probably not. But we could force his hand. And I don't expect them to do it alone" Buffy looked around the room. "Dawn, how many of the kids-?"

"You mean young adults."

"Fine, young adults, and children are in on what's going on here?"

Dawn thought about it. "All but about 10 or 15 I think."

"Willow, those disks that boy gave you? Do you still have a blank one?"

"I might. What do you have in mind?"

Buffy grinned broadly as she took one final sweep of the room. "Just a little treason."

~~`~~

Buffy Spike and Giles sat at the table in the patriarch's kitchen. The rest of the group had headed home for the evening to give them some time to discuss all they had learned, and to refine Buffy's plan.

Buffy found herself trying to hear things she shouldn't be able to, but couldn't seem to turn on the switch that would allow her newly amped up ears to dial in on anything unusual.

Spike was reeling at all of the different possibilities of whatever changes were going to happen to both of them. Giles tried to answer the questions of both while contemplating The Council's fate, but because none of this had ever happened before, he had few answers for them, or himself.

Giles sat back in his seat eyeing his slayer curiously. "Buffy what are you doing?"

Buffy's tilted head straightened. "Nothing."

Spike cocked an eyebrow at her, then looked over to Giles. "I think she's tryin' to test out 'er ears."

"Ah, have you heard anything out of the ordinary?"

"No." She pouted.

Spike shook his head at her. He watched Buffy's face scrunch in concentration. "Buffy, when you did the super hearin', what was going on?"

Buffy thought about it for a minute. "Well, earlier, after you made that comment about my form." Spike smiled at her. "and when I heard Quinton coming through the hall when I was hiding earlier, and when Randall told us we might have to repeat some of the evaluations."

Spike thought about those moments. "Were you angry? Or excited, something that got the adrenaline goin'?"

"Uh.." What a bad question. Spike complimenting her body. Yea, that gives her a rush. Hiding in a dark room hoping not to get busted by the head honcho...different rush, but another yes. Then having Quinton junior tell us we'll be having the wonderful privilege of jumping through more hoops? That's an affirmative Houston. "It's possible."

"Why it hasn't happened in a fight yet, I couldn't tell ya', but usually for a Vamp, it's emotions that can make the demon come out without being called up."

"Yes," Giles agreed. "Of course." He turned to Buffy. "You need to hone your emotional state to 'turn on' your new powers."

Buffy looked at the simple clock on the wall. "I can't practice now, we need to patrol."

"Uh, luv." Spike held up his bare wrists to remind her that his 'out and about' privileges had been revoked. "They took the crystal to be sure I wouldn't run off."

Buffy smiled at Spike, and pulled 2 small pieces of the green crystal from the pocket of her jacket still draped across the back of her chair. "Quinton's not as quick as he'd like to think he is."

Giles looked at the small crystals. "Where did you get those?"

"Oh. Well these were crosses." She pointed to crystal attached to the leather on her wrist.

"So I broke the top off of both, just to be safe."

"Bloody genius." Spike pointed at Buffy and repeated to Giles. "She's a bloody genius."

Buffy gleamed with the compliment. "Now we just need to sneak you in and out of here with me."

"Vampire." Spike said proudly smiling, then pointed at himself. "Stealthy."

"We'll need to convince Willow and Tara to give us use of the lap top, so Quinton sees you all snug in bed, but I think it will be easier than if it was Xand an' Anya's night." Buffy stood up. "We'll see you tomorrow Giles."

"Be careful. Remember those Vampires are after both of you."

The two blondes left the apartment, and headed through the commons. Buffy used her card and opened the large metal door. As soon as it was opened, the guard outside greeted her. "Miss Summers. I have orders to make sure you are alone. "The guard looked over her shoulders and saw no one.

Buffy looked behind her, then back to the guard, "All alone. No problem." and she walked past the guard as the door slid closed, then turned. "Damn!"

"What is it Miss?"

"I think I dropped my card in there."

The guard took his key card out of his inside pocket, and opened the door. The two walked in. "I know I put it in my back pocket, I must have missed the actual pocket part." The guard watched her looking at the floor near the door.

"It may have slid when it fell." He said bending down and looking for what should have been very easy to find.

When the guard's back was turned, Spike came from behind the chair that had served it's purpose as his hiding place, and passed through the open doorway. When Buffy saw he was cleared, she pulled her card from her jacket's pocket. "Oh jeez. I am such a dunce."

She showed the card to the guard. "I put it in a different pocket.

The guard shook his head at the girl, who at that moment, personified every blonde joke he'd ever heard.

Buffy walked through the door past the guard and towards the doors that led outside.

Halfway through the maze of turns, Spike joined her. Within minutes they were in the hallway of doors that acted as portals to the surface.

"So where to tonight, luv?"

Buffy looked at the doors, then decided. "Show me where you grew up."

Spike was surprised." Really?"

Buffy shook her head. "Yea. I wanna see where the Big Bad got his first kiss."

Spike walked near each door. He chose one and looked back at her. "Ready?"

She nodded and Spike opened the door for her. "Ladies first." She walked through and he followed.

When they appeared on the other side, they were in a dark cavern. "Where in England is this, Spike?"

Buffy turned back to her lover. He stood there frozen in place.

A rush of memories flew through Spike's brain at amazing speeds. When they abruptly stopped, he wavered and nearly fell, but Buffy stopped his decent to the dirt floor.

Now balancing the Vampire against one shoulder, she looked at his shocked face. "Spike?"

~~`~~

Dawn woke before the first bell, as usual. She had always seemed to follow her namesake.

The girl showered quickly, and dressed. After the second bell rang, and her 2nd bowl of cereal, the teen decided her sister needed to get up.

"Buffy." She knocked on her sister's door. "Buffy you need to get up." She opened the door. "Buf-?"

Dawn walked out the door to the apartment and to Giles's. She knocked vigorously until
Giles answered the door to see a very flustered teen. "Dawn what is it?"

"Did Spike come home last night? Is Buffy here?" Dawn ran in past Giles. "Where are they?"

The words hit Giles like an anvil. He swiftly strode to Spike's door and flung it open, hoping to be screamed at by the Vampire for waking him. Instead he saw the mussed bed.

Normal since Spike never made up his bed.

It was empty.

"Dear Lord."

~~`~~

Dawn, Richard and Michelle all sat in silence after Dawn was finished explaining the prophecy, Buffy's disappearance and the plan her sister had come up with the previous evening. She had spent most of the morning going over it all.

"So, it's foretold. This is all supposed to happen?" Richard asked.

"The first part already has. Giles's thinks, or hopes, that Spike and Buffy are with the sisters now"

"You mean your sister, and the Vampire...?" Michelle was too much a lady to complete the sentence.

Richard did what any Watcher would do in this type of situation, he began cleaning his spectacles. "I can accept the Vampire and your sister, especially if it a part of the prophecy, but if all of this comes about, what will become of The Council? How are we to run it?"

"Buffy thinks The Council should stay, but change."

Michelle and Richard exchanged a look, then the young man began. "We understand that changes are due in The Council, but I think, I think we need some guidelines."

Dawn thought about The Council. In the beginning they had been there to help, to give support. In the beginning they had been like the Scoobies. "I think the basic piece missing, is the heart. No one here really seems to care about the person giving up their life for humanity. She isn't a tool." Dawn looked at both of them. "She's The Slayer."

~~`~~

Spike gained his footing, and stood up straighter. "I remember."

Buffy looked into his blue eyes. "What do you remember, Spike?"

"This place." He began walking through the cavern. "This is where they brought me. and Peaches."

“Wait?” None of the Scoobs had mentioned the fact that Angel was with Spike during Akoshta since he never had any memory of his grande-sire's presence. The rules forbade it. "Angel?"

Spike chuckled. "Oh yea. A right good fight we woulda' had to if these two chits hadn't shown up." Spike was telling Buffy when they saw two figures appear from nothing.

"I don't believe I like being called a chit. Do you sister?"

"I do not enjoy it, but you have always been more sensitive to these things."
Buffy and Spike looked behind them in the direction of the voices. Spike eyed the two demons. "Not all dressed up this time I see?"

The sisters looked at each other then back at the couple, their tight skin grayed and loosened and shifted without warning to become two contrasts of The Pure. One in her human visage with long auburn hair, and a rainbow of skins covering her body.

The other wore the skins, but her bald spiny head replaced the hair, and her gray skin was now covered in lumps and ridges.


Chapter End Notes:
Hehe.. things will really start getting interesting now. About 10 more chaps to go though.



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