Nah, I'm on the laptop, and won't be AIMing until after 5 (I may turn it on, but just to make quick pings; I prefer to use it on the one that's set up the way I need it to be set up) when we install the new motherboard.

The computer is EVIL. For the record.

I'll be holed up in here, missing my email.

Hotay. Writers Group tonight (Rosie is hosting, seafood lassagne, yum) but I'll be here until probably half past six.

Yes, I am evil and off-topic. But Plei has no email, yo!

Am-Chau, lovely piece. But...Mal couldn't "look in" on Kaylee, or well, anyone, because of Serenity's layout. Right? I mean, crew quarters are downship.

Plei, congratulations on making Buffy/Xander real and believeble, in, as Deb may have said, the only plausible way. And how much do I love the Lilah/Buffy speculation? A lot, that's how much. "Vampire? Or would any dead body do?" (cackle!)

Here's my flashfic. I was asked to write either Spike/Joyce or Spike/Dawn. I chose the former. It takes place during Checkpoint.

I call it

Checkpoint - SHE

You've been told that he's evil - but he worked with your daughter to save the world, and that same daughter trusts him with your life and her sister's life.

You've been told that he's a soulless demon - but he likes marshmallows in his cocoa, and Passions on TV.

You've been told that he's incapable of human feeling - but he's cried for love, and thanked you kindly for your hospitality.

There is a disconnect between what you've seen and what you've been told. A chasm between what you've observed of his nature and what others assure you is true. It's hard to know what to believe. Do you trust your instinct or do you trust what you've been told? Hearsay, your mind whispers, and you know that you've already made your choice. You know that in the end you have to go with your gut. And your gut tells you that he can give you what you need.

So you leave your youngest sleeping on a chair with the snowy flicker of afternoon soaps casting light and shadow on her sweet face and you follow the smell of cigarette smoke deeper into the ground.

He's leaning against a stone wall, all bleach and denim and rebellion. He's so strong, so vital, so alive - and though this last is not entirely accurate, it is true as these things go.

You ask him, casually, what it's like, what it feels like. And he looks at you with startled eyes and he talks like Ripper, and that sends shivers of remembrance through you, tightening some things and loosening others.

He tells of running through the night, of dancing for hours, of lifting and moving and leaping with strength and stamina so mighty it still amazes him. He talks about smelling her perfume from miles away, of hearing her laugh from two stories down, of being able to see every exquisite inch of her white skin in the dark. He says that he feels everything, that he was never truly alive until he had died.

It sounds so wonderful. It sounds like everything you want to be. Strong. Healthy. Eternal.

And so you move closer, until you're leaning on the wall beside him, breathing in the smell of smoke and whisky and leather, and you ask him if he will make you strong and healthy and eternal.

He pushes up against you and licks at your neck. He tells you that he will make you strong and healthy and eternal. He tells you that soon you will dance for hours.

But you're already dancing. You're moving with him and against him in a rhythm as old as time and you can feel the blood pumping through your heart and into your arteries and out your veins and you wonder if you will miss it.

He's grinding against you and you're grinding against him and someone is moaning but it doesn't matter who. You haven't felt like this since you were a teenager with your back pressed against the hood of a car and another British boy pressed against your breasts and your thighs. You feel alive. You haven't felt that way for months, for years. You want more.

You open your mouth under his and roll your tongues together, thrusting in concert with your hips. He moves his head and trails soft, wet kisses down your throat. He nibbles and licks and sucks at the juncture of your neck and shoulder. The thrusts of his hips and his tongue now quicken to match the throbbing of your pulse and he's growling with need.

A thought flashes through your mind, and you manage, somehow, to gasp out a question, to ask him if it will hurt very badly. And he pushes against you hard, trapping you between the wall and his body, and looks up at you with wicked yellow eyes and a feral mouth. He tells you that it's overwhelming - extraordinary - all consuming. It's need and want and life and death and pain and pleasure all intermingled into an inexorable and inevitable moment of clarity. Then there will be the tang of iron and salt in your mouth; blood and strength drawn into your body with your last breath. And you will fall. And you will rise. And upon rising you'll be strong and healthy and eternal. You will never again fear sickness or aging or death. You will have conquered them. And you will finally be alive.

You smile, because it will be so good to be without fear; you haven't felt like that for months. He bends his head and smiles against your neck, you can feel the scrape of teeth against your throat. And if he's thinking of someone else while he does this to you that's okay because you'll be getting what you want.

You'll be strong and healthy and eternal and you'll be there for your girls forever. And he pauses. And he hesitates. And he lifts his head and looks at you with blue eyes and a trembling mouth. He tells you that you are a good woman and a good mother, and that might change. He says that he can't spare Buffy the pain of your sickness and aging and death because the pain of your strength and health and eternity will be so much greater.

He leaves you then, with your head spinning and your knees shaking. He walks deeper into the earth as you sink to the ground. You would curse him, but you think that it would only be a drop in the ocean. A smudge on the black ash that once was his soul.

You hear a voice from the other room. Mom? it calls, curiously. Mom? it repeats, urgently. Mommy? it bleats, plaintively.

So you rise and you follow the voice and you call out reassuringly that mommy is here.

That she'll always be here.

And you wish with all of your heart that this was true.

Oh, Elena. That's lovely.

Oh, oh.

Very nice.

Lovely, lovely all. I think I might've missed this thread the most. Such talented writers.

Thank you, thank you.

Yeah, I missed this thread at PF.

Elena, it's wonderful. Such a deft touch you have. Glasses all blurry now.