Summary: Co-written with Kallysten. Goes AU after the S6 episode 'Tabula Rasa'. The memory crystal is never broken, and... Spuffy. *COMPLETED, April 2004 - December 2005* NC17

Author's Note: This story is a colloborative effort between me and Kallysten, author of many a wonderful Spuffy saga over at her site Divigations. Seriously, if you haven't read Kally's fic, go now. ~_^

“Alex!” Dawn cried out in alarm.

Willow and Tara both looked up horror from where they’d fallen to the ground together and gasped when the vampire rushed Alex. Dawn looked down at the wooden stake in her hands and, realizing the imminent danger, threw it.

And, for that one moment, it was as if pure instinct took over. Alex caught the stake Dawn had thrown his way and, before he even had a chance to think, had plunged it through the vampire’s heart.

He and Dawn both took a deep breath of relief and stumbled back from the battle. What neither of them noticed was the small black crystal that had fallen from Willow’s pocket. A final step backward, and Alex’s shoe kicked the small magical stone, knocking it back into a pile of leaves quite possibly never to be found again. One unintentional action that would change their lives forever…

And, across town, Joan staked her final foe with a rush of triumph. “Don’t mess with Joan the vampire slayer!” she proclaimed with a bright smile, offering the only vampire remaining a hand up.

A feeling of elation passed through them at their victory in their first fight together, even if the greater mystery of who they were and how they’d come to be this way remained. Randy’s cool fingers wrapped around hers, and he let her pull him to his feet. They stood impossibly close for a second, fingers reluctantly slipping from the other’s grasp.

Before Joan and Randy could share more than a grin, a shark-headed demon came up to them and shed some light on who – and what – they were.

“You’re an odd duck, Mister Spike,” he said, clearly addressing Randy. “Fighting your own kind…palling around with a Slayer. And whoa, that suit!”

The demon chuckled uneasily as Randy – no, Spike, that was what the demon had called him – glanced down at his attire and frowned.

“Uh, hey, look…” the demon continued after a second. “About our little debt problem, it’s okay, I don’t need the kittens.”

When it became clear that the demon was waiting for an answer, Spike nodded. He had no clue what all of this was about, but as long as the fighting stopped…

“Alright then,” he said, hopeful that it would be enough of an answer for the shark demon. He glanced at Joan, wondering what she thought of it all.

“Spike?” she questioned, trying the new name of her companion.

The newly re-Christened Spike couldn’t help but grin at that. “’S better than ‘Randy’. Can’t blame a bloke for pickin’ up a nickname, right?”

Joan merely rolled her eyes in response. “What’s he talking about?” she demanded, somewhat unreasonably. “You know these people?” In the back of her mind, she couldn’t help but feel a little betrayed. Almost like she trusted Randy – Spike, she corrected herself – not to be the one that caused her pain. She wondered if she always reacted to hurt this way, by preemptively lashing out.

He gave her an annoyed look. “Could be drinking pals with the bloody Queen of England for all we know, luv,” he shot back.

“The Queen of England isn’t chasing us around town trying to kill us!” Joan retorted defensively.

“Like you—” Spike began in retaliation.

A polite cough cut him off. They both turned in unison to see the very contrite-looking shark demon waving his hand…er, flipper to catch their attention.

“You two are obviously…busy…” If it were possible for a demon with a shark’s head to look put out, he would have. “So, the debt’s clear? We’re cool?”

Spike looked to Joan. She shrugged. “Sure,” Spike answered, hoping he sounded remotely like he knew what was going on.

The two of them watched with some bafflement as the shark demon slipped between them and escaped into the night.

“Uh, were we supposed to kill him?” Joan wondered.

“Don’t look at me,” Spike retorted. “You’re the one who insists she’s the superhero. What would you do?”

“I am a superhero,” she said, crossing her arms as she glared at him. “So don’t take that tone with me, Mr. Vampire with a soul. Didn’t you hear how they all call me ‘Slayer’? I’m pretty sure that’s my code name or something.”

“Or something,” Spike repeated, clearly amused. “So what do you want to do now, Slayer?”

The title almost felt familiar as it rolled off his tongue, and Spike kept for himself the comment that it sounded much better than ‘Joan’.

“I don’t see any reason to change our plans,” Joan insisted. “Everyone‘s meeting us at the hospital.”

Spike looked sheepish at that and scratched uncomfortably at the back of his neck. “Not sure what they’re gonna think of me at the hospital, Slayer.”

She frowned at that. “Why…?”

He hadn’t noticed anything was unusual earlier, but now that he listened closely… “Feel for yourself.” He caught her hand in his once more and watched her eyes widen when he placed it over his heart.

Her palm slid over his shirt experimentally, but still nothing. “You don’t have a heartbeat,” she whispered, shocked.

Spike squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to react to the feel of her hot little hand caressing him. Slayer had absolutely no idea what she was doing to him. “’m thinking it might cause a stir at the hospital.”

Joan nodded, concerned. Belatedly, she realized that her hand seemed to have taken on a mind of its own and was exploring Spike’s chest muscles a bit too much to be purely innocent. “Back to that magic store?” she suggested, blushing horribly as she had to forcibly wrench her hand away from his body.

Spike couldn’t help but smirk when she looked down shyly, cheeks red and heart beating like an excited rabbit. “Whatever you say, ‘Joan the vampire slayer’,” he teased.

They started walking back toward the store they had left earlier, the silence heavier with each step. Joan was the first to break it, glancing sideways at Spike as she did. He was a vampire, and apparently she killed demons, but he had been at the store with all of them, and he hadn’t tried to kill anyone. Could she trust him? She really wanted to.

“So, you really are a good vampire, huh?”

She had found the idea of a souled vampire ridiculous earlier, and she still thought it was, but there had to be a reason why he fought by her side, as the shark demon had confirmed. A reason, also, for her not to slay him.

“Like I said,” he replied soberly, “not feeling like biting you.”

Not in the killing way at least, he finished in his mind.

“What about the others?” she prodded. “Dawn? Your father? The rest of them?”

“She’s a kid!” he protested, and Joan suppressed a sigh of relief at his apparent truthfulness. It would have been very sad to slay him before she even had a chance to know him better. “And why would I want to kill my father? Or any of them?”

She had a small shrug. “Because you’re a vampire?”

They had reached the store, and Spike rolled his eyes at Joan even as he held the door open for her.

“I’m a good vampire, Slayer. Why won’t you…”

He noticed then the group assembled in the shop and staring at him, and the words died in his throat. The shock in his father’s eyes was especially painful.

With a blush and more than a little reluctance, Willow got up off of Tara. The other woman’s cheeks also burned as they brushed themselves off.

“Is everyone okay?” Willow asked, concerned.

She got several shaky nods in response.

“What’s running around in the sewers from a murderous vampire to…uh, whoever we are?” Alex joked.

Dawn managed a giggle, and Tara smiled.

“W-Which way was the hospital?” Tara asked shyly.

Alex gulped and looked down the ink-black corridor. “How ‘bout we go back into the shop and see if Joan and Randy have cleared out the front door yet?” he suggested.

“Sounds good.” “I’m cool with that.” “Dear Goddess, yes.”

Alex grinned at Willow’s response. “We’re cowards, but we’re alive. And proud of it.”

And with that final wisecrack, they turned back from whatever further dangers lay in the tunnel beyond…

They entered the library with exclamations of relief at being out of the sewers, which turned into polite coughs aimed at announcing their presence to the oblivious kissing couple.

Rupert and Anya separated with sheepish grins. Although her memory didn’t go father than an hour or so before, Dawn was quite sure she had never seen anything as disturbing as these two old people smooching like teenagers.

“Joan didn’t come back?” she asked, worried about her newfound sister.

Rupert shook his head. “No, we haven’t seen her or Randy since they left. Why didn’t you go to the hospital?”

With wide gestures and a very slight exaggeration of his heroism, Alex narrated their adventures in the sewers.

“And so we thought we’d come back here,” he finished his tale. “Did you find a spell or something that could help us?”

Rupert and his fiancée shared a somewhat embarrassed look, and it was the latter who answered.

“We tried some spells,” she announced, and hope rose in the four others. “We are very proficient at summoning entities and evil animals. But we haven’t found anything about memory yet.”

Disappointed murmurs followed her words.

“Although,” Anya added, “I think it’s clear what’s to blame for all this.”

Expectant looks from the four sewer escapees and puzzlement from Rupert that his fiancée had come to the conclusion that evaded him.

“Do tell,” Rupert asked curiously.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Anya shivered. “It was the bunnies.”

Five very blank stares.

“Bunnies?” Willow finally ventured incredulously.

Anya nodded confidently. “They were obviously sabotaging all our magical efforts to overcome our memory loss,” she insisted. “And, just upon seeing those furry little creatures,” she shivered and rubbed her arms, “I was filled with a impending sense of dread. I can’t remember why, but the only logical explanation is that the bunnies are the enemy. A sort of arch-nemesis, perhaps.” She smiled brightly now that the universe made sense once more.

Rupert blinked and removed his glasses. He found a well-worn cloth in his pocket, which had obviously been used for exactly this purpose on hundreds of occasions, and quickly took to scrubbing the lenses. “Then how did I remain oblivious to the, er, ‘impending sense of dread’?” he inquired.

Anya shrugged. “It’s because your memory’s faded more with age than mine.” She patted his shoulder reassuringly. “Don’t feel bad, honey.”

Everyone else just watched her in stunned disbelief.

“Well, it is a theory,” Tara pointed out diplomatically.

“We’ll consider it,” Rupert nodded, grateful to Tara’s apparent peace-keeping abilities, “although it would be wise to consider other possibilities, as well.”

Anya humphed but kept quiet. Sooner or later, the bunnies would attack again, and everyone would realize she was right.

“Uh…isn’t anyone going to point out that Anya’s crazy?” Dawn whispered quietly enough that only Willow could hear.

“It seems like the happy kind of crazy,” Willow whispered back. “Just smile and nod for now.”

“Oh, I am,” Dawn agreed, mind still staggering from Anya’s unique theories.

“So,” Willow spoke aloud, “if magic doesn’t work and we can’t get out through the tunnels, what do we do?”

Abandoning his pointless cleaning, Rupert cleared his throat. It seemed he was the oldest of them all, and as such he felt somewhat responsible for the younger people’s safety.

“We might still consider going to the hospital as was suggested earlier,” he mused out loud, “although I do not know that medicine could change anything for us.”

“Why not?” Dawn asked, the barest trembling of her voice betraying how upset she was. He smiled at her kindly, trying to sound reassuring despite the nature of his words. Her sister was out there, as was Rupert’s own son, and he could guess her fears quite easily.

“Demons and magic seem to be a part of our lives,” he explained, gesturing to the shop around them. “And I would suspect demons or magic will the key to the return of our memories, not pills or whatnot.”

The girl seemed about to cry, and once more Rupert was grateful to Tara when she wove a comforting arm around Dawn’s shoulders.

“We…we can still try the hospital,” she murmured. “Just in case, you know.”

There were sounds of assent, but it was clear that they were mostly for Dawn’s benefit.

“It might be better if we wait until daylight to go there, though,” Willow commented thoughtfully. “If these things are really vampires, they shouldn’t be around then, should they?”

Everyone looked to Rupert for confirmation as if instinctively knowing that he had all the answers. Rupert found it strangely disconcerting and remarkably familiar.

“If the legends are true,” he began, finding that he rather enjoyed exposition, “– and, given our current circumstances, I see no reason to believe they are not – daylight should, indeed, protect us from all vampires. In fact—“ he began, growing excited as he warmed to his topic.

But, at that moment, the bell over the door rang. They all turned expectantly, more than a little alarmed, but breathed a collective sigh of relief when the intruders proved to be Joan and Randy, returned.

The next words put an end to all illusion of comfort, however.

“I’m a good vampire, Slayer,” Randy informed Joan, still oblivious to his audience. “Why won’t you…” He froze in surprise when he looked up to see the assembled crowd.

Fear, betrayal, and a hint of anger flashed through the minds of everyone in the room. But none more so than Rupert’s. Instinctively, his hand reached for the stake on the table. Can it really be true? Is my own son…the enemy?