Thank you to everybody who voted for Turn the Hourglass Over at the SunnyD Awards. Tuesday was voted Best Original Character, and I can't tell you how chuffed I am about that! Of course, the nominations were pretty Spuffy-heavy this round, so people may have just liked that she staked Angel, but that was a mistake, as she would be quick to assure you. We're also nominated in several categories at the No Rest For the Wicked Awards on LiveJournal!

As always, I'd like to thank The Imperfectionist for going over this with a fine-toothed comb, and to AllyPetals for listening to me beat my head against the wall in frustration. All song lyrics used come from Separate Ways (Worlds Apart) by Journey. It was suggested that this chapter needed a theme song to tie it all together, rather than a single quote at the beginning, as I've done with previous chapters. I think it's really fitting for this chapter, not only the lyrics, but the pace of the song, and the feeling of tension it carries. So, if you wanted to, say, YouTube it and listen while you start to read, that would be perfectly fine by me!

"Distant eyes, promises we made were in vain."

-Journey

Chapter 12

Hours later, when Dawn left headquarters, she found Buffy on the front stoop of their house, looking dazed. Her hair was disheveled, her clothes were torn, and the bit of bandage that still clung to her right hand was smeared with blood that had dried brown.

A few quick calls was all it took for the Scoobies to come running, though she was a little surprised that Spike and Angel weren't together. She'd thought they put aside their differences to concentrate on finding Buffy, but maybe she should have been shocked that they'd worked together as long as they had.

When Angel rushed through the door a few minutes later, he looked awful; bruises adorned his face, and he was pale, out of breath, and covered in sweat. Then, his eyes fell on Buffy, who held her arms out to him. She took one stumbling step into his arms, and his expression of relief at seeing her safe was so radiant it hurt to look at him. He pulled her close to him and held her, stroking her hair while she cried.

This time, Buffy remembered who she was, but had no memory of where she'd been before Dawn found her or how long she'd been sitting on the stoop. She was still shaky and disoriented when Spike appeared, equally battered, with a mug of soup that she practically inhaled.

Then, sirens began blaring in the distance, but instead of fading off into the night, they came ever closer, until Buffy insisted they go see what was happening. Spike reluctantly made his way to the door when he saw that the Slayer's mass exodus didn't apply to Angel, since she was still holding tight to The Great Ponce's hand. His jaw tightened at the sight, but he left without a word.

Outside, two police cars and an ambulance sat in the street. Officers tried to hold their neighbor, Mrs. Finch, away from her husband and the swarm of paramedics that surrounded him. Except for the paramedics, he was shielded from view by the bushes that lined the walkway between their garage and their house.

"He might have been there when I got home," Dawn realized with horror. "I was completely focused on Buffy… I should have noticed."

Xander put his arm around her shoulder, earning a sharp look from Spike, which he ignored, "It's not your fault, Dawnie. You can't blame yourself for whatever did that." The paramedics had him on a gurney now, and in the flashing light, they could see he'd been badly beaten.

"What's all the fuss? I thought the goal was to keep quiet about the supernatural stuff, not call the fuzz." Graham asked, joining the group. Dawn turned to him, and he was happy to see Xander's arm fall from her shoulders. Good, he thought, not quite a romantic entanglement. Yet.

"Our neighbor found her husband on the lawn. Looks like somebody had a grudge," Dawn explained as they turned toward the house as the ambulance doors closed, taking Mr. and Mrs. Finch away.

"What do you mean 'grudge'?" Graham asked slowly.

"He looked like he went back for seconds at the all-you-can-beat buffet." Xander told him, climbing the stoop and walking through the door.

Graham cast a last look at the flashing lights, as the police investigated the crime scene, the gears of his mind turning. Twice, somebody had been found brutally beaten when Buffy returned from where ever she'd been. Two times was only a coincidence, he reminded himself. He hoped to god there wasn't a third.

"Xander sent you." It wasn't a question, although Greg still had trouble with the idea that the woman in front of him could probably kick his ass, and then carry him to the hospital when she was done. She was tall and spare, and what stood out at him the most wasn't the well-muscled arms that looked like they'd done their share of hard work, or the wide, beautiful mouth that was moving, words pouring out in a husky melody. No, it was her eyes that captivated him. They were pretty, but haunted. He suspected she had a past she didn't talk about, but wondered if maybe all the Slayers had eyes like that. Didn't seem like a jump to think that if the Powers That Be meant to make you into a knife, they'd use force and fire to temper you.

"You ok?" Tuesday peered at the man in front of her. He hadn't spoken since he greeted her, and she didn't have time to worry about him. Greg shook his head. "Yeah, sorry. Come on in," he shifted to the side, so that he wasn't blocking the door like a side of beef.

"Harris says he may have an idea why they took Gracie." Greg motioned her to the couch, while he sank into an armchair, settling on the chair's edge.

"We believe her mother was a Potential."

"Potential what? Sounds ominous. Christie had problems, but the girl was never that."

"Slayer." The word fell, like an anvil between them.

Greg rubbed his hand over his bald head. "So, if she hadn't died, she could have been like you?"

Tuesday folded her arms across her chest. She didn't really like sharing the Slayer lore with outsiders, but Gracie had a blood claim to it, and it was enough to justify giving up a few details. "Would have. There used to just be one, then there was two, and now there's all of us. Has been for a while now."

"What about Gracie? Is she going to be a Slayer?" Greg asked her. His mind raced, trying to figure how this new information affected his niece and how it could have gotten her snatched.

Tuesday shrugged, not unfeeling, but not sure how to respond, "Doesn't seem to be a lot of rhyme or reason to who has the Potential. There are a few families seem to crop up more often than usual, and could be that Gracie's from some long-forgotten branch of that family tree, but it don't much matter. We know they have her, and we're pretty sure we know why they targeted her. That's a pretty good lead. We've found people on less."

Greg stood, resolute. "What do I do to get my little girl back?"

"Right now? You stay here. I go find Gracie. It'd be good if you sent me with something of hers, might be able to track her with magic."

Greg glared at the Slayer, but he went and retrieved a threadbare stuffed rabbit from Gracie's bed. "Christie gave that to her. It was hers when she was a kid. Thought it might be more…" he fished for a word, "connected than some of the newer stuff."

Tuesday took the little toy, her fingers brushing against his as she did. "Thanks. Anybody asks," she jerked her head in the direction of the police officers still milling around, "we took this for a prayer meeting." She turned and left abruptly. What was the use of formalities when there was work to be done that was more important?

Still, for some reason, her feet wouldn't budge past the doorway, almost the inverse of a vampire's inability to cross a threshold uninvited. She looked over her shoulder at Greg to say goodbye, and was surprised at the steely determination in his eyes. That, she reckoned, was respectable enough; usually she only saw horror, fear, or that blank look they get when they just couldn't cope with what was in front of them. "We'll find her," she promised, and her feet must have decided that was good enough, because she left the house with long strides, the rabbit cradled in her arms.

"Sleepless nights, losing ground, I'm reaching for you"

-Journey

Angel couldn't take his eyes off her, couldn't really keep his hands off her, either. He'd started innocently enough; holding her hand and brushing the hair back from her face. Then, somehow he was next to her with his arm around her shoulder and she was tucked safely against him. Inch by inch she relaxed into his embrace, until, finally she fell asleep with a little sigh. Best of all, when Spike found them, he offered a glare that promised death before he stormed from the room with his jaw clenched so that little muscle jumped out. Buffy never even woke up.

It was petty, he knew, but humanity seemed to come with all sorts of little flaws. Apparently, listening to Spike talk about Buffy like he was Slayer Whisperer while Angel had been little more than a teething ring seemed to bring them all out at once. He wasn't proud, but he wasn't particularly bothered by it either.

Angel relished the heat of Buffy, his Buffy, against his body. He closed his eyes, enjoying the way her warmth carried the scent of her shampoo, and that other scent that was uniquely hers and had always called to something deep inside him. Angel relaxed into sleep so slowly he didn't even realize it, lulled by the rhythm of their hearts beating in tandem. His arms held her tight against him, and his body wound around hers; a barrier against whatever might try to cause her harm.

"Feelin' that it's gone can change your mind."

-Journey

Graham hated that his place of solace was the library. Unfortunately, his time in Miami was still easily measurable in hours. He hadn't had time to find a good pub, let alone an apartment, and hotels had always sent his brain into overdrive. It was that they were all unbearably similar, though not identical, with all their routines and policies that were designed to achieve exactly the same goals, but were unique to each establishment.

He was glad Buffy had been found and that she was reasonably safe and well. The intensity of his concern was staggering, given the brief time he'd known her and their lack of relationship. Graham reasoned to himself that it must be the Watcher/Slayer bond already beginning.

He knew that she'd never accept him as her Watcher in the same way she had Mr. Giles. He would have to wedge himself into her life, adapt to her ways, though tradition dictated the opposite. Since her methods had led to her being the longest-lived Slayer on record, even taking into account the time she wasn't alive, he couldn't see the problem with that.

Graham held out little hope that whatever had a hold of her would take her twice, only to then leave her alone. No, he decided, it's just a matter of time until she's gone again. So, hour after hour, he sat, researching, flipping through books, his mind compiling theories, and dismissing them just as quickly. He had too much information for any of them to stand, but not enough to formulate one that would.

He was bouncing a blue ball against a bare section of wall, staring at the dry erase board covered with his scrawl. Facts, ideas, and possibilities he'd been over a hundred times stared back at him, willing his mind to come up with something when the library doors opened, and Tuesday's team strode into the room.

She nodded in greeting, and paused long enough to ask about Buffy, then turned immediately to her work. They were looking for a girl, it seemed, taken by demons for nefarious reasons.

Aren't we all, he wondered, thinking of his own girl – his Slayer – also taken for God knew what purpose. With a sigh, he pocketed his ball and picked up a new tome.

"If you must go, I wish you love, you'll never walk alone"

-Journey

Angel opened his eyes, looking for Buffy, but found only the soft indention her body had made in the still-warm covers. He frowned and sat up, but the room was calm and still in the dim light from the pretty lamp on Buffy's nightstand.

He pushed himself to his feet, and saw the Team Sunnydale photograph on her dresser. There were so few reminders left of her life in California, and none of them seemed to include him. He thought of the photographs he had stashed safely in LA; he'd taken nothing he wouldn't mind losing with him to Wolfram & Hart, except his people, but that was a set of regrets he didn't have time to think about right now.

Somewhere, in the Hyperion, were pictures from her prom. Aside from their formal shots, Willow had taken dozens of pictures throughout the night, and had brought him a copy of each of them before graduation. Someday, he'd like to return them.

Angel padded down the hallway, and checked the restroom for signs of Buffy, but she was nowhere to be found. When he walked into the kitchen, Spike stood, his jaw still tight, hands curled into fists at his side.

"Where's Buffy?" he asked, voice low.

"She's not here?" Angel asked, his heart plummeting as the shocked, then worried expressions on everybody's face told him everything he needed to know.

The room was completely silent for a heartbeat, then Spike snarled, "Bloody hell," and slammed his hand against the counter. Dawn jumped and Xander's arm tightened around her waist, while Willow looked at them sickly, fear churning in her stomach.

"Get to Headquarters soon as you can," Spike told her, using all of his control to keep from screaming. "Get the Bookman back to work on this, suss it out."

"I'm going with her," Dawn said, chin jutting out at a stubborn angle, arms folded across her chest.

"You sure you're up to it?" Angel asked her, remembering how broken up she'd been the first time Buffy disappeared.

"I'm way over the boo-hooing. Now, I'm pissed. We find this thing; you guys kick its butt. Deal?" Dawn's voice was steely, and her eyes flashed in anger.

"Best sodding plan I've heard so far, Nibblet," Spike told her, watching as she, Willow, and Xander filed out the door.

"You think they'll figure it out in time?" Angel asked after the door closed behind them.

"I hope so, mate. I bloody well hope so."

"Troubled times, caught between confusion and pain."

-Journey

"Have you considered a Timini demon?" Graham asked Andy from two tables over. He couldn't help but overhear their research, and a corner of his brain he wished he could force back to Buffy had started churning over their leads as well as his own.

Andy glowered at him, but Tuesday asked, "What's a Timini? Never heard of one."

"No, of course not." Graham hated how stuffy he sounded. It was the damn accent. How did people like Spike manage to sound cool when they talked about this stuff, while he sounded like Mr. Giles? "They're not often in this dimension. In fact, the last time we know of was in the 1600s. Timini are masters of temporal distortion, and visually, a temporal distortion affects light much like a heat wave. When the light bends, a Timini can use it to create an illusion of sorts, but like any illusion, it's flawed. Greg must have been in exactly the right place at the right time, and was able to momentarily see its true face."

"But what would one of these Timini demons want with Gracie?" Andy asked, his animosity towards Graham momentarily forgotten in the interest of finding the little girl.

"Nothing good," Graham told him soberly, rising to pull a book from a nearby shelf and thumbing through it until he found the proper page. "According to the 1689 edition of Farrman's Demonologie, their ability to create temporal distortions and temporal folds makes them especially good at the creation of chimera. If Gracie was targeted because she is the child of a Potential Slayer…"

"Then they think she's physically capable of withstanding whatever they're planning," Tuesday finished grimly.

"Her blood," Jenn, the Wicca, piped up for the first time. "It's a tenuous connection, but Gracie's connected by blood to the Source."

Graham's brows knitted while he shuffled through the information in his brain, but he couldn't recall what Source Jenn might be talking about. "I'm sorry, but I don't know to which Source you are referring."

Andy's smirk was infuriating. "There's something the Great Graham isn't an expert on? My god, what's the world coming to?"

"It's a fairly new concept," Jenn explained, shyly. "When the Mother was able to use the Slayer-General's scythe to activate the Potential Slayers, it was because she was able to feel the Source of the Slayers powers through it. She said it was as though they all had a line into the Source, but only the Slayer-General and the Colonel Slayer," she referred to Faith by her title, "were actually drawing from it. She just made it so they were all drawing from it at once."

"Brilliant. Does she have any idea from where the Source came? Is it a finite resource?" he asked her eagerly.

"Having all the Potentials tapped into it doesn't seem to have made a noticeable change to the level of the Source, but there's so much of it that we have no idea whether it's self-renewing or just really vast. And, the Source is the power of a demon, trapped, purified, and funneled into the Slayer."

"If y'all can stop playing brainiac and get back to Gracie?" Tuesday snapped at them. "We need to figure out what these creeps want with her."

"In the vaguest terms," Graham told her gravely, "I think they want to make her into something. I just don't know what."

The knock at the door was short and curt. It demanded to be answered, and Greg rose to obey, ignoring the nearly-crippling fear that the police had returned with bad news. Instead, he opened the door and found Tuesday waiting impatiently with an ancient book in her arms. He swung the door open, but she cut him off before he could speak.

"Is this the demon you saw while you were waiting for Gracie?" she shoved the book beneath his nose. He took the book from her hands and adjusted it so he could see the engraving more clearly.

"Yeah," he said after he examined it, "that's as close a drawing as I think you could get."

"What do you mean?" she snapped at him, "Either it is or it ain't."

"That's it alright," Greg crossed his arms, refusing to rise to the bait, "and if you'd ever seen one of those things in the flesh, you'd know exactly what I meant."

"So what do you mean?"

Greg gave her a long, cold look, "Look, lady, if I was a physicist I could probably describe it better, but I'm not. I'm a builder, and all the only way I know to describe it is like one of those pictures that come closer or get further away depending on how you focus your eyes. You can't understand what I'm sayin', find someone to translate."

The sudden shift in Greg's demeanor, from desperate to bear-like, solidified Tuesday's grudging respect for the man. "You were lucky to have seen the slip in the temporal disturbance around the demon. It's the biggest break we've had so far. Soon as we have a little more information about what we're walking into, we'll use that bunny to do a locator spell, see if we can find out where they're holding her." She turned back towards the door, her mind already anticipating the fight ahead.

Greg's blood began a slow boil. He could live with the woman's attitude and bad manners, if she found Gracie, but hearing that they hadn't even started trying to find his niece was his breaking point. His hand shot out of its own volition and clasped her shoulder. "You mean to tell me, you haven't even tried to find her yet?"

Tuesday froze, her entire body stiffening at the unexpected touch. "Take that hand off me, 'less you want to lose it."

"Look, I know you're a badass, lady, but the best horse isn't worth a tinker's damn if it don't leave the barn. You got better things to do? Fine. Point me in the right direction." His hand fell from her shoulder slowly, telling her without words that he was moving it because he'd made his point, not because of her threat.

Greg's hand had demanded her attention, but he hadn't squeezed or tried to force her to turn around. The realization earned him a little leeway, and she turned to face him with her arms crossed so that the book was clenched against her chest. "Running in blind when there's another option gets people killed. Believe me, I'll be glad when I get the green light. I ain't much use in a library, and I want to get your little girl back almost as bad as you do. Right now we think we know why they want her, and as soon as we find out who all's going to be at their shindig, we'll crash it."

"What should I bring with me? Rifle? Brass knuckles and a ball bat? What works against demons?"

Tuesday goggled at him. She thought she had him pegged for more brains than Harris. "I ain't gonna pretend to have any idea why you think you're going with me," she told him, trying to keep from laughing at him, "but it ain't happening."

"Like hell it ain't. I'll be the first to admit it took me a little time to find my balls after Gracie came up missing, but if you think I'm going to just sit here and wait for you to bring her back, you're crazy." He growled, and reached into her space to grab the doorknob and wrench the door open. He strode past Tuesday to his truck, reached into the bed and came back with a heavy tow chain about four feet long with a hook at one end that he used to buckle it over his shoulder like a bandolier before grabbing his tool belt. He dumped the nails and small tools it held into the bed without ceremony, and buckled it around his waist so that it rode low on his hips.

"What the hell is that thing?" Tuesday motioned to the belt, and to the two heavy tools hanging from loops on either side.

"What? The hammer?" Greg asked her, playing dumb. "You use a stake, I use a hammer. It's what I'm comfortable with."

"I meant the other one, smartass." Tuesday glowered.

"Truckman axe," he told her and pulled the wicked-looking tool from his belt so that the light glinted dully off its curved blade and the two spikes that protruded from the back. "They're used for demolition work. Firefighters love 'em."

"You're a fireman?" she asked him skeptically.

"Volunteer only. I left the force when my brother died." He slid the tool back into his belt loop, not meeting her eyes. "It's not as impressive as being a Vampire Slayer, but people need protecting and it was my job. Right now, Gracie needs protecting, and that's the only thing that matters."

Tuesday chewed the inside of her cheek. She didn't need, or particularly want his help but she understood something about this man. He'd loved being a fireman, but he walked away when Gracie needed him. Greg took care of his people and if he couldn't be there to help save her now, it would change something inside him. She knew from experience that decent men were few and far between and she wasn't going to be the ruin of this one. "You might not make it back," she warned him, knowing it wouldn't deter him.

"Nature of the beast," he agreed and fell into step beside her.

"Right," she agreed flatly, "now, let's go knock some demon heads together, see if we can scare up some information."

Hours later, Graham intercepted a call that came across the police scanner about a nearly catatonic woman found wandering through an alleyway. He reported the address to Angel and Spike, the pair closest to her location before grabbing his coat and hurrying out into the night.

Buffy didn't seem to notice the gentle hands that led her home, but she didn't fight them, either. Her eyes were blank in a way that reminded Spike of that first night she was back, when it was all too much for her. God, he worried as he took in the sight of her disheveled appearance, the bruises, and the blood, what the bloody hell has hold of her and what are they doing?

Angel was reminded, shamefully, of Dru in the hours before he'd turned her and sealed her forever inside her madness. In the place where his demon should have howled in glee, there was only a white-hot rage. When he found whatever was doing this, he would destroy it, as brutally as his human body was able, whatever the cost.

Graham kept to the shadows until he was certain he wouldn't cross paths with his Slayer or her escorts. Only a few blocks from where Buffy had been spotted wandering aimlessly, he found what he was looking for: a young woman beaten and unconscious partially concealed inside a bus shelter. The bruises and lacerations were small enough to have been left by a fist and brutal enough to have been the work of a Slayer.

With a heavy heart, Graham dialed 9-1-1 from the woman's cell phone and left the area as inconspicuously as possible.

"Here we stand. Worlds apart, hearts broken in two."

-Journey

"Why are we casting spells in a padded room?" Greg asked doubtfully as he looked around at the small dark room that Jenn was carefully preparing for her spell. The locator spell had fizzled almost as soon as she'd cast it, and now she was going to attempt to use the blood connection between Greg and Gracie to let him connect to her for a few moments. With any luck at all, it would allow them to figure out where she was.

"It's not a padded room," she smiled patiently. "Not technically, at least. The walls are padded because sometimes a novice Wiccan's spells can get a little… unpredictable, and the floor is designed for easy clean up. You wouldn't believe how much time your average Wiccan spends sweeping up salt and sand and chicken's feet."

"Right," he replied nervously, sitting inside one of the ornate circles on the floor near from the bunny. Jenn sat cross-legged with a hand on each, almost as though she were a conductor between the two. Tuesday and Andrew waited in the safe viewing area, behind what appeared to be a very thick piece of glass, set high in the wall.

With a last comforting smile and an encouraging pat on the knee, Jenn began to chant. After a few minutes, the lethargy that had crept into Greg's limbs was replaced with a shot of adrenaline and fear. He was tied to a stone table and the bindings cut into his wrists, but a pillow had been placed under his head. Rock towered around him and over him and he could hear at least three voices saying something that sounded like pig Latin, only scary. He could smell something sweet in the air; it reminded him of cotton candy, but he'd smelled it for so long it made his stomach hurt. The man with a scary face leaned over him and made a bunch of funny movements with his hands over her chest, close enough that sometimes his long fingernails actually touched him and tickled. He giggled and the man gave him a weird look and put one of his hands over his eyes, pushing him back.

The soft floor met his head with a swift whump and the cave was gone, replaced with the dark room and Jenn's worried face. An instant later, Tuesday fell to her knees beside him and helped him sit up. "She's in a cave and I think there are at least three or four of them. I could hear three voices and I could see the scary man. They haven't hurt her," he gasped, heart pounding as if he'd run a mile. "They've got her in a cave somewhere, but they haven't hurt her."

"I hate to be the voice of doom, but there are thousands of caves in this country. She could be anywhere," Andy told them grimly, sorry for the pained look on Greg's face.

Jenn tapped a finger against her pursed lips, "No, I think they'd stay close. They'll need the dark energy from the Hellmouth for whatever they're trying to do."

Andy led the way to the library, "I'm confident there are no caves in Miami, but we'll see if there is something that might look similar to one somewhere. Maybe there's an unfinished bit of sewer or something. If it's here, I'll find it." He plopped down at the first computer terminal he came to and began his search.

"Well, I was mostly right," Andy announced after only a few minutes. "There aren't any caves in Miami, but there used to be. Sort of."

"I ain't got time for riddles, Andy," Tuesday growled softly.

"I think we're looking for Lost Lake Caverns. It was more of a glorified sinkhole than a legitimate cave, but it was close enough to have been a tourist trap until the fifties. Then, there was a big fire and the whole thing closed. Eventually, they decided it was a public nuisance and it was demolished and the whole thing was built over," he explained.

"But, you think there's still an entrance to whatever remains, and that it might be a gathering place for demons?" Jenn guessed.

"I think," Andy spoke slowly, wiping a hand across his face, "it might be the entrance to the Hellmouth."

"Wait, you mean to tell me there's an entry to Hell here in Miami and you people don't know where it is?" Greg asked incredulously.

"Finding the exact point where the barrier between this plane and the next is the thinnest is pretty tough, Greg," Jenn explained. "And, mostly, it doesn't matter. The energy the Hellmouth gives off has a fairly large area of effect and most demons wouldn't even know exactly where the Hellmouth is."

"You got a location for me?" Tuesday ignored the explanations and crossed the room to take the slip of paper Andy held out to her.

"That's the neighborhood you're looking for. Your Slayer sense should help you figure out where to go once you're there," he told her.

"You guys did good. Take a break and I'll see you when I get back," Tuesday's voice was gruff, but the look the three shared was warm.

"We'll wait for you," Jenn promised. "In case you need some backup, or something."

"Go get the girl," Andy smiled encouragingly, "be a hero."

Tuesday smiled, the big smile that took away the sharp edges of her face and Greg couldn't help but stare. "Don't I always?"

"You ok?" Xander asked Dawn and rubbed her shoulders gently while she pored over a book.

"I'm fine," she told him quietly, "but I wish Graham was here." Xander's hands dropped from her back and he stared at the back of her head sickly. She turned in her chair to look at him, "I mean, isn't he supposed to be her Watcher, or did I hallucinate that whole meeting with Giles?"

Xander smiled, relieved that she was only thinking of the too-suave, too-smart, unfortunately handsome, scruffy-yet-sensitive guy with an accent as her sister's Watcher. "I actually have my fingers crossed that the past week has been one extended mass hallucination."

Dawn snorted. "One of these days, you're going to have to man up and admit that Angel and Spike are actually here, probably for good. Denial only turns you into one of those crazy axe-murderers you see in bad movies."

"So does extended proximity to Deadboy and Captain Peroxide. I'm doomed either way, so I might as well enjoy the non-axe-murdering time I have left with a healthy dose of pretending this is all a really bad dream." He dropped into the seat besides her with a lopsided grin.

Dawn rolled her eyes and turned back to her book. "Yeah, well, on the upside, if we don't find Buffy, they probably won't stick around," she told him drily and slid a book his way.

"That's not even funny by my admittedly low and tasteless standards," he told her and opened the book. Before he began to read, he reached out and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "We're going to find her, Dawn."

She returned the squeeze, but didn't look away from the page she was reading, "I know."

"If you must go, I wish you love. You'll never walk alone."

-Journey

The fourth time Buffy vanished, neither Angel nor Spike panicked. This time it happened while they were watching and she vanished over the space of a few heartbeats, but there was nothing they could do to keep her with them.

Grimly, Spike called Graham to let the others know.

"Will you and Angel be patrolling, hoping to happen across her?" he asked, not sure what he was hoping the answer would be.

"No, we're going to hit the library for a few hours, see if we can help you lot suss out the situation. We'll take to the streets when there's a chance of finding her."

"Right," he swallowed, "When you, that is when both of you arrive, there's something I think the, er Scoobies," he tried the group's self-given title, but felt like a fool both for saying it aloud and for presuming that he would be considered one of them, "that is the group should address."

Spike frowned into the phone. "That doesn't sound promising, Bookman. What happened?"

"Possibly nothing," Graham told him hastily, "and I think it's best discussed in person. As a team." He was able to say team with a straight face. He was a part of Buffy's team, formally.

"Right," Spike agreed flatly, ignoring the questioning look on Angel's face. "We'll be there in ten." He snapped the phone shut and slid it into his pocket.

"What was that all about?" Angel asked as they made their way to the door.

"No buggering idea, mate, but it didn't sound good, whatever it is."

"Does it ever?" he asked, wryly, thinking back over the years and coming up empty-handed.

"Not usually, 'least where the Slayer or her pet friends are concerned." Spike confirmed.

Angel sighed, "I have a very bad feeling about this."

"That's because it's bloody likely to end up a disaster, innit?" Spike asked him as he stepped into the night.

Tuesday had to admire the man crouched slightly behind her. They were looking down into a tableau from hell, and except for a reflexive gulp, he hadn't budged an inch. Torches flickered light across a half dozen pairs of demons. Each pair was different and featured an assortment of tentacles, slime, and spikes were chanting around Gracie. The thick scent of incense filled the air with a haze and the occasional rumble from the Hellmouth made the ground beneath them roll like waves on a choppy sea.

Greg frowned when Tuesday pulled a tiny camera out of her pocket and began to snap pictures from behind their cover. "You taking pictures for the Slayer yearbook or something?"

The corner of Tuesday's mouth quirked into something resembling a smile as she slipped the camera back into her pocket and pulled a sword out of the long, black gym bag she'd concealed it in while they were trying to find the entrance to the Hellmouth. "Andy ain't gonna figure out what they wanted Gracie for if he don't know who's here or what the ritual looked like and we may need to know. Those things been chanting a while, and there may be some magic needs undoing." Almost as if to punctuate her point, one of each of demon pairs took a ceremonial knife from their belts and used it stab into their counterparts.

As the stabbed demons fell, their blood sprayed in a fountain onto Gracie, who screamed in terror. Tuesday felt Greg tense beside her, but before he could vault over her and into the fray, she grabbed his arm. "Get Gracie and get out. Kill anything between you, but don't fight any more than you have to. That's for me." Without waiting for his reply, Tuesday spun and charged into battle.

The element of surprise was on her side, and with a mighty swing, she severed the head of the demon closest to her, a humanoid that looked as though he'd been created from sharp shards of rock. Even as his head fell onto the dirt, his lipless mouth continued to move and Tuesday hoped that the lack of sound meant that he wasn't still casting the spell.

Greg smiled when his first swing buried his axe deeply into the shoulder of a piscine demon. When it turned to look at him, its expression was one of shock, then anger before a second blow across its temple ended it. He spared a moment to look at the fallen demon and swallowed against his suddenly sour stomach. The world swam in front of him, then Gracie's cries snapped him out of his stupor, and he moved to dispatch the demon separating them.

This one was ready for him and as it charged he brought the axe to bear, slamming it into the demon's unremarkable chest. With a sickening squelch he pulled it out of the gaping hole he'd just created and buried it a second time. Again and again, he chopped into its chest until it lay still. He spared a glance to Tuesday to see her third fall to the ground, one of its arms partially severed by a wound that ran deeply into its chest. Green blood poured from the wound, but she didn't seem to notice as she fluidly pulled her sword free, attention already on her last opponent.

She wheeled around to face it and narrowly avoided a vicious kick to her ribs while looking for an opening to slide her blade into his chest. The demon was serpentine with luminous green eyes and even unarmed it was proving to be a dangerous opponent. Her every thrust was foiled when the demon moved its body with sinuous speed around her sword. Every failed swing ended with a hard blow to her head, until she was starting to feel dizzy from them.

She could see past the demon to where Greg was cutting his niece free and pulling her into his arms. Good, she thought, if I can just keep this one busy a few more minutes, they should be able to get away. Pulling on the last of her strength, she pressed her attack with renewed vigor. The brutal pace seemed to pay off when her sword hit home, slicing deeply into his arm. Then, the demon smiled, taking the opportunity to move past her blade, his hands on her neck.

In the instant before Tuesday expected her neck to snap, the demon stiffened for just a second. That moment was all it took for her to make her move and she shoved her blade into his throat. He fell and convulsed, a bubble of dark blood at his lips, and Tuesday saw that her salvation had been the axe buried in the back of the demon's head.

"Come on; let's get the hell out of here!" Greg grabbed her with the arm that wasn't holding Gracie and pulled her behind them.

Tuesday didn't argue with him and she shocked herself by not letting go of Greg's hand. Instead she pounded out of the cave with a wide smile across her face.

All in all, Tuesday decided as she walked from Greg's house to Headquarters alone, she felt pretty damn good about today. There was a lot of washing demon gore out of your hair when you slayed, and sometimes it took a few days for the smell to go away, but seeing people safe and families reunited made it all worthwhile.

Then she stopped picking her way across the park, her eyes on the silhouette of a slight guy standing in a pool of light from a streetlamp. She couldn't tell anything about him, except that he seemed to slouch a bit and that he was completely still as he watched her pull a stake from her pocket. Inhumanely still.

"Hey," a rough voice called out in greeting, "you really don't need that."

Tuesday took a few steps closer, and her Slayer senses confirmed what she'd already guessed: not quite human. Still, the features that she was able to make out now that she was only a couple arms' length away didn't look demonic.

"Seriously, just put the stake away before somebody gets hurt," he tried again, holding his hands out in a placating gesture. When he did, she saw a wrist full of intricately looped beads and could practically smell the magic coming off it.

"I ain't sure what you are, but I know it ain't human, and I know you're using magic, so let me ask you this: You gonna bleed if I follow my gut and put this," she brandished the stake, "in your chest?"

"Well, yeah," he deadpanned, "but only for a few seconds. After that, it's more of a lack of bleeding you notice."

Tuesday grimaced. "Great, another one. So, tell me, if I kill you is the Slayer-General going to be upset and take me off active duty, or is she going to give me a medal?"

"Depends on who that is, I guess."

"But I thought all the underworld scum knew about her. She's legendary. Or so they keep telling us," she said dryly.

He shrugged, and she was close enough now to see ginger hair in spikes atop his head. "I get a lot of legends in my world. I'm gonna need a name."

Tuesday groaned inwardly. "Do all y'all weirdos have to be mouthy all the time? Just once, I'd like a straight answer, or to not have to hear a bad pun."

The man, and Tuesday wasn't sure how she felt about classifying him as one, looked at her expectantly.

"Buffy Summers. The Slayer-General's name is Buffy Summers."

The corner of his mouth raised a fraction of an inch for a moment. "Bad puns? Huh. She must have lost her touch. We only made good puns back in the day."

Tuesday dropped her hands in resignation."So, what are you? Reformed demon? Recent zombie? Don't tell me you're a ghost."

"No, I'm not that exotic. I'm only a werewolf. Name's Oz." He held out a hand, relieved not to be looking down the proverbial barrel anymore.

Tuesday seemed dumbfounded as she took his hand. "There are werewolves? Seriously? What, did I just miss that day?"

"Wish I had."

"Yeah, well, come on, I'll take you back to headquarters."

"If he ever hurts you, true love won't desert you."

-Journey

Graham paced before the assembled group, wishing any one of the half dozen speeches he rehearsed had stuck. He was about to address the people closest to the Slayer-General – one of whom was arguably the most powerful woman in the world – to tell them that there was a distinct possibility that whatever had taken Buffy was causing her to harm innocent civilians. All in all, he considered it a terrible time for his great giant brain to let him down.

"Buffy has disappeared thrice now and all our research indicates that each time she has left our dimension," he began timidly.

"You keep using words like thrice when you lecture us and I'm going to stop calling you the 'Bookman' and settle on 'Giles Junior'," Spike warned.

The muffled snickers only cut the rooms tension by a fraction, but Graham was grateful for the break. "Right. Less stuff, more cool, then," he muttered under his breath. "Every time Buffy has come back from wherever the bloody hell she's been somebody has been found within a city block of her severely beaten. The damage is consistent with very small fists and I think we need to consider the possibility that at least for short bursts of time, the Slayer-General is being controlled by another entity."

The room erupted into chaos, which was slightly more intimidating than the shocked silence he'd been hoping for. His heart sank at the sight of Dawn glaring daggers at him, arms folded across her chest, but his attention was ripped away by a rough hand on his shoulder.

"You're wrong," Spike growled, jaw clenched. "Now get that giant brain of yours back into the books and figure out where the Slayer's gone."

Willow tried in vain to be heard above the din, but it was Xander that finally managed to stop the cacophony, interrupting in a loud voice, "Maybe he's right. Three days ago, I never would have believed it. Then again three days ago, I would have been sure that a demon managing to get a hold of Buffy, take her against her will, and send her back in the state she's been in was impossible, too. Shut up, all of you. Let the man speak."

"I'm afraid there isn't much to add," Graham told them. "We're no closer to figuring out the where or the why of Buffy's disappearances and without that, we know nothing."

"Say it's true-" Xander began, but Spike interrupted bitterly.

"It's not true."

"Say it's true," Xander started again, ignoring the former vampire. "What can we even do about it?"

"We keep it from happening again," Angel spoke for the first time since the Graham began. "There has to be some way of restraining her until we've broken the hold over her."

"I thought you've been trying to keep Buffy from dematerializing?" Graham asked, confused.

"Peaches isn't just talking about trying to keep her here, Bookman," Spike realized with a sick feeling. "He wants to make sure she can't do anything while she's gone. Leave the Slayer helpless in a demon dimension."

Angel turned to Spike, already anticipating the challenge that would follow. "You know it's the only thing we can do."

"I do not," Spike insisted. "I don't know what's happening to these people but it's not her. Slayer's not capable of it, and I won't let her be treated like a bloody bludger."

"Spike, stop," Angel ground out, his voice harsh. "You don't get extra brownie points for blind devotion."

"Nothing blind about my devotion. Slayer earned it right and proper." He narrowed his eyes at his grandsire.

"Spike, just this once, take your own ego out of this and think about Buffy. We can't let her kill somebody. You know what that does to somebody's soul. You know what it did to Faith," Angel tried to reason with him.

"Faith's soul was cracked long before she went on her little killing spree," Spike told him flatly, "and the fact you think that could even happen to Buffy shows how little you know the Slayer."

"I know Buffy well enough to know that she'd want us to take every precaution possible to keep somebody from getting hurt," Angel snapped.

"No, you'd want us to take every precaution to keep you from hurting somebody, 'cause you can't always keep from it. Slayer's not like us. She's good inside and out. There's no place for that kind of evil to find purchase in her soul. There are plenty of dark corners in there, but none of them are capable of harming an innocent," Spike argued back.

"I'm not worried that something has hold of her soul, Spike. I'm worried it has control of her hands and her feet, and that even if she doesn't know what she's doing, she'll find out. I won't let that happen to her." Angel turned on his heel to leave the room, but Spike cut in front of him and blocked his way.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he spat. "Big, bad Angel going to make the hard decisions, take free will out of somebody's hands again because he knows best?"

"If I have to, yes."

"What gives you the right?" Spike blazed.

"I don't have the right," his voice rose as he squared off against his grandchilde. "I have the responsibility. If there is even a chance that Buffy could be doing something that would cause her pain in the long run, I have to keep it from happening. Even if she hates me for it. I can handle that if I have to, but I can't handle even the possibility that something could jeopardize her soul." He looked at the blond man with cold appraisal, before continuing in a low voice, "You may be great in a fight, Spike, but when it comes to doing the right thing, you aren't the guy." Angel stepped around the blond man, and resumed his march to the door.

Spike waited until Angel was nearly to the door before he spoke, and when he did, he was calm and his voice was sure. "This isn't the right thing. It's wrong, you're wrong. Slayer's earned your trust, all of you lot, time and again, but you never give it to her. How many times have you broken faith with her? You judge her like she was one of you, like she had your petty weaknesses, but you never give her credit for what she is. She's the best of us. High time you acted like it."

Angel didn't answer, and a long minute after the door closed, Spike raised his head to look at the rest of the team. "If any one of you wants to do something to Buffy against her will, you'll have to go through me, and you have my word it'll be the worst thing you've ever faced." Graham felt glad again that he wasn't being confronted by Spike a few weeks previous. If human Spike's warning could make his blood run cold, he was certain that vampire Spike would terrify him into doing something humiliating.

"But, Spike," Willow tried to reason. "What if Angel's right. What if this is the right thing to do for her?"

"Then she'll ask us to do it. If she doesn't ask for your interference, you go through me. Am I clear?" Spike didn't wait for the others to agree with him before he swept into the night, determined to find Buffy before Angel did.

Without a word, Oz rose from where he'd been sitting in the back watching with his usual stoicism and followed Spike out the door.

"Oz?" Willow asked, the word falling plaintively from her lips.

"Bizarre as this is to say: I'm with Spike on this one. It's kind of an ethical thing. You can't cage wolves – or people – against their will," he told her gently.

"So, you just leave them out to slaughter the innocent, because, what, it's their right?" Xander asked, incredulous.

"No," he told him, firmly, before walking out the door, "you let them choose if they're men or monsters and you act accordingly. I'm going to help Spike do the right thing and if the world doesn't end on that note, I'll see you guys later."

"Yeah, well, this might be another sign that the universe is on the brink of collapse, but I'm with Deadboy. There's no way Buffy wouldn't want us to stop her and if that's not true, I don't want to know about it." Without a backwards glance, Xander, too left the library.

After a moment of stunned silence, Dawn rose and also made her way to the door.

"Dawn? Where are you going?" Graham called softly to her, concerned that the confrontation may have been too much for her, but when she turned to him, her eyes were fierce.

"I'm going to find my sister and make sure those two idiots don't get to use her in their own personal vendettas." Her gaze softened at the concern in his eyes, and she smiled back at him. "I'm ok, Graham, really."

There was a long minute of silence after she left before Graham spoke. "Is it always this dramatic around here?" he asked Willow, the only person besides himself that hadn't swept out the door in one degree or another of righteousness.

"Not always," she told him eyebrows still pushed together in a worried frown. "Day like today? Must be a Tuesday."

"Someday love will find you. Break those chains that bind you."

-Journey

A/N: Bludger, according to my Google Fu was Victorian slang for a violent criminal, and Spike being a remnant of the Victorian age, it seemed fitting enough to use. I was not implying that Buffy lives off the hard work of others, or that she has ever earned a living by peddling her Slayers' charms and attentions. Although, I'm sure there's a nasty AU idea in there somewhere.

This chapter kicked mine booty. Not having a strictly written outline or timeline for this arc came back to haunt me when I realized I had written myself into a corner. I'm not going to tell you the parts that I screwed up, but suffice it to say there were some plot points that I meant to introduce and didn't, or just went in a different direction entirely, leaving me in a bad place when it came to write extremely important parts of this chapter. This is why not writing with a story bible isn't something I've attempted before, and why I won't do it again. Experiment failed. On the plus side, I have a really good outline for About Tomorrow already penned, so hopefully I won't have that same problem. I'll be able to find a new problem!

Thank you to everybody who's read this story so far, followed or favorited, or reviewed. You truly mean the world to me.