Chapter Seven

"Did you come here just to piss me off?"

"If I did it seems I would be succeeding."

"My self restraint only goes so far Sabrina."

"Ooo, naming me after that teenage halfwit, very clever."

"Would you prefer Rosemary?"

"Really, you should get an award for such snappy wit."

Buffy moved towards her but everyone quickly jumped on her to restrain her. "What are you doing?"

"She won't be able to tell us much if she's unconscious Buffy," Xander rationalized.

"He's right, but I'd prefer it since all of you are as intelligent as a tree trunk."

"I'm having trouble holdin' back too," Spike said.

"Me too," Willow agreed.

There was a knock on the door. "Hello?"

"Mom?" Buffy said.

"It's Joyce."

Everyone jumped up and tried to quickly make everything look normal. Willow made a sound proof force field that surrounded their hostage. "We need to cover her with something." Xander ran upstairs and through down one of Giles blankets.

"Yes, that's in no way conspicuous."

Spike opened the door. "Mom. What are you doing here?"

"Well I just thought I'd come over and see how everyone was doing post body swap. I also had to run to the store and I wanted to clear the list with you, to see if you need anything."

"Cheerios," Buffy replied. Joyce looked at her, taken back. "She was saying how she wanted Cheerios so I thought I'd… say it."

"Oh, okay then. How are you doing Spike?"

"Great," Buffy said. "I'd give you a hug but you're kinda standing in the sunlight."

"Oh." She stepped in and gave Spike a hug. Buffy held her mom tightly as if she'd never see her again. "I am fond of you Spike but I'm glad you're no longer in my daughter's body." Spike almost let a laugh slip out but he barely held it back.

Buffy gave him a stern face and let go of her mother. "Me too."

"All right, well it's nice to see all of you. Buffy, I'll see you for dinner?"

"Absatively."

"Great. Well-" Joyce noticed the extremely big pile being hidden with a blanket. "What's-"

"Spring cleaning," Xander jumped in. "We're cleaning up in here."

"I'm sorry, who are you?"

"Uh, Rosemary."

"Oh, well nice to meet you Rosemary." She looked down under the desk and saw Xander curled up. "What's-"

"He's dusting the bottom of the desk. You know how dust gets everywhere right Joyce?" Buffy covered.

"Right." Joyce didn't really believe that but she didn't know if she wanted to know the real reason. Maybe Xander was embarrassed about something. "Okay, well I'll see you later," she said to Buffy's body, "and I'll see the rest of you soon."

"Bye Joyce," everyone said.

The sigh of relief was like surround sound once she left. "That was in no way completely horrible," Buffy said.

"Coulda been worse," Spike stated.

"Oh come on. If she didn't already know I was the Slayer, I would be on household lockdown until she knew what was really going on. Then I'd be put into an institution."

Xander pulled off the blanket and jumped back with a scream. "She's untied!"

Everyone turned and saw his body looking around and trying to find a way out of the force field. "Did she do a spell or something?"

"Possibly," Willow said.

"I thought she wasn't suppose to be able to do spells."

"We were hoping, but there was really no guarantee."

"You just figured better me than any of you. Feeling the love in this room."

"How long is that gonna hold?" Buffy asked.

The witch started performing another spell.

"Not too long I'm guessing," Willow answered.

"We just need to-" Buffy's sentence was cut short by a sudden burst of something. In fact everyone had fallen to the floor.

She was out. "Please, stay down." She held her hand out and everyone felt an invisible weight holding them down. "But you, come here." Spike rose off of the ground and floated towards her.

"Wait, I don't want to go that way," he told Buffy's body.

The witch closed her eyes and mumbled a few foreign words and sealed it by grabbing Spike's hand. There was a flash of light and the two of them collapsed.

Spike opened his eyes and noticed he was now in Xander's body. "Fantastic."

The witch looked around at everyone. "Let's move all of you, over there." She pointed from the group, to the wall where Spike was standing. Quickly everyone flew into the wall, knocking Spike unconscious.

Xander crawled out of the fray over to one of the books on the ground. "Dostas cornice shanibo con deso." Buffy's body, possessed by the witch, froze in it's position. It was like someone pressed pause. "I did it! I actually did it!" He looked at his friends and noticed they too were in pause mode. "Oh great." He flipped through more of the pages. "Notas ou trasant fordio. Replasar notaly corvio." Everything unpaused, leaving everyone discombobulated.

Buffy looked around and noticed she was in a different place than she remembered. Sure enough there she was. She was herself again. "I'm me!"

"Me too!" Spike yelled.

Xander wasn't able to confirm because his body was still unconscious.

"Me too," the witch said with contempt. She quickly tugged Buffy over to her.

"No!" Spike ran over to them but he was swatted through the window.

"Spike!"

Suddenly Giles door was knocked off its hinges. It fell to the floor revealing a man dressed in black with a black cloth covering most of his face. "Caroline?"

"Dirk?" She let go of Buffy and back into a corner of the room. He walked towards her with determination in his face.

Buffy moved between them, holding her hands out. "If you think I'm gonna let you just hurt her then you got another thing coming."

"What? She's my sister, I'm not going to hurt her."

"Then what are you…"

He reached over Buffy and laid a finger on the woman's head. "Tag, you're it."

Caroline let out an annoyed scream. "You have got to be kidding me! How did you find me?"

"Your locator suddenly started working."

"Crap, must've been because I swapped bodies."

"You swapped bodies?"

"Yeah- no! You can't steal that idea!" He smiled and ran out. "Get back here!" She ran out after him.

Everyone's mouths were open in shock. There was silence as they observed the destroyed house and replayed the encounter in their head.

Finally Xander said, "Did we just get Punk'd?"

"Spike." Buffy saw him lying on the grass outside, in minimal shade that the row of bushes provided. "Spike." She shook him awake.

"Buffy." He immediately embraced her without giving it a second thought. He quickly caught his bearings and let her go. "Nice to see she didn't rip ya apart."

"I'm not sure if that's a good thing."

"Meaning?"

"Oh you are going to love this story."

"Uh, excuse me," Xander said as he leaned out the window. "Can we have some assistance with the Room-O-Demolition in here?"

………………………………………………………………………………………………

It was now nighttime and Giles apartment was only partially liveable. His window was now a big piece of wood and his door was there but lacking proper hinges. Buffy suggested he stay at her place for the night until they can properly fix his door. As she roamed the graveyard with Spike he was preparing to sleep on the couch in her living room.

"So they put us through all that for a stupid game of find the bitch?"

"Pretty much."

"God I wish I were conscious so I could've knocked'em both out."

"I would've if my brain fully got what happened before they left. Definitely going under the strangest occurrences column." Spike nodded. "So, ya gonna miss being in a human body?"

Spike let his laugh come out this time. Buffy playfully slapped him on the chest. "Kind of. A lot of it was actually a pain. But I did like watching the sunrise. And of course the boobs were fun when I had nothing to do."

"Ugh, I think I almost threw up in my mouth."

"I'm kiddin' Summers."

She laughed. "Well, thanks for pretending to be me today so my mom wouldn't freak out."

"It was nice for me too. I got to see how much she actually cared about me. Your mom's a very likeable lady."

"I always thought so. Then again I was impressionable and she gave me stuff."

"You gonna miss bein' a vampire?"

"I gotta say that only having about five ways to die is a pretty nice thing. But not being in sunlight was a big problem. I'd rather be me than not be able to see my friends whenever I wanted."

"And all my lack of friends are nocturnal." They shared another laugh.

"Uh, Spike?"

"Yeah?"

Buffy stopped walking, making Spike stop too. "Thanks for jumping in at the end. When she was about to… do whatever she was gonna do."

"I did do a good job of getting' knocked through the window."

"I'm serious. You were concerned for me and I must admit that it was a nice part of you to see."

"Guess bein' in your body made ya grow on me."

Buffy looked down and slid her hand into his. He was confused for a moment but gladly held her hand in his. "Me too."

Author's Note: That's it. No more chapters. The end. Finito. Fini. And all those other ways to say the end. Hope you enjoyed and I'll hear from you guys whenever my next story makes it to paper (and by "paper" I mean Microsoft Word).