"The party of the first part, henceforth know as..." Spike read the opening paragraph of the document. "Are you having a lend?"

"Whenever Buffy borrows DVDs they get eaten, slimed and melted. " Anya stood behind the counter ticking points off on her fingers. "You're having movie night with Dawn at Buffy's house, you sign the paperwork."

"What happens if I don't return the goods?"

"You pay for replacements or get consigned to a hell dimension."

Spike signed on the line and collected the discs, wondering if using Xander's name voided the agreement. He was almost tempted to find out.

Published Babble Horde — 07.02.2005
Published Jossverse Drabbles — 07.02.2005
Published fanfiction.net — 07.02.2005
Published Forever Fandom — 07.02.2005
Published The Slayer's Fanfic Archive — 07.02.2005

Anya wants it all. A big house with a picket fence, many small children underfoot and a husband who loves her more with the passing of time.

She dreams of taking the Magic Box online and becoming a dot com millionaire. Anya understands how to sell and the internet would allow her to best use her business skills, while taking the browsers out of the equation and increasing her financial turnover.

Looking up from her cost calculations she sees Xander clowning around and realises that, whichever path she chooses, she will have to settle for less than her full potential.

Published Babble Horde — 31.01.2005
Published Jossverse Drabbles — 31.01.2005
Published fanfiction.net — 31.01.2005
Published Forever Fandom — 31.01.2005
Published The Slayer's Fanfic Archive — 31.01.2005

Dawn placed the flowers on the grave and stood with her hands folded in front of her like a schoolgirl. She'd have preferred to sit cross-legged on the ground, pulling up stalks of grass and losing track of time, but this was a cemetery in Sunnydale where it paid to cover your bases when it came to the art of the fast getaway.

She sighed and turned to leave, not surprised to see Spike step out of the shadows.

"I wasn't alone." Dawn meets his eyes for the first time. "You were here. You're always here."

Spike put an arm around Dawn's shoulders. "Let's get you home before you're missed." He felt her tense up and wondered whether he'd hit the heart of the problem or put his foot in it.

Shrugging Spike's arm away, Dawn turned back to her mother's grave and sat down. The etiquette of nocturnal visits to graveyards changed when one of the things that went bump in the night was watching your back.

"Want to talk about it, love?" Spike crouched beside her and lit another cigarette.

Dawn leaned against Spike's side, not bothered that the man who'd left a trail of death across Europe was the one who always made her feel safe. "With Mom gone, it's like I have no family."

"What about Buffy?"

"She's going through the motions, but she's not there." She looked up at Spike, watching the smoke curl around his head. He wasn't watching her, his eyes were scanning the cemetery, but he was listening.

"Go on."

"Willow or Xander have a problem and Buffy bends over backwards, yet she can't manage to sign a permission request that I've been reminding her about for a week. It's like I'm a stranger in my own house. She doesn't yell at me, she doesn't fight, she doesn't talk, she just rattles around the house like I'm not there."

"Talk to her." It wasn't the response Dawn was expecting. "Lay your cards on the table. Tell her what you expect from her."

Dawn stood, brushing grass from her jeans. "And if that doesn't work?"

"Family isn't always blood. Family is the people who care about you. Never think you're alone."

"Walk me home?"

Spike kissed her on the forehead. "My pleasure."

Published Babble Horde — 27.01.2005
Published fanfiction.net — 31.01.2005
Published Forever Fandom — 31.01.2005
Published The Slayer's Fanfic Archive — 31.01.2005

Dawn stared at the text and turned back to her notes, it still didn't make sense. Well it did, sort of, but the two contenders she was working with were diametrically opposed in meaning.

She'd been working on this partcular document for weeks and had the basic gist of it, she knew it wasn't perfect, no better than a machine translation could provide in parts, but the essence of the text was there.

"Penny for your thoughts." Spike interrupted her deliberation of a tricky compound character.

"Do Grettykol demons have a sense of humour?" She tapped the end of the pencil against her teeth.

Spike took a seat beside her and looked over the scroll. "They find killing small children amusing, but I don't think they're known for their great comic repertoire. Why?"

Dawn made another notation, crossing out her first guess and appending the second. "It seems that the hero of the story is either raining down fire and damnation on his enemies or entertaining a guest by slinging flaming jesters at them. I don't know enough about the species to even hazard a guess at their qualities as hosts, so the second may well be correct, as silly as it sounds."

Reading over the notes Dawn had made, Spike could see her problem. "Nasty. Although if I had the choice I think I'd opt for death by volcano over the clowns."

Smiling at the weirdness of the translation. Dawn had to agree, nobody deserved a clown.

Published Babble Horde — 26.01.2005
Published fanfiction.net — 31.01.2005
Published Forever Fandom — 31.01.2005
Published The Slayer's Fanfic Archive — 31.01.2005

Dawn crept across the room and quietly exchanged the disc in the stereo. She turned to leave, squeaking in surprise to see Spike leaning against the wall.

"Up to no good?" Spike raised an eyebrow in question.

Dawn grinned widely and shook her head, happy that it wasn't Buffy who sprung her. "Performing a public service." She snapped Buffy's favourite workout CD in half.

Spike pocketed the broken disc for later disposal. "She won't be pleased."

"Everyone's sick of the mindless, repetitive doof she cranks up full bore, I volunteered to change it."

"Britney Spears?"

"The Ramones."

"That's my girl."

Published Babble Horde — 24.01.2005
Published fanfiction.net — 31.01.2005
Published Forever Fandom — 31.01.2005
Published The Slayer's Fanfic Archive — 31.01.2005

The mobile rang, a hideous noise that sounded like a frog being chewed up and spat out by a trail bike. Spike lunged across the desk to grab the phone, but Dawn beat him to it, answering in a professional manner.

She smiled at Spike as she took the call, but seeing his face thought that stepping outside might be for the best while handling the client.

Rachel looked up from her computer. "She'll get sick of it and change it in a week if you ignore it."

He knew this, but every time the phone rang, it was like someone was drilling holes in his skull.

"Can't I just send a new one through to her phone?" Rachel looked at him like he was being stupid.

Dawn would still have to accept the new tone, which she wouldn't, and the game would move onto a whole new level. Nobody needed an escalating toxic ringtone battle.

Slumping back into his chair, Spike dropping his face into his hands and sighed. When he looked up it was with an expression of resignation. "I'm going to have to ride it out aren't I?"

"Yep. Serves you right for starting to whole thing off with the horror of Kylie Minogue." Rachel opened a drawer and tossed a small packet over to Spike. "Industrial ear plugs should help for now. Try not to do it again."

Published Babble Horde — 22.01.2005
Published fanfiction.net — 31.01.2005
Published Forever Fandom — 31.01.2005
Published The Slayer's Fanfic Archive — 31.01.2005

When Spike answered the tentative knock at his crypt door, he was surprised to see Tara standing there with a large carry-bag. He ushered her in before she bolted like a terrified deer.

"What can I do you for, love?"

Tara offered the bag to Spike. "Dawn found out that today's your birthday, she couldn't get away, but didn't think you'd want everyone knowing."

Spike looked in the bag; a six pack of beer, blood, take-out from The Bronze and a brightly wrapped gift.

"The beer's from me, but this is from Dawn." She kissed him firmly on the lips.

Published Babble Horde — 17.01.2005
Published Jossverse Drabbles — 17.01.2005
Published fanfiction.net — 17.01.2005
Published Forever Fandom — 17.01.2005
Published The Slayer's Fanfic Archive — 17.01.2005

Standing on the roof of the building, the toes of her boots over the edge, Faith looked out on the surrounding Sunnydale streets. She was only a couple of storeys up, but it offered a clear view of the main street where all the action took place, if you didn't count the cemeteries. Sunnydale could never be mistaken for LA.

A bow was held in a relaxed grip at her side, waiting until she spotted trouble.

She'd spent all day in the library making arrows, much to Wesley's disgust. He was pleased that she took an interest in her weapons, but less than impressed that she'd spread fletching jigs, glue, acetone, cleaning rags and a veritable mountain of brightly coloured nocks, feathers and fletches across the reading table.

Faith knew that Wesley would be even more pissed when he found out that she'd charged all of the equipment to him. She figured it was his own fault for confining her to restricted duties while the gash to her thigh healed and a girl did need supplies if she was going to do the job properly.

Faith enjoyed the task of making arrows. It was repetitive, but it was also soothing. She liked removing arrows from the jigs and spinning them in the palm of her hand. It was a method used to check the straightness of arrows after they'd been used, but it was fun watching the fletches blur as they spun.

Spotting movement in an alley visible from the North side of the building, she selected an arrow from the hunting quiver attached to the side of her bow and nocked the arrow. Drawing back until the string touched the tip of her nose, Faith took the elevation difference and slight breeze into consideration, sighted and relaxed her fingers on the string.

The arrow flew straight and true, the vampire having just enough time to look in confusion at the object that had blossomed in his chest before exploding into dust.

With only a slight limp in her step, Faith paced the edge of the building again, looking for more creatures of the night. She smiled to herself at a job well done.

Published Babble Horde — 17.01.2005
Published fanfiction.net — 17.01.2005
Published Forever Fandom — 17.01.2005
Published The Slayer's Fanfic Archive — 17.01.2005

Paulie wasn't having a good day. He was stuck covering for Roberto and was midway through his second shift. To top everything off, he'd been landed with a call out to the east side of town.

He was only supposed to be working the south side. The east side runs were a lot longer, his scooter wasn't fast enough to make the deliveries in a timely fashion and people hated a late pizza. And if people got a late pizza it wasn't the company or the dispatcher that got the blame, it was the poor, silly bastard standing at the door with a tepid pizza.

Sighing to himself, Paulie grabbed the pizzas in their hot box and walked up to the door. The boss was insistent on this part of delivery protocol, he complained that he was losing money to drivers skipping houses with their lights off and employee safety had never been high on his list of priorities.

The door was lit only by the streetlight, but there was a small self-lit intercom button on the doorjamb. Paulie pressed it and waited, thirty seconds and he pressed it again. When no one answered on the third ring, he turned and headed back to his bike.

A crackling, closely follow by the electronic door lock release stopped him. Paulie considered pretending he hadn't heard the buzz and leaving, but the prospect of a bawling out by his boss and docked wages put paid to that idea.

He had to put his shoulder to the door quite firmly to open it, it felt like it was on a heavy duty spring closure and as his shoulder slipped past the edge, the door slammed shut with an echoing bang, leaving Paulie in darkness.

Cursing the lack of light, Paulie swore softly to himself and groped the wall for a switch. It was by the door and he snapped it on, grunting and throwing a free hand up to shield his eyes at the sudden flare of light.

Blinking rapidly to get used to unexpected brightness, Paulie could see that he was in a small white room that was split by a glass partition. On the other side of the glass the walls were covered in an erratic framework of small shelves. Paulie looked closely and realised that the shelves were actually machinery and tracks.

Paulie mused that perhaps the light switch had activated the mechanism on the other half of the room, because a steel ball was running along the tracks. He set the hot box on the floor and pressed up against the glass to watch as the ball raced along the far wall, tripped a lever and was shunted onto another track, where dropped into a sling that triggered a ratchetting mechanism that climbed a chain and released another ball.

Glued to the glass in fascination as the various balls rolled, levers moved and things climbed and spiralled, Paulie thought that it was the coolest thing he'd ever seen. He watched as a ball was set off from near the ceiling to roll down a ski jump and launch towards where he stood, hitting the upper lip of a large funnel off centre and spiralling down into the hole at the bottom. He was so mesmerised that he didn't pay attention to the sound of the release of the final element of the machine.

Paulie's head hit the ground, a look of surprise on his face, his body crumpling moments later.

All in all, he was quite pleased with the results. Free pizza, a second hand motor scooter to sell on eBay and his very own game of Mouse Trap, what more could a man ask for?

Published Babble Horde — 14.01.2005
Published Wrasp.Net — 14.01.2005
Published FictionPress — 15.01.2005

Spike was in the process of methodically tearing the room apart. Dawn leaned against the doorframe watching his antics in bemusement.

"I've lost it."

"What? A bet? The remote control? Breakfast? Your virginity?"

Spike glared up from where he had been groping under the couch. Several notebooks and a coffee cup had been lurking under there, but not the missing item.

Dawn tried again. "If I don't know what you're looking for I can't help."

"My lighter."

Dawn fished Spike's Zippo out her pocket. "See what asking gets you." Grinning, she ran for the stairs, Spike hot on her heels.

Published Babble Horde — 10.01.2005
Published Television Show Based Drabbles — 10.01.2005
Published Jossverse Drabbles — 10.01.2005
Published Forever Fandom — 14.01.2005
Published The Slayer's Fanfic Archive — 14.01.2005
Published fanfiction.net — 15.01.2005

Xander clenched the table so hard Anya made a note to check for indents later.

"I'm going to kill them."

Anya sighed. "You're being melodramatic."

"Not helping here, An."

"You came in from work in a foul mood, yelled at me, nearly hit Spike and spoke to Dawn like she was a child. That kind of behaviour kept me in work for centuries, be thankful you got off so lightly."

Xander ran a hand over the stubble that remained of his hair.

"Besides, it's your own fault for falling asleep when you should have been helping me in the store."

Published Babble Horde — 03.01.2005
Published Jossverse Drabbles — 03.01.2005
Published Forever Fandom — 14.01.2005
Published The Slayer's Fanfic Archive — 14.01.2005
Published fanfiction.net — 15.01.2005

Spike and Dawn remained in the basement sharpening their swords in an effort to avoid the insanity upstairs and steal a little time for themselves.

A shout from above called everyone to get ready to leave. Dawn looked at Spike, she was excited and terrified in equal parts. Throwing caution to the wind, she threw her arms around Spike and kissed him soundly. "Try not to get yourself killed, Spike."

"Don't you take any chances either, love." He hugged her hard once before they hefted their weapons. "And if you happen to taser Xander again, take a photo for me."

Published Babble Horde — 02.01.2005
Published Forever Fandom — 14.01.2005
Published The Slayer's Fanfic Archive — 14.01.2005
Published fanfiction.net — 15.01.2005

Gwen was just getting into the rhythm of her work when she heard a knock at the door. Grumbling to herself, she pulled her gloves and apron off and threw them on the table.

There was a large ship's bell beside the front door, but did people ring it? No. They stared at it, as if it was some kind of fascinating ornament, as they knocked instead.

Seeming totally oblivious to Gwen's expression, either they didn't see a lot of people wanting to throttle them or they had learned to ignore it, the pair launched into their spiel. What did Gwen think about the state of the world today?

Gwen assumed she was supposed to say that it was a horrible, scary place and she desperately needed to be inducted into whatever cult these people were pushing. She could have teased them a little, mentioned she was a practicing nudist or simply closed the door, but she didn't feel like playing those game today. Instead she launched into a rant about corporate monopolies controlling mindless world leaders who were in the pockets of fundamental religious lunatics, making sure to highlight that religious nut jobs were just as likely to be Christian or Jewish as they were Muslim.

The nice ladies on Gwen's doorstep smiled politely and continued trying to sell her their god. Happily derailing their train of conversation, Gwen turned the subject to domestic violence and hit them with the delightful irony of the local Catholic Church. Whenever her husband decided to use her as a punching bag, he toddled off to confession, was absolved of his sins, then came home to punish Gwen for whatever act of contrition he had been asked to carry out.

At least Gwen's visitors looked suitably horrified and urged her to call the authorities. For the first time since she opened the door, Gwen graced them with a genuine smile that lit her face. She thanked them for their time and bid them good day, insisting that she had the problem well in hand.

Seeing the women walk away wearing matching expressions of unease, Gwen grinned. It was nice that they were concerned for her wellbeing, but they needn't have worried, Gwen had taken care of that particular thorn in her side. She closed the door and returned to her task, after all, dead husbands didn't just dismember themselves.

Published Babble Horde — 31.12.2004
Published FictionPress — 31.12.2004
Published Wrasp.Net — 01.01.2005

It was there for those who had eyes to see. A quiet word, a gentle touch. Tara smiled shyly and bid them well with a blessing.

Anya knew, as did Giles, although he was desperately trying to erase the thought from his mind.

Buffy, Willow and Xander were too wrapped up in their own lives to notice. It had taken Faith's, "Hey, B. You know your sister is fucking the undead in the basement," to jolt them awake.

Andrew was the only one to escape the coitus interruptus retaliation by water pistol incident. But then he did supply the weaponry.

Published Babble Horde — 30.12.2004
Published 2005 Drabbles by 2005 — 30.12.2004
Published fanfiction.net — 31.12.2004
Published Forever Fandom — 31.12.2004
Published The Slayer's Fanfic Archive — 31.12.2004

Susan sat back in her chair with a satisfied smile. All of her gifts were wrapped, packaged and ready for shipping in the morning.

She'd put months of work into creating her gifts, lovingly handcrafting dolls in the image of the recipient. She had selected action figures and dolls that came close in resemblance and set to work modifying them. Dyeing their hair, changing their eyes, making sure the clothing and accessories were just right.

Scooping the packages up, Susan put them in a box by the door and turned back to the table to clean up. She rewound the wire, put away the glue, scissors and knives, gathered up the scraps of fabric and carefully swept the remains of razor wire into the bin.

When her gifts were opened, she had to wonder if they would be appreciated in the way she had intended, as a promise still to be kept.

Published Babble Horde — 28.12.2004
Published FictionPress — 31.12.2004
Published Wrasp.Net — 01.01.2005