Author's Note: First, to those who have left reviews, thank you very much for your feedback. It's really wonderful to interact directly with readers and learn from them. The more reviews I receive, the more excited I become about the future of this story. ( reviewers: check your inboxes, because I may have sent you a message or two.)

Based in part on suggestions, I've made some moderate to substantial changes to the previous chapters. Most notably: 1) Buffi (i.e., pre-merge) acts more realistically in the last scene of chapter one; 2) in chapter two, the flashback scene with Grelal has been substantially elaborated, and Angel has been made terser and cleverer throughout; and 3) I heavily rethought Willow's negotiation strategy in chapter three, only to determine that I was correct in the first place, so I make some edits to make this more obvious.

It may be worthwhile to skim-reread the whole thing, starting with the last section of chapter one, before continuing with this chapter. End Author's Note.

Chapter 4: On Message.

"Here we are, love," said Spike. He turned off the ignition and threw open the door of his ramshackle car. When he stepped out into the showroom of Ethan's Costume Shoppe, glass from the window he had crashed through crunched beneath his feet. Drusilla opened up her passenger-side door and exited the car daintily, breaking nothing. Naked manikins and empty racks loomed throughout the room, except for the parts that had been knocked over by Spike's car — an odd juxtaposition between static arrangement and dynamic disturbance. Willow strolled through a curtain in the back, looking unreasonably carefree and completely unconcerned by the violent incursion.

"If it isn't the Slayer's adorkable little friend, Willow Rosenberg," drawled Spike. "I hear guts make for great decoration this time of year. I wonder what color yours will be."

"Oh? Red like my hair," responded Willow. "Haven't gotten around to changing them. Want a copy?"

Spike blinked.

When Drusilla spoke, her voice was quiet and haunted, as Spike had never before heard it. "Please forgive my Spike, Your Majesty. He does not know you."

From where they stood out front (having circled around from the back on Willow's request), Giles, Jenny, and Buffy could see mouths moving on the other side of the giant broken display window.

"What's going on in there?" asked Giles. "I can't hear anything."

"Willow's put up a quietfield," explained Buffy.

"Shouldn't we go in there? For backup?" suggested Giles. Jenny remained quiet, paying close attention to the goings-on inside the store.

"She can handle it." said Buffy. "If she needed us, she'd've asked. She's probably adopted some sort of 'scary greater being' act to keep them in line but is ashamed of it and doesn't want us to hear. I've seen her do it once before. Hair-raising."

"Don't you want to find out the details?"

"Sure. That's why I plan to ask Willow later."

"I thought you don't take orders from her."

"I don't. But her suggestions have always turned out good. I trust her to lead me where I'd want to go."

Jenny finally spoke. "Rupert, Buffy, I'm trying to read their lips. Some quiet please?"

Willow's response was disinterestedly cheerful. "'Your Majesty': that's an unusual form of address you've got there. Care to explain?"

"Your Majesty knows of my Sight," said Drusilla carefully. "When I was a little girl, my nightmares ended with you. I've been good tonight."

"I noticed that. What makes this night different from all other nights?"

"Okay, what the hell," said Spike, having finally collected himself. He began to stride forward. "Drusilla, Willow is not a 'Majesty.' She's weak! If —"

Slam. Spike stumbled back from the unexpected collision and fell over.

"So," said Xander to Angel, leaning casually against the store's rear wall. "Interesting weather we're having tonight." He gestured expansively. "Very… starry, yeah. Excellent conditions for guarding the back door, eh?"

Angel did not respond.

"You know, people always underestimate the importance of covering all the exits. But not me! We're doing crucial work here, yep."

Angel remained silent.

"It's also a great time for bonding."

"Ah," said Willow. "I see you've found my invisible wall! Isn't it neat? I feel so powerful when I use my long-range field emitters. Now Drusilla, you really must tone down your reverence. It's unseemly. Where was I? Oh yes. If you knew I was going to come, why did you spend your whole life being evil? Failure of will? Because your behavior tonight demonstrates your capability for restraint. Now usually, I'd say, 'vengeance in and of itself is beneath me; your suffering for me carries no appeal.' But Xander would argue that you vamps have a social expectation of being killed when you do bad, and that I have an obligation to enforce that if I want to continue reaping its benefits. Of course, vampires typically get killed whether or not they do bad, so, lacking internal morality, they have no reasonable incentive to remain good. How am I doing?" Willow looked up from her fingernails.

Drusilla had stared blankly ahead throughout the tirade. She now lowered her eyes and swallowed, then met Willow's gaze. "My Lady, I'm broken."

At that, Willow sharply changed tack. "I'm sorry for having tried to frighten you," Willow said, abashed and suddenly all empathy. "Of course I'd be willing to help. I can probably fix your psychosis, but I'll also need consent to restore your moral functions. I'm not willing to do only the one. Is that okay?"

"Dru!" begged Spike. "What is going on here?" He turned to Willow. "What are you? What happened to Willow?"

"It's worth it. Please," said Drusilla, ignoring Spike.

"Most people agree that morality is worth it," agreed Willow solemnly. She Displaced a random technological whatsit into her hand. "To confirm: I have your consent for a mind-read, and to make those adjustments I deem beneficial? Some of the procedure may require more invasive techniques, depending on what I find. This is your last chance to back out."

Drusilla nodded slowly. Willow pointed her prop 'scanner' at Drusilla's head and then scanned in the usual way with her shipboard effector units. She was horrified.

"Your forebrain, it's completely dead. Some of it is actually missing. I'm… I'm very sorry."

Drusilla nodded again and curtsied deeply. "Could you make it quick, please?"

Willow opened her mouth to respond, still pointing her 'scanner' (which looked vaguely like a gun) at Drusilla, but fired her effectors before any sound came out. Drusilla crumpled to the ground.

"Yes," said Willow, closing her eyes in defeat.

"You know what I think is going to happen?" said Xander abruptly. "I think they'll come running out this door being all 'nobody guards the back exit' and we'll be like 'oh yeah? pow!' and then… Okay I'll stop talking now."

"You killed her!" screamed Spike. "You killed her! I'll rip out your throat, you pompous bitch! I'll —"

Spike collided with the invisible wall again.

"It might interest you to know that Drusilla is not actually dead. Merely unconscious. If I had killed her, wouldn't her body have disappeared?"

Spike glared.

"Spike, I may still be able to help her, but I need more data. I know you probably hate me now, but I have an obligation to try. Will you consent to a mind read? Only a read."

"Not bloody likely! You won't trick me."

"I don't need to trick you. I'm telling the truth. After what you saw tonight, I can't let either of you go as you are. If I can't treat you, or you won't consent, I'll have to kill you or Store you indefinitely in an unconscious, suspended state — you may not wake for more than a century. This is not meant as extortion, merely as a statement of fact."

"Do your worst!"

"Fine," said Willow. She targeted the relevant parts of Spike's mid- and hindbrain and switched them off. Willow field-floated both bodies clear of the floor and Displaced them out. Then she switched off the quietfield.

"Sigh," said Willow.

"What happened?" called Buffy through the display window.

"Drusilla came here to ask me to cure her psychosis with my on-board medical capabilities. I insisted that I also be allowed to treat her sociopathy too, and she agreed. When I took some preliminary readings of the limited sort I can perform down here, I was shocked to discover that vampires have no forebrain."

"I could have told you that," said Giles slowly.

"See," called Willow, "this is why we'd like to have you on board. You know so much."

Giles said nothing in reply.

"Let me guess, the Council determined that by strapping down a vampire and cutting open their skull without anesthesia?" said Buffy.

"You have to understand, Buffy, that vampires aren't people. They have no soul," explained Giles. "Angel excluded."

"What do you mean by 'soul'?" asked Buffy.

Willow attempted to interrupt. "Hey guys, the module is out back. Let's continue this conversation once we're on board." She looked intently at Buffy, then turned around to walk through the back curtain.

"The part of you that makes you you," said Giles, not moving. "When a person is turned, his soul goes to the afterlife. This is well attested in the texts."

Buffy opened the front door and entered, holding it for Giles. "And you have indirect evidence for the existence of the afterlife?" She gestured for him to follow.

Giles responded, but remained in place. "We have direct evidence. Broadly, it is possible to summon or communicate with souls that have passed on, though it is difficult and costly to do so. These souls can answer questions that only the original persons could have, they can hold complex conversations, and they can make vague, usually positive statements about experiences they've had after death, but have trouble articulating any concrete details. They behave in all respects like people, and their personalities strongly resemble those of the deceased. The souls of those who are still living as humans cannot be reached this way, since (according to the interpretation) they haven't moved on, but the souls of those turned into vampires can. The spirit that animates a vampire, therefore, is in fact a demon."

"Giles, the longer we stand out here, the higher the chances of someone spotting us. Come. Let's walk through the store. What is a demon?"

"Buffy, I really can't. I'm sorry. Let's talk in the library on Monday during school."

Jenny, who'd had her arm around Giles' shoulder, tried to clutch him closer. "Rupert, I thought you were going to come up with us to see the Earth. Please?"

"Perhaps some other time. I really must go," said Giles hastily. He ducked under her arm and scuffled off.

Jenny drew herself up and tried very hard not to cry. She walked through the open door, past Buffy, and slipped behind the curtain, not looking back.

"Jerk," muttered Buffy. She turned to follow Jenny.

Willow made eye contact with Buffy as Buffy entered the back room. Buffy shook her head. Willow frowned and nodded.

"So in vampire society, is sulking a signal of status? Do you have dominance contests to decide who's the sulkiest?" Xander asked. "Come on, I want to bridge the gap between our cultures through the mighty power of communication."

Angel contemplated the question. "Nope. Not really."

Before Xander could thank Angel for advancing his understanding, the backdoor opened and Willow stuck her head out. "Xander, Angel, could you step inside for a moment?"

They did, and found a somber group of people.

"Where's Giles?" asked Angel.

"He changed his mind," said Willow. She shut the door, waited briefly, then opened it again. The back lot on the other side of the door was replaced with the interior of the module, as though the whole store had been an elevator, and they were now on a different floor. Nobody was in the mood to remark on this. They entered the module in silence, Willow shut the door, and the module slipped away into the sky.

According to the image projected on the module's cloaking field, the back door had never opened. Another cloaking field encompassed the entire store, projected by a tiny unit Willow had hidden inside before they Displaced in to confront Ethan earlier in the evening. The only person whose view from outside was authentic was Giles as he drove away; Willow made sure the photons that reached his eyes were consistent with what he expected. To everyone else, the windows were not smashed, the back doorframe was not damaged, nobody had ever Displaced in or out, and Spike's car was politely parked outside, its occupants kissing awkwardly.

Under this veil of normalcy, drones without consciousness of their own labored, slaved to Willow's control. They repaired the glass, restored the locks, righted the manikins, dematerialized Spike's car, and erased every physical trace of the night's events, with some exceptions. Several worked with Ethan's blood, decorating walls and floor with strategic drops and splatters. One drone disguised itself as the now-missing car, complete with occupants, and made its way out of town, disappearing once it reached an empty, unobserved road. The cloaking field emitter was the last to Displace out, reality now matching its image.

There was no party on Willow's ship that night.