It's a bad, bad time to be good."

I love this muchly.

OK, it's not much but it's current.

Giles turned to Buffy. "We need to go now."

She stared at the portal. It had the same innocent silvery shimmer as that hole that had opened up behind Angel and had made her decide between woman and Slayer.

"Buffy," Giles said urgently.

Dawn tugged on her sleeve. "We need to go, Buffy."

She looked at her sister, who hadn't existed last year at this time. Someone else the fate of the world hinged on and who it was up to her to deal with. This time, though, the choices of sister and Slayer were the same. She took Dawn's hand and squeezed lightly. "Right. Let's go. First one who goes nuts has to do the dishes."

"Right."

Buffy nodded to Giles, who grinned back. "I'll go first, shall I?" he said enthusiastically.

"Go for it."

He paused just a moment, then dove into the moving tunnel. Buffy looked at Dawn and made sure she had a firm grim on her sister's hand. Dawn nodded back, and they ran for the portal, jumping as one.

Joyce gave a whimper, despite herself. "My girls . . ."

Anya patted her shoulder. "It's not a bad place. Just dark and gloomy and boring. Kind of like high school."

Joyce wiped her eyes and nearly laughed. "Thank you, Anya."

Willow didn't relax. She wiped her hands on her pants legs, checked her notes, then began the chant to close the portal. It fought her for a few seconds, then cycled down to a pinprick before disappearing with a flash and swirl of dust.

"Cool," Willow said, panting.

Xander didn't look down. "Are we done here, General?" he asked, watching Gregor's livid face over the sights of his rifle.

"What was that spell?"

"You'll get your answer when our hour is up."

"I demand--"

"You gave us an hour! Are you changing the rules, General? Do we just cut loose now and let what happens happen?" Xander saw out of the corner of his eye that Spike was looking over the wall, grinning down in full gameface.

General Gregor snarled up at them, then stomped away. Xander watched a few seconds, then slid down below the top of the wall to sit and shake. His hand automatically reset the safety on the rifle and set it down carefully, pointed at a wall.

"Oh, god," he whispered.

Spike kept an eye on the soldiers. "I think he soiled his armor. Good job, Harris."

"I shot at him."

"Nah, you didn't come anywhere near him. Just scared him good."

"I shot at somebody."

"You do it all the time with crossbows."

Xander looked up with a glare. "That's at vampires. They don't count."

"Oh! You wound me. So, what do we do when our hour's up? Jump over the wall and set to?"

"No!" Xander sighed. "I don't think, anyway. Keep an eye on them, I'll go consult."

Spike snapped a perfect salute. "Yes, sah!" But his grin ruined the image of the compleat Royal Army military man. Well, the black leather and bleached hair did, too.

Manic Spike. What fun.

had made her decide between woman and Slayer.

Gorgeous.

"Right. Let's go. First one who goes nuts has to do the dishes."

Perfect. You know, I think that both season 6 and 7 was missing this black humour.

"It's not a bad place. Just dark and gloomy and boring. Kind of like high school."

Damn but I love well-written Anya.

And the whole Xander thing. My god i love Xander. And I love what you do with him. I cannot wait.

There. Elena's prezzie fic given a title ("A Bad, Bad Time to be Good"), appropriate spoilery warnings, and posted in my livejournal at [link] after some edits and improvements.

Off to sofa with meds.

connie, I love it. MORE!

deb, I enjoyed that. Alway nice to see Ethan again.

victor, you hit on my secret passion. Buffy/Clem, with just enough Spike/Clem to keep it interesting.

In other news, I'm writing Mal/Jayne and trying to work out what to do with the crew of Serenity now I've got them in the HHGverse. It's so terribly tempting to send them to Tatooine to kill five-year-old Anakin that I'm having a hard time thinking of anything else.

DO IT! DO IT!

Am-Chau, I think it would be hi-larious to see what would happen if Jayne and/or Simon were subjected to Vogon poetry.

Okay, I hereby challenge folks to write CWDP stories.

You can write the conversation for any character that wasn't shown on air. So that would be Giles, Xander, and Anya. Anyone I'm missing?

This doesn't make me want to write a conversation with a dead person -- it makes me want to write a G/X/A threesome. Really.

I'm feeling irreverent; what can I say?

The Farscape Friday drabble for this week is what happened to any of the characters over the "summer" before S4 -- and all I want to write is Aeryn Sun at a beauty parlor, getting hair extensions and instructions on how to use a flattening iron.

Deb, I was FINALLY able to read your fic all the way through, and my God it's beautiful. Loved, loved, loved it. And the ending is gorgeous.

If people are doing this--and I think they should--I like the idea of "B-Characters" being caught up in the , "having to choose sides" bit.

Victor, he is nice man, he say nice things!

I like the side-choosing thing as a prereq, as well. Because of the Glowing-Joyce thing to Dawn, that whole "when Buffy has to choose she won't be there for you" lie, I ended up seeing that whole concept as the sort of moral underpinning to the issue.