Oh, Victor, in your lovely bit, you have a place where you talk about Xander's eyes, plural (sad sigh). Unless I didn't read it closely enough to see that that was explained. Feh, the things we have to take into account now.

Bah. Magic, schmagic. In 20 years we'll have liquid lens technology. Read it in a glossy magazine, I did.

Elena, yes, I've been working on the siege. Arrows have flown. When I stop reading stuff in here I shall go transcribe.

Me? I feel like the Chinese and Greek fates have gotten together and are trying to top each other in definitions of interesting and dramatic.

You know what you need, my dear? A vacation. Just a little time for yourself.

I'm actually trying to work together something for Aug 7-8, which I've taken off (conveniently with a weekend, though I'm sure my work will have me come in that Saturday) which involves going to Wendover, Nev., mini-Vegas on the border, two hours' drive from Salt Lake City. They've got a fun bus which is cheap, but it leaves damned early in the morning and is always full of elderly folks with nothing better to do, and while I enjoy people watching, I dno't want to be trapped alone with bored grand-parents who want to grill me about my life. But my car is not up to a long drive through the West Desert and the infamous Salt Flats. Maybe I can find a cheap rental with a CD player, bring my Billy Idol and loud stuff and stay over cheap in Wendover before driving back Friday morning. Amy has family obligations, or I'd talk her into going with me.

It sounds excellent. You know, if you blast the Billy Idol on the bus I'm sure that the elderly will avoid talking to you.

Hey motherfucker! Get laid, get fucked!

Billy Idol vs. the naughty Mormon grandmas. I think I scared myself.

So imagine how they would feel.

Or, you know, when they ask you what you do for fun mention the GVSP. Oooh, better yet - if they start to evangalize about, you know, whatever, you can tell them how GVSP saved your life!

Or I could just tell them I'm heading out to meet my polyandrous marriage group.

Nah, I'd say the wrong thing and find myself kicked off the bus in Skull Valley, then I'd have to hitchhike, then I'd find myself getting picked up by even weirder people. I should probably just try to find a car I can trust for the trip.

Excuse me, must go transcribe now. Arrows, you know. Someone could get hurt ...

Ooooh, yes, someone could get hurt...

In-again, out-again. Next to last section. This is beginning to return to Dreamtree's original challenge.

---

The evening went on. So did the shopping. So did the gradual destruction of Wolfram and Hart's jewelry.

Giles bought Gucci clip-on sunglasses, had himself measured for a suit at Hugo Boss, bought a pen that cost as much as the first three years of his watcher's salary combined at Mont Blanc. He balked a bit at that one, but Olivia broke off another charm; this time, the sex was somehow more personal, the mist a bit thicker, and a sense of deep uneasiness accompanied it. Something seemed to want to slip through the oddness of the protective spell - surely, considering that Olivia kept yelling "Celare" whenever she broke a bit off the bracelet, this must be essentially a cloaking spell? Otherwise, she'd hardly keep yelling "hide!" in Latin.

Whatever was pushing at him, it was well down in his memory banks somewhere - here and there, small things worked their way up to the surface, tantalising as bubbles in lake water. They were less images than feelings and sensations. Terror, regret, faces he knew: Buffy, Spike, Robson whispering away in his own blood, the disturbing and sure knowledge that he was pushing something away from his own soul. Olivia looked drawn and a bit tearful when they were done. Giles handed the well-dressed young man the Wolfram and Hart Titanium card, told them to send the pen to his office, and followed Olivia.

Wesley, meanwhile, had bought a leather jacket at Armani without a blink, but had required a second bit of sparkle from Fred's ring; something in him balked at spending more than his parents' home had cost on a Rolex watch. Another whispered equation under Fred's breath, another cloudy locking of limbs, this time with something urgent behind it. The first memory had been clear, easy, passionate and driven. This time, whatever it was, he was fighting it - something about a goddess, a beautiful coffee-coloured woman, someone killing her, a fist smashing through her - he cried out, turning the memory away, denying it, and shivered his way through the orgasm. Fred held him tightly, her breathing pacing his. Her cheeks were wet, and he wondered why, as he paid for the Rolex with the Titanium card and followed Fred into the mall.

An hour, two hours. Each couple seemed somehow protected, two-person islands. Giles noticed it when the two couples ran into each other at Godiva, buying chocolates for a snack. The two men exchanged a worried, comprehending glance. The two women, who both seemed to be more tired than an evening at the mall on someone else's credit card could account for, barely took their eyes off the chocolate they were scarfing down to mutter hellos.

DKNY, three silk sweaters for Wesley; Fred reached for her ring but Wesley said no, he wasn't reluctant, they were just in colours that didn't suit. In the men's store at Macy's, Giles tried on four pairs of very trendy and expensive shoes in butter-soft lambskin, and grabbed Olivia's wrist, he thought he'd got it in time but she was too quick and the sex this time was terrifying, twisted images growing clearer, sensations that had nothing to do with where he was and who he was with blowing like firestorm smoke through him. Failure, he was a failure, he'd let Buffy down, everything she'd accomplished with the First had been done in spite of him and not because of him, failure, she had died because he hadn't been able to stop Glory, failure, the Council of Watchers destroyed, blown to powder, everything he had touched was a failure, Robson dying on the floor of -

"Sir? Here's you card back - sir? Are you all right?"

"He's fine." Olivia looked as finely drawn as a Goya etching. The single remaining charm dangling from the gold bracelet caught the light. "Rupert? Shall we? It's getting near to closing."

"Sir?"

Wesley, standing in Restoration Hardware with Fred beside him, touching a set of metal drawer pulls. They were beautiful things, hard-fired brass, obviously not designed for a child's room: all sharp edges. Something was coming, something wanting to slam through his skull and his heart, memories, something -

Fred, muttering, the ring, the sudden dazzle. That mist again, intolerable, curling over him like Medusa's hair, and Fred was below him and he understood, suddenly, that she was channelling his memories, his pain, his grief - what was that damned thing doing, opening up dark chambers in his heart, burning their way through him, and through Fred, in the process? Those drawer-pulls, why was he seeing Faith, the Slayer he'd failed on every level and in every way, she was there, he was seeing her but the memory was glass cutting into him the way she'd cut into him, he was seeing her through a red mist and his mouth was full of blood as she'd said "sharps" and sliced into living skin and muscle, carving his own failure into him-

"Wes." Fred was the colour of waxed paper, and seemed nearly as translucent. Her face was indistinct and smeary. "They want to close."

• * *