SquidgeWorld Archive

(This is original creative material copyright Chris Kenworthy, based on characters that he has no right to owned by someone else blah blah biddy blah...)
Author's note: Back on Earth now, the gang is making their way to England on the trail of the vampire Rupert Giles, last seen stealing Angel and Buffy's baby boy. Unbeknownst to them, however, the 'Council of the Dead;" Michelle, Jasper, Darla and Luke, were responsible for feeding Buffy the clue on Giles' trip to the British Isles for reasons of their own.

Prolog

"Hmm," Buffy said, looking carefully at the contents of the drugstore shelf. "Light ash blonde. Pale wheaten blonde. Medium ash blonde with extra luster. Whatdya think?"

"Huh?" Xander groaned from several paces behind her. "What am I doing here again?"

Buffy turned to face her boyfriend with a serious look on her face. As serious as she could manage, anyways. "Well, let's see - I'm here in the colorant section of the hair care aisle to pick up, hmm, could it be... hair colorant? And you're my boyfriend, so you're here to voice your opinion, if you have one on the subject."

"Hair colorant?" Xander repeated questioningly. Realizing Buffy was looking sternly at him, he quickly noted "Hey, it's six A.M., we've been up making plans and arrangements all night, and, I admit, much as I would like to, I cannot remember one word you've said to me all morning. So..." he swallowed, uncertainly. "You're changing your hair?"

Buffy smiled and sidled over to put her arm around Xander. "Yeah." She fluffed at her lustrous curls, dark frosty chocolate brown, for emphasis. "The dark was a way of reminding myself about the score I had to settle with Kaliya - I told myself that several times. Well, Kaliya's been dead for a day or two now, though I've been too busy to even think about getting around to my hair until now. So... which shade do you think?" She gestured at the bottles of blonde again.

"Hmm..." Xander gave that notion some thought. "Hmm, well... Uh, Buffy, you know, of course you look incredible as a blonde, but..."

Buffy smiled a wide smile. "But?" she repeated teasingly.

"Well," Xander continued nervously, "And of course the dark is just gorgeous, but if I *had* to appraise the situation honestly, I'd say you've never looked better than you had, um, when you first came to Sunnydale. With, you know, uh, the middling-ish hair, not too dark, not too light... You do know what I mean, right?" He chuckled nervously.

"The light brown?" Buffy asked, surprised. "Really?" She grinned happily at him.

"Oh, definitely," Xander assured her. "No c- well yeah, there's comparison, in fact it's a very close race, but the light brown is, in fact, the best."

"Ooh, okay," Buffy said, going down two shelves and over one to pick up a box of 'ash light brown.' "So, did you love me as much way back then, as you do now?"

"Uh..." Xander stalled. This was sounding very much like one of those questions with no perfect answer...

"Oh, okay, okay," Buffy continued on. "I admit; trick question, tilt and abort. So... what was your fave memory from those precious months?" After a moment's pause, Xander's mouth opened for a response, but Buffy cut him off. "Oh, wait, we've gotta go now if we're gonna board the plane on time. Hold that thought, Darlin'!" And she headed towards the checkouts of the airport drug store, where the small shop opened out into the rest of the busy terminal waiting area, dragging Xander on behind her.

* * * *

"Hey!" Buffy called out as they hurried up to the others; Akira Tojo, Willow, Oz, and Cordelia, waiting for the early flight to Heathrow airport in London. "How's Angel doing?"

"Packed up tight as a tick," Willow whispered back excitably. "He's got plenty to drink, and cushioned as well as we could do on short notice."

Buffy nodded. "Already handed over to the shipping people? Yeah, he'd have to be by now, wouldn't he?"

"Sounds good," Xander put in wryly. Buffy sighed inwardly - she didn't quite think Xander had dealt with the leftover jealousy and resentment he felt about Angel. Why is that, Buffy wondered sadly. We're together now, Xander and I; I've never given him any good reason to worry about Angel and me. Then again, maybe reason isn't the key - Buffy was starting to feel a twinge of something herself when she saw Cordelia.

"Are you done with your shopping, Buffy?" Tojo inquired respectfully, dragging the Slayer from her inward thoughts.

"Oh, yeah," Buffy said, smiling at her watcher. Back when she had first been assigned Akira Tojo as watcher, when Giles had been turned into a vampire, she had always been comparing the reserved Okinawan man to Giles, and finding him wanting. But after meeting up with the ghost of Rupert Giles in Limbo, and Tojo's imprisonment in a stasis bubble, she had learned to appreciate Tojo for himself - his quiet courage, his polite reserve.

Boarding for their flight began around then, and what with one thing and another, the six of them were kept busy until after takeoff. "Well, there was the talent show," Xander was telling Buffy once they were in their seats, getting back to the question Buffy had asked him in the drugstore. "Weird - that was pure torture at the time, right? It's kind of a highlight, looking back on it, though. Is it a highlight for you?"

"It's a fun memory, in retrospect," Buffy admitted. "What about... what about the Spring Fling?"

Xander's brow furrowed for a second. "Y'know, I don't really remember the Spring Fling much. What happened?"

Buffy shook her head. "I... I don't know. It's weird - for a second there I thought there was something important about the Spring Fling, but... but it's not there now." She looked very upset about it.

"Okay, no big," Xander assured her. "What... what else? The May Queen thing? With Cordelia and the Invisible Girl?"

"Yeah, that was..." Buffy broke off, a bit of movement catching the attention of her inimitable Slayer reflexes. It was just Cordelia, standing up and walking back to stand next to the seat Buffy and Xander were sharing.

"Uh, wanna join us, Cordy?" Xander asked diffidently. "We were just taking a stroll down memory lane..."

But Buffy realized that, if the expression on Cordelia's face was any judge, the beautiful teenage girl was not by any means herself. She couldn't put her finger on exactly what was wrong with the teen queen, though... possibly the way Cordy's elegant face was looking at Buffy and Xander as if completely unsure what to say.

Finally, as if making a decision, she reached out to touch Buffy and Xander on their right shoulders, one with each of Cordelia's hand. "Remember," she said, in a voice that was definitely not Cordy's.

And an image flashed before Buffy's eyes - the skeleton of the Master, impaled on a broken splint of wooden table lying on the floor of the library!

Act One

As the image of the Master's skeleton stayed still in front of Buffy's eyes, dialog began to wash over her. Familiar dialog: "The vampires?" "Gone." "The Master?" "Dead. The Hellmouth is closed. Buffy? Buffy??"

She had shaken herself and turned to Giles. "Oh, sorry. It's just been a really weird day," she had told her Watcher. And the weirdness continues, Buffy thought to herself. Why am I remembering all this in living color? She couldn't figure it out, so relaxed and sank into the memory.

"Hey, I hear there's a dance at the Bronze," Xander joked casually. "Could be fun." Cordelia agreed, and Willow said Buffy's name in a questioning way.

For an instant, all Buffy wanted to do was crawl back home and cry herself to sleep, but that feeling passed quickly. "Sure. We saved the world - I say we party!" She looked down at her dress. "I mean, I got all pretty," she added ironically - the gorgeous gown was waterlogged and grimy from the battle in the Master's lair. Check that - somewhat wet yes, but the dress still shone. Who would have figured a pool in a vampire's lair for being so clear? The rest of Buffy had undoubtedly seen better days, though.

"And what about him?" Jenny Calendar said, gesturing to the skeleton.

"He's not going anywhere," Buffy quipped. A wave of bitter frustration swept through her as she connected the skeleton in her mind with the Master - the vampire who had so cruelly killed her just an hour ago, all of his bravado and arrogance. The Master's arrogance had finally been punctured now, possibly the only way it could have been. On impulse, Buffy spat out one more word at the Master's dead remains, pouring all her anger and bitterness into it: "Loser."

And as if that was a signal, the rest turned around and headed out the main Library doors, so Buffy followed them, bringing up the rear. "I'm not dancing, though," Giles asserted.

"We'll see," Jenny replied, a small smile showing on her face.

It wasn't as easy, of course, as just heading over to the Bronze and partying down. Cordelia had hardly stepped two words beyond the library proper before she announced her need to go by her house, to "wash the vampire off me," and get the dress she had been meaning to wear to the fling, before the vampires had interrupted her pre-party mope.

With that reminder, Buffy took the time to swing by her own house with Willow, to get her best friend one of her own dresses to wear, a pretty dark blue thing that would look nice on the shy redhead, and Buffy cleaned her sorry self up and restyled her hair. At that point, Xander even changed into a sport jacket and collar shirt, surprising Buffy.

What with all the preparations, it was after ten thirty by the time they finally all got to the Bronze. The dance was still in full swing at that point, of course - partying would continue until at least half past midnight or so, Buffy figured.

She found herself wandering morosely through the teenage crowds. All these people, with no idea how close their entire world had come to ending. Buffy envied them - the normal people, the ones who didn't have to worry about vampires and monsters, who didn't have to think about the world ending tomorrow, or the next day.

So, what next? The prom, and the Master, those were what her world had been revolving around for the past few weeks. Finals were over, so the last two days of school should be pretty much nothingness. Buffy still couldn't quite wrap her mind around what had happened tonight. She had died. So had the Master. But Buffy was back, and the Master wouldn't be. After all that thinking and planning, to defeat the vampire king before he defeated her, it was hard to absorb that she had done it.

And the prom. For about a week now, she had been fantasizing showing up and dancing the night away with a gorgeous guy. A gorgeous guy who just happened to look like a vampire who was sitting across the room. But Angel wasn't a guy, Buffy reminded herself sternly. He was very hot, and nice, most of the time, but the fact was that he was a vampire. In this town especially, that meant trouble, no matter how good Angel's intentions were. Right now, at least, Buffy didn't want to deal with him.

And then, there was Xander. The one who *had* asked her to the dance. The one who, possibly, she *should* have liked. There were only two problems with that - Willow and Xander. Xander himself, well, he was a great guy and a trusted friend, but he was just... so, so... goofy that Buffy couldn't see him as boyfriend material. And Willow *did* see him as boyfriend material, almost fixatedly, except the lunk somehow didn't see how great they would be together. Hmm... there was something weird - Xander and Willow, Buffy herself and Xander. Two sides of the same coin, they seemed almost. Was she being as blind about Xander as Xander was being about Willow...

Buffy was so preoccupied with this soul-searching that she literally crashed into Cordelia. The statuesque brunette was just standing there, an eye-catching figure in her bright red dress (low cut, with spaghetti straps, down to just past the knee, with a daring slit up one side.) She didn't seem to have moved an inch to get out of Buffy's way, though she was standing right in front of her. "Beware, Slayer," the cheerleader said in a voice that was very different from her usual one. "Here lies danger."

What? "What??" Buffy breathed, totally confused.

Cordy grabbed her firmly by the arm, heads close together, and whispered to her. "I am not truly the one you know as Cordelia Chase," she explained unbelievably. "I am instead a Guardian spirit who has taken Cordelia's body to help you protect yourself. You make call me Kamali."

Okay, well, this wasn't exactly the weirdest thing Buffy had ever heard of, so she accepted it for the time being. "Protect myself? From whom?"

"From the Spectral guards."

"Guards? Spectral guards are trying to kill me?"

Kamali sighed with Cordelia's lungs. "I'll explain in a bit. Xander," she murmurred, catching the young man with her other arm, leading the two of them to a small table where they could sit around and talk with some amount of privacy.

After Kamali had introduced herself to Xander, she began. "You probably do not understand what happened to you tonight, Buffy. Nor are you meant to in the year to come. Still, for tonight, you must understand it. Death, true death, is not told from when the heart or the breathing stops, but when the soul passes from this world into the ether. Mortal physicians cannot detect the soul, cannot measure it with their instruments, so they have changed the definitions to reflect what they *can* measure. In most cases of 'revival after death' using CPR, the soul has not yet truly left."

"This was not what happened with you, Buffy," Kamali said. Xander gasped. "Your soul had passed on into what is beyond this world, and Xander's efforts alone would have been useless to restore your life. But they were still critical."

"Slayer-ness is not only a position, not just a destiny. It is also a form of possession, in which a spirit, the antithesis to the vampire spirit, occupies the bravest and strongest mortal girl in the world, not interfering with thoughts or decisions, but lending you even greater might and courage for all the battles you must face. There are only two such Spirits, and one has been trapped in the Ether ever since the Slayers were first called upon, before the dawn of mortal history. The weaker slayer spirit has possessed in turn each mortal vampire slayer, while its mate was held captive by the minions of the great Demon, Samael, the father of all vampires. It was prophesied that this Spirit would remain prisoner until a mortal Slayer died who could yet live. The prophecy has been fufilled, for you were that slayer, Buffy. As the first Slayer Spirit moved on to your successor, the second spirit broke free of the spectres that kept it captive, found your soul, and brought it back to your body. That is when you returned to life, in the Master's cave. Without both the Spirit to bring your soul back, and Xander to keep your body on the verge of vitality, you could never have been revived." Kamali considered a moment. "Oh, the Second Slayer spirit's unfamiliarity with mortal existence is making things a little difficul for you, isn't it?" She snapped Cordelia's fingers. "I block its influence now. The Spirit will have to acclimatize to Earth reality sooner or later, but now is really not the time." Indeed, Buffy was feeling strange, but better, as if a weight that had been pressing down on her was lifted, temporarily.

Buffy considered a moment. "Um, that's all really interesting," Xander said. "But what's the danger now? One way or another, she's back to life, the Master's toast..."

"It is the Spectres, the three demon spirits who held the Second Slayer Spirit captive for six thousand years," Kamali told her. "Now that their charge has escaped, they are able to come to the Earth for this night, to work Samael's mischief against you. And that is why I am here." Kamali turned Cordelia's face into a warm smile Buffy was sure it had never seen the like of before. "You could never know how frustrating it is to be a Guardian spirit, seeing so much suffering on the Earth and facing so many regulations as to when and how we can actually take action. Fortunately, Spectres come to the Earth to oppose the work of the Slayer - that is in my mandate, so here I am."

"Okay," Buffy said, finally getting a bead on this situation. "What can these spectres do? How do I kill them? What are they likely to be planning?"

"They can possess the living, or the inanimate, and control their hosts," Kamali replied. "They cannot be killed, but if a cross is held against them and they are abjured, they must flee to the spirt world."

"Abjured?" Xander asked, puzzled.

"You tell them to go away," Buffy replied, amazed that she had remembered that from one of Giles' rambles.

"I'm not sure what action they will take, only that it will affect you or your ability to perform as the Slayer," Kamali finished. "And, you cannot tell the others about this."

"What?" Buffy asked outraged. "Why?"

"Red tape," Kamali sighed, depressed. "The two of you are principals to the events that brought the Spectres here, you can know, for tonight. But if anyone else finds out, you will lose my assistance and your memories of what I have told you, which would be dangerous if any of the Spectres remain."

"Okay," Buffy said, standing up and fingering the cross around her neck. Xander followed her, pulling a larger cross out of his pocket just long enough to show it to Buffy. The same cross Xander had earlier pulled on Angel.

Buffy nodded slightly at Xander, and then jumped in panic. For a young man with a wicked-looking knife was sneaking up behind Giles!

Act Two

Buffy readied herself to charge through the crowd towards her watcher, but Kamali held her back with a touch of Cordelia's hand on Buffy's arm. "Remember," she said, "the others cannot suspect. You will probably have to avoid creating a disturbance."

Buffy pouted at the severity of the restriction for several seconds, but then brightened into a wide grin as an idea struck her. Pushing forward more delicately through the dancers than she would have otherwise, she reached the threatening guy just as he was preparing to make his attack on the unsuspecting Watcher.

"Dance with me!" Buffy invited with overdone passion. "I just go crazy over a guy with a big knife." And, without waiting for the young man to respond, she spun him into a tango position, the knife still in his hand, and led him back towards the dance floor.

Of course, though any mortal man would surely have loved to dance with Buffy Summers, it was only a few moments before the possessing Spectre reasserted itself. It broke the young man's arms free of Buffy's hands, threatening her with the knife as his feet prepared to head back towards Giles.

That was exactly what Buffy was waiting for. With one quick determined gesture, she reached up, grapped the cross from her neck, tore it free, (wincing inside as the thin silver chain broke - the cross had been given her by Angel, and it was a very nice one. She'd have to get that chain repaired.) It was simplicity itself to touch the cross to the guy's arm, conveniently close so that the knife would be in danger range, and whisper "Begone." Her dance partner shuddered as the Spectre left him, and Buffy made her retreat right then - there was no point in staying around for the questions she would likely get asked, or to have one more person associate her with a weirdness.

In a moment she was back with Xander and Kamali. "So, what now?" she whispered hoarsely.

"We keep our eyes open," Kamali answered her. "There will be two more Spectres about, and they shouldn't be that hard to spot if we try. This kind of mortal work is hardly their specialty."

"Okay," Buffy agreed. But for several minutes, there didn't seem to be anything unusual about the club. "Come on, come on," Buffy muttered.

"Maybe they've got something better to do their first night on Earth?" Xander joked weakly.

"They will be taking action right here," Kamali repeated, completely missing the fact that it was a gag line. "They cannot do otherwise."

Buffy scanned over the dance floor. Her eyes stopped on a familiar figure - Angel, dancing with a pretty brunette wearing designer jeans and a top that was pretty much see-through. A wave of intense anger rolled over Buffy, which she belatedly pushed down after several seconds. Angel could dance with whoever he wanted to - he and Buffy didn't owe each other anything.

Xander noticed soon enough where Buffy was looking, of course. For a second he seemed content to let Buffy continue to watch Angel making time with another girl - probably thinking it would make her angry at the vampire. "C'mon, Buffy," he urged her after a lot of seconds. "No more time to stare at that self-interested, leather-wearing Narcissus when there's danger to be done, spectres to be found..." He tugged hard at Buffy's elbow, trying to take her attention away from the sight.

"No," Buffy replied, pulling back on Xander's arm, "wait. Take a look at that girl's jeans."

"Uh, okay," Xander said, casting a gentle glance over, which quickly became an ogling stare.

"At what's in her pockets," Buffy clarified, and Xander modified the targeting of his leer without changing the quality of it one bit. "As you might notice, she has a very long, very thin object of some sort in her back pocket."

"Uh, yeah," Xander muttered. "Looks like a pencil or something."

"Precisely my point. Finals are over, it's the big end of school dance. Why would anyone, especially a girl like *that*," Buffy said, "carry a pencil with them? And is it coincidence that she's dancing with a guy for whom a pointed wooden implement is deadly?"

Xander gulped, finally catching her drift. "Spectre?"

"Spectre," Buffy confirmed her hypothesis.

"So, what do we do about it?" Xander asked.

"Uh..." Buffy thought furiously and blurted out the thoughts as they came into her head. "We need to seperate them and abjure the spectre. And the only easy way to seperate them is to switch partners." She grabbed Xander and led him onto the dance floor, assuming slow-dance position to the foolish jerk's obvious delight.

The brunette was reaching a hand toward her back pocket when Buffy and Xander pulled up next to them. "Switch?" Buffy asked.

"Buffy??" Angel blurted out, letting go of the other girl in what seemed an instinctive gesture. "Uh, yeah, sure. Okay??" He didn't even wait for the girl's response, (all the better,) losing no time in putting his arms around Buffy and dancing away.

"I... it didn't mean anything..." Angel was babbling, "she asked me, and you were avoiding me, and I thought one dance wouldn't hurt, and I was probably wrong..."

"Sssh," Buffy shushed him. "It's okay. I'm not mad. Saying yes was probably not the brightest thing you ever did, but..." She noticed Angel's expression grow puzzled. "And I really can't explain that to you, and I'm sorry."

Suddenly Buffy felt a light touch at her wrist. It was Xander, who made the slightest nod. "Oh, sorry Angel, I have to go," Buffy told him, disengaging. "Thanks for that... fractional portion of a dance. I'd finish it if I could - bye now!" And she was gone, leaving an intensely puzzled vampire behind her.

* * * *

"I don't get it," Buffy said for the tenth time. "We've been around the club six times now - there's no third Spectre."

"There has to be," Kamali assured her. "When the time comes, you will know."

"Buffy's right - none of these people look even a little strange," Xander said. "I don't see how..." He broke off, as Buffy had stopped dead, grabbing like a steel claw on Xander and Cordelia's arms. "Uh... what is it Buffy??" he asked uncertainly.

"Don't you see?" she whispered throatily. "That's it! 'None of the people.' Can the Spectres possess anything beyond people?"

"Why, yes," Kamali murmured back. "Any living thing, many inanimate objects, magical beings... almost anything. Why??"

"Inanimate objects..." Buffy mused. "And what could they do in an inanimate host?"

"Um, just about anything the object might be capable of doing on its own, just like with the living."

Buffy was already scanning the club with a keen eye. As with just about any furnished space, it was full of all kinds of non-living objects. Could one of them be their last enemy? Buffy thought so, but how could she tell which one?

Think along the Spectre's line of attack. Each other attempt had been made at the life of someone close to her, someone who had helped her, who would maybe help her more, unless they were eliminated. Not Xander, since he knew and was on guard, so that meant... Willow??

She looked to find her best friend then. She would never have acted in time if she hadn't - she could never have noticed anything in time to act. A single light near the ceiling was flickering and blinking... and then it exploded in a pop of noises and a cloud of sparks. Suddenly, the entire row of lights that light had been a part of, running on hanging wires across the length of the Bronze's ceiling, was broken in two pieces, a longer and a shorter, and both pieces were falling down, deprived of their secure anchorage.

The longer one would fall directly onto Willow, who was only just looking up to see what had happened, the breeze from the remarkable pyrotechnics blowing back the pretty blue dress Buffy had lent to Willow.

With a great cry, Buffy lauched herself forward, leaping through the air towards the redhaired girl, grabbing her by the smooth fabric of the dress's short sleeves, pushing her out of the way, knocking both of them to the floor. Buffy just got her own legs out of the way of the falling lights in time. As people started to rush over to see if they were okay, Buffy passed out.

* * * *

Back on the airplane now, Buffy looked up into Cordelia's face, knowing now what had been so strange about it before. "K- Kamali?" she whispered. "Is that you again?"

"Yes, Buffy, of course," the voice that was not the voice of the young woman she had come to know assured her.

"How..." Buffy shook her head. "I didn't remember all that happened at the dance until just now. Was that... was that because of you?"

"Yes," Kamali agreed. "I had to clear your knowledge of the guardian spirits, for you cannot rely on us instead of your own skills. We can only rarely help you. Plus, you made quite a mess of that last save, attracting the attention of just about everyone." Kamali smiled teasingly at Buffy with Cordelia's face as if to say 'I know you couldn't really avoid it.' I needed to blank the memories of everyone there.

"But I remembered, on some level," Buffy thought. "Angel, dancing with the other girl - I think I played turnabout on him for that, one time." The Slayer blushed at the thought of that.

"Yes, well, the Slayer spirit would have remembered, I suppose..."

"Uh, Kamali," Xander broke in. "Not meaning to be rude here, but why are you back?"

Cordelia's face fell in concern. "It's happening again. We didn't realize, but the Spectres can come back every year, on the same day and night of the lunar year as your death, Buffy."

"Every year?" Buffy said, confused now. "So... it's been two years now, so..."

"Yes," Kamali agreed. "They came last year, and none of it realized it - manipulated and forced the events of Angelus's ploy with Acathla, so that Angel would get his soul back, be banished to Hell, and that you would decide to leave town, Buffy. By the time we guardians had realized what had happened, the night was over. I'm sorry."

"But... why would they want to do that?" Xander asked. "Why not kill Buffy, or... do something else productive?"

"It was a part of Samael's plan, I must assume," Kamali said. "They couldn't kill Buffy; the spectrally posessed are no match for a Slayer. As it was, they kept Buffy out of Sunnydale long enough for Kaliya to turn Giles, and set up the stage for Limbo - all that must relate."

"So, what are they up to this time?" Buffy asked out loud.

"Well, we're in a plane," Xander observed. "And in a plane, well, there's any number of things you could do so that it doesn't fly good any more..."

Act Three

"Okay, okay," Buffy whispered, standing up and trying desperately to think. "Spectres. Spectres who may be trying to crash the plane or do something equally bad. So... where do we find them?"

"Um, back in the..." Xander stalled out. "Back in the back somewhere?" he finished lamely.

Buffy sighed long-sufferingly at her boyfriend and turned to Cordelia/Kamali. "What about you, Guardian?" she quipped. "Got any brighter ideas??"

Kamali shrugged Cordelia's shoulders, a movement that inadvertantly drew Xander's eyes to Cordelia's sweater for a second before he flicked them away. "Not really."

"Okay, back into the back it is," Buffy decided with another sigh. "Come on."

With that, Buffy and Xander got up out of their own seats and the three of them creeped as unobtrusively as they could, (which was rather pitiful in Xander's case,) out of the Club section. As Cordelia might have said, you know it's a small airplane when they have a Club section instead of First Class. After a surreptitious look around the staff rooms between the sections, they started through the regular seating section.

"Hey," Xander said, pointing at a man in airline uniform on the other side of the cabin. "Where's he going?" he whispered at Buffy.

"To... the back of the plane!" Buffy said. "How's that for the Xand-man. You may actually have been right for once." Buffy took a mid-size cross out of her jeans pocket, remembering as she did about the cross she had been wearing at the Spring Fling, and how she had gotten the chain repaired in Los Angeles that summer without remembering how it had been broken. "This should be easier than we thought."

Quickly, as quietly as possible, they followed the man into a small machinery room. That is, Buffy followed him in, while Xander and Cordelia/Kamali waited outside - there was literally no room for them in the cramped space. "Game over, Spectre," Buffy muttered, touching the cross to the back of the man's arm and saying "Get lost."

"Spectre?" the man said, straightening up and turning around as if not at all surprised to see them, though Buffy's words and actions seemed to stump him. "What's a Spectre? Oh, weren't they the bad guys in a James Bond movie?" He had a warm, rather handsome face, and a strong and clear English accent.

"I..." Buffy stalled out. "What... what were you doing in there?"

"Helping someone to play a joke on you, I think," he admitted. "He slipped me fifty pounds to keep an eye out for you, and if I saw you, to come back in here and make it look like I was messing with something that shouldn't be messed with."

"He?" Buffy asked, now totally bewildered. "An eye out for me... he described me?"

The airline officer took an appraising look at Buffy. "Well, near enough, love. He said a cute Yank teenager with dark curly hair and a great body, wearing blue jeans and a light blue blouse."

Buffy smiled her most dangerous smile. "And what did *he* look like, now?"

Plane-boy started to break out into a sweat, which was far from surprising - few could have kept their cool with Buffy using all her intimidation on them. "W- well, uh, he was tall, British looking, well dressed, dark hair and deep blue eyes. Kinda talked funny."

"Can you remember anything else?" Buffy asked in rote, and Plane-boy shook his head in pure panic. "Okay, then get back to work, buddy, and next time be careful what kind of jokes you get in the middle of, okay?" Buffy stepped back two paces, nodded expectantly, and Plane-boy hurried to follow her out of the machinery room and back up into the main compartment. "A wild goose chase, no less," Buffy muttered to herself. "These Spectres get a little smarter, don't they?"

* * * *

Disheartened, the three teens tromped back into their seats in Club. A thorough examination of the rear labyrinth of the plane, the luggage compartment, the bathroom corridor, the main compartment, and the rest of Club had revealed no further indications of Spectral activity. No-one had any further idea what to do next.

"Maybe they aren't here," Xander suggested wishfully.

"Oh, really?" Buffy snapped. "And if they aren't, who gave that guy fifty pounds to draw us off the track? At least one of them is here, and the other two probably are too."

Kamali tried next. "Those other two... perhaps they're posessing the inanimate, even parts of the airplane. The engines..."

"Oh, *man*," Buffy said, moaning. "If that's it, I'm gonna have to find some way to crawl out, onto the wing, with a cross..." But she stopped herself in mid-plan. "But it's not the engines."

"How can you know that, Buffy?" Xander asked.

"If they're posessing the inanimate, that object doesn't behave quite right, does it? When that light was posessed on Fling night, it was flickering and blinking."

"Why, you're right," Kamali said. "I had forgotten that. Which means..."

"Which means that if they're posessing an engine, it should be stuttering or off-speed or something," Buffy said. "And the engines are working just right."

"And you know this how-" Xander started, then cut himself off. "What, can you hear them??"

"Yeah," Buffy told him without embarassment. "So, what else do we have left??"

Just then, as if in answer, the airplane's intercom flicked on. "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Due to a storm and misty conditions all over the British Isles, we are being diverted to Lisbon. English Air apologizes for the inconvenience this may bring to your travel plans..."

"Oho," Buffy whispered to her confederates. "And now, boys and girls, we have a weirdness!"

"Do you really think that this is the horrible plot, Buffy?" Xander asked her. "I mean, so we go to Lisbon and get a flight to England from there."

"Maybe we can't afford to waste that much time," Buffy suggested. "Maybe there's a trap waiting in Lisbon. Maybe something else is supposed to happen on the way TO Lisbon. I don't know, I just know that this feels weird, and, given that we're waiting for Spectres to make their move, any weirdness is likely to be it." Buffy paused in thought a moment. "Better make sure, though. Hey, Willow!"

"Huh?" The slender redhead groaned as she woke the rest of the way up. "What's wrong, Buffy?"

"Uh, I'm..." Buffy thought hard. "I'm sorry, I was just curious as to how bad that storm in England is. Can you... can you use the laptop to find out? Or are we cut off from the Internet here?"

Willow smiled a Hacker's smile. "We're not cut off from the Internet anywhere, not with this." She fished out a small attachment that looked like a miniature satellite dish and plugged it into her computer. "An all-bands tranciever; I picked it up before we left," Willow explained, brushing the bangs away from her forehead as she logged on, even though her hair didn't reach her eyes anymore. "We can hook up to satellites from anywhere now."

"Cool, Will," Buffy said. "So, what's the word?" She knew what was coming.

"Uh, that's strange," Willow said. Exactly. "Heathrow's reporting twenty-one degrees and mostly sunny... clear skies in the north... hmm. There's a few rainshowers in places, yeah, but certainly no storm over all the Isles."

"How strange," Buffy told Willow. "Ah, well. I'm sure it'll get sorted out." Once Willow stopped paying attention, the Slayer resumed whispering to Xander and Kamali. "Okay, I think that proves some sort of plot. The question is, how did the Spectres convince the Captain about that storm?"

"Could they have posessed the captain?" Xander asked.

"Hmm," Buffy said. "Maybe - they'd have to posess the copilot too, he'd know if the captain didn't have a valid reason to make that course change. Is there any way to tell, Kamali? We can't just burst into the cockpit and assault the captain and copilot with silver crosses - we'd be thrown in jail or a looney bin *wherever* we ended up landing!"

"Unless we're sure," Xander said. "Then, in the confusion, there's a chance we could get out okay."

"True," Buffy said, warming to the subject. "Is there any other way they could be doing it?"

"Fake radio transmissions could do it," Xander mused. "But they couldn't arrange that, could they? They'd have to be right here on the plane, right? And work with what they can find?"

"Except..." Buffy groaned, a throught striking her. "What if they posessed the radio?"

Kamali gasped. "They might have," she admitted. "But it, it couldn't talk for itself, just hiss or generate static..."

"Or lock onto a different frequency?" Buffy asked. "Like, the one the other Spectres are broadcasting on??"

Xander nodded. "That is so crazy it *has* to be right, Buffy!"

Buffy ignored any sarcasm that might have been present there. "Willow!" she called again. "Can you use that gizmo to look for radio sources here on the plane?"

Willow gasped. "What... why..."

"Don't even think about how odd a request it is," Buffy told her friend sternly. "Just do it, if you can."

"Uh, okay," Willow said quietly. "Cockpit, of course... right behind the main compartment... that'd be the microwave uplink for the airphones... a few cell phones that passenger's haven't turned off... hey, that's strange."

"What's that?" Buffy asked.

"There's a room just off the rear doors, broadcasting on the exact same frequency as the ship's cockpit. Backup radio room, maybe?"

"Maybe, Willow," Buffy said. "See ya." Buffy and Xander got up. "And remember, don't think weird." And with that, they were off.

* * * *

Within a few minutes, they had made their way back to the area near the rear doors. Buffy tried the lock, then simply pushed hard and broke the door open. Inside was a small-looking man bending over a microphone, doing an imitation of an air-traffic-controller. "Yes, SRB-Seventeen, I have you at west, thirty two point four degrees south, distance three hundred seventy nine point four kilometers."

"Somehow, I doubt that," Buffy cracked. "The jig's up, buddy."

"That's what you think!" a voice cracked from behind her. The dark-haired man described by plane boy was standing there, next to the main doors. "The detour plan seems to be wrapped up, but then, so do we all. When I open this door, we're all dead. Including you, Slayer. But death at sea is a very big deal for you, and for your friends, where for us, it's no biggie. Once these shells are passed away, and we've killed the greatest Slayer of the century, we'll be sitting beside the King of demons for eternity!!"

Act Four

Buffy charged forward, but Brit-Spectre guy actually stopped her with an outstretched hand. "I wouldn't advise that, love, unless you want to die sooner than you have to." Buffy carefully slowed to a halt, glaring at Brit with as much malevolance as she can muster. "Now, let me tell you what is going to be happening at one point of another. Once I push this button, the main bay doors blow open," he snapped his fingers, "just like that.

"We're cruising at six thousand meters altitude at this point, and there's not a lot of air on the other side of that door, don'tcha know. The pressure differential will sweep everything here, all of us, right out the door in just a few seconds, maybe even knock the doors right off the plane; I'm not sure. After that, well, you're tough, Slayer, but if you survive the crash-landing in the Atlantic, you're still gonna die down there in the ocean. We really are still almost four hunderd kilometers from Europe - too far to be found. So, take a moment, Summers," the posessed man concluded. "Prepare to die."

"I don't think so, buddy!" To Buffy's surprise, it was Xander who had spoken up!

Spectre-guy didn't phase easily, he just turned to look over at Xander Harris with *total* disapproval and condescension. "Why not?" he asked simply.

"Because those doors are locked, and the lock control is over here," Xander quipped. To prove his point, he tapped a button on the wall next to him, and a determined click sounded from within the huge doors.

Brit-Spec pressed his own button once, with no noticeable effect. Quickly, so quickly, and with an intimidating roar, he launched himself towards Xander, strong hands outstretched.

That was the last mistake he'd have a chance to make. Since Xander had proved his point, Buffy had known the charge would come. Luckily, she was mostly between the Brit and Xander, and she tackled the attacking guy in mid-attack, fetching both of them up against a bulkhead. Losing no time, the Brit immediately locked Buffy into a devastating choke. Buffy slapped the cross against his arm, but she couldn't struggle up enough breath to speak the abjuration. The slayer gurgled her frustration, striking out wildly with one hand and knee, but without immediate effect.

Right then, a pair of hands reached out to pinch the Brit's hands, drawing them painfully away from Buffy's throat. "Begone," Buffy gasped out first, and as the Brit slumped into a traumatic faint, Buffy nodded at Kamali/Cordelia gratefully in thanks for saving her. "Hey, good job," the Slayer added as she extracated herself and stood carefully up.

"Don't mention it," Kamali added. "It's not often I get a chance to come rushing to the rescue."

"Well, what do you think your chances are of pulling it off a second time, darlin'?" Buffy groaned and kicked herself mentally - it was the guy posessed by the second Spectre. He had dropped the dry nasal English accent he had been using to talk into the radio, and was now speaking what sounded like Texan. Most frighteningly, though, he was holding up a small automatic pistol, pointed right at Buffy.

"Wait a second," Kamali said aloud. "If you had a gun, why did *he* go to so much trouble to open the door?"

"Well, I guess he wasn't thinkin' too clearly, now was he?" Tex drawled. "And this way, the credit for offing Summers goes entirely to me! Say goodnight, Buffy!!"

Buffy thought furiously. There was only one possible way out, and it might get Cordelia's shot too. But, well, there was a risk of that in any event. Buffy had to try it.

First, as Tex prepared to fire, Buffy feinted left, shifting her body away from Cordelia's ever so slightly, just enough that Tex would notice it on an instinctive level. Sure enough, Tex's gun hand swivelled to Tex's right, in a reflex attempt to keep her covered. Right then, Buffy charged forward and to *her* right, slipping completely out of the line of fire and away from Tex.

*Bang*! The shot rang out, rather quietly, and buried itself in the bulkhead. Then, Buffy was by Tex's side, slapping the cross onto his shoulder. "Get outta here." She didn't even wait to check on him, going over to the radio, which was occasionally sounding out with a "Hello! Hello!! What's going on, can you read me??"

"Hello, sir, can you hear this?" Buffy asked quickly, picking up the mike.

"Yes! What's going on there... we heard the strangest things... and what sounded like..."

"I don't know, but I think your radio may be malfunctioning," she said. "Did you hear odd dialog? Something that might have been a radio play?"

"Uh, yes, perhaps..."

"Your reception is off - you need your tuner adjusted. Just let me check the records..." Buffy paused a moment, waving Xander forward towards their seats. "Yes, there's a professional tuner among the Club passengers. Mister Xander Harris, seat 22A. Just bring him up to the cockpit - it won't take a moment."

The captain, or whoever, was clearly confused now. "Uh, okay..."

* * * *

"Well, that would seem to be that," Kamali/Cordelia told them, once the cockpit's radio had been safely exorcised. "The Spectres have been sent back to Hell, or the Ether, for this year, and you're free and clear to pursue your mission in England, Buffy."

"Uh, okay," Buffy said. "Are we going to forget it all again?"

"No," Kamali said, smiling. "Given the possibility that the Spectres may return, the two of you have a need to remember about them, and about me. You realize, of course, that I can't come to save you from anything else, much as I might wish to." She shook Cordelia's head. "Some of the things I've seen, and been unable to interfere with - Jenny Calendar's death..." She broke off and resumed on a new tack after a moment. "I still don't think you should tell the others about any of this, though."

"Okay, fair enough," Buffy said. "It's just a possibility that the Spectres will come back, then? They might not, next year??"

Kamali hedged at this point. "I... They *might* not, but..."

Buffy picked up on her hesitation. "But what??"

"They will keep coming back, as long as you're the host of the second Slayer spirit, Buffy," Kamali told her. "There... there seem to be auspices that you won't, at this time next year, that you might be..."

Buffy paled. "Dead??"

Kamali nodded. "Well," Buffy managed, her throat cracking, "that's always a possibility, for a Slayer..."

"True!" Kamali agreed, a bit too eagerly. "Well, until such time, Farewell, Slayer Buffy Summers."

* * * *

"So," Xander told Buffy through the bathroom door, "Cordelia's Cordelia again, and she doesn't have a clue about anything that just happened, sure enough."

"Same for Willow," Buffy said over the running water. "When I asked about her all-bands tranceiver, she just looked at me in complete shock, like 'how the heck do you know about that?'" Buffy laughed. "Then she rushed off into the back to check on Angel."

"Hmm," Xander said. "So, if I ask you a question, would you answer it honestly?"

"Of course!" A pause. "How scary is this gonna be?"

Xander had to chuckle. "Not too bad, I hope. How do you really feel about Willow and Angel... you know. Getting involved."

"Oooh!" Buffy thought a moment. "Not pulling any punches, are you?"

"Uh, not right now, I guess not."

"Well, okay. I... I'm really not at all sure what to think, or not sure what I feel, or something. I'm satisfied, on one level - if they've found a relationship that works for both of them, I'm glad of it. I'm jealous, too, I'll admit that. Angel... well, you know. He... well, he holds a special part of my heart, and probably always will. We broke it off because of the situation, not because we didn't love each other." Buffy said. "Which isn't to say I don't love you as much as I ever loved him, of course..." she quickly added.

"Glad to hear that," Xander shot back, laughter in his voice.

"I'm... I also feel bad for Oz," Buffy mentioned. "He really loves Willow, and because he was so hurt when things first happened, it looks like he's getting left behind now. And... and I'm worried."

That last one came as a surprise to Xander. "Worried?"

"Yeah, about how nuts Willow seems to be for Angel, and he... well, it wasn't anything particular about me that spelt the end for me and Angel, you know. He can't afford to be with anyone he really likes, so..."

Xander gasped. "You mean, you think that he might..."

"No," Buffy assured him. "I *don't* think that Willow might make him happy, and that's the trouble. She really loves him, and I can't shake the feeling that Willow's just a safe companion for him." Buffy left another pause, and then "Your turn. How do you feel about Cordelia *not* having someone?"

"What do you mean?" Xander asked.

"Well, she's alone, she seems to be having a bit of a hard time of it. And, well, she's so much of a better person than she used to be... it doesn't really seem fair that she'd gone through all that just to not have anyone."

"Yeah," Xander admitted. "I was hoping for a bit there that she and that Darrell guy would hook it up, but she's here with us, and he's back in Sunnydale."

"That's my fault," Buffy admitted. "Cordy's Dad told her to stay with me, help me," She sighed happily. "Say... do you think there's any chance at all that we could manage to hook Cordelia and Oz up??"

Xander broke out laughing at that point. "I don't think so - at least we'd need a lot more sleep to look at that idea objectively."

"True," Buffy admitted. "Which we won't get for a little while after we land in England, what with getting things sorted out at the airport, going through customs, getting a van, and finding Kaliya's retreat as soon as we can..." She opened the airplane bathroom door and came out, smiling. "So, whatd'ya think?"

Xander looked her over. Her hair was once again light ash brown, or maybe a dark ash blonde, much as it had been when Xander first met her. But Buffy herself didn't look the same. She... he hadn't really noticed it before, but her face was more mature now, more graceful. "You have never, for as long as I've known you," Xander told her with absolute sincerity, "looked nearly so lovely."

"Cool!" Buffy chirped, wrapping her arms around her boyfriend's neck and pulling him close for a passionate kiss.