BWAHAHA! (wiping streaming eyes)

Cindy, one suggestion (nothing spoilery in this line):

But she wasn't issuing a challenge to him, but rather accepting his challenge to her.

Too many Buts.

Thanks deb, I'll change it. John, that's strange. You should be able to see it too. Did you refresh?

eta...

The header is "For minim"

I just went to edit the LJ entry, too, and got an error message that they are experiencing technical difficulties. Maybe that's why some people can see it, and some can't.

Cindy, I logged out and in and it was there fine. LJ being weird maybe.

BWAH. I love that, Cindy.

Cindy cracked me up with that.

Cindy, I went back and tried again; nothing. Refresh got me the same thing: the 5 Answers deal. I'll try it with a normal log-in later on.

I am in email with my editor, mutually regretting my non-attendance at Bouchercon. It's in Vegas this year. Alas, it's also in about three weeks, or six weeks before release of the book. So, she'd have loved me to go do a signing. But sign what?

Plei! Got any more Cohen quotes? I lurved doing those.

I have many, many more Cohen quotes.

Upheld by the simplicities of pleasure,/They gain the light, they formlessly entwine;/And radiant beyond your widest measure/They fall among the voices and the wine.

(From Alexandra Leaving)

You who wish to conquer pain,/you must learn what makes me kind; /the crumbs of love that you offer me, /they're the crumbs I've left behind. /Your pain is no credential here, /it's just the shadow, shadow of my wound.

(From Avalanche)

For starters

Those are so being marked for future Please-Plei quickie writeups.

Anyone in the mood for a quick Beta?

AU-set about four months after The Gift

When Buffy Comes Marching Home Again

Three days after we buried her, I went to her grave. We'd hidden it in the woods. Giles knew a priest or minister or whatever from town, that understood about slayers, and vampires, and the need to bury your best friend and savior. The guy consecrated the ground for us. This was a very big deal for Giles. I wasn't sure why, but Giles was not taking no for an answer, and wouldn't allow us to bury her until this was done. Willow offered to do some sort of blessing, but Giles was adamant that it had to be this guy. Willow performed some sort of spell so that Buffy...her corpse...wouldn't rot. That's as far as Giles would let her go. Good thing he was okay with that. It had been four months between her death and burial. The priest-guy was on a sabbatical or something. Everything was a non-starter until the grave was consecrated--by that particular guy. I guess you can take the boy out of the Church of England...

"Damned ground," I remember thinking. Consecrated or not, it would always be damned to me, because Buffy was in it, when she should have been walking on it for another 50 or 60 years.

When I reached the clearing, it was obvious, even from a distance that her grave had been disturbed. Spike leapt to mind as the usual, and obvious suspect. "That frigging stalker-lunatic," I thought; "He took her corpse." I imagined the great pleasure I was going to take from killing him, finding a way to resurrect him, then killing him again. And again.

It wasn't quite daylight. All around the clearing, the woods were so thick--a Fangorn Forest--I was not sure daylight even penetrated them anymore. I was muttering to myself as I reached the grave. In a grove, on the other side, I heard the stalker-lunatic's voice.

"I've brought some flowers for her, Xander. Do you mind? I got delayed and don't want to chance the sunrise."

At times, I had been ashamed of how I'd treated him over the summer. Then I'd think, 'He's a freaking serial killer.' However, I had to admit he was a freaking serial killer we use regularly to stay with Dawn, and help us kill other freaking serial killers, but a serial killer all the same. Usually, these thoughts would go around and around in my brain, whenever I was anywhere near Spike. That morning, shame didn't even cross my mind. "Where'd you put her Spike? Tell me where you put her, you son of a bitch. Tell me before I drag you out here and sit on you 'til the sun rises, and you're nothing but a big pile of dust!"

"Pardon me?"

It was then that I finally focused on his face. Stalker lunatic wasn't lying. Or if he was, he was even better at it than I ever thought.

"The grave--Spike. The grave is...disturbed."

"Oh, God."

"It wasn't you, then?"

"Please. I can't. No." He raised his duster over his head. If I hadn't been so upset over the universe's latest assault on Buffy, I would have laughed as I watched him try to keep to the shadows. He made it to Buffy's gr--well, to the site. "What the bloody..."

"I don't know. I have to go back to my car and get a shovel. Don't touch anything, Spike."

Spike said something to me in reply, but I wasn't listening. I think every ounce of blood in my body was pounding in my head. Walking to the car should have helped, but didn't. I was still ready to explode. When I returned, Spike was in the shadows of the trees nearest the grave, coat still over his head. Dawn was breaking. There wasn't much digging to be done. Once I had a bit more light, I realized I could have done without the shovel. All I had to do was brush some dirt off the casket. I couldn't bring myself to open it. Spike must have seen this.

"I'll do it. If you cover me, I'll do it."

I wasn't sure how he was going to manage, even with me covering him. But I couldn't bring myself to open her casket. I took off my jacket as I walked towards him. His duster was now off of his arms, too, and just draped over his head. I walked in front of him. When we got to the grave, I stood between Spike and the sun, and raised my jacket for extra protection. I didn't really care if he combusted. I don't think he did, either. But he couldn't help me, if he burst into flames, so I shaded him from the early morning light. He jumped in the hole--in Buffy's grave. I thought I smelled a whiff of smoke--burning meat--but I never heard him yell.

Somehow he managed to dig his feet into the earth, and give the casket lid a wide enough berth past him, so that he could open it, skinny bastard.

It was empty.

As Dawn broke, Joyce appeared as if from nowhere. She didn't descend. She didn't "pop" in. There were no special effects, no rays of light. No halos. But as sure as I am that I am Xander Harris--Alexander LaVelle Harris--Joyce Summers, the same Joyce Summers who had died months before--was standing before us.

"Xander, Spike, don't be afraid," she said. "You are looking for Buffy. She is not here. She has risen."

Spike spoke first. "What did you...did you do?"

"I didn't do anything."

"The little bit, your... your Dawn, she?"

"No, Spike."

"Ah. It was Willow, then," he said. Now, we'd had these plans; I'll go into detail later. Suffice it to say, as far as I knew, Spike wasn't in on them. We thought he'd derail them, or manipulate them for his own purpose. We--Willow, Tara, Anya, and I--had planned to resurrect Buffy. I wouldn't put it past Willow to jump the gun. I remember thinking (and being angry that) she must have gone to Spike instead, and neglected to tell us. I couldn't make sense of it, but I couldn't make sense of the empty grave before me, either. Then I remembered Spike's shocked face when we'd first found the casket empty. Nothing meshed.

(cont'd)